Trees for the Absentees

“We are all visitors on this earth. We all arrive carrying our flame with us. There are those who use that flame to light up the darkness, and there are those who use it to set fire to trees and people."

In a land riddled with missiles and bullets, where checkpoints mushroom restricting people's free movement,  where living in constant strife and under complete occupation drains your life, how does one thrive? Will sheer acceptance of ones' fate work or does one create a parallel universe, one alongside the reality, an imagined space in one's head, a place of dreams that no one can lay siege to? Maybe yes ! 

Trees for the Absentees is a coming of age tale set in Palestine, of a teenage girl Philistia who lives with her mother Najma, two little sisters (Sawsan and Nahil) and a brother (Saeed). Her father has been in Ashkelon prison for the last five years and the family is hoping he will be set free someday soon. Philistia's grandmother, Zahia is a respected woman in their village for she is the one who bathes the new born babies in their village after she pulls them out from the darkness of the womb into this world. But Philistia who accompanies her grandmother only quizzes - When day by day they found themselves in a hostile, unknown world, a disappointing one. When they discovered that the transition from darkness to light was not what it was made out to be. Did they thank Grandma? Had she saved them when she brought them into life, or had she deceived them?  Grandma Zahia also washes the dead before they are cremated. It is Grandma who reveals the secrets of the dead and the living, of the naked bodies lying in front of them to Philistia, all of which she absorbs well with rapt attention. 

After her grandmother's demise, Philistia dons her role in their village, studies at the University in Nablus in West Bank and also works there part time in a hammam where she scrubs naked bodies of women with black pitt and Nabulsi soap. 

Philistia has few friends - some real and some imagined ones, she converses with them in real and in her dreams, flitting between the two spheres. Her friend Bayrakdar with whom she shares a lot in common is the one with whom she has the most insightful and important conversations, a tender affection as they share thoughts is a treat to the reader.  

My dad loved Palestine so much that he called me Philistia, after the first people who lived in this land.

“So, can a name claim back an occupied country?”

Also moving are the letters that Philistia writes to her father. It is painful when she says - "There are Palestinian prisons and Israeli prisons, but what’s the difference? The prisoners are all Palestinians.”

Written by Ahlam Bsharat and translated from the Arabic by Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp and Sue Copeland, published by Neem Tree Press, Trees for the Absentees may not be an account with historical facts but it is a humane one that deals with the impact war and forceful occupation has on young minds. 

Fantasy intertwines with reality in this novella that gives us a sense of the plight people in Palestine face ; to have this sense is the first step in understanding injustice meted out, for injustice anywhere, they say, is a threat to justice everywhere.