My Palestinian Friend
Marie was a sweet and fragile woman, but life had taught her to protect herself from dangers. The neighborhood where she lived was poor, dirty, messy and full of political and social conflicts. On my first visit, after years of self-exile in Brazil since 1970, I felt afraid. After all, I was returning to Lebanon after fleeing a civil war that was beginning to form, involving factions of several local religions. Christians, Melkites, Sunni and Shiite Muslims, Orthodox, Jews and Druze. Groups that, until recently, before the Islamic Revolution and the new frightening power of Iran, lived harmoniously in that country known as the Pearl of the Middle East or the Switzerland of the Middle East. Lebanon contemplated the world within its small space and was too good to be real.
My grandmother Marie, a fearless poker player, had separated from my grandfather. In fact, it was the other way around. He left her because of the high debts she had accumulated at the gambling tables. So Marie had to move to a more modest neighborhood, inhabited mainly by Palestinian refugees. They were arriving by the thousands, fleeing persecution in Jordan after Black September in 1970, and finding shelter among the Lebanese, who still saw in her cause a reflection of their own internal struggles that were beginning to form.
In that neighborhood, despite the poverty and hardships, my grandmother found an unexpected sense of comfort. The doors of the apartments in the complex where she lived were always open. The neighbors spent the day chatting while they cooked together, and the heavier work, such as washing clothes, was shared. In the hallways, children played without a care in the world, while Arabic music, played at full volume, echoed down the stairs. The girls exchanged dolls, the boys played ball or played with the soda bottle caps they found. The most sophisticated activity was going to the movies on Saturdays to watch light and naive comedies.
It was at this time that I met a boy who lived in the apartment across from my grandmother's. Small, with fair skin and greenish eyes, he had a courage that impressed me, even at the tender age of 11 years. He did the shopping for the house by himself, talked to the street vendors like an adult, took the bus to cross the city and look for food that he couldn't find in the local markets.
One day, he invited me to go to the movies. He said he would buy the tickets, popcorn and soda with the money he had saved during the month. He insisted on offering. We arranged the program, but on the appointed day, he waited for me for more than an hour at the cinema door holding the popcorn in one hand and the soda in the other, as my grandmother reported, who went to meet him to explain my absence. It turns out that the other half of the family lived on the other side of town, and no one felt they should make an effort to take me to meet them.
I never forgot that day. I cried when I imagined my friend waiting for me, probably thinking that I was just another “rich Christian girl” who didn’t care about the feelings of the already mistreated Palestinians. But he was wrong. To me, he was much more important than any friend I had made at one of the expensive elite schools in Brazil. That day, I made a promise to myself: I would never hurt a friend like that again.
A few months later, I began to notice changes in the neighborhood. The presence of armed groups was growing. Among them, Hezbollah was beginning to gain strength, supported by Iran, which financed and organized its operations. Many boys, like my friend, began to be recruited for “training.” At first, they were taught how to handle small arms, but soon these same young people, full of dreams and hopes, became targets of brutal indoctrination. Hezbollah leaders knew exactly how to manipulate these children, taking advantage of their vulnerabilities. They used stories of revenge and honor, mixed with religious discourse, to convince them that sacrificing their lives in suicide bombings was the purest form of heroism.
These boys, who once played in the hallways of the building, were now transformed into martyrs, ready to blow up buses, markets or any other place they were ordered to. My grandmother Marie, with her quiet wisdom, tried to protect me from this reality. “It’s not their fault,” she would say. “They’re just kids. They don’t even understand what they’re doing.” But I could see the pain in her eyes, the same pain I felt when I thought about my friend waiting at the cinema. Would he also end up being lured? Would he one day also believe that his only way out would be to commit suicide? Could my grandmother and I be partly responsible?
In the weeks that followed, escalating incidents deepened the divide between the Maronite Christians and the coalition of Muslims and Druze, widening the chasm between communities. The growing violence eventually plunged Lebanon into a long civil war that would devastate not only the country’s infrastructure but also the bonds that once connected its diverse religions and ethnicities.
As the violence escalated, my mother, Mireille, and I began longing to return to Brazil. After nearly a year in Lebanon, we finally arrived in São Paulo, where my father, Ibrahim, welcomed us with a warm embrace, easing the longing that had accumulated over so much time.
To this day, I think of my Palestinian friend and wonder what became of him. Did he escape the tragic fate that claimed so many boys in our neighborhood? Or did he, too, become one of the countless lives lost in a war that seemed endless?
It was he who taught me the true value of loyal friendship and the weight of a broken promise. The lesson I learned from that episode—to never again betray a friend’s trust—has been the guiding force of my life. Because of him, I strive for a little more justice in the world, working to ensure that stories of suffering like his are not forgotten. I have no doubt that my involvement with social organizations stems from him. And for that, I am only grateful. To him, I owe my fierce sense of loyalty.
© Copyright Tempo De C Ver