Jamil, a Palestinian friend from Beirut, once told me a story about his mother from his early childhood that stayed in my mind. It was the winter after the 1948 expulsions, the harshest winter in fifty years. The Hilal family were not well off, and lived in a rented home. The house-owner, a woman, had just told them they had to pay more rent or leave. Jamil described watching from the window with his many siblings as his mother, a tiny woman, went out in the snow to challenge the owner, and ended up giving her a hearty hit. So on a visit to Jerusalem in October 1999, I asked Jamil if he would take me home to record with his mother.

This was a recording session that did not go well at first. I remember feeling desperate, since Umm Jamil was claiming not to remember the past, and telling me nothing interesting. The situation was saved by one of her daughters-in-law who started reminding her of stories she had told the family, thus 'kickstarting' a rich train of recollections.

Umm Jamil told the story of the fight with the landlady, but not at the beginning, and not in the way I remembered hearing it from Jamil. He had described this dramatic scene, of his mother physically challenging the house-owner who towered above her, and delivering her a 'kaff' (blow) that sent her scurrying away. His mother, fifty years after the incident, gave a version which diminished the combativeness of the incident and partially exonerated the land-owner. Had the 'real' scene been as Jamil or as his mother remembered it? I reflected that the disinclination that Palestinians often show to dig up the past probably arises from the social habit of 'forgetting' conflict, in order to

preserve harmony in communities where family units change little over time. What Jamil remembered of the incident, the contrast between the house-owner's size/power, and his own diminutive mother's victory, probably remained stamped on his mind and helped form his politics.

The first incident that Umm Jamil recalled was the death of her husband.

Umm Jamil Hilal speaks:
"He had gangrene. The day he got sick we brought Dr Abdallah Khoury. Nobody knew what was wrong with him. We used to make a fire, we'd light the fire and sit. And there would be people. And one day we brought - six or seven people came. They said he must be taken to hospital to have his leg cut off. It was gangrenous. We took him to the hospital. He stayed there fifteen days. Then, just before he was about to die, there was no one left to be with him except me. When it was evening he said, "Go, and later I'll send for you". At night at ten o'clock the telephone rang. I had to go (to the hospital). He told someone to bring me. I followed after him, and I took my brother with me because it was night, I was scared. It was far - Beit Laham. From Beit Sahur to Beit Laham, it's far. So we went. The doorman said, "Don't scare him!" When I went up to him, he said," I sent for you to come". He knew he was going to die. He knew. He asked about the children - "Have you told them? What did you say? How's the girl? How...?" I told him, "None of them know". I called my brother, and he left. Then he told me to squeeze some tangerines for him. "Squeeze them and let me drink". I squeezed them and gave him to drink. He said, "The nurses know". All the nurses knew he was going to die at two o'clock...."