In the first months of this war, life seemed almost paralysed. We were not used to it then.
We could barely get by, with so little food, no internet, electricity, chargers or fuel. Cut off from the world, we cooked over fire and wood, as the attacks continued all around us.
After about two months of the war, I decided to do something normal, ordinary, necessary. I took my eight-year-old daughter for a haircut.
Najla the hairdresser greeted us warmly at her home. She was so kind that for a few moments I felt as though we had briefly stepped out of this war, even as the sounds of it could be heard all around us.
“Do you get customers during the war?” I asked her.
“Of course,” she laughed, explaining that she’d had more work during the war than at any other time.
Her answer shocked me. I wondered what services women could have been asking for.
“Everything,” she answered. “From facials and eyebrow cleaning, haircuts, body hair removal, hair dye, highlights, some of them makeup, and so on.”
Najla laughed at my surprise as she took a lock of my daughter’s hair to cut.
“What’s wrong with you? Does the nature of women change in war?” she asked.
For a moment, I felt joy at the thought of these elegant, well-groomed women of Gaza who cared about their appearance, just as any other woman anywhere else might.
Then I felt bitterness and sadness at how the war had wronged them, how it tried to chip away at their lustre, and at the overwhelming burdens and responsibilities they bore.
Throughout this war, I have continued to visit Najla. Each time she has told me new stories about her clients – some of them painful, others funny.
“Every day we have one or more brides who come to beautify themselves for their wedding day,” she tells me as I ask her about what these women wear and how they prepare for their weddings.
Most war-time brides are satisfied with bridal makeup and a simple hairstyle, she explains. Some insist upon wearing a white dress after searching high and low for one; others make do with a simple embroidered outfit. The ceremonies are quick, she says, then the groom takes the bride and her family to his house or tent.
She tells me of one bride whose entire family had been killed in the war, while her cousin’s whole family had been killed in another bombing.
“They were both left alone after their families were martyred, so the cousin decided to marry his cousin to comfort each other,” she says.
I think about how marriages elsewhere begin with joy and celebration, while in Gaza they start with loss and loneliness.
That bride had refused to wear a white dress, despite Najla’s attempts to persuade her.
“The stories are many,” the hairdresser explains, as she sweeps the floor. “I saw many women and heard many sad stories.”
Every time I return from a visit to Najla, I take the longest route back. It is as though I need time to absorb the stories she has shared – the details of people’s lives that rarely make it into news reports. I think about how I could tell these stories, but it is so hard when there are so many stories of devastation to be told.
Should I rush to write the story of the little girls who lost their legs when their home was bombed or of the young woman who lost her entire family and her ability to walk?
This is a conflict where priorities conflict. And the priority is usually given to those stories where lives are at stake, to those who have lost everything – so the side stories, like those Najla collects, stay untold by anyone other than the hairdresser.
