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Authors: Ibtisam Barakat

BOOK: Tasting the Sky
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Hamameh's new home was one room and a kitchen. She gave us a mattress and the kitchen space to sleep in at night. During the day, she and Mother worked in the house and talked. I silently awaited my father.
Finally, when the moon was full like a cantaloupe, he and Hamameh's husband appeared. Although the war had ended, they said we were not free to go back to the West Bank. My father also announced that he had found work transporting soda pop from a factory to local shops. We cheered. Soda pop, especially orange flavored, was a great treat.
In the morning, my father let Basel and Muhammad and me ride in the pickup truck he drove. It was filled with soda bottles evenly arranged in crates like egg cartons. The glass bottles made a jingling sound. Abu Omar, owner of the
truck, had offered Father a tiny room to sleep in until he found a new place for all of us.
My dad had also bargained for a daily bottle of pop for each of us as part of his pay. My heart overflowed with love for him. He never forgot about treats, though now I could no longer run to greet him, for my right foot had ballooned and become purple and shiny like an eggplant. Alarmed, my dad said he would take me to the nearest hospital. The next day, as soon as he finished his deliveries, we all went.
The hospital was the largest building I had ever seen. It looked like a giant matchbox. In the distance, spruce trees stood straight like candles surrounding it. Vehicles lined the parking lot outside, and crossed iron bars secured the windows.
On the inside, sharp smells—vinegar, alcohol, purple liquid iodine, red Mercurochrome solution, and soap—filled the air. Cotton and needles in steel trays rattled on carts that busy nurses pushed before them.
Doors snapped opened and shut. Many people walked out as others entered, some leaning on wooden sticks or on the arms of family members. Those who sat waiting cradled their pained faces with their hands.
The color white was everywhere, and it mixed with the cold smells and the fog of fear that hung in the corridors. Squirming in Father's arms, I cried that I wanted to go home. But he begged me to let a doctor examine my foot, promising me a giant piece of sesame candy if I did.
Before I replied, a male nurse with a thick mustache and a warm voice like my father's came to see us. My parents explained
to him what had happened to my foot. Nodding, the nurse led us into a room where a doctor soon joined us.
The doctor cradled my foot. He raised and lowered it, twisted it right and left as though it were his, smiling all the while even as I cried.
“Had you waited any longer, this foot would have been damaged permanently,” he said. Mother began to explain that we were in a shelter, that she had been unable to do anything. The doctor reassured her that he himself was a refugee and understood the plight of parents during war.
I was to stay a night at the hospital for initial treatment and supervision. My parents promised they wouldn't leave me, while my brothers inched closer, determined to spend the night with me wherever I was going to be.
The doctor disappeared behind a curtain as we spoke. When he returned, he hid one hand behind his back. He then turned me on my side, and an injection took away my awareness of all that followed.
The next day, I woke up in an enormous room full of strangers. All in beds. Some lay under spiderwebs of white cloth that suspended their arms or legs. Some had their heads bandaged. The eyes of those who were awake stared listlessly into space.
I felt the blankness of the hospital sheets spread over me, covering my world with white. My parents had promised not to leave me. Why weren't they here?
I moved my body, but one of my legs was bandaged so stiffly it made me lose my balance if I tried to sit. I screamed and flailed my arms in outrage and frustration, hitting the
bed beside me. Dozens of eyes turned to look at me. The doctor I knew came running to assure me that my parents would return at the end of the day. I waited.
My father, Basel, and Muhammad did come, my dad holding out a giant bar of sesame candy. He said getting the candy was the reason they had left. That made me happy. And the doctor said my foot would soon improve. He handed Father a sack of tablets, bottles, and ointments. We were to go home but would have to come back several times for follow-ups.
“Where is Mother?” I asked. I wanted her to be at the hospital, too. My father understood my disappointment. “We'll be home in no time; she's waiting for you,” he assured me, and he tickled my cheek until I smiled. But I worried that Mother did not want to see me as much as I wanted to see her. There was only one mother in our house, and all of us wanted to be with her all the time. But she had four of us. Perhaps seeing any of us would do for her. Now she was with my sister. My dad, however, was different. With him I felt important, loved just for being myself.
Later, back in Hamameh's kitchen, when it was time for Father to drive to Abu Omar's house for the night, I clung to him and would not let go. He tried to pry my hands off, but I exploded in such distress that he had to stay by my side. Finally, he left me, ran out, and began to drive off. But Basel and Muhammad, wanting to help me, followed so close to the wheels that he stopped and turned around, the headlights circling the inside walls of the kitchen.
When my dad returned to hold me, his eyes filled with
tears. “I feel so torn,” he said. Then he decided: he would take me with him. I joined him in the truck and looked back with thanks at my brothers, who leaned against the door, smiling at our victory.
The room where my father and I slept at Abu Omar's was at the edge of a garden that surrounded a stone villa. We unlatched the gate. The garden was filled with plum, lemon, and fig trees, and had a row of jasmine, rose, and hibiscus bushes. The hibiscus blossoms rolled themselves like cigarettes when they went to sleep. But the jasmine could never sleep. Its star flowers were forever wide-open, giddy with fragrance.
A narrow bed, a wooden table, and a kerosene lamp awaited us. Everything was quiet. My father warned that any noise could wake up Abu Omar and make him angry; then Dad might lose his job and there would be no more of the soda he brought home every day. I nodded in silence, avoiding even a whisper.
In the morning, Abu Omar and his three grown daughters greeted us. He and my father talked about the day's work while the daughters left to make tea and a breakfast of fried eggs, sour yogurt, apricot jam, and sesame butter.
The three daughters reminded me of Mother when she was happy. They had long, dark braids ending with colorful ribbons. They spoke softly and, when giggling, hid their teeth with their hands. They took turns gesturing toward me, encouraging me to join them. Alarmed, I shook my head. They ignored that. To tempt me further, they brought
out a box of candy. But I felt they were insisting too much on separating me from my dad. I got mad at them.
When breakfast arrived, I was too anxious to eat or hold on to anything other than my dad. It became clear that I would not let go of him. So Father assured Abu Omar that my presence wouldn't distract him from the day's work.
But the daughters would not give up coaxing me to remain with them. They brought a cloth sack filled with toys, whistles, and balls, and poured it out before me. “Choose the ones you like,” they offered.
I only wanted my dad, who was now rising from his seat, heading to a sink to wash his hands. I thought he was leaving. Worry welled up inside me like a wave. Unable to stand, I threw myself onto the floor behind him. I wrapped my arms around his feet and cried inconsolably. At last the girls seemed to understand. They returned the toys to the cloth sack and handed it to my father. “For her,” they said. But I did not want toys.
I spent days and nights glued to my dad. The shopkeepers where we delivered the soda began to expect to see me. After pulling the crates into their shops, they poked their heads inside the truck window and asked me about my foot. They tossed mounds of candy in my lap that I chewed for hours. But I always kept some of it for my brothers.
My foot finally healed, and feeling stronger, I no longer insisted on being with my father all the time. Soon my parents bought me a pair of chocolate-brown boots. I could wear them whenever I wanted, not only for important occasions.
Basel and Muhammad taught me how to lace and unlace them, and I practiced and practiced until I could do it easily.
Now I walked again, ran and played in the streets like a monkey. On the final follow-up at the hospital, the doctor smiled as though it were his own foot that had healed. “We won the battle,” he said, shaking my foot affectionately, the way one shakes the hand of a friend.
Hamameh's children, my brothers, children from dozens of other homes, and I played along a street that split our neighborhood like a spine. As we crossed back and forth, the cars slowed down. But one day, a car nearly struck a boy. He was not injured, but his legs shook under him like leaves in the wind. With his face pale as a lemon, he lay on the street, crying. He said no each time the driver tried to lift him.
Then the boy's mother came, hurtling toward us, not knowing whether her child was alive or dead. She was a frenzy of fear. We looked on as she pounded the driver's chest. The man took the blows and remained silent as a stone. Seeing his mother's grief, the boy willed himself to get up. He wiped his tears on his sleeve and said that he was fine. He wanted to play again. But his mother pushed him in front of her, and they both walked home. One moment
the woman thanked God for his safety, the next she cursed and wished the boy dead.
Hearing about this incident, Mother became apprehensive. She couldn't keep us indoors, nor could she make certain we would be safe outside. When Father arrived that evening, she had made up her mind. One month in Hamameh's kitchen was enough. We had to move.
Gazing at each of us for a moment, Father said he, too, was worried for us. But he had not earned enough money to move us out of Hamameh's kitchen. And there were few homes available. The city of Amman was flooded with refugees like us who had fled during the war and could not return to their homes.
Mother said she had heard that, after the war, the government of Jordan had turned many schools into temporary housing for West Bank refugees. The students would not return till September. So she insisted that we move to a school. We would have playgrounds, and she would not be preoccupied with our safety, she argued. Father agreed.
The next day, Mother and Hamameh talked about our leaving. “Perhaps it won't be long before we see Ramallah again,” Mother said. “Suleiman has already registered our family with the International Red Cross.” She raised up her hands in the gesture of a prayer. “The names of those who are granted permits will be announced on the radio. I will keep the radio on all day.”
“But all the cities are occupied now. Don't you know what that means?” Hamameh protested. She bit her anxious lips between the words. “Will it ever be safe to go back?”
Mother seemed troubled. But she was certain about one thing: we would return to Ramallah no matter how long the wait.
Now the war sisters held each other's faces; they would never forget. In silence deep as the sea of their sorrow, they kissed twice on the cheeks, then parted.
And so we moved to the school. Mother said she missed talking with Hamameh. She wanted to see her. But I felt that even if she never saw her again, Hamameh's name, like its Arabic meaning, “dove,” would always fly, glowing across the sky of Mother's memories, leaving feather prints of a kindness birthed from the cruelty of war.
 
The school playground was filled with boys who kicked balls hard, tackled and punched one another, and fought as though they themselves were engaged in war. They broke many windows. Nothing got fixed. Day and night, the hot air streamed in and out of the brokenness. I lay inside on the tile floor and cooled my skin.
While my brothers played with the boys, I explored the classroom that had become our home. A band of children joined me. The shelves had been emptied before we arrived, the chairs and tables pushed to the edges of the room to create space for sleeping. Blankets were heaped in a corner. Shoes piled up by the door like beetles. People mostly walked barefoot in the building. A blackboard covered the front wall from one end to the other.
I wanted the chalk resting on the board's edge. Other children wanted the chalk, too. We all jumped up, gripped
the board's edge, and hung from it trying to reach the chalk above us. The board shook. We ran away quickly and squatted in the farthest corner of the room as the board tore off the wall and fell.
The noise brought Mother and the other women running. They set the board upright against the wall, but kept it on the ground. Children then flew to the chalk sticks like bees to flowers. Hands reached over heads as everyone wanted to draw something. When Mother saw me scribbling with all my energy, she drew the first letter of the Arabic alphabet. “His name is Alef,” she instructed, returning the chalk to my hand. She asked me to draw him.
Alef was a long line that stood vertically and ended with a round circle. It looked like a Popsicle, a dandelion, a sunflower, a streetlamp, or a man with a hat on his head, like my dad in winter. I thought Alef lived inside chalk sticks. Because I wanted to be friends with Alef, I took a piece of chalk with me wherever I went.
In no time, I loved Alef with all my heart and also blamed him for anything I did not like or understand. When I wet my bed at night, I blamed him for not waking me up. When I dropped my plate, scattering food everywhere, it was Alef who had tripped me. When I got mad at Alef, I drew him on the board and left him there screaming for me to forgive him and come back. He put his fingers across his lips, indicating that he wouldn't do again whatever he'd done. I left him but quickly returned. I could not stay away from Alef long, but he did not know that.
I introduced Alef to my father when he came to see us after
days of absence. At Mother's urging, Father had taken additional work at night to save up money. He had also found a new home for us in an area called Marka. That very day we left the school. But unlike the baby donkey, Souma, whom I loved but had never seen after we left the shelter, Alef, my chalk pet, could come with me—tucked into my pocket.
 
A man in a red-and-white headdress met us outside our new home. He led us in and gave us the key. Mother smiled at Father, who in turn reminded the man that, if we were allowed to return to Ramallah, we would leave with only a day's notice. The man agreed.
Our new home was only a single room. Mother set up a kitchen in one corner and marked it with my chalk. We were to stay out of the kitchen.
The paint on the walls and ceiling was peeling, paint chips tumbling to the floor like dried-up petals, resembling the leaves falling from the September trees outside. I helped Mother by collecting the paint flakes, keeping them in my pockets, then tossing them to the wind.
Our room's window overlooked the shops at the center of Marka. We watched people come and go. In only a few days we could recognize the recurring faces. The coffee shop, with its two tiny tables and many chairs, drew the men who played card games, chess, and backgammon, and threw dice. When their games were done, they leaned back and smoked water pipes called nargilehs.
They breathed in and out of the long pipes that came out of bubble-filled glass jars sitting on the ground before
them. The pipes were decorated with gold, red, yellow, and green threads and beaded like holiday clothes. We stuck straws in water cups to imitate water-pipe smoking. But Father chastised us. He did not want us ever to smoke.
The grocery store that shared a wall with the coffee shop was too packed for any shopper to enter. Cases of lentils, chickpeas, rice, beans, and dried foods obstructed the entrance. Shoppers stood outside and asked for what they needed. Two balanced brass plates made up the scales. Iron pieces a kilogram or half a kilogram on one plate indicated the weight of the food on the other.
We purchased flour from this store. But when we opened the sack, a gray mouse ran out of it. The shopkeeper said he could not guarantee the absence of mice. We kept the flour.
Early mornings, Mother prepared the dough for our bread. She sifted flour, mixed it with water, salt, and yeast, and pounded it together. When she let it rest, we would poke our fingers into the dough to draw faces. Father then took the flat loaves to be baked in the community oven. But the bread he brought home had none of the faces we'd drawn. I wondered what had happened to them.
Daily we ate lentils, the only meal we could afford. My brothers and I hated lentils. They sat on our aluminum plates like mouse eyes, and we wished they would scamper off like the mouse that ran out of the flour sack.
Mother warned of illnesses that befell children who did not eat their lentils and of ghosts that stalked them in their sleep. But we could swallow the fear of ghosts more readily than we could swallow the spoonfuls of lentils. When we resisted,
she forced our mouths wide open and poured the lentils in. They tasted like medicine. They made us want to throw up. But if we did, Mother hit us for having wasted the only food we had and for dirtying our clothes.
Mother washed our clothes mainly on Fridays, when Father had no work and could drive us to a stream where many people gathered. My brothers and I rode in the back of the truck screaming into the wind and laughing wildly. At the top of our lungs we would yell all the expressions Mother had told us we should never say because they were impolite. Then we made up songs in which the forbidden words were repeated over and over, until we arrived at the stream.
There, Mother met other women. Squatting or kneeling beside large piles of laundry, they used stones to rub the clothes clean. Then they built fires. In large tin cans they boiled the white pieces with a powder called Neeleh because it turned water blue like Al-Neel, the Nile River. The bubbles in the washtubs rivaled the bubbles in the water pipes smoked by men at the coffee shop.
While the women did the wash, my father and the other men, hoping to provide the meal for the day, hunted for porcupines in the areas surrounding the stream. My brothers played with marbles or chased a soccer ball with other boys. I raced against children my age, but mostly I watched my brothers play.
We were to stay away from the water. A month earlier, a boy had drowned. The water stole him, then dragged his body far away before it left him on a bank downstream.
“Two things should never be trusted—water and
snakes.” This warning spread along with the story. And the stream seemed to slither like a watery snake. Was water an animal? Was it alive? It ran much faster than I could. Water was a puzzle that scared and excited me. I liked it and looked forward to seeing it every week. But then, without any warning, our Friday visits to the stream came to a stop.
It happened on a typical Friday morning, when a much older boy, thinking no one was watching, took Basel's hand and pulled him away from the crowd. I looked up and saw them walking toward the road.
I shook Mother's shoulder. “Yamma, someone is stealing Basel,” I said, pointing to where the two boys were about to disappear. Mother screamed, and a crowd ran to the rescue.
The boy, Zazi, was known for harming younger children. Zazi's father beat him in front of all of us, spit in his face, and begged for forgiveness from my father.
But after that morning, my parents decided to leave us at home when they went to do the wash. They took my baby sister, Maha, but locked me and my brothers up in the house. We watched the world from our window and waited. We ached with longing for the only joys we'd had—running freely, being outside, and getting lost in games that made us briefly forget war, fear, and even lentils.
To cheer us up, Father brought back an extra barrel of water. Mother mixed soap in it to create bubbles. Then she poured it on the floor, took off our clothes, and let us play naked for hours. We threw our bodies on the slippery tiles, gliding fast until we hit the wall. I wished I could glide right through that wall—all the way back to our Ramallah home.

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