Tasting the Sky (8 page)

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Authors: Ibtisam Barakat

BOOK: Tasting the Sky
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Our ten black chickens and the red-brown rooster arrived in a cage. A man with a golden tooth that glittered when he spoke released them into the garden. They jumped out, flapping their wings, and immediately pecked the ground for anything to eat. At night, they shared the shed with the goat.
From the day of his arrival, the rooster changed the rhythm of our mornings. He was up at dawn and woke everyone with him. My father liked the rooster's call because it helped him perform his morning prayers on time. Father prayed five times a day. He would spread a tiny rug that had a drawing of a mosque on it, stand up facing in the direction of Mecca, and then bow to God, kneeling and leaning forward until his forehead touched the ground. That was the moment my brothers, sister, and I liked to
jump on his back. Then he would laugh and raise his voice but never stop praying. We knew he wouldn't because he had told us that during prayer one steps inside the hand of God. I felt like we were climbing inside the hand of God with him.
The rooster continued his calls long after Father's prayers were over. I did not like how persistent he was in wanting no one to sleep past the time he was up. But I liked how the feathers on his tail stood up straight, and how his posture was proud, almost like that of a soldier—our own soldier. He walked like a king with his tomato-red crown. As he strutted, I wanted to strut just like him.
I found Mother's lipstick and colored my face red. I put on her only pair of high heels and walked about holding my head high, raising each foot the way the rooster did. I would suspend my foot in the air, pause, then lower and rest it fully on the ground. I snapped my head back as though I had accomplished a great task, then glanced left and right at the chickens to make sure they saw me.
Unlike the rooster, the chickens were mostly quiet, except when they cackled to announce that an egg would soon be laid. My brothers, sister, and I answered the cackles. We collected most of the eggs while they were still warm. But we always left a few to hatch.
The hand-size baby chickens were most exhilarating to Maha. She jumped up and down when she saw one peck its way out of a shell. And the chicks were beautiful—even more beautiful than the eggs when we boiled them in onion peels and herbs to color them. We held the baby chickens
with utmost care, for they were fragile—like candles in the wind. I did not want any of the chicks to die. But many did die, from the summer heat or from snakebites; some even died the very day they hatched. I buried them beside the shed, covering their bodies with leaves.
On some Fridays, however, Mother and Father killed an adult chicken for a feast to celebrate our being together, and having survived one more week of our tumultuous life. Friday,
Jumua,
meaning the day of gathering, was our weekly day off. We ate meat only on Fridays. My dad often bought us a fresh piece of lamb or goat meat from the butcher shop. But the chickens that we ate came from the ones we raised.
After choosing the chicken to be killed, Father tied its wings to its back and handed the head to Mother. She pulled it, exposing the neck as he said a short prayer, then ran a knife through it. Mother always grimaced, pursed her lips, and shut her eyes as the knife moved. I covered my face with my hands. Father then threw the chicken aside, and its blood splattered everywhere. The chicken's headless body ran in blind circles until the blood surge slowed and the body pulled up dead—right before us.
Mother boiled the chicken to loosen the feathers before she plucked them and opened up the cavity. She pulled out the heart, the liver, and what looked like a stomach pouch, and cleaned and fried them as a side dish. She spent half the day cooking before the meal was finally served. The remainder of the day was for resting from a week of work.
My jobs were to help with Maha and keep an eye on the
chickens so they wouldn't stray or get snatched by foxes or wild dogs. Maha would call the chicks to come to her. When they didn't, she would run after them, but by the time she had balanced herself, they got away. She ran and squatted again and again, calling them with strange made-up names. Trying to teach her the right words only made her come up with words that sounded more and more peculiar.
I also watched the goat, which had now grown so large she almost touched both sides of the door when she entered or left the shed. The goat silently ate whatever we gave her, and in the afternoon she sat still, continuing to chew as if she had imaginary food in her mouth.
My brothers and I decided to pick out a name for the baby in the goat's belly before it was born. We wanted a name that would make our father happy. But nothing came to mind. So we asked him to help us. Father had no trouble picking out the name. He simply pointed to the faraway horizon and said “Zuraiq,” meaning “Little Blue.” We understood.
Father often pointed to the horizon behind our home. He said if we squinted hard enough, especially on sunny days, we could glimpse the Mediterranean Sea. It would look like a little blue line scribbled along the horizon. He spoke as though that “little blue line” were a thread of magic. He said he had lived and worked in the city of Jaffa by the Mediterranean for many years before the war of 1948, and the sight of any of us squinting hard to see Jaffa's
sea filled him with happiness, as though it was him in Jaffa we longed to see.
I told the goat that we were going to name her baby Zuraiq. Her response was nothing more than twitching her ear and continuing to chew her imaginary food. She never responded much to me or to my brothers, but whenever she saw our father, she tried to run to him just as we did, held back only by the rope and peg that leashed her.
She stopped tugging at her rope when he entered the house. She knew he soon would be making certain her food and water pots were filled. After dinner he would spend a long time combing her hair and humming his favorite songs to her. He would confide in her, telling her everything about his day.
But one day the goat cried in a strange way. She was inside the shed, staggering from wall to wall, her legs too thin for her full belly. Then, within moments of Father's arrival, her body opened up for the baby goat to come out. She bled, and lowered herself to the ground. Pointing her face to the ceiling, she bleated in pain. The head of the baby goat appeared. My father eased it out. The long neck, sock ears, chest, and folded front legs followed. Then came the back legs and the tiny tail. The mother goat turned around and licked her baby clean.
Father lifted up the baby goat's leg and announced that it was a boy. Basel, Muhammad, and I were speechless until the baby goat made its first tiny bleat. We bleated in return. Each of us reached out to touch him—thinking he would belong to the one who touched him first—and we all
touched him at once. We named him Zuraiq, as we had planned.
Leaving Zuraiq and his mother to rest, we watched as Father buried the afterbirth in the backyard. When we returned, Zuraiq was struggling to stand. He was unable to balance himself on all four legs, so we held him up. He stood for a moment, then fell down. We held him up again and again until he took a step. When he finally walked a few steps all by himself, we cheered and clapped.
Nursing and playing were Zuraiq's main activities. Our father milked the mother goat only once in the first week, to let us taste the special richness of birth milk. After that, he milked her only in the evening, letting Zuraiq have his fill. But when Zuraiq could finally eat grass and grains, Father covered the mother goat's udders in order to wean Zuraiq.
On the day Zuraiq was weaned, we begged Father to promise he would not sell him or kill him on a Friday like a chicken, or for sacrifice meat on the Eid holiday. In a short time, Zuraiq had become a member of our family. Just as Father needed to talk to Zuraiq's mother, my brothers and I argued that we needed to talk to Zuraiq. Just as the mother goat bleated only when Father came home, Zuraiq ran only toward Basel, Muhammad, and me. He did everything we asked him to do, and he wanted to go with us anywhere we went. Father promised he would keep Zuraiq as a pet for us.
Each of us wanted to be with Zuraiq, but Basel and Muhammad would soon start their school year. Only when I had turned six would I be able to attend school. The thought that my brothers and I were going to be separated
one more time made me anxious, but I was happy that Zuraiq would become mine alone when my brothers were in school.
So, amid protestations from my brothers, I called our pet goat Zuraiqee, meaning “My Zuraiq.” He began mostly to follow me. And when he lay down in the shade to rest, he even let me put my head on him and go to sleep as though he were a pillow.
The night before September I, when my brothers began school, Mother bathed us all in a wide tin tub the way she did once every week. She set out my brothers' newly tailored clothes for the first school day. She also ironed their clothes, which she rarely did except on the sacred holidays. But school and learning were just as sacred to Mother. As she sprinkled water on the cloth and tilted her head right and left to avoid the scalding steam, she and Father talked to us about their own schooling.
“When I was a child, Palestine was under the rule of the British,” my father said. “I finished only first grade because my family could not afford the sixteen-piastre school fee the government then required. Sixteen piastres was a big sum of money during the thirties. It took some families a whole month to earn that amount. But I was eager for learning. I studied an extra half year at a mosque when a man volunteered to teach boys elementary math, and I memorized part of the Qur‘an there—the chapter called ‘Surat Ya Seen.' I can still recite it by heart.”
Proudly, Father went on to recite the entire five-page
chapter. We cheered when he finished. But he interrupted and said that we should never cheer after hearing sacred text recited. “Silence is the best expression of respect,” he instructed. So we sat quietly until Mother spoke.
“I finished the sixth grade, but then my family could no longer afford to send me to school,” she said. “Leaving school was one of the worst days of my life. I begged the principal to let me sit on the floor, hoping that would reduce the fee. I even offered to clean the school in exchange for being a student. But the principal refused. And so instead of going to school, I worked in Jerusalem to help support my family until, when I was fifteen, your father and I married.” When she was done speaking, Mother had tears in her eyes.
“But, Mother, can you afford the school fees for us?” Muhammad asked.
“United Nations schools don't require fees for children of refugees,” she replied, to my brother's great relief.
 
The next morning, Mother woke up with the rooster, made tea, fried several eggs for breakfast, and boiled others for my brothers to take to school. She baked bread on hot little stones we called
rathef
in the iron oven set over the three-legged stove. She also made
zaatar manaqeesh
, olive oil and oregano pizza.
I felt unhappy watching Basel and Muhammad get ready to leave. Mother and Father said school was so important. Why must I wait while my brothers went? I distracted myself
by spinning boiled eggs on the tile floor—for I had learned from Mother that a boiled egg spins quickly while a raw one is slow.
Father was getting ready to accompany Basel and Muhammad to the elementary school at the Jalazone Camp for refugees. He would register them and show them the bus to take between home and school.
“Don't let the camp boys hit you,” he kept telling them over and over. “Stay together,” he instructed.
“Can I go, too, Yaba?” I pleaded. But my father let me walk only a little way before he asked that I stop. “Just a few more steps,” I begged.
He agreed, explaining to me that my brothers would come home in a few hours. “The time will pass in the blink of an eye,” he said. “It's not like Al-Bir orphanage,” he assured me. “You can play with Maha, and you'll have Zuraiq all to yourself when they're gone,” he reminded me. “But don't wander anywhere close to the soldiers,” he warned. The next year, when I turned six, he promised, I could go with my brothers every day.
I nodded, holding back a storm of sorrow. I wanted to grow up quickly—to turn six, to go to school and learn, to be with my brothers. Now, my footsteps heavy with sadness, I walked back home with Zuraiqee. He brushed his head against me. I felt he was the only one who understood my heart. I stroked his long ears with all my affection and then exploded in tears.

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