The Almond Tree

by Michelle Cohen Corasanti

  ‘Time’s up,’ the soldier said. ‘We’re relocating you.’

  ‘An adventure.’ Baba’s eyes were wet and shiny as he put his arm around Mama, who was still sobbing.

  We loaded the wagon with our possessions. The soldiers opened a hole in the barbed-wire fence so we could get out, and Baba led the horse as we followed the soldiers up the hill. Villagers disappeared as we passed them. I looked back; they had completely fenced in our house and orange groves with barbed wire, and I could see them beyond at Uncle Kamal’s, doing the same. They hammered in a sign: Keep Out! Closed Area. It was the same wording that was in front of the field of landmines where my little sister Amal had died.

  I kept my arm around Abbas the whole time because he was crying hard, like Mama. I wept too. Baba didn’t deserve that. He was a good person, worth ten of them. More: a hundred; a thousand. All of them.

  They led us up the hill through thickets that cut into my legs until we finally arrived at a mud-brick hut that was smaller than our chicken coop. The garden in front was overrun with weeds, and that must have made Mama feel bad because she hated weeds. The shutters were dusty and closed. The soldier cut the lock with bolt cutters and pushed the tin door open. There was only one room, with a dirt floor. We unloaded our belongings and the soldiers left with our horse and cart.

  Inside the house there were rush mats piled up in the corner. Goat skins were folded on top of them. There was a kettle in the hearth, dishes in the cabinet, clothes in the closet. Everything was covered in a thick coat of dust.

  On the wall was a portrait of a husband and wife and their six children, smiling. They were in our courtyard in front of Mama’s garden.

  ‘You drew them,’ I said to Baba.

  ‘That was Abu Ali and his family,’ he said.

  ‘Where are they now?’

  ‘With my mother and brothers and Mama’s family,’ he said. ‘God willing, one day they’ll come back, but, until then, we’ll have to pack their belongings in our crate.’

  ‘Who’s this?’ I pointed to the portrait of a boy my age with a thick red scar across his forehead.

  ‘That’s Ali,’ Baba said. ‘He loved horses. The first time he rode one, the horse bucked and Ali fell to the ground. He was unconscious for days, but when he woke, he went right back on that horse.’

  Baba, Abbas and I organised our birthday portraits on the back wall in a bar graph. Across the top, Baba wrote the years, starting with 1948 until the present year, 1957. Mine was the only portrait in 1948. We continued with every year, adding the new children as they came. I was at the top followed by Abbas in 1949, Nadia in 1950, Fadi in 1951, Hani in 1953, Amal in 1954 and Sara in 1955. But there were only two portraits of Amal.

  On the side walls, Baba, Abbas and I arranged the portraits of our family members who we knew were dead: Baba’s father and grandparents. Next to those, we hung up our family in exile: Baba’s mother embracing her ten children in front of the magnificent garden that Mama had built at Baba’s family’s house before they were married, when her parents were migrant workers in Baba’s family’s groves. When Baba came home from art school in Nazareth and saw Mama tending her garden, he had decided to marry her. Baba hung the portraits of himself and his brothers – watching their oranges loaded onto a ship at the port of Haifa, eating at a restaurant in Acre, in the market in Jerusalem, tasting the oranges of Jaffa, vacationing at a coastal resort in Gaza.

  The front wall we reserved for immediate family. Baba had drawn many self-portraits while he was in art school in Nazareth. Plus there was: us having a picnic in our orange grove, my first day of school, Abbas and me at the village square looking into the box holes of the moving picture show while Abu Hussein turned the handle, and Mama in her garden – that one Baba had painted with water colours, unlike the others, which he had drawn with charcoal.

  ‘Where are our bedrooms?’ Abbas scanned the room.

  ‘We’re lucky to get a home with such a beautiful view,’ Baba said. ‘Ichmad, take him outside to see.’ Baba handed me the telescope I’d made from two magnifying glasses and a cardboard tube. It was the same one I’d used to watch the soldiers plant the landmines in the devil’s field. Behind the house, Abbas and I climbed a beautiful almond tree that overlooked the village.

  Through my telescope, we took turns watching the new people, dressed in sleeveless shirts and shorts, already picking oranges from our trees. From our old bedroom window, Abbas and I had watched their land expand as they swallowed up our village. They brought in strange trees and planted them in the swamp. Right before our eyes, the trees grew fat from drinking the fetid juices. The swamp disappeared and in its place rich black topsoil appeared.

  I saw their swimming pool. I moved my telescope to the left and could see across the Jordanian border. Thousands of tents with the letters UN littered the otherwise empty desert. I handed the telescope to Abbas so he could see too. One day I hoped to get a stronger lens so that I could see the refugees’ faces. But I’d have to wait. For the past nine years, Baba had been unable to sell his oranges outside the village, so our market shrank from the entire Middle East and Europe to 5,024 now-poor villagers. We were once very rich, but not anymore. Baba would have to find a job, and those were hard to come by. I wondered if that would make him worry.

  ***

  In the two years we had lived in our new house with the almond tree, Abbas and I had spent many hours in the tree watching the moshav. There we’d seen things we’d never seen before. Boys and girls, older and younger than me, held hands and formed circles and danced and sang together, their arms and legs naked. They had electricity and green lawns, and yards with swing sets and slides. And they had a swimming pool that boys and girls and men and women of all ages swam in, wearing what looked like their underwear.

  Villagers complained because the new people diverted the water from our village by digging deeper wells. We weren’t allowed to dig deeper wells like them. We were angry that while we had barely enough water to drink, the new people were swimming in it. But their swimming pool fascinated me. From our almond tree, I would watch the diver on the board and think how he had potential energy while he was on the platform and how that energy was converted to kinetic energy during the dive. I knew that the heat and wave energy of the swimming pool couldn’t throw the diver back onto the board, and I tried to think what physical laws prevented it. The waves intrigued me in the same way that the children splashing among them fascinated Abbas.

  I knew from a young age that I wasn’t like the other boys in my village. Abbas was very social and had many friends. When they gathered at our house, they would speak of their hero Jamal Abdul Nasser, the President of Egypt, who had stood up to Israel in the 1956 Suez Canal Crisis and was championing Arab nationalism and the Palestinian cause. I idolised Albert Einstein.

  As the Israelis controlled our curriculum, they always supplied us with ample books on the accomplishments of famous Jews. I read every book I could find on Einstein and after I fully understood the brilliance of his equation, E=mc2, I was amazed at how it came to him. I wondered if he really did see a man falling from a building or if he had just imagined it while sitting in the patent office where he worked.

  ***

  Today was the day I was going to measure how tall the almond tree was. The day before, I had planted a stick in the ground and cut it off at my eye level. Lying on the ground with my feet against the standing stick, I could see the treetop over the end of it. The stick and I made a right-angled triangle. I was the base, the stick was the perpendicular and the line of sight was the hypotenuse of the triangle. Before I could calculate the measurements, I heard footsteps.

  ‘Son,’ Baba called. ‘Are you alright?’

  I got up. Baba must be home from his job building houses for the Jewish settlers. None of the other fathers worked in construction, partly because they refused to build houses for the Jews on razed Palestinian villages and partly because of the Israelis’ policy of ‘Hebrew Labour’:
Jews only hired Jews. Many of the older boys at school said bad things about Baba working for the Jews.

  ‘Join me in the courtyard. I heard a few good jokes at work today,’ Baba said, before turning and walking back towards the front of the house.

  I climbed back up the almond tree and looked at the barren land between our village and the moshav. Only five years earlier, it had been filled with olive trees. Now it was filled with landmines. Landmines like the one that killed my baby sister, Amal.

  ‘Ichmad, come down,’ Baba called.

  I climbed down the branches.

  He pulled a sugar doughnut out of the crumpled brown paper bag in his hand. ‘Gadi from work gave it to me.’ He smiled. ‘I’ve saved it all day for you.’ Red gel oozed from the side.

  I squinted at it. ‘Is that poison leaking out?’

  ‘Why, because he’s Jewish? Gadi’s my friend. There are all kinds of Israelis.’

  My stomach contracted. ‘Everyone says the Israelis want to see us dead.’

  ‘When I sprained my ankle at work, it was Gadi who drove me home. He lost a half-day’s pay to help me.’ He extended the doughnut towards my mouth. ‘His wife made it.’

  I crossed my arms. ‘No thanks.’

  Baba shrugged and took a bite. His eyes closed. He chewed slowly. Then he licked the particles of sugar that had gathered on his upper lip. Opening one eye just a little, he glanced down at me. Then he took another bite, savouring it in the same way.

  My stomach growled and he laughed. Once again he offered it to me, saying, ‘One cannot live on anger, my son.’

  I opened my mouth and allowed him to feed it to me. It was delicious. An image of Amal rose, unbidden, in my mind, and suddenly I was overwhelmed with guilt at the flavour in my mouth. But…I kept eating.

  CHAPTER 3

  A brass tray of coloured tea glasses scattered the sunlight that streamed through the open window like a prism. Blues, golds, greens and reds bounced onto a group of old men in battered cloaks and white kaffiyahs secured by black rope. The men of the Abu Ibrahim clan sat cross-legged on floor pillows placed carefully around the low table now holding their steaming drinks. They had once owned all the olive groves in our village. Every Saturday they met here, only occasionally exchanging a word or greeting across the crowded room. They came to listen to the ‘Star of the East’, Um Kalthoum, on the tea house’s radio.

  Abbas and I waited all week to hear her sing. Um Kalthoum was known for her contralto vocal range, her ability to produce approximately 14,000 vibrations per second with her vocal chords, her ability to sing every single Arabic scale, and the high importance she placed on interpreting the underlying meaning of her songs. Many of her songs lasted hours. Because of her great talent, men flocked to the only radio in the village to hear her.

  Teacher Mohammad wiped the sweat that trickled down his nose and dangled there, about to drop onto the playing board. We both knew there was no way he could win, but he never quit and I admired that trait in him. The cluster of men gathered around the backgammon board teased, ‘Well, Teacher Mohammad, it appears that your student has beaten you again!’ ‘Concede already! Give someone else a chance to take on the village champion.’

  ‘A man never quits until it is over.’ Teacher Mohammad bore a chequer off.

  I rolled a 6-6 and lifted my last chequer from the board. From the corner of my eye I saw Abbas watching me.

  A smile blew across Baba’s face and he quickly took a sip of his mint tea – he never liked to gloat. Abbas didn’t care. He didn’t try to conceal his smile.

  Teacher Mohammad extended a sweaty hand to me. ‘I knew I was in trouble when you started off with that 5-6.’ His handshake was firm. After my initial high roll, I’d used the running strategy to beat him.

  ‘My father taught me everything I know.’ I looked at Baba.

  ‘The teacher is important, but it’s the speed at which your brain fires that makes you the champion at only eleven years of age.’ Teacher Mohammad smiled.

  ‘Almost twelve!’ I said. ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘Give him five minutes,’ Baba said to the men who’d gathered around us in the hope of playing me. ‘He hasn’t even had his tea yet.’

  Baba’s words warmed my insides. I loved how proud he was of me.

  ‘Great game, Ichmad.’ Abbas patted me on the shoulder.

  Men reclined on floor cushions, clustered around low trestle tables set up in lines down the length of the room on top of overlapping carpets. Um Kalthoum’s voice overpowered the medley of voices from the men.

  The attendant emerged from the back room with a pipe in each hand – long, coloured stems hanging over his arms, charcoal glowing on the tobacco – and set them in front of the remaining men of the Abu Ibrahim group. They thickened the air with sweet-smelling smoke, which mixed with the smoke from the oil lamps hanging from ceiling rafters. One of them told a story about how he had bent down and ripped his trousers open. Abbas and I laughed with them.

  The Mukhtar entered, raising his arms at the door as if to embrace the entire tea house at once. Even though the military government wouldn’t recognise the Mukhtar as our elected leader, he was, and men with disputes came to him. Every day he held court in the tea house. The Mukhtar was making his way to his spot in the back, but stopped to clap Baba on the back. ‘May God bring peace upon you and your sons.’ He bowed before us and shook Baba’s hand.

  ‘May God bring peace upon you as well,’ Baba said. ‘Have you heard that Ichmad is being promoted by three grades in the coming year?’

  The Mukhtar smiled. ‘He will bring great pride to our people one day.’

  As men entered, they came over to Baba to greet him and introduce themselves to Abbas and me. When I first started coming with Baba, I felt strange because this was the domain of adult men who looked at me strangely. Only a few had wanted to play me at backgammon; but after I proved myself, I became a welcome and honoured guest. I earned my position. Now I was sort of a legend, the youngest backgammon champion in the history of my village.

  When Abbas heard of my victories, he began to accompany us. He wanted to learn to play like me. While I played, he spent much of his time socialising with the men. Everyone always liked Abbas; even from an early age he had charisma.

  On my right was a group of men in their twenties, dressed in Western clothes: trousers with zippers and button-down shirts. They read newspapers, smoked cigarettes and drank Arabic coffee. Many of them were still single. Abbas and I would be with them one day.

  One of them pushed his glasses up with his index finger. ‘How am I supposed to get into medical school here?’ he said.

  ‘You’ll figure out something,’ the sandal-maker’s son said.

  ‘Easy for you to say,’ the bespectacled man said. ‘You have a trade to go into.’

  ‘At least you’re not the third son. I can’t even marry,’ another said. ‘My father has no land to give me anymore. Where would my wife and I live? Both my brothers and their families already live with my parents and me in our one-room house. Now, Jerusalem…’

  The radio’s battery went flat right in the middle of Um Kalthoum’s song, Whom Should I Go To? Villagers gasped and voices rose. The owner scurried to the large radio console. He turned the knobs, but there was no sound.

  ‘Please, forgive me,’ he said. ‘The battery needs to be recharged. There’s nothing I can do.’

  Men started to get up to leave.

  ‘Please, wait.’ The owner made his way over to Baba. ‘Would you mind playing a few songs?’

  Baba bowed slightly. ‘It would be my pleasure.’

  ‘Gentlemen, please wait – Abu Ichmad has agreed to entertain us with his wonderful music.’

  Men returned to their spots and Baba played his oud and sang the songs of Abdel Halim Hafez, Mohammad Abdel Wahab and Farid al-Atrash. Some sang along with him, others closed their eyes and listened, while still others smoked their water-pipes and sipped tea. Baba sang for over an hour before he
put down his oud.

  ‘Don’t stop!’ they cried.

  Baba picked up his oud and started again. He hated to disappoint them, but as dinner approached, he had no choice.

  ‘My wife will be upset if her dinner gets cold,’ he said. ‘Everyone, please join us tomorrow night after dinner to celebrate Ichmad’s twelfth birthday.’ As we left, villagers cried out thanks and shook Baba’s hand.

  Even this late in the day, the village square still bustled with activity. In the open-air market at the centre, pedlars lined the ground in front of them with clay pots filled with combs; mirrors; amulets to keep away evil spirits; buttons; threads; needles and pins; bolts of brightly coloured fabrics; stacks of new and second-hand clothes and shoes; piles of books and magazines; pots and pans; knives and scissors; field tools. Shepherds stood with sheep and goats. Cages held chickens. Apricots, oranges, apples, avocados and pomegranates lay on tarps next to potatoes, squash, aubergines and onions. There were pickled vegetables in glass jars; clay pots filled with olives, pistachios, and sunflower seeds. A man behind a big wooden camera, half hidden under black fabric, snapped a picture of a family in front of the mosque.

  We passed a man selling the paraffin that we used to fuel our lanterns and to cook with, then the herbalist, whose fragrant wares disguised the petroleum smell of his neighbour’s. There were dandelions for diabetes, constipation, liver and skin conditions; chamomile for indigestion and inflammatory disorders; thyme for respiratory problems and eucalyptus for coughs. Across the way, we could see women gathered at the communal ovens chatting while their dough baked.

  We passed the now-vacant Khan, the two-room hostel where visitors once stayed when they came to sell their goods in our village, or for festivals, or during harvest season, or on their way to Amman, Beirut or Cairo. Baba told me that when it was open, travellers came on camels and horses, but that was before there were checkpoints and curfews.