Beginnings New and Old
Present
// Thick white fog crept its way across the southern border. It curled around walls of concrete and barbed wire until only a hazy reflection of starlight stretched across the dark horizon. Inland it swept, engulfing entire villages along the mountains in mist. In the border town of Taybeh [1], my dad and I carefully picked our way through the night. Old homes of quarried stone loomed over the dirt path leading us down to the construction site. Through the fog, the specter of a massive power plant bloomed into existence before us. A hulking mass of white-washed concrete, the plant dwarfed the homes and farms around it. Wilted reeds crunched underfoot as we cut our way around the infrastructure and into a barren field. The ambient hum of a thousand wild cicadas was as deafening as it was familiar this deep into the open country.
//// Further inland in Kafarrouman [2], I walked across polished marble towards an electrical box by the stairwell. At the flick of a switch, the rumbling of the water heater above went silent in anticipation of the nightly village power outage. I clicked the cover back into place and walked out onto the balcony. The massive grey retaining walls of a new highway cleaved through the village that sprawled across the valley below me. Lampposts lined the newly asphalted road and threw everything else around them into shadow. Beyond the highway, moonlight shone across the otherwise dark, hazy border towns that dotted the mountains in the distance.
// Dad and I came to a stop at the upper edge of a giant pit. Gravel skidded down the walls of the excavation and pinged across the steel reinforcements that jutted out of the foundations below. Wind and mist pushed nails and wire across the hard earth in a ghostly metallic echo that joined the incessant clicking of the cicadas around us. With a soft pop, the clock struck midnight and electricity buzzed to life across the valley. Porch bulbs and lampposts quickly flooded the misty landscape in soft yellow light. The surprised whine of a baby goat sounded over from a neighbor’s garden. We laughed and glanced at the little hoofprints that were now made visible in the wet concrete. It must have been the same goat our neighbors had offered to sacrifice on the foundations in our honor earlier that day before my dad kindly refused. A tradition as old as the village itself, a sacrifice after the first pour is said to bring good fortune. But luck remained with the goat – us city folk light a candle instead.
//// At midnight, I watched the lights blink out of existence from my seat on the balcony. Cars sped across the unlit highway, their headlights sweeping out fleeting glimpses of the village in the darkness. They roared on into the countryside, towards the border towns that now sat in a luminous haze across the distant mountaintop. My mom stepped out onto the balcony beside me just in time to hear a dog bark on the street below. She laughed and began to tell me a story.
Past
~ Pasty white dough was pounded quickly into shape on a cracked granite countertop dusted in flour. Young, calloused hands flipped the dough into discs and generously coated them in fresh Zaatar [3]. The outer edges of the Manakish [4] were pinched in rhythm to the news the baker had received from his neighbor that morning. The story transformed alongside the flatbread that he shoved with a pallet into the fire. Customers laughed incredulously and mumbled quick prayers at his words as the bread crisped and browned in the oven before them. The baker folded the bread into sheets of yesterday’s newspaper and traded them to his audience for a few green paper bills. Parcels now in hand, the group dispersed, past the round village plaza and up the many winding streets that branched off, up the hills towards home.
It was Sunday and that meant breakfast at Teta’s [5] house. Breathless, a little girl charged into the kitchen with a bundle of Manakish where her grandmother stood, scooping balls of Labneh [6] out of a jar for breakfast. She rushed through the story, first to her, then later to the rest of her family over warm glasses of spiced cinnamon tea. The news was shared at every table that morning, and by the end of breakfast, the entire village was buzzing with the news.
A severed foot had been found. Or rather, it had been deposited into Em Ali’s lap by her dog while she was picking olives in the garden. With a scream, the neighbors had converged, aghast at the dirt-caked limb that lay between her and the whimpering dog. A murderer was on the loose!
Crowds gathered as the police taped off the area. The old woman fanned herself with olive stained hands, subtly enjoying the attention. Neighbors were gathered for statements, but on a hunch, the head officer made nice with the dog. He coaxed it to its feet and followed it back down the hill to the plaza. Rumors echoed out from the shops that circled the central garden.
‘Maybe Hajj Hassan finally did it,’ joked a pair inside a dimly lit cafe. ‘No, it must be Ahmad, he was always giving his brother a hard time,’ explained a young mother to the grocer next door. ‘Definitely not a Lebanese’, speculated a xenophobic crowd seated at a cafe over Shisha.
The officer ignored the stares and followed the shaggy dog through a set of rusted double doors and into the cemetery. It barked and trotted over eagerly to a shallow, unmarked grave on the far side of the yard. The officer laughed – it was his family’s plot.
On a hunch he ran back to the scene and invited everyone over to his aunt’s house. Em Shakib answered the door on crutches. Her left foot was missing. Amputated a month earlier due to complications with her diabetes, she had decided to have it buried until the rest of her was ready to join.
The officer shook his head in amusement and turned towards the panting dog. He knelt to fill up the bottom half of a plastic bottle with water and pushed it towards the furry little grave robber.
~~ The two teams were crouched behind worn wooden tables on opposite ends of the large terrace. Sweat beaded on their brows as they reloaded their makeshift slingshots with round little pods scavenged from a tree in the courtyard. They fed them into the plastic bottles they’d cut in half earlier that morning and tugged the balloons secure around the rims. The captains locked eyes and at the sound of a whistle, the game was on. Cousins, neighbors, siblings, and friends darted across the tiled floor to take aim. Teammates tumbled through doors into the spacious home for cover as pods sliced through the air in all directions. The snap of elastic echoed through the halls while pods ricocheted off high ceilings and plastered walls. The fastest sprinted into position by the wood oven behind the main house. They climbed into the chimney and shot straight at the kids unfortunate enough to be caught out in the open of the garden below. Their mothers lounged under the lush Arisheh [8], laughing at the kids that charged excitedly around them. It was everyone’s first summer back since the occupation had ended. After so many years, the home was once again bursting with family, just as their grandparents had intended.
~ Mattress after sponge-filled mattress was piled into the modest living room from the storage space above the bathroom. Couches and coffee tables were pushed against the far wall to make room for the endless array of old sheets, blankets, and pillows. With only a small kitchen, bathroom, and living room, this transformation happened each night to accommodate the ten-member family. The youngest sisters settled in for the night just as their father arrived home. Although times were tough, he’d been gifted a little brown calf that he tied to the terrace outside each evening. Years later, when his eldest son left abroad in search of work, he sold it. With the money he bought his boy land, his very own piece of the village to come back home to.
Notes
[1] Meaning wholesome
[2] Land of the Pomegranates
[3] A mixture of olive oil and ground thyme
[4] Traditional Lebanese flatbread
[5] Grandmother
[6] Strained yogurt
[7] Canopy of grapevines