Whitish mildew pervading whole tracts of landscape – bleached-leprosy-encrustations of curses-old cheese-bones of rocks, – crunched, knawed, and mumbled – mere refuse and rubbish of creation – like that laying outside of Jaffa Gate – all Judea seems to have been accumulations of this rubbish.
(Journals of a Visit to Europe and the Levant:
October 11, 1856–May 6, 1857)
I did not want to dwell on the vilification by Western travellers of this precious land and instead turned my mind to Abu Ameen, wondering how he managed his summers here. Was life in one of these qasrs so difficult that he never had time to stop and look at these gorgeous surroundings as I was doing? Perhaps he didn't need to stop to look. Perhaps his entire time in the hills with Saleem was one long sarha such as I might never be able to achieve.
The ponds along the wadi were filled with water from the spring. They had plenty of frogs, high spearmint, the common reed, and swathes of algae floating in the water, an unusual sight in these dry hills. This section of the wadi, called Wadi Qasrya, was wider, with the low hills on both sides seeming to recline further and further back. Coming down their sides were several small wadis, Wadi Shomr (fennel) and Wadi El A'rsh (the throne). I left Wadi Qasrya and began climbing the high hill to the north, with the ruin of Khirbet Sakrya, of which only a few stone houses have remained.
As I walked up I looked at the unterraced hill to my left. What, I wondered, would it take to clear this and terrace it? What a feat it must have been to look at the wild hill and plan the subdivisions. How did they know when to build the terrace wall in a straight line, when in a curve and when to be satisfied with a round enclave where only a single tree could be planted? They must have been very careful to follow the natural contours, memorizing the whole slope before deciding how to subdivide it. The large rocks that could not be moved were kept standing where they found them. Here and there one could see clusters of them. The terracing snaked down the slope to the wadi on one side and trailed up on the other, curving with the folds of the hill, always leaving a passage for the mule-drawn hand-plough to pass. Where once was a steep hill there was now a series of gradually descending terraces. In this way my ancestors reclaimed the wild, possessed and domesticated it, making it their own.
I was about to continue with my walk when I heard a rustle. I was afraid it would be a pack of wild dogs. With trepidation I looked up and saw instead a group of seven grey gazelles the colour of the rocks, running up the hill, taking big strides with their long thin legs, jumping so effortlessly over the large boulders that no stones tumbled in their wake.
I continued my slow ascent, following the silent musings of my mind and smelling the sharp brittle scent of thyme, which was growing in abundance on the side of the hill. My peace was shattered, when, out of nowhere, a huge grey bird flew right at me, its wings spread wide. I fell to the ground. It was an owl with a wingspread of a metre. It flew across to the opposite hill and landed on a rock, waiting to see whether I would pass and leave its nest in peace. I moved away quickly.
When I got around the high hill, a new vista opened up. The hills south of the village of Abu Qash spread out like the high waves of a turbulent sea all the way to the west. I now had to cross Wadi Matar (rain), along which ran an excellent path leading to the village. I managed to negotiate my way between the thickets. A smell of oregano from low bushes on the path lingered where I brushed against them. I had seen another imposing round qasr and was heading towards it.
The path took me behind the qasr, where I saw a cistern that the owners must have dug. I walked by the rusty metal cover in the ground and then over the fields, which had been cleared of stones. A copse of pines was growing there, the branches rustling in the light wind. I circled round to the front. As I stood before the door I had a sense of the family who must once have lived here. But no one was home, all was abandoned; except, perhaps, for the spirits. On this walk I had passed at least a dozen abandoned qasrs. Those who had once inhabited them were gone, that way of life was no more. Their owners had moved on to other places. At a certain point the land ceased to be capable of sustaining those cultivating it and other more lucrative opportunities for making a living opened up in the petroleum-rich Gulf and the New World. When I met Fareed, who originally came from Ramallah, at his palatial house in the suburbs of Washington, DC, he told me how, when he was a child growing up in Ramallah in the late thirties, his family could not afford to buy him shoes. So he had to make do year after year with his old ones, which his feet had outgrown. His strongest memory of growing up in Ramallah was of pressed toes cramped in tight shoes.
Under Israeli law, Fareed and those members of my family who were not residing in the West Bank when Israel occupied it in June 1967 and carried out that first crucial census are considered absentees and their property outside the town has been taken from them. It was vested in the Israeli state for the exclusive use of Israeli Jews. I had read the law making this possible many times but its full import never struck me as it did now. A Palestinian only has the right to the property he resides in. Once he leaves it for whatever reason it ceases to be his, it 'reverts back' to those whom the Israeli system considers the original, rightful owners of 'Judea and Samaria', the Jewish people, wherever they might be. Abandonment, which began as an economic imperative in some instances and a choice in others, had acquired legal and political implications with terrifying consequences.
When I had rested I threw a stone through the small door into the dark interior of the qasr, not to drive out the ghosts, which I don't believe in, but to scare off any animals or creepy-crawlies that might be lurking there. Then I entered, bowing my head. Inside, the air was heavy with the smell of of animal dung. There was just enough light filtering through the cracks between the stones to make out the spiral stairs that hugged the inside of the round structure and led to the second level. With my hands extended in front of me to feel my way in the semi-darkness I climbed up, keeping my head down for the roof was low. When I emerged I found myself on the first floor, where there were three deep-set windows with wide sills. Here it was not as dark as the ground floor; the air was lighter and fresher. Light came through the low windows and bounced off the wet stones on the side. But I did not want to linger. There was another staircase leading up to the roof. I took it and emerged from a low, covered landing on to the top of the unusually high two-floor qasr. The roof was surrounded by a half-metre-high wall with embrasures. It was not paved but covered with earth and pebbles out of which grew small weeds.
I didn't stay long on the roof either. The sun was high and strong. I made my way down and found the shady coolness welcoming. I curled myself over the windowsill and rested.
Through my window I looked at the fields across the valley. The ground was carefully terraced in an almost perfect crescent, the olive trees were evenly spaced and the field between them was cleared of stones. The surrounding area was wild and chaotic, the terracing was half completed and many of the fields were covered with wild shrubs and thickets. I wondered who the owner of this qasr was and marvelled at his industry. I could imagine him sitting by this window, as I was doing, and surveying his possessions. Perhaps he had a number of children whom he observed from this watchtower and hurled orders at: 'You, Muneer, pick up those stones over there and plough the land around that plum tree.' 'You, Fareed, water that aubergine plant over there.' With water from the cistern they could plant all sorts of vegetables in addition to the fruit trees. And then when they harvested the fruit of their labours they must have walked or taken the mule eastward into Abu Kash and from there on to Ramallah. They might have followed the same path I took. With a heavily loaded mule it must have taken them much longer.
It was as though in this qasr time was petrified into an eternal present, making it possible for me to reconnect with my dead ancestor through this architectural wonder. Would this turn into the sarha I had long yearned to take? I was hoping, waiting, when my eyes fell on a large boulder that
lay not far from the door. I wanted to examine it more closely, so I walked down the dark spiral stairs to the ground floor, bent my head and left as I had come in, through the small door to the field outside. Once my eyes adjusted to the glare I took a closer look at this large, oddly placed rock.
It appeared to emerge from the ground but did not seem to belong there. It rested at a strange angle. What was it doing here? All around it the ground had been cleared of large boulders. Was this one too big to remove and so had been left alone? Or had someone brought it here? But why? What use could there be for a rock of this size in the middle of what must have been the garden? I began to circle it, examining it carefully. It was covered with soil. I began to scrape at it. The more dirt I removed the more of it I found. This made me more curious. What would I find buried beneath it? The deeper I dug the harder it was because the soil was more tightly packed. I couldn't scrape any more using my bare hands. I went looking for a sharp rock to use as a chisel. I found one and returned to the rock. The soil was so hard I had to use another rock to drive the chisel down. This way I was able to carve out a large chunk of earth, which broke off, bringing down with it a big section and revealing this stone was not in fact a rectangular block. What powerful forces of nature had hollowed this stone out?
Now that I had found this point of weakness the work became easier. It was clear that the rear of the rock was higher than the two parallel sides, which were of the same height. This could not be the haphazard work of nature. Someone had worked on this rock. I laboured faster now, not heeding where the soil was being scattered. I was getting more of it on my face. I could feel and taste it on my lips. Without stopping I blew to get it away. A finer layer of soil flew out of the sides of the stone, revealing clear marks of a metal chisel. This then was the work of a sculptor. But what was it? What was he trying to create? The stone on the back had sharp angles but on the side they were soft and curved. They looked like two arms. Or were they paws? Could this be a pharaonic statue of a sphinx? My heart was beating fast. I felt I was at the moment of a great discovery. The soil I was scraping more vigorously than ever now was blowing all over my face and clothes. My thick eyebrows and hair were covered with a fine layer of silt, turning me into some sort of maniacal living sculpture. In a brief time I had dug soil out to a depth of some fifty centimetres, reaching down to the flat bottom of this rock. When I passed my hand over it and swept off the last bits of soil I realized that I had cleared away the hollow of a high carved seat.
I turned around and sat down. Immediately I found myself settling into a precisely proportioned chair. The depth and angle were just right, giving excellent support to my back. The height was also right, allowing my short legs to rest flatly on the ground, relieving the pressure from my spine. And my two elbows fitted comfortably in the dips of the armrests, which were of the perfect height for my arms. Whoever had designed this must have had similar proportions to mine. I settled myself in this monumental seat and did not want to move.
A gentle breeze blew in my dusty face. My entire body relaxed from my neck down to my feet, and I settled more deeply in the stone seat and felt a perfect sense of peace come upon me. The view from the seat was not obscured by the qasr; it took in the full view of the fields which I assumed belonged to the owner of this summer mansion, who had not only this qasr but also his own a'rsh (throne). And then I remembered hearing as a child that Abu Ameen, my grandfather's cousin, had in Harrasha an a'rsh next to his qasr. Could this be it? Could this be Harrasha where Abu Ameen and my grandfather Saleem used to go for their sarha?
As I sat there on the a'rsh the whispers of the pine trees sounded like the conversation of a family gathered in a circle in their garden. As I listened the memories of Abu Ameen and the kind of life he lived began to come back.
He was a quiet old man with grey hair and a cane whose hooked end was like the pale curve of the bald crown of his head and as smooth. As a child I continued to marvel at the incongruity of a man of modest means like Abu Ameen owning a qasr and having an a'rsh, until I realized that the qasr shared nothing with a castle except the ostentatious name. One day someone pointed out the collapsed stone structure next to our house and said it was a qasr. After this it was only the a'rsh that I continued to wonder about.
The half-demolished qasr in the field next to our house must have been built when the area was still uninhabited, because these structures served a purpose only in places far away from built-up areas. My childhood friend, Issa Mitri, and I used to play on the top of this collapsed building. We would pretend that a djinn lived under the stones and that if we turned them over he would escape. We never dared try to enter the qasr. When I heard how Abu Ameen used to travel to the hills and live in a qasr for six months of the year, I was filled with admiration. It was difficult to imagine the Abu Ameen I knew could be the same man as the adventurer who spent half the year in the wild, going on a sarha, and living alone in Harrasha.
Abu Ameen, whose first name was Ayoub, was my mother's second uncle from her father's side. The two men were very different. As children they both went to the same school established by English missionaries. Unlike his cousin, Ayoub did not like school. He found it too confining. It did not give him the kind of knowledge he thought was practical and useful. Saleem was the bright student who contradicted the teacher and seemed to know more than him. Abu Ameen found his cousin annoying and disruptive. He never understood why he bothered with studies and took his education so seriously. His strategy was to just let the day pass, and then the year, and then they'd be off and out of this prison called school.
Neither of them owned any land; they came from modest families. But Ayoub was determined to acquire some. After leaving school he planned to work as a stonemason. There was much to be done. He would work hard and save money, enough to buy him a plot as close as possible to Ramallah. Then, after he had cleared it, he would use his masonry skills to build a qasr there, one of the best in the hills. He would marry, have children and his happiness would be complete. Saleem, who had entirely different aspirations for himself, was appalled when Ayoub told him of his plans.
'What?' he asked his cousin, incredulous. 'A stonemason? Is this all you aspire to make of yourself?'
'And what's wrong with that?'
'But don't you want to go to university? Don't you want to better yourself?'
'I'm happy the way I am. There is enough work for a stonemason; I will never be short of work. And you think it is easy work? It is very complicated and not anyone can do it. I am confident of myself. I will start as soon as this school year ends.'
'So this is why you have not been studying for the Oxbridge entrance examinations.'
'What use are these exams? You think if I succeeded I would find someone to support me through university?'
'This is no excuse. You can work your way as I'm planning to do.'
'Work for others when I have enough work to do for myself? Am I mad? You can go wherever you want. I'm staying here, in Ramallah. I'm not going to budge whatever happens.'
Saleem followed through with his plans, went to the United States and studied law. He did not return to Ramallah, where there was no work for him. Instead he ended up in Jaffa serving as a judge in the courts of the British Mandate. He disliked the English, although he liked the law. He continued living in Jaffa until 1948, when he, like the other inhabitants of the city, was forced out. He moved briefly with his family to Ramallah. During the first days they all stayed at Abu Ameen's house because it had thicker walls that they believed would better withstand bombardment from the air. But Saleem only managed to last a few days. He left his family with Abu Ameen and went to live alone in the summer house he owned up the hill, built from stones selected and cut by Abu Ameen. A month later he managed to leave Ramallah, where he never wanted to live. His cousin did not forgive him for this: 'He went and lived all by himself and left me with his difficult wife, Julia,' he used to complain. Saleem ended up in Beirut, a city by the sea like Ja
ffa, where he died alone.
Ayoub had stayed in Ramallah throughout Saleem's extensive travels. Everything took longer than he had anticipated. He had to work more years to make enough money to buy land. But then, in between the First World War and the end to Ottoman rule that followed, and the takeover of the country by the much different administration of the British Mandate, he succeeded. It was true the land he acquired wasn't as close to town as he would have wished, and it was not a very tempting plot, covered, as it was, with stones. But he knew how to clear it and turn it into cultivable land. He got married soon after he bought the property. He had not planned it this way: he had wanted first to finish building the qasr. Instead, on their honeymoon he took his bride to his newly bought property. They camped out in the open and, with no other help, the two of them managed the difficult feat of building the qasr. First they decided where it would sit. Then she cleared the ground, while he went looking for the right-sized stones. He said he needed big stones for the bottom rows. He would go in search of these and return carrying them clasped between his hands or supported on his shoulder. He was strong and as nimble as a goat, with short legs, a large muscular torso and a big chest, a hill man well adapted to this stony terrain. Zariefeh, his wife, was surely impressed with his physical strength. She had not expected it, for he was not tall. She would never have thought he would be able to handle all by himself the large rocks that he was bringing back to the construction site. He never complained and rarely took breaks. They worked well together, most of the time in silence. He was a quiet, serious man of few words. She did most of the talking. But when it came to stones, his skill was unrivalled. He only had to touch a stone to know what kind it was and whether or not it could take the weight.
Palestinian Walks Page 3