The Haj - Leon Uris [63]
The balance of the rooms were bedrooms. These were nothing more than large square cells with thin rush mats and goatskins for sleeping.
As more children came into the world and older sons brought new brides home, new sleeping cells were added. This way everyone was garrisoned in together in his own clan’s sector of the village. One of our villagers, who had nine married sons, had fifty-two people in his extended-family house.
My father’s house had many things the others did not have. In his living room were wooden, instead of mud-brick, benches filled with pillows covered with elaborate stitching that was embroidered in Bethlehem. We also had two very fine Western-type overstuffed chairs, one for Ibrahim and one for the honored guest. We were not allowed to sit on them.
We had glass over our windows, while the other houses had wooden shutters. My father had the only raised bedstead, and when he married Ramiza he had the only two bedsteads.
Beyond the cluster of houses and the village square came a confusion of small farming plots that had been divided and redivided many times through inheritance. The season of the year dictated the kind of crop. Winter crops of wheat, barley, horse beans, and lentils were mainly for our own subsistence. Fenugreek, or Greek hay, was grown for forage. Summer crops were for selling in the souk. We grew magnificent hand-watered melons, chick peas, sesame, and a large variety of vegetables.
Many of our fields and orchards were communal. Tabah had exceptionally rich land for Palestine. Our pride was our fruit trees and our almond and walnut trees and, mostly, our ancient olive grove. The year’s final crop was the grape and this was also communal, as were the grazing grounds for the goat and sheep herds.
Until the time of the trucks the cameleers came up from the Wahhabi tribe several times a year to haul crops and bring in lime for replastering houses. The cameleers mainly traded for our surplus dung. Since the Bedouin were the greatest smugglers in all the world, our dung was usually paid for with hashish.
Every field, every prominent tree or rock or patch crossing had separate names such as ‘the place the old woman died,’ ‘the place of the spoiled figs,’ ‘the frog stone,’ ‘the widower’s tree,’ ‘the prophet’s tomb,’ ‘the place of the burning battle,’ ‘Joshua’s mound,’ ‘the place of stitching,’ which was Rahaab’s stone house.
My father had the only clock in the village, although he could scarcely read time and did not adhere to it. Each day at sunset he would set the clock at twelve, which made no sense. Time was kept by the location of the sun.
My father also had the only calendar, which he did not use either. Time of year was told in the ancient way by phases of the moon or the season.
My father was wealthy enough to burn kerosene for light. His lamp was much brighter than those that burned a wick of sheep’s wool dipped in a bowl of olive oil. He did keep a small oil fire burning in his bedrooms to ward off the evil spirits.
Attached to each house was a barnyard containing the household donkey, cow, a milking goat, and perhaps a brace of oxen. Many of the oxen were jointly owned with other families of the same clan and a great number of family feuds erupted over their use. The farmers considered the household animals some kind of relatives. Often they would walk to the fields while holding conversations with them. Most of the barns opened into the house because the animals gave off heat from their bodies, which was essential in helping to keep the house warm. Beyond the barn was a small plot of vegetables and perhaps a few fruit trees and chickens. Chickens and eggs were the wife’s domain. By tradition they were allowed to sell the surplus eggs and keep the egg money for themselves. All the little individual yards were walled off by cactus fences.
In Tabah everyone thinks of everyone else as a tribal brother or sister and the elders as aunts and uncles. Although everyone is supposed to be responsible for everyone else, for the Koran commands love among