The Locust and the Bird Read Online Free PDF

orchards. Mostly she took me with her and left my brother with a neighbour. On the way there we kept to the fields, crossing public roads and going down into the valleys. Time and again I would stop, so tired and my feet aching so much that I wanted to lie down to rest. But Mother would keep going and I knew I had to keep up. When we reached the field, Mother would find me a place under a tree, clear the ground of insects and anything damp, then spread out a sack for me to sit on. When she finished picking the fruit from the trees close by, she moved me along with her to keep me near. I had no sense of time; I kept singing, eating oranges, lounging about and listening to the songs of the workers and the gentle rustle of fruit being picked from the trees. I poked ants with a twig but left hornets alone.
    Sometimes, instead of going straight home, Mother would take me to the River Litani to bathe. We made our way through the hills and valleys till the river appeared amidst the curving lines of rock and sparse foliage. When we reached the oleander trees – each one candy pink in colour and looking almost like an entire house made up of branches – we would stop. I would dash to the river and stand on the bank among the rocks, while Mother searched for a pumice stone with which to scrub me. Then she would grab my hand and we would wade in, until the water was up to my knees. My skin was white against the rocks and trees. Mother was terrified I would slip and get swept away. Her fear was infectious. I’d stand, petrified, as she scrubbed her own tall body through an opening in her dress.
    Mother seldom smiled and I rarely heard her laugh. But on the last day that we visited the Litani, as she stood in the cool river, to my utter amazement she began to sing:
Oh compassionate friend,
Come and sing with me, and we’ll comfort one another.
    I remember how she poured water over me that day, saying, ‘In the name of God,’ and, ‘Thanks be to God,’ then smiled as she poured water over herself. Her black hair reached almost to her waist. And when she opened her eyes they were big and shining, as if the water had washed away her cares and the monstrous image of Father that hung over us. We came out of the river and walked along the bank collecting blades of lemon grass, folding them into bread with a little salt, and downing them hungrily. Once again Mother gave thanks to God.
    It was the last time I heard my mother thank God before we left our home, the cows, the dog, the donkey, the fields, the Litani, and my friend Apple; before we went to live in Beirut.
    For shortly after that last trip to the river she sat me and my brother down and said, ‘It’s time for us to leave the Litani behind. I’m taking you to Beirut. You can’t spend your whole life eating chard and endive! So say goodbye to everything, because we can’t take it with us.’
    I didn’t know what to think. I was curious to see Beirut, the place that made my mother cry, but at the same time I didn’t want to leave Nabatiyeh. But true to her word, there came the day when she sold the cows, though she cried as she bade them farewell; and she gave the donkey to our Bedouin neighbour Rabiha. Her name meant ‘winner’, which she assured us meant that she always managed to come out on top. The dog seemed to realise his time with us was up and found himself another home.
    It was time for me to say goodbye to my friend Apple, with whom I’d skipped and played jacks with sheep’s knucklebones. Sometimes we would beat on sticks that we’d putup our noses and yell, ‘Karkamah, Karkamah, Lord, let my blood flow.’ And blood would indeed flow as we’d get nosebleeds. This made us terribly happy, because God had responded to our prayers and we knew we’d go to heaven for sure. I told Apple I wouldn’t be away long, but she still began to cry.
    ‘OK,’ I said, ‘I’ll be away for as many days as I have teeth and not one day more,’ an expression I’d heard