Tasting the Sky by Ibtisam Barakat Read Free Book Online

door, smiling at our victory.
    The room where my father and I slept at Abu Omar’s was at the edge of a garden that surrounded a stone villa. We unlatched the gate. The garden was filled with plum, lemon, and fig trees, and had a row of jasmine, rose, and hibiscus bushes. The hibiscus blossoms rolled themselves like cigarettes when they went to sleep. But the jasmine could never sleep. Its star flowers were forever wide-open, giddy with fragrance.
    A narrow bed, a wooden table, and a kerosene lamp awaited us. Everything was quiet. My father warned that any noise could wake up Abu Omar and make him angry; then Dad might lose his job and there would be no more of the soda he brought home every day. I nodded in silence, avoiding even a whisper.
    In the morning, Abu Omar and his three grown daughters greeted us. He and my father talked about the day’s work while the daughters left to make tea and a breakfast of fried eggs, sour yogurt, apricot jam, and sesame butter.
    The three daughters reminded me of Mother when she was happy. They had long, dark braids ending with colorful ribbons. They spoke softly and, when giggling, hid their teeth with their hands. They took turns gesturing toward me, encouraging me to join them. Alarmed, I shook my head. They ignored that. To tempt me further, they brought
out a box of candy. But I felt they were insisting too much on separating me from my dad. I got mad at them.
    When breakfast arrived, I was too anxious to eat or hold on to anything other than my dad. It became clear that I would not let go of him. So Father assured Abu Omar that my presence wouldn’t distract him from the day’s work.
    But the daughters would not give up coaxing me to remain with them. They brought a cloth sack filled with toys, whistles, and balls, and poured it out before me. “Choose the ones you like,” they offered.
    I only wanted my dad, who was now rising from his seat, heading to a sink to wash his hands. I thought he was leaving. Worry welled up inside me like a wave. Unable to stand, I threw myself onto the floor behind him. I wrapped my arms around his feet and cried inconsolably. At last the girls seemed to understand. They returned the toys to the cloth sack and handed it to my father. “For her,” they said. But I did not want toys.
    I spent days and nights glued to my dad. The shopkeepers where we delivered the soda began to expect to see me. After pulling the crates into their shops, they poked their heads inside the truck window and asked me about my foot. They tossed mounds of candy in my lap that I chewed for hours. But I always kept some of it for my brothers.
    My foot finally healed, and feeling stronger, I no longer insisted on being with my father all the time. Soon my parents bought me a pair of chocolate-brown boots. I could wear them whenever I wanted, not only for important occasions.
Basel and Muhammad taught me how to lace and unlace them, and I practiced and practiced until I could do it easily.
    Now I walked again, ran and played in the streets like a monkey. On the final follow-up at the hospital, the doctor smiled as though it were his own foot that had healed. “We won the battle,” he said, shaking my foot affectionately, the way one shakes the hand of a friend.

Lentils
    Hamameh’s children, my brothers, children from dozens of other homes, and I played along a street that split our neighborhood like a spine. As we crossed back and forth, the cars slowed down. But one day, a car nearly struck a boy. He was not injured, but his legs shook under him like leaves in the wind. With his face pale as a lemon, he lay on the street, crying. He said no each time the driver tried to lift him.
    Then the boy’s mother came, hurtling toward us, not knowing whether her child was alive or dead. She was a frenzy of fear. We looked on as she pounded the driver’s chest. The man took the blows and remained silent as a stone. Seeing his mother’s