Lunch

by Rebecca Grant (United Kingdom (Great Britain))

Making a local connection Palestine

“It might,” Dan declares with considered solemnity, “actually be too hot.” It’s noon. My brother and I are dragging ourselves up a meandering, gravelly path etched into a hillside just outside Jericho, Palestine. The colour of the rockface is something past sandy; it’s more intense and flushed, as if the landscape itself is sunburnt. As we approach the Greek Orthodox monastery that concludes the hike, we are, as the guidebook predicted, subjected to plenty of good-natured hassle from men trying to flog us a donkey ride up the last, and steepest, stretch. My standard rebuff, “I’m enjoying the walk!”, is belied by my face, which resembles a soggy beetroot. It’s when we leave the church that he approaches us. He is sporting a scarlet rucksack, and a black and white keffiyeh shields his head and the back of his neck from the unforgiving sun. Smilingly, he gestures towards his chalk-coloured donkey. We decline, politely, and begin our hike back. He continues walking alongside us, donkey in tow, as we slowly descend down the rough track. He keeps offering a ride, and we mistake his company for entrepreneurial persistence. But we work it out, slowly, through his piecemeal English and our wild gesturing: this is his commute. Every day at dawn, he leads his donkey up this serpentine path. When the monastery closes at lunchtime, the pair of them plod down again. He’s not sold any donkey rides today. By the time we reach the end of the track, Mahmood has invited Dan and I back for lunch. We traverse more parched scree and arrive at a smallish house with no neighbours in sight. Our host ties up his donkey in a fenced-off bit of scrub. “Donkey car park!”, he quips. We are shown onto a patio, which looks onto the sun-seared mountains on one side and the remote tumult of Jericho City on the other. Mahmood begins sweeping the concrete in earnest, then fetches a plastic bottle, adorned with pearls of condensation and filled with an improbably pink liquid. It is ice-cold and tastes of bubblegum, and it’s exactly what we need. Mahmood serves a delicious lunch of fried fish, potato and pickles. He explains that the house behind him is not just home to his young family, but also that of his brother. His bashful six year-old daughter appears, and beams at our round of applause after she counts to ten in English. She half-sits, half-leans on her father’s lap, as he smokes hand-rolled cigarettes and chats. Mahmood is outraged that I’m about to move back to the city where I grew up, but plan to live with friends rather than return to my parents’ home. He makes a passionate appeal to my conscience on behalf of my mum. “When you were sick, she stayed up with you all night. When you were a baby, she fed you. Now, you need to go and look after her.” When he puts it like that, I find it hard to justify. I always took it for granted that I would fly the family nest, whilst retaining the right to pop round for a meal – particularly at those times when there’s too much month at the end of my money. For Mahmood, his family is a part of himself. Their fortunes and failings are tangled up together in reciprocal bonds of care and sacrifice. Dan and I are close, but we split everything in exact halves on Monzo. * August, and the holiday, finishes. We swap the florid hills of Palestine for Manchester’s greyish complexion. Dan is to start his second year at university and I’m going back to work. I tell our mum about Mahmood, and admit to feeling slightly ashamed of my cavalier – even selfish – attitude towards family obligations. Mum is bemused and faintly horrified. She thinks I’m hinting that I want to move back home, and tells me in no uncertain terms that she enjoys having a spare room and is relishing the empty-nest lifestyle. Though I’m welcome round for lunch.