Later, six years after this incident, on the stage of the Palace of Culture in Ramallah and at an occasion entirely conducive to praise and gratitude (my reception of the Palestine Award for Poetry), I will stand up to thank the prize committee for choosing me and criticize the leadership, the Authority, and the government, in the presence of the leadership, who are sitting in the front rows of the spacious hall, and in front of a thousand people who have come to attend the celebration. I will call for the correction of mistakes “even at the top of the page,” the “top of the page” being the prime minister seated in the front row alongside most of the Authority’s leading men.

I was born here, Tamim.

I move on with him into the next room, which now belongs to Umm Talal, my uncle’s wife, and from there to the one beyond it.

“Here in this room, three-quarters of a century or more ago, stood your great-grandfather, entirely alone, with his stick carved from an oak tree, his white kufiya, his goat’s-hair head rope, and his long brown mantle, dancing with the reflection of his shadow on this wall opposite the oil lamp because he was so delighted at having obtained the agreement of your grandmother, Umm ‘Ata, to the engagement of his son ‘Abd al-Razeq to her daughter Sakina — the very beautiful, very intelligent girl with the green eyes and smooth chestnut hair who was the cleverest girl in the school and the prettiest in the village. An old man alone in a large gothic room with a dome, piers, and walls so white the plaster shone, dancing with his own shadow, bending right and bending left and shaking his stick ecstatically in the air in each direction, no music accompanying his dance but the silence of the night and the hissing of the lamp, no companions about him to share his wondrous celebration but the beating of his heart and the surges of a joy that couldn’t wait for the morning’s sun.”

Tamim was clearly bemused.

“Who told you that story, Dad?”

“Your aunt, Umm al-Nahed. She said she went to see him at Dar Ra‘d and found him dancing with his shadow and waving his stick in the air without uttering a word. She joined in with him without knowing what the occasion was. She didn’t ask him and he didn’t open his mouth. He kept on dancing and she left him at it.”

We leave the room and go out into the courtyard garden once more.

Tamim wants to see where the huge fig tree had stood, the one that was cut down by my uncle’s wife because she couldn’t find anyone to eat its fruit any more, and the different rooms of the Ra‘d house — my uncle ‘Ata’s, my uncle Abu Muti‘’s, and Abu Hussein’s — along with the mosque, the square, the village guesthouse, the school, and ‘Ein al-Deir spring, and to make a tour of the whole village. Tamim says nothing but his eyes never stop talking and I hear his eyes well, this being the job of fathers and mothers. I wish that by a miracle he could see all four seasons at Deir Ghassanah at the same instant, see the huge almond trees — first sun-dappled, then bare, then wet, then covered in fruit — at the same time. I want the birds to come all together in all their kinds, with their names, their colors, their silences, and their beaks, so that he can see them as a single flock. I want al-Sa‘id Dhib’s mare to pass us now, neighing and striking the Ruweis road with her hooves before his ears and eyes. Tamim wants his imagination to be translated into stones. I want the stones to put strength back into my middle-aged imagination that has stuck with me all my life. This is not the time to think about the mystery behind the disappointment that comes with every return and how knowledge of the past spoils the present that is before one’s eyes. Tamim’s past in Deir Ghassanah has yet to be formed. He has no disappointments and nothing has spoiled his expectations yet. Disappointment afflicts those who would like to recover their past, not those who have no past. I say to myself, let me then be silent and let him see.

After the drinks in the courtyard that hospitality requires, we excuse ourselves to Umm Talal and leave, with a promise to return later for lunch.

Tamim says, “I’ll be able to tell the places on my own. I’m going to walk in front of you.”

No one gets lost in Deir Ghassanah. I tell him to try.

He steps over the high lintel of the gate to Dar Ra‘d. Before us are the hills, the Ruweis and Sahayil fields, the road to ‘Ein al-Deir, and a fence of cactus, its spiny paddles in a row overlooking the road that runs around the village. We turn left into the lane that leads to the village square.

He points to his right and says, “That’s Dar Salih.”

He crosses the square to its far end and stands on the built-in bench.

“This is the village guesthouse.”

We pass the village guesthouse and go to the guesthouse of Shaykh Matar, say hello to the people there, and resume the tour at a leisurely pace.

After a while, a very thin person whom I don’t know greets us. Husam speaks to him for a little and then tells him jokingly, “Tell Abu Tamim what happened to you at the Hebrew University. Tell him why they threw you out of your job. This is the son of …”—he mentions a name. “Do you remember him?”

Husam’s question embarrasses me as I don’t recognize the man and don’t hear clearly the name that Husam mentions. I ask him, “What happened?”

“Before the Intifada, a long time ago, they gave me a job at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.”

“As a teacher at the university?” I ask him.

“Heavens no! Me? A teacher? I can’t read or write.”

“What job did they give you at the university?”

“Monkey keeper.”

“Monkey keeper?”

“Monkey keeper in the labs, the university labs. Experimental monkeys. They call them ‘experimental monkeys,’ cousin.”

“How many monkeys?”

“Six or seven.”

“And what were your tasks?”

“I was supposed to feed the monkeys at set times. They gave me tins of milk so I said to myself, now you’re in clover. I drank the milk, of course. I’d drink three quarters of it or more and give a sip or two to each monkey and no one had any idea what was going on. There wasn’t a single tin of milk in our entire village.”

“And they found out, of course.”

“They saw that I was getting healthier and the monkeys were close to dying of hunger. They threw me out. Those were good times, I swear.”

“And then what?”

“Then there was the Intifada and you couldn’t find work for love or money, God help us.”

I look around me for Tamim and find him holding Abu Hasan by the hand.

Abu Hasan is ninety years old, or a little less, and can hardly see, though with his clean double-breasted robe, white head cloth, and rope retainer tipped a little to one side he looks younger.

Tamim says that the moment the man sensed he was close to him he seized his hand.

“Take me to the mosque, son.”

Tamim says to me, “I didn’t know what to tell him. How could I explain to him that I’d only set foot in the village two hours ago and I didn’t know where anything was? I was too embarrassed to explain so I took his hand and said to him, ‘This way, please.’”

“Hasan won’t be coming this week. He won’t be taking me to the mosque. You take me to the mosque.”

“After two or three steps, he almost tripped over a stone in a narrow alleyway between the houses. When I told him to take care, he started telling me the story of the alleyway and how he was the one who’d drawn a line there with his hoe to stop the late Abu Yusuf from encroaching on the property of the late Abu Zuheir. ‘I stuck my hoe in the ground and said, “This is where you stop.”’ He paused and suddenly looked at me suspiciously. I could see him squinting like someone who wants to be sure of who it is he’s seeing. Then he asked me, ‘Who are you?’”