Tasting the Sky Read Online Free Page B

had brought the cucumber.
    â€œMirriam, do you really think it can replace water?” he had exclaimed in the darkness before we fled.
    â€œI imagine so,” she replied. Imagine was Mother’s favorite word. In Arabic, she would say batkhayyal, which also means “to see the shadow of a thought,” as if one is separated from it by a thin cloth. Mother seemed to dwell behind this veil, gaze through it, and long for uniting with its other side.
    Now, standing only one step away from Mother, I could see that she had slipped behind that veil. Silently I begged her to come out and see me. But her gaze only floated far away to the horizon. When she finally spoke, the words were not directed at me.
    â€œI hear something in the distance,” she whispered, so as not to disturb the spider-thread perception connecting the sound to her ear, “perhaps an engine.”
    A fierce look came over my father’s face. He closed his eyes, cupped his ears, and opened his mouth, as if to swallow the sound upon capturing it. He asked us all to listen; then he instructed that we hold hands and run behind him. “If it’s a vehicle, I will stop it no matter what it takes,” he vowed.
    At the center of the road, he flung his arms open, ready to embrace a broad destiny. He implored the men standing by the roadside to join him. Many did, including a man who was carrying a gun. They huddled together, looking into one another’s eyes to find courage, forming a human barrier,
with terror the mortar that held them close. Everyone seemed to understand the strategy, and in no time other men formed new barriers along the road.
    The noise now became increasingly loud, its diesel hum goading everyone’s desperate hopes and deepest worries. People pushed one another in every direction as they fought to get closer to the road. My brothers and I planted our bodies where we could see our father, as if we were a compass needle and he was our North.
    The source of the noise soon appeared as a white water tanker emerged from the silver spot on the horizon. People cried out to God in gratitude and jumped high in the air as if to deliver the words in person. But instead of slowing down, the tanker increased its speed as it approached the first group of men in its way. The men dashed to the side of the road at the last moment, and the tanker cut through them like a comb parting hair.
    Then the water tanker approached Father and the barricade he had formed with the others. They raised their voices, promising that it would not pass through. They chanted that God is mightiest and asked for His help, which it seemed they would certainly need as it roared closer and closer. But then, when it was almost upon them, it screeched to a stop.
    Quickly, people stuck themselves to the white truck like ants on an abandoned candy bar. Men climbed the giant balloon-shaped metal tank. Women, almost all of them carrying children, cried as it quickly became clear that the water tanker could transport only a small number of those
waiting. The majority of families standing beside the road would be left behind.
    Mother instructed my brothers and me to respond to all of her directions with the speed of a bullet. The three of us, who had become more like soldiers than children that day, nodded our heads in compliance.
    Her directions were given upon hearing Father’s voice, which came to us through the clash of many noises. But Mother seemed to understand every word. When he asked us to move closer, she commanded that my brothers climb up the tanker, find a way to fling their bodies on the windshield and block the driver’s view. She then pulled me up by the arm and ordered that I squeeze myself among the bodies or, if I must, seep through them like water, but get myself to stand on the truck step, hold the door handle, and not let go. “Ibtisam, fight with everything in you,” she roared.
    I do not know how they did it, but Basel