I remembered an old friend who still lives in his old house and doesn't want to change anything about it. It's the only place that still reminds him of his childhood days, and the only place where he finds peace.
I picked up the phone:
"Ahmed, do you remember our friend Mohammed who was with us in elementary and high school? His family's house was nestled among the wheat fields more than sixty years ago?"
"Mohammed, thank God, is still alive. Every time the wheat ripens, he invites us over to eat the freekeh he's cooked over the fire."
"Mohammed was the oldest among us, wasn't he?" Ahmed replied jokingly:
"Not only that, but he'll walk in all our funeral processions! He's the only one who still breathes fresh air, drinks sweet water from the clay jug, and eats directly from his land."
"Are you joking, Ahmed?!" "Give me his number, I miss him." Ahmed replied, his laughter widening:
"He doesn't have a phone!"
"He doesn't have a phone, in this day and age?!"
"If you want, I'll go visit him tomorrow, Friday, and I'll contact you from there..."
***
All night I gathered the plains and mountains of the hill, from its farthest reaches of the vast wilderness to its farthest reaches... memories of farming with animals, memories of sowing, watering, and rain-fed agriculture, and the most beautiful of all, memories of the harvest.
I was floating in the sky above the hill, forgetting phones, cars, and all modern devices, and I saw Ayoush searching with her eyes through the keyhole for the moment Adel would leave for the field with his shovel. And I saw Adel, glancing back at Ayoush's gate as he hurriedly passed by, then saying to himself, "I wish you were mine." It's the same story as my father and mother, and every family in the hill was built with loving eyes, but my father's project was difficult, his profession Building a house required a long journey. So, my mother, while pregnant, sought to build a tandoor oven to bake bread for all the women in the neighborhood. A loaf of bread made from wheat and barley was the ultimate goal; whoever possessed it needed nothing else. We all broke our promise to that loaf of bread, except for Muhammad, who lived the longest because he never betrayed a grain of wheat.
***
I was waiting until late afternoon for my friend Ahmed to call from Muhammad's house so I could talk with my old friend, who remained loyal to his grandfather's land and his grain of wheat. During those moments of waiting, I read a scientific study—the fifth on the same topic—which proved that wheat dough baked in an oven or tandoor into delicious bread is the worst food in the world. Pastries are the primary cause of diabetes because they are quickly converted into sugar, thus exposing people to frightening dangers, including heart disease, or in certain cases, blindness and amputation.
"Wow!" Should I believe science or my mother's bread? That bread was our most important food in life, and we didn't know about these serious diseases until recent decades. I was on the horizon of the rain-fed lands, looking at the sprawling fields of wheat and barley, and I asked myself, what was the great mystery that made the farmers of the hills of that time so healthy and long-lived, with ninety percent of their food being wheat and barley bread?
*** The telephone rang. "Hello, Ahmed! Without further ado, give me Muhammad, the pillar of our ancient history! I want to hear his voice and see his face! Where is Muhammad? You must be joking! This is his son, Ahmed! He does remind me of him, but this can't be our friend Muhammad!" I heard Ahmed chuckle, then he said, "It is Muhammad himself. Didn't I tell you he'd outlive us all and become the oldest person in the world?" I commented, "Longer than the Hunza and Okinawa?" My old friend Muhammad replied, "You've forgotten us, Zuhair! You haven't asked about me for decades. I know what you're saying, Zuhair, and I've read a lot about diabetes, cancer, and other diseases. You blame it all on a single grain of wheat. No single food is the culprit; on the contrary, every food plays its part and complements other foods and behaviors as well." If your body moved freely in clean air and fresh water, if your nerves were free from oppressive misery, if you shared a grain of wheat with the other foods it loved, you wouldn't see the disasters where sugar is so deadly as you do.
- "Do you know, Muhammad, how much I miss our memories?"
- "It's not true that you miss me, not even the sweat of your mother's brow in front of the bread oven and the village flour. Come and spend two months with me in this wonderful sanctuary of life that people have abandoned." Can you believe I've started writing about my own experience in this field? I was listening to my old friend while I imagined myself running to my mother's oven, crying for a piece of her bread that had fallen into the hot ashes.
I replied to my friend:
"Do you know, Muhammad, how to make 'samosas' (a type of sambousak) with purslane in the oven?"
"When you come, Zuhair, your mother's spirit will be there, and she'll tell us how to make sambousak with legumes, olives, and onions..."
*******