The 'Inner Monastery'

Author, scholar and thinker Hussein Barghouthi, diagnosed with lymphoma, returns to his childhood countryside near Ramallah in Palestine after thirty years in 'exile'. Among the Almond Trees is a poignant, lyrical, philosophical reflection on life and death, art and politics, love and hope. This excerpt is about a monastery atop a mountain he used to visit as a child.

- Hussein Barghouthi

MY mother was an orphan, and for a time had danced and sung at the festivals of the local fellahin. She was adopted by an uncle called Qaddura, a giant of a man, quite robust. He lived with his brother, I believe, in this very monastery. They were armed robbers. Whenever a cow or a mare disappeared, everyone said it was at the monastery, where no one dared to go. One moonlit night, as he was riding his donkey back home, a ‘rogue’ snake struck Qaddura’s right foot. He leapt off at once, and jumped about until the snake withdrew its fangs. By the time he arrived at the monastery, he was exhausted, and may have died right where I am standing at this moment. When I was a child, my mother swore she’d seen that ‘rogue’ snake flying over the moonlit mountains, trilling with joy for having killed Qaddura. The‘Qasaba snake’ had horns like an old bull, she told me, and its hiss made the dry shrubs shiver.