passage with their feet as they go. In this way the path of a raindrop hundreds of thousands of years ago may determine the route of a modern-day walker.
Later, we were walking up a wadi bed towards a refugee camp. The stones of the wadi had been rinsed, turned and graded by its intermittent flow, so it was like walking a cobbled street.
‘These are the most natural paths of the landscape, and certainly the oldest,’ said Messerschmid.
I saw a rounded lump of chert ; bent down and picked it up. It resembled a white eyeball wrapped in layers of brown linen. Messerschmid took the stone from my hand, eyed it back and weighed it thoughtfully.
‘A nice piece of chert, this.’
I told him about the questioning I had received at Tel Aviv concerning my flints. He smiled.
‘Ah, well, you know that chert, a flint, is the favourite stone of the intifada!’
He tossed up the eyeball and caught it again.
‘The young Palestinians have told me that chert is their favourite throwing stone, that it makes the best missile. It’s sharp, hard, and heavy in the hand.’
Toss. Catch.
‘During the first intifada the young ones who took on the Israeli military with chert became known as the “children of the stones”.’
Messerschmid tucked a hank of hair behind his ears. Raja walked on down the path with careful steps. A bulbul fluttered out from a gum tree. Yesterday’s rain soaked down through the karstic pipes into the aquifer 40 million years beneath our feet.
‘Not far from here,’ said Messerschmid, ‘I once came across two chameleons making love in a fig tree. One of them had turned black, the other had turned red. It was unclear which one was enjoying itself.’
Miles later, down in Wadi Zarqa, we stopped at a trough chiselled into a limestone cliff, into which spring water trickled. Messerschmid bent over and drank from the spring with two cupped hands.
‘They call these the bleeding hills, or the crying hills,’ said Messerschmid, pointing to the spring, ‘because they weep water. In January, February, when the proper rainfall happens here, many springs run. They are the consequence of the meeting of geological layers: where karstic limestone encounters marl, the Hebron meeting the Yatta, the water can’t descend further and so it emerges as a spring. The springs run, and the hills weep.’
He indicated a dark slur of stain on the limestone with his little finger.
‘We call such springs “contact springs”. They occur when two different kinds of rock formation encounter one another. Permeable and impermeable combine, and the result is a kind of generosity.’
We left the spring and walked west through hot, still air, past a freshly ploughed field. Sweat beaded on my eyebrows. Mosquitoes buzzed around my head. We passed stands of eucalyptus with their peeling bark, a species introduced by the British, and then among irrigated terraces of aubergine and chilli plants, cages of netting draped with vines, the vegetation startling against the tan soil. I remembered that British army snipers were taught to glance at something bright green just before firing, as the best way to clear the eyes.
Figures appeared on the western skyline, backlit, silhouettes. A ripple of concern passed between Raja and Messerschmid. Settlers? Then a sheep moved onto the skyline to join the figures. Bedouin. Raja relaxed.
Back in Ramallah that night, I walked the streets, enjoying the cool air and the feeling of enclosure that the city and the darkness brought, after the exposure of the day. On waste ground by the side of a busy four-lane road, I passed a skip whose contents had been set on fire, and out of which rose and shifted a column of black smoke. A single trainer hung over the outside of the skip, hitched by its laces to its unseen partner on the inside. I waited to cross the road, while the pedestrian crossing flashed its orders: WALK, DON’T WALK; WALK, DON’T WALK .
11
Roots
On pilgrimage — ‘Bees of the
Later, we were walking up a wadi bed towards a refugee camp. The stones of the wadi had been rinsed, turned and graded by its intermittent flow, so it was like walking a cobbled street.
‘These are the most natural paths of the landscape, and certainly the oldest,’ said Messerschmid.
I saw a rounded lump of chert ; bent down and picked it up. It resembled a white eyeball wrapped in layers of brown linen. Messerschmid took the stone from my hand, eyed it back and weighed it thoughtfully.
‘A nice piece of chert, this.’
I told him about the questioning I had received at Tel Aviv concerning my flints. He smiled.
‘Ah, well, you know that chert, a flint, is the favourite stone of the intifada!’
He tossed up the eyeball and caught it again.
‘The young Palestinians have told me that chert is their favourite throwing stone, that it makes the best missile. It’s sharp, hard, and heavy in the hand.’
Toss. Catch.
‘During the first intifada the young ones who took on the Israeli military with chert became known as the “children of the stones”.’
Messerschmid tucked a hank of hair behind his ears. Raja walked on down the path with careful steps. A bulbul fluttered out from a gum tree. Yesterday’s rain soaked down through the karstic pipes into the aquifer 40 million years beneath our feet.
‘Not far from here,’ said Messerschmid, ‘I once came across two chameleons making love in a fig tree. One of them had turned black, the other had turned red. It was unclear which one was enjoying itself.’
Miles later, down in Wadi Zarqa, we stopped at a trough chiselled into a limestone cliff, into which spring water trickled. Messerschmid bent over and drank from the spring with two cupped hands.
‘They call these the bleeding hills, or the crying hills,’ said Messerschmid, pointing to the spring, ‘because they weep water. In January, February, when the proper rainfall happens here, many springs run. They are the consequence of the meeting of geological layers: where karstic limestone encounters marl, the Hebron meeting the Yatta, the water can’t descend further and so it emerges as a spring. The springs run, and the hills weep.’
He indicated a dark slur of stain on the limestone with his little finger.
‘We call such springs “contact springs”. They occur when two different kinds of rock formation encounter one another. Permeable and impermeable combine, and the result is a kind of generosity.’
We left the spring and walked west through hot, still air, past a freshly ploughed field. Sweat beaded on my eyebrows. Mosquitoes buzzed around my head. We passed stands of eucalyptus with their peeling bark, a species introduced by the British, and then among irrigated terraces of aubergine and chilli plants, cages of netting draped with vines, the vegetation startling against the tan soil. I remembered that British army snipers were taught to glance at something bright green just before firing, as the best way to clear the eyes.
Figures appeared on the western skyline, backlit, silhouettes. A ripple of concern passed between Raja and Messerschmid. Settlers? Then a sheep moved onto the skyline to join the figures. Bedouin. Raja relaxed.
Back in Ramallah that night, I walked the streets, enjoying the cool air and the feeling of enclosure that the city and the darkness brought, after the exposure of the day. On waste ground by the side of a busy four-lane road, I passed a skip whose contents had been set on fire, and out of which rose and shifted a column of black smoke. A single trainer hung over the outside of the skip, hitched by its laces to its unseen partner on the inside. I waited to cross the road, while the pedestrian crossing flashed its orders: WALK, DON’T WALK; WALK, DON’T WALK .
11
Roots
On pilgrimage — ‘Bees of the
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