Grapes & Pomegranates

“Go home!” said the daycare centre’s assistant. “There is war!” she urged without a smile. War? What is war? I must have thought. But the way in which she said it meant that it was not a good thing. Home? Already? At least, that is a good thing. Father, Mother, Sister, Brother, and Cat! As I walked home, I noticed people along the way rushing to and fro. One couple especially caught my attention. They were filling empty bottles with water from a faucet in their garden. It was unusual and therefore strange. When they saw me, they also urged me to get home. I began to run.

Father and Brother were building a ditch in our garden between the grapevine and the pomegranate tree. I wanted to join in and play the game, but Brother told me to stay put and watch as they covered the large hole in the ground with long wooden planks. “What is it for?” I must have asked. “To protect us from the bombs,” replied Brother. Father’s face looked serious, too serious. I ran towards him and kissed him on his wet cheek. He smiled and told me to go inside and help Mother and Sister.

Mother was preparing food, and Sister was putting bottles of water in a box. When Mother saw me, she told me to go outside and help Father and Brother. I must have been confused. Cat was watching Mother as she was packing all that food. Usually, when I returned home, it would rush to greet my caressing hand. But today, all the scents emanating from the kitchen must have been more pleasurable.

Father and Brother had finished their game. I wanted to enter the hole, but Father would not let me. “It is too dirty,” he said. “We will only enter it if it becomes necessary,” he added. “The war is still far away. Besides, we will never enter it,” said Brother. “We will beat the Arabs before they get the chance to get here,” he added. “Who are the Arabs?” I must have asked. “Our enemies. They want to kill us all,” replied Brother. Father seemed reflective. He was probably thinking about the Arabs whom he had left in the old country. Suddenly, we heard the noise of planes. We could trace three of them far above in the sunny sky.

The pomegranate tree was filled with fruit. I took one and asked Father to peel it for me. “Not now!” he said. “Later, after lunch!” The grapevine was also fruitful. And as I savoured the sweetness of the grapes, I must have forgotten about the redness of the pomegranate seeds. Father told me to wash the grapes before eating them, but that entailed more waiting, and I was not fond of that activity. When he finally looked away, I resumed my tasty feast. But Brother caught me. I ran inside with a few grapes still in my hands. Mother washed them for me and asked Sister to play the grape game with me. It consisted of stripping a large grape of half its skin and then turning the other half inside out while leaving it still attached to the grape, thus creating a tiny cup. Then, by squeezing another grape into this little cup, you got grape juice in a grape cup. I loved that game, and even decades later, once in a while, I still played it. But the grapes never seem to taste as good as those from my younger days.

It was 1967; the Six-Day War; we apparently won. A Syrian plane chased by two Israeli ones was shot down about five kilometres from our house. We never entered that hole in the ground, but I recall that we kept it intact until the rains destroyed it with their wrath. We finally celebrated my fourth birthday in which pomegranate seeds seemed to have stolen the show. And yes, the cat finally got a name, which escapes my memory now. After all, many more felines followed that original one, and most of them remained nameless. I probably remember only those that really mattered, like Mitsi, the one that loved me best.

One last thing, I suppose. There was a green light in the sky between the Israeli planes and the Syrian one. It did not remain green for long, becoming blue as soon as the planes disappeared in the azure horizon.