What people only whisper about is the good that has come from all the leaving: money. And this reminds me of when Sitti used to tell me stories. ...

It was not so long ago and it was every evening.

“Sitti, Sitti, tell me a story.”

My grandmother would shake out her legs and then fold them up again.

Sit down, my child, and I will tell you a story that will make you laugh. It is a story from just before your lifetime. Come here, sit close to me, but first bring me that dish of figs that your mother picked this morning. There is nothing more delicious in the world than a fresh fig.

Thank you. Now, come sit closer to me, Mawal, and let me tell you this story, for it has been on my mind and I want to remember it.

Once upon a time, a long time ago, well, actually it was not so long ago, on a Friday morning. ... Who could have known how different that day would be from the hundreds of other Friday mornings in Nawara? The reason? Our mosque.

No, not the only mosque. You have seen that old mosque, my dear. Hundreds of years ago, that was the center of the village, and until that Friday when the mosque that Karim Sulayman had paid for to be built was opened, if anyone wanted to pray in a mosque, he had to climb up the narrow, overgrown paths and trip down rocky slopes to reach the west corner of the south hill. ...

Yes, my child, near where the settlements are now. It is such a tiny mosque, and so undistinguished. It didn’t even have a minaret and it must have been there since the time of the Prophet, God bless him and grant him salvation.

No, no one uses it now. Those who live on the settlements have no interest in old mosques, but that is another story and let’s not spoil a good story with such an ugly one. Now, where was I?

Oh yes. Well, as you know, this village has changed a lot over the years. I remember before the Catastrophe, when I was a young girl and just married, Nawara was a village of farmers. Everyone had sheep and goats and land to cultivate and satisfaction from these things. As the years passed and the changes our country was suffering began covering us with their tentacles, many young men realized that not only would they not have a future if they were to remain and work on the land or follow in their father’s trade, as was expected of them, but that they might not survive at all. Certainly this was especially true in the fifties and sixties when there was a huge exodus of men who went abroad not just to become wealthy, but to survive.