Summary

Chapter 2 is structured as a flashback through the childhood of the protagonist in Nablus. It opens with a description of time in the latter years of the Ottoman Empire, as different groups struggled to adapt or maintain their traditional modes of keeping time, each with their different calendars or astronomical methods. The vignette quickly switches to Midhat’s family and an account of his early move from within the old city walls of Nablus to a home near the foot of Mount Gerizim. Haj Taher, Midhat’s father, was a successful merchant who commuted between Nablus, Cairo, and the Golan Heights to the north of Midhat’s city. In the years after the death of Midhat’s mother, he began to search for a new wife in Cairo, choosing a woman named Layla. After remarrying, he visited Midhat and his own mother—Teta, or...