Classic Short Fiction: ‘Among the Problems of the Village’

This story originally appeared in Maroun Abboud’s أقزام جبابرة. Abboud (1886-1962) was a Lebanese poet and writer who lived and worked among the Druze and wrote about village life in Mount Lebanon. Abboud studied various languages, initially pursued priesthood, and later worked as a newspaper editor while writing poetry.

Among the Problems of the Village

By Maroun Abboud

Translated by Amr El-Zawawy

If you have heard of the Hanging Gardens and wish to see them, just visit Lebanon. In Nahour Shemarekh village, the mountains truly resemble hanging villages. While the homes’ glass windows glimmer in the distance like a silver-white lake of liquid, they stand sun-scorched, like clusters of coral. Lights ripple and shift like waves, giving the impression that the houses are swaying in a drunken stupor.

The houses are surrounded by musical gardens and scattered here and there. These gardens seem to proclaim the Creator’s grace and the Earth’s generosity. Singing serenely, birds testify to this blessing, praising their God for the safety and harmony they enjoy.

If you are acquainted with the rugged nature of the land and the resolute spirit of the Lebanese farmer, you’ll understand how their shovels break the stubborn rocks and turn them into fertile soil. Witnessing the protagonists of this story fight and raise Cain over the land in these mountainous terrains is no surprise—the land in Lebanon, particularly in the mountains, is precious.

In Lebanon, villages are rarely controlled by a single landowner. Land is distributed evenly among the people in small portions, with a few exceptions. The soil in this mountainous region is so thin that a plow’s blade would easily reach its depth. So, when you see Abu Faris—the subject of our story—working tirelessly, do not pity him or call him a miserable villager. No, indeed! Abu Faris’ garden yields thousands of pounds in cash today, and here is the story of this shrewd economist and industrious farmer…

It was drizzling, and the laborers were toiling in the trench. All you could hear was the rhythmic bab bab, bab bab, as their shovels struck the earth. Their muscles bulged, veins strained, and eyes leered angrily at the sun, which was shrouded in clouds. They would not leave the trench before completing their day’s labor and receiving their wages in full. They had to toil inhumanely, from dawn to twilight.

The laborers had learned from experience: if they rested for even a quarter of an hour, Abu Faris would dock their pay. A half-hour pause would cost them a quarter of their day’s wages, as calculated by Abu Faris’ meticulous bookkeeping.

Then Abu Fares espied the lush trees of his neighbor, their branches and trunks oozing with sap. He realized they were competing with his own cherished trees for the fertilizer he diligently piled on his land each year. Yet he felt no shame in gathering the fallen leaves from the road, and, if anyone criticized him, he would simply shake his head and retort, “If the thief knew he was only stealing manure, would he even bother?”

Abu Faris was determined to build a trench along the border of his land to stop the roots of his neighbor’s trees from encroaching and erect a wall for protection. He believed this would ensure the integrity of his soil and stop his hard-earned fertilizer from benefiting his neighbor’s trees.

As the workers dug deeper, they discovered an unexpected sight: the trees’ roots intertwined below the surface, indifferent to human-made borders. Above ground, the earth was divided by laws and customs, but beneath, the roots shared the soil in peaceful coexistence. It was as though they mocked human boundary disputes.

The foreman called out to Abu Faris, and he hurried over, wiping dirt and manure off his clothes. When he saw the roots of his trees mingling with his neighbor’s, he paused, stunned by the irony. His resolve wavered. He dismissed the laborers for a short break—something he rarely did—and told them they had done well and could roll cigarettes to smoke. This was the first time they heard the phrase “May your hands be blessed,” for—no matter how diligent and hardworking a worker was—Abu Faris was never satisfied. His motto with the workers was: “Whoever takes my money, I will claim his life.”

Abu Faris pondered the futility of his efforts. He recalled his neighbors, Abu Tannous and Abu Khalil, whose feud over an inch of land had torn their community apart. He couldn’t help but reflect on the triviality of such disputes.

At that critical moment in his life, he glanced upward and saw two withered old men standing in the road. They stood watching Abu Fares’s miserly actions with scorn, displeased that he had hindered them from resolving the intractable “boundary” dispute between Abu Tannous and Abu Khalil, which had divided the village into two factions.

One of the old men said, “Evil is easily sparked; the disagreement was over a handbreadth of land, and now it has become a matter of contention and partisanship, dividing them and disrupting the neighborhood along with them.”

The other sheikh replied, “Don’t worry, the matter will resolve itself in good time.”

They paused, considering their words, when Abu Fares called out, “Abu Youssef, welcome! You’ve come at just the right time. Amm Boutros is with you, please come down. It’s a strange sight! See how little sense we humans possess.”

Abu Youssef replied, “God willing, all will be well.”

He walked with hesitant steps, followed by Boutros, their feet sinking into the scattered dirt as they trudged along. When they approached the trench, Abu Fares exclaimed, “Upon your lives, look! This is the ‘thicket’ of my neighbor’s vineyard, see how far it extends, you people! And this is my almond thicket, heading in the same direction. So, what good has my work done?”

The two old men exchanged glances, their chins trembling, a single thought passing through their minds. They fell silent while the workers joked and laughed around them, as if they hadn’t toiled all day at the most arduous tasks, and as if they didn’t care about what the old men and Abu Fares were doing. All they cared about was prolonging the conversation to extend their break, so they opened their pouches and rolled another cigarette.

Abu Fares grumbled, “By God, that’s a conundrum! Give me your advice.”

“My opinion is that man is of stupid,” Abu Youssef said. “The trees are more perceptive than humans. Abu Tannous and Abu Khalil are consumed by stubbornness and have sold everything they own over a dispute about a boundary, over a handbreadth of land! They’ve divided the village, the neighborhood, and the entire region. They’ve stirred up the whole world! Our tongues have grown weary from pleading with them, and each of them wants to devour his opponent. And the courts of this era—thank God—stretch matters out. The doors of the law are wide open; every time one door closes, the ‘advocates’ open several more.”

“Abu Tannous, come with me. And you, Fares, join us.”

At that moment, two elderly men approached with slow and deliberate steps. Abu Faris invited them to see the tangled roots. The men stood in silence, contemplating the scene. After a while, one remarked, “The trees are wiser than we humans. They live in harmony beneath the earth while we fight over its surface.”

After a while, the three returned, bringing Abu Tannous and Abu Khalil with them. They all stood together, humbled, gazing at the roots like Moses beside the mount, silent as if receiving a lesson in sociology from those mute roots…

The silence stretched on until Abu Youssef spoke: “The trees possess a more complete understanding than we humans. Who among us will take heed?”

Abu Tannous exclaimed, “We understand, we understand, Sir! We have reconciled.”

And Abu Khalil added, “Yes, yes, even if no flour remains in our dough!”

Maroun Abboud (1886-1962) was a Lebanese poet and writer known for his simple, everyday style. He lived and worked among the Druze and wrote about village life in Mount Lebanon, portraying villagers as simple yet authentic. Abboud studied various languages, initially pursued priesthood, and later worked as a newspaper editor while writing poetry. He shared his literary environment with other talents such as Rashid Taqi Al-Din, Ahmed Taqi Al-Din, and Said Akl.

Amr El-Zawawy is Professor of Linguistics and Translation, Faculty of Education, Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt. He has also practiced written and simultaneous translation for more than 20 years now. He contributed important articles to different international scholarly journals, including but not limited to Babel (John Benjamins), Journal of Psycholinguistics, California Linguistic Notes and Advances in Language and Literary Studies. He published a number of books and translations, including Studies in Contrastive Linguistics and Stylistics (Novika, USA), Exploring the Cognitive Processes of Simultaneous Interpreting (Lexington Books, USA), Seminal Studies in Linguistics and Translation (Cambridge Scholars, UK), and Selections from Arabic Poetry (Kindle, Amazon).

More in this series of classic short fiction:

Muhammad Taymour’s ‘A Boy Who Became a Man’