“Since then that mulberry tree and every other mulberry tree has borne fruit that stains the color of the blood that united those two hearts, a stain that nothing can wash away.”
Asad had listened intently but, when Boba-
jan
finished his story, looked disappointed to have no one to blame for his permanently stained shirt. With a huff, he picked it up from the floor near me.
“It’s old anyway. I have better shirts.”
I WAS THINKING OF BOBA-
JAN
’S STORY AS I STROLLED THROUGH
the bazaar a year later in search of plump dates for our
iftar
. There
was a lightness to my step as I was eager to get home and share my good news. I’d been awarded the second-highest marks on a mathematics exam. Loud enough for all to hear, my teacher had announced, “Fereiba, nearly perfect score, second only to Latifa. Very good.”
I knew Boba-
jan
’s eyes would twinkle with pride in that way that spoke more than words. I wanted to get the dates and make it home early enough to see my grandfather.
Sheragha owned a store packed with barrels of spices and dried goods: whole walnuts, fragrant cardamom, rock salt, brilliant turmeric powder, and fiery peppers. Though I found his store to be the most colorful and pleasing to the senses, Sheragha seemed less taken by it. He walked with a slow and heavy step. The width of two men, his forehead glistened with sweat even in the frigid cold of winter. I was rarely successful haggling down this particular vendor, but today he seemed to be in a generous mood. I kept my head bowed and took the sack of dates from him, careful not to brush against Sheragha’s thick, hairy fingers.
Before I headed home, I adjusted the
chador
on my head and counted the coins I had in my pouch. KokoGul would be impressed. Content with my own triumph, I didn’t notice the shadow following me into the narrow side street. Two coins fell from my hands into the dusty road. I crouched to pick them up when I heard footsteps and words so filthy my face burned red. The coins slipped through my fingers as I leaped to my feet and turned. Just inches from me stood one of the leering boys from the marketplace. I took a step back and scowled. His long hair hung over his forehead. His eyes were dark and closely placed. He smirked, baring a yellow, gap-toothed sneer.
“Where are you off to? Why not stay awhile? I’ve got some
nakhod
in my pocket. Go ahead and take some,” he said, sneering as he held his pant pocket open enough for a few dried chickpeas to fall out.
“Be-tarbia!” Brute,
I yelled. I turned and fled, willing the warped leather of my old sandals to hold together as I hurried to the main road. The boy laughed behind me.
I exploded into the kitchen, sweating. KokoGul was cutting chunks of raw meat and tossing them into a pot of sizzling onions.
“Oh,
dokhtar
!” She called out, shooting me a look of surprise and warning. She pointed the tip of her knife at the corner of the kitchen where a bundle sat against the wall, wrapped in a coarse green blanket. KokoGul was making yogurt and it needed absolute stillness for the culture to take. “You have the grace of an elephant.”
“Forgive me,” I panted.
“What’s going on? You look wild.”
I was too embarrassed to recount what had happened.
“I was afraid I would be late to help with dinner.”
“You
are
too late. It’s almost ready. Wash up and make a salad at least. My back is beginning to ache. Did you bring the
khormaa
?” she asked, remembering the task she had given me in the morning.
“I did.” I pulled the sack of dates from among my school supplies and handed her the change that remained. She counted the coins, short the few that I had left behind in my hasty escape.
“They look fresh. Whose store did you go to?”
“Sheragha. His mood was even worse than usual,” I said, hoping to explain how much money had gone toward the dates. KokoGul clucked her tongue and put the sack to the side.
“From that bear’s paws, nothing escapes. Go on into the living room. Your grandfather’s been waiting to see you.”
I sidestepped the living room and went to wash up. I was convinced my grandfather would see right through me in a way KokoGul never could. I couldn’t look at him with the flush of embarrassment still on my cheeks.
Another day,
I thought and put my exam in my room.
IN MY LAST YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL, THE ORCHARD DREW ME IN
more than ever, the fruit-laden branches like curled fingers beckoning me to enter. In the cradle of peach trees, sucking on the gummy, amber-colored sap I’d peeled from the trunk, I considered what I might do after my graduation. Some girls were going on to university. Others were becoming teachers. Many would be married. I wasn’t sure what I wanted, but I had no interest in marriage and the household that would come along with it.
When my chores were completed, I would slip into the orchard with a book. The grass felt cool against my feet, its soft blades tickling my toes. I would read with my back against a mulberry tree or sometimes lying on my stomach. My sisters asked me why I was so drawn to the mulberry trees and I told them it was there that I dreamt best.
“What do you dream about?” they would ask.
“I dream about tomorrow.”
“What will happen tomorrow?”
“I don’t know. I can’t remember what happens, but I wake feeling that it is amazing. A story worth telling.”
It was that summer that my grandfather fell ill with a bitter, relentless cough. He lay in bed for days, nursing cups of herb tea meant to exorcise disease from the body. I watched his heavy breathing, perspiration on his upper lip. Padar-
jan
summoned a doctor who gave an injection and then left two bottles of pills. I held the cup of water to his lips to wash the chalky tablets down.
I went to see him almost daily, hoping for signs of improvement. But his face paled even as his fever spiked red and hot. On my fourth visit, I made him soup and sweet tea. He took no more than a few sips before begging me to let him rest.
We called for the doctor again. Boba-
jan
looked so frail and small in his bed. I longed to see him stand up, reach for his cane, and walk to the kitchen. My father and I were at his side most of the time, but neither of us spoke of just how weak Boba-
jan
looked. Padar-
jan
did not say much at all but that was his way, as if he was afraid of his own voice.
“Fereiba-
jan,
” my grandfather called out.
“Yes, Boba-
jan
?”
“My sweet granddaughter. You’re nearly finished with high school, are you not?”
“Yes, Boba-
jan
. Just this year left.”
“Good, good. And what will you do after you have completed your high school studies?”
“I’m not sure, Boba-
jan
. I was thinking of college but . . .” His eyes were half closed. I let my voice trail off, thinking he’d fallen asleep. He hadn’t.
“But what?”
I had no answer for him. I shrugged my shoulders and wiped his forehead with a cool cloth.
“Fereiba, you have watched your father in the grove, haven’t you? His talents come alive there. I taught him what I could when he was a
boy, but before he became a man I could see there was more he could show me. He is a master at cultivating and grafting trees.”
This was true. One winter, I’d watched my father strip a carefully selected scion from an apple tree. I followed him to the edge of the orchard where he had picked out a well-rooted apple tree of a bright red-skinned variety. Humming, he’d stroked the bark and circled the trunk, looking for the perfect place to introduce the graft. With surgical precision, he sliced into a branch at an angle, creating a lip that he pulled back. Into the opening, he slid the tapered end of the scion, placing the two raw faces in direct contact, an interface of two species. He continued to hum as he bound the scion to the host with long strips of cloth that circled the joint. He covered the tip of the scion and its three buds with a paper bag, shielding it from the drying air. By spring, we had a new kind of apple from a sapling branch that should have withered and died. Instead, two living, breathing species were made into a new fruit unique to our orchard, a fruit of my father’s creation.
“I wish your father could carry his talents into his home, but they seem to dry at the threshold. That leaves things in your hands, Fereiba-
jan
.” Boba-
jan
shook his head. I wanted to disagree, to tell him my father was nothing like KokoGul, but he continued.
“Even your brother has found his way, without obligation to anyone. I do not know who is to blame. He has the body of a horse but the mind of an ass.”
“But you have always looked out for me,” I said, holding his hand.
“Maybe I am hard on your father because he is too much like me. You, you are different. More like your mother, may Allah give her peace. She could see beyond her nose. With her, your father was better. It’s too bad. She would have made a man out of him.”
My legs were going numb, sitting beside Boba-
jan,
but I dared not move. I wanted to remember every word of what he was saying.
“No use speaking of such things. You are an intelligent girl. Trust yourself to know what’s best for you.”
“You always know what’s best for me, Boba-
jan
. I can always turn to you.”
“It’s best not to depend on the gray haired. We’re too close to God to rely on,” he warned with a tired sigh.
He was exhausted, so I changed the subject and talked to him about the rosebushes growing outside his home. I told him about the chicken vendor who had to chase his clucking hens down the market street when a child opened the latch on the cage. He smiled and nodded, his eyes drifting off as sleep overcame him.
I kissed his hand and promised to return in the morning, but some time between then and sunrise, Boba-
jan
left to be with God and my mother. I wondered if the angel from the orchard had come to claim him. I wept for two weeks, away from my father and KokoGul and my siblings. I wanted to be as alone as I felt, and the only place I could do that was in the thick of the orchard.
FORTY DAYS AFTER MY GRANDFATHER’S PASSING, I WENT WALKING
among the fruit trees. Boba-
jan
’s death made me think of the angel from my childhood again, though I was fairly convinced he was nothing more than my youthful imagination toying with me. Still, I had the fleeting thought that if I saw him, I’d like to ask him about my grandfather and mother.
Behind a row of mulberry trees was our neighbor’s orchard, separated from ours by a high clay wall. As I spent more time in the shade of the mulberry trees, I began to feel I wasn’t alone. It was different from the time I’d seen my guardian angel. This time the presence felt earthly. This time the presence sneezed.
I sat up straight, suddenly very self-conscious. I closed my book and straightened my skirt, looking all around me for the source of the sneeze. There was not even a bird in sight. I was walking around the trees when I heard a rustle of leaves from just beyond the perimeter
wall and a thump, followed by the sound of running feet. Someone had been watching me!
In the following days, I wasn’t sure if I should return to that corner of the orchard. But, in my heart, I knew the mulberry tree had always brought me good fortune, so I wandered through the brush again, walking quietly and listening closely. A week later, I crept along the wall and looked up into the neighbor’s trees. I was surprised to see a pair of legs dangling from a heavy branch.
It was him, I was certain. I tried to get a better view of the rest of him but I could only see his pant legs. Leather sandals hung loosely from his swaying feet.
This had to be the son of the neighboring family. He was a few years older than me, but I had never seen him before. Had my academics not been so delayed, we might have met in school. What was a boy, a young man, of his age doing perched in a tree?
Feeling a bit brazen, I stepped purposefully on small branches and kicked at a rock as I made my way over to the mulberry tree, taking my usual place in its generous shade. With an upward glance, I noticed the legs had disappeared from view. He was hiding! I took out my book and stared at the page, the words blurred together as I asked myself why I’d come out here. After an interminable period of silence, I got up and walked back into the house, hoping I didn’t look as panicked as I felt.
Nothing is foolish to the adolescent. The adolescent acts, without questioning the wisdom of the action. I returned every day after that, slinking through the trees, spying the familiar leather sandals, and taking my place under the mulberry tree. It became routine: school, housework, and orchard. I would stay awake late into the night to work on homework since I couldn’t concentrate in the orchard. After two silent weeks, I decided to let the stranger know I was aware of his presence. The stalemate was driving me mad.
I spent the walk home from school working up my nerve. By the
time I snuck into the orchard that afternoon, I was feeling so bold I barely recognized myself. I walked loudly and approached the wall. When I was sure I was within earshot, I said loudly, but not too loudly, “It’s not polite to stare. It would be more respectful to say
salaam
.”
I heard nothing in reply. Not a single word. Had I imagined the whole thing or was he not here today? Worse yet, perhaps he thought me shameless to speak this way to a stranger. I spent all my time either in a classroom of girls or at home. The only boys of my age that I knew were my cousins. To have any interaction with a boy outside was taboo and I knew it. I was at that age where I needed to be mindful of my comportment, but it was the orchard and I was invisible. I allowed myself some latitude.
That he ignored when I had crossed a line to interact with him disappointed and angered me. I stormed off.