When the Moon Is Low(10)

“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.





CHAPTER 5


Fereiba


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.