The Lemon Tree
Tensions build between a child and a tree, both grappling for the attention of a mother.
The lemon tree was a gift from our neighbor, and my mother planted it in our garden. Short, squat, and ugly, it seemed on the verge of death, as if deep within its bark the flames of life were sputtering out, one after the next. My mother tended to the tree with fate-defying determination, striving to bring its whole soul—and not an ounce less—back to life. Day after day she watered it, told it stories, and cracked jokes. She’d chuckle, then throw her head back and guffaw, her laughter rising higher and higher while the tree stood motionless, as impassive as a somber mountain. Then, one by one, she would caress its mottled leaves, so tenderly that surely, I thought, affection was seeping out of her fingertips and into the tree. Whenever she went for a walk, she always asked me to water it, but I never did.
Not long after the tree entered our home, my mother took a trip to the village for some reason I cannot recall. She was gone for over a month, during which time none of us watered the growing tree. Its leaves curled as if embracing or comforting themselves, and many turned yellow and fell to the ground. The soil cracked, and we could practically see down into the depths of the earth. Fissures formed long, branching mouths, each yawning open and screaming in muffled voices that we, my mother’s sons and daughters, did not hear—and even if we had, we wouldn’t have done a thing. We each harbored our own private hatred for the tree.
We each harbored our own private hatred for the tree.
I resented the little tree to the point of loathing, especially when it jabbed me with its painful thorns, which I felt certain it did on purpose. I’ll never forget its first day at our house: a few hours after it was planted, I broke my right arm. I was nine years old and always doing somersaults, but that day it was as if something lifted me into the air. I felt weightless, like a bubble floating slowly, desperately, through the sky; whatever it was lifted me higher, then hurled me at the ground with the force of an evil bullet racing to end someone’s life. My arm struck a medium-sized cement block in the courtyard where I often sat to draw in the sand, and despite how gentle-natured the block was, it shattered the bone.
My mother planted the tree in a special basin along a little path between our house and the neighbor’s. The path led to an open-air room with a corrugated metal roof where my mother often napped or watched television. I think she preferred that spot because she wanted to be near the tree while it sprouted its leaves and extended its branches, as if she wanted to observe the process of growth itself, something only God can truly see in his astute observation of all beings.
The tree’s closeness and connection to my mother was what bothered me most, even more than its thorns, which stabbed my arms and made them look like colanders from all the punctures. Brown scabs formed on my skin, reminding me of the thorns that had pierced me, and this only angered me more.
“This tree is useless,” I complained one day, wiping blood from my skin. “It’s at least four years old and hasn’t produced a single lemon. I don’t understand why you’re so devoted to it.”
The following day, however, the tree surprised us with lemons. We were amazed by the succulent green fruit. But my mother said something to the effect of, “It’s not unusual. Lemon trees hide their fruits deep in their leaves. You have to make an effort to see them, and even more to pick them.”
My mother said something to the effect of, “It’s not unusual. Lemon trees hide their fruits deep in their leaves. You have to make an effort to see them, and even more to pick them.”
Sometimes when I was bored, I scratched its trunk with a metal rod, carving letters and numbers into its bark. Once I drew a heart with an arrow through it; that was the day my love swelled for the boy next door, son of the neighbor who’d given my mother the tree. That love was like a shooting star, blazing quickly and disappearing without a trace. The tree always took revenge on me, though; on that occasion, its thorns left a long scratch on my arm, instead of simply pricking my skin like it usually did. Another time it hooked my arm with a long, curved thorn, and I screamed, howled, and cursed as I struggled to free myself. I swore it must have grown that thorn just to impale me.
My relationship with the tree was one of hidden enmity when my mother was present, and open hostility in her absence. I sensed it mocking me, even sticking out its tongue, though this impression was admittedly mixed with a degree of imagination.
When a friend of my father’s came to prune its branches, I delighted in the tree’s pain and kept waiting to hear it cry out, but it never gave me the pleasure. I was happy it couldn’t reach me with its branches anymore. But in less than a month the tree had grown larger than before, as if racing against time itself, and I worried it was plotting to take over the whole house. When it continued to grow, my mother decided to demolish the veranda. This was one of her few initiatives that my father opposed, but in the end he conceded, after he and my mother argued at length. He agreed to tear it down—but for her sake, not the tree’s, he explained, hoping I didn’t get the wrong idea and reassuring me that he was on my side, against the damn tree.
I had a suspicion that came and went, materializing for an instant before vanishing like a cowardly mouse, that this was more than just a lemon tree—it was a host of spirits, of things, of people. Sometimes, when I was sleeping in the courtyard, I dreamed the tree was moving, opening the door, and walking to the end of the street; I could see its shadow in the light of the moon, spreading over my body as if the tree were standing at the foot of my bed, watching me or casting an evil spell. When I awoke, a heavy feeling gripped my heart and always stayed with me for the rest of the day. This vision recurred again and again until I could no longer tell whether it was a dream or reality; in that hazy liminality between wakefulness and sleep, I actually saw the tree wandering through the courtyard. Once I woke my mother, screaming and terrified, but in the slenderest of moments between my scream and her eyes opening, the tree returned to its basin.
My mother chastised me when she saw the tree where it should be. “Don’t let your imagination run away with you,” she told me. “Close your eyes and go back to sleep.” That night, I decided not to sleep in the courtyard again, no matter how hot it grew in my small room with the rickety fan.
My mother collapsed in tears when, after a month, she finally returned from the village and saw the tree in the grips of thirst—its soul being sucked, slowly and deliciously, from its body. I stood watching, surprised at her exaggerated reaction. But the thing that struck me with fever for three days and nights was the sight of the tree, bending over my mother as she sat hugging its trunk. Then, how it stood upright again, just before it let out a soft, conspiratorial laugh and gave me a sly wink.
Translation from the Arabic
