How to Care for Our Longest-Living Forced Migrants

A Captive Palm (1879)

by Vsevold Garshin
translated by Olga Zilberbourg

In a botanical garden of a large city, there was a stately conservatory made from iron and glass. The building was a thing of beauty: slender, twisted columns held up the structure; upon them rested sleek ornamented arches, webbed together by iron frames enclosing panes of glass. The greenhouse looked particularly fine in the evenings, when the setting sun flooded it with red light and set it ablaze, bright reflections playing and shimmering as though within an enormous, finely polished gem.

Inside the thick glass stood the captive plants. As large as the building was, the plants were crowded. Their roots tangled in the struggle for moisture and nutrients. Tree branches collided with long palm fronds and bent and broke them, and themselves pushed against the metal frames and broke. The gardeners constantly trimmed the tree branches and tied the fronds with wire to tame their growth, but this only helped a little. The plants needed wide open spaces, their natural habitats, freedom.

Inside the thick glass stood the captive plants. As large as the building was, the plants were crowded. Their roots tangled in the struggle for moisture and nutrients.

They came from hot climes, tender, exquisite life forms; they remembered their native land and longed for it. A glass roof might let you see the sky, but it is not the blue sky itself. 

Sometimes, in the winter, the windows frosted over, and then the conservatory became completely dark. The wind droned, blowing at the frames and rattling them. It piled snow drifts on the roof. The plants stood and listened to the howling of the wind and recalled a different kind of breeze—warm, humid, nourishing, life-affirming—and they wished to feel that touch, to feel that breeze swaying their branches, playing with their fronds. But inside the conservatory, the air was still, and only once in a while a winter storm broke a window, and a harsh, cold stream of air, full of ice, cut through the dome. Wherever that stream passed, the fronds paled, shrank, and wilted.

The windows were quickly fixed. The director of the botanical garden, a responsible, scholarly man, didn’t allow for any disorder, even though he spent most of his time behind a microscope set up in a special glass booth in the main gallery.

One palm tree grew taller and prettier than all the rest. The director, in his booth, called it in Latin, Attalea. But this name wasn’t its own: the name was invented by the botanists. The botanists didn’t know the name given to it at birth, and it wasn’t its own name that was written with coal on a white board nailed to its trunk.

Once a traveler from the same tropical country as the palm tree visited the garden; he smiled, looking at it, because it reminded him of home. 

“Ah! I know this tree,” he said, and called her by her own name.

“Excuse me,” the director—he had been dissecting some kind of stem with a razor— called out from his booth. “You’re mistaken. The tree that you named doesn’t exist. This is Attalea princeps, from Brazil.”

“Sure. I believe you that the botanists named her Attalea, but she also has her native, authentic name.”

“Authentic names are the ones assigned by science,” the botanist said firmly, and locked the door to his booth, so that he wouldn’t be disturbed by people who didn’t have enough sense to listen and learn when a man of science chose to speak. 

The Brazilian visitor lingered for a long time, and as he watched the palm, he grew increasingly sad. He recalled his homeland, its sun and sky, its abundant forests with inimitable animals and birds, its deserts, its magnificent southern nights. He remembered, too, that he had not been happy anywhere outside of his homeland, though he had traveled the world. He touched the palm with his hand, as though saying goodbye, and then left the garden, and the next day, boarded a steamship bound for home.

The palm remained. Unhappy before, now she was utterly miserable. She was completely alone. She towered ten meters above all the other plants, and these others didn’t like her; jealous, they considered her arrogant. The palm’s height brought her only grief; the others were a group, and she was alone, and besides, she remembered their native sky best of all, and longed for the blue the most, being nearest to what was given them as a replacement: the ugly glass roof. Through the roof, the palm could sometimes see something blue; and though foreign and pale, above was nevertheless the sky, the genuine blue sky. And so, when the plants chatted with one another, Attalea remained silent; aching with longing, she imagined standing beneath the sky, how lovely that would feel, even if the sky was so colorless.

The palm remained. Unhappy before, now she was utterly miserable. She was completely alone.

“Tell me, how soon will we be watered?” asked one female sago palm that loved a damp climate. “I might die of thirst today.” 

“I’m surprised to hear this, neighbor,” a manly, plump cactus responded. “How can you complain about the buckets of water they pour over you every day? Look at me: they only give me a few drops, and I’m fresh and juicy.”

“I’m not used to pinching pennies,” the sago palm said. “I cannot grow on the same sandy and poor soil as some cacti. I won’t live like this! And, besides, please kindly keep your opinions to yourself.”

Offended, the sago palm stopped talking.

“As for me, I’m nearly satisfied with my situation,” a cinnamon plant spoke up. “True, it’s a bit boring here, but I can be sure that nobody plucks off my shoots.”

“But it’s not like every one of us was plucked off,” said a tree fern. “Of course, this prison might seem heavenly to those who never valued their freedom.” 

The cinnamon plant, forgetting all about being harvested, took offense at this and began arguing. Some took her side, and others supported the tree fern; a fight broke out. If they could’ve moved, it would undoubtedly have come to fisticuffs. 

“Why are you bickering?” Attalea said. “This won’t do you any good. It will only add anger and frustration to your misery. Stop fighting and think about what we could do. Listen: grow taller and wider, spread your branches, push against the frames and the glass; our greenhouse will crumble, and we will be free. If one branch gets too close to the glass, it’ll be cut off, obviously, but what can they do against a hundred strong and brave bodies? We have to join forces; that’s how we win.”

At first, nobody responded to this: they didn’t know what to say and stayed silent. Finally, the sago palm spoke up.

“That’s stupid,” she said.

“Ridiculous! Absurd!” all the trees spoke at once, trying to prove that Attalea’s idea was complete nonsense. “Impossible dream!” they shouted, “pathetic, inane! The frames are sturdy, and we’ll never break them, and even if we did, then what? The people will come with their axes and knives, they’ll hack off our limbs, they’ll fix the frames, and everything will be same as ever. The only thing we’ll achieve is they’ll cut out chunks from us . . .”

“As you wish,” Attalea said. “Now I know what to do. I will leave you alone: live as you please, bicker as much as you like, fight for the handouts of water, and stay forever under the glass dome. I will find my own way forward. I want to see the sky and the sun unobstructed by the bars and glass—and I’ll see it!”

And the palm proudly looked with her green top down to the forest of her comrades below. None of them dared to respond; only the sago palm quietly said something to its cycad neighbor:

“We’ll see, we’ll certainly see your large head cut off, so that you’ll know your place, big girl!”

The others, though they stayed silent, were angry at Attalea for her uncompromising words. Only one wisp of greenery didn’t get angry at the palm tree and wasn’t offended by her speech. This was the most pitiful and debased little plant of all the plants in the conservatory: a formless pale creeper with thick, drooping leaves. Completely unremarkable, she was only used in the conservatory to cover the naked earth. She wrapped herself around the foot of the large palm, and listened to Attalea, nodding along.

The creeper didn’t know what southern life was like, but she, too, liked air and freedom. For her, too, the conservatory was a prison. “If I, a lowly, limp creeper suffer so much without seeing my gray sky, pale sun, and cold rain, how must this beautiful, powerful tree feel in captivity?” The creeper thought this and tenderly hugged the palm tree and caressed her. “I wish I were a large tree. I would’ve listened to the good words. The palm and I would grow together and together would escape to freedom. Then, the rest of them would see that Attalea was right.”

But she wasn’t a large tree, only a low, weak creeper. She could only hug Attalea ever more affectionately and whisper words of love and wish her happiness in striving. 

“Of course, our country isn’t as warm as where you came from, our sky isn’t as clear, the rains aren’t as profuse, but we do have the sky, the sun, and the wind. We don’t have such luscious plants as you and your comrades, endowed with such colossal leaves and magnificent flowers, but we do have very nice trees: pines, firs, birches. I’m a little creeper and I will never rise to freedom, but you are so great and strong. Your trunk is solid, and you don’t have far to go to the glass roof. You will crush it and live to see the light of day. Then you will tell me whether it’s as wonderful outside as it used to be. Your words would be good enough for me.”

“Why don’t you want to go outside with me, little creeper? My trunk is solid and sturdy; lean against it, work your way up. Your weight is nothing to me!”

“Ah no, it’s not for me. Look how weak and limp I am: I can’t even lift a single one of my branches. No, I’m not your equal. Grow and be happy! Though I beg you, when you rise to freedom, do remember your little friend once in a while.”

The palm started to grow. If before the visitors to the conservatory marveled at her colossal height, now she surged taller and taller by the month. The director of the conservatory attributed the tree’s rapid change in size to the quality of his care and took pride in the knowledge with which he managed the plants and the business of the greenhouse.

“Dear sirs and ladies, take a look at Attalea princeps,” he said. “Such magnificent specimens are a rarity even for Brazil. We applied all of our knowledge so that the plants would develop as freely in the artificial environment as in nature, and, I believe, we achieved some success.”

At this, he merrily rapped the firm tree trunk with his walking stick, and the blows resounded far across the conservatory. The palm’s fronds shook from these blows. Oh, if she could only cry! The director would hear a sound of anger he would never forget.

He imagines that I grow for his amusement, Attalea thought. Let him deceive himself.

She grew and grew, directing all of her fluids toward height, and draining her roots and fronds. Occasionally, she thought that the distance to the dome hadn’t changed. Then she gathered her full strength. The walls came nearer and nearer, and finally one young frond touched cold iron and glass.

“Look, look, how far she got,” the plants came astir. “Will she dare?”

“How terribly she’s grown,” the tree fern said. 

“And what if she grew? So common. It’d be something if she could get as fat as I am,” a barrel-like cycad plant said. “What is she reaching for? She won’t accomplish anything. The bars are strong, and the glass is thick.”

Another month passed. Attalea rose. Finally, she butted tightly against the frame. There was nowhere else to grow. Then her trunk began to bend. Her leafy top crumpled; the cold rods of the frame dug into the tender young fronds, cut and mutilated them. But the tree was stubborn, she didn’t spare the leaves, and in spite of everything, pushed against the bars—and the bars, though made of robust iron, started to give in.

The little creeper watched the struggle, transfixed with concern. 

“Tell me, aren’t you in pain? If the frames are so tough, perhaps it’s best to fall back?” she asked the palm.

“Pain? What does pain mean, when I wish to be free? Didn’t you encourage me earlier?”

“Yes, I encouraged you, but I didn’t know this would be so difficult. I’m sorry for you. You’re suffering so much.”

“Quiet, you, miserable grass! Don’t pity me. I will either be free or die.” 

And that moment, there was a loud crack. A thick strip of iron burst. Pieces of glass fell clattering down. One of them hit the director’s hat as he was on his way out of the conservatory.

“What is this?” he yelped, shuddering, as he saw shards of glass flying every which way. He ran some distance and then turned around to look at the roof. Above the glass dome, the green crown of a palm tree proudly rose, righted to its full height.

“And that’s all?” thought the palm tree. “Is this all there is, all that I longed for and for which I suffered so much? This is what I had set as my highest goal to achieve?”

It was late fall when Attalea straightened her top above the opening she had forced. A drizzle mixed with snow was coming down; the wind drove in low, wispy, gray clouds. The palm tree felt like the clouds were enfolding her. Neighboring trees had already shed their leaves and stood naked, looking like hideous corpses. Only the pines and the firs kept their dark green needles. They looked at the palm tree morosely, as though saying, “You will freeze. You have no idea what frost is like. You don’t know how to bear it. Why did you leave your greenhouse?”

And Attalea understood: for her, the end had come. She was stiffening. Should she go back under the dome? But she couldn’t go back. She had to stand in the cold wind, to feel its gusts and the sharp strokes of the snowflakes, to look at the dirty sky, at the miserable weather, at the soiled backyard of the botanical garden, at the boring vast city visible through the fog, and wait until down there in the greenhouse humans decided what to do with it.

The director ordered the tree cut down. “We could cover it up with a special cupola,” he said, “but how long would that last? It will grow some more and break everything. And this will cost too much. Cut it down.”

They tied the palm tree with ropes so that it wouldn’t break the walls of the greenhouse as it fell, and then chopped it at a low spot, close to the roots. The little creeper that hugged the palm’s trunk didn’t want to part from its friend, and so, too, was sawed off. When they dragged the palm from the conservatory, remaining on top of the stump were some pieces of stems and leaves, maimed and pulped by the saw.

“Rip this chaff out and dispose of it,” the director ordered. “It’s yellowed already, and the saw damaged it. Plant something new in this spot.”

With one strike of the shovel, a gardener uprooted a whole bunch of the creeping grass. He tossed it into the basket and took it out to the backyard, throwing it right on top of the dead palm tree, lying in the dirt and already half-covered with snow.

Translation from the Russian