The Lemon Grove Read online

  The Lemon Grove

  Ali Hosseini

  Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Praise for The Lemon Grove

  “The new Kite Runner… It does for Iran what Khaled Hosseini’s best-seller did for Afghanistan.” – Marie Claire

  “The circumstances surrounding a single family shed light on a country in turmoil in Hosseini’s moving fiction debut… pulses with vibrancy and genuine emotion… his deft deployment of details imbues this short novel with an enthralling sense of character, time, and place.” – Publishers Weekly, starred review

  “The intensity of the story, global and personal, will spark discussion.” – Booklist

  “Ali Hosseini takes us to vivid places in the landscape and heart of a contemporary Iran sorely missing from the news bites. He weaves a masterful tale of Persia’s many subcultures caught in a changing climate of intolerance and one man’s agony, remorse, redemption – a story of love lost and found.” – Paul L. Bates, author of Imprint and Dreamer

  To my mother

  and brothers

  and sisters

  and the memory

  of my father

  Burn, glare, old sun, so long unseen,

  That time may find its sound again, and cleanse

  What ever it is that a wound remembers

  After the healing ends.

  —WELDON KEES

  The Lemon Grove

  One

  THE DOOR FLIES OPEN and the room floods with sharp sunlight. Through half-closed eyes, I see someone standing, stick in hand, surrounded by a halo of light and dust.

  “Ah, you’ve recovered. Finally.”

  It’s an old man’s voice, a raspy voice that gives away his age. He steps closer and stands above me. I realize I’m lying flat on the dirt floor. My mouth is dry and my breathing heavy. He bends over and stares at my face with one eye. His other eye is a black hole that appears and disappears as he blinks.

  Above me a small shaft of sunlight falls into the room from the broken ceiling. I twist my neck around and recognize the old plaster walls and broken window. I’m at the farmhouse. Outside are the trees of the Naranjestan, the old lemon grove. But who is this man? I wonder if he is an informer.

  I reach out and try to get up, but the wall runs away from me and the ground becomes a cradle under my feet. I seem to lack any natural connection to the earth and suddenly lose control and fall forward on my chest.

  “What are you doing?” he says, helping me to turn over on my back. “Take it easy.”

  He brings his hand to my forehead. His skin is cold against my face.

  “You’re burning with fever. But thank God you’re alive. It’s a miracle. With all the poison you’ve drunk, I thought for sure we would lose you.”

  Who is he? Has he followed me here?

  “Leave me alone,” I murmur. I try to get up again, but my face is not even an inch from the ground when my head goes into a spin. I feel like I’m going to be sick, but there is nothing left inside me. I have to get up. I have to run away but have no energy left. I shut my eyes and give in to exhaustion.

  “What were you trying to prove, young man?” he says. “Did you have a contest with the death angel?” He steps back. “I must say, I got here just in time. What were you thinking? The life that God has granted us, only he should take away—and when he desires. Taking your life or someone else’s is not in your or my hands.”

  He spreads an old kilim beside the wall and takes my hand.

  “Can you make it over here?” he asks in a kind voice.

  I look at him standing above me.

  “Come on,” he says. “It’s not good to be on the bare floor. Come lie down here. You must rest now. You need energy to recover.”

  I search for my hands, my legs, my head. I feel them, but it’s as if they were scattered all around me. I can’t concentrate and my thoughts are dispersed—here, there, nowhere. I slowly stretch out my legs, feeling that if I get up, all my bones will crumple into a blind knot. My insides turn and twitch with every little move.

  He pulls me onto the faded kilim and sits down by the door with his legs crossed and his back to the wall. He takes off his old frayed cap and places it on his knee. His face is sunburned and there are lines of dried salt on his neck. He smells of milk and wool. Who is this man and what is he doing here? My tiredness and numbness do not give way to clear thoughts.

  He opens a sack in front of him. “I’ve brought you some nan-o-kabab—bread and kabab—and a jar of water. Kabab is good for a poisoned stomach. You have to eat—you need to get some energy.”

  His voice is familiar. Have I heard it not long ago?

  “When I found you, you were half-dead. I fed you milk. That’s the reason you’re alive. I milked a few of my sheep. You’re lucky—only a couple of them have milk at this time of year.”

  He looks out through the half-open door then turns to me.

  “Do you remember anything about what happened?”

  I stay silent.

  “I understand. You don’t want to talk. You’re exhausted. I had to open your mouth and pour the milk in. Then I kept bending your legs onto your chest until you threw it all up, the poison and the milk. I had to do it four or five times, until your stomach was empty.”

  I close my eyes and try to remember, but nothing comes to mind. I wish that he would go away so I could die alone. He glances at me for a moment, then turns and looks out through the cracked door. He seems to be waiting for someone. Are there others who know I’m here? Have the men who took Shireen away now found me too?

  He picks up a piece of nan, wraps it around a chunk of kabab, and hands it to me. The wrinkled skin around his blind eye quivers.

  “Here,” he says. “Eat.”

  The smell of the kabab brings a bitter taste to my mouth.

  “You must eat. If your stomach stays empty, you’ll get an ulcer.”

  I push his hand away. I’m thirsty and my mouth is so dry I can hardly move my tongue. I wish he would give me some water.

  “Well, young man, I know who you are, and I’m shocked by what you tried to do. I come here every day about noon to get away from the burning sun and the wind. I bring my animals and draw water from the well. They rest in the shade of the trees and I take a nap. Yesterday I saw that the door was open and you were lying inside. At first I thought you were asleep. Then I saw foam coming out of your mouth. I could see only the whites of your eyes. A pesticide bottle was next to you. You had thrashed around all over the floor and were covered with dirt.”

  I look at my fingers. My nails are broken and edged with dried blood. I become aware that they are smarting.

  “I didn’t know what to think. ‘Oh, no—Ruzbeh!’ I said, ‘You finally did it. You finally got tired of wandering in the desert and committed the forbidden act.’ Then I held up your head and looked at your face. ‘He looks like Ruzbeh,’ I thought, ‘but where is the scar on his forehead?’ That was when I realized it was you, Behruz. The only way I can tell you two apart is by the mortar-shell scar on your brother’s forehead. I’ve seen you only a couple of times since you came back from A
merica. Once was when you brought your mother and Ruzbeh from Shiraz to stay in the village. And then when you came here in a Jeep with Shireen, looking for Ruzbeh after he ran away. Both times I wanted to talk to you about the Naranjestan and what I was afraid was going to happen to it, but you were in such a hurry that I thought you wouldn’t be interested in hearing what I had to say.”

  He pauses, as if waiting for me to reply, then continues.

  “I’ve visited your mother a few times since she came to live in the village. She told me she had to leave the city because Ruzbeh was terrified by the sound of the Iraqi bombers and she was afraid as well. She brought him to the village, but still he ran away. I told her I would look for him. May God be with him wherever he is. I know you avoided this place after you came back from America. You saw it in ruin and left it to deteriorate further, but look how you’ve come back here now. It was God’s will, of course. His plan was that I would save you. I believe he wanted you to live.”

  I look at him as he goes on talking but can’t concentrate. I look at him, trying to see if I can recognize him. Wrinkles curve around his blind eye and join the deeper lines on his forehead. With an old handkerchief he wipes the sweat from his face, a face so full of lines it’s as if he had lived life fourfold.

  “Probably you don’t know me,” he says after a moment. “But you might, I’m not sure. If you remember your childhood when you used to come here from the city, you should remember me as well. I’m Musa—Musa Solimani.”

  In the far part of my memory I can see him, driving his herds to the farm on an early summer morning, helping Haji Zaman around the pump house, and making a fire for Father’s water pipe and bringing it to him with a pot of tea on a tray. But he was younger then and not bent over. And his eye?—it was not like this.

  “This place has been good to me. I used to work for your father, God rest his soul, and then later I would work for your brother, Ruzbeh, before he was injured in the war. I helped with accounting and hiring the workers at harvesttime. Your parents were always kind to my family—they were kind to everyone, to the villagers too. But people these days are so selfish and lack any loyalty or sincerity.”

  I start to cough and my throat burns. I shut my eyes and try to block out his voice.

  “I know you’re not feeling well, but if you eat, you’ll feel better. You’ll be all right in a week or two.”

  He stares at me, expecting me to say something. His face is twitching as if he’s in pain. Then he holds out the nan and kabab to me. I push his hand away again.

  “Well, it looks like you’re going to survive and when you’re well, we’ll try to find Ruzbeh. I’m sure you can help him to get well and both of you can make this place come to life again. It would make your mother very happy. I’m sorry, but I’ve got to tell you a few things. It’s important and there isn’t much time. Some of the villagers are planning to take over this land, this parched Naranjestan. After Ruzbeh disappeared into the desert, I came to the city to tell you, but you weren’t anywhere to be found. I went to your mother, in the village. I told her. But she had lost all hope after Ruzbeh went away.”

  I think for a moment that I should go see Mother. But then, she probably doesn’t want to see me. She would rather see Ruzbeh. It’s he who is her “little one,” born only minutes after me. She probably blames me for his running away, and seeing me would only make her miss him more.

  Maybe she’s right to blame me. I’ve been disillusioned with everything since I came back from America—with the outcome of the revolution and with my friends who supported all this madness so blindly. What else was there except to sink into daydreams of America? I wonder if Mother knows about what happened to Shireen. She must, with all the talking that people do around here, with all the spying that goes on.

  He offers me the food again.

  “You must eat. Just a little and we’ll see if your stomach accepts it. Eat so you won’t lose the dear life you’ve gained once more. It’s God’s will that you stay alive. He watches over all of us. Good or bad, He does. It’s our own doing that puts us in odd situations. You’re an educated man. You’re young and more capable than people around here. Like your father, God rest his soul.”

  He looks toward me for some type of acknowledgment.

  “You’ve been to America. You’ve traveled to the other side of the earth. I know that life isn’t easy here, but that doesn’t mean we should give up.”

  I feel hot and cold at the same time and a moment later am drenched with sweat. I hear his words but can’t focus as sounds and images overcome me.

  …There is a swarm of people in the square shouting that I’m the sinner, the heretic who returned from America to do a shameful act and should die. They say I harmed my brother, who had been injured in the war…

  I try to see out through the cracked door and listen for any sound. If they come, if they find me here, how could I run? And where could I run to? I should go and hide in the desert. A long death under the blazing sun would be far easier than being dragged into the city square to meet the mad chanting and the flying stones.

  The old man keeps talking like he’s not had a companion all his life.

  “Here,” he says, holding the kabab closer. “Eat a little so you can survive. I’ll give you some water later. It’s not good to drink on an empty and bruised stomach.”

  Without thinking, I take the food from his hand. For a moment I stare at the cold kabab but can’t bring myself to take a bite.

  He is quiet for a moment and then, as if remembering something, goes on. “Well, anyway. You’ve been saved. Saved by milk. Milk is the source of life. From the moment that we come out of our mothers’ wombs, we scream for it. If there were no milk, we would die. Our mothers’ milk keeps us alive, cleans our insides from any poisons that we might be born with. Did you know if it happens that a lamb eats some poisonous greens, it must be fed milk to wash its stomach out? I’ve saved many lambs that way. Just like I did with you. Why do you keep looking at me? Eat. Eat so you stay alive.”

  I try to bite into the kabab. My mouth is so dry and numb that I taste nothing. My jaw hurts. The food falls from my hand. The old man, agitated, leans closer, pushing me with his hand.

  “Why did you drop it?”

  I look at him. His eye is blinking rapidly.

  “Don’t just stare at me. I said, why did you drop it? Pick it up and eat it. Would you like me to feed it to you the way I fed you the milk?”

  I keep silent.

  “Can’t you say something? I’m trying to talk to you.”

  He turns and looks outside again. I hope he is thinking he should get up and leave. He moves closer to me.

  “Here, drink a little water. I know you’re thirsty, but it would be better if you eat first. Drink just a little, and then you must eat some food.”

  He hands me the jar. I drink hurriedly, water running down my neck.

  “Easy, easy. That’s enough.” He takes the jar from me. “We’ll see how your stomach reacts, and then we’ll give you a little more.”

  He passes me a piece of food. Mechanically I obey and put it in my mouth.

  “Good. Eat slowly. Good.”

  The food scratches my throat as it goes down. I can eat only a few small pieces and drop the rest on the floor.

  “Okay. It’s enough for now. Lie down and rest.”

  I stretch out and close my eyes. A moment later I feel feverish.

  … The angry voices return along with the chants of a prayer. Groups of women covered in black chadors are gathered in the square. There is a noise, a creaking noise …

  I open my eyes. The old wooden door is swinging back and forth in a continuous movement and I don’t see Musa anywhere.

  Two

  I‘M AWAKE BUT AM HAVING TROUBLE keeping my eyes open. It must be morning. I look around and am able to make out some of the things in the room. There are empty cans of motor oil scattered around. A few old shovels with chipped edges are propped in a corner
, and beside one of the walls is a pile of ashes and brush.

  I can’t say how long I’ve been lying here. The old man must have put the pillow under my head and spread the blanket over me. I push the blanket off and notice that my shirt is torn and its buttons gone. I sit up and see a water jar and a tied-up sack that the old man must have left.

  When did I get here? Was it yesterday or the day before that I ran away from the city? The shouts of “Allah-o Akbar, Allah-o Ak-bar”—God is Great, God is Great—echoed in my head on the slow bus ride over the mountains to the village road. Darkness was descending when, running and walking, I reached the Naranjestan. The thirsty Naranjestan with the old lemon trees and crumbling farmhouse has fallen into disrepair since Ruzbeh hasn’t been able to attend to it.

  I came to find you, Ruzbeh. To find you and tell you what happened to Shireen and what happened in the square. But you’re not here. And you weren’t here a month ago when I rushed back after they took Shireen away, when everything changed for us. I wanted to ask your forgiveness but couldn’t find you. Even with all my fear, I returned to the city, thinking maybe you had gone back home. I waited until nightfall before going to the house, but the militia in their green uniforms were in the yard waiting for me. They were waiting to drag me away like they had Shireen. I had to hide in the parks and under bridges for almost a month, searching for you and waiting to hear some news about Shireen.

  After what I saw in the square a few days ago—was it really only a few days ago?—I came here again. I ran not from the zealots and the militia who were looking for me but from myself. I crouched here in the corner, enraged at myself and you, who were nowhere to be found. I escaped from their anger only to hear their shouts all around me in the darkness. Was I going out of my mind? I held my head in my hands trying to free myself from all the pain. Then in the dim moonlight creeping in from the broken ceiling, I saw the bottles in the corner of the room.

  The dust-covered bottles were there in a row just where they had always been. A strange feeling awakened within me that took me back to the old days, our childhood days when we always wanted to open one of the bottles. We’d been warned by Father not to ever touch them, but we were fascinated. The secrets inside the bottles intrigued us. The demons and jinnis that were inside called to us to open the bottles so they could jump out and, in return for their freedom, grant our childish wishes as in the stories Father read to us from One Thousand and One Nights. We liked the good jinnis and wished they would appear to us. We hated the bad ones, who, according to the old stories, stole children or exchanged their babies for human children, because, so the legend goes, they liked human babies. Mother also forbade us to go to the pesticide room, saying that if we touched the bottles, even with the tip of a finger, we would drop dead right there, like the butterflies that covered the ground after the Naranjestan was fumigated.