The Lemon Grove Read online

  The huge iron door of the pump house has been pushed open. It extends the entire length of the side of the building facing the orchard. Kemal is standing by the motor. The old diesel engine is a Lister double-cylinder type and is fastened down to a cement chassis in the middle of the room. On another chassis about five feet away from the motor sits the pump. Two metal pipes extend out of the pump. One runs down the well and another one goes outside to a small pool. A narrow belt runs from the motor to the pump’s pulley. From where I’m sitting under the willow tree, I can see the mouth of the pipe lying on the edge of the pool—looking exactly the way I remember from the early days. Kemal has been trying to repair the motor since the morning and is covered up to his elbows with black oil and grease. Musa has been helping him. He watches closely and, when Kemal needs a hammer or a wrench, fetches it quickly and hands it to him.

  I think about the time I came here months ago. Those first days are not clear in my mind and the ones that followed run into one another and blur my memory of what happened. It was late spring when I came, and now it’s fall. And I’m still waiting for Ruzbeh to show up. I’ve sent Kemal to Shiraz a few times to see if Ruzbeh has been to the house, but he couldn’t say for sure. Once a neighbor told him that they had seen the house lights on a few times, and Kemal asked them to keep an eye out.

  Musa heard that a few nights ago Ruzbeh visited Mother in the village house but that he stayed only briefly and went away. I don’t know what to believe. Why do you stay away, Ruzbeh? Maybe you’ve heard what happened to Shireen. I’m sure someone has told you by now. Is that why you don’t come around? Or is it because I’m here? I wanted to wait for you at the house in Shiraz when I went to get the briefcase but was frightened by the thought of zealots finding me and dragging me to the square. Funny how I felt that I was an intruder in our own house.

  A bang suddenly cuts through my thoughts. I turn and see Kemal striking a hammer, his arm flying up and down. He’s determined to finish fixing the motor. When was it—a week ago?—that I signed over the deed of the Naranjestan to him and Musa? I don’t know what the future will bring. But I know one thing—I couldn’t stand any further destruction of the Naranjestan. Kemal worked hard to convince me to let him take control of the place. I didn’t know whether he was a person to trust, but does it matter? I’m not sure of anything except that he will change this place.

  Kemal was here early the day after I showed him the deed. I had never seen him here in the morning before. He had his two children with him. His wife came later. I was surprised to see a woman in this place. She began to clean the rooms right away, sweeping out the trash and the mouse droppings and taking out the empty oil cans. Kemal started to fix the broken doors and windows. I heard him telling her that later he would fix the hole in the ceiling, replace the broken glass in the windows, and paint the rooms.

  Musa came around noon as usual to water his herds. I saw him watching Kemal and his family cleaning up the place. When he realized that a change was under way, that I was serious, and that Kemal was serious about taking care of the place, he stood around smoking cigarettes one after another, probably deciding whether to go or stay and work alongside Kemal. I saw them talking in the pump house. Then Musa walked away and Kemal went after him. They stopped by the small pool. The way they were pointing at each other and at the Naranjestan and the fields, it was obvious they were arguing. A few times they looked in my direction. I didn’t want to get involved, figuring they needed to come to an understanding by themselves.

  The next day Kemal came early again, slid open the big iron door of the pump house, and cleaned and organized the tools. Then he started to work on the motor. He took it apart and put the pistons, rings, and shaft on the ground, arranged neatly on an old blanket he had spread out.

  Later in the day Musa arrived with two elderly men from the village. He told me that my signature on the deed would not be official without witnesses. The two men were very courteous. I’m sure Musa had prepared them as to who I was and in what condition they would find me. They looked very much alike in their expression, manner, and clothing—both were dressed in old gray coats and hats. One of them kept coughing. I thought they were twins, and this turned out to be the case. Musa told me that later. I could see in their eyes, from the pensive way they looked at me, that they had hundreds of questions they would have liked to ask. Questions like why I am doing this and why I am here. Or questions about America—what it was like there and whether I was planning on going back.

  I looked at their tired and wrinkled faces and at their rough-skinned hands as they signed the deed and thought how those hands had worked the land day after day, turning it and sowing it, and then had been raised to the heavens, praying for rain.

  After Musa and Kemal signed the deed, Kemal went back to repairing the pump and Musa and the two men went and sat on the platform. One of them was limping and walked close to the other as if he needed to lean on him to keep his balance. I couldn’t take my eyes off them, two bent-over figures who had worked all their lives until no work was left in them. They shared Musa’s water pipe and drank tea until noon. I could imagine them coming back to visit Musa when this place is in shape. Later Musa told me that the one with the limp plays the reed flute very well. He plays for the elderly when they are on their deathbed. The villagers believe music soothes the dying so they go out in peace.

  After the two men left, Kemal showed Musa how to wash and clean the parts he had taken out of the motor. In the afternoon Kemal put the motor back together. The sun was almost setting when he announced that he was ready. He was anxious to start the motor. So was I. Musa was too, I believed, from the way he jumped to fetch the crank. But when Kemal checked the tank, there wasn’t enough fuel and he decided to clean the tank and go get fuel from the city.

  Today I’ve been sitting here against the tree since morning, watching Kemal getting the motor ready. He had to open the pump as well and clean out the rust inside. He worked on the pump until late in the afternoon, taking off the old belt and replacing it with a new one. Now, cigarette in hand, he is resting. Musa is wiping the pump with a piece of cloth. I watch impatiently.

  Kemal empties a bucket of diesel fuel into the motor’s tank and signals Musa to bring him the crank. He puts the crank around the shaft and, after a moment, as if saying a silent prayer, bends down beside the motor and starts to turn the crank, putting one hand on top of the motor for support. His body is bent forward and moves up and down rapidly as he turns the handle. I can hear the hen-hen of his breathing and the huff-huff of the motor, man and machine entangled in an unnatural dance. It looks like an exhausting task, and I wonder if the motor will yield to Kemal’s stubbornness. I have almost given up, afraid that Kemal is about to collapse from exhaustion, when suddenly I hear a sharp top-top sound. Kemal takes the crank off the motor’s shaft and straightens his back. The calls of the crickets are drowned out by the noise of the motor, and a coil of smoke jumps from the exhaust and unfolds against the sky.

  The motor sounds like a heart beating, slow at first and then faster and faster until reaching a uniform speed—a familiar sound that I haven’t heard for I don’t know how long. I look at the trees, wondering if they hear it, and turn toward the fields and the desert, wishing I knew how far the sound is carrying, thinking that if Ruzbeh is out there he might hear it and come back. I wish we all were here to watch the water start flowing.

  Musa and Kemal run to the pool and stare at the pipe. Only a muffled moaning sound echoes in the empty pipe. After a few moments, Kemal turns off the motor. I try to keep the sound of the motor alive in my mind and long to see the water flowing out of the pipe.

  Kemal works around the pump for a while and then puts the crank around the motor’s shaft again. He takes a last drag on his cigarette and with a flick of his thumb throws away the butt. He starts on the motor again, turning and turning the crank until the motor turns over. He pulls a knob and the motor gets louder and shoots smoke high into the air.
But no water comes out of the pipe.

  I stay where I am and watch. The same feeling fills me, the feeling of wanting the water to fly out of the pipe, wanting it to boil up like the prehistoric flood, full of energy, running over the fields and awakening the roots of the trees. But only a dry moaning sound emerges from the pipe.

  Kemal turns the motor off and stares at it for a while before walking outside. He stands facing the fields, quiet, as if pleading for help from some force hidden in the open plain, then bends down, picks up a handful of dirt, and rubs his hands together to clean the grease and oil from his palms. He says something to Musa and jumps on his motorcycle and rides away.

  From behind the sheets of dust set in motion by the wind, I watch the sun. It has a reddish halo and looks huge hanging at the horizon. I love this time of the day, the last hour when sun, sky, and desert are engaged in playing with colors. The yellow of the horizon changes to orange, then to scarlet, and then red as if a huge fire at the edge of the earth were slowly burning itself out, giving way to darkness. It’s that time in the shift from day to evening when things take on a dreamlike quality, the eye seeing and not seeing, recognizing and not recognizing, until the power of sight is finally vanquished. I take in the passing of the time until the night creeps up around me. Then I notice the flames of a fire by the farmhouse.

  “Ay, Behruz?” Musa calls. “Where are you? Come—there’s a fire. Come and warm yourself.”

  I feel like I can’t move, like my body is stuck to the tree. Musa calls again. This old man is kind to everything and everyone—even to Kemal, whom he doesn’t trust. He tries to be kind to whatever has life. He has told me many times that whatever has life carries the light of God. He also has a high respect for water, believing that water is more precious than human beings, because it gives and preserves life.

  The wind is starting to blow harder and colder. I stand up slowly. One of my feet is asleep. I rub it for a moment and look toward the village, where a few lights are barely visible, wondering why Kemal’s wife and children didn’t come today.

  Musa calls again and I limp toward him. He’s standing beside the fire as if paying his respects like an old Zoroastrian. I can see the reflection of the dancing flames in his eye.

  “Warm yourself,” he says. “Appreciate what God has granted us to bear the cold.” Standing by the fire, I start to feel its warmth.

  “Are you okay? You’ve been sitting there all day. Did you eat the food I brought you at lunchtime?”

  I shake my head, remembering that I’m hungry and hadn’t eaten much of the food.

  Musa rubs his hands together and covers his face to warm it. “This fall cold is telling us that it’s going to be a harsh winter, much worse than last year, and early too. May God help us survive the coming long cold season. The pump didn’t work. It didn’t bring any water up. Kemal went to the city—I think to get parts. I don’t understand very much about these mechanical things.”

  He points to the kettle beside the fire. “When the water is hot, put some tea leaves in it and drink some. It’ll warm your insides. I have to go find my herds—they’ve probably headed for the village by now, if they’re not lost in the desert. I didn’t get a chance to look after them all day. I’ll come back as soon as I can and bring whatever the old woman has prepared for supper. We’ll eat here together.” Then he starts to look for his walking stick. “I wish I had time to warm up and have some tea, but I’ve got to go before jackals get to the herds.”

  He moves away like a shadow. I want to get up and leave as well, to disappear into the darkness that has spread out over the fields, but I don’t have the courage or the energy. I lie down, the warmth of the fire slowly sinking into my bones. My eyelids start to get heavy and I hear a sound of knocking coming from the pump house.

  “Behruz, wake up.”

  I open my eyes and see a figure standing above me with a lantern in hand lighting half his face. It takes me a moment to realize it’s Musa.

  “I’m back,” he says. “I’ve brought some dinner for you. The fire has died out. I’ll have to start it again.”

  With my eyes barely open, I watch him breaking up some branches into smaller pieces and putting them on the fire.

  “Did you see the moon or were you asleep?” he asks. “It was huge, and the color of saffron. I’ve never seen a heavenly moon like that.”

  I seek out the moon, but the sky is dark and the stars few. I think of the song that Juanita used to play on her guitar.

  I feel I’m knocking, she would sing, knock, knock, knocking … knock, knock, knocking on heaven’s door.

  Fifteen

  I CAN’T REMEMBER EXACTLY, but it must have been a few days ago that Musa had a visitor. I was in the Naranjestan and saw someone walking with him to the platform. I’d never seen anyone like this man around here. He wasn’t from the village, of that I was sure. He was clearly from the city, with his briefcase and dark suit that seemed too big for him. They talked for a long time, almost all morning. When he got up to leave, I could see that he was short like Musa, with the same narrow shoulders. He moved his hands and lowered his head like Musa. They slowly walked back and forth at the edge of the field, talking and once in a while stopping to look into the distance. It was like I was in a surrealistic world watching two homeless men across a desolated landscape who didn’t know what to do, except to wait. Wait for someone to come by.

  This morning Musa came and sat down beside me and began to talk as if he were telling me something he had kept inside himself for a long time. He said the man that I saw with him the other day who had come to visit was his half brother, Ebrahim, and that he was going to Shiraz to see him. He explained that Ebrahim was about to leave the country and was planning to go to Cyprus and from there to Israel to join his son, who had gone there a few years earlier. He showed me some old silver coins and an elaborate silver candelabrum looking hundreds of years old that he said had been in their family for generations. Ebrahim had left them since he was afraid he would get in trouble if at the border he were found with the silver.

  “What am I to do with a candelabrum in this place?” Musa said. “I have no need for these things. He should have given them to a friend in the city, or even sold them, but he wanted to keep them in the family, maybe hoping they would get to him somehow—it’s always good to be hopeful. Here I’m afraid they will be lost or stolen. I have to hide them somewhere for now.” He wrapped the candelabrum and the silver in a piece of old cloth, put them in a plastic bag, and went out to bury them in the orchard.

  When he came back, he made a pot of tea and showed me four old books he was taking to Ebrahim. One was a Torah that had been his father’s. The others were history books. He said he had kept them hidden for many years and was hoping Ebrahim would take them.

  “My father was Yusef Solimani,” he told me as he sipped his tea. “First, let me tell you that I don’t talk about certain things to anyone. There are things a person needs to keep within himself. I’m sure you understand that. But since I know so much about your family and you know so little of mine, I would like to tell you more. During these few months, I’ve come to know you. You certainly don’t like to talk. You like to listen and observe. I used to be like you when I was young. But nowadays I like to talk. Maybe it’s a habit of old age or being alone in this dry land, maybe it’s that you are a good listener and don’t ask questions.”

  I nodded and he went on.

  “When my father was a young man he made his living by traveling from the city on his motorbike to sell clothes and jewelry in the villages. One day, when a group of village women and girls had gathered around him to try on earrings and bracelets and hold up the clothes against their bodies, he noticed a beautiful young girl with light hair, which is unusual here as you know. She was trying on a necklace. Watching her, he lost his mind for a moment and all the talk of the women went dead in his ears. When he came to, he realized that it was not only his mind but his heart that he had lost. It was
a forbidden love—love between a Jewish man and a Muslim girl. And, you know, rationality loses when love emerges. That beautiful young girl, Nilufar, was my mother.” I could hear the emotion in his voice. “It took a lot to convince my mother’s parents to let him marry her. My father agreed to give up his religion and become a Muslim, and on top of that to live in the village. In doing this, he lost his own parents and his friends in the city. It was the most fascinating thing that had happened in the village in a long time. To have a Jew become a Muslim was a great thing for the villagers. There were big celebrations in honor of his conversion and the wedding. People came from all the surrounding villages. My granddad would tell me over and over about the wedding and the food and musicians they brought from the city.”

  “My grandparents loved their son-in-law. They had only my mother, no other children. My father opened up a shop in the village and traveled to the city to bring back merchandise. People came from other villages to buy from him. He had become a popular person. He would sell sewing machines on the installment plan and also teach the women how to use them. In his spare time he taught reading and writing to me and some of the other children. Every time he went to the city to get merchandise, he would come back with sweets and something special for my mother and me and books for himself. I used to show off my toys to the village kids. He used to take me to the outskirts of the village, where we would walk and he would read to me. He loved books. When he wasn’t busy he sat in his shop and read. He would tell me about so many things—about the inventions that were being made and the different types of cars and machines being built in different countries. He had put a motor on his bike himself. In those days the motorcycle had not even come to the city. Can you believe that?” he asked before going on.