*
The river ghosts began recounting their memories and wanted me to tell my story, too. I explained everything briefly, and then said I had to hurry back to my sister who was alone in the forest. At that moment Majid, who had apparently heard my every word, opened his eyes and said, “I saw your sister looking for a long vine”. Terrified, we rushed to her, and found her with ragged breathing from the pressure of the thick vine around her neck, her fingers and toes twitching as her nerves fired. Just as death is a nightmare for the living, so too, it is for the dead. I didn’t want Beeta to join me on this side so soon, and I was determined not to let her. She still had many things to see to, although at this moment she was too distraught to know this. As soon as she regained consciousness, she slapped me twice, which made me laugh. I had cried so much I couldn’t contain my laughter. Then we cried in each other’s arms until she fell asleep; we let the melancholy forest ghosts sit around us patiently, sympathetic.
When she awoke, we were all sitting around the fire keeping her warm under a pile of our coats. Majid was the first to speak to her and asked, “Do you really think life is that bad?” Beeta was staring at the fire, and by the way her lips were pressed together, it was clear she was still lost in thought. The old man asked the middle-aged man to tell of his life. “I’ve never told my story because I don’t know how to.” The middle-aged man said. “What do you mean?” The old man replied. “Everyone tells their story one way or another. Go on.” To which the middle-aged man said, “Okay, I’ll try. But I’m telling you right now, I don’t know how to tell it like all of you.”
His eyes riveted on the flames and in one single sentence, without pause, he began and ended as follows: We were three brothers who lived together in a house with our wives and children and ageing mother and father and we made a living fishing and chopping wood until one day my little brother came home and said he had found a treasure map and asked us his two brothers to help him find the treasure but our old mother and father became sad and said they would disown us if we go treasure hunting because treasures are always jinxed and no one who goes looking for treasure ever comes back but we did not have ears for such talk and we didn’t even listen to our father who told us that one day a boy bid farewell to his family to search for treasure but spent so much time going from village to village and from city to city that finally he became desperate and broke into the home of a rich man but was arrested and sent to jail and from there he sent a message to his father saying father come to my rescue for I am in prison but his father answered I told you not to go looking for treasure for you will run into trouble and now there is nothing that I can do with one foot in the grave except tell you to come back when you have served your sentence for I have hidden a treasure in the grove for you which is the result of a lifetime of toil but do not take this for granted and do not squander it and upon hearing this the son could hardly contain his joy then with his time in prison over he returned to the village and began digging in the grove for treasure but the more he dug the less he found until eventually he had dug up the whole grove without any sign of treasure but his mother had followed along behind him planting seeds in the upturned soil and thus very soon the garden became green and flourished and the plants grew and after a time they had a harvest and sold it and became quite wealthy and the son remembered his father’s lesson to value the wealth and treasure of the earth and their health but our father’s story fell on deaf ears and we bid them farewell and walked and walked and walked until we reached the place on the map that corresponded to this very river and we crossed it and continued until we reached a very tall tree on a hill with a fish carved into the north side of its trunk and if you stood in that direction you could see another very tall tree on a hill that we knew had the next symbol and so we continued until we reached the tree which had a turtle carved into it and we proceeded in the direction the turtle’s head was pointing until we reached a large boulder from on top of which we could see a waterfall in the distance so instead of resting we continued to the waterfall and walked through the water entering the cave on the other side and in the heart of its dark interior gold and jewels shone bright as day so happy and cheering we filled our satchels and pockets and bags with jewels but we hadn’t yet left the cave when two pigeons flew in and sat beside me on a rock and began speaking to each other and one said to the other those two poor brothers who don’t know the other wants to kill them and the other pigeon said you are right sister those two poor brothers but really as you make your bed so you must lie in it and the other said you are right sister come let’s leave these humans be and since I was sitting near them I heard and was surprised and told my two brothers that two pigeons had come and were sitting on a rock and saying that one of us will kill the other two and then I naively added I’m not planning to kill either of you because you are my brothers of my own flesh and blood and anyway there is enough treasure here to make the people of a whole country happy so it’s certainly enough for the three of us but my youngest brother said pigeons can’t even talk so you probably invented the story to prepare us and you plan to kill us but when I tried to defend myself my second brother also attacked me saying apparently you really want to kill us right here but I brought a poisoned dagger to defend myself against the two of you and before he had finished speaking he was threatening the two of us with the knife but we yelled are you insane I was just telling you what I heard let’s just say you were right and I was lying and there were no pigeons it was a test and you both failed but as soon as the words had left my mouth my youngest brother began laughing and joking and said he had just been joking too and just wanted to pull our legs and when our middle brother saw this he re-sheathed his dagger and said it just reminded me of a story I heard years ago about three brothers who go to a mountain in search of a treasure which they find in the depths of a cave but the eldest brother throws his other two brothers into a nearby well and takes the treasure unaware that it was no ordinary well but was inhabited by jinns and fairies who help the poor brothers take revenge on the eldest brother when they hear what had happened and so one of the jinns turns himself into a beautiful woman and waits where the eldest brother would pass and when the eldest brother sees her he falls in love with not one but a hundred hearts and takes her home and marries her but the woman says she will only marry him under the condition that he never come to her room or have anything to do with her between twelve at night and five in the morning and if he fails he would be killed and the eldest brother accepted the condition and so every night the woman went into another room and from twelve at night until five in the morning she kept the door shut until one night his curiosity got the better of him and he entered the room to find her drinking wine and singing and dancing with a group of male and female jinns so he fell into a jealous rage and as he was about to kill the woman and the jinns with a sword when the woman turned back into her real self and put the sword to his throat to kill him but the terrified man begged her don’t kill me I will be a dog at your door but don’t kill me and when the woman heard this she immediately turned him into a dog and from that day since he has guarded the house of his two brothers as a dog but when our middle brother told this story I became angry and said tell the truth why did you mention this story could it be you’re really plotting something and we started arguing when suddenly two big black dangerous snakes slithered out from under the gold and jewels and lunged at us and when our little brother saw them he jumped up onto a big rock and our middle brother killed one of them with his poison-tipped dagger and I killed the other with a large stone as it was trying to reach my little brother to bite him and so I saved him and all three of us were happy because it had made us closer and we forgot all that had been said before and we hurried excitedly back until we reached this very river where we splashed water onto our faces and our little brother filled his flask and we set off again and walked and walked and walked until we were close to home when our little brother said come let’s rest a bit and he pu
lled the flask from his satchel and gave it to us to drink and we drank and that very moment our middle brother starting foaming at the mouth and died instantly and I passed out and with half-open eyes I saw my little brother gather our bags of jewels give us a kick and head towards home but it was God’s will that I live and that my father find me half-dead the next day and carried me home and nursed me to stay alive and although I was so weak I couldn’t even get out of bed I could hear what was being said namely that my little brother had told Mother and Father that three black snakes had attacked us near the house and that our middle brother and I had died from snake bites but that he was able to escape the third snake and made it home but later I heard Father say that something seemed fishy when our little brother had fearfully taken his wife and children and left the house forever and Father then came searching for our bodies and he eventually found me barely alive next to my brother’s body and took us home and then I heard him say to my mother what a story the little brother invented and in all these years we have never seen a poisonous snake here so how could he say three poisonous snakes attacked them and once my father left the room my mother went to my wife and said something isn’t right and her gut is telling her that our little brother killed our middle brother and poisoned me but when our middle brother’s wife heard this from my wife she began hitting herself and crying and said she had disliked our little brother from the very beginning because he was sneaky and sly and from that night forth she went to bed sighing and asking God to finally give him what he deserves but my poor parents were left with a corpse on their hands and so began to dig a grave behind the house and buried my brother there and over which they planted forget-me-nots but by the time they had woken up in the morning all the flowers had been burned from the roots and were black so my old mother and my second brother’s wife got to work and this time they brought primroses from the forest and planted them over his grave but the next day they saw that their roots too were burnt and their flowers black and so on the third day they went to meadow and forest and brought back wild violets and planted them and the next day they found that these flowers had grown and sprouted new shoots and so immediately my mother and my brother’s wife knew that my middle brother wanted revenge because we believe wild violets mean revenge and so we also understood that my brother’s ghost was extremely angry and would not rest easy until he had taken his revenge and when my parents finally completed the burial and finished mourning they turned all their attention to me and prayed every day and cursed and disowned my little brother but I was getting thinner and older by the day until all my hair had turned grey and my wife had completely given up hope that I would get well again but my parents had not given up hope and were constantly invoking the Gazou Brothers and their shrine to cure me and one day when I was nothing but skin and bones they carried me with their old infirm bodies on a small bed to the sacred shrine of the Gazou Brothers in a distant place on a mountain so that I might be cured there on high and I was so sick and weak my only desire was to regain my health to return my parents’ kindness and make up for their suffering and so I prayed and with tears flowing I implored God and the Gazou Brothers to cure me so I might be a cane on which my parents could lean but at the same time my father prayed for me and said we do not want you to be cured for us we want you to be cured to be alongside your wife and children but my mother scolded both of us saying I don’t want you to be cured for us or your wife but for yourself but what would you know Huma—the bird of happiness that grants your wish if it flies over you and hears it—Huma flew over me at the exact moment I said I wanted to stay alive and be healthy to be a cane on which my mother and father could lean and therefore just then and while my parents were arguing I fell asleep and they left me alone in one of the sacred rooms of the shrine to sink into a sacred slumber in which I could see my fate and so it happened that I instantly fell into a deep sleep and dreamed that I was lying on the road somewhere between the two tombs of the Gazou Brothers shrine dreaming that I was sitting on the road between the tombs of the Gazou Brothers shrine lost and crying and unsure of which brother to ask for a cure when a radiant figure with a green turban appeared above me and taking my hand lifted me from the ground and said why are you crying and I said I am sick and want healing but he said there is nothing wrong with you and he put some sweets in my mouth and at the same time another shining man with a white turban approached from the other direction put a hand on my head and poured some cool water into my mouth to drink and placed five sweets in my right hand and said starting tomorrow eat one of these every day and serve your parents in your health then both of the shining men departed in opposite directions and I awoke and found myself lying on the road in between the two tombs of the Gazou Brothers and I looked around confused when suddenly I woke up again to find myself in one of the rooms of the shrine of the Gazou Brothers and I stood up with a strength I hadn’t had for months and I found a mirror and saw that my hair was again completely black and as I was about to run my fingers through it joyfully I saw five candies fall from my right hand to the floor and when I saw them I began to scream and cry and unable to believe what had happened I fainted and when I regained consciousness I saw my parents sitting beside me crying having realised upon seeing my black hair that I had seen a holy figure and had been cured and when I told them about the five candies they cried even harder and we all washed and stood to face Mecca and cried and said a prayer of thanksgiving and suddenly I felt so hungry that I ate all the food they could bring and still asked for more and so my mother and father happily went to ask others who had come to pray at the shrine for food and told them what had happened and groups of people brought me food and tied pieces of cloth on my arms legs and in my hair and ripped off shreds of my clothes for their own healing and intercessions and I didn’t even take note of them because I hadn’t eaten anything for months and now that I had been cured by the power of the shrine for the two Gazou brothers the food tasted and smelt so good I couldn’t think of anything else especially since some of them had prepared gheimeh as an offering and I inhaled the scent of the cinnamon and saffron and split peas and lamb like someone who had never eaten it before to remember the flavour of life and I will never forget the pleasure with which I poured some sauce over a piece of tahdig3 with turmeric and with closed eyes placed it in my mouth and the crunch echoed in the room and I was truly savouring it and when I opened my eyes and saw all those people kneeling on the floor looking at me with amazement I started laughing and everyone looked at one another unsure of what to do but I continued laughing until the sound of my laughter carried over the hills and forests and reached the village and house where my little brother was living and he heard it and out of fear said the Shahada because he realised that I was alive and had returned from the dead but my laughter again carried through the hills and forests and came up to the Gazou shrine and entered the room and reached me and when I heard my own laughter I began suddenly to weep and sob loudly and all the people were reminded of their own misery and began crying and our tears were so abundant they covered the floor and formed a stream that flowed out of the room onto the terrace to the base of a barren mulberry tree that was said to have been planted hundreds of years ago by the Gazou brothers themselves and suddenly in the middle of summer this barren tree began to blossom and an hour later the blossoms fell off and were replaced by large white mulberries that were sweeter than any mulberries we had ever eaten and so from then on the people named it the sorrow- opening tree and every year people tie cloth to its branches and ask for their prayers to be answered and well that’s how I was cured and I left the mountain with my parents to go home but what would you know word had spread from shepherds to fishermen from fishermen to woodchoppers from woodchoppers to villagers near and far that I had been cured in the shrine of the Gazou Brothers and so all along the way groups of people were waiting for me to pass to go instantly mad and scream and yell at the sight of me and attack me to rip off a piece of my clothing for their oblation
s and for the healing of their sick children and relatives and then when my clothing was nothing more than shreds in their hands they shed tears and said peace be upon you and left to spread the news until it reached my brother and when my brother heard I had been cured with his own ears and was completely certain that I was alive he told his wife he had to apologise to me or else I might want to kill him but his wife said it was no use and even if he asked for forgiveness I would still kill him and so they saw no other option but to run away and so from then until the time I was murdered they moved like vagabonds from city to city from village to village because they were constantly afraid I would come after them to kill them whereas God had given me a new lease on life and I didn’t even think about them my only desire was to serve my mother and father who had never given up hope for me and I didn’t even pay much attention to my wife and children who were very kind to me until on one of God’s many ordinary days when I no longer thought of my brother or death my father died and several days later my mother too and I was still mourning the death of my dear parents when I came to this river to fish and forget a bit of the sorrow unaware that my brother had not stopped thinking of me and had been hiding near the house he attacked me from behind with an axe killing me and throwing my body into this very river in this very spot and he buried the axe in this corner here and so it was that I finally died and my life came to an end but the ghost of my second brother who finally had an opportunity to take revenge set to work and every night he digs up the axe and places it under my little brother’s pillow and he finds it every morning and terrified and half-dead spends half the day returning to this place to re-bury the axe and then go back to the village in the hope that it will stay put but the next morning he again finds it under his pillow and this is the only thing my brother’s ghost does every night taking immense pleasure in our youngest brother’s suffering.
The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree Page 15