Monterra's Deliciosa & Other Tales &

by Anna Tambour

  Valley of the Sugars of Salt

  - 1 -

  This is one of those places where you feel behind your back and roll knuckles against the soreness. Where the truck driver reaches for a sandwich or another pill to stay awake. Where the children sleep pillowed by beach towels and dreams of riding weightless on the waves, or fight with each other out of peevishness.

  It is a place like that flat line woven in the towel, running between banks of monotonous green loops of mile after mile of forest.

  It is a place like most places we see past, for they are not places at all.

  Today, a few hours south of Sydney, in this place distinguishable from the traveller's point of view only as someplace where you are not there yet, the whirling social firmament in which Tim Thornbourne once shined so bright can only be heard whizzing past in dim comet-wisps, but mostly isn't noticed since the highway, no matter how tourist-ridden or long-hauler-loaded it is, is never as busy as this little valley ...

  ~

  Over the years, the more Thornbourne's success grew in the world of selling the right concept at the right time, the more he liked the idea of communing with Nature. Growing feasibility studies was easy for him. Words blossomed under his tongue and fingertips. But as for Nature, he had never gotten down and dirty with her to the point of getting her earthy scent under his fingernails. Before the sale of IntelliCom and his divorce, on his trips to the property, he'd always loved Nature through the windows of "The Shack". The magnate-sized mansion was the only way that Jocelynne had agreed to visit the place at all—although the first brush with a wolf spider ended her visits for good.

  So, until Tim's "second outrageous success project" as he termed it to himself, Thornbourne's actual contact time in the bush was low, but he did like the idea of it. He didn't want to metamorphose into some hermit poking a long yellow fingernail into logs, fishing for a dinner of witchetty grubs. His plan was that with an initial burst of uncharacteristic physical exertion, and then lots of just communing, his project would thrive as well as the wild animals and bush on his farm. The annual two-week invasion of the wealthy would be an ego-enriching toll to pay for success.

  Tim did his research. No competition anywhere. The existing world population of his chosen trees were lone survivors, as noticed and celebrated as World War I veterans as they lurk crookedly by crumbling stone walls and drop wrinkled fruits on senile mountain roads. As he reckoned, in five years, the world's only upmarket U-Pick-'Em would be an annual Easter holiday pilgrimage for all self-described foodies. And he, Tim Thornbourne, would be The Man Who Rediscovered the Medlar.

  He ordered his trees like mail-order brides, never having met any medlar trees in the flesh. A couple of devotedly fanatic apple aficionados, Stephen and Gwyneth Frawley of Timespast Nursery, grew 250 graftings of three different types just for him, from the few trees in their weird zoo of horticultural pets for people with a taste for the old, the different, the conversation piece.

  Rabbit-fencing, and then planting the orchard was easier than he had imagined. The medlars thrived with a studious lack of interference on his part. He never pruned and he never sprayed. Only when the trees were very young and needed their feet to grow and their toes to dig in without competition, did he hack away the tangle of grasses from around their trunks.

  The grass had, after all, occupied the paddock for many years, grazed by kangaroos, wombats, wallabies; slithered over by brown snake and red-bellied black hunting for mice; skittered over by fierce shrew-like antechinuses, terrors of beetledom.

  The trees grew in their species-distinctive, but also individually idiosyncratic forms—their long, shiny, deeply veined leaves, a myopic palmist's delight should the same chiaroscuro of light and shadow appear in a human hand. Open-faced white or pink-tinged flowers that look like wild roses or large apple blossoms told the story of the medlar's heritage.

  The Nottinghams showed a disposition to thin tallness, limbs reaching upwards; the Great Dutch more expansive, with a here-and-thereishness to their drooping limbs; the Royals were stolid characters, barrel-chested. Each tree fully took advantage of its right to be an individual, and made up its own mind as to its developing shape, how many flowers (self-fertile) it chose to make, and thus how many fruits it chose to produce. Even the shape and size of the offspring varied considerably, from the lychee-sized pears of the Nottinghams to the bramley-sized balls of the Royals, to the heavy, palm-filling half-globes of the Giants, whose fruits were most easy to see the reason for the botanical name, mespilus from meso, half, and pilos, ball. As the fruits grew and ruddied, and their calyxes opened luxuriantly, the reason for the colloquial names of the medlar became increasingly obvious—"open arse fruit" or the equally impolite French coup de chien—dog's arse.

  ~

  The first flowers blossomed; the first fruits appeared hard as pubescent breasts, and then grew in the same impossibly quick manner. The calyxes with their long green-leaf eyelashes opened, wide, wider, till there was an inside-outish aspect to the full-cushioned arse-rose. When autumn came, the glossy green leaves turned brilliant red and began to fall. And when the fruits themselves took on the slightest droop from their stems, when a whim of wind dislodged them easily, Tim picked them all.

  Unless you are a donkey, medlars are only fit to eat when they are bletted, the proper name for rotten. The outside skin goes brown and wrinkly. The inside flesh ranges in colour from the dusky rose of embarrassment, to pâté de foie gras or baby poop, to the sobbing darkness of a forgotten pear. That first crop Tim bletted arse-down, in beds of sweet-smelling chaff, golden-green riffling against the russetted globes. He sent little boxes to the most revered gourmets in the land, and waited for their enthusiasm to boomerang back. There were dinner parties all over the city, conferences in the many-starred hotels.

  And the word came back. Aside from the Italians who as children sat in Nonna's arthritic medlar tree in the old village, the tastemakers scorned the fruits. But perhaps "scorn" is too strong a word. "Disgusting looking" were two used. "Don't like the pits" (of which each fruit hosts five). "Not really attracted" was the most common comment. The exclusive hotels said, "We could never serve these to guests. We can only offer people what they're used to—the attractive foods—you know ... kiwi fruit, apples with red skin ..."

  Tim had saved himself a selection from each tree. To him—a complete surprise. Novelty combined with good packaging and a reputation was what he had counted on to waft these forgotten fruits up to the Mt. Olympus of gourmetdom. But the medlars were startlingly wake-up delicious—a mixture of date, black walnut, a good tanninish claret, medium sweet sherry, the tang of a fresh macintosh and the smooth comfort of baked pear, all combined in a different recipe for each fruit. The texture, too, ranged from babyfood smooth to that of Greek rice pudding, to an exciting feral stringiness resembling spaghettini al dente. Some he ate at night with a glass of something that flowed a touch of warmth down his throat, but he didn't need it. The medlars didn't need to accompany anything for Tim Thornbourne to enjoy them. He preferred to smell feel taste them as solo artists, accompanied only by more of themselves. In this way, the unique delight of each individual could be savoured all the more.

  ~

  The second year, he sent out beautifully packed samplers again, as the first harvest he decided to consider as more of a training crop for each tree.

  The variety of tastes and textures was even more exquisite. Tim discovered his favourite way to eat medlars: the vampire method. Nip a small bite into the thin skin, and squeeze gently. Watch the bruised flesh ooze out, or suck it out slowly. In the house, every table overflowed with bowls of fruit. As he contemplated them, they were all the littered bounty on so many memento mori paintings of the Dutch school, with the casual half-peeled lemons rolling hard by gonadal clusters of grapes, a skull never far away. He searched his books, and in not one painting could he find a medlar, though they should have been in every lush still-life. So what if medlars are brown? In the har
d state, the texture of the skin like a goosebumpy windchapped Mongolian, felt good to his fingers and lips. And in the bletted state, all soft inside, Tim felt slightly protective towards the fruit—its delicacy without preciousness, its uncomplaining stoicism.

  ~

  The feedback from the second year's send-out was almost non-existent. As for the responses he chased up ... "Err ... "Then there were variations on the theme of "sorry, but ... ", or the voicemail message that is meant to be as believed as Santa Claus: " ... and we'll return your call."

  The minds of the tastemakers whose opinions determine the tastes of gourmets he needed for his venture to be successful, were made up.

  He could still run his U-pick-'em for the few true gourmets who don't give a damn about price if they like something. But true gourmets, he had found, are as thin on the ground as Tasmanian Tiger sightings. The ethnics who would buy the medlars for sentimentality balked at paying more than they thought they should—that is, more than everyday fruits. In fact, they expected to pay less for obscure food that most people dislike on sight.

  So Tim's feasibility study to himself was unusually unflowery and honest: Unless you have a certain aesthetic, which isn't limited to primary colours and fancy packaging, the medlar appeals in the same way as a truffle without a reputation. Something only a pig would like.

  ~

  Tim sat in the middle of the orchard, an occasional red or orange leaf blowing into his lap as the last scraps of their clothing were shed by the medlar trees in the light autumn breeze. A willy wagtail swung his tail back and forth as the little bird regarded Tim like some eccentric bug, from its perch on the bare elbow of a Dutch royal.

  Tim regarded his fact. It was a good idea at the time. Instead of a second outrageous success, he had achieved such an outrageous failure that it made him laugh. IntelliCom had possessed the intrinsic substance of all shiny bubbles, and the buyers happily knew it. The game was to pass the ever thinning, ever more expensive bubble.

  He looked at the stripped-naked trees, and nothing shimmered. The thought surprised him. Originally, like sweet syllabubs of future successes whipped from the ether of greed, the medlars were just tools to enable him to admire his own skill.

  Something unfamiliar in the pit of his stomach roiled. How could those tastemakers be so tasteless? The medlars made Tim feel much more—what was the word—romantic? than Jocelynne at her most enchanting. She with hair like the whole moonless sky; breasts like waterlily flowers at dawn; voice of an angry cockatoo ...

  The wind sighed in the tall stringybark eucalypts by the edge of the creek; and on the highway at the top of the hill, a truck without a muffler burped noisily.

  Tim Thornbourne unbent his legs and stood up, looked around him and decided.

  "To hell with gourmets. We're all staying."

  There were four hours left before it became too late to see, but in that time he turned his beautiful road leading from the highway into an anonymous track so uninvitingly tyre-biting, so deviously ankle-twisting, so devilishly tortuous that not even the most hell-for-leather rough road enthusiast would contemplate venturing down, and as for meandering holiday sticky-beakers and fashionable four-wheel drivers, Tim knew they would now just be wooshes dimly heard at the top of the hill, like flies buzzing the dew-soaked grass on a summer morning.

  - 2 -

  Willy wagtails like their rituals, and today, the first anniversary of the day that Tim tore up the road to his farm, the same willy wagtail in his formal longtailed suit of black and white, is perched a foot higher up in the same tree, again examining Tim Thornbourne, who looks a lot hairier, and with the benefit of a calendar, is doing one of those human things: reflecting on his decision a year ago exactly to consign his tastemaker-thwarted ambitions for a second outrageous success to a place that doesn't even have the usefulness of a compost pile.

  Today Tim has come down to the orchard to chew over his failure ... and it tastes surprisingly sweet. As the willy wagtail soaks in the autumn warmth, Tim basks in his deliberated discovery that he is happier than he has ever been. As for the need for another monetary success, Tim admits to himself what he should have known all along: without the expenses of a new venture, or more expensively, Jocelynne, Tim's share of money from the sale of IntelliCom would last, he estimates, until he is approximately 25,000 years old.

  ~

  He's fallen into a pattern of life. Waking when the light streams through curtainless windows. A leisurely breakfast, a quick read of the world's news fresh off the web. An absorption of books. A walk through the forests that envelope his farm. In the late afternoon, a visit with his medlar trees. He had decided, since he would not have invaders, to order more trees from the Frawleys, and soon a diverse band of apples with names like Fenouillet Gris, Cornish Gilliflower, Democrat, Esopus Spitzenburg, and Pitmaston Pineapple threw down their roots and threw up their limbs. Two Japanese persimmons kept them company, and one Smyrna and one Angers quince took up residence at each end of the long line of newcomers.

  The only itches and bothers that the trees seemed to have were the unwelcome attention of some borers that usually drill into wattles, but decided that they like the taste of these woods for variety.

  A clucking army of chickens patrols the roots, picking on any unwelcome guests they find, and Tim helps by poking out borers that have made their ways into any trees.

  Another army decided to move into the medlar trees. An army of little green spiders. They string their round, tatted webs between branches and, like circus performers, hang long lines from tree to tree. They lay little cottonwool pillows of eggs in the protecting calyxes of the fruit. And they eat any tiny bugs that have evil designs on the medlars.

  In his daily visits to the orchard, Tim drinks in the peace of the scenery, the clucks of the chickens, the ways that each tree responds to each season. These things mean more to him than his marriage ever did.

  His visits are still only a couple of hours of meditation a day. In common with most people, he needs the stimulation that humans provide, even if he doesn't want the annoyance of other people in the flesh. So he feeds his mind with books and ponders to himself about life.

  When he isn't with them, the trees live as trees do.

  They grow.

  They flower.

  They fruit.

  They talk to each other.

  - 3 -

  Unlike apples or peaches, most medlars have not, for hundreds of years, met another medlar, let alone a congregation of them. Medlar thought, therefore, has been somewhat undeveloped over the centuries, as well as insufficiently socialized. But with the good life they have in the orchard and the unprecedented companionship, the personalities of these medlars have blossomed, and the orchard buzzes with their conversations, characterized most of all by their unique sense of humour.

  How to describe it? Self-deprecating, of course, as you would expect. Dry with a touch of the medieval to it. They made it to Tudor times, but already were being smashed into pastes, pulled out of the ground in favour of their more beauteous cousins, the other pomes. So, for hundreds of years, they suffered derision as well as separation, loneliness and the real fear of death. Their numbers dropped alarmingly, so intellectual development through cross-fertilisation was stunted since before Johnny Appleseed dropped his apple seeds all over America, a world almost no medlar has met.

  So there was a lot of catching up to do, a lot of new interaction to learn, as medlars had only talked to themselves for centuries, like the human race not ever learning tennis or football, not ever having a reason for speech—just playing solitaire since 1500. With the same disadvantages, humans would not have got as far as vaudeville, let alone the enrichment of uranium.

  The orchard was so alive that the animals caught a drift of something going on. Kangaroos jumped over the wire fence strung to keep the trees safe from gnawing bunnies. Little paddymelon wallabies jumped through the wires without even catching a hair on a barb. White cockatoos and circus-br
ight rosella parrots dropped in from the sky. Magpies stopped their singing to begin listening. Those medlars are hilarious.

  Humour is a curious thing. Something that one species will think funny, another will listen to and shrug. Animals and vegetables generally have their own sense of what they think constitutes "funny", or "tragic", come to think of it. But maybe it was the humility that medlars have. Maybe it was their centuries of individual thoughts. Somehow, they touched a common nerve in animal and vegetable alike. The dim-eyed wombat with its body the shape of a tank was stuck outside the wires, but he came to listen, and surprisingly, understood the humour best of all the marsupials. The fruit bats folded their wings and trembled over the long, complex stories. The cockatoos, easily bored, had a mean streak to them that meant they particularly loved the medieval-tinged humour, where someone is invariably made a fool of. The rosellas are sweet birds and enjoyed a more gentle laugh.

  When the apples and persimmons and quinces were old enough, they joined in. The persimmons have the most culture, everyone agreed—but they are rather solemn, or at least hard to understand. Everyone listened politely though. The apples, though they could be a bit uppity, were greatly admired by the medlars, even if everyone secretly thinks that the Fenouillet Gris has a shockingly crude taste.

  The chickens listened, but they have no sense of humour at all. The spiders, however, shook helplessly with laughter. The black cockatoos snidely remarked that spiders don't understand the true meaning, but laugh over the telling itself. It is true that some trees could coax a giggle even out of the brown snake who has a reputation as rather a cold customer, even on the warmest day.

  ~

  The medlars love Tim. They want to give something special to him, but every time he comes to see them, they fail. They know he likes to eat their fruits and they know his tastes and try their best to thrill him with their productions. But they want him to get something more. The apples agree, all being of types forgotten by most people for many years, and having only been personally brought into fruition by Tim's mail-order to Timespast Nursery—the same nursery where the medlars Tim had ordered were born.