The Lemon Grove

by Ali Hosseini

  Twenty-five

  I CAN HARDLY KEEP my eyes open and have no idea where we are when Zamirvali tells me in a tired voice that we have arrived, that we are in the outskirts of Kandahar. All through the trip I have been thinking about Shireen traveling the same roads, wondering whether she had been in this place or that and how she felt when the bus went through the checkpoints. Now that I’m here, I can’t imagine what her condition or frame of mind will be.

  It’s early afternoon, and the sun is hot. The bus passes through a gate into a large, open garage. Parked on one side are several buses and minibuses and an old, brightly painted truck. People rush around noisily with their bundles, the men carrying them on their backs, the women on their heads. I’ve never seen so many women totally covered with burkas. Even their faces are hidden behind the woven screen in front of their eyes. I watch cautiously, wondering what dark-eyed beauty might be hidden under the somber coverings.

  After walking up and down to get the blood circulating in my legs, I go to a water tap by the gate to wash. The porters are pushing carts around. A donkey attached to a cart is standing still, its head bowed and its tail snapping constantly to drive away the many flies. The place is dusty, and there is a sharp smell of onions, garlic, turmeric, and cooking oil. I feel exhausted and my body aches. We have to wait until the load is down from the top of the bus and Zamirvali has picked up his bundle and his suitcase. I have only the shoulder bag with all my belongings, that I’ve been carrying throughout the trip.

  Zamirvali talks to the taxi drivers and bargains for the fare. Finally, he settles with one of them and we get into a rickety old taxi. We go through a few streets and around a rotary. In the center a group of red banners with hammers and sickles flap in the air. As we speed through the narrow alleys, I think that a door is going to fly open or fall off any moment. With every bump my head hits the roof. Finally we stop in front of an iron gate with peeling blue paint. Zamirvali helps me out of the taxi. A few women covered in burkas walk by.

  Two girls who are six or seven and a small boy come to the gate and run to Zamirvali. He bends down and kisses them, then picks up the boy and holds him up in the air, looking at him with a bright smile. “Pesaram, bozorg shodi baba-jan—You’ve grown bigger, my son,” he says joyfully.

  He pushes the door open and invites me to go in ahead of him. “Befarma’id—please come in. We’re home.”

  The small courtyard is surrounded by a low brick wall. Could it be that Shireen is here? I look around but don’t see any sign of her. There are two rooms on one side of the yard with doors that are also painted a faded blue. A clothesline running across the yard is hung with children’s clothes. A child’s bicycle with one wheel missing is propped in a corner. In a bare area at the end of the small garden, a white goat is tied to a weeping-willow tree. The ends of the low branches are missing as far up as the goat can reach.

  “Is Shireen here?” I ask Zamirvali.

  “Yes. Welcome to our home.”

  I take off my turban and stand against the wall, not wanting to move. I look toward the two doors. It seems impossible to believe she is behind one of them. There is only a door between us, just a door, like that last night in Shiraz.

  The anxiety is killing me, and I almost call out. Then one of the doors opens and a woman in a brown burka steps out. My heartbeat quickens and I move toward her. Then, hearing an Afghan accent, I stop.

  “Salaam. Khush amadid be manzel ma—Hello, you’re welcome in our house.”

  Zamirvali turns to her. “Where is Shireen Khanom?”

  “She’s gone to the school to see the teacher,” the woman says.

  “Go get her,” he says. “Just tell her I’ve come from Shiraz.”

  I watch as she runs into the alley.

  “School?” I ask Zamirvali.

  “Yes, we have a little school in this neighborhood. It’s close by. That was my wife. She’ll bring her. Please, let’s go inside.”

  The children hang on to Zamirvali’s baggy pants. I don’t want to move and stand there against the wall, weak and dizzy. I close my eyes for a while and then open them as the children laugh and run around the yard, wearing their gifts of bright-yellow plastic sunglasses.

  The courtyard gate opens, and a woman walks in with Zamirvali’s wife. I look closer. She is wearing a long green Afghani dress and a yellow scarf. She nods at Zamirvali and then looks at me.

  “Behruz?” she says, staring in disbelief.

  Am I imagining that I’m hearing her voice? It can’t be, I think. I haven’t heard her voice since we were children.

  “Behruz?” I hear her again. “Is it you? My God! How did you get here?”

  I rush to her.

  She opens her arms. I hold her, feeling her warmth and smelling the sweet scent of her hair. Feeling me trembling, she holds me tighter.

  It’s as if I’ve always heard her voice, always heard her talking to me.

  I look at her and then hug her again. “Oh, dear Shireen. Shireen-aziz. I can’t believe you’re alive and in my arms.” I’m overwhelmed and can’t keep back my tears.

  “And you—I can’t believe you’re here in front me.” She kisses me on both cheeks. Then she steps back and with a smile looks at me as if she wants to take in the sight of me in my Afghani clothes.

  “It’s like a dream, an impossibility, I’m so happy to see you.” She wipes her eyes with the end of her scarf.

  I can’t understand how it is possible that she is talking after so many years. Did Farideh know—why didn’t she tell me? Maybe she knew I wouldn’t believe it unless I heard her myself.

  “Shireen—your voice …?”

  “Yes. It came back,” she says. “I can’t explain it.”

  I look at her through my tears and remember the spring day in the Naranjestan when we were children playing at having a wedding … Could it be that first awful event shocked her so that she became mute while the later one had the opposite effect? I look at her in silence. She looks very thin and there is a darkness around her green eyes, but they have the same familiar sparks. When I look more closely, I can see a few faint scars on her forehead and chin.

  She smiles, looking at me as if to convince herself I’m really here. All at once I feel overcome and break into tears, hiding my face in my hands.

  “I’m sorry,” I say after a minute. “I’m sorry I ran away, I’m sorry for all the pain I caused you and Ruzbeh.” I speak in a low voice. I’m exhausted and light-headed.

  “Here is my room,” she says, taking my arm. “Let’s go in.”

  I realize that Zamirvali and his wife and children, their plastic glasses still on, are standing there watching us. We go into her small room. A chill runs through me and I know my fever is returning. I tell myself that I have to fight it, that now is the time to be strong.

  “Are you okay?” Shireen asks in a worried voice. “You look ill. Why don’t you lie down?”

  “Yes,” I say calmly, not wanting to worry her, “I’m just tired. It’s the stress of being on the road. I’ll be fine.” But I wonder if I really will be fine, the way my bladder and kidneys feel.

  Zamirvali brings a blanket, and Shireen covers me with it.

  “You don’t look okay to me,” she says. “You may be sick. You can get sick very easily in this country. I’ll get you some water.”

  The room has one small window and the walls are bare except for the mirror hanging next to the door. She comes back with a glass of water and hands it to me. “You need to rest. I have so many questions to ask you, but I can wait. Just tell me any news you have from Ruzbeh.”

  “He’s safe,” I say.

  “Where is he? Is he all right?”

  “He’s fine. He’s back in Shiraz.”

  “Shiraz?”

  “Yes. He is staying with Farideh and Javid.”

  “Oh, thank God. And my mother, and your mother?”

  “They’re still in the village.”

  “After I came here,” she says
, “you can’t believe how things started to come back to me. Everything was blank for months—Ruzbeh, you, our mothers. Everything that happened. Until I came here. Even most of the trip to Kandahar was a blur. I had a high fever and wasn’t myself during the cold nights on the road.

  “The amazing thing,” she continues near tears, “is that on the bus coming here, Zamirvali poured a cup of tea for me and when he handed it to me, I said, ‘thank you,’ and at that moment I thought I heard myself, that it wasn’t just in my head. I said, ‘thank you, Zamirvali, you’re very kind.’ He smiled and I knew he had heard me. I sat quiet. I wasn’t excited. I was sad in a way at that moment, I don’t know exactly why. I stared out through the bus window, holding the tea. How was it possible? Then I remembered … I remembered how at that terrible moment in the square I had screamed as loud as I could …”

  She becomes quiet, looking at me and smiling. I can see she is thinking. “After a couple of weeks of rest here,” she says, “things started to come back to me in fragments. I thought about all of you day and night and didn’t know what to do except try to be strong, gather up the pieces, and go on.”

  I listen to her soft voice and feel like I don’t want to think about anything, past or present. I just want to be in the moment, sit and listen to her, comfort her if I can.

  “I need to ask you about so many things,” she says, “but not now. You need to rest.” She wipes her eyes. “Just tell me one more thing. What happened to you?” She stares at me. “You are so thin. Are you ill?”

  I wonder how I can talk about what has happened to me after what she has gone through.

  “I’m fine,” I say. “I found Ruzbeh and I found you. That’s what I wanted more than anything. I want Ruzbeh to come here. I want to make things right again.”

  Zamirvali brings a pot of tea and fills the glass cups. He puts a cup in front of me and one in front of Shireen and then puts a bowl of sugar cubes between us. His wife comes in with a big dish of oranges and pomegranates and leaves quietly.

  A scratching feeling starts in the back of my throat and makes me cough, a hard cough that I can’t control and brings tears to my eyes. This is something new, I think. Shireen holds me until I can stop shaking.

  “You must rest,” she says. “You need a doctor. I’ll go get a doctor—I know one.”

  I don’t want her to leave. I don’t want her out of my sight and am afraid she will disappear again.

  “Stay for now. Stay,” I say. “I’m okay. Let’s just have some tea and oranges.”

  She picks up an orange, holding it in her palm momentarily before starting to peel it. My God, she is so beautiful, I say to myself. I don’t want to take my eyes off her, but as she goes on talking in her soft voice I find my eyes closing.

  Twenty-six

  IN THE DAYS THAT Zamirvali was getting ready to return to Shiraz, I asked him if he could take back two letters we had for Javid and Ruzbeh. To my surprise, he said he couldn’t. “It would be dangerous because at the border and at the checkpoints they look at everything, searching for drugs entering Iran, and also if they find any evidence of human trafficking, I’ll end up in jail.”

  “On my last trip,” he said, “I had a letter from Shireen Khanom. I was frightened. They saw it and I was lucky they didn’t open it. I would do anything for Mr. Javid Rahimi, but I have a wife and children. I need to be careful. If they find out I brought you here illegally, I could be arrested by our communists here or the Iranians on the other side of the border.”

  Both Shireen and I were disappointed, but there was nothing we could do and we knew it would be too risky to send the letters by mail, especially since Javid had warned us against it. The day before the trip, though, Shireen was at school and Zamirvali came to the room and indicated he was willing to take the letters.

  “Are you sure?” I asked surprised.

  “Inshallah there’ll be no problem. I’ve figured out a way to take them.”

  He handed me a light-yellow shawl that he had bought in the bazaar and asked me to write the letters in a long line and as small as I could along the edges. His plan was to roll the shawl as a turban and wear it at the border crossing.

  I got to work right away, spreading out the cloth on a tray and using a blue ballpoint pen to write my letter as discreetly as I could alongside one edge, leaving the other edge for Shireen.

  Dear ones,

  I’m here with S in the outskirts of Kandahar. I arrived last week and found her in high spirits, her eyes shining as I remember. You can’t imagine how wonderful it was for me to find her. It was as if after wandering in the desert for days I had found a tree to rest under. Her strength and spirit are immeasurable.

  Thanks to both of you, I made it here, although I was ill all through the trip and still am. But I won’t bother you with that now. Our friend is a brave and honest man and brought me safely here. Without him it would have been impossible. His family, with all the limitations they face, have done the best they could for S.

  I hope my brother is still with you and his health is better. Please go ahead with what we talked about. Please do this as quickly as you can. I haven’t been well enough since I got here to see about going to our destination, but S has contacted the people whose names you gave her. It’s going to take a while—they won’t tell us exactly—for things to be arranged. We’ll be ready by the time R gets here and hope we can make it to a U.N. or Red Cross refugee office. S says there is a telephone and telegraph office in the center of the town. We’ll call you in a week if the lines are working—I know it could be risky—just to find out if you got the letters and when R will be on the way.

  I will stop here. Please let our friends at the village know I’m well. I owe my life to all of you. Thank you again.

  With love and friendship,

  B

  My dearest one,

  What can I say and where can I start? Oh, some things are not meant to be written down. How I wish you were here and I could tell you everything. You know how much I love you and my love is as strong as ever. That’s how I survived the unimaginable—love pulled me through, and now I want you to be with me. I don’t know how much you know and don’t know. I can’t deny what happened. I certainly can’t deny what happened to me, or to you or to your brother.

  Oh, my dear, your brother is ill. He doesn’t admit it but I think it is something serious and am not sure he will survive it—something with his kidneys. I don’t know what he has gone through over these past months. He doesn’t tell me. I’m sorry to send you this news. The doctor here is not very optimistic and I don’t have the heart to tell B that. The doctor advises that he be hospitalized. Medical facilities are very limited here. I asked the doctor not to say anything to him, but I’m sure he knows it himself. I’m writing because I want you to come so we can go to Canada or America, both of you can receive proper medical care, and hopefully we can start a new life.

  I don’t want to tell you in a letter what I have gone through or what happened when you kept running away from me. I know you were thinking of me and that as soon as the signs were there you went away. Those two years were the hardest time for me. Did we make mistakes? I don’t think so, because it was our love that was the source of the strength and hope that kept us alive and helped us through each day. I’m sorry I left without seeing you. I didn’t know where you were.

  You must come. And please, before you come, go to my mother. And your mother. Tell them that I’m alive and that I’m safe where I am. I wasn’t able to go to the village because I didn’t want them to see me in the condition I was in. Judging from what B tells me, it is possible that they may have some idea of what happened. I’m waiting for you and will have things arranged by the time you get here. Do you remember how we wanted to go to America? How we wanted to meet B’s friend? It might be possible now. B is sending her a letter. She teaches at a school in South Dakota. I hope they can be back together. The way he talks about her, it’s obvious he still loves her. When we’r
e there, we’ll learn English. And we can have another chance at life.

  Oh, before I forget, please bring warm clothes. It’s cold here and they say it will be much colder by next month. And be careful on the road. Make sure to take your medicine and make sure to bring enough with you for the trip and the time to follow.

  I want to tell you what makes me go on these days in this beautiful and at the same time awful place—beautiful because of the wonderful people who have nothing to offer except kindness and awful because of the ongoing war and destruction. I have been able to go on because I’m doing something that makes me hopeful. In a two-room school I’m teaching small children who have lost their hearing from explosions. I’m teaching them to communicate by sign language and they love it. We also have a tiny garden in the school yard. We’ve planted geraniums and roses. They know all about you and the Naranjestan. They draw flowers and gardens and rainbows. I’m sending one of the drawings—it’s a picture of you and me walking under the lemon trees of the Naranjestan. I had told them about our orchard of sweet lemons.

  Come and bring a dozen colored pencils for us. I love you with my all heart.

  S

  Twenty-seven

  SHIREEN COMES IN, her gaze vibrant. “I’m so happy,” she says. “I feel I could fly.”

  She’s wearing the earrings that were Ruzbeh’s gift. They are long and the green of the turquoise complements her eyes.

  “Well, well,” I say with a smile. “You must have finally succeeded in talking to Ruzbeh.”

  “Yes,” she says and hands me a candy. “I bought these for my schoolchildren. You can have one.”

  “And?” I ask anxiously.

  “He’s coming. He’ll be on the road in three days. He said it was very good that we sent those letters. And—and I also went to see Noorahmad, the man who is going to take us to Pakistan. He said everything is arranged and we should be ready to leave in two weeks. He said there will be snow soon, and the roads will become dangerous.”