The Solace of Trees

by Robert Madrygin

  After she had gone, Amir returned to his work, though the image of the woman stayed for a time in his thoughts. She knew, Amir understood, how to approach a wild animal in increments, earning trust with patience—to acclimatize it to human presence by containing oneself in quiet stillness until the animal came to accept the human as part of the natural order. He liked this in the woman.

  “My goodness, what in heaven’s name are we going to do with all of these apples?” Margaret declared, looking at the full crates Amir had wheeled back to the house. He had been up at the orchard nearly the whole of the afternoon and still would have been there if Margaret had not gone up to signal him back to the house.

  Amir looked back at Margaret, his palms flat and open to the sky, his shoulders hunched in question.

  “Sorry,” Margaret signed with her hands, realizing she had been speaking out loud without their translation. “Many apples. What to do?”

  “Eat,” Amir indicated by holding an imaginary apple to his mouth. “Cook apples,” he added, his right hand coming to rest upon his upturned left palm, flipping it like a pancake being turned.

  “Yes, good idea,” Margaret smiled and signed back. “Tomorrow, make pie. My daughter is coming. Cut apples now to eat, OK?”

  “Yes, OK,” Amir replied.

  “Tea and cookies too, OK?”

  Amir signed his assent and followed Margaret into the house. His foster mother indicated that he should wash up while she prepared the tea and snacks. Putting the kettle on to boil, she placed a few cookies on a platter and then sliced two of the apples her foster son had harvested. Tomorrow her daughter, Alice, would come and they could make a pie from the apples. The activity would be a good icebreaker. Amir liked doing practical things, keeping his hands busy. It seemed to make social situations easier for him. It would be the first time the two would meet. Margaret was as excited at the prospect as she supposed Amir might, himself, be reticent. Alice had been genuinely happy for her mother’s decision to foster Amir, had supported the idea from the first, though she had been surprised at how quickly it had all come about.

  “Tea in library?” Margaret asked when Amir appeared back in the kitchen, clean and tidied up.

  “OK,” Amir replied, taking the plate of cookies and sliced apples Margaret held out to him while she transported the tray that held the tea set. Of all the rooms in the house, the library was Amir’s favorite. When he had first come to live at Margaret’s and she had shown him around the house, Amir had entered the library and been awed by its voluminous contents. The room had seemed to him like something one saw in the pages of a magazine, the place of some famous scholar or person of wealth, replete with furniture covered in the finest fabric and rich, dark shelving made of the most expensive hardwoods. It was a library perfect in its comfort, a place to sit and read among the seemingly uncountable volumes lining every wall of the room, even framing the two large, mullioned windows overlooking the gardens outside. Everything in the room—the paintings, the photographs, the small sculptures and art objects—was encircled by the books Margaret had been collecting for the better part of her life. There hadn’t been even a small library in Amir’s village. An individual having her very own room full of books seemed an amazing luxury to him.

  Following Margaret into the library, Amir placed the plate he was carrying beside the tea set she placed on the antique butler’s table that sat between two of the armchairs circling the room’s old brick fireplace. His foster mother took hold of one of the cups by its handle and carefully poured tea into it, asking Amir if he would like milk or sugar. Amir signed back that, yes, he would like a little sugar but no milk. Margaret added the ingredients, gracefully stirring the cup and placing it on a saucer in front of the boy.

  Amir could see by the manner in which his foster mother had poured his tea and attentively set it in front of him that he was being treated with the special care afforded a respected guest or friend. Nodding his head in acceptance of her offering, he met Margaret’s eyes in thanks, briefly holding them before taking his cup in hand. She felt in this, and in the way the boy sat carefully sipping his tea, as though in recognition of its ceremony, a hint of something that drew her curiosity. If Margaret could have asked, and if their relationship had developed enough for the boy to share his past, Amir would have told her that in the Beganović home the arrival of a guest had been an exciting event. In the Muslim tradition, a visitor would have been given the very best foods to be found in their kitchen.

  But for Amir’s family, the real measure of their hospitality had always been in the offering of coffee, and along with it, the time they shared with their guest, no matter the never-ending work of their farm. His sister, Minka, would help her mother in the preparation of the coffee, the beans finely ground into a powder, as in Turkish coffee, but the way it was prepared was slightly different, proudly Bosnian. While the brew was being made, Amir would pull out the round iron tray it would be served upon, arrange small ceramic cups on its outer circumference, and then add a dish of sugar cubes and a glass of water to complete the service. When the coffee was ready the small, long-necked copper-plated pot was set in the middle of the tray. His father would carry it into the main room, and the whole family gathered to honor the visitors and make them feel welcome— as much a chance for themselves as for their guests to enjoy a pause in the routine of their lives.

  Sipping her tea, Margaret smiled at Amir. Taking hold of the food plate, she placed it in front of him. From the boy came a small, timid smile in return. Amir reached forward and took a cookie, although he was hesitant to do so. To have refused the offer would have been disrespectful to his host. It was not that he wasn’t hungry enough to eat one or that he didn’t like them, rather it was the sensation of the woman’s gentle touch having found its way into his feelings that was disturbing. Since losing his family he had been the recipient of various acts of kindness from others, yet this was more than an extension of sympathy or even compassion. There was a lingering sense of something else, something deeper, the possibility of an emotional bond tying him to another. Yet it frightened him. He could not afford any more loss. In the boy’s mind it was safer to have nothing than to have something that could be taken from him yet again; for each loss had given him the sensation that yet another piece of him was disappearing, breaking off from his being, that soon there would be nothing left of him at all.

  Chapter 13

  Margaret’s daughter drove to her mother’s house without her husband, Paul, who, though eager to meet his mother-in-law’s new foster son, had been called to the office that Saturday to deal with pressing work. Alice had not pushed her husband to join her, the truth being that she looked forward to the solitude of the journey and a chance to spend a few precious hours alone. Setting out from her house in Cambridge, Alice turned on her radio and headed west on the highway, though she had not driven very far before she reached over to lower the receiver’s volume and then finally shut it off altogether. Too much talk, too much news, too much of too much.

  Letting out a sigh, Alice suddenly felt released, the road gliding beneath her, the white run of painted lines guiding her along the ever-flowing river of black tarmac that focused her attention from outside intrusion. Two hours of downtime and only one thing required of her: to keep the car on the road. A real Zen experience. Alice smiled. She laughed to think of herself intent upon beating the rat race by outrunning all of the other rats who themselves sought the same. How many of the other drivers were hurriedly running along on a hamster-wheel of haste, and how many, like herself, were attempting to escape it? A modern-day retreat, she thought with a sigh—asylum in a steel-capsuled hermitage rocketing along the highway at seventy miles an hour.

  Her thoughts slowly drifted in the direction of her mother, to their relationship past and present and to what it might still become. Alice recalled the times, up till her early teens, when her own path and her mother’s coincided in an easy, graceful arc. Then, without either being fully
cognizant of its happening, their directions began to diverge: the surge of Alice’s teenage years gained velocity, taking her faster and farther afield; her mother’s career in academia found success with the publication of several well-received books and tenure in a major university.

  During Alice’s teenage years, it seemed the bond she and her mother once shared had never really been. They couldn’t spend more than a short time talking before a simple conversation turned disagreeable. Alice thought that her mother’s counsels about her scholastic and social life had been full of veiled judgments and lacked confidence in Alice’s ability to make her own decisions. She understood that her mother’s early years had been emotionally difficult, that her grandparents’ conservative view of the world, their adherence to “proper” behavior and a manner of living befitting their station in life, had been stifling to her mother. But Alice didn’t feel trapped by her family’s affluence the way her mother had. Alice lived in a different time, with different attitudes and ways of life.

  As their disagreements grew more frequent and more intense, Alice’s father found himself taking on the role of arbiter between mother and daughter. Alice had just begun her first year at college when her father suffered a sudden heart attack and died. Over the following years, now living apart and without the relational bridge provided by the father, the daughter’s and mother’s trajectories diverged further, both women aware of the increasing separation of their parting paths but neither able to navigate a correction. There had only been the time shared on the occasional holiday, a day or two’s visit at most. Alice had taken up life and medical school in the Midwest; her mother had become ever more involved in her own work.

  Only recently, since her mother’s retirement and Alice’s return to Boston, had their paths once more found a common intersection. The slow atrophy of their mother-daughter bond finally reversed, their relationship was once again able to find a place of growth.

  Alice stepped out from her car in Margaret’s driveway and stood for some moments in the yard before venturing inside, letting the chill of the air and the quiet and peaceful beauty of the setting wash the lingering drone of spinning wheels from her head.

  “Margaret?” Alice called out, entering the house and, hearing no response, called out again, “Mom?”

  “Hello,” Margaret responded from a distance. “In the kitchen.”

  “Hi! Well, you’re looking quite domestic,” the daughter smiled at the sight of her mother busy at work, an apron hung over her clothing. She walked into the room to embrace the older woman.

  “I know,” Margaret laughed. “It’s not the image of me that I’m used to. Paul didn’t come?”

  “No, today it’s just the two of us girls and Amir,” her daughter replied.

  “That will be fun. It’s been a while since I’ve had you all to myself.”

  Alice broke into a smile, like one she might have had upon hearing those same words as a young girl. “Almost all to yourself,” Alice laughed, correcting her mother. “Where is Amir? I’m dying to meet him.”

  “He’s outside playing. He loves the outdoors. Spends almost as much time wandering around the property as he does in the house.”

  “How is it going? Has the adjustment been difficult for you?”

  “Yes and no. It’s all still new. We’re slowly feeling each other out and getting to know one another. Can you pass me that bag of flour, please?”

  “Sure. Apple pie?” Alice asked, scanning the ingredients on the counter in front of her mother.

  “Yes. Amir picked some apples. Actually, quite a few. He was very proud of his accomplishment, so I thought I’d make a couple of pies in recognition of his effort. One is for you to take home.”

  “Thank you. That’s very thoughtful. Paul will be very happy to see it. Now, where is that boy? Is he ever going to come in?”

  “Unlikely,” Margaret laughed. “I’d go get him, but my hands are covered in flour. Can you find him? He’ll be somewhere close at hand. Try the fields or along the brook. I told him not to go far because you would be coming, so he shouldn’t be too difficult to locate. The sign for ‘hello’ is basically the same as it is in the hearing world, just a casual wave, sort of a very informal salute with your hand side to side, like this.” Alice’s mother demonstrated the movement. “Amir is getting good at reading people’s gestures and faces, so no need to worry about him understanding your meaning.”

  “OK, got it,” Alice said, repeating the gesture.

  Happy to step out into the bright autumn day, Margaret’s daughter walked slowly around the house and barn in search of Amir. Not seeing the boy, she called out for him, “Amir!” before she caught herself in embarrassed silence.

  Realizing that finding Amir might require more attention than she had previously considered, Alice began to look about with a keener eye. My god, what a beautiful day, she thought, pausing in appreciation of the nature all about her. There was a chill in the air, but the early cold front that had brought it had also cleared the sky of any obstacle to the sun’s rays. Light rained down all about, heightening the colors of the autumn leaves and giving Margaret’s daughter the sense she had entered a wonderland found only in fairy tales.

  As she walked out into the fields Alice’s eyes scanned the pale green plane of their expanse. Not seeing the boy, she cast her gaze along the stone walls that bordered the grassland. Turning from the fields, she walked toward the brook that snaked its way down along the forest’s edge on the north side of the property. The sound of running water grew in volume as she approached, and she suddenly spotted the form of a small boy among the trees that grew along the stream’s edge. He was sitting on a rock with his back turned toward her, hunched over and holding something in his right hand that he was poking into the running water.

  The flow of water was ceaseless, strong and free. Carried along in its current were branches, twigs, and leaves fallen or blown into the stream by gusts of wind that had just recently begun to clear the trees of their colorful cover. Amir sat on the bank by a small eddy watching the current slow and then reverse itself, trapping leaves and twigs in its lull. A stick in hand, he worked at freeing whatever was caught in the circular flow so that it might continue its journey onward. He then watched the loosened objects as they made their way floating and bobbing among the boulders until they disappeared from sight.

  Sometimes, if a branch he’d freed got trapped or wedged between the stones downstream, he would go set it loose once again or take hold of it and break it into smaller pieces so that it wouldn’t create a dam and catch the things he had liberated farther upstream. Watching a leaf or twig float off into the distance, riding the heave and drop of the current as it bounced from boulder to boulder unhindered, engendered the feeling within the boy that he too had somehow been released from the obstructed swirl of emotion within him.

  Amir was lost in meditation, his eyes following a leaf cupped like a saucer, whose stem seemed like a rudder steering it past the obstacles that hindered its way while it floated boat-like down the stream. He was unaware of the woman who had approached him from behind and who now stood waiting in hope he would turn and see her.

  Had it been someone other than Amir, Alice would have called out over the loud drone of the coursing water to avoid startling him. The boy sat on a rock jutting out into the brook such that she was unable to make her way toward him from either side. As her hand reached out to gently touch his shoulder, something within the boy felt a presence, breaking the soothing, peaceful trance that had transported his mind from the present world to one distant and without need of vigilance. Startled, he abruptly turned.

  The boy’s reaction caused a reciprocal response from the woman: Amir’s head jerked involuntarily, as if avoiding being struck, and Alice stepped backward, nearly tripping over a stone as she did so. When she recovered her balance, her immediate instinct was to apologize, but the impulse was superseded by another spontaneous inclination, one that saved the moment, changing ab
ashed confusion to comical encounter…Alice broke into laugher at her own awkward ballet in attempt to stay upright.

  Looking back at her timidly, Amir smiled, his hazel eyes blinking in the smooth plane of his face.

  “Sorry,” Alice said, interrupting her laughter. Remembering her mother’s lesson in sign language, she waved hello to the boy.

  Amir waved back while continuing to look at Alice, his knit cap pulled down low over his ears, eyes no longer blinking but focused and intent, as if in search of something. His cheeks were flushed from the cool air coming off the stream. He wore an old hand-me-down coat that had come from his former foster family and, though clean, it added to the look of the waif about the boy. His thinness was noticeable even through his clothing, the sparse body of a person who ate only in afterthought. The boy’s eyes softened, in nearly simultaneous timing with Alice’s.

  “I’m Alice, Margaret’s daughter,” Alice said, pointing at herself, hoping the boy would understand her words.

  Amir nodded his understanding. He had seen her face framed in photos on Margaret’s desk in the library, on a side table in the living room, and hanging on the wall in her upstairs bedroom. Margaret had shown him a recent photo of her daughter so he would understand who was coming to visit. In it the daughter had sat, smiling, next to the woman, her arm draped around her mother’s shoulder. Her hair was long, like her mother’s, but let loose, not tied back like the older woman’s. The clothing and jewelry they wore followed in the same pattern, the daughter’s appearance more stylish and expressing a more extroverted fashion, while the older was clothed in a simpler, understated dress, her face and hands adorned with only a pair of earrings and a gold wedding band.