“Fereiba, you have watched your father in the grove, haven’t you? His talents come alive there. I taught him what I could when he was a boy, but before he became a man I could see there was more he could show me. He is a master at cultivating and grafting trees.”
This was true. One winter, I’d watched my father strip a carefully selected scion from an apple tree. I followed him to the edge of the orchard where he had picked out a well-rooted apple tree of a bright red-skinned variety. Humming, he’d stroked the bark and circled the trunk, looking for the perfect place to introduce the graft. With surgical precision, he sliced into a branch at an angle, creating a lip that he pulled back. Into the opening, he slid the tapered end of the scion, placing the two raw faces in direct contact, an interface of two species. He continued to hum as he bound the scion to the host with long strips of cloth that circled the joint. He covered the tip of the scion and its three buds with a paper bag, shielding it from the drying air. By spring, we had a new kind of apple from a sapling branch that should have withered and died. Instead, two living, breathing species were made into a new fruit unique to our orchard, a fruit of my father’s creation.
“I wish your father could carry his talents into his home, but they seem to dry at the threshold. That leaves things in your hands, Fereiba-jan.” Boba-jan shook his head. I wanted to disagree, to tell him my father was nothing like KokoGul, but he continued.
“Even your brother has found his way, without obligation to anyone. I do not know who is to blame. He has the body of a horse but the mind of an ass.”
“But you have always looked out for me,” I said, holding his hand.
“Maybe I am hard on your father because he is too much like me. You, you are different. More like your mother, may Allah give her peace. She could see beyond her nose. With her, your father was better. It’s too bad. She would have made a man out of him.”
My legs were going numb, sitting beside Boba-jan, but I dared not move. I wanted to remember every word of what he was saying.
“No use speaking of such things. You are an intelligent girl. Trust yourself to know what’s best for you.”
“You always know what’s best for me, Boba-jan. I can always turn to you.”
“It’s best not to depend on the gray haired. We’re too close to God to rely on,” he warned with a tired sigh.
He was exhausted, so I changed the subject and talked to him about the rosebushes growing outside his home. I told him about the chicken vendor who had to chase his clucking hens down the market street when a child opened the latch on the cage. He smiled and nodded, his eyes drifting off as sleep overcame him.
I kissed his hand and promised to return in the morning, but some time between then and sunrise, Boba-jan left to be with God and my mother. I wondered if the angel from the orchard had come to claim him. I wept for two weeks, away from my father and KokoGul and my siblings. I wanted to be as alone as I felt, and the only place I could do that was in the thick of the orchard.
FORTY DAYS AFTER MY GRANDFATHER’S PASSING, I WENT WALKING among the fruit trees. Boba-jan’s death made me think of the angel from my childhood again, though I was fairly convinced he was nothing more than my youthful imagination toying with me. Still, I had the fleeting thought that if I saw him, I’d like to ask him about my grandfather and mother.
Behind a row of mulberry trees was our neighbor’s orchard, separated from ours by a high clay wall. As I spent more time in the shade of the mulberry trees, I began to feel I wasn’t alone. It was different from the time I’d seen my guardian angel. This time the presence felt earthly. This time the presence sneezed.