Of Boys and Figs

The roads never ran in the shade of pine trees.  Instead, on dusty evenings, the roads became one with the trail that proud sunsets dragged across mountains of white rocks and songs of the Mediterranean.  Beyond the pine trees and the songbirds that stormed the bushes of wild mulberry in late July, we the boys in over-sized shorts and slingshots in the back pocket, we climbed the fig trees.

There was Waleed, the quiet one.  And there was Toni who had a wrist-watch since his father was a doctor.  And I was the Armenian who looked like everyone else, but spoke Armenian at home.  Summer time, especially in August, we loved sitting inside the fig trees, eating the divine fruit, and waiting for a songbird to perch nearby.  Then, we shot the bird down with our slingshots, loaded with ground gravel.  In a few hours, we had talked about things 10 year old boys talk about; we had filled our bellies with the nectar of warm figs; and often return home with a few songbirds for our moms to prepare as appetizer for when the dads got together before dinner to have a glass of milk-cloudy Arak and smoke a few cigarettes.

I never thought that songbirds had a song.  And that the slingshots we made from forked pine branches, bicycle tire inner-tubes, and a piece of leather to hold the gravel, were a boy’s cruel tool to kill a song.

I did not think that when a red fig cracks its skin and opens wide to the August sun, it becomes ambrosia young boys learn about when their chins get gray and the Arak feels too harsh on the stomach.  That someday they will meet girls who would remind them how they must climb the tall trees to reach the nectar of figs. But then, sitting inside a fig tree, all I was interested in were Toni’s stories and Waleed’s simple laughter.

… Recently, on a small island, where once three countries joined as one, I thought about figs and songbirds, while sitting on a fallen tree trunk.  The fig was dry, the tree had been cut down and rotting in spots.  The songbirds were also different, this time.  They were more song than bird; they were unafraid of perching nearby.  And I did not have a slingshot in my back pocket. 

On that island where a few years ago different people lived together in peace, I thought about Waleed the quiet one, Toni the boy who wanted to become a doctor and me who built slingshots during the summer days and read romantic poetry at night. Girls were unattractive then, and the roads never ran in the shade of pine trees.  We were three boys from three backgrounds, religion, language and heritage.  But we did not know such things can make a difference when we climbed fig trees and filled our shorts’ pockets with gravel.

And on that island, I learned again about songs that find a niche upon fallen tree trunks and await to be heard.  I listened to the sea; I walked under torrential rain, and drank simple wines.  And when I left that island, a fall night full of moonlight, I realized how similar it was to sit on that tree trunk and learn to be patient as when we sat on the gray branches of sappy old fig trees. 

This time, however, someone else had the slingshot.

October 20, 2010

©Vahé Kazandjian, 2013