The Last Pomegranate Tree by Ali Bachtyar

Author:Ali Bachtyar [Bachtyar, Ali]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Steerforth Press
Published: 2023-01-24T00:00:00+00:00

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My return disturbed the sisters’ peace. On the night that Ikram-i Kew told them my story, that Saryas-i Subhdam’s father had returned from the desert after twenty-one years and wished to visit the grave of his son, their peace and assurance were thrown off balance, their life lost its rhythm and harmony. At that moment, they were forced to confront the story they had been running from ever since Saryas died. They didn’t know whether they should tell me the secret of the Second Saryas; whether they should take me to the grave of the first and let me live with my disappointment, or tell me there was another Saryas who was alive and well somewhere else.

Shadarya believed they shouldn’t talk about the other Saryas, for to do so was a betrayal of an irreplaceable brother who had died young. But Lawlaw-i Spi spoke about the misery of a father returning after twenty-one years, dying to hug and kiss someone and call him “my son.” Shadarya said, “As a father he needs to accept the death of his son and become the custodian of his grave.” To this, Lawlaw retorted, “But he could equally well be the father of the young man who’s alive, of the Saryas who’s alive. How can we deprive a father of his son? What gives us the right to hide the truth from him?” Shadarya replied irritably, as if she were walking through fire, “And what if Muzafar-i Subhdam is the real father of our one and only brother? What will we achieve then except for depriving him of his past?”

One night they walked by the stream into the small hours, thinking and singing their sad songs, their hair loosened against the night chill. Finally, they resolved to lay all their information before me. They took me to Saryas’s grave that night so I could see and understand that he was dead with my own eyes. The two sisters wanted the whole world to care about Saryas, but once the army of the cart vendors disappeared and the children of the streets and alleys were scattered, they could not find anyone with treasured memories of Saryas-i Subhdam. They wanted to find someone else, a companion, who would share their grief and understand their sorrow.

But when they saw how devastated I was, they realized that I refused to believe he was dead. The following night, Lawlaw-i Spi came to my room alone and said, “Muzafar-i Subhdam, our unfortunate old man, there’s still a lot you don’t know.” From that night on, they addressed me as “unfortunate old man,” “father of suffering,” or “sheikh of sadness.”

Wearing her black neckerchief, Lawlaw-i Spi told me the whole story herself. It could not be done in one night, but throughout my time with the sisters in white they continued telling me the tale, some nights in my room and some beside the blackboards in their school classrooms. I engraved it in my mind, letter by letter, line by line.

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