The Passport

THE APPLE TREE

Before the war an apple tree had stood behind the church. It was an apple tree that ate its own apples.

The night watchman’s father had also been night watchman. One summer night he was standing behind the boxwood hedge. He saw the apple tree open a mouth at the top of the trunk, where the branches forked. The apple tree ate apples.

In the morning the night watchman didn’t lie down to sleep. He went to the village mayor. He told him that the apple tree behind the church ate its own apples. The mayor laughed. The night watchman could hear fear behind the laughter. Little hammers of life were beating in the mayor’s head.

The night watchman went home. He lay in bed with his clothes on. He fell asleep. He slept covered in sweat.

While he was sleeping, the apple tree rubbed the mayor’s temple raw. His eyes were reddened and his mouth was dry.

After lunch the mayor struck his wife. He had seen apples floating in the soup. He swallowed them.

The mayor couldn’t sleep after his meal. He shut his eyes and heard tree-bark scraping against the other side of the wall. The strips of bark hung in a row. They hung on ropes and ate apples.

That evening the mayor called a meeting. The people assembled. The mayor set up a committee to watch over the apple tree. Four wealthy peasants, the priest, the village teacher and the mayor himself belonged to the committee.

The village teacher made a speech. He named the apple tree committee the “Summer Night’s Committee”. The priest refused to mount watch on the apple tree behind the church. He made the sign of the cross three times. He excused himself with: “May God forgive his sinners.” He threatened to go into town the following morning and report the blasphemy to the bishop.

Darkness fell very late that evening. The sun had been so hot that the day would not end. Night flowed out of the earth and over the village.

The Summer Night’s Committee crawled along the boxwood hedge in the darkness. It lay down under the apple tree, and looked into the tangle of branches.

The mayor had an axe. The wealthy peasants laid their pitchforks in the grass. The village teacher sat under a sack beside a storm lantern with a pencil and an exercise book. He looked through a thumb-size hole in the sack with one eye, and wrote the report.

The night had reached its peak. It pressed the sky out of the village. It was midnight. The Summer Night’s Committee stared at the half-dispersed sky. Under the sack the teacher looked at his pocket watch. Midnight had passed. The church clock had not struck.

The priest had stopped the church clock. Its cogged wheels were not to mark the hour of the sin. Silence was to accuse the village.

No one in the village slept. Dogs stood in the streets, without barking. Cats sat in the trees, looking with glowing lantern eyes.

People sat in their rooms. Mothers carried their children back and forward between burning candles. The children did not cry.

Windisch had sat under the bridge with Barbara.

The teacher had noted the middle of the night on his pocket watch. He stretched out his hand from under the sack. He signalled to the Summer Night’s Committee.

The apple tree didn’t move. The mayor cleared his throat because of the long silence. One of the wealthy peasants was shaken by a smoker’s cough. He quickly picked a tuft of grass. He put the grass in his mouth. He stifled his cough.

Two hours after midnight the apple tree began to tremble. At the top, where the branches forked, a mouth opened. The mouth ate apples.

The Summer Night’s Committee heard the mouth gnashing. Behind the wall, in the church, crickets were chirping.

The mouth ate its sixth apple. The mayor ran to the tree. He struck the mouth with his axe. The wealthy peasants raised their pitchforks in the air. They placed themselves behind the mayor.

A piece of bark — yellow and wet — fell into the grass.

The apple tree closed its mouth.

Not one of the Summer Night’s Committee had seen how and when the apple tree had closed its mouth.

The teacher crawled out of his sack. As a teacher he must have seen it, the mayor said.

At four o’clock in the morning the priest, wearing his long black cassock, beneath his big black hat, his black briefcase at his side, walked to the station. He walked quickly. Looking down at the ground. Dawn stood on the walls of the houses. The whitewash was light.

Three days later the bishop came to the village. The church was full. The people saw him walking between the benches to the altar. He climbed up to the pulpit.

The bishop didn’t pray. He said that he had read the teacher’s report. That he had consulted with God. “God has known for a long time,” he cried, “God reminded me of Adam and Eve. God,” said the bishop softly, “God has told me: The devil is in the apple tree.”

The bishop had written a letter to the priest. He wrote the letter in Latin. The priest read the letter from the pulpit. The Latin made the pulpit seem very high.

The night watchman’s father said he hadn’t heard the priest’s voice.

When the priest had finished reading the letter, he closed his eyes. He clasped his hands together and prayed in Latin. He climbed down from the pulpit. He seemed small. His face was tired. He turned to face the altar. “We must not fell the tree. We must burn it where it stands,” he said.

The old skinner would have been happy to buy the tree from the priest. But the priest said: “God’s word is sacred. The bishop knows what to do.”

That evening the men brought a waggonload of straw. The four wealthy peasants bound the trunk with straw. The mayor stood on the ladder. He spread straw where the branches forked.

The priest had stood behind the apple tree, praying loudly. The church choir stood alongside the boxwood hedge, singing long songs. It was cold and the breath of the songs was drawn up to the sky. The women and children prayed quietly.

The teacher lit the straw with a burning wood chip. The flame ate the straw. It grew. The flame swallowed the bark of the tree. The fire crackled in the wood. The crown of the tree licked at the sky. The moon covered itself.

The apples puffed up. They burst. The juice hissed, and whined in the fire like living flesh. The smoke stank. It stung the eyes. The songs were broken by coughing.

The village stood in the haze, until the first rain came. The teacher wrote in his exercise book. He called the haze “apple fog”.