Thirty-Three Teeth

Forbidden Fruit

Still sore, Siri walked away from his sister-in-law’s simple house feeling even sadder than when he had arrived. Everything about Wilaiwan reminded him of his wife. The way she smiled, her walk, even the widow’s peak that stood on her forehead like the prow of a great white ship.

The sisters had been born nine months apart: yield from the sibling production line so common in well-off families of the old regime. Boua, his wife, had been the middle child of nine and the only rebel. While her family was in the royal capital working under the king’s patronage, Boua was in France training to overthrow the royal family and rescue her country for communism.

She had returned to Laos after eight years, with ideals and a rather baffled doctor husband called Siri. But she never came back to Luang Prabang. Instead, she dragged her lover through the jungles of Vietnam and northern Laos and joined the Pathet Lao in their struggle against tyranny.

Now she was dead, and Siri had come to let her sister know how she had lain on a grenade and pulled the pin to end the confused misery that haunted the final years of her life. In some way, she had expected to erase the depression that had infected her and then spread to her sad husband.

But, of course, he didn’t tell her. How could he? Honesty can be a dirty gift. It can muddy a sparkling stream of memories. So he said there had been a raid. She’d died a brave patriot as she’d lived, full of hope for a new regime.

Wilaiwan received the news passively and silently, and together they’d sat on the old wicker chairs on the veranda and let tears roll down their faces without embarrassment.

As there wasn’t but an hour of daylight left, she invited him to stay the night. Her husband had caught two juicy catfish that were keen to be eaten with some homemade rice wine. So Siri went for a walk to build up an appetite and a better mood.

He crossed the dusty intersection that marked the center of the village and found the riverbank. There, he followed a river, creamy brown like slow-moving cafe au lait. He stepped carefully to avoid setting off the dog fart flowers. The setting sun seemed to walk along the opposite bank, dodging between the trees. Toward Luang Prabang, stodgy hills were patchy with slashed fields that looked from a distance like painful skin grafts.

Although there was no fence to announce it, he soon found himself in a fruit orchard. A longboat was moored against a simple wooden dock. The trees were neatly ranked but showing the effects of neglect. They were swollen with fruit. Some had rotted and dropped to the grass below. The sight may not have caused a flicker of interest to any other traveler, but to Siri it was uncanny. It baffled him that there were no signs of bird or insect damage. No animals had come to steal the luscious fallen oranges or nibble at the low-hanging pears. He walked along the rows; mangosteens, rambutans, rose apples, all proudly ripe and unviolated. It was astounding. Apparently, not even man, the most insatiable predator of all, had been scrounging from this Garden of Eden.

There was a feeling there. Not his usual creepy “somebody dead hanging around” feeling, but an aura of sorts: a protection, as if something were watching over the trees and the spirits that resided in them. He felt safe under its gaze.

He was curious to know where he was and to learn more about the exotic strains of fruit, many of which he’d never seen before. He walked up and down the lush green rows. They’d have needed three or four waterings a day through this particularly dry summer season to keep them so bountiful. It wasn’t till his last sweep that he came upon a gardener.

The old man wore a conical Vietnamese hat tied under his chin with a bright red cloth. He had on a navy blue peasant’s jacket and shorts. He stood inside the canopy of an orange tree, pruning up into the branches. Siri couldn’t make out much of his looks.

“Good health, friend,” Siri began.

The man didn’t interrupt his work to reply. “How would you be, friend?”

“You have some remarkable fruit trees here.”

“Thank you. I’m afraid they’ve been neglected of late. I haven’t been able to get out here for some time.”

The man’s voice was soft, somehow worldly and, Siri thought, kind. He guessed he was around his own age.

“I don’t seem to recognize a lot of these varieties.”

“No? Know fruit, do you?”

“Most of the jungle types, and the usual imports.”

“Well, you wouldn’t have seen a lot of these. If you’ve got a few minutes, grab those pruning clippers and give me a hand to cut back some branches. They won’t get a lot of attention from now on.”

“That’s a shame. Why not?”

Either the man didn’t answer or Siri couldn’t hear through the foliage. He looked in the basket, where he found an elegant pair of pruning clippers and a beautifully gilded set of shears in the shape of herons necking.

“You take your gardening seriously.”

“It isn’t something you can half do.”

Siri went to the orange tree beside his friend’s and started on the old, low branches.

“It’s peaceful here. How come you haven’t been able to come?”

“It’s the new regime, Brother. They’re very strict here in Luang Prabang. They don’t like us moving around too much.”

“But this is a thriving orchard. It needs someone to look after it. You could feed a battalion of soldiers just from the produce here. You could certainly keep the villagers nearby alive.”

The old man stopped clipping. “Hmm. Could do, I suppose. Except the people in these parts are somewhat loath to sample the fruits from this particular garden.”

“Why’s that?”

“I take it you aren’t from around here.”

“No. I’m part of the invading hordes. Spent most of my troubled life in the jungles of Houaphan and North Vietnam.”

“Ah. You’re one of them. That explains it. Then you wouldn’t know whose orchard this is.” There was a pause. “It belongs to the Royal Family, or what’s left of it.”

“All right. Then that might explain why the people aren’t stealing His M’s tasty fruits. But I don’t really see how it keeps the birds and the bugs away.”

“Ah, yes. Very observant of you. That is a little harder to explain.”

He moved out from his tree and went to the next in the row after Siri’s. Through the leaves, the doctor saw him in patches. He had a slow, somewhat pained gait but kept his back straight. He had the bearing of a Royal gardener. No doubt about it. Siri could almost feel the old fellow’s pride at tending such fine trees. It seemed cruel for the Party to keep him away from a job he loved.

Once he’d entered the next orange-leaf umbrella, the man said “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, friend, but Luang Prabang is rather a magical place. There are many stories I could tell you.”

The sun had given up hope, and Siri was aware he had a walk ahead of him in the dark. He lowered the clippers and sighed. “How did you get here, old fellow?” “Boat.”

“Do you suppose they’ll let you come back tomorrow?”

“No. This is the end.”

He made it sound like something other than a ban on gardening. If this were really his last visit, this pruning would seem to be more an act of desperation-or rebellion. Siri came out of his blackening hood of leaves and stood in the open. A large moon was already in the ascent.

“Then are you going back to town tonight?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I have to go to my sister-in-law’s for dinner. But I’d be very interested to hear your stories. Couldn’t you stay here tonight and go back in the morning?”

“It would upset an awful lot of people,” the old man laughed. “But I suppose I could. A raspberry to them all.”

Still, he hadn’t emerged from his own shroud of oranges.

“That’s good. Listen. I’ll see what food I can rescue. You must be hungry. Maybe a bottle of rice whiskey? How does that sound?”

The clipping stopped. “That’s very kind of you. Yes, very kind. I’ll be here. Look for the fire.”

The gardener’s hand reached out through the leaves as if it belonged to the tree itself. The wrist was white with a thick wad of tied strings. The hand was blistered from the day’s exertions. Siri shook it and felt a sudden stab of sadness. This was a man at the end of hope. He needed cheering up.