Memories of the Drought

Of course I remember the drought. Not a single Galtan with dirt under their nails and a crick in their neck will ever forget it! Even you, our sons and daughters born after the rains returned, remember the drought. Those gnawing pangs of hunger that not even the proudest Galtan could withstand without falling in the dust. That pain burrowed into our blood, sparing us, but cursing our children. Even today, no true child of Galta will leave a scrap of food on their plate and will always eat what is offered even if it is not to their taste.  

Please enjoy an apricot, for you’ve asked an old man to tell a long story. And do not shy away from eating the pit as you’ll find it even more flavorful than the fruit.

“Do I remember the drought?” Well, why not travel to the Bulida province and ask any baker if they remember the day the king died of gout. That king whose wholly predictable death drove the queen mother to outlaw the use of lard except to grease the wheels of carts. Watch as they cover their pies in shame. Or go into The Town and ask the washwomen if they remember when the mayor was made to run naked through the streets with only a small cap to conceal his dignity because he had grown to anger when rejected by the innocent Alba. Ask them if they remember the way she swayed in the breeze outside the courthouse until spring.

Silly questions, indeed. Though now that the trees of Galta have bloomed and the boughs groan from the weight of their fruit, everyone wishes to return to the orchards of Galta. Those with the gold to leave have returned plumper and softer. “How can they call Galta their home when they can leave it so easily,” I used to ask while stumbling home late at night. And my cousin, who is now buried on the east side of The Hill, would reply, “Gold has no roots.”

Mother moved back to our farm. When I was a child, I believed she was secretly royalty. She moved with such dignity and grace, and would stare out the window late at night and sing songs in a language I’ve never heard from anyone’s lips but hers. When the mothers were doing the wash in the river that used to flow behind the back field, their skirts blowing in the breeze, hers would always flow more gently than the others. Sometimes, for a brief moment, it would seem to float, weightless, before remembering the earth and cascading back down to the dirt. I used to sneak rocks into her pockets during rainy season. I feared the wind might gust strong enough that her skirt would break free of that ancient gravity, and she would float away. And every year, when that gust of wind returned to our valley, we would gather at the spot she left, spelling out notes in the ground using rocks. And she would float by, waving her handkerchief at us, giggling.

One spring, father was drinking a bottle of apricot wine during the midday heat. As the evening cooled his temper flared, and he returned to the field in a mood so wretched it infected the mule. I remember how the mule stood there, refusing commands as father beat and kicked its head and its genitals. I remember the black silhouettes of father and mule on top of The Hill with that violet sunset behind them. I remember watching my father throwing his hat on the ground and jumping and stomping it with all his might. I remember the moment where my father was floating, both feet in the air, his legs poised to plunge down to flatten his hat even more. I remember the swift gray blur of the mule’s leg ramming into father’s chest, and the gentle arc he flew before landing.  

Mother spent a month caring for father as he lay wheezing in bed, and all the while she plowed the fields, and planted the summer crops, and fed the pigs, and pruned the apricot trees, and cooked the meals, and taught my sisters to read. The crop rows were never as straight as they were that year, and the pigs never more well behaved, and my sisters are all women of note in The Town. Even covered in dirt and sweat, there was a firm dignity to her every movement. As she tilled the earth, I imagined the plow and mule to be her carriage, the seeds in her hands were gold coins, and the freshly tilled dirt, children in the street she passed on her way to Sunday mass. When it was clear that father would recover and his strength was returning, mother beat him unconscious with the bottle he drank from. He never touched a bottle again until the night of his death.

When my youngest brother received an apprenticeship, she packed a small bag and went with him. She said she wanted to give my family room to grow and allow the farm to be truly ours, but I knew she had always dreamed of a life free of pigs. She lived in The Town for five years before returning. She would have stayed until her death, but I believe old people feel more like a burden in the city than they do in the country.

When she returned, mother had an insatiable appetite for fishing. I suspected that the gush of the river reminded her of the bustle of city streets. Though not particularly adept, her occasional catches in the river that used to flow behind the back field would brighten the eyes of everyone at the dinner table. (I once saw her returning from the market with a fresh fish wrapped in brown paper under her arm. I saw her walk towards the stream, then return home an hour later, proudly displaying her catch.)

It was mother’s fishing that first alerted us to the coming drought. The river began to shrink. Mother’s fishing chair slowly moved from the cool shade of the river bank, to the sun's heat amongst smooth dry rocks. On one of his walks, the town friar found mother passed out from heat stroke, and not being very interested in the field of medicine, performed her last rights and buried her in the riverbed. The friar, being not well versed in manual labor, dug a rather shallow grave. The mud cooled her head and chest, and she awoke, believing she must have simply fallen from her chair. On her way home, she gathered some river cane and upon returning (after a brief altercation in which the friar, having come to inform our family of our loss, accused mother of being a witch) found in her belongings an older dress fit for a younger woman and fashioned a kind of parasol to fish under.

As the river quickly grew even narrower and shallower, I saw mother’s despair for the first time. She would come home and talk for hours about the river. How she used to play there as a child, throwing stones and catching fish, swimming and playing. How it was withering away in front of her. And how in a few years, people would no longer remember that a proud river had once roared through our valley.

Her despair grew each day as the river vanished. Soon, she stopped taking her pole to the river, and would sit on its shore and weep. Without those tears, the river would have dried up much sooner, but the water became so salty that the minnows were pickled, and the water stained the wash. To this day, if you go down to the riverbed and take a spoonful of earth to your lips, you will taste the bitter salt of mother’s tears.

The weeks before her death, mother’s despair turned to a mania that made us wonder if she had truly become possessed. It began when mother returned home early from the river, burst into the house, and marched to the corner of the main room where she had set up a small bed and some curtains for privacy. She pulled the curtains shut, but not before I saw a small golden glimmer in her hand. For the rest of the night, the only thing heard was soft giggling. 

I don’t recall her fishing after that day, but I began to see her in the early mornings digging for worms on The Hill. I remember thinking it was a terrible place to find worms as it caught too much sun during the day, but was happy that she wasn’t giving into despair. And so every morning for a week, I would wake up, wash and shave my face, and look through the mirror out the window to see her already on The Hill digging for worms.

A pit began to form where she dug. It grew so much she started using a small stool from the barn to climb out when the morning sun began to shine too hot. While I didn’t wish to return my mother to her despair, in my blood was an obsession over this Hill. Our orchards have dotted the hills in the valley for nearly a century, but this Hill was never cultivated. 

Two brothers purchased the land and began the orchard. Despite being identical in every way from face to hands to the way they squatted to relieve themselves in the fields, there have never been two men so completely different. One wanted to purchase the land so that his family would always have honest work and a home to return to once their youthful appetite for adventure had been filled. The other wanted to purchase it because a dying witch told him that before traders brought trees with plumper, sweeter apricots, there had been ancient apricot trees in Galta that yielded a more bitter fruit, but the pit of which was made of pure gold. That the Faralian Family had accrued all of their wealth from planting a single pit in their garden.

When building their home they had discovered that The Hill had the perfect amount of sun and water and shade to grow the plumpest and sweetest apricots.  

One brother wanted to cultivate and plant when the year was as ideal for apricots as The Hill was. Then they would sell these, the greatest apricots in the province, and make a hefty sum to expand the orchards. The other wanted to build a great house on this Hill, with a walled garden. And in this garden, five apricot trees would bear the sweetest fruit in the land. Dukes and duchesses, queens and kings would travel just to taste these exquisite fruits, and our children would never know dirt under their nails and would stand up straight even at an old age.

While they were both in agreement that they should do nothing yet, there were violent disagreements about why they did nothing. These fights grew worse until one year on their birthday, each brother gifted the other a knife that they had carved the hilt of. One knife had a great tree carved into the hilt, the other, a great house. Neither were very good at woodworking, but the insults were clear. And so they drank a bottle of apricot wine each, stripped naked, climbed to the top of The Hill, and fought to the death.

Their family watched as the silhouettes of the two brothers danced in front of a full moon matching blow for blow and cut for cut. Their blood poured from their wounds into the twin wounds of their brother and their knives were dropped and thrown so often that neither knew whose knife they sliced with. The fight ended when one brother tripped on a stone while lunging. The other brother, expecting the knife to thrust towards his shoulder, turned only to have the knife pierce his heart.  

The brothers cried in shock at the blow, but for one, it was their last. The other sat silently with his brother until sunrise, then limped down The Hill, but none of their family knew who had dealt the fatal blow. When the family came up to The Hill to remove the body, they found only one knife sticking cross-like out of the Calvary of his chest. On the hilt, a crude carving of a great house, and in front of it, a great tree. The brother's eyes stared open into the sky, a toothy smile on his face. No one dared ask which brother remained. Some days he would look at The Hill and talk of the fruitful orchard that would grow there one day, and the family would whisper, “This is the brother that has lived.” Other days, he would speak of a great house, and the family whispered, “Surely it was this brother that lived.” And so both brothers lived and died, and the pain of their unresolved quarrel burrowed deep into our blood. And so all who share their blood have the need to sit as the sun sets, looking at The Hill, dreaming of a glorious future before going to bed.

Now, mother was doing something with The Hill. This was no fit of senility. There was a purpose to her actions. Every day, my hand would tremor with rage, as I watched her reflection doing something with The Hill. One morning, I cut myself shaving in the mirror, and my rage exploded. I stormed up to her on The Hill, blood gushing from my cheek, razor in my hand. As I approached her, I saw the truth. I should have seen the nothingness next to the pit, the lack of loose sod. I watched as she took scoop after scoop of dirt to her mouth, chewing, and swallowing with a loud “gulp!”, only to fill her hands again and again.  

My skin crawled and my mouth tasted of metal. I kept walking, at the same brusque pace as if it were my plan all along. I walked the whole day, returning home with clots of blood on my cheek, and my razor, still open in my hand.  

In the morning I watched her reflection heap mounds of dirt into her mouth as I shaved. On Sunday, I woke to the sound of raindrops splashing against the window and after shaving, found mother dead in the pit she had dug. She was holding a poorly carved cross to her breast, and her eyes were wide open and she was smiling. I gathered dirt from the field nearby, covered her, and then made eggs and bacon for breakfast.

This was the last day it rained for a year, so you must understand it was several months before I noticed. The panic of drought had flooded through the valley. First the crops withered; then the farmers. Attendance at mass increased, and it was not uncommon to see children sucking on the fingers of their parents after they crossed themselves with holy water. Even the friar, who was not particularly interested in the matters of the weather, allowed a longer tip of the cup during communion.

The panic dulled. As Galta became accustomed to wanting, boredom set in. Though often delirious from lack of water or food, there was nothing to do but wait for death or salvation. It was nearly a foot tall before I noticed, and nearly a whole foot taller when I dared inspect it. Right from mother’s grave sprouted a sapling, strange in shape, but undeniably that of an apricot tree. It was not yellow and brittle as the other trees or as the lips of my children, but green and growing. None of us dared speak of the tree on The Hill. Within the month, it flowered, a pure white flower, and then one morning as I walked before the sun had fully risen, I noticed a single fruit.

Curse my blood! I took the fruit and without a thought or prayer, I bit into it. It was bitter and the skin like leather. I put the whole of it in my mouth, and sucked every bit of juice and flesh from it. When I spit the pit into my hand, I saw that it was made of gold.

Every morning, I would climb The Hill to the tree and remove the only fruit from it, and suck every last piece of flesh off before spitting the golden pit in my hand and stuffing it in my pocket. I became fearful, sneaking the fruit to the riverbed to eat. My family, in their desperation and at my suggestion, began to take spoons to the earth and eat their fill. I woke them one by one in the midst of their delirious slumber and fed them a pit. I nursed them and comforted them as their bodies withered. Soon there were five trees on The Hill, and I was alone.

When other farmers heard of the trees that sprouted on The Hill, they came, begging, for a single fruit for their family. I would say, “You may feast on as many as you wish, but you must swallow the pit!” And they would agree without hesitation. And I would say, “I am a lonely widower. Stay and rest in the shade of the trees.” And they would agree without hesitation. And I would slice their throats in their sleep with this knife I made myself and into whose hilt I carved my name.

Now there is a great house on this Hill and a great orchard. The dream of my blood finally realized. And at sunset, I look down from this Hill into the valley below and thoughtlessly listen to the trees as they groan with the weight of their fruit.