Friday, November 16, 2007

STICKY FINGERS

This is the season of the rotting fruit.
Huge generous piles of rotting fruit.
With wasps and worms.


At this time of year the trees in Brabant are losing their leaves, the air in the woods outside of Valkenswaard is rich with tannin from the oaks, and the breeze carries sharp rotten-moss odours from the pines. Briny, moldy, moist. The air is cold.

As it was then.

Earlier in those autumns, when the weather was still warm and sunlight lasted longer, we would climb over the walls of other people's gardens and steal the unripe apples, sour and crunchy and too small to bother plucking. In some orchards an apricot would still hang on a branch, dangling over long grass that hid it's darkened kin. We feasted on our stolen treasures, and came home late with no appetite for dinner.


When the frosts hit in late October even the apples lost their tempting qualities. The grass underneath the trees would be wet and filled with rotting things. A late wasp would sluggishly rise to threaten, something black and horny would disappear among the soggy lumps and leaves. Our fingers no longer snatched and but stayed inside our pockets. The cold wind escorted in the early twilight and the long chill dusk, which did not darken with a golden glow, but in a faded silver that settled into umbers and slate greys.


The Smeets family had had several apple trees and a few pears in their long, long yard. The fruit would start ripening in late summer, and the passage through the hedge-row would then have to be rediscovered and surreptitiously re-widened, in preparation for raids. Their fruit was small and crisp, but incredible juicy - our chins and hands testified to our crimes. We were quick, we were silent.

The Smeets children were just as bad as everybody else in other yards. While we gorged on their green apples, they ate stolen red stars in old man Driessen's garden.

There were so many fruit trees in the neighborhood that everyone lost and everyone won.

The grown-ups did this too. There is nothing quite so suspicious as the stern voice of adult authority, with bulging pockets and bumpy clothes. People wearing ill-fitting garments that you had never seen them in before acting surprised, out of place, and grumpy. The twig in the hair and the leaves stuck in the collar were, in hindsight, odd.


I did not notice it happening, but as I grew older, more and more of the trees disappeared. By the time I started smoking there were only a few left. Our big apple tree in the courtyard, an apricot tree three gardens over, and some berry bushes along the road. The Smeets only had the pear trees left. And the smells had changed. Gardens had been cleared, people had moved away. What had once been called the stink path was now an actual road - paved, lit, besidewalked, straightened out and made civilized. The house where 'Steel Jesus' lived with his dear little wife from the Indies was no longer there. Their cherry trees, the peaches and plums, and the apple trees were gone. A parking lot marks the spot. A very neat little parking lot, with shiny street lamps. Very bright and cheerful.

Angry house-harridans do not yell at shadows flitting through the trees, guard-dogs no longer sociably slobber into fruit-stained faces.
Does anyone even still steal fruit in this age?

Someone should invent a video-game.


I think I'll let some apples rot in the kitchen over the next few days to reawaken memories.
This will be fun.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear Mr. BOTH,

You continue to obstinately ignore my comment. Why?

I wrote:

Dear Mr. BOTH,

There has been a terrible misconception among Orthodox Jews. They understand the verse "ve hagisa bo yomam va laila", And thou shalt delve in in by day and by night, to refer to the Torah. And therefore, they study Torah all day, every day. But in fact, it refers to the Sexual Fantasies of the Nazis. It is davka the Sexual Fantasies of the Nazis that one is supposed to study all day.

I expect a post from you on this topic, forthwith.

Sincerely,

Lawrence Cuttleworth

THEN, LEMUEL WROTE:

I support Anonymous's question. Studying Thorah keeps me busy every day. I am thankful that I am able to do so. In the sidur there is a minimun level of the daily study, in the morning section, right after Adom Olam: The blessing of the priests, followed by 2 sentences from the Mishnah and a few sentences from the Gemarah.

I don't understand the reference to the Nazis, Anonymous. Orthodoxy exists thousands of years. Nazism is of the last century. Or do you include eras as crusades, Roman occupation and the like under Nazism? I just wonder.

AND I RESPONDED:

Lemuel, do you doubt that the Torah prophetically knew what was going to happen in the future? This mitzvah was a mitzvah for the future, after the writings of the Nazis, including their sexual fantasies, would be published.

Anonymous said...

Which Nazis? The SA were all homo - and the remainder had a murderous obsession about Jewish men & Goldilocks

why study it? - it's sick!

Graham

Unknown said...

Beautiful.
Do you know this song the Cats sang, I don't know the title, but they sang:'Granddad sitting by the fire, reminiscing of the times when he was a boy... Times were when, times were when, times that won't be back again..."

Yes, children still steal other man's fruit nowadays. They stole my pears a month ago. I acted angry, but I thought of all the fruit I stole when I was a kid.
When I study Torah and read the explanations on the parashahs, f.e that Awraham even did not let his cattle graze on other man's grazing, I think of my childhood.
Then I think of "vehu rachum..." and smile.
Thank you, Blogmaster.

Unknown said...

My last comment regards Blogmaster's post.
The thoughts of the Nazis confuse me.

Tzipporah said...

My winter project is removing all of the blackberry bushes from our backyard, at the rate of about 2 hours per week (during baby's naps on weekends).

This is necessary becase baby thinks going into the backyard = eating fruit (blackberries, plum tree, apple tree, and pear). He never quite got the fact that the blackberries come with thorns.

Anonymous said...

It being mid- to late November. I question the Blogmeesters nostalgic season of mellow fruits. Surely even when the Blogmeester was a'scrumpin in Cloggyland (when that broad on the white horse did it for Veronica) there were no wasps in November..

I was born & grew up in Devon -
where I once walked - there is now a link-road, the surface of the planet may change - the power behind it all , 3 deacdes ago and now - thankfully remains within perception... baruch HaShem

peas from the pod were my joy. apples were too wormy

Graham

Anonymous said...

mmmmmmm rotting fruit makes good bug juice

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