Another Gulmohar Tree E-Book

Aamer Hussein

• Herausgeber: Telegram Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

Usman is visiting post-war London from Pakistan when he meets a young aspiring artist called Lydia who has, like him, come out of an unhappy marriage. Just as the lonely strangers' friendship begins to blossom into something deeper Usman has to return to Karachi, leaving Lydia behind. Two years later, Lydia impulsively abandons her life in London and boards a ship to Karachi, where the two are married. But as the years flit by Usman feels distanced from his life and realises that he hasn't noticed the buds of the gulmohar tree unfurl. A beautiful account of a marriage that is in turns wry and unashamedly romantic. 'We are lucky to have Hussein among us, telling us stories as few can.' Amit Chaudhuri 'A lovely, strange, and very moving novel.' Ruth Padel 'At its heart it is a story of love, into which Hussein weaves all his remarkable skills of storytelling.' Kamila Shamsie 'In his splendid, dreamy Another Gulmohar Tree, Hussein gives us an indelible sense of two worlds - Karachi and London - in miniature and the strong parable of a love story that endures over a lifetime.' Joseph Olshan

Leseprobe

Aamer Hussein

ANOTHER GULMOHAR TREE

TELEGRAM

For Mai

Unforgettable

Usman’s Song

1

The sun had risen higher in the sky. Usman, who had guarded the farmer’s field and chased away the crows all morning, was hot and hungry. He decided to eat his meal in the shade of a tree. Where, though, would he find a tree with leafy branches?

He walked a little and came to a gulmohar tree, flowerless but green enough to offer shelter. Beside the tree was a pond, which seemed to have filled up recently with rainwater, though it hadn’t rained for days.

Usman took out his millet pancake, his pickles, and his flask of buttermilk.

Once again, his aunt had given him stale bread and rancid buttermilk. He was eating and drinking when he felt something tickle his left knee.

He looked down.

A little green frog was perched there.

Spare a little of your bread and milk for me.

The voice was so low he thought he’d imagined it.

Yes, it’s me. He heard the voice again.

Frogs eat dragonflies.

But I’d like some bread and milk today.

Even if frogs don’t talk, he said to himself, or eat bread and milk, what harm will it do to share my meal with a hungry creature?

My milk is sour milk and my pancakes are hard, but share my meal with me.

He broke off a piece of pancake dipped in buttermilk.

The frog ate and hopped away.

The food and the heat made Usman sleepy. He closed his eyes, and dreamed that the tree he was sitting under was laden with golden flowers that were raining down on him.

He shook himself awake. The tree was as it had been: there were no flowers in sight, but beside him was a pile of golden coins.

The next morning, Usman set off for the fields again. Had his meeting with the frog been a dream?

He couldn’t resist returning to the tree when it was time for him to eat. The frog was waiting.

This time, it ate more than half his pancake dipped in more than half his bowl of buttermilk, before it hopped back into the pond.

Then Usman slept, and again the flowers fell on him, and again a pile of gold coins gleamed beside him when he awoke.

On the third day, he asked the frog: Are you under a spell? An evil spirit? A good one?

I’m just a frog, the little green creature said.

And have you been paying me in gold for the scrap of stale bread and the drop of sour milk I give you?

No, the frog said. Where would a green frog find gold?

And it hopped back into the pond.

On the fourth day, Usman went to his tree by the pond earlier than usual.

He had asked his aunt to make more bread that morning, and to give him a flask of fresh milk. But she had refused.

Where do you expect me to buy more flour from, with the pittance you give me?

The aunt was a thin childless woman whose husband had gone to war and never returned. She’d brought up Usman, her husband’s orphaned nephew, on kicks, slaps and curses. She had never approved of Usman’s work or the meagre income he brought home. He had planned to keep the coins he had found by his side hidden from her eyes, but couldn’t resist doing what he did next. He laughed loudly and put a coin in her hand.

Use all the flour you have in the house today. And buy as much flour as you need.

There isn’t any flour. You’ll have to make do with stale bread.

On his way to the field, Usman stopped at the baker’s and at the cowherd’s. He bought soft sweet bread and filled up his flask with milk fresh from the cow’s udder.

When he reached the tree, the frog wasn’t there.

Usman sang a song:

Frog, Frog, feast on sweet bread Wash down with milk. Millet and barley, corn and wheat, Frog, Frog come eat your fill!

There was no response. He sang his song again.

Miss Frog, please!

And there she was, emerging from the pond.

On the sixth day, Usman woke with a heavy head.

You can’t go to work today, his aunt said. You’ve been ill and raving all night. Here’s some hot milk. I’ll go to the fields in your place.

She draped herself in a mud-coloured shawl.

On the seventh day, when Usman went to his tree, the pond was dry. The frog wasn’t there. He sang his song. The frog didn’t appear. He sang and he sang. The frog still didn’t appear. And then it rained as it hadn’t rained in three years.

2

A deer wandered into Rokeya’s garden.

Where had it come from? There were no deer in the city, and no woods nearby.

Rokeya fed the deer on bread and milk. It followed her everywhere, like a puppy would. Sometimes even into the house.

Thirty-three days went by.

One day she came back from school, ran into the garden, and found the deer had gone.

Its real masters had come to take it home, her mother said. It belonged to a boy who had missed his pet so much he had fallen ill. The boy’s father had gone to every gate in the neighbourhood, looking for his child’s deer. They lived just two lanes away.

Rokeya cried for a week. She didn’t eat. She wanted to die.