A childhood memory

I don’t remember much from the times before my age attained double figures. But I see mangos, large, oval shaped, with a projection like a parrot’s beak at one end. Parrot mangoes. An obvious name. I can still smell them; I can still taste them. But it is the tree that stands out in my paltry collection of images. And not in a nice way. And my father follows soon after. And also not in a nice way.

It was a magnificent, majestic tree, strong, healthy and fertile. It’s thick trunk burrowed deep into our front-garden soil. Its branches spread up and out and down. One branch hung over our front doorstep, sagging low when laden with fruit, well within reach of my nine-year-old brother, who at that time was taller than me, but not for much longer. Not that the fruit higher up was out of reach. The tree was eminently kid-friendly, its main trunk rising just a few feet, maybe seven or eight, before branching out. I could almost run up the trunk and fling myself at the welcoming branches.

But here’s the thing. What I remember more than anything else about that mango tree is forbidden fruit. The owner of our house stipulated that the mangoes belonged to his sister, our next-door neighbour. The moment the tree began to bloom, in January, our father reminded us of the dire consequences we faced if we so much as climbed the tree before the fruit had been harvested by the neighbour’s teenage sons, assiduous vigilantes until harvest time sometime in June. You’d think they had nothing better to do. Perhaps they didn’t.

My brother, more daring and defiant than his siblings, declared to me, out of parental earshot, that he wasn’t going to be denied. We decided against telling our sisters because they’d demand favours for their silence, like not helping ourselves to the plumpest prawns in the curry. And even then they couldn’t be trusted to keep a secret.

Our reconnaissance confirmed that the neighbour and her sons had gone out. After dinner, as quiet as an athletic cat, he shot up the tree, plucked four beauties and tossed them down. I had no trouble catching them, my skill honed from regular lunch-interval and weekend cricket. The entire operation lasted less than a minute. In the back garden we examined the spoils. They were full-sized, not fully ripe, perfect for achcharu, a type of pickle, a widespread delicacy. We loved it, our relatives loved it, our friends loved it, chances are the stranger we passed in the street loved it. You didn’t need culinary skills to blend vinegar, ground mustard, salt, sugar and chilli powder, add chopped unripe (but not too unripe) mangoes, retreat to a secluded corner and eat it in a lather of sweat.

Barely half an hour later, loud knocks rattled my father’s cup of tea. Intensely annoyed, he opened the front door to reveal Cyril, the servant boy employed by our neighbours on the side opposite the mango tree owner. Cyril’s memorable features were his blue eyes. I cannot remember anything else about him.

He apologised for disturbing us, then humbly asked that the young master hand over the mangoes.

‘What mangoes?’ demanded my father.

‘The mangoes that were on the tree thirty minutes ago and are now in the young master’s possession.’

‘And what business is it of yours?’

‘The lady asked me to guard the tree when she was out.’

‘Who is she to you?’

‘She is my mistress’s sister.’

My father turned to my mother and said in English, ‘Oh my god, we are surrounded by a bloody clan.’ He called out to my brother.

He arrived cradling two mangoes, which he handed to Cyril.

‘What about the others?’ Cyril asked.

‘No others,’ my brother replied. He held Cyril’s gaze.

Cyril studied the mangoes in his hands. ‘Ok, I won’t tell anyone about the other two, but please don’t do it again.’ He turned around and left.

We expected my brother to receive a thrashing. Instead, my father laughed. After he stopped laughing he told my brother and me he’d flay our backsides if we were caught stealing mangoes again. My brother and I analysed his threat and agreed that where we went wrong was getting caught. The next time, and those that followed in the two or three fruiting seasons before we moved, our reconnaissance was more thorough, and we were never caught.

I would have said the mango tree symbolised our status as renters, if not for other renters we knew who owned every mango their trees produced. This is where my father looms large. Stern, given to outbursts of violent rage, he enforced the mango ban with dire threats to us, his young children, issued from a twisted mouth and reinforced by wild eyes. With our landlord, however, he was pleasant and accommodating to the point of subservience. I thought he should have demanded fairness for his family. But I wouldn’t have dared to even think of him as a coward. It was the worst type of dishonouring of a parent, the punishment, according to God’s fifth commandment, premature death, possibly a painful one as many Old Testament deaths tended to be.

I’m an old man, less afraid than I was at 8, not afraid of the Bible anymore, and I have no problem assigning that word to him. But I don’t. I’m kinder and less judgemental and inclined to give someone the benefit of doubt. I think my father was a timid man. Just impatient with children.