Cut The Tree Down

The Tree

The big sleek car braked to a stop in front of the gorgeous house. The green trees and shrubbery, the bright iridescent flowers and the neatly trimmed lawns all blended into one harmonious relationship with the low slung roof of the glamourous house with its big gaping windows and wide doors and expertly paved paths.

I stayed a moment in the car looking at it all with a curious mixture of deep sadness and pride and marvel as the memories welled up in my chest and threatened to spill out of my eyes and nose and mouth. With an effort I got out of the big car, my ancient seventy-nine year old cramped legs trembling with the pins and needles of sitting out the four-hour journey from my own satisfactory little house in the village. My son’s driver, Yosefe, who had come to pick me up, came around with my walking stick to conduct me into the confines of the house as he carried my small beloved battered suitcase. As I crossed the threshold, I prayed against hope that, this time, I would find what I really longed for; the reason to smile and hope.

If you ask me when I started hating my son’s spectacular success, I would be at pains to pin point the exact moment. It could be that time when he was twenty one when he came home with a lot of money and presented it to me. When I asked him where he had gotten it, he was vague and even though I did not pursue the matter, I did advise him to keep his paths straight because I had always been uneasy about his intense ambitious ambition. He had just laughed, somehow mockingly.

Or it could be when I first stayed in his house with him for two weeks. He hadn’t been married then. Before I went I remember proudly informing everyone in the village that I was going to town to see my son who was rising up in the world. And I stayed with him or rather I stayed in his house. I hardly ever saw him, much less talked with him. What I did see, I secretly put away in my heart. I came back to the village with a heavy heart which I hid from myself and the villagers. Yes, that could be the time I began hating my son’s success.

Or it could be the time Baba Mfune came and remonstrated me for my son’s behaviour to him when they met in town. ‘You see my shoes, aSambo? All I asked him for was a little money to buy a new pair!  You were always soft on him and he has grown up to be a rude and disrespectful young man!’ said Baba Mfune in a wounded tone. I had answered Baba Mfune, my fatherly defences all hackled up, that it was very easy for successful young men to be rude and disrespectful to habitual beggars like him and didn’t he have his own son to ask for shoes? Very unwise and foolish words for me to say and I instantly regretted them; it took me months to repair my relationship with Baba Mfune whom I have known all my life.

But there was plenty of truth in Baba Mfune’s words that I acknowledged in the privacy of my own thoughts. Character is like pregnancy; it is very difficult to hide. Since that first visit to my son, I hadn’t been very enthusiastic to repeat the visit the next year and for the next five years indeed had not visited my son nor did he invite me. But I soon realised that I needed to be visiting him and maybe bring him round to my way of thinking with patience and wise counsel. I resolved to recommence the visits and for the past twenty one years I have stayed true to my purpose, punctually visiting my son and sniffing and prodding for the reason to smile and hope.

I watched him get married and get divorced, then get married again and grind it out in a tumultuous alliance with his second feisty wife. I have watched him beget me grandchildren who are all glad musical notes in my heart. But I have been appealed to plenty of times by the women over the infidelities and the disagreements and the abuse. I have watched him become richer and richer and more and more famous with each passing year. I have watched him accumulate lots of education, acquire plenty of cars, obtain lots of properties and build a lot of houses. I have watched the world bow to him and seek his counsel. He and his circle of peers appear in the newspapers regularly and what they say gets listened to. There’s no doubt; my son has gained the world yet he seems intent on gaining more and more of it.

And through it all, I have loved him and waited. I have loved him with all my heart but . . . I must be frank; I haven’t liked him.

Each year I would go back to my small satisfying house and my small village life and would spend the interval thinking over and over about my son. Some years I would go back happier with an actual smile only to come back the next year and have my hopes dashed and the smile wiped off of my face.

And so . . . finally here I am. My heart breaks. I feel in my bones something must give. I fear his time has run out. And there is still no reason to smile and hope.

The Cutting

They came, on the third day, from the North of the house. Twelve of them, driven by covetousness, whispering in the dark, armed with crude customised tools of their trade, the use of which they best knew themselves. Ready for the worst, hopeful for the best and praying that they would find what they were looking for.

As it is for every human being, time traces the path of each of our lives. And for them, it had traced the paths of each of theirs to these horrible moments. They approached the house with stealth, preparedness and alertness. All of them knew that if you want to eat a monkey, you do not look into its eyes.

But. . .it was a disaster. By the end of it, three people lay dead, five were heinously injured and the shocking sensationalism of it reverberated in the air as long as the attention of the world could be held. The dead were a security guard, one of those who came from the North and the owner of the house himself. The injured were an old man identified as father to the deceased owner of the house, the woman of the house, a security guard and two of those who came from the North. There was blood and debris of broken glass and pottery and utensils all over the house. Several doors were broken and windows were smashed. And among the wreckage, several of the hideous implements brought by the men from the North lay scattered.

In the days that followed, as he lay on the hospital bed, the old man knew. He felt the Wisdom of the Ages seep into his thoughts and clear them of all the clouds that had shrouded his Life. He felt the exhaustion seep into his bones. He felt the Sleep draw nearer. He felt the relief gladden his heart and for the first time in a long time, he felt peace. He felt reconciled to his one regret. What was done was done.

For the last time, the flash of the scene of that night came before his eyes. He saw his son lying on the floor, a man from the North standing over him with his sharp bloodied instrument that had drawn life. He saw the security guard behind the man from the North raise his gun and fire at the man staggering him into a corner of the room. He saw the look of disbelief creep over the man’s features. He had locked eyes with him until the light drained out of them. And the old man had unaccountably felt the deepest pity for him as he saw the same intertwined eternal destiny of the two of the; his son and his killer, cut down.

Once Upon A Time He said

“. . . A man had a fig-tree, planted in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it, but he did not find any.

So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig-tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’

‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilise it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’”

The Gospel of Luke
Chapter 13
Verses 6 to 9
The Holy Bible
New International Version