The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree , Shokoofeh Azar (Farsi-Iran), translated by Anonymous, Europa Editions Beeta says that Mum attain...
The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree, Shokoofeh Azar (Farsi-Iran), translated by Anonymous, Europa Editions
Beeta says that Mum attained enlightenment at exactly 2:35 p.m. on August 18, 1988, atop the grove’s tallest greengage plum tree on a hill overlooking all fifty-three village houses, to the sound of the scrubbing of pots and pans, which pulled the grove out of its lethargy every afternoon. At that very moment, blindfolded and hands tied behind his back, Sohrab was hanged. He was hanged without trial, and unaware he would be buried en masse with hundreds of other political prisoners early the next morning in a long pit in the deserts south of Tehran, without any indication or marker lest years later a relative would come and tap a pebble on a headstone and murmur there is no god but God.1
Beeta says Mum came down from the tallest greengage tree and, without looking at Beeta who was filling her skirt with sour greengages, walked towards the forest saying, “This whole thing is not at all as I’d thought”. Beeta wanted Mum to explain, but Mum, as though mesmerised like someone with forest fever—what I call forest melancholia—walked with a steady step and hollow gaze into the forest to...
