by Szabolcs László
I remember always climbing trees when I
was a little kid. ‘Don’t climb on trees you can’t get down
from!’, my mother used to say, which seemed kind of absurd to me
since the only way you find out that you can’t get down is by
climbing up first. And so I did. I climbed up on oak trees, plum
trees, apple trees, pine trees, old ones, young ones, exotic ones,
hidden ones, branchless palm trees, bushy walnut-trees, protected
reservation trees, and plain old simple suburban trees that had
nothing special to give, only the sweet joy of lifting me up above
the street level, and into an exciting state of camouflage and
secrecy among the leaves. I didn’t do much while up there but sit
quietly on a comfortable branch, waiting and meditating, longing for
something undefined, gazing on the world from my elevated position. I
didn’t spit on or scare anybody passing below, or carve stupid
initials into the bark of the tree. No, I would just sit ten-fifteen
feet up an oak tree, holding tightly the branches or the trunk, and
smell the fresh air, and look at all the small people in the
distance. It was a refreshing loneliness.
So anyway, there was this cherry tree
in front of our building, the proud accomplishment of the downstairs
neighbor who planted and raised it since he moved into his apartment,
ages ago. By the time I was five or six, the cherry tree was already
as tall as the building, a handsome and strong presence next to the
main entrance. Every year in June it turned sparkling red, with the
big juicy and lascivious cherries waving at me just outside of our
kitchen window, yet not close enough to be grabbed. It drove me
crazy. Such perfect and tasty things – just outside my reach. And
each year, the neighbor would bring a giant ladder, and meticulously
pluck them from right under my nose, stripping the tree of all its
fruit.
Needless to say, the cherry tree
fascinated us kids. I mean, how could it not? We wanted to climb up
so bad, just to get a taste of that forbidden fruit, which was very
probably infinitely better than the cherries our moms bought at the
market. We were sure of that. The problem was that climbing that
cherry tree was a mission impossible, and not just because the
neighbor guarded it like a watchdog. Climbing it was unfathomable
mainly because it had no branches on its lower part, which meant
nothing to hang onto in the first twenty feet of the ascent. And for
a six-year-old that is quite a challenge.
So one June day one of the kids says
that he saw the grumpy neighbor, this cherry fascist, who actually
was a lonely retired engineer, leave on his bicycle, and that here’s
our chance to finally steal some precious cherry before he strips the
tree again. Our enthusiasm rose high, but none had initiative. We
stared gapingly up to the heights of the laden branches, and wished
for a cherry-picking elevator or something. Eventually, I found
myself stepping next to the tree, measuring its width with my hands
to see if I can firmly wrap them around the trunk. I was able to hug
it, just barely. And then I wrapped my feet around it too, and
started climbing – I was probably dared to do it, I’m not sure.
It was exactly like climbing a palm
tree, like I tried on the Croatian seaside the previous summer. And
boy, it is a painfully slow procedure, not a blitzkrieg at all. While
clutching your feet around the rough trunk you move your hands
upwards to hug the tree a few inches higher. Then you clutch your
arms around it to move your feet a couple of inches. You repeat this
as fast as you can and as firm as you can, ‘cause if you loosen the
grip, you fall on your ass, and that’s not pretty.
So I was busily clutching and hugging
and cutting myself in million little ways, half-way up the branchless
part, when this old hag from the second floor comes shrieking out of
the building, bringing an explosion of cursing and swearing.
Something involving us goddamn kids who fucking don’t care about
the fucking private property of our fucking neighbors, and who the
hell do we think we are, and then some more fucking hell, and the
damn tree, and then something about our mothers and their private
parts.
All the kids scrambled from around the
cherry tree, and I was left all alone hanging at fifteen feet. The
old hag quickly announced the neighbor, who, of course, was very much
at home, and interrupted his afternoon siesta to come and shout at
me. In stereo, with the old bitch. He even brought an old, wooden
broom with him, and started jumping around to hit me on the back or
sting me in the ass with it.
So just imagine it, I’m half way up
the cherry tree, my legs and arms are clutched around the trunk. I’m
holding on like crazy. Of course, by this time I am kind of scared so
I hug the tree even stronger. And stronger. My arms and legs are
strapped around the tree like I am holding on to a flying missile.
And then, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, this feeling kicks in.
This amazing, numbing feeling starts spreading from my loin like a
fever. I clutch tighter, and tighter, and the feeling grows stronger,
and stronger. I have no idea what is happening to me. I can’t see,
I can’t hear, I don’t feel the neighbor stinging my ass with his
broom-stick, I am gradually hugging myself into this new and strange
heaven that starts at my tiny, squashed dick, and marches
triumphantly into my startled, numbed brain.
Man, I must have looked great up there,
fifteen feet from the ground, insanely holding on to the cherry tree,
while, one after the other, our neighbors were coming out of their
apartments to join the screaming crowd, and they were all staring at
my skinny ass, and discussing about this obnoxious and impertinent
little child, the son of the math teacher from the 4th floor, who the
fuck does he think he is, stealing in the light of day. Well, to be
honest, at that moment, I really had no idea who the fuck I was. I
was grabbing that cherry tree so tightly that I felt I was one with
it, morphing into the trunk, sliding under the tree-skin, becoming
some liquid mineral in the inner channels of the giant plant. My nose
got pushed into the dry bark, I inhaled the crust and the ants and
the smeared pigeon shit, and my mind was blown away.
Down on earth, things were probably
starting to get serious, some of the people were still shouting, the
retired engineer was sending aggressive threats up the tree trunk,
looking for stones to send those up as well, and they were all
impatiently waiting for me to get tired already, and climb down, so
they can grab my ear or my arm, and have their way with me. But I
wasn’t tired, I didn’t even remember what that felt like – I
was in heaven up there, almost unconscious, with a big goofy smile on
my face, like the guy who discovered the tree of happiness. The sweet
rush of a fever had peaked, and there was a relaxing and soothing
feeling spreading inside my body, and into my limbs. It was like
angels caressing you everywhere, with blessed feathers of joy.
I think I woke up when I heard my dad
calling my name. I looked down, and I saw him standing next to his
bicycle, he probably just arrived home from school, and found his
only son hanging from a cherry tree with the whole neighborly charade
in front of our building. ‘Son, what are you doing up there?’ I
couldn’t get my senses together so I blurted, ‘Nothing’. I
mean, what else could I have possibly said – I had no words for
what actually happened to me up there in that tight hug. ‘Didn’t
I tell you not to climb on that tree?’ I couldn’t utter a word,
not one sound, it was physically painful to speak, like breaking some
spell. ‘So are you gonna squat up there all day?’, my father
asked. And honestly, at that moment I wished I could do exactly that,
hug the cherry tree all day, all year, for ever and ever. Who knows
what miracle I experienced up there? Who knows if I would be part of
it again? I was determined to hold on as long as it was humanly
possible. And, you know, in a way, I am still holding on, I believe,
in my head and in my dreams, when I’m lonely, when I’m fed up
with people, when I’m rejected, when I long for something
undefined, when I suffer and wait and meditate, I always look for
that cherry tree, I put my hand around it, and I clutch and I hug and
I grab and I squeeze, until my goofy smile returns, and I find myself
in heaven once again.