SHORT STORIES                                                                       (Copyright - Pierre du Toit)
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"FOR THE TIME OF FIGS WAS NOT YET"

(First published in Contrast - South African Literary Journal July 1986 Vol 16 No 1*)

A sharp stone cut into the boy's knee. The blood trickled into the sand where it assembled a tiny cake of sand grains, as if they were suddenly attracted to one another. He stared intently in front of him, his black eyes searching through the bush. For several seconds he was as still as the dry veldt around him. He moved his other knee forward. The muscles in his back strained to lift his head above the hot, brown rock. His hand carefully pushed aside the branches growing out of a crack on its side. His lips moved slightly but he uttered no sound. Without moving the rest of his body, he slowly turned his head, first to the one side, then to the other. The empty veldt shimmered in the heat without even a bird stirring. The continuous shrill noise of the invisible cicades only half penetrated his awareness. He looked back. It was still there, hidden in the narrow opening straight ahead, amongst the dark olive green shrubs tucked into the shade. It looked exactly like the picture. It had to be. Excitement, fear, amazement pushed the sweat through the tight skin on his brow.

Then, with a sudden movement he jumped up, turned and fled, stumbling, sliding down the steep side of the hill. He did not slow down when he reached the level ground. His bare feet left hardly a trace on the hot, stony earth. When he got home he paused at the gate, stole round the back and, after a furtive look through the kitchen window, slipped in through the back door. In the dark coolness of his own room, behind a locked door, he collapsed on his bed, feeling his heart pound away in his chest as he lay staring at the high ceiling, daring to think of the fig tree.

'And he left them, and went out of the city into Bethany; and he lodged there. Now in the morning as he returned into the city, he hungered. And when he saw a fig tree in the way, he came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And presently the fig tree withered away.'

Eugene did not look up from the small purple flower embroidered on the table cloth. Delicate brown lines ran from it, with dark green leaves every few centimetres. The  pattern had no fruits. Why did his father choose to read  this text for dinner prayers? He could not know anything? After all, he had not actually touched it. And yet, every time he reminded himself of this, excitement over what almost happened came over him and excluded everything else, even the deep, measured voice of his father.

"Eugene. Please put away the Book."

The tiny brown lines crisscrossed, as if to form a net for the purple flowers. just flowers, stalks and leaves. No fruit. In and out of the linen cloth, the three colours hiding, appearing, hiding.

"Eugene!"

The boy pushed his chair back sharply. His knee knocked against a leg of the table, exactly on the spot where the stone had cut him that morning. He winced.

"Yes Father." He took the heavy, leather covered book from his father. The edges were thinning, showing up a dark beige against the deep brown of the centre. He placed it neatly in the polished, wooden case on the mantlepiece. It fitted exactly.

After dinner the family gathered on the front veranda. Eugene liked the long Saturday evenings in summer when he was allowed to sit outside on the veranda with his parents. There one could always hear clearly the rhythmic throb of the diesel motor which charged the batteries, especially during the many long pauses in the slow conversation. This time, however, he felt uncomfortable. He sat right on the edge of the steps and pushed a small oblong stone up and down the polished grooves with a stick. Every time his father's throat gave the rasping, dry cough before speaking, he tensed up, tried to look relaxed, and as a result merely bit harder on his teeth. But each time it was just something about the sheep, or some ill person in the village who needed his mother to visit them the next day, or simply a silence indicating that the throat clearing was a false alarm. Now and then somebody walked by, exchanged a few respectful words with his father, and disappeared into the dusk.

After a while Eugene started yawning, long, almost too obvious, yawns. He got up. "Well, good night Mother." He kissed her. He went over to his father and put his arms around the strong shoulders. The old man returned the embrace. Feeling his father's strength and closeness comforted him, for all the time while he was praying that his father would not ask him about the morning, he was feeling estranged and guilty for withholding the information. When he walked through the lounge he stopped at the portraits hanging high against the wall above the couch. The battery powered light was weak, its yellow glow enhancing the fading yellow of the pictures. His father with old Uncle Retief, standing in the empty veldt where the town was later established. He paused longer before the one where his father stood over some small tree, with a massive ax raised high above his shoulders. Written in thick black ink across the photograph were the words: 'Woe to him who seeks satisfaction where our Lord was denied.' It was on that day that his father had decreed that from then on everyone who discovered a wild fig tree should fell it, burn it, and dig up the roots to dry in the heat of the Lord's wrath. Eugene stared at his father's face which, even from the side perspective, looked stern, the one visible eye a piercing black spot under the eyebrow raised in the effort of axing. He hurried through to his bed­room. Once in bed, he almost got out again to go and confess. But it was more than the difficulty of explaining the long delay that prevented him from doing so. It was also the lingering, persistent excitement that made him turn to the wall finally and fold his arms around his body.

Eugene woke early the next morning. For a while he simply lay on his back, his hands behind his head, his eyes vaguely perceiving the ceiling growing out of the darkness. He tried to recapture the strange images of his sleep, but try as he might, there was just the continuing conflicting sensations of achievement, almost a freedom, and a crushing weight of guilt and shame. It was as if he could only remember the colours of his dream, the deep greens, the browns, the black edges around them without there really being any form. It was like some of the paintings he once saw in an art book of Miss Bardin's, the young teacher and a newcomer in the community. She had invited him to the room she rented from the Malherbes one day when he needed some extra coaching in history. They looked through the book together, sitting on the little divan below the window. He could smell her perfume, sweet like violets. The only perfume he had ever smelt before then was his mother's, the day some important man from the city came to visit his parents. Some of the paintings were about generals and great battlefields, but others just looked like a mess of colour. There were also pictures of tables with flowers, and bowls of fruit, or bread and rotting birds hanging from hooks. One of the paintings clearly showed a fig, in a bowl with all the other fruit, just as if it could also be eaten. He had asked her about it, and she had replied after a while, quite softly: "We must honour our parents and you must honour your father. But if we must protect our souls through not eating figs, perhaps we can still feed our souls by looking at them as painted by a great master." That was a strange thing to say. His father would certainly not have approved of such loose talk. Nor would he have approved of the perfume on someone so young. Yet, then, just like now, he could not bring himself to telling his father about the incident.

Eugene heard his mother in the kitchen. He knew his father would be there, sitting at the large yellow table going over his sermon for that morning. When he got there, his father was alone, the steam rising from the wide rim of the coffee mug in front of him. They greeted and he sat down. Little pieces of whole-wheat rusk floated on the black liquid. His father's glasses rested almost on the tip of his nose. The hair around his temples was silver. Small white specks of dandruff stuck to the inside surface of the lenses, set in a thick brown frame. Despite the years, his high, broad forehead had only the thinnest of wrinkles. His hands, holding the paper with the large, irregular writing, seemed enormous. The tips of the heavy fingers curled over the nails as if the nails had given up growing after many years of being bitten to the quick.

Eugene felt uncomfortable. His secret, all the more frightening for the fascination it held, lay between him and his father like a dark mountain. When his father looked up for the rusks, Eugene found an opportunity:

"Father, why didn't the fig tree Jesus saw have any figs?" His father looked at him over his glasses. For a moment it appeared as if he knew everything which lay behind the question.

  "Eugene, my boy, it is not for us to ask why we can't do this or can't do that when the Lord wants it from us. When the Lord demands, we must answer, and we must live so that when he does demand, we are in a position to do His will without question or excuse."

"Yes Father." He had said nothing about why there were no figs, or why one could not eat figs. He waited a moment, then continued: "Where did Father read from last night? About the fig tree, I mean?"  

His father looked at him without replying immediately. Then he said: "You find it. Look for it. It is in one of the gospels. By tonight, just before you go to ring the bell for the service, I'll ask you to show me where it is." The glasses moved onto the nose again. His father's eyes moved rhythmically behind the lenses, left to right, left to right. His lips moved in a soft murmur. Eugene went to his room to get his clothes. He had to wash and get dressed. He'd have to leave before anyone else. Ever since he was big enough to lift it, it was his job to take the big copper school bell and stand in front of the hall half an hour before the morning and evening services, and ring it for five minutes to warn everyone that his father would soon be instructing them in the ways of the Lord.

Shortly before eight in the morning it was already hot in the little hall. Eugene sat next to his mother, in the fifth row of chairs from the front, to the left of the stinkwood pulpit which was carried into the hall every Sunday. One or two heads nodded at an acquaintance while they were waiting for Mr Theron to rise with his 'Brothers, Sisters, Children of God. Let us pray to our Lord.' The service started. Prayer, song, trailing after the thin sound of Miss Bardin's piano accompaniment, and reading from the scriptures. Then Oubaas Theron, as the people fondly referred to his father, launched into his lay but serious sermon. Eugene, as much because of the rambling complexity of his father's message as of the fact that his own mind kept wandering to his discovery of the previous morning, soon lost the thread of the sermon. Quietly he paged through his mother's small black leather bible. She looked at him once or twice, but had obviously concluded that he might get as much out of his own reading as out of listening to his father. The gospels. Eugene read some passages from St. Matthew. He paused a while at the parable of the vineyard, but that did not lead to anything. Then he turned to St. Mark. His eye caught the name Bethany. That was the name his father had read about the previous night. His concentration deepened.

'And in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots. And Peter calling to remember saith unto him, Master, behold, the fig tree which thou cursedst is withered away. And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God.'

He went back a few verses:  

'And on the morrow, when they were come from Bethany, he was hungry; And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find any thing thereon: and when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves; for the time of figs was not yet . . .'

He paused. This was not the same as what his father had read. 'For the time of figs was not yet'. That had not been there.

'And Jesus answered and said unto it, no man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever. And his disciples heard it.'

'For the time of figs was not yet'. It must have been outside the fig season. The boy stared in front of him. How could the tree have borne fruit when it was not the season? He was looking straight into his father's face. For a moment their eyes met. The bible dropped to the floor. Eugene quickly bent over and picked it up. After a while he started reading again, this time from St. Matthew.

'Now in the morning as he left the city, he hungered. . .’

There it was, the piece his father had read. Nothing about the fig season. He thought again about the large rock, the shady bushes, and the green leaves of the tree which bore the green-brown fruits so openly and richly. The feeling of excitement started taking over again from the heavy sensation of the morning. The soft cheek of Miss Bardin came into his focus. The congregation, as his father liked to refer to his Sunday audience, was singing a closing psalm. Her arms, bare below the white frills which hung just off the shoulder, were as white as the keys over which her fingers ran so confidently. As she leant slightly to the left he noted the faint, bluish-grey shadow running into her armpit. When she sat back a little, he saw the smooth skin swell into the front of her dress.

His father joined his mother as they walked from the hall. Thinking of his father's face when he dropped the bible, Eugene held back a little until he saw them enter into conversation with a few of the people standing around in the bright sun. Then he slipped back into the hall where Miss Bardin was putting the music books into the piano chair.

"Miss Bardin. Hello Miss Bardin.... ...are you well?"

She looked up. "Oh, hello Eugene. How nice to see you. Yes, I'm very well, and you?"

He forgot to answer. Her face was smiling around her bright grey-blue eyes. She was very pretty.

"I want to show you something. Remember you once showed me in your art book the picture of a fig?" His voice was low, conspiratorial. "And we spoke about how one must not eat figs like my father says, but one may look at them and all that?"

Miss Bardin looked around the hall quickly. They were alone. "Yes, Eugene?" She looked slightly uncomfortable.

"Look here." Eugene put his mother's bible on the lid over the keyboard and fumbled with the pages. She started reading half aloud from where he was pointing.

"Shh" he said, ". . . read quietly." Her blonde hair was right next to his face. Again he could smell her perfume. The close, sweet scent, their being alone in the hall, the fact of his discovery, all these combined to make him feel enormously confident. When his finger reached the words '. . . for the time of figs was not yet', the expression on his face was almost triumphant.

"You see there. Figs have seasons like everything else, right? In fact, I know that right now the tree would have had no trouble."  

Miss Bardin said nothing. She glanced at the front door of the hall, but the few people still there were still nodding their heads in the sun. She put her hand on the boy's shoulder, hesitated a moment and then said: "I know. But how do you know?"  

The effect on Eugene was immediate. He closed the bible and took it off the piano in one movement, stood away from her a little formally, mumbled a thank you and good morning and, as fast as he could without running, shuffled outside to where his parents were still talking in a small group.  

Eugene was quiet during lunch. Sunday lunches were elaborate affairs with wide dishes, silver cutlery, special desert, and usually much talking. Coffee was taken in the lounge with the silver pot and from the best cups. After the coffee, his parents would lie down, often for the better part of the afternoon, until his father started rehearsing his evening sermon.  

As soon as his parents were behind the closed door of their bedroom, Eugene crept back to the lounge. First noting exactly the position of the gleaming kist on the mantlepiece, he carefully took out the old family bible and paged to St. Mark, Chapter 11. There it was again.'. . . for the time of figs was not yet'. He put everything back the way he found it, went to his room, changed from his Sunday clothes into his shorts and a light shirt and slipped out the kitchen door. Before long the town was far below him, quiet with the stillness of any small town in the back of beyond on a Sunday afternoon.  

His excitement grew as he climbed higher and higher into the koppies. Despite his flight the previous morning, he had no difficulty in finding his way. On reaching the cracked rock, he pushed the branches right down and clambered over it. He was inside a small opening behind the rock now. He stared at the tree. Five, six fruits hung from the tough branches. He reached out. The skin felt rough under his fingers. Then he pulled. The branches rustled a little, and the fig came off. It sat in his hand as if glued. He stared at the dark brown flame that ran down the one side. The thin black half-moons of three of his right hand nails lay across the heavy grain. Slowly, smoothly, now without any hesitation, he moved the fig deeper into his palm, held the thinner end at the stem and gripped the bottom of the fig in his left hand, his right thumb pressing against the harder, narrow top. Then, with a quick, deliberate downward pull he ruptured the skin. 

It tore in a ragged circle around the open wound. In amazement he watched how the glistening, ripe juice oozed from the very depths, ran slowly down the little hollow and over the soft green contour of the body. With the tip of his finger he lightly brushed the sticky wetness away and stared at the pink flesh, dotted with red at the ends of little stalks, so thin, they could have been hairs. With a mixture of awe and almost uncontrollable excitement he brought the gaping opening to his face and thrust his tongue deep into its sweetness. He felt the coarse skin tear against his gums. His fingers folded it outward so as to lay bare the soft inside of the yielding fruit. Like tears the juice ran over his cheeks and mixed with the dust brown sweat as it coursed down into his neck to form tiny patches on the front of his shirt collar.

For a long time Eugene sat on the rock next to the wild fig tree. The sun was getting weaker and a soothing coolness had come over the veldt. His mind did not stay at any one point for long, floating from image to image, sensing more than thinking. His acute awareness wandered between the angled patterns in the flight of a gnat in front of him and an unknown beauty which lay far beyond the dim outline of the moon beginning to form in the sky. When it was almost dark, and with the cold rising into his stiff limbs, he stretched himself erect and picked up the remaining fig from the rock. The big, soft fruit was for Miss Bardin. He looked once more at the faint shadow where the fig tree huddled in the crevice, turned towards the town and started walking back. Far off in the distance he could just make out his father's small figure in front of the toy sized hall. The muffled copper ring of the school bell announced that in half an hour Oubaas Theron would again be instructing his people in the way of the Lord, but its sound never stirred the stillness in the boy's mind

(*Refer on one of these themes the photograph at: ETCETERAnon-SA Album007  'Rainbow Myth')
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