Page 170 - I Live in the Slums: Stories (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

I AM A WILLOW TREE

1.

I’m withering by the day. My old leaves are drooping, and I’m not interested
in growing new ones. My bark is dried up and cracking. The day before
yesterday, five more of my leaves turned yellow. I can tell that even sparrows
and magpies consider me a dead tree from the infrequency of their stopping on
my branches. In the past, I was full of delicate new leaves that attracted worms,
and so the birds loved to come and catch the worms. Jumping back and forth,
they chattered and argued excitedly, as if they were in a meeting. Now they just
regard me as nothing more than a rest stop. When they tire from flying, they nap
for a while on my branches, and then fly away again. This is because I can’t
grow fresh leaves, and without fresh leaves the cute little worms have nothing to
eat. I’ve become inessential.

Dusk is the most difficult time. The sun has not completely set behind the
mountain. The garden is quiet. Outside the fence, the silhouette of an old farmer
occasionally drifts by. The words “Rose Garden” flicker eerily on the garden
gate. If I pay close attention, I can hear elegies. In the sky, on the mountains, in
the little rivers, underground: singing is everywhere. These elegies are for me. I
don’t like listening to them, but the male voice in the distance is never willing to
let go of me. He’s really discourteous. Even if it’s my fate, it’s pointless for him
to sing for me every day. Or perhaps he’s actually singing for himself. He’s still
being rude in letting his songs travel so far, so widely. When the songs of sorrow
begin, I have to be tolerant. I have to be patient until night falls and the person
stops singing.
It’s the actions of the gardener that created my current condition. Last spring,

when I was a year-old sapling, he planted me in this grassy plot. As soon as I
was put into the earth, I knew that the rose garden’s soil was barren. It was
mainly sand that could hold neither water nor fertilizer. The gardener simply
spread a thin layer of rich soil on the surface and scattered some fertilizer. So
though in the garden the flowers and plants looked luxuriant, this was a false
impression that could vanish in the blink of an eye. The gardener also took care
of me. He gave me some basic fertilizer, and watered me every other day. I
adopted an attitude of muddling along. Back then, I still hadn’t realized how
painful it was to be a plant predestined to stay where you were planted. When he