Page 176 - I Live in the Slums: Stories (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

unfold before me.
The dryness of the next several days led me back to my previous state, but my
feeling and my reasoning changed a little. I can describe myself as “composed.”
Previously, each time I saw the gardener water the others, I hated him, but now
my feelings for the
gardener changed all at once. I saw many layers of thought in the gardener’s
image: the way he carried the hoe on his back; the way he bent to dig the earth;
the way he carried water buckets on his shoulder poles; the way he watered the
plants; the way he fertilized; the way he spread manure . . . The more I observed
him, the more interesting I felt he was. I believed this skinny guy possessed
many different kinds of witchcraft that he would practice on me one after the
other. All I had to do was wait, and it would eventually be effective.
This garden wasn’t at all lush. Actually, it was rather bleak. The plants

weren’t arranged in any order; they were placed randomly. It was called a rose
garden, but there were no roses; there were only some azaleas, chrysanthemums,
and jasmine flowers. A few days ago, the gardener brought in two false acacias
and planted them next to me. Then he left. He still hasn’t watered them. Yellow
leaves drooped from them, but they didn’t complain about the gardener. I knew
that all this was just the surface appearance. What differed from the nursery was
that the plants here were confident they would survive. I had no idea where this
confidence came from: Weren’t they dependent on the gardener’s watering
them? What if the gardener got sick, or had an accident? I discussed this with
them, but they ruled out my hypotheses; they didn’t want to hear them. As for
me, I, too, now felt I would survive. Since I had survived this long without being
watered, I had no reason to think I couldn’t go on this way. Oh, what a fantastic
garden we were! It was hard to figure out whether this was because of the

gardener’s planning or whether it was because of our great effort that the garden
was so extraordinary.
Look, the false acacias’ leaves are dropping in profusion. Unexpectedly, the
more parched they were, the more they perspired. I thought, When they have
sweat out all their fluids, their bodies will be as dry as mine, and then we’ll
speak the same language. They were fantasizing now that they would become
trees that could freely move around. From their bodies, I could see what the
gardener had in mind. As for this rose garden, in fact who was the owner?
You’re sure to answer that it’s the gardener. I used to think this, too, but recently
I changed my mind. After my observations, I now saw that the gardener’s
actions were arbitrary. His line of thinking didn’t come from premeditation; it
was innate. Why didn’t he water the false acacias? Because in his judgment,
false acacias didn’t need to be watered. Why did he water me at first and then
stop? Because he thought I didn’t need water and could still go on living (this