The pear tree

Xiuying was sitting at a small desk pushed up against the window, working her way through a tedious book on the history of Chinese opera. This was the same room she slept in as a baby. Through the window she could see her mother in the garden, where she seemed to be examining the leaves of the pear tree.

Although Xiuying had grown up in this house with the garden, she thought of this room as her second bedroom. She had moved to Chengdu to live with her parents in an apartment she was eleven, and was now twenty-four.

The house had been her grandmother's. Xiuying's parents left the village to find work soon after she was born, and only came home occasionally, meaning that Xiuying was brought up by her mother's parents. Her father's remaining parent, his father, at that time had lived alone and was almost blind. He died before Xiuying turned five, and her maternal grandfather died a few years after that, an occasion of great sadness for her. She still mourned that loss; at the time it had seemed impossible to her that someone could just disappear like that, be there one day, kind and patient as ever, and then simply gone, forever.

Xiuying had been studying for several hours and had not touched her phone. It lay on the table, silent. Xiuying was a beautiful young woman, and, as she told herself, interesting and independent. Why she had difficulty finding a reliable boyfriend she couldn't have said.

Her current boyfriend, her second, would go silent for days on end and occasionally become annoyed over some minor thing and block her for a week or more. Her mother thought she was wasting her time with him, and they argued about this at least once a month. Xiuying reflected that her mother had taken less of an interest in her life while her grandmother was alive, and she wasn't sure if she preferred this new state of affairs or not. Sometimes she did wonder why she was hanging on to this relationship, when her boyfriend made so little effort. Her mother at least reminded her that she had options.

She looked at the phone, pensive, flicking her ipad stylus back and forth between her fingers. She tried to reserve chat with her friends for the evenings, a way of maintaining focus on her studies during the day. This thick tome was so boring though. She ached for some distraction.

Movement caught her eye and she looked up through the window. It was her mother, who had run out into the garden again to chase some birds away from the fruit trees. Her mother had been out there several times during the morning, fussing over the pear tree that bore, for the first time, fruit. There was something unusual about the tree. The as yet unripe pears had grown upwards from its branches, the stalks angling skywards and the fruits sticking up into the air until they got too big and gravity pulled their weight downwards, so that they hung on bent stalks as if fastened there unnaturally, cuckoo fruit.

Xiuying had asked her mother if that was how pears usually grew. She said that she didn't know, but that the pears seemed healthy enough. The tree had been planted between two older cherry trees. These loomed over it, partially blocking the sun during much of the day, so perhaps the pear blossoms had angled upwards to reach for the sun, Xiuying thought.

Xiuying's mother had planted the tree there when her own mother had died, three years ago, at the age of eighty-four. The tree was already quite large when her mother brought it into the garden. It had bloomed in the spring of the second year, but produced no fruit. This year, almost every flower had turned into a pear. Her mother fussed over it continually.

***

Xiuying returned to Chengdu the next day, a short train ride book-cased by a taxi at one end and the metro at the other. Her father, who was away on business in Hong Kong, had asked her to be at the apartment to let in a team of decorators and oversee the installation of some new fittings. She was a little flustered by this, not having any idea how she would know if the workmen were doing the job properly or not. She was pleased however that her dad trusted her to know what to do, even when she wasn't sure if she did.

She had seen her parents only once or twice a year when she was a child. Things were hard for them - for everyone, it seemed, back then. They each worked long hours six or seven days a week and stayed in cramped shared accommodation in the city, so her grandmother had told her. They had been strangers to her.

Whether it was because her grandmother had always told her so, or that she just felt it, Xiuying nevertheless knew, deep down, that her parents loved her. She had never doubted it. This knowledge gave her a warm feeling; there were her grandparents, who were always there, and these two other people, these strangers, who loved her also.

Their absence had not meant that Xiuying's childhood had been unhappy, far from it. That her elderly grandparents took great delight in her was obvious. They showered her with love and affection. Her grandmother would regularly talk to her about how much her parents loved her, and wanted to be with her, but that they needed to work so that she could have a secure future. Xiuying would sometimes think about this at night, before going to sleep, imagining her parents toiling away on her behalf, and she would feel guilty about wanting them to be there with her.

***

The workmen, quiet and respectful, completed the work within a few days, but Xiuying stayed in Chengdu for another two weeks. She caught up with friends, wondered again about whether she should stop trying to contact her - what should she call him? Her boyfriend, or her ex? she no longer knew whether to consider him her boyfriend, but neither did she feel ready to let go. She continued to send him messages that he didn't respond to. His friends told her that he was busy with exam preparation.

Xiuying had no classes to attend, so it made little difference whether she stayed in Chengdu or went back to the village. Since her grandmother's death however her mother had taken to spending more and more time at the old house, and had made it clear in a roundabout way that she liked Xiuying to be there too. So, after catching up with her friends and seeing a few movies Xiuying went back. She didn't mind, really, especially as some of her friends, who seemed to be further along with their lives than she was, and didn't mind flaunting this, were becoming annoying.

***

Xiuying's mother greeted her at the door with a huge smile, and seemed to be in an uncharacteristically excited state, as if she were concealing some wonderful news. Xiuying followed her through to the kitchen, wondering what was going on. Her father, was there too, as he had said he would be, sitting at the kitchen table and reading something on a tablet. He greeted her with a smile, but said nothing else.

'I have something for you, Xiǎo' her mother said, using Xiuying's childhood diminutive.

She opened the fridge and brought out a plate with two cut pears on it, arranged in elaborate fan shapes with the pointed ends touching in the middle of the plate. She held them out to Xiuying with both hands, grinning and blushing.

'From the tree' she said.

Xiuying was tired and didn't feel like eating. She wondered what this was about. Reluctantly, she took the plate in one hand and stared at it for a moment before putting it on the table. She dropped her bag to the floor next to the table.

'Thanks…I, er, I'm not really hungry'

To her amazement, her mother's face crumpled, and she started to cry. Just tears at first but then huge, racking sobs that bent her body over. She clutched her hands to her chest and grabbed fistfuls of her thin shirt, sobbing and moaning. Xiuying looked over at her father, speechless. Her father flicked a glance at her, cleared his throat, looked back at his tablet, then adjusted his glasses and looked at his wife.

'Now dear, I'm sure Xiuying will eat the pears later, or in the morning perhaps, yes?'

He turned his face to Xiuying, his eyebrows high up on his forehead, his mouth in an ‘o’ shape.

'I suppose' Xiuying said. She felt mortified. What did her mother want with these pears? She looked at them again, feeling even less like eating.

'She doesn't want my love' her mother wailed. 'This…this is my love…I did this for you…you don't…don't wa-wa-want it'. She broke off into convulsive sobs.

Xiuying blushed deeply, embarrassed for her mother. What had got into her? Reluctantly, she reached out, picked up a piece of pear, looked at it for a moment, and took a bite.

'It's, um, it’s very nice' she said, a slight questioning tone in her voice.

Her mother, still crying, came towards her, arms outstretched, and took her into an embrace. In her slippers her head came up to Xiuying's shoulders. Xiuying embraced her awkwardly as she continued to sob, repeating 'Xiǎo, my little Xiǎo' when she could catch her breath.

Eventually she stopped crying and withdrew, smiling and wiping away her tears. Her father coughed again, his face a little flushed too.

'Perhaps we're all a little tired' he said.