The Nutmeg Tree

THE NUTMEG TREE


“What are you reading?” I asked Jeff and casually lifted up the book to take a look at the cover, while he continued reading.

“Mmm..? ‘The Fallen Harp’”, he answered, still absorbed. He looked up, shut the book and said, “It’s about how Satan’s harp fell to Earth.”

I was amused. I myself was interested in the occult but Jeff had never shown any interest before. “Where did you find it?”, I asked, knowing that such books aren’t commonly found in Malaysia.

“In the store-room”, he answered, “Want a mango?”, he offered as he picked one and began peeling it with a pocketknife. I shook my head, “Is it yours, Grandad?”, I addressed the elderly man by my side. He wasn’t actually my grandfather (he was Jeff’s) but he insisted I should call him that.

“Oh, I can’t remember,” he answered and looked tickled by the whole matter.

It was a sunny yet breezy afternoon and we were sitting under a shady mango tree in Jeff’s backyard. It was pleasant in their garden: there were many fruit trees in the backyard and the colourful flame trees in the front.

“Your mother used to love playing on those flame trees,” Jeff’s grandfather pointed at the gold and vermillion trees. “They were her palaces and she was the princess,” he smiled nostalgically.

Grandad would always come up with anecdotes from the past and Jeff devoured the information greedily, having only known his mother for five years. After her death, he had lived with his father in Australia. He was here now on an exchange student programme.

I looked around and enjoyed the atmosphere, the large colonial house nearby, the shady aromatic fruit trees and vibrant flame trees The only thing that marred the atmosphere was the withered nutmeg tree on the west-side of the house.

It was old and wrinkled and few leaves grew on it – and yet the tree bore many fruits. But the nutmegs never withered and fell and no new blossoms or fruits replaced the old. There was nothing nice about it, it was freaky. Grandad told us stories of each tree but whenever we asked him about the nutmeg, “It was just there, you’ll know it’s purpose soon enough.”.

I felt very close to Jeff and Grandad although I’ve only known them for about a month. Jeff was carefree and unreserved and I found that attractive as compared to the overly sensitive and repressed youth of Malaysia. We ‘clicked’ right from the start.

It was pretty much the same with Grandad. He chuckled as he shook my hand and told Jeff, “Your friend is mine”. Looking back, I understand the true meaning of his words.

Grandad always enjoyed being with us, it made him “whole to be with young souls” and he would chuckle with bits of spittle flying, which I thought was endearing (as long as it didn’t touch me!).

Dusk was when he got moody. He would sit, looking at the portrait of him and his wife in the lounge. His face would be emotionless but the whole scene was very poignant. Jeff and I thought it best to leave him alone then.

And that’s how the days would pass since I met Jeff and his granddad.

Until one Monday, Jeff came late to class. Just one glance at him and I knew immediately something was wrong. His hair was disheveled, he had rings so dark around his eyes, I wasn’t sure if he lacked sleep or had been in a fight. He was listless and all his animation seemed gone.

When I had the opportunity to talk to him afterwards, he was non-committal, “You’ll think I’m crazy!” he said.

“Try me!”

He gave a ghost of a smile and then began.

“I went to bed early yesterday but I just couldn’t sleep. Even Grandad’s tea didn’t help! It was a beautiful night, you know, the moon was out and everything seemed so peaceful and ethereal. I felt weird, light-headed and I didn’t mind just lying there with that floaty kind of feeling,”. He paused.

“And then all at once, I could hear this soft music, it was very pretty. It gradually grew louder and louder and I was wondering if one of the neighbours was playing CDs late at night.

“It was very charming and tranquil and it somehow fitted with the night,” he looked at me and I nodded knowingly. “But the music made me feel more awake so I walked to the window and I saw a figure under the nutmeg tree. It was cloaked and hooded in black and it was playing a harp. The music was so beautiful, so liquid and yet when I saw that scene, my blood ran cold, something was so very wrong…”

He played with his fingers restlessly and then continued, “I could see clearly the talons (they weren’t even claws!) plucking those stings and the tree seemed to mock me, as if it were alive. The figure looked up – at me – I could not see within the hood its face, but I saw two burning yellow eyes. It seemed so malevolent that I just pulled back from the window. I shut it, drew the curtains and stayed in bed ‘till dawn. The music faded after awhile, I managed a little sleep but not much.”.

He finished and looked to see my reaction.

“Couldn’t it all have been a dream?”, I ventured cautiously and, because there was no reaction, “You could have eaten something –“. But he didn’t let me finish, he just walked off. But he gave me a look before he turned the corner, a look that said, “I thought you’d try to understand.”.

I called after him but he just seemed to vanish. He wasn’t around the rest of the day and when I phoned him later, no one answered. Being sensitive was uncharacteristic of Jeff. Moreover, the dream with the tree and harp bothered me too and thus, I slept little that night.

The next day, Jeff was non-committal and indifferent, almost lifeless. All my joking and laughing did not bring him out of his mood. Then for a moment, his eyes became sad and he said to me, “I am no more my own; he has shown himself to me”. Then the veil fell again and the mask of indifference was on his face.

I tried to decipher his words but it made little sense to me. Perhaps he was talking about the cloaked figure. That’s it! The figure had revealed itself to Jeff! But even then, so what? And what had he meant, “I am no more my own”? That sounded ominous.

I decided to stop by Jeff’s place after classes and talk with him properly. And if he was uncooperative, I’d talk to Grandad then. I’m sure he’d know what to do.

By the time I reached the old house, it was late evening. His grandfather greeted me and told me that Jeff wasn’t home yet; hadn’t I seen him? Why wasn’t he with me? Etc. etc.

I told him I had to speak with him about Jeff and, looking concerned, he led me to the lounge and then told him about Jeff’s great personality change. I started talking about Jeff’s dream, about the figure with the harp under the nut-meg tree. And then, surprisingly, Jeff’s granddad chuckled his spittley laugh and said, “Hold on a moment, I think I know what you’re talking about,” and he left the room. His behaviour was so  casual and humorous that I thought maybe it was an eccentricity of his to play the harp in the garden at night, and Jeff was ashamed that he was scared.

“You are close to the truth, young one,” said an unfamiliar voice. I looked around and my eyes found the portrait of Jeff’s grandparents. Jeff’s grandmother smiled sadly down at me. I’m still not sure I was imagining it, but she spoke to me, “Leave, child, or it will be too late for you!”. I gaped at her uncomprehendingly. She looked at me, her eyes beseeching.

“Jeffrey’s grandfather is bewitched by a demon. He plays the Harp of Death to unsuspecting youth and steels their souls. Eventually, they die physically but spiritually, he has them captured in his earthly hell. That’s how I lost my Joanne… and now Jeffrey.”. Tears rolled down her cheeks and I too felt some emotion for her.

“I pray you, if you cherish life, then flee!”. But then, she choked and her skin began to age: her eyes became glazed and scared. The figure of her husband next to her laughed evilly, its flesh peeled away to reveal a wolf with yellow eyes, with fangs and talons.

She screamed hoarsely, her flesh decaying, exposing her jaw. An eyeball fell from its socket and dangled by its muscle. Her hair grayed and then dropped in clumps, her scalp covered in weeping ulcers. The heavy evil smell of death and putrefaction filled the room and I could not help but retch. But I stood spellbound, unable to move my eyes from the portrait.

“Well, here it is!”, a familiar chuckle behind me caused me to swivel around and gape at an ebony framed harp that Grandad had produced with him. His eyes glittered cruel yellow, the colour of bile, and his fingers, looking more like talons, plucked a string here and there, filling the room with a rich liquid resonance.

“There’s no need to run, child,” he smiled as I made for the door, “for you are already chosen. You were the very day you followed Jeffrey home and was introduced to me”, he chuckled brightly as if he just said something funny. And I still could not conceive what was happening. I thought he was merely insane and I had hallucinated the whole portrait episode.

“This little beauty,” he plucked the string again, “is the Harp of Death, the harp of the fallen angel, Lucifer. It has brought me much pleasure,” he smiled lovingly. “It loosens the soul from the mortal body with its music and then I capture the soul in… guess what?” he cackled furiously as he produced a nutmeg. He continued cackling convulsively as he saw the look of comprehension on my face. I finally realized why the nutmeg tree was so abnormal!

He bit into the nutmeg and somewhere nearby, I heard a scream that, if it had sounded human, could have been Jeff. But the scream was so loud, so painful, a pain I believe no human can comprehend.

I ran home, crying and scared. After a shower and dinner, I knew I had dreamt it all. It was all the work of an active imagination.

But that’s not so, because he is outside my window now, playing a tune so beautiful, I feel I must run out to him. And be with him forever…