The Persimmon Tree

by Bryce Courtenay

  At dawn I rose and walked to the river and watched the sun rise. Silly with lack of sleep, I found myself silently asking why the Yarra was always brown; it was just one of the crazy thoughts that wouldn’t stop racing through my mind. I was almost within a stone’s throw of Anna, yet I felt more terrified than I had been at Bloody Ridge.

  After breakfast I wrote her a note, several notes, all eventually scrunched then thrown in the wire wastepaper basket. Finally I settled for:

  Dearest Anna,

  I’d love to see you. May I suggest morning tea tomorrow, say 11 o’clock, in the lounge at the Hotel Windsor?

  Sincerely,

  Nicholas Duncan

  It may seem like a simple enough note, but it had taken an hour to compose. Each word carried a purpose: Dearest Anna (friendly), I’d love to see you (implies for old time’s sake), May I suggest morning tea tomorrow (no disaster if you refuse, a tentative and casual arrangement), say 11 o’clock (not too firm), in the lounge at the Hotel Windsor (sophisticated, worldly, urbane, non-threatening), Sincerely (relaxed, non-committal), Nicholas (nostalgia), Duncan (recall).

  I sent the note in an unsealed envelope together with the butterfly handkerchief, handing the goggle-eyed pageboy a pound. ‘See that it is received by Miss Til at the address on the envelope and nobody else! Wait if you have to,’ I instructed somewhat forcibly. With a week’s wages in his claw he could only nod, stupefied.

  The 20th of September 1950, a beautiful early spring day in Melbourne, brought probably the longest morning of my life. Anna entered the lounge at the Hotel Windsor at one minute to eleven. I had expected her to be late. She was so stunningly beautiful I wanted to cry, to burst into sudden tears.

  I jumped to my feet like a schoolboy. ‘Anna!’ I exclaimed.

  ‘It is you, Nicholas,’ she replied, a tiny smile at the corners of her mouth, her violet eyes looking me up and down, inspecting me. ‘You are still beautiful,’ she said, suddenly laughing.

  She reached into her bag and pulled out the Clipper butterfly in its teak box and placed it in front of me. ‘You see, Nicholas?’ she said. ‘I have never forgotten you.’

  In an hour, over a pot of Darjeeling tea, I fell head over heels in love with her again.

  I spent the next fortnight in Melbourne, not attending to business needs that should have found me in Canberra and then back in the islands. I kept on receiving frenetic calls from the little bloke, all much the same. ‘Wassamatta, Nick, ferchrissakes wha’ cha doin’ down dere? So yoh found Anna? What we suppose ter do? Wait til ya ain’t lovesick no more? We got two contracts, dey both bigger dan da secon’ comin’! Yoh gotta get ya sweet ass ter Canberra. Fuckin’ place’s goin’ crazy widout ya.’

  Joe called from Honiara, the town built in the Solomon Islands by the American forces. ‘Nick, wot cha doin’, mah man? Pussy like baked sweet potato, dere ain’t never one dat don’t taste good. Yoh crazy ’bout dat doll, yoh bring her home, yoh heah?’

  During those two weeks I’d make a time to see Anna and she wouldn’t turn up, or someone would call (never her) and apologise, saying she was indisposed. But whenever we did get together you could see she loved it. We’d have dinner or lunch and she’d leave obviously feeling great — either that, or she’d become the world’s greatest actress.

  But she wouldn’t allow any intimacy between us. Her greetings and farewell kisses were chaste, to say the least. She physically drew away if I reached out and touched her arm. Anna had lost something important from deep within her. Her beautiful eyes would still sparkle, but if you caught them at an unsuspecting moment they showed a sadness, even sometimes a blankness. The trouble was that at such moments, when she looked vulnerable, she was even more beautiful.

  Then Janine de Sax came to see me. ‘Nick, Kevin’s calling me every day, sometimes twice a day. You know how he is, full of bombast and bluff. But he’s genuinely worried about you.’

  ‘Janine, just give me a bit of space, a little more time,’ I begged.

  ‘Nick, I have some bad news,’ she said suddenly.

  ‘What?’ I asked defensively and a little angrily, even rudely I suppose.

  ‘Rusty Weatherall has been making enquiries. Anna is a heroin addict. It’s a long-time addiction; she’s used the one supplier since she arrived in Melbourne.’

  ‘Oh, Jesus!’ I clenched my hands around the broad armrests of the lounge chair. It explained so much of her recent behaviour. ‘What will I do? What the fuck will I do now?’ I wailed pathetically.

  ‘See the doctor. Get something to calm your nerves,’ Janine said quietly.

  It had become obvious Anna enjoyed being with me and now I understood why she sometimes cancelled our assignations. I spent another sleepless night and in the morning called Janine. ‘Can you find out if there is a specialist who knows something about heroin? One who treats it regularly?’ I asked. The missionary in my father was showing in me. He’d always said to me as a child, ‘Nicholas, read and inwardly digest; knowledge is power. First find out and understand what is known and only then have you a right to question it. The world is full of ill-informed people making the wrong decisions based on speculative and impulsive information.’

  Janine found a professor at the University of Melbourne who had been a biochemist and had then turned to psychiatry, the newest of the medical areas of human study. Surprisingly for a high-ranking academic, she was a female.

  Professor Sue Wilson (‘Chemicals have a great deal to do with everything, Mr Duncan’) was busy, but she agreed to see me. She was tall, slim, blonde and not at all professorial looking, although her manner was politely abrupt. ‘What is it you wish to know, Mr Duncan?’ she asked moments after I was seated in her office.

  ‘How does one withdraw from heroin addiction?’ I replied.

  ‘You, or someone else?’

  ‘Well, yes, someone else,’ I said.

  ‘Does he, she, wish to give it up?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Maybe?’ I ventured.

  ‘And the cow jumped over the moon! Nonsense!’

  ‘I beg your pardon, Professor?’

  ‘Nonsense!’ she repeated. ‘He, she, must want to withdraw.’

  ‘I think she does, she just doesn’t know how,’ I suggested.

  ‘You think she does, or she does?’ she asked pointedly.

  ‘I think she does,’ I said, guessing.

  She sighed and I knew she’d caught me out. ‘Mr Duncan, every heroin user I have ever encountered wants to give it up. But there is a peculiar aberration in the brain that is difficult, if not well-nigh impossible to overcome: every heroin addict believes that they need only one more shot to stop the torment and thereafter they’ll commence on the road to a certain cure. “Just one more shot” is the mantra of this drug.’

  ‘Well, presuming she does, what’s involved; how do I go about helping her?’

  ‘How long has she been addicted?’

  ‘Five years, maybe more.’

  ‘Is she sick?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so, just unreliable.’

  ‘Is she injecting?’

  ‘What, into her arms? No, there are no needle marks, or none that I could see, anyway.’

  ‘Is she on the street?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Has she got the money to buy drugs?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then she’s probably chasing the dragon.’

  ‘Chasing the dragon?’ I was beginning to feel very ignorant.

  ‘Smoking heroin, that way she avoids the illnesses associated with injecting the drug.’

  ‘Well possibly, but will she die if she is suddenly withdrawn?’

  ‘No, of course not! And in case you were about to ask, Mr Duncan, unlike alcohol rehabilitation, she won’t even need medical supervision.’

  ‘How long before she’s free of t
he drug, Professor?’ I sensed she was growing impatient with me.

  ‘There are two answers to that question. The major symptoms that reflect the drug in her body should be over in seven to ten days.’ She paused. ‘But she’s not out of the woods then, a protracted abstinence syndrome will persist, often up to thirty-one weeks.’

  ‘You mean psychologically? Psychological addiction?’

  ‘It’s a little more complicated than that, but, yes, the mind is the most powerful factor.’

  ‘Will she, I mean, with the withdrawal symptoms, will she, you know, suffer a lot?’

  ‘What do you think, Mr Duncan? If the cure was a simple matter, then every heroin addict would be clean. Let me list the symptoms of withdrawal for you.’

  I was beginning to think she was secretly enjoying answering my questions, putting me in my place. But I could hear my father saying ‘Persistence, sheer persistence, will eventually prevail. Knowledge is only gained by curiosity and curiosity is fuelled by persistence.’

  ‘Yes please, Professor, I need to know what to expect.’ Why do doctors always assume you’re a couple of intellectual levels below them?

  She seemed amused. ‘I hope you’re a strong man, Mr Duncan. Let me begin with what you can see.’ She started to count on her left hand, using her forefinger to tap the pad of each finger in turn, then flicking the fingers and thumb on her right hand to continue: ‘Dilated pupils, piloerection —’

  ‘Piloerection?’ I interrupted.

  ‘Goose bumps,’ she said impatiently, then continued, ‘watery eyes, runny nose, frequent yawning, tremors, vomiting.’ She paused and repeated, ‘Vomiting! Nausea, this is the big one, here is where you’ll need to be strong.’ She continued, ‘Shaking, chills, followed by profuse sweating. Those are the symptoms you can see,’ she concluded.

  ‘And the ones you can’t see?’ I asked.

  ‘Ah, muscle cramps, stomach cramps, insomnia, panic, diarrhoea, irritability. That’s about it,’ she said, smiling. ‘But once you’re over the primary symptoms, you have to battle depression and, more importantly, what I previously mentioned, the certainty in the addict’s mind that feeling better is just a single dose away. That is why so many addicts relapse, they know the drug can make them feel better than their present state of mind.’

  Whew! It was quite a list.

  I tackled Anna the following day about her addiction. At first there was denial, then anger, then tears. ‘Nick, you don’t understand, I didn’t do this on purpose, become an addict.’

  ‘Anna, you can tell me about all that later. What’s important now is getting better. Darling, I love you. I always have.’

  She was suddenly furious. ‘Love? What are you talking about, Nicholas? Where is there love? Show me?’

  ‘Well, for a start, in me, for you.’

  ‘Nicholas, you talk bullshit.’ I forgot to mention that Anna now spoke English perfectly and obviously idiomatically, with only the slightest trace of an accent.

  ‘No, Anna, it’s not bullshit.’

  ‘Nicholas, you know nothing. You don’t know the Japanese. What they did!’

  ‘Well, no, but I killed a few and saved one. Even the Japanese understand love.’ I was thinking of Gojo Mura.

  ‘Jesus! Where have you been?’ she yelled. ‘For fuck’s sake!’

  ‘Anna, do you want to get off the shit?’

  ‘I don’t know! Yes, yes, yes!’ It was then that she started to sob. I held her in my arms for ages, kissing her forehead, her hair, her neck. But all she did was sob against my chest. When she’d recovered a little I put her in a taxi. It was a short ride, we could easily have walked there in ten minutes, but I gave the taxi driver a quid for a two-bob fare. ‘See she gets home safely,’ I urged.

  The following morning I wrote her a note giving her my telegraphic address in Port Vila: ‘If you want to try and get clean, come and stay. I love you, Anna.’ There didn’t seem to be any more I could do or say. I’ve never felt more miserable or helpless in my life.

  A month passed and then one afternoon a telegram arrived: NICHOLAS STOP I BE ON THE AFTERNOON PLANE TUESDAY STOP ANNA. It was a lapse in grammar, the first I’d seen her make.

  Tuesday was three days away. I was aware she might change her mind, but I provisioned Madam Butterfly for six weeks, then called the little bloke. ‘Mate, I haven’t taken a holiday for five years, I’m taking six weeks off, going sailing, no way you can reach me, see ya!’

  ‘What about da time yoh spent wit da broad in Melbourne?’ he protested.

  ‘Get stuffed, Kevin.’

  ‘Hey, Nick, don’t hang up, buddy, I got good news.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘We got dat asshole, da crocodile! Anytime he step outta line we skin him alive an’ put da skin on my wall! Dat bondage brothel story — if da newspapers get dat, he’s finito. Dat Janine, she tol’ me ’bout dat. Now da special good news, buddy — Bren Gun, she pregnant again. Joe Nicholas, he on da way — only seven months ta go!’

  I met the plane and to my enormous joy Anna was on it. Her suitcase was about half the size of the tray of my utility. In those days there was no customs inspection and the case was carried to my truck by a sweating porter. Anna waited until she was seated in the cabin before she kissed me. ‘Thank you for inviting me to your home, Nicholas,’ she said.

  I laughed, unable to hide my joy. ‘Delighted you could come, Anna.’

  Anna dug into her handbag and produced a small box tied with a white ribbon. ‘Inside is your butterfly handkerchief and also eighty persimmon seeds. You must sow five immediately, because I am five years behind now. Then, you must sow one seed each year on my birthday. You must promise me, Nicholas.’

  I smiled. ‘I promise, Anna, but why persimmon seeds?’

  ‘I will tell you some day, not now,’ she said quietly.

  We arrived at the gates of Beautiful Bay and as we went down the long driveway I suggested, ‘Shall we plant one persimmon each year along this driveway? What do you think, Anna?’

  She clapped her hands and clasped them to her breast in the same way the old Anna had always done when she was excited. ‘Oh, Nicholas, I would like that! I would like that very much.’

  ‘Then it shall be done,’ I said, grinning. ‘Seventy-five as well as five immediately.’

  The cook and the two maids, the three gardeners and the boatman had all been lined up by Ellison on the front steps and were grinning their welcome. ‘Oh, what a beautiful house!’ Anna exclaimed, getting out as Ellison stepped forward to open the ute door. She walked over and plucked a frangipani blossom and pushed it into her hair.

  Ellison lifted the suitcase from the back of the truck and carried it up the steps, placing it on the verandah.

  ‘Anna, I thought you might want to rest for a while and then we might go for a sail at sunset. Do you think you’re up to it?’

  ‘Oh yes, I would love that, Nicholas,’ she exclaimed.

  ‘Ellison will take your suitcase and Mary, our housemaid, will unpack for you.’ I watched Anna’s eyes as they darted over to the large suitcase. ‘No, no, thank you, that is not necessary, I will do it myself.’ I could sense the urgency in her voice.

  Ellison knew what to do later after we’d sailed away on Madam Butterfly. He’d been told, should it prove necessary, to strip the lining of the suitcase to find the heroin I was certain Anna would have brought with her.

  Each of the servants, smiling shyly, came up and shook Anna’s hand. ‘Welcome, madam,’ they said. After they departed I instructed Ellison to take the suitcase and place it in Anna’s room. Then we climbed the steps onto the front verandah, and Anna turned and looked over the bay to where the cutter was moored. ‘Madam Butterfly!’ she screamed, again clapping her hands and clasping them to her bosom in the old familiar Anna way. Then she turned to me, her beautiful eyes serious. ‘Oh, Nicholas,
I really want to try to give up, you know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said quietly. ‘Yes, I know. I’ll be with you, Anna — every step of the way.’

  Anna moved forward and I took her in my arms and kissed her. Then she drew away. ‘Nicholas, I have kept my promise. You will be the first,’ she said.

  At five o’clock we had afternoon tea with a sponge cake the cook had baked. Anna had slept for a couple of hours, showered and was wearing shorts and a blue shirt, a white sweater hung over the back of her chair, as I’d previously warned her that a south-westerly blew in about seven and it could be quite chilly out on the bay. The boatman had brought Madam Butterfly up to the landing pier at the bottom of the garden. It was nearing the end of a beautiful day. ‘Come,’ I instructed. ‘The gardeners have prepared the soil, you have five persimmon seeds to plant. They must be approximately ten feet apart. I looked it up in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. We’ve put a small wooden stake at each location.’

  Anna planted the persimmon seeds, carefully smoothing the soil with her palm. She was sobbing softly. They were private tears and so I left to fetch a watering can. Her persimmon seeds would receive their first blessing of water from her hand.

  In my mind I went over the inventory. Water tanks full, six weeks’ food and drink, spare clothes for Anna (I’d guessed at her size), spare sails, diesel for the engine I’d installed, bedding, headache tablets, anti-nausea tablets (though I’d been told they wouldn’t help her), pills to stop diarrhoea (same advice), extra towels, sponges, hand cream, face cream, suntan lotion, toothpaste (six tubes) and toothbrushes. I couldn’t think of anything else.

  ‘Oh, Nicholas, I have waited so long to do this!’ Anna cried out, still sobbing. I handed her the can and she walked down the driveway, pausing at each wooden marker she held the nozzle over it, baptising the planted seeds. When she’d completed the last she said softly, ‘Sayonara, Konoe-san.’