Strange Fruit

“Lyda!” a familiar voice shouts in a molasses-thick Moldovan accent, drawing out my name. Nearing footsteps follow.

“Is that Nana Alyona?” Veronica asks me before I can shush her.

“Climb up there,” I whisper, pointing to the canopy of branches overhead.

She does as she’s told, lifting herself higher into the rustling leaves until only her legs below the knee are visible. I reach for the same branch—

“Down, Lyda. Now.” Grandma stands at the foot of the tree, staring up at us, her arms crossed over her chest. Her leather hand, resting on the branch by my foot, smells strongly of boiled cabbage and potato juice and overpowers the scent of late summer.

“Can we just play a bit longer, Bunica?” I plead.

“Kostya needs the jam tomorrow. He’s not coming back until spring.” Grandma heaves one of her legendary deep breaths and adds: “And he paid already.”

A sigh bursts forth from my lips. Like monkeys, Veronica and I clamber down from the tree—swinging from branch to branch, shimmying down the trunk. Stepping out from the shade, the midday summer sun wraps me in a warm embrace.

“Oh, don’t sigh like that. It’ll only take you an hour. Veronica can help, yes?”

“Uh, of course, Nana Alyona,” says Veronica, blindsided.

“Good. We’ll make pies out of the bruised pears for your Nana Olyka. The buckets are at the front of the house. I think the ladder is in the cellar. I’ll bring it to the front, too.” Grandma turns on her heel and disappears down the footpath.

Veronica waits a moment before turning to me, “Looks like you’ll have your hands full here, two buckets.”

She walks off in the opposite direction as Grandma, down the middle of two rows of mulberry trees.

“Where are you going?” I follow her. “You said you were going to help.”

“Only cause Nana Alyona was standing there. Besides, my aunt’s baking a placinta right now and I think she’ll need me.”

“Remember how I helped you pit those cherries a few weeks back? Two buckets would have been nice—there were two tubs!”

Veronica slows to a halt just before a wooden fence. Her face tilts in thought and I can see I’ve won. “Fine. I’ll help.”

I crack a smile—which vanishes when suddenly Veronica takes off towards the front of the house, giggling. “Last one to the buckets carries everything!”

My legs chase after her with a mind of their own. “Hey! Wait! That’s not fair!”

I run as fast as I can, weaving through groves of peach and plum trees, but still Veronica beats me to the front of the house. We double over, resting our hands on our knees.

Sweaty and out of breath, Veronica nods to the ladder and buckets Grandma left for us. “I hope they’re not too heavy.”

I stick out my tongue at her, hang the buckets on my arms by their handles, and hoist the ladder up onto my shoulder.

We head to a nearby thicket of pear trees—Veronica skipping and humming a Zdob și Zdub song, me lugging everything along like a mule. I spot one tree heavy with fruit, set up the ladder under a branch so packed with them, it looks like it’s going to snap. I hook one bucket on the left side of the ladder—for the good fruit—and another on the right—for the bruised.

“You pick first,” I tell Veronica, wiping sweat from my forehead.

“Why me?”

“Cause I carried everything all the way here!”

“Yeah, that’s cause you lost the race. We can do rock-paper-scissors if you want?”

“Deal.”

I curl my fingers into a fist. Veronica does the same. Shaking our balled hands up and down, we chant, “Rock! Paper! Scissors! Shoot!”

I stick out a flattened hand. Veronica thrusts forward two fingers in the shape of a V. My face sinks.

“Woo!” cries Veronica, throwing up her arms in victory. “Today’s just my lucky day, Lyda.”

Flat-mouthed, I climb the steps of the ladder. Veronica takes a seat on the bottom step to keep it steady.

I get to work picking pears from the tree. Some come off easy, with hardly any effort at all. Others I need to twist until their stems break off. However I manage to get them off the branch, most of the fruit go into the left bucket—the good one. Their smooth surfaces slide from my palms with ease.

Only a handful are tossed in the other bucket.

“You wanna swim in the river after dinner?” Veronica calls up to me as I pick the last pear still hanging from the branch.

“Sure,” I mumble back, the dry heat carrying my speech. I drop the final fruit in the good bucket, start climbing backwards down the ladder.

When I get to the last step, my sneaker catches the ladder’s edge. I sway to the side, grasping for something to steady my balance. My hand grazes Veronica’s chest, brushing over her smooth bronzed skin. Compared to the cold of the metal ladder, her flesh feels warm.

My knees hit the ground first and I land by her feet. Veronica extends her hand and lifts me upright. I’m close enough to feel her breath, exhaling in tandem with the motion of her chest. And I can hear it slightly, flowing in and out, syncopated.

I step aside and reposition my hand on the ladder. “Your turn.”

A sensation appears in my lower stomach, bundles of butterflies fluttering. Warm tingles prickle up and down my arms. My heart beats faster, my breathing grows heavier.

Veronica picks up the ladder and moves towards another pear-packed branch.

I stay rooted in place, unable to move. I watch her body drifting away, scrutinizing the area for a stable spot in the soil to place the ladder. I stare ahead—the lingering sensations still vibrating through me.

Veronica starts climbing the steps, reaches the halfway point, turns to me, and says, “Can you keep this steady for me?”

The words snap me out of my daze. I plop down on the ladder’s bottom step and watch Veronica climb the rest of the way up. She begins picking from the tree.

A few of the distant ones force her to stretch. As she reaches for them, for the first time I notice the shape of her body—wide at the hips, smoothly tapering toward her head and toes. I notice the fleshiness of her legs and arms, just yesterday rail-thin.

Veronica goes to pick another pear and the fruit slips from her grasp, falls to the ground, landing by the base of the ladder.

“Ah! Can you grab that?” she calls down to me.

Once more, her voice brings me back to reality. “Sure.” I snatch up the fallen pear.

Veronica returns to picking fruit; I return to watching her.

As she works away, I feel my hand starting to explore the soft skin of the pear, tracing its sloping contours. It begins squeezing the pear’s supple flesh—gently, not hard enough to break skin. Suddenly, I feel the urge to take a bite of the fruit. Not a big one—just a nibble.

I raise the pear to my lips, open my mouth.