Nine Persimmons
Kerry James Evans
“And he will show you a large upper room furnished and prepared: there make ready for us.”
—Mark 14:15
You’re at dinner with a friend, an artist, who has prepared eggplant parmesan with his mother, who is Italian—who was kissed, as a girl, by Mussolini, who (it is rumored) admired persimmons
and ordered the public to plant their seeds in gardens and orchards— To feed the soldiers, your artist friend says. Across from you, at the table, are nine persimmons
ripening on the sill, lined up like little round soldiers wearing green hats. Aren’t they perfect? he says.
They are, you reply. They are the most sincere fruit, he says. When you ask,
Why do you say that? He says, Look at them. You do, while his mother recalls what she heard in her youth. To predict winter, farmers split open the seeds.
If shaped like a fork, mild, if spoon, snow—knife, ice. You remember
your first bite of one—how it wasn’t ready. It was, however, sincere. You fell to the ground,
your mouth puckering, drawing into itself, then you remember how the rest of you followed—a “spoon and knife” kind of winter, huddled around a space heater in an unfinished house
with a can of potted meat and six saltines. A fine dinner, you thought to yourself, grateful for each bite.
Besides, there would be other winters, and, often, the milder ones hit hardest.
Sometimes loved ones disappeared for no reason, others for good reason, then there’s the one you really love who decided, last Christmas, to leave you, then changed her mind
I was confused, she said. I have loved you always, she said. You divorce the following year. But you’re not there yet. No, you’re eating dinner at your friend’s house, and those persimmons
are ripening on the sill. She’s sitting next to you, while your friend’s mother explains all you’ll ever need to know about this fruit, and it’s in this moment, fork and knife in hand,
napkin on your lap, when you realize you don’t need to crack open a seed to predict what you already know about winter, which is this: everyone will leave you, or you them,
and yes, it’s dark—dark as the dead sun at the solstice, but you’re grown now and so is your wife. You’ve arrived at what you’ve both known all along, but couldn’t see until now.
You begin to notice all sorts of things, the gingham tablecloth matching the curtains, the bell on the mantle, the light at the dock. You notice
how your friend turned each persimmon just so. You even notice that part of you feels the persimmons judging you from their sill, but you don’t mind it.
You eat well.
You share polite conversation. When you finish, you help clear the table, and when your wife gives you the look that says, It’s time to go, you say your goodbyes, and your friend,
hands each of you a persimmon for the road. In the car, before you pull off,
your wife says, I’ve never eaten a persimmon, and neither have you—not ripe, not like this— so you eat them right then and there. You smile the whole ride home.