Jenny Apostol 

A Fig to Remember

Every August, when the tidal chorus of crickets swells to high volume, and summer drapes a silky, humid sheet for one final, explosive round, I succumb: to a fickle, flinty fruit that I crave with such passion, it withers other mouthy pleasures. More than tarty, end-of-summer tomatoes, or the pole beans that weave a savory curtain of green, wilder than the zesty second coming of raspberries that burst from untended vines, the advent of fresh figs takes me over. During their season, it is true; I love figs more than I love my husband.

No, not in love with figs the way I adore the human flesh of the man I live with. His glimmer-mind and the blaze of his body, that blue-eyed stare-down of any challenge. Those traits that compel me are uniquely his. But figs tender another flesh. More mysterious and enigmatic, their flavor is hard to place. Neither honey, nor citrus, figs assert themselves against cheese or vinaigrette or cream. And yet, after they’re eaten, the taste of them cannot be recalled. Nor forced, nor coaxed from the garden until it is precisely their time. Suddenly, an ambush of small, green orbs pop from the fig tree’s branches overnight. They hang pendulous as dew drops. Appear to ripen within hours. After a few short weeks, they vanish. Our time together will be brief.

By spring, fig tree leaves emerge as decorative shapes that recall Henri Matisse’s cut-outs. Then one morning, I wake to see the entire tree shake and sway. My heart quakes. Fruit is ripening. Like Odysseus, just back to Ithaca, eager for Penelope, I race to the back yard to behold the beloved. Other suitors ripple the canopy, batting wings and tails like weapons. A hectoring house wren flits side to side, while a blue jay calls from a nearby fence, its song metallic and insistent. I scrape the aluminum ladder over exposed roots and a tangle of grape vines to take up a wobbly position near the trunk, and look up. Already, a few half-eaten baubles expose their ringed, deep pink interiors to the air. A robin looks on unintimidated.

Twenty years ago, on a lark, I planted a tiny Turkish fig bush. As it grew, it began to produce fruit, and my innocent attraction turned possessive. How much reward could I reap during any given year? Who or what else expressed intentions for my harvest? Five winters ago, an ice storm ravaged fig trees around the neighborhood. We slashed dead limbs to the ground, and waited. Renewal came slowly; those first few summers our tree bore no fruit; arboreal energy all spent on recovery. And then, fig by fig, a revival. This past season has made our mid-Atlantic suburb feel practically Mediterranean. A full month topping 90-degrees in July, plus plentiful rainfall, has put us into surplus.

Figs dazzle from a distance. They wave from branches with a come-hither blush to their skin. They play hard to get. No sooner do I spy a perfectly formed beauty bobbing coquettishly from its stem, then it disappears, shy or coy, hidden behind—what else?—a fig leaf. My lovelies are as bashful as Adam and Eve after the fall; shielded by nature’s perfect design for bafflement. I zero in on a few ripe fruits ready to pick, move the ladder again, climb two steps, and they’re gone. A beam of sunlight has swooped in to angle me off-course. I wait for my eyes to adjust, seek what’s hidden in the overlay. The ladder nearly tips. I lean forward. One more inch, and then: pluck, bite, swallow.

My precious fig is soft and faintly sweet, a curd of fruity tendrils wet like a plum but not drippy, rich like avocado, yet with more texture. Seeds smaller than berries play on my tongue. I pop a few more and yield to ecstasy. Consumer and consumed. Marked. Stems have leaked their milk into my hands. A stickiness that remains on my fingers long after I’ve gorged.

What wonderful counterbalance figs bring to the density of food, of life, of anything that needs cutting to feel less heavy, more ephemeral. As a couple, we go about our days grateful for what we’ve made solid, our children grown, illnesses vanquished. Our fond, ritual chronology keens toward satiety. Ever-presence. Oh, to thrill again to the speedy glee of anticipation, what blooms and wilts in a flash like youth. To pulse toward some brighter gravity.

By mid-September, the air has turned cold. The sky looks almost brittle it is so cloudless and blue. I throw on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt and rush outside. Once the balance of daylight begins to retreat, any unripe figs left on the stem—they are as small and hard as new breasts—appear to melt back into bark as if nothing ever happened. Their final disappearing trick. From under the tree, I look up. Not one but two perfectly ripe figs hang from a high branch. I seize the ladder. As usual, the pair camouflage behind a scrim of leaves. A little to the right, and there they are again: two luscious fruits, maroon and faintly pink with a hint of gold around the edge, as if each were lit from within by an inner sun.

I climb the first steps on the ladder, then warily, a third. Above, the two figs still clearly in view, flash from the upper story. To my left, a skinny branch too weak to save me if I fall. On the tray before me, a pair of tongs I use to extend my reach. My arm stretches upward as far as it will go. The tips of the tongs snap, alas, still a foot short. Perhaps I can pull the branch downward, so it is closer to me. Would it bend toward love? Any higher, my body will have nothing to lean against. Too risky.

My husband understands. After lunch, we walk to the tree and I point them out: two gorgeous figs unmolested by birds or squirrels. Without hesitation, my brave man ascends to the top of the ladder, balances on the aluminum platform, reaches up and plucks not only those two, but a third fig that has just now revealed itself. He hands me all three. I run back to the house and place them on the windowsill, like a display of tiny award statues. That evening, I slice each fig in half, arrange them in a formation of petals around an ovule of goat cheese, drizzle the plate with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and a pinch of fleur de sel, and swoon through dinner. Again, the savory mixed with sweet, density and delicacy dispersing into the ether.

I startle, tender to the moment, aware that it will be another eleven months before this sensation returns. I have eaten the last fresh fig of the season, and tried to stay conscious during the act. As if a lover has died, the taste on my lips is already in the past. How fortunate to experience gravity and mystery, at once. To know such pleasure would be enough before it was gone.

Jenny Apostol’s essays have appeared in The Washington Post, Brevity, Speculative Nonfiction, Creative Nonfiction’s “Sunday Short Reads,” River Teeth Journal’s “Beautiful Things” and elsewhere. She was a finalist for the Annie Dillard Award for Creative Nonfiction at Bellingham Review. Jenny holds an MFA from the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University and lives outside of Washington DC with her husband. She eats dark chocolate every day and you know what when in season.