Apricots

In Rome last summer I learnedthat there are seven varieties of apricots,that they are distinguished not only

by their physical appearance—the freckles on their skinor the percentage of it that reddens on the vine—but also by the month in which they ripen.

Damascus, my grandmother's city, is knownfor the apricots of its Ghouta valley,each name ending in a lingering ee.

Baladee—the original, descendantof the ancients of China and the Korean peninsula.Or Klaabee—the bitter armeniaca vulgaris,

hardy fruit of the eastern steppe.Or Mawardee—with its flirtatious nameand promise of perfume. That long ee

of the possessive claims the apricotfor the country, the animalwilderness, for water softened with roses.

Last summer in Rome, turningthe corner onto Piazza di Santa Mariathe clink of the morning's last cappuccino glasses

and low growls of Vespas on the streetgave no indication of the city I would travel toa few steps forward. I wasn't thinking

of the jam-colored sunsets of Amman, the stonefruits and wedding music that filled my grandmother's garden,the serrated leaves of her apricot tree. Then a scent

drifted up from the cobblestones. A thickness,a palpable haze of flesh beginningto spoil, of sugar turning in sunlight.

In Amman, a tree like the one leaningon a wall in the piazza had reigned overour childhood, baladee apricots like shattered

lanterns aglow at its base, darkening,gathering droves of ants, the ravenous taking.Not the perfume of Damascus

mawardee nor the silk handkerchief of blossoms,not the fruit's citrus kiss. It was the scent of spoiling,of too much sweetness, that claimed me,

long cry at the end of the ballad of old summers.In Amman, it is known that an apricot harvestcan be ruined by untimely frost and that,

like Rome, the city is built on seven hills.