The Almond Seller

I first saw him at the bend where our quiet lane in Bangalore met the noisy market road. He stood beside a cart with iron wheels, a faded rug thrown over a mound of almonds, raisins, and figs. His beard was peppered with grey. His eyes had that faraway look some people carry, as if a wind from a distant valley still moved inside them. He called out in a slow, careful voice, the words rounded by another language before they turned into ours.

Almonds, fresh almonds. Raisins like small suns.

He became a small season in our lane. He came when the morning light made stripes through the jacaranda leaves. He came when the evening cooled the dust and children ran with their school bags like impatient birds. He smiled at the old women with oil in their hair, at the security guard who had a cough every winter, at the milkman who never smiled at all.

One morning my daughter, Anya, stopped in front of him. She was five, at that age when every day makes a new law for the world. She looked up at him the way a child looks up at rain, certain that it falls just for her.

What is your name, uncle, she asked.

He hesitated, as if her voice had crossed a long distance to reach him. Then he said, Samim. From Herat. My home has tall mulberry trees and the sky smells of dust and bread.

Anya considered this. My home has a guava tree and Amma says the sky smells of nothing, she said, and they both laughed.

From that day, the almond seller was not just another face in the market. He would stop at our gate, and Anya would run out with her questions. Do almonds grow inside stones. Are raisins dried in the mouth of the sun. Does snow make a sound when it falls.

He had a way of answering that turned words into pictures. Almonds are shy, he said once. They hide in hard shells, but if you are patient, they show you their sweetness. Raisins are grapes that have learned to remember summer. Snow is like silence you can touch.

I would stand in the shade and watch them, a little wary at first. I was a father who counted dangers as if they were coins. But Samim kept a distance. He never tried to enter our house. He set his cart down, sat on its edge, and spoke as if he was passing a story across a low wall. Often he would take a pinch of raisins and make a small hill on Anya’s palm, then wait for me to nod before he let her eat.

Where are your children, I asked him once, because that is a question we ask people who have gentle eyes around children.

In Herat, he said. A daughter. A small moon. He held his hand at the height of a chair. She will be taller when I go back. He smiled, then looked away, and the smile fell like a bird that remembers it cannot stay long on a moving branch.

What is her name, Anya asked.

Zohra, he said.

After that, our lane was full of invisible girls. Anya would talk to Zohra as if she stood beside her, and Samim would listen as if the air had learned to hold two children at once. He told Anya how Zohra liked to chase chickens and sang to the kettle while the tea boiled. Anya told him how the guava tree had one fruit shaped like a tiny heart and how she hid her marbles inside her socks so I would not find them. They exchanged these secrets with the ease of people who do not know yet that the world buys and sells time.

There was a small ritual to their meetings. Anya would draw a doorway with chalk on the ground and declare that it led to Herat. She would step in and step out like a magician, and Samim would clap softly, the sound of it like a dove’s wings. When it was time for him to go, he would lift his cart handles and say, May your chalk doorway always open. She would answer, May your almonds never run out.

The year turned. The jacaranda flowers fell and made a lilac carpet that clung to shoes. Anya lost two teeth and gained a new school bag with a brave tiger printed on it. I began to trust my days again. It felt safe to watch my child’s laughter tie itself to a stranger’s stories.

Then one afternoon the lane filled with a different sound. A small crowd gathered near Samim’s cart. A man in a white shirt was shouting about papers and fines. Someone had called the police. Someone said the word illegal. The words moved like sharp stones in the air.

I went closer. Samim stood very still, his hands at his sides. His eyes had the tired look of a man who has run a long way and found that the road has no end. He said something in his language, then in ours, gently, as if he did not want to wake a sleeping animal. The officer wrote in his book and shook his head.

I stepped forward without thinking. He is known in this lane, I said. He is kind to the children. He pays the shop for water. He can get the papers in order. Give him time.

The officer looked at me and then at Samim. He did not seem cruel. He seemed like a man tied to a rule. He said they would hold Samim until his employer came or the papers were found. It might take a few days. He added, almost to himself, The world is difficult, brother.

Anya was not with me that day. When I returned home, she was making a chalk doorway on the floor of the verandah. She looked up and asked where her friend had gone. I told her he had to meet some people and would come later. I said it softly, and my voice was a poor blanket for the truth.

Samim did not come the next day. Anya waited. The chalk doorway kept its white shine even after the broom passed. On the third day the officer came to our gate. He had found a copy of a note in his desk with our address. He said Samim had been released that morning. The employer had paid his fine and taken him away.

Away where, I asked.

Back, the officer said. He used the word as if it was a place on a map and also a hole in the air. His voice had the weight of a door closing.

In the evening, I took Anya for a walk. We passed the bend. The spot where the cart had stood looked like a shadow that had lost its owner. Anya walked with her hands in her pockets, her small face arranged into a calm I did not trust.

When we returned, she made a new chalk doorway. This one she drew slowly, with careful corners. She stood before it, and I understood what she would ask before she asked it.

Will he come for my birthday, she said. He promised to show me how to crack an almond with one hand.

I could have said yes. I could have set a sweetness over her like a thin blanket. Instead, I knelt and put my forehead against hers and said, I do not know. Sometimes people go away even when they want to stay. Sometimes the world is bigger than promises. The words felt like stones in my mouth. She looked at me long and then looked at the doorway.

Then let us make the doorway bigger, she said simply.

Time moved, as it always does, with its patient feet. Anya grew. The guava tree gave fruit that fell and split open on the ground. School uniforms changed sizes. The chalk doorway faded and returned and faded again. Some afternoons Anya would sit and talk to the air as if Zohra still stood beside her, and in those moments the world felt held together by invisible thread.

Years later, on a winter morning scrape clean as an apple, Anya sat before a mirror, a sari pleated around her like quiet water. The house was full of relatives and soft collisions. Someone burned incense. Someone laughed. The clock ran, but no one noticed.

I felt pride and fear in equal measure. Fathers are foolish that way. We send our children into the light and then miss the shadows that once kept them small. I went to the verandah to steady myself. The old chalk stains were ghosts on the floor. I heard the sound of a cart wheel outside, rusty with use. I thought it was the flower seller who came on such days, his cart holding marigolds like small suns.

When I reached the gate, I saw a man I did not know until I knew him. The beard was whiter. The eyes still carried that distant wind. He stood beside a small cart with a rug thrown over a thin hill of almonds and figs.

I could not speak at once. He smiled and touched his forehead with his fingers.

Brother, he said. By your leave.

Samim, I said. The name felt like a door that had been waiting. He nodded. His voice had lost some of its roundness and gained a little gravel, as if long roads had passed through it.

I went back, he said. There was snow. The mulberries were stubborn. Zohra had grown. She did not chase chickens anymore. She had a child who carried a spoon like a crown. I looked for work there. Then the work looked for me again here. It takes a long time to become a circle.

How did you find us, I asked.

He smiled. The lane remembers feet, he said. And I kept a promise in my pocket. He reached into his cart and brought out a small cloth bag tied with string. He held it out to me.

For the girl who drew doorways, he said.

I took the bag and felt the shape of almonds inside, light and sure. I told him today was her wedding. His eyes flickered, and in that small movement I saw a father standing in a courtyard far away, his hands full of blessings he did not know where to place.

Come in, I said.

He shook his head. Not inside. I will wait at the gate. Let the house be full of people who belong there.

I went in and found Anya. When she saw the bag, her mouth made a small O, the shape a child makes when the night sky is full. She took the bag and held it to her chest, then walked to the gate as a bride walks when she is still a daughter.

They stood and looked at each other. The years between them did not vanish. They changed shape. They became a bench they could both sit on. He opened the bag and showed her how to crack an almond with one hand. She tried and failed, then tried again and did it. The almond broke into two clean halves like a quiet lesson.

You kept your promise, she said.

I kept close to it, he said. Sometimes that is the same thing.

He took out a fig and gave it to her. She bit it and laughed as if she had met a fruit that knew a secret. He watched her with the slow joy of a man who has learned not to hurry his blessings.

Before he left, he looked at the verandah floor and saw the faint white ghosts of chalk. He did not step on them. He touched his forehead again and said, May your doorways always open, child.

Anya answered as if no time had passed at all, May your almonds never run out.

He pushed his cart away, the iron wheels making a sound like an old song. I stood at the gate and watched him turn the bend. For a moment I thought of all the roads that do not meet and of the few that do, and of how love sometimes travels without a passport.

When I turned back, the house had filled with music and the heavy sweetness of flowers. Anya went inside with the almond halves in her palm. Later, when she stood by the fire that made her a wife, I felt a quiet peace I had not known I was waiting for. It was as if a circle that had wandered the world had finally come to rest.

That night, after the last guest left and the floors smelled of water and soap, I found a new chalk doorway on the verandah. The lines were thin and sure. Anya had drawn it before she changed her sari. I stood before it and whispered into the empty lane.

May all who need a way home find one.