Mango

He could remember the first time he had tasted the fruit. It was on a business trip to the City of Angels, Krung Thep seven years ago. The city otherwise known to the Western world as Bangkok. He stood in the middle of the street, amazed at the hustle and bustle of the Oriental city with its infamous traffic and gleaming skyscrapers juxtaposed alongside quaint canals and street stalls. He had wandered into one of the air-conditioned malls, a meandering towering maze of fluorescent lights and colours. He went to the counter and exchanged his baht for some pastel coupons of various denominations.  He stood in front of the dessert counter, bewildered at the variety of ices, jellies and fruits laid out on the countertop. He decided to watch and see what other customers ordered.

The lady in front of him ordered something in her coy but rapid Thai. The young mustachioed man in an apron dished out a serving of what looked like a clump of beige-coloured rice grains with glistening chunks of golden-yellow mango. He had never had mango before. It was an expensive imported fruit only sold in ethnic shops in Chinatown where he came from.

“Hi. Can I have that as well?” he motioned towards the girl in front of him.

The server grunted and pointed at the menu overhead.

“That is mango sticky rice. 80 baht.”

He picked up a tray and handed over the coupons. It didn’t look very impressive on that small cheap-looking orange plastic plate. The server placed the plate on the tray and Damien went off in search of a place to sit and eat.

Finally he found a spot in an obscure corner. As he lifted the pieces of fruit to his mouth, he could smell the cloying fragrance of the mango. The whole dessert was drizzled with a sticky, milky syrup. He took his first bite, sweet and gummy, and fell in love instantly.

Fast-forward seven years later. Damien found himself posted to Asia as a business development manager for his company. A two year assignment in a small peninsula just below Thailand on the map. He had never heard of Malaysia, let alone Kuala Lumpur before. The night he received his transfer letter, he had to look up the city on Google. He was excited yet daunted. He wondered if it would be anything like Bangkok.

Before his arrival, his army buddy George had helped to arrange for a rented property in Bangsar. George had moved to Kuala Lumpur ten years ago after marrying a Malaysian woman. He now owned his own Italian restaurant and was on the verge of expanding his business into a franchise.

“You’ll like it. It’s a leafy suburb with lots of expats. Lovely place. I’m sure you won’t miss home,” George had enthused over the phone.

Damien wasn’t so sure then. But as he alighted from the cab with his suitcase in hand, he realized that George might be right after all. It was a quiet neighbourhood with shady trees lining the streets and a grocer down the road. Damien surveyed his new home. A whitewashed single-storey terrace house with a reddish brown roof and a small garden in the front yard. The lawn was covered with clumps of withering cow grass and prickly shrubs lined the perimeter of the property.

As he stood there and looked at the neighbouring houses, he realized that most of the Malaysian suburban homes had a particular kind of tree in their gardens. He took a closer peek at the adjoining home. There were unripe fat green mangoes hanging from the branches! He grinned gleefully. Yes, the climate was right and if the neighbours were doing so well with their trees, the soil must be right too. But as he did a quick Google search, he found that he knew next to nothing about tropical gardening. No matter, he would just hire a gardener. This was Asia after all. He texted George that very night.

Two days later, Ali turned up at his doorstep with a lithe sapling in a black plastic sack. Ali was a naturalized Indonesian with a tall lanky frame, a hooked nose and olive brown skin. He held a ‘cangkul’ in his other hand.

“Put tree where?” he asked with a toothy grin.

“I think that would be a good spot. Right there in the corner,” Damien said, pointing to a corner of his garden. Ali set to work immediately, digging a hole and gently placing the little tree into the ground. He patted the earth around the plant when he had finished.

Damien looked at the other man's dark features and then glanced at his nondescript patch of parched grass, scraggly bushes and one newly-planted sapling. He had an idea.

"Ali, can you come every week and tend my garden for me? How much would you charge for that?"

His two year stint turned into an undefined stay. Once the company's business in Asia Pacific was doing well, they renewed his contract. He bought over the rented property that he was living in.

One day, while he was driving out of his driveway, he started to compare his mango tree with his neighbour's. Ali had been doing a good job - the lawn was an even vivid shade of green, ixora bushes sprinkled with splashes of red and yellow lined his fence and driveway, the sapling had grown into a sturdy, shady tree. But there was still something missing. Damien retrieved his mobile phone and called Ali.

"Ali, you told me three years ago that the mango tree would be fruiting soon. It's hasn't done anything of that sort so far. Are you sure the tree is OK? The tree is now 5 years old and the Internet says it should have some fruit by now. Perhaps we should cut it down and use that ground for something else?"

"OK ‘tauke’, give chance la. I will put some fertilizer and dig around it. The tree may just need more time."

"How long?"
  
"One more year, ‘tauke’, then if you don't get your mangoes, I will cut it down and plant something else there for you."

Damien dropped by Bangsar Village that evening and bought a fat, juicy reddish imported mango from Queensland.