Legend of the Durian

Evening was falling over an unfamiliar land far from home. On a red dirt road, a young man walked alone in silence, a cloth bundle slung over his shoulder and his hair full of road dust. He had been a teacher in the Đồng Nai region, a learned man who also knew how to prepare medicines and treat the sick. But troubled times came, and his home was no longer at peace. So he left and wandered far away until he reached Chân Lạp, the old Vietnamese name for the Khmer kingdom of Cambodia. He hoped only to find a place to shelter.

Vietnamese grandparents have passed this tale down since long ago, and the scholar Nguyễn Đổng Chi gathered it and wrote it down among the country's folktales. It is the story of the durian, the thorny fruit of the south, and of the strange taste of gratitude.

The tale goes that one day, worn out from the road, he stopped at a thatched house by the wayside and asked to rest. The family was poor, just a mother and a daughter who leaned on each other. The daughter was gravely ill and had lain in bed for days, too weak to get up. Since he knew medicine, he asked to stay and care for her. He gathered leaves and brewed remedies day and night, never sparing himself. Before long the girl was well again, her cheeks rosy once more. The mother was overjoyed. She saw him as someone sent by heaven, and she insisted that he stay on in their home.

In time the two young people fell in love and became husband and wife. The house was poor, but it was warm inside and peaceful all around. The wife was gentle and hardworking. In the morning she went to the fields, in the afternoon she picked mulberry leaves for her silkworms, and at night she sat mending clothes beside her husband. He opened a small class and taught a handful of village children to sound out their letters. Good days followed good days, and in a blink ten years had passed. The couple still loved each other as tenderly as at the very beginning.

In that land grew a very strange fruit. Its skin was covered in sharp thorns, it was nearly as big as a person's head, and its smell was so strong that anyone not used to it would wrinkle their nose. The first time the wife split one open for her husband, he too hesitated at that pungent, unfamiliar smell. She only smiled. Gently she pulled apart the thorny husk to show the golden segments inside, soft and smooth, and placed one right in his hand. She said, "Just taste it. It is rough and thorny on the outside, but the heart is rich and sweet, and its fragrance lasts. It is just like the love I hold for you."

He tasted a segment. Sure enough, past that first strong smell came a strange, creamy sweetness, honey-sweet on the tip of the tongue, its fragrance lingering on and on. From then on he grew fond of that thorny yet sweet fruit. It was not so much for its flavor. It was because every season, when the fruit ripened, his wife would sit and patiently peel segment after segment for him, her hands quick and her eyes smiling.

But joy did not last. One season, his gentle wife suddenly fell ill. He poured all his skill into treating her and brewed one remedy after another, yet her illness would not ease. Then one day she quietly went to join her ancestors. She left him with a quiet longing. In the garden she also left the thorny fruit tree she had planted, the tree whose fruit she had peeled for him with her own hands. The tree still stood there, lush and green, as if it still held the presence of his gentle wife.

Some time later, word came from home that the old country was at peace again, and his relatives asked him to return to Đồng Nai. When the day to leave drew near, he went into the garden to visit the tree one last time. Strangely, that year the tree had borne exactly one fruit. As soon as the ripe fruit dropped, he gathered it up tenderly, as if he were holding a little of the warmth left behind by the one who was gone. He wrapped the fruit with care, took it with him, and traveled the long road back to his homeland.

Back home, he took the seeds from inside the fruit and sowed them in his garden. He opened a class again and spent his mornings and evenings with his pupils, yet in his heart he never stopped missing her. Every day he went out to tend the young tree. He watered it, heaped soil around its roots, and shielded it from sun and rain. The tree grew slowly with the years. By the time his hair was flecked with gray, after nearly ten long years, it finally blossomed and bore fruit. Rough, thorny fruit swayed and dangled from the branches. It was the very fruit his wife used to peel for him.

When the first season of fruit came, he invited the neighbors to his house and set the fruit out for everyone to taste. Each of them, catching that strong smell, hesitated and exchanged glances. He only smiled kindly, then said slowly, "This fruit looks ugly and thorny from the outside, and its smell is harsh. But split it open and the inside is sweet, fragrant and generous, just like a deep and faithful love." Then he told them the story of his gentle wife in a faraway land, and of the seasons when she sat peeling the fruit for him. The neighbors listened, and every one of them was moved to tears.

From then on, people gave that strange fruit a Vietnamese name. They called it sầu riêng, the fruit known in English as the durian. The name was not meant to speak of sadness. It was meant for remembering, a gentle longing kept for one person alone. Whenever people saw a durian, they remembered the faithful hearts of that couple long ago. They remembered the teacher, too, who stayed grateful all his life for the fruit his wife had given him.

Today, from Đồng Nai down through the river orchard country of the south, durian trees grow in gardens and even in whole forests. Every season they hang heavy with big, thorny fruit. Split one open, and past the thorny husk and the strong smell lie golden segments, rich and sweet and wonderfully fragrant. A segment of durian held in the hand quietly brings back the teacher of long ago, and the hands of his gentle wife, who sat peeling the fruit segment by segment for her husband. And it brings back the tender sweetness that waits quietly behind the thorny husk, fragrant through so many ripening seasons in the south.