The Green Fluted Suit

War had torn up the home country and there was an infestation of rats. They ran in the state and on the streets. The citizens were driven destitute. Every lever of power would snap under rot, and every association was infested with rats. The roofs were leaking, and the clothes were torn, and the food that children ate was infested and it stunted the children.

There was no longer any recourse for the citizens to solve things with their own hands. Help could only come from the outside.

There was a land far away that was very cold for rats. The people there also had a peculiar obsession with the vermin. While most lands concerned themselves with achievement and progress and other bright subjects, this land mostly thought about the gloomy subject of rats. They carefully devised customs and laws against rats, and in the public square they mostly talked about how to exterminate them. As a result, they hardly had any. 

In the days before the war people of the home country barely knew about the land far away. “Who obsesses over rats like that? It’s not healthy”, they would say about it. “We don’t have a rat problem in our home country. Our great leader makes sure of it.”

But now the prevalence of rats forced the citizens of the home country to obsess, too. The land far away looked wise and bright now, not cold and silly. Prior to the war it would have been hard to swallow, but now many citizens went to the embassy of the country far away, and they asked the ambassador for help.

One citizen with a beautiful wife and four lovely children went and asked. He brought his family with him to appeal to the emotions of the ambassador. The foreigner was tall and pleasant, and he wore a green suit with a fluted pattern.

“How do we get rid of the rats?” the citizen asked.

“Follow customs and laws such as we have in our country, strictly and impartially,” answered the ambassador, “and you will have no rats.”

“But our levers for enforcing rules are already eaten away by rats,” said the citizen, “so this is not an option”. The citizen also thought to himself, “Besides, our people hate thinking about a subject as morose as rats. We only have to think about it now, in times of great distress.”

“Tell you what, then,” answered the ambassador. “Immigrate to our country. Our land is cold and empty, which helps us keep out the rats. But we have indeed obsessed too much with keeping our land clean. People are more important than rats, and now we need more people. 

 “I see that you are a good man with a lovely wife and four beautiful children,” the ambassador continued. “We would be honored to have you in our land far away. And you will not have to worry about the rats poisoning the food of your children.”

The citizen was conflicted. Leaving meant abandoning his friends and relatives and his country. If he left, he could never again look in the eyes of those who stayed to suffer. But then he looked at his children, and he couldn’t bear seeing them grow up disfigured from infested food.

 He talked it over with his wife. The woman’s motherly instincts made her much less concerned with honor and much more concerned with her children’s nourishment. It was she who prevailed over her husband to move to the country far away. When they finally received their travel papers, the wife jumped and cried with joy.

The parting was emotional. The grandparents cried to see their children and their grandchildren leave, but they knew it was to avoid destitution. The father was grave and taciturn. He handled the occasion by disassociating from it, like a man must.

He told those who were staying behind, “When we strengthen ourselves, we will send you money so that you can strengthen yourselves too, and we can all survive this calamity.”

When the family arrived in the land far away, they saw that it really was wide and cold, but clean. They were settled by the officials into a humble accommodation, but the roof didn’t leak, and the clothes were warm. The food was wholesome, though flavored differently.

The citizen and his wife had seen great hardship, so they were stung with resolve to work hard and to build a great home. They obsessively kept their house clean, and they worked long hours to provide plenty of healthy food for the children. The children grew splendidly into tall and merry youths. They have avoided the deformities of infested food.

The parents now breathed a sigh of relief. Joy filled their hearts, but they kept it hidden from their children so as not to curse them. Yet, they wanted others to see their beautiful family. They were not at ease with the language and customs of their new land. So, they found in their new town others who had immigrated from the home country, and they gathered with them often.

“Our children have grown tall and handsome”, said the father to his friends, “and they have strength to prosper in this land far away. But we fear that if they do well here, they will grow coddled and forget the hardship they came from. They may also grow superior and come to despise their weakened people. What are we to do?”

There was a man among the friends who had lived in the land far away for many years, so many that he hardly remembered the home country. He answered, “Do you not know the secret ways of the ambassador who brought you here? His intent from the beginning was to take away your children.”

“We have loving children,” answered the mother. “How could they abandon their own parents for distant strangers?”

The man replied: “The strange flavors in your children’s food are from the potion that will warp their minds and make them aliens to their own kin. And the rats that overran the home country were brought there by the ambassador. His kind is exceedingly clever with rats. You know that rats is all they talk about. They have mastered ways to infest lands all over the world, so as to rule them.”

This was a grave accusation. It caused a commotion in the assembly. One woman rose and said to the accuser, “Praise be to the ambassador, who lent a hand to us in our distress. We admire his clean ways. We will now replay him, so that no curse will come upon our house”.  She then stood up and left.

The parents were conflicted. The woman may be right, but her view still did not answer their concern about losing their children. The man’s words were dark, but if true, surely the parents must act to keep their family. 

“We are hard-working, and our children are clever and strong”, said the father to his wife. “Surely, we are not bad people. How then did our home country get so infested with rats? There was a foreign hand in it, after all.”

The husband and wife chose this path, and they burned with indignant pride. They gathered their children and spoke to them.

“You will no longer eat the strange food of this land, because it will warp your minds. From now you will eat food that we prepare for you. You have already grown strong and healthy. What more do you need? Think of your people who have suffered, and be humble.” 

The children were shaken to learn that the food they have been eating was polluted. Doubt crept into their hearts and sapped their confidence. Over time they lost their youthful glow and looked morose, worse than when they had just arrived in the land far away.

 The parents were saddened to see their children wane. They spoke about it with their friends. The accuser from the assembly told them: “It was the strange food that they ate that has made your children sick. Did they not look better even when they lived under the infestation of the home country?” He also said: “Is it not better that you have morose children, than to lose them altogether?”

The mother again said, “But our children now eat the food that we prepare for them.”

The man answered, “Yes, but the food is still grown on foreign soil. To counter that, you must remain strict in your orders to your children.”

The parents were swayed by his words. They persisted in their orders to their children. They fed them the food that they prepared with their own hands, hoping that the children will one day look better. But this only fattened the children and did not heal their morbidity. 

After some months the oldest brother reached a pitch of despair. He spoke to his siblings: “Our parents no longer trust us. Their nourishment makes us morose. But we came from the belly of the beast, and we are stung with resolve. How can we remain like this, and watch those inferior to us excel above us in every way?”

The oldest brother spoke those words to his siblings but not to his parents, because he feared to offend his parents. His words turned his despair into indignant wrath. He made a resolve and he said to his parents, “I am leaving you to make my own way in the world.” He did as he said and left suddenly.

 The land far away was wide and cold, so it was hard to find out the whereabouts of the oldest son. After some time went by, the middle son spoke to his parents: “I am concerned for my brother. We all miss him. I will go out into the land to find him and bring him back.” Then he too left.

Many months passed and neither brother returned home. The rest of the family was in great despair. Then the third brother, who was much younger than the other two, said to his parents: “You chased away my brothers with your infested nourishment. I am now leaving too, lest I end up stunted.” He also disappeared into the wide and cold country.

Shortly thereafter, the youngest child who was their daughter left too, having found a man to marry her. Her husband’s family lived far across the country.

The parents were now besides themselves in despair. They sought everywhere for a word of comfort. They found again the ancient émigré in the assembly, who told them: “I have lived in this land far away for very many years. It is not a land of promise as they say. One can survive only by following strictly a complex set of laws, and I can teach you if you will trust me.”

The parents did not know who to trust any more. They looked anywhere for a soothing word, and they stumbled again into the ambassador in the green fluted suit. They told him their trouble. The ambassador’s face looked pained and his eyes became wide and glassy. He then shrugged his shoulders an opened his palms, and said:

“I helped you save your children the one time I could, did I not? But you people always have a problem with rats.”