The Watchtower

was closer, I could make out his features better. He had a high-domed forehead adorned with delicate swirls that I guessed were the remainder of what hair he’d had in life, small, round eyes surrounded by laugh lines, and a dimpled chin that disappeared into rings of rough-skinned root. The face of a small, jolly man whose life as a tree root these last four hundred years had not robbed of his sense of humor.
    “If you don’t mind me asking, how…?”
    “How did I get into my present ligneous state? No, I don’t mind at all. It’s rare I get any visitors, you know. Please sit down.” He slid his eyes toward a low spot before the throne where one of the tree’s roots broke the surface, forming a little stool. I lowered myself down on it carefully, surprised to find it rather comfortable.
    “Yes, well … ahem.” Jean Robin cleared his throat, which sounded as if it had been coated with sawdust. I noticed that a number of lumignon had come to sit on his shoulders and his knees as he began his story, their little, pointy faces cupped in their diminutive hands as they listened. “As you may know, I devoted my life to trees and rare plants.” I didn’t have the heart to tell him that all I knew about him came from the plaque in the park above us, so I nodded, which seemed to please him. “I was rewarded for my endeavors by being made arboriste to King Henry III in 1585. I created the first botanical garden in Paris in 1597. My nephew, Vespasien, and I traveled far and wide—to Spain and Africa and even to your native Western Hemisphere—for my collection. Indeed, it was from those shores that I brought this specimen that has been named for me: Robinia pseudoacacia fabacées .” As he pronounced the name of the tree named for him, I thought I detected a change in his sooty brown complexion, a flush of green chlorophyll, which I imagined was a root’s version of blushing.
    “It was my garden that inspired the Messieurs de la Brosse and Hérouard to found the Jardin des Plantes. They moved many of my specimens there, but not this one. My nephew, Vespasien, insisted they leave it here because he knew what had become of me. I hate to think what would have happened had they tried to dig me up!” He shuddered so hard that a few of the lumignon perched on his shoulders and knees flew up in a flurry of multicolored wings and then settled down again. I noticed that when they brushed their wings along Jean Robin’s “skin,” the wood gleamed more brightly. They were, I saw with wonder, polishing him.
    “But how…?” I began.
    “Ah, it happened when I was seventy-nine. I knew I had very little time left on earth … heh, heh, I didn’t know yet how much time I’d have under it!… and I’d come to visit my dear pseudoacacia, which I’d planted twenty-seven years earlier. I just wanted to make sure it was doing well … growing straight, you know, with enough room to spread its roots. The pseudoacacia likes to spread its roots. It was a warm summer day and the tree was in full bloom, its lovely white blossoms scenting the air. When I’d pruned a few branches and cleared away some saplings, which threatened to encroach on its space, I sat down in its shade and leaned my head on its trunk. I could feel the lifeblood in me fading as I listened to the sap flowing strong in her veins. I remember I had the distinct idea that as long as the sap ran in the tree I’d planted, I wouldn’t really be dead.” Jean Robin’s voice, which had grown from gruff to wistful, lapsed into silence. I thought I could hear in that silence the rustle of a summer wind through leafy boughs and the sultry drone of bees in the heavy-hanging blossoms. I waited for him to finish his story.
    “When I woke up, I was here in the lair of the lumignon below my beloved pseudoacacia. They had lain me among the roots—to die, I imagine, but then the tree itself wrapped its roots around me and took me into itself. It fed me its own sap as a mother would feed its young, sharing its own lifeblood with me. Over time its cells replaced my own, much as quartz crystals may grow in wood, turning it into petrified wood, and I became as you see me now. A wooden man or, as I prefer to think of myself … a manly root!” His chuckle was more constrained than before. I had the feeling that reliving his past had made him a bit melancholy.
    “That’s amazing,” I said. “And you’ve remained so … alert. How did you learn to speak