They had been walking for days across empty country.
There were no villages. There were no people. There was nothing to eat, and there had been nothing to eat yesterday either, and Bhai Mardana Ji had had enough.
He sat down on the ground.
Your love of the Lord is all very well, he said. But I used to be a singer with a full stomach. Now look at us. Lost in a forest. Some lion will come along and finish us off, and that will be the end of that.
Nothing is going to come near you, said Guru Nanak Dev Ji. Take heart.
How can I take heart in a place like this.
Where the Lord's Name is, said Guru Ji, it is not a wilderness. It is a town. Get up and sing. Without your singing this place does feel empty. Get up and play your rabab.
My throat is dry with hunger, said Bhai Mardana Ji. I cannot play anything.
Then let us walk back to the last town.
I cannot walk, said Bhai Mardana Ji, lying flat. I cannot walk back and I cannot walk on. I am dying, and I would rather you left me alone about it.
I am not going to let you die, said Guru Ji.
Then he pointed to a tree.
Go and eat the fruit from that tree, he said. Eat as much as you like. But do not put any in your bag.
Bhai Mardana Ji got up.
The fruit was wonderful. He ate, and ate, and felt the strength come back into his legs and the day begin to look survivable. And then, halfway through, a very sensible thought arrived.
This is delicious. And who knows when we will find anything else. I had better take some with me.
And he filled his bag.
They walked on. After a while he was peckish again, and reached into the bag, and ate.
And down he went, flat on the ground.
Bhai Mardana Ji, said Guru Ji, coming back to him. What has happened.
You said not to put any in my bag, said Bhai Mardana Ji from the ground. I thought I had better take some anyway. In case. And now look.
That fruit was poison, said Guru Ji.
It was poison the whole time, growing there in the middle of nowhere the way poison does. What made it sweet was the word that had been spoken over it, and the word had covered exactly as much as was said and not one mouthful more. What he had been given was enough. What he had taken for later was only what it had always been.
Then Guru Ji bent down and touched his forehead, and Bhai Mardana Ji sat up, perfectly well.
And sitting there in the dust, he said what had been building up in him for a long time.
You are the Lord's own, he said. I am a singer. You can go without food and I cannot. You can live outside the towns and I cannot. I do not think I can keep up with you. Let me go home.
And Guru Ji said: I am so pleased with you. Why would you leave me.
Because I am hungry, said Bhai Mardana Ji, honestly. If you will feed my hunger, then I can stay. Whatever it is that holds you up, let it hold me up too. And if you can put up with all the things that are wrong with me, then I can stay.
Bhai Mardana Ji, said Guru Ji, you are blessed in this world and in the next one.
And he stayed.
He stayed for the rest of his life, all the way across India and out beyond it, complaining when he was hungry, playing his rabab in every wilderness they came to, turning empty country into a town, exactly as he had been told.
Goodnight. He asked for enough, and enough was given, and that is the whole secret of the fruit.