Gardens in the Dunes

by Leslie Marmon Silko

  She concentrated her thoughts instead on the gardens of the Riverside house, aging and neglected, in need of a great deal of attention. She looked forward to the Italian gardens for ideas for plants and shrubs suited to the dry hot climate of Riverside. As she drifted off to sleep, she imagined a pink garden entirely of roses and bougainvillea set off with the rich jade greens of aloes and agaves and large cacti.

  Just before dawn, Hattie awoke with a pounding headache and rising nausea; in her haste to the lavatory, she bumped into a chair. The startled parrot flew against the side of the cage and woke Edward and Indigo.

  She had never seen Hattie’s face so white—poor woman! What was wrong? Indigo dampened a washcloth to wipe her face, then helped her walk back to her berth, while Edward rang for a steward, then rushed off to find a doctor.

  Hot pulses of pain expanded behind her eyes until they filled with tears and even her nose dripped. She felt hot, then suddenly she shivered. If she opened her eyes, the room spun so fast she felt she had to grip the sides of the berth to keep from falling. Only the coolness of the damp cloth Indigo placed on her forehead gave any comfort.

  Edward returned alone, anxiously rubbing the bandage on his injured finger. Through the pounding pain in her temples Hattie had difficulty understanding Edward. He said something about the ship’s doctor with a woman in childbirth, but not to worry. He’d met a good Austrian doctor the night before in the casino; his new acquaintance would be there at once.

  Indigo retreated to her bed in the alcove to play with Rainbow, though she listened closely in case Hattie needed her again. She heard Hattie moan; Indigo wished she had Grandma Fleet’s little clay pipe and the crushed blossoms of the healing plants they smoked for nausea or headache. When she or Sister Salt got sick, Grandma Fleet used to recommend someone sit in the darkened room to sing softly or tell stories to the patient, but Hattie behaved as if she wanted to be left alone.

  The drumming pain in her head did not permit sleep, but Hattie did not feel entirely awake either; part of her brain whispered the word “delirium.” Her thoughts raced out of her control. Over and over she saw the print of the newspaper page, but greatly enlarged—it was the London Times article about the authentication of the Coptic scrolls. Giant typeset words were printed in oily black ink on odd paper the texture of the old scrolls themselves. Instead of elation over the news, she felt a lingering sense of futility and loss. She had been right all along, but now it didn’t matter.

  She did not know how much time passed, but it seemed hours before she heard a knock and Indigo call out, as they taught her, before she opened the cabin door to the doctor. For an instant the pounding in her head made it difficult to understand the doctor’s words; she strained to make out the English he spoke until suddenly she realized the doctor was Australian, not Austrian; she could scarcely understand his Australian accent. He introduced himself as Dr. Gates.

  While the Australian doctor felt her pulse by gently placing his hands to her temples, he spoke in a soothing tone about the card games he and Edward enjoyed in the evening after she and the child were in bed.

  He prescribed belladonna as needed for the pain and nausea; the bitter white syrup turned to heat in her mouth and throat and spread over her entire body like a gust of hot wind. All the while the doctor kept talking in his ridiculous Australian dialect she hardly understood; as she drifted further into the warm, warm sea of her own blood, his odd vocabulary mattered not at all. The pounding pain that enclosed her face and head like a mask receded, and Hattie was able to sleep.

  The Australian doctor returned later to massage the veins in the back of her neck; his hands worked their way down and around to the insides of both her arms until suddenly she felt alarmed at his attention. She called Indigo from her game with the parrot in the alcove, and the doctor left off the massage.

  Later she told Edward the Australian doctor made her feel uneasy; she feared he might be an imposter or one who touched women with license. But Edward laughed out loud at such a suggestion. He was confident Dr. Gates was no imposter because they had talked a good deal over late night toddies about their professional training. They talked about a great many things, including citrus horticulture, especially the effects of temperature and climate, and Edward was quite satisfied Dr. Gates was reliable. Undoubtedly she was suffering the combined effects of the migraine headache and the belladonna, Edward assured her.

  At this Hattie felt a spark of anger at Edward because he had only a modest appetite for female anatomy, and he did not seem to realize other men were not so chaste or honorable. The Australian doctor’s fumbling with her bed clothes alarmed her because it recalled Mr. Hyslop’s fumbling attack on her breasts.

  Dr. Gates came again while Edward was out with the child at breakfast. He entered the cabin without knocking and set off the parrot; for once she was grateful for the bird’s loud screeches. The deafening noise unnerved the doctor as he approached Hattie. He might have remained in the cabin alone with her longer but the parrot’s incessant noise cut short the doctor’s call, and Hattie was spared the ordeal of his groping hands.

  After Hattie’s recovery, Edward continued to spend a good deal of time in the company of Dr. Gates, who was knowledgeable about a great many fascinating subjects. They discussed Edward’s citron scheme and the hot dry Riverside climate so similar to the deserts of Australia; oranges grown in the hot dry climes boasted the highest sugar content. The doctor’s face became animated as he contemplated the possibility of irrigated citrus groves in the outback. If he was able to procure suitable cuttings of the citron from Edward, then he was sure of success.

  The doctor was about to develop a mine to obtain iron ore and cadmium from a meteor crater in northern Arizona. Perhaps they might come to an agreement for an exchange of live citron cuttings for shares of mining stock as well as premium meteorite specimens, which he could sell for a handsome price.

  Edward was delighted at the opportunity to obtain meteorite specimens in large quantity because there was a growing interest in the objects by private collectors, and universities as well. The memory of the odd enclosure full of meteor irons near the market at Tampico returned to him again and again, and he regretted he had not persevered with the hideous blue-face woman; he might have had the lot of them—all quite different from one another, apparently from different locations. The increased interest in meteorites by collectors and researchers signaled a rise in the prices paid for specimens. The trade in meteorites had so many advantages over plants, which must be handled with great care or they were lost.

  Edward and Dr. Gates made a tentative agreement to become partners once the citron was secured and they returned to the United States. The doctor generously lent Edward a catalogue of the meteorites in North America published a few years before by the American Academy of Science; it was the same reference the doctor used to locate his most exciting acquisition to date: the two-mile-wide meteor crater in northern Arizona. Edward packed the book for safekeeping until he had the leisure to read it on the return voyage. For now he immersed himself in books about methods of pruning and grafting citrus stock.

  The ship docked in Genoa at half past eight in the morning and already Edward could feel a dramatic increase in the temperature, although the air was not as dry as he expected.

  Genoa was a port and industrial city similar to Bristol in its congested streets and sweltering bad air, although its dust and soot could not conceal the bright sun or deep blue sky beyond the smoke.

  Their arrival was overshadowed by the news of the assassination of the Italian king only three days before, in Milan, by anarchists, to avenge the executions of their comrades. Victor Emmanuel III took the throne, but there were rumors of clashes between dissidents and police.

  Genoa appeared calm—no soldiers or barricades in the streets, at least not on the waterfront. While they waited on the pier for Edward to fetch a cab, Hattie and Indigo gazed at the piles of cargo, the pallets of polished granite and marble
slabs in all colors, carefully crated for export. Indigo pointed them out to the parrot—a rainbow of colors just like you! she told him. On the pier, bundles of hardwood logs sat next to big clusters of bananas. Suddenly, over the noise of the passengers and street traffic, Indigo heard the unmistakable screeches of parrots from behind a pile of cargo on the pier. Instantly Rainbow gave a deafening screech in reply that left Indigo’s ears ringing. As a freight wagon pulled away from the pier, Indigo saw a large iron cage filled with parrots of all colors and sizes. The cries of his own kind were more than Rainbow could endure; he called back and flapped his wings frantically. As the wagon with the parrots passed, they saw sick and dying birds on the bottom of the cage. Indigo watched wide eyed, but the sight was too much for Hattie, who was overcome with nausea just as Edward returned with the cab.

  Once Hattie was seated in the cab, out of the bright sun, the nausea subsided and she began to recover; the excitement of the new surroundings diminished her discomfort.

  As the cab ascended the street into the hills, ruins of the old walls could be seen. As they passed the Piazza de Ferrari and the duke’s palace, Indigo pointed out the window and called out, “Look!” at the black-and-white striped facade of the cathedral. The stripes reminded Indigo of those unmistakable black-and-white stripes of the rattlesnake’s tail. To cheer up Rainbow after the upsetting encounter with the cage of new captives, Indigo lifted the travel cage closer to the window so he could see the stripes.

  Hattie listened to the child play with the bird and realized Indigo believed the parrot understood everything she said. Indigo told the parrot they were much farther east now, near the villages where Christ’s Mother had been seen from time to time. Aunt Bronwyn told her about the frequent appearances in Italy, Spain, and France. The Messiah sent his Mother because the soldiers did not try to kill her, Indigo told the parrot.

  Hattie and Edward discussed the problem the night before and determined the best course to take with Indigo’s exaggerations and fantasies about Jesus was to ignore them. Poor child, such harsh experiences and losses at an early age were bound to leave deep scars! Aunt Bronwyn and Indigo got along so beautifully Hattie didn’t interfere, although Edward and she were concerned all that talk about stones dancing and spirits living in stones misled the child. Hattie saw no real harm in the quaintly inaccurate version of Jesus Indigo learned from other Indians.

  Hattie took a deep breath and exhaled slowly; then she remarked about the amazing Mediterranean light—the moist atmosphere filtered the light so it was luminous but not burning, as the sun’s rays were in Riverside. Hattie felt so much better now that they were on land again. The vibrant colors of the buildings delighted Hattie and Indigo, who made a game of the colors: umber, sienna, ocher, eggshell, sage, tea, mint—they made up names for the amazing new colors they saw. They saw gardens of every sort, even wild gardens of calla lilies and overgrown grapevines in vacant lots along the streets. Hattie was pleased they planned to visit the wonderful gardens of Aunt Bronwyn’s friend in Lucca before they boarded the boat for Bastia.

  While Hattie and Indigo bathed and rested, Edward took a cab to the U.S. consulate for any messages or mail. Ordinarily the walk to the consulate would have been just the tonic he needed, but the old injury to his leg began to ache, though, oddly enough, the leg was not swollen or discolored.

  He found a letter from his lawyer in Riverside, and two cablegrams. He tried to appear calm as he tucked the envelopes into his breast pocket and made small talk with the deputy consul about the hot weather. Edward commented that Riverside got much hotter, but it was dry desert heat. He regretted his idle comment, as the deputy consul seemed to welcome the opportunity to ask questions.

  Edward smiled. He and his wife and her maid were on a tour of the Mediterranean area for his wife’s health; he thanked the consul again and turned to go before the man asked their destination. The deputy consul clearly relished an opportunity to talk with another American and continued the conversation all the way to the front door. Due to civil unrest since the assassination, U.S. citizens were advised to avoid travel outside of Rome, and certainly not to the south.

  Edward felt he must stop and listen politely or his haste might be noticed, and suspicions aroused. The deputy consul remarked the assassinated king was scarcely cold in his grave before political tensions began to rise. Of course, they were quite safe in Genoa; Genoa was an international port of great mercantile importance that all parties to the dispute sought to protect. It almost sounded as if the deputy hoped they’d stay on in Genoa so he’d have Americans to talk to. At the door, Edward shook the deputy consul’s hand and assured him they had no intention of visiting the south.

  He did not take the cablegrams from his pocket until he was a distance down the street from the U.S. consulate. He had an unsettling suspicion prying eyes at the consulate knew the contents of the cables. The heat on the sidewalk was crushing; the flimsy paper of the envelope stuck to the moisture of his fingers and left dark smudges. He found a bit of shade around a corner and stopped to rest his sore leg; there were no cabs in sight.

  He wiped his hands and then his brow on his handkerchief before he opened the first cablegram, sent two days before the other. It was an odd message from Mr. Grabb, at the law firm that represented Lowe & Company: “Agriculture secretary refuses authorization. Do not proceed. Return at once. Company not liable for expenses after August 18.”

  The second cablegram was also from Mr. Grabb; it urged him to contact Lowe & Company at once concerning a trek to the Himalayas to collect specimens of Asiatic lilies. Edward felt light-headed from the heat and the sore leg, and he feared he might not find a cab back to the hotel before he got sick.

  Indigo fanned herself and the parrot with a fan of woven palm fiber she found in the room; the two of them played Keep Away with the fan on the floor of the suite, while Hattie wrote a note to Aunt Bronwyn’s friend, the professoressa in Lucca. Hattie realized she would prefer to stop in Lucca and let Edward go without her and the child—the English-language newspaper cited instances of suspected unrest. Her skin felt flushed and moist; her underclothing clung in the most annoying way; she was tired of traveling.

  On the floor the child and the parrot were becoming more animated; Rainbow picked up the fan by its handle in his beak and flapped his wings before Indigo heard a loud crunch: Rainbow crushed the fan’s bamboo handle with his beak, and now he took half-moon bites out of the edge of the fan, leaving broken fibers he plucked out one by one. Indigo laughed so hard she dropped from her knees facedown on the rug. Hattie’s annoyance only made Indigo laugh harder because the parrot was able to anger human beings so easily.

  Indigo ignored Hattie and invited Rainbow to ride on her shoulder to the maid’s alcove, where she already arranged the bedding on the floor the way she and Rainbow liked it at night. She whispered to Rainbow something was bothering Hattie but not to let that upset him because she was there to take care of him. She shut the door so their new game did not disturb Hattie. The fat feather pillows and bedding made a perfect soft landing for Indigo as she practiced flying off the end of the bed with Rainbow on her shoulder flapping his wings, making gusts of air behind them. She told him about all the crows in the bare branches of the trees along the river, the winter the Messiah came. The Messiah especially loved birds, Indigo told Rainbow. Maybe it was because he and his family and followers flew like birds to travel great distances—even across oceans.

  Edward’s appearance alarmed Hattie; he was pale and complained of soreness in his leg, and the heat had left him queasy. He was about to go lie down when he remembered the letter in his pocket from their Riverside lawyer. Mr. Yetwin reported land values were rising rapidly now that the dam and the aqueduct from the Colorado River were under construction. Edward began to feel better as he read this; a new source of abundant cheap water would assure the success of his new citron groves even in dry years when the wells were undependable. But almost immediately the cablegrams came to mi
nd and again Edward felt too warm and nauseous. He gave Hattie the letter and went to lie down.

  Hattie skipped over the paragraphs about real estate prices and other business, to learn how Linnaeus and his cat were faring. Mr. Yetwin reported all was well with the house and gardens, though the cook complained the maid spent too much time playing with the monkey and the kitten. Indigo stopped her game to listen.

  While he waited for the pills to take effect, Edward listened to Hattie and the child in the sitting room as they chattered excitedly about Linnaeus and the kitten. He did not wish to spoil their fun, so he did not mention it, but cats were known to harbor diseases dangerous to humans, and probably monkeys too. He was grateful to his new friend, Dr. Gates, for the extra supply of morphine pills he gave them in case Hattie suffered another headache or the pain in the leg flared up. Doctors and pharmacies were few and far between on Corsica.

  He swallowed each pill with a generous amount of water, and experienced only a little nausea before a luminous glow rose inside him and all pain in the leg subsided. He lay back on his pillow and basked in the bliss; all anxious sensations in his stomach subsided, and his heartbeat and pulse steadied themselves. He heard footsteps and slipped the bottle of morphine tablets from the nightstand into the pocket of his robe; he did not want to worry Hattie.

  But the footsteps passed by and no one came. He tried to keep his thoughts focused on the good news in the letter—abundant cheap water. He visualized the aqueduct snaking through the dry gravel flats and greasewood, and the glitter of the moving water in the sun. He had to keep his thoughts restricted to the water in the aqueduct; otherwise the unsettling message of the cablegram intruded and turned his stomach: Return at once. Do not proceed. Authorization canceled.

  Though he could not sleep, still Edward experienced odd dreamlike reveries from the morphine. He followed his father through the groves of oranges and lemons in clouds of heavenly scents as his father plucked handfuls of blossoms into the tin pail he carried. Edward had been only nine years old but he remembered vividly how his father gathered pail after pail of waxy sweet blossoms and carried them upstairs to carefully spread them over the bed in his mother’s room.