Gardens in the Dunes

by Leslie Marmon Silko

  Edward stopped for an instant at the sight of hundreds, maybe thousands, of the tall black flower spikes, rising out of the terrace flower beds like battalions of black knights. He had never seen such a luxury of Dutch bulbs as this planting of unusual hybrid colors. A display like this cost a great deal, though at least in Lucca’s mild climate the bulbs did not have to be lifted in the winter.

  The old stone terraces were carefully repaired but otherwise left untouched; the heavy rich Lucca soil had been leavened with the sandy loam favored by gladiolus. Edward had not seen or even read about such a display of gladiolus—tulips and narcissus, of course. He never cared for gladiolus; ordinarily, he found the tall spikes of flowers quite vulgar—tall upstarts and darlings of the florists that intruded here and there among other flowers in borders or in vases; but the grand scale of the old terraced garden displayed these black gladiolus to their best advantage.

  Laura’s hybrids were quite colorful and of interest for their strong fragrance, though she said they did not reproduce their fragrance in their offspring, a common failing in hybrids.

  The old lindens along the walls cast welcome shade; otherwise the terraced garden was open to the sky; the stone path was crowded by spikes of red-black and rose-black flowers as tall as Hattie’s shoulder. Hattie had never seen so many gladiolus planted together with not one other plant or flower, and no lawn to border them. Black flowering stems rose out of graceful arched leaves, from terrace to terrace—black gladiolus descending to the sunken stone lily tank. She could not take her eyes off the hundreds and hundreds of the black blossoms; on closer examination, Hattie noted here and there scatterings of mottled rose-gray and ivory-gray gladiolus accented the black. Pale pink and pale lavender flowers formed a narrow border between the frame of white gladiolus, which were shorter and branched; ah! what a fragrance these white gladiolus had! She closed her eyes for an instant and breathed in the perfume. If she felt tipsy earlier, now she felt drunk, surrounded, even embraced, by the profusion of flowers so tall that they shaded the edges of the garden path. Hattie sat a moment on a narrow ledge of the terrace wall to gaze about and fully realize the effect of the black garden.

  Below the terraces of black gladiolus, at the center of the sunken garden, was a stone-paved oval with a shallow lily tank. Hattie saw a stone pedestal with a stone figure of some sort next to the lily tank, but first she wanted to see the artifacts on the other niches and pedestals on the upper terraces.

  In a niche of the garden wall, nearly hidden by the tall black gladiolus, sat a white pottery pitcher with black designs. When Hattie got closer she saw the spout of the pitcher was formed by a waterbird’s head and beak; but most amazing yet, on the chest of the waterbird were women’s breasts! Hattie looked over the tops of the black flowers to see where her companions were; the buzz of the bees in the flowers seemed amplified by the sunken garden, though she could not make out what Indigo was saying to Laura as they examined a figure on the terrace below.

  Edward stood in front of a niche in the wall of the terrace nearby and glanced up at the sun from time to time as if calculating film exposures for his camera. Hattie slipped her arm into his as she joined him in front of the stone pedestal. The small terra-cotta was a snake-headed figure with human arms and breasts that held a baby snake, but her legs were two snakes!

  “How odd this black garden is!” Edward whispered to Hattie. The sight of the breasts on the waterbird pitcher recalled the designs incised on the egg-shaped rock yesterday. Perhaps it might be better if Indigo took her parrot back up to her room in case other figures were unfit for a young girl.

  They joined Laura as Indigo, the parrot gripping her shoulder, began to walk the narrow stone ledge of the raised flower beds; she was careful to push aside the gladiolus as she went.

  “I assume black is symbolic of night and death,” Edward said; Laura broke into a smile. To the Old Europeans, black was the color of fertility and birth, the color of the Great Mother. Thus the blackbirds belong to her as well as the waterbirds—cranes, herons, storks, and geese. Laura confided she imagined the ancient people as she looked at these figures of clay and stone. After a long brutal winter, how they must have watched the sky of the southern horizon for the return of the nourishment givers!

  Edward felt a bit sheepish as he inquired about the modesty of the remaining figures displayed in the gardens, but Laura graciously assured them not to worry. She led the way to the niche, where Indigo stood with her parrot, apparently spellbound by the figure, no more than eight inches tall—another of the crude terra-cottas that Edward did not recognize at once. Whatever it was, it held the child’s attention, so he stepped closer to see.

  The figure was a seated bear mother tenderly cradling her cub in her arms; Indigo could feel how much the bear mother loved her cub just from the curve of the clay. She stayed by the bear mother even after Hattie and Edward followed Laura to the next niche; Indigo felt embraced by the bear mother, loved and held by her even as she stood there. The bear mother’s affection made her smile for Mama and Grandma Fleet—they’d held Sister Salt and her just like that, even after they were big girls. They all used to laugh when Grandma pulled one of them onto her lap and pretended to cradle a big girl. The girls used to go along with Grandma’s joke and pretended to be huge babies that made baby sounds as they laughed even harder.

  Rainbow became impatient with her for stopping so long and leaned off her shoulder to reach the black flowers with his claws and beak. She cautioned him to let the flowers be, and walked in the middle of the path, but the long flower spikes leaned toward them and the next thing she knew, the parrot clutched a blackish red blossom in his claws and held it to his beak for inspection. Indigo quickly looked to see if anyone witnessed the parrot’s damage.

  “Hurry up and eat it if you are going to,” she told him; he shredded the petals in his beak but did not swallow them; then casually dropped the remains on the ground. Indigo took a last look at the bear mother with her cub; she wanted to stay with them longer, but she could see Hattie looking back at her and just then Edward gestured for her to come.

  Indigo didn’t want to miss the figures in the other niches, so she took the long way around to join the others. The clay figure in the next niche was larger than the bear mother; it was also seated and appeared mostly human, but she was painted with black-and-white stripes and over her belly a snake curled in a spiral. She felt a chill of excitement when she realized that the figure had snakes for arms! She’d never seen or heard of anything like this before; she couldn’t wait to tell Sister.

  Indigo rejoined the others on the terrace below, where they stood before a stone pedestal with a seated figure of carved sandstone that gazed at them with the round eyes of a snake. The snake-headed mother had human arms and in them she cradled her snake baby to human breasts; but instead of legs, she had two snakes for limbs. Indigo took a deep breath and the others looked at her. Well, what did she think? Indigo didn’t know what to say. Grandma Fleet used to talk to the big snake that lived at the spring above the old gardens; she always asked after the snake’s grandchildren and relatives and sent her best regards.

  “It’s nothing like the minotaur, is it?” Edward said; he found the grotesque madonnas far more monstrous than the centaur or minotaur.

  As they made their way to the niche on the terrace below, Laura described the remnants of snake devotion still found in rural villages of the Black and Adriatic Seas. There, people believed black or green snakes bore guardian spirits who protected their cattle and their homes. In her travels, Laura saw ornamental snakes carved to decorate the roofs and windows for protection. Great good fortune came to anyone who met a big white snake wearing a crown; the crowned snake was the sister of the waterbird goddess, owner and guardian of life water and life milk.

  Edward hoped to quicken the pace of their tour as he led the way to the small lily tank; above the lilies was a deep niche that held the bird-snake woman. Fragrant red water lilies as big as din
ner plates rocked back and forth when Indigo stirred the green water with her hand.

  Previously Hattie agreed with Indigo the bear mother and her cub were the dearest figures they’d seen; but when Hattie saw the carved stone figure of a bird-masked woman holding a bird-masked baby in her arms, she could not take her eyes from them.

  Edward called the sculpture primitive, but Hattie disagreed; although the clay figures were simple in form, the expression of the mother’s body as she cradled her baby in the arms touched Hattie deeply and she felt a surge of emotion that caught in her throat until tears filled her eyes. The bird goddess loved her baby as fiercely as any mother! Hattie wiped the tears away quickly with the back of her hand. Edward would not understand; he’d think she was ill again. How dare Edward call these Old European sculptures boring or ugly?

  Hattie studied the terraces of black gladiolus all around her; the black-reds looked especially striking against the bright blue sky. She would never forget this black garden with its little madonnas, as Laura called them.

  Edward knelt on the stone ledge of the pedestal. He examined the terra-cotta inch by inch to note any erosion of the surface or other damage of the slightest to the rare artifact. He noted one questionable spot on the clay of the right breast, but nothing more.

  At first Rainbow was uncertain about so many tall black flowers all around, and he gripped Indigo’s shoulder tightly as a breeze caused the black faces of the flowers to bow forward and back, nodding at them. What did the flowers mean by their nods? she asked the parrot. She sat on the bottom step across from the lily tank with the parrot in her lap. She wanted to remember everything she could so she could properly describe the garden to Sister Salt and Mama. She watched Hattie and Edward walk ahead with Laura while she sat with the bird-mask mother holding her baby. I was a baby like that and my mother and my grandmother held me, she told Rainbow; that’s why she wanted to stay there a while longer, though there was another garden yet to see.

  As they made their way up the steps from the lily tank to the gateway of the rain garden, Indigo wished she could stay in the black garden longer; she had so many questions about the figures, especially the snakes.

  Laura stopped briefly to pull off dried blossoms, while Edward and Hattie walked ahead. Indigo’s heart pounded as she worked up her nerve to ask Laura about the snakes. Were there any snakes here in the garden? A few small green snakes and black snakes, but they were very shy. Indigo looked here and there under the foliage and at the base of the stonework, where a snake might rest in the shade. Laura pushed back the tall stems of the flowers to search too, but they found no snakes.

  Laura said when she was a girl her grandmother always kept a black snake in the storeroom to protect it from mice and rats. Indigo smiled; yes, Grandma Fleet always thanked the snakes for their protection—not just from rodents but from those who would do you harm. At the spring above the dunes lived the biggest snake, very old—the water was his.

  Laura paused and smiled; they’d caught up with Edward and Hattie, who were waiting at the gateway seated on one of the stone benches that flanked the wall.

  “We’ve been exchanging snake stories,” Laura said as she sat down. Indigo let Rainbow climb down her arm to investigate the edges of the stone bench with his beak. He examined the stone very carefully, touching the surface with his smooth, dry tongue to get additional information.

  One of Laura’s favorite stories was about a white princess who returned a lost child from the forest to the village. She helped the sick and gave gold coins to the poor. But she had to return to the forest at night.

  A man fell in love with the princess and she loved him, but always she returned to the forest at sundown. She warned him never to follow her; others who did were always found asleep at the forest’s edge the following morning.

  He promised to honor her wishes, but after some time, her lover became curious. He took food to the blackbirds to ask for help. They told him to tie sprigs of mistletoe berries to his ankles and his wrists first. That night he followed her into the forest; as the twilight slipped into darkness, he feared he would lose sight of her, but the gleam of her fair hair, the white dress, and the pearls gave off a soft glow that seemed to increase with the darkness.

  As they approached the middle of the forest, the glow became more luminous and dazzled his eyes—in the center of the brightness she seemed almost to shimmer herself. Then, in a clearing at the edge of lake, she stopped and he heard strange music, a choir of voices, and she began dancing slowly as legions of green snakes and black snakes emerged dancing from the wood. The glow pulsed even brighter and her hair began to glow now with a blinding light. He rubbed his eyes and when he looked again, he realized her hair was a crown of gold, silver, and pearls. On she danced until her very features shimmered, and suddenly he saw the lake’s edge as bright as day, where a giant white snake in a lustrous crown swayed gracefully, surrounded by legions of smaller snakes all dancing with her.

  Laura paused to see if her guests wanted to hear more; Indigo nodded enthusiastically with Hattie. Edward deferred to them rather than seem rude; it was an interesting folktale, but he was concerned about how little time was left. He lifted his watch from its pocket by the chain; as departure time neared he could feel his blood stir; the palms of his hands were damp; and the scar on his hand itched. They’d never see the other garden if they sat here listening to fairy tales all afternoon!

  After her lover confessed his disobedience, the white princess had to go. At the lake’s edge they said farewell. She stepped into the water and the swirl of her blond hair on the water’s surface became luminous, and then it was a shining crown. At that instant the white snake in her golden crown reared up gracefully out of the water and bowed to him before she disappeared under the water. In her footprints at the water’s edge, her lover found coins of pure gold intended for the poor and sick, who became his life’s work.

  Hattie wanted to ask Laura about the luminous glow in the story—so similar to the glowing light she saw that night in Aunt Bronwyn’s garden. She still regretted she had not asked her aunt more about the story of the luminous glow seen in the King’s Bath. There must be other, similar stories Laura might know. But Edward was already on his feet and brushing the back of his trousers, clearly anxious to move on to the rain garden.

  Along the walls stood treelike aloes on eight-foot stems, some bearded with dead leaves, others towering on scaly stems the diameter of a man’s torso, while the tallest plants stood ten feet or more. Dozens of species of aloes—an amazing collection made during the time her husband was in Africa—filled the garden terraces.

  African warriors, Hattie thought as she gazed at the spiked leaves and the clusters of tiny red-orange flowers that crowned them. Coarse sand the color of ivory replaced the dark Lucca soil in the terraces, and river-smoothed pebbles and fist-size stones, pale yellow and gray, were scattered beneath them. But what caught Hattie’s eyes were the giant clamshells nestled in the sand and pebbles to form shallow basins here and there at the feet of the giant plants. Here and there were conch shells so large Hattie thought they must be from the coast of Africa.

  There were no trees even along the wall; the reflected light off the sand and shells was quite intense; here was a garden designed to be seen by the light of the moon or in the cool mist and overcast of an autumn rain. The scent of the first rain on the dry sandstones and aloes must be wonderful. She wanted an aloe garden for Riverside.

  Now a breeze stirred; a cluster of fluffy clouds momentarily shaded the sun. Indigo didn’t think this sun felt terribly hot—this sun was nothing like the fiery sun above the river back home. Indigo let Rainbow down from her arm to explore the pebbles and sand while she examined a big spiral seashell with long spines down its back at the edge of the path; when she held it up in both hands its inner layers of blue-violet glowed in the sunlight.

  The gateway to the rain garden was guarded by two bare-breasted women of terra-cotta holding large basins in
their laps to catch the rain. The small statues faced each other on oversize pedestals that flanked the gate. Laura spoke of the link the Old Europeans made between raindrops and drops of breast milk.

  Edward felt his cheeks color at the mention of drops of breast milk. A scientist did not blush, but unaccountably his cheeks felt hot, and he quickly bent over to examine a bright red aloe flower—red was a rare color for aloe flowers; most species were yellow or coral.

  The figure on the first niche also surprised Edward: it was a sandstone sculpture of what appeared to be a toad, the size of a bread loaf; but on closer examination he realized it was a fat woman on her belly, legs and arms curled close to the body. Big breasts again!

  Edward began to feel uneasy about the other figures here, and considered asking Indigo to wait for them in the black garden right then, but he did not want to make a scene. Laura thought her statues posed no moral harm; perhaps not to an Italian child, but for American children, precautions must be taken.

  He glanced around and was relieved this garden was smaller than the other gardens, with only four niches and no pedestals other than the two that held the rain catchers and their basins. Best not to take any chances; he went to whisper to Hattie that for modesty’s sake the child should be sent to wait in the black garden. But he was too late; just then Indigo hurried from the small stone figures in the shaded recess of the terrace wall and took Hattie’s hand.

  “Look,” she said, pointing at an odd stone figure. “What’s this?” Hattie looked up from the leathery speckled leaves of the aloes along the path to the niche.