A Rapture of Ravens: Awakening in Taos: A Novel (The Justine Trilogy)

by Linda Lambert

  “Your interest in the issue of community intrigues us,” the Director had written. “Mike Sandoval, one of our staff, has written extensively in the field, so a collaboration might be in the offering. Unfortunately, we need to ask that you secure your own funding once the project becomes more fully defined.” Finding funding would not be easy, especially since she had only a loose grasp of the research question. Her undergraduate alma mater—UC Berkeley—where her father was still a professor of archaeology, had offered some possibilities. Still, she had to write the grant proposal, and she couldn’t begin until she had a better grasp of Mike Sandoval’s thesis. Although reluctant to interrupt the conversation with the Taos women, she was pleased that Mike had found her.

  Justine could hear Suzanne introducing the next speaker on the other side of the plaza, but turned her attention to observing her new colleague: a husky man in his late 50s or early 60s with wide-set, high cheekbones, and a full head of salt and pepper hair—his tanned skin toughened by the life of an archaeologist in the scorching sun.

  Mike asked a flurry of questions: What were her interests in community? Where was she living? Why had she really been expelled from Egypt? What did she do in Italy? He had read the critical reviews questioning the provenance of her work in Archaeology. As he spoke, his animated features formed fluctuating masks: an eager child, an intense scientist, a sarcastic critic, a curious muse. Justine wondered which he was, anticipating that she would learn of the many faces of Mike Sandoval in the months to come.

  Initially amused by his questions and eagerness to pursue them, Justine revealed her interests in community by explaining her graduate studies with the Hopi in Arizona and the UNESCO Community Schools for Girls in Egypt. “So,” she continued, “these communities hosted the schools, providing space and a governing council, usually chaired by one of the mothers. The UNESCO project provided the curriculum and the teacher.”

  “Do these schools work? Do parents allow the girls to attend school? I wouldn’t have thought so . . . .” He challenged her.

  Quickly noticing Mike’s propensity to drop punctuation from his lively speech, she responded, “They were strikingly successful. Community members solved problems together and took ownership of the schools. Then a tragedy happened. An earthquake caused one of the schools to collapse, killing three of the girls, so I thought everything would change.”

  He grimaced. “I would think they would consider the quake an act of God. A message about the education of girls.” Mike was insistent.

  “That’s what I thought. I was sure the disaster would be viewed as a sign that God was against educating girls. And, it was seen that way by a few, but not by enough to close the school.” She chose not to tell him that she was nearly buried in the same earthquake in an old crypt fifty miles away.

  “Incredible!” exclaimed Mike, obviously skeptical. “I’d think that the education of young girls is a difficult sell, particularly in the Middle East. And relying on the locals can be misleading. They often survive on myths and stories that give meaning to their lives.” He stopped himself, as though he knew he might have gone too far in a first conversation. After all, he didn’t know Justine.

  Justine was surprised at what appeared to be a sweeping condemnation of native peoples. Silence hovered between them for a few moments. “I find that a surprising statement for an archaeologist, Mike. Perhaps I misunderstood. It sounded as though you were questioning the value of involving native voices in our work .” She let her sentence linger, inviting his response.

  “Well,” he said more slowly, “I’ve been burned more than once when locals would use myth and legend to explain data, and it turned out to be distorted, or slanted. For instance, not long ago we discovered Comanche encampments along the Rio Grande. The locals, whom my team members insisted on including, got it wrong. They described the Comanches as plains Indians, hunting, passing through, while we found undeniable evidence that the tribe was here to raid and plunder—take whatever they could, including women.” Mike perspired heavily as he watched Justine closely, picked up a small willow branch, and held it between his teeth, as though it held a secret serum.

  Justine studied his intense rumination. His outrage sounded personal. She blinked and decided to answer his most elementary question: Where she was living. “I’m renting a house owned by my friend Emily. It’s near the University of New Mexico campus in Llano Quemado.”

  She sized him up: intelligent and curious, loquacious. While she prized her capacity to read people quickly, she knew there would be more surprises ahead with this man.

  CHAPTER 4

  SUNDAY MORNINGS IN TAOS REMINDED her of childhood. Sleeping in, the Sunday papers, a generous breakfast with her parents, a short run in Berkeley’s Tilden Park with her mother. These images came back to her swiftly. What had she been dreaming? Justine couldn’t remember this time, yet it must have been pleasant, peaceful for a change. Too often, her dreams were nightmares about the earthquake in Cairo, being trapped in the crypt, that feeling of helplessness flashing back to her.

  The nightmares came less frequently now, yet they worked at her mind like a virus, finding undefended cavities in which to hide, ready to jump into dreams like bit players. Fed by random instances, like the three boys in the willows yesterday. Whistles of admiration followed by contemptuous laughs. Chilling.

  She opened her eyes, stretched and rolled over in bed, staring at the massive pine beams, the morning light forming a kaleidoscope of images dancing across the ceiling like the prism her mother once hung in her bedroom window.

  Justine’s amber eyes danced across floating bubbles of light. She closed her eyes and imagined Amir’s hand touching her bare waist, moving toward her breasts. His face nestled in her hair as he placed his chin lightly on her shoulder, that unruly black hair tumbling across his eye, the smell of musk filling her nostrils. How she missed him; how she missed their lovemaking. She breathed deeply, shuddered, and opened her eyes.

  After a quick shower, Justine sipped her tea, picked up her old valise and made her way out the back door onto the chilly patio, situating herself in one of the green wrought iron chairs near the table. She surveyed the expansive landscape that would surround her in upcoming months. Or, years. She just didn’t know. Flowers bordered the patio: several beach roses snuggled up against a lamb’s ear and scattered lilies; towering hollyhocks shaded two yarrow plants. Courageous creatures of nature, braving the daily swings in temperature.

  The musky aroma of dust and grasses reminded her of the end of summer at her paternal grandparents’ barren farm in Nebraska. A solitary raven watched her closely, as though reading her mind. Thirty feet to the west, a barbwire fence ran north to south. Farther on, a pulsating wall of water caught the morning sunlight as it moved back and forth across the golf course.

  At 10:00 a.m., the chill of the land was being transformed into rising steam. Two black-chinned hummingbirds fluttered around the feeder by the kitchen window, one clearly propitious. “I’m going to love it here,” she declared aloud, her feet firmly planted on the cement flagstones, hugging the valise to her chest. The air, the landscape, the mountains—this sweep of grandeur that holds so many secrets. Whatever this next adventure holds, I already feel a serenity that I haven’t felt in years. Is it because I’m far from the madding crowd of critics who had sought to discredit my work? From parents who love me a little too much?

  Justine wiped the condensed moisture from the table and laid her old valise in front of her. Opening it slowly, she withdrew two large bundles of letters tied with blue satin ribbons. She placed a hand on each bundle and sat in meditative posture for several moments. These were letters from D. H. Lawrence to her great grandmother, Isabella—treasures that have occupied her mind for two years, turning it into a playground she found difficult to leave.

  Justine lifted the second bundle and extracted the letter on the bottom of the pile; as far as she knew, this was the last letter he had written to Isabella. She examined
the signature once again. No one knew D. H. as David—but Isabella did. She read aloud, for at least the hundredth time:

  Hotel Beau Rivage, Bandol, France, 18 September 1929

  My dearest Isabella,

  Your news fills me with a joy greater than I’ve ever known. I was sure the fates had decided that I would never have a child of my own. Undeserving. With little to offer another. I’m afraid that I may have to leave fatherhood to your fine husband. Does he suspect? Surely not.

  This French doctor is as useless as the others. I overheard him tell Frieda that there is little chance of improvement. The air is damp here; all my strength goes to pulling in what air I can. And I write when I can. I need you at my side, my darling, but know that is not possible. Even if you changed your mind and wanted to come to me, you shouldn’t travel with little Lawrence in your womb.

  I beg of you to consider these thoughts when raising our child. I wish him to have your lightness of spirit and innocence about the world rather than his father’s cynicism. Give him freedom and choices early, and love him without suffocation. Let him spread his wings wide. Protect him from the life of a writer! Terrible lot. And science and politics. Almost as bad. They steal away life’s mysteries. But I digress. I am excited beyond words by your news. My one regret in this short life has been the absence of a child of my own. And now that my child is to be given life by the woman I truly love, what more could I want?

  So, for us, a God-be-with-you. I have lived as vividly as I have written—and because I have left with you, dear woman, the seed of my deepest self, I will die with a gladness and fulfillment in my belly, worshiping the son in yours. How brief, yet how important, you have been to me. As if God had said, “Wait!---there is someone you must meet.”

  If you need anything, my love, remember you can trust Lady Brett. She is living at the ranch. Stay well and carry my seed with care.

  Love always, David

  The eagerly awaited child hadn’t been a boy, but a girl whom Isabella named “Laurence” replacing the “w” with a “u,” as was the custom in Egypt. Justine held the letter as it fluttered in the warming morning breeze. Again, her nervous system sent currents to her extremities. Her whole body responded to the romance—and yes, the truths—in this last letter from Lawrence to Isabella.

  History turned on this letter, the infamous author without a child, he now possessed a legacy biographers had not discovered. How this would alter the course of literary history! How I wish I could have met him. A rightful heir to his talents and his significant body of work—like herself—might have shaped his legacy with more empathy. Avoided the troubled path his reputation and writings traveled. Few took the time to understand Lawrence; accusations of obscenity and misogyny abounded. Now he is a literary god.

  Justine’s identity turned on this letter as well, for this was the letter that had told her who she was—partially at least. This knowledge brought her to Taos. But there was more to her story than her relationship to D. H. Lawrence, as profound as that knowledge was.

  Isabella’s father had been the Egyptian ambassador to the Vatican in the twenties and he, as was the custom, had chosen a young Egyptian diplomat to be her husband. In turn, Isabella and her husband made sure that Laurence married an Egyptian as well—Justine’s grandfather, who was killed at El Alamein in northern Egypt in the struggle against Rommel’s German army during World War II.

  Laurence was D. H.’s daughter, sensuous and determined. After the death of her first husband at El Alamein, with whom she’d had her daughter Lucrezia, she married an Italian named Cellini. Benvenuto Cellini adopted Lucrezia, Laurence’s daughter and Justine’s mother.

  Lucrezia grew up to be as headstrong and passionate as her mother. More, she chose to change family history by marrying an American, from Berkeley by way of Nebraska. Lucrezia had expected the Berkeley influence would override the indoctrination of his Nebraska roots, at least where men and women were concerned. She was wrong. Her husband Morgan proved to be overprotective and controlling.

  Little did Justine know, until that day she found the Lawrence letters in a trunk in her grandmother’s attic in Fiesole, that her complicated geographic heritage included the British Isles. D. H. Lawrence’s Nottinghamshire, to be exact, he the son of a coal miner and a rigid Protestant mother who spent his life distancing himself from his roots.

  Lawrence referred Isabella to Lady Brett at the end of this last letter. What do I know about Lady Brett? Pretty much what everyone knew. She was a nearly deaf artist from a royal British family who had followed Lawrence to Taos at his request. Disgusted by the state of the world during and after World War I, Lawrence had sought to establish a self-sufficient, utopian, community in Taos called Ramaman. But “The Brett”—as he called her—was the only person to accept his invitation. Lawrence loved Taos, and in time Frieda came to love it as much as her husband.

  After Lawrence’s early death in France at forty-four, Frieda returned to Taos and lived there for the rest of her life.

  For a man who trusted few people, Lawrence trusted Brett. Why?

  A long-eared jackrabbit leapt into Justine’s line of sight. He leisurely wiggled through two prickly pear cacti, turning toward Justine. The rabbit and the woman keenly eyed one another. Lush gray fur pivoted on his neck, reminding her of a family photo on her mother’s Baroque walnut bureau. Isabella Hassouna in a gray fox stole standing in front of the Vatican, her crimson velvet hat resting on that plump gray fur stole. Large, sad eyes stared intently at the photographer, seemingly not an acquaintance. Justine had asked her mother about the photo when she was a girl, but she’d been given only evasive answers. Except that the photo was taken in 1931. What was happening then? Of course! D. H. had died the year before and Isabella had given birth to their daughter Laurence. Mussolini was challenging the authority of the Vatican and Justine’s Egyptian great-grandfather and his family would soon be expelled. But Isabella couldn’t have known all that at the time.

  Justine’s mind froze, as did everything around her—the air, the clouds, the rabbit. Is it possible, she asked herself, that Isabella traveled to New Mexico to speak with Lady Brett? Did Isabella yearn to know more about his life here, like I do? Was theirs an unfinished story for my great grandmother as well? Her thoughts lingered on Isabella—and Lawrence—her mind traveling along the path of imagination to the moment they first met. Did the enchantment occur then? Did they recognize it?

  CHAPTER 5

  FEBRUARY 23, 1927, FIESOLE

  “Mr. Lawrence, I would like for you to meet my daughter, Isabella,” said Ambassador Hassouna. He and his family were guests at the Medici Palace.

  Lawrence turned from the Ambassador to his daughter, extending his hand, meeting hers in mid-air as it moved toward him. He stood still, as though stilled by time, his striking sapphire eyes growing intense. “Signora Isabella.” He paused and bowed slightly in slow motion, long enough for the Ambassador to be drawn away by a demanding guest. “Delighted. Your home is near Villa Borghese and the Vatican, I am told.” Lawrence reluctantly released her hand, detecting that was her wish. He trusted his intuitive powers which enabled him to appraise people quickly, to size them up.

  “This is true,” she said, placing the empty hand tenderly into her other, as though a strange warmth emanated from it. “The winter can be quite damp in Rome. Yet the fragrances are sweet, the air buoyant. And you, Mr. Lawrence, what brings you to Fiesole? Another book perhaps?”

  Lawrence found himself momentarily without words. He observed her confident demeanor, her jewels . . . an Oriental princess with Italian shoes extending from under a burgundy lace gown. Old world aplomb, yet with an unmistakable modern flair. He was mystified. Further, she knew of his work. “Quite perceptive,” he said, “We are staying at the Villa Mirenda nearby. I just finished The Virgin and the Gipsy and am struggling with the third draft of a novel about a Lady Chatterley. Set in Nottinghamshire, where I grew up. A few random poems. Your observations on the sweet fra
grances and balmy air may lend some thoughts to my poetry.” He paused again, his eyes lingering, gazing into hers. “Do you write?”

  She didn’t look away, but returned his gaze, pondering his words. “A few modest poems. Nothing, really. Not publishable. You know of the work of St. Vincent Millay? From New York, I believe.” Isabella had read some of Lawrence’s work and harbored a great regard for the author. Yet, she had not admired what she’d heard about Lawrence, the man. Egotistical. Arrogant. Easily outraged. Well, let’s see how he responds to a good jostling, she thought. She grinned at her own mischievousness.

  “I’ve read Millay, yes, with great favor. Perceptive woman, able to capture the wanton times in America. In Paris.”

  “Why ‘wanton’?” she challenged, black eyes flashing.

  Once again Lawrence was caught off guard. Rarely had he been challenged by a woman—except Frieda, of course. Never by a well-born, exotic beauty. “The new creative breed are reckless, without direction. Willful. Take Fitzgerald and Hemingway, for instance. Pound.”

  “Gertrude Stein. Brave people. Searching, it is true. Not all of us have the freedom to be careless, Mr. Lawrence.” Her gaze was intent, matching his own; for several moments two wild cats scrutinized one another.

  It wouldn’t have surprised him if they had begun to circle. Am I out of my depth? he mused. I’ve not encountered such buoyant intensity in an Oriental woman. How far may I go before she withdraws, recoils? He loved challenge, the unknown, was easily bored by the predictable. Isabella was captivating. Novel. “Will you be here long, Signora Isabella?” he smiled, choosing to break the spell, pursuing the better part of valour, or so he thought, even though energy swirled between them.