Child of a Rainless Year

by Lindskold, Jane

  It’s important to understand that when an artist says he (I’m going to say “he” here because I’m talking about Domingo) “sees” a shape or image, whether in a lump of stone or a heap of wet clay or even in a blank canvas, he means what he says. He’s not speaking figuratively. It’s there. The artist simply tries to bring it into a shape that will enable others to share the vision.

  That’s why artists are so often disappointed with their own work. That’s why some artists make multiple renditions of the same theme. They’re reaching for that illusive transformation.

  So I never made the mistake of thinking Domingo was talking figuratively about Phineas House “wanting” certain things. Where I made my initial error was in thinking that the House was a passive lump of wood, stone, odd bits of metal, all coated in a rather monochrome paint job. I didn’t realize that not only did it “want” that garish paint job, it needed it if it was to reach something like its full potential.

  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

  Domingo and I first discussed the House’s role in what we were doing one morning in late August.

  Those promised monsoon rains had not materialized as they should have some time in late July. The monsoons and how much rain they generate varies throughout the southwest, but the basic pattern is that clouds back up against the mountains and the initial rains start there. Evaporation cycles build more and better clouds, and soon the rains fall pretty much daily.

  They’re regular, too, Domingo reminded me. Rain often falls hard and steady for a half hour or so sometime in the late afternoon, then the skies clear back to their usual blue, all but for drifting clouds that herald the next-day’s storm.

  I had this all by hearsay, though. Like most children, when I was young I’d operated on a different sense of time. Rain happened, was a nuisance or a delight depending on my mood, but was not something to be measured and calculated. Since my arrival in New Mexico, my life in Ohio had been warring with my awareness that the local drought wasn’t a good thing. I couldn’t get enough of the bright, clear days, but as I watch Domingo hand-carry water to his garden, saw the Gallinas River (which runs through town) dwindle to a narrow damp thread, I knew something wasn’t right.

  “At least,” I said to Domingo one morning when we were having our now traditional sweet rolls and coffee together, out in the back garden, “the lack of rain is letting us get the painting done. We haven’t lost a day, and the place is looking astonishingly good.”

  Domingo nodded, but his expression was unwontedly solemn. Usually where matters regarding Phineas House’s adornment were concerned, he all but glowed with quiet contentment.

  “I hope,” he said, “that the House itself is not contributing to the drought. It so wishes the painting to be done—and selfishness is a very hot thing and heat chases away the clouds.”

  I felt uncomfortably certain he was right. Child of a rainless year. I thought of Colette and her perfect centeredness, and wondered.

  Instead of voicing this, I asked, “Why do you think it is so important to the House that it be painted? It has been a long time without this paint. In fact, it may never have been this colorful in all its history. I remember it as greyish white. We haven’t found anything like this level of color when we’ve scraped.”

  Domingo looked at me, his gaze very clear but slightly vague, as if he were listening. Then he said, “I think the need for color has something to do with you, Mira. I don’t know why, but it was shortly before your coming that the impulse to repaint became very strong. Before that I had restrained myself to trim and such, but the work on the front began that winter.”

  “Before I even knew I was coming,” I said. “Before Aunt May and Uncle Stan had their accident. It couldn’t be.”

  But I felt uncomfortably that Domingo might well be right. Did that mean the House had known Aunt May and Uncle Stan were going to die? That was ridiculous. A house couldn’t know. But I felt that uncomfortable sensation again, and wasn’t at all sure.

  “The House,” Domingo said, “wants something. I don’t know what it is. Of one thing, though, I am certain. It does not want to go back to being a dull house with boarded windows. It wants to be open and …”

  “Alive?” I suggested when he trailed off.

  Domingo gave another of his eloquent shrugs. “And whatever it is becoming now. For your mother it was a house filled with mirrors. For you it is becoming a house of many colors.”

  “And still filled with mirrors,” I said, for I had never taken them down. They belonged as much as did the carvings around the windows and the silent women.

  “So it is,” Domingo said. “But I have no idea why.”

  Thinking of what I was reading in Aunt May’s journal, I had a slight idea, but I didn’t say anything then.

  I admit. After reading Aunt May’s first section on mirrors, I skimmed ahead, looking for more on the same topic. I couldn’t forget how important mirrors had been to Colette—as important to her, it seemed, as color was to me. Aunt May didn’t find anything immediately, but when she did, it was pure gold.

  OUTSIDE THE LINES

  I went over to Mr. Gillhoff’s new-and-used bookstore today after dropping Stan’s suits and my blue wool dress at the cleaner. I know I could hand-wash the dress, but it has so many pleats! I just couldn’t face the pressing.

  Mr. Gillhoff is getting used to seeing me come in. If it’s not something for me, I’m looking for something for Mira or Stan. So he’s pretty friendly.

  “I’m looking for a book that will tell me the ways that stories relate to each other,” I said, feeling rather flustered. “What I mean is why the same stories get told over and over again—like in fairy tales. I think there must be some root they all spring from.”

  “Maybe so, maybe not,” Mr. Gillhoff replied, but he didn’t laugh at me, or worse, look completely lost like the librarian at my local branch had when I’d tried to ask the same thing.

  “Maybe so, maybe not?” I repeated. “I realize I didn’t ask very well, but …”

  Mr. Gillhoff shook his head and peered at me over the tops of his half-glasses.

  “Forgive me, Mrs. Fenn,” he said. “My answer was to the latter half of your comment. I meant that maybe stories do all come from one root. However, maybe they grow from something more general—a common impulse to explain the inexplicable. What you want is a book on comparative mythology and legend lore. The classic work of that type is, of course, Sir James Frazer’s The Golden Bough.”

  I stared at him. “Is it difficult to understand?” I asked, adding apologetically. “I only finished high school.”

  “In parts,” Mr. Gillhoff said, “but it’s fascinating reading, just the same. Frazer doesn’t concentrate on fairy tales, of course.”

  “That’s fine,” I said, thinking that though Colette did rather seem like an evil witch queen from a fairy tale—at least as I envisioned her—that couldn’t really be the case. “Mythology and legends. That sounds promising.”

  “And magic,” Mr. Gillhoff said, almost as an afterthought. “Frazer considered magic an important part of the entire picture because it was how ‘primitive’ people tried to control their environment.”

  “Oh,” I said, wondering if Stan would mind having a book on magic in the house, then thinking he probably wouldn’t. Then I had another thought. “Is the book very expensive?”

  “Not at all,” Mr. Gillhoff assured me. “Frazer’s work has been in print a long time, through many editions. I can sell you a used copy of the abridged edition—that’s as much as you’ll want at first, I think, for a few dollars.”

  He went to find me a copy while I browsed, and when he came back, he had two other volumes with him. They were quite thick.

  “I ordered these for a customer who later decided he didn’t want them. They might interest you. They’re essentially a dictionary listing symbols, images, and people from myth and legend. None of the entries are very long, but they might help you get through F
razer—give you something to cross-reference when he refers to someone you’ve never heard of.”

  I looked, knowing already that I wanted those books, but dreading what they would cost.

  “How much?” I asked.

  The figure he named was much lower than I had envisioned.

  “I’m willing to sell them to you at the publisher’s discounted price,” Mr. Gillhoff explained. “You’re saving me sending them back and waiting for a refund.”

  I didn’t quite believe him. I knew kindness when I heard it, but I accepted his price anyhow. I wanted those books, and I could just stretch my allowance to meet the price, especially if I went without a few of my usual indulgences.

  I dove into the Frazer as soon as I got home, and instantly found myself overwhelmed. Who was Adonis? What was this about a priesthood of Diana? Hadn’t Diana been a Roman goddess—one of the virgin ones? Wouldn’t she have had priestesses? I turned to the mythology dictionary with something like relief and when next I looked up, an hour had passed in browsing.

  Hurrying into the kitchen, I propped the book on the counter while I cut vegetables for dinner. This time I was more efficient. I turned directly to “Mirror,” and to my delight found a long entry.

  In its own way, it was nearly as cryptic as Frazer. Single words indicating things mirrors were apparently symbols of or associated with were listed, among them a few I thought might apply to Colette. “Courtesan” and “vanity” leapt out at me. I saw that my guess had been right, that mirrors did have a long tradition of being associated with divination. There was a final listing of more specific important mirrors, important to magic.

  I wondered if Colette had mirrors she used for magic. I wondered if that was what Mr. Hart had meant when he called her the Queen of Mirrors.

  I wondered, too, if I was crazy to even think such a thing.

  13

  What I was thinking about was the Pecos, certainly an enchanting and enchanted place. Where else could one come across a man by the name of Mr. Merlin, living on the banks of a stream called the Holy Ghost. And where else in this sophisticated world could you find a Mr. Merlin wholly and completely unaware of this conjoining of fact and fable, of pagan and Christianity?

  —Milton C. Nahm,

  Las Vegas and Uncle Joe

  INSIDE THE LINES

  You can imagine how I nearly went crazy myself skimming through, looking for entries that said more, but as far as I could tell, there were none. Aunt May had discovered the joy of research for its own sake, and her hungry mind was devouring stories and building connections. No doubt about it. The world lost a great researcher when Aunt May was locked away into the bland expectations of suburbia.

  I didn’t mind the tangents. Actually, her enthusiasm was a delight, and I had a feeling that there were more jewels for me amid the scrawled paragraphs, maybe even the gem I sought, but I was too impatient to wait.

  I thought about racing off to the local library and seeing what I could find. There was a university in town as well. I felt certain they had some sort of program through which I could do research or borrow books. I might have to pay a fee, but unlike Aunt May, who had to wait on an allowance, I had my own money.

  Then I had a thought. I checked the time, decided it was too late to call, and settled for drafting an e-mail to Betty Boswell.

  “Dear Betty,” it began, “I was wondering if you’d take the spare key and go over to my parents’ house. There are a couple of books of Aunt May’s that I’d like to have here. I don’t know the exact titles, but one is a dictionary of mythology and the like. Also, if she has any books on mirrors and on the symbolism of color, that would be great.

  “Could you send them to me? I’ll reimburse you for the postage, of course.”

  I sent it before I could regret the notion. If I got too impatient, there still were libraries and local bookstores. Indeed, New Mexico was a New Age haven, and I could probably find anything I wanted in Santa Fe.

  But I wanted Aunt May’s copies if at all possible. Her books would bring her closer.

  And who knew what she might have written in the margins!

  Was it in defiance of the influence Phineas House was asserting over me that after nearly two full months of residence, I finally began to explore the town that was becoming my new home? Or was it the desire of the House that I do so and in this way gain some sort of understanding of the deep and twisted complexities that surrounded the House—and with understanding, more deeply bind myself into those same complexities?

  This I do not know, even at this late date, nor do I ever expect to do so. Whatever the reason—defiance or domination—I began to learn about the strange history of Las Vegas, New Mexico. As I learned I also began to suspect the role Phineas House had played in those events—or if not the House itself, the forces of which the House was somehow a part.

  As I have said before, for all that my birth certificate states that I was born in Las Vegas, my knowledge of that town was minimal. My earliest world was Phineas House itself. Later this expanded to include the seminary and the homes of a few school friends. I remember little else.

  The real estate agent, Mrs. Morales, had told me a little of the town’s history. I had gathered a bit more from my neighbors, most of whom were amateur historians by virtue of their interest in restoring old homes. Now I decided to set this fragmented information into a pattern, and who better to ask for help than Domingo? He had lived in Las Vegas all his life, apparently contentedly. Chilton O’Reilly might have some interesting tales. But I began with Domingo.

  “What does ‘Las Vegas’ mean, anyhow?” I asked one morning. “I keep having to tell my friends that I’m not on the gambling strip in Nevada.”

  “It means ‘the Meadows,’” Domingo said, the twinkle in his eyes telling me that I was not the first resident of the town to have this problem. “Called so, I think, because in the earliest days when this was a land grant given by the Spanish government to the family of Luis Maria C. de Baca, all that was here were meadows, good for nothing much but grazing—though by all accounts they were very good for that.”

  I’d heard a little about the Baca land grant, and knew that even now, a hundred and eighty or so years later, it was a sore point with some of Hispanic residents of Las Vegas, especially those of Spanish descent. Judging from his tone Domingo did not seem to be among these.

  “‘The Meadows,’”I said, trying it out. “I guess I can see it. I must say, though, that the mountains stand out just as much.”

  “They do,” Domingo agreed. “Some years ago a publicity campaign for Las Vegas—trying to bring in residents and businesses, you understand—used the slogan ‘Where the Mountains Meet the Plains.’ It did okay, but nothing like Santa Fe calling itself ‘The City Different’ or Albuquerque’s nickname, ‘the Duke City.’”

  “I like it,” I protested. “It speaks to the heart.”

  Domingo smiled. “You have an artist’s heart, Mira, and you like contrasts very much. But ‘Las Vegas’ is not the town’s full name.”

  “No?”

  “No. She is Nuestra Señora de Los Dolores de Las Vegas.”

  “Our Lady of the Sorrows of Las Vegas?”

  “Yes. The Virgin Mary has many mysteries. They are celebrated in the rosary. It is as ‘Our Lady of Sorrows,’ though, that most Catholics love her best, because her sorrows mean she will understand our own.”

  “Oh.” I felt a little uncomfortable with this Catholic mysticism. Aunt May had been religiously eclectic in her views, but those views were private. Publicly, we were a tidy little Protestant family, trotting off to our nondescript but good-hearted little church each week.

  I hadn’t thought about whether Domingo was religious or not, or, to be honest, whether he had a religion other than his devotion to Phineas House. This easy familiarity with Roman Catholicism was unsettling—because it separated me from the only person to whom I felt at all close, the person who shared a private mystery with me. I decided to
shift the subject.

  “So,” I said, “if I was going to play tourist, what should I see?”

  Domingo gave this serious consideration. “There is always the plaza. Have you been there?”

  “Not really. I’ve been through, but never to look around.”

  “Well, in a Spanish town, the plaza is always the heart, and this is still true today. Of course, Las Vegas is odd in this as so many other things. Did you know that for much of its history Las Vegas was two towns, not one?”

  “Two? No offense, Domingo, but there’s hardly enough population for one town, much less two side by side. I thought that only happened where urban sprawl had filled in the gaps.”

  Domingo’s smile was sad. “It can happen where hatred and resentment rule as well. Las Vegas was, as I have said, a town that originally developed as many towns do—because here there was water and elsewhere there was not. With the development of the Santa Fe Trail, and, later, the founding of Fort Union, the town began to thrive.