Light Action in the Caribbean

by Barry Lopez

  “You would have done this better,” said Angus Clipper, “but perhaps I have saved you some time.”

  Thomas Lowdermilk nodded at him with genuine appreciation. Another time Angus Clipper put a handful of Louis L’Amour paperbacks on the front seat of his truck. “A little romantic, this guy—fantasies of the West and all,” said Angus Clipper with a self-deprecating shrug. “But I like him. You might.”

  Against his instinct, Thomas Lowdermilk returned the gesture by giving him a copy of Juan Rulfo’s The Burning Plain. Angus Clipper thanked him the following week as though he’d been given a saddle or some other important or practical item. Thomas Lowdermilk knew then they’d made a floor both were standing on. But he could not bring himself now to pursue any conversation with him. All he could do was accept his sympathy. He knew Angus Clipper, who’d met Luisa, had heard the rumors.

  Early one morning at a huge house in Rancho Santa Fe, Thomas Lowdermilk was watering a border of marigolds, inhaling an odor he loved, when the hose went limp. He turned to see a man in a dark, pin-striped suit step carefully away from the tap and continue toward him.

  “Tom,” said the man as he approached with an air of distress and impatience, “Petch and I are going to have to let you go. I know this is very sudden, and I will make it up to you with some sort of severance, but the truth is we—well, mostly Petch actually, this is certainly not my idea—we just can’t be a party to these rumors anymore. Our daughter is being ridiculed at school—or so says her mother. I know you would never, ever approach Jennifer with the wrong idea or actually touch her, but everyone knows what happened at Marian Merrick’s place—now, really, there’s a bitch for you, but that’s something else. Anyway, Jennifer. Petch says it looks awful when Luisa comes and you hug her, because she’s so young and it’s not the way you would hug her if she were your daughter, you know? And you can’t go out there and explain it to everyone, what the real situation is.”

  Thomas Lowdermilk made no response. He held the empty hose.

  “So I’ll pay you for today,” said the man, taking his checkbook out and twisting the cap from a fountain pen. “And—what, a month’s severance? Is that fair?”

  Thomas Lowdermilk didn’t move.

  “Great, all right,” said the man. “It’ll be a bitch, I can tell you, getting someone half as good as you to look after the place,” he went on, leaning over to write the check out against his thigh.

  That night Thomas Lowdermilk could not fall asleep. Luisa got up in the dark to tend to the baby. “I know what’s troubling you,” she said when she got back in bed.

  “It is my own business,” he answered quietly.

  “No, it is our business. Do you think none of this comes to my ears? Do you think that I do not hear the stories?”

  “I would have been better off if we had met years ago.”

  “What about Rosamaria? She wouldn’t have permitted it.”

  “Rosamaria was a very fine woman.”

  “Does Mrs. Merrick,” asked Luisa, “say you were pimping, that you ran Agnes and me, all of us, while we were in school, and lived on the proceeds?”

  “I have not heard that one, perhaps it’s coming.”

  “My prayer is, not before your sense of humor comes back.”

  “Luisa, this is not funny. I can’t sleep. These people have pulled me out of my own life, the way I pull up a weed. My work is not peaceful anymore. I am always waiting, expecting to hear something stupid or ignorant.”

  “Go to work for other people.”

  “It’s no good. Everyone looks at it the same, once they find out. ‘Tombo,’ they say. And you, they call you—”

  “Not in this house, not in my home!” she said fiercely, turning on him.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t let these people in, Thomas.” After a moment she said, “Walk away.”

  He stared at the ceiling. “And where am I going to go?” he wondered. He thought of setting fire to Marian Merrick’s house, and then he laughed out loud at his own foolishness. He felt his wife’s back arch against him, an acknowledgment.

  In his despondency, Thomas Lowdermilk decided to stop working for several people who lived a long drive from his home, Angus Clipper among them. He found other clients in Escondido, but he felt angry with himself and impoverished by what he had done. Finally he did something he had never done before—he drove out to Angus Clipper’s house in Fallbrook to see if he would hire him back. He learned Angus Clipper had not hired anyone to replace him, that he was trying to do the work himself. When he asked if he could go back to work for him again, Angus Clipper said yes.

  “But now I have a question for you,” he followed up. “Manny Saucedo had to stop working with me. He moved back up to Fresno to take care of his family. I need someone to take over Manny’s work. Can you do that?”

  Thomas Lowdermilk was stunned, but he answered in an even voice. “Yes, I can do that.”

  “It’s not full-time, Thomas. And it’s a different kind of work, looking after these avocado trees. You don’t have to answer now. I’d need you two or three days a week. Just tell me what you think, when you can.”

  “This is something of a surprise,” said Thomas Lowdermilk.

  “Yes, me too, actually. I didn’t think of it until you drove up.” He waited for Thomas Lowdermilk to say something. “Do you have my private phone number?” asked Angus Clipper.

  Thomas Lowdermilk almost answered with an invitation to discuss it at Los Hombres but caught himself.

  “I’ll talk it over with Luisa,” he answered.

  “I thought you might,” said Angus Clipper.

  When Thomas Lowdermilk walked into Los Hombres that night, he ordered beers around for his friends. “The second round, that also is on me,” he said. His friends fingered their chilled bottles in expectation, for this was a sign something had happened. Thomas Lowdermilk said, “Do you know what they say, my friends, about the energy that comes to an older man who sleeps with a younger woman?” He sipped his bottle and carefully wiped the moisture from the table in front of him. “It’s not true in the way you imagine.” He tried to pick up each pair of eyes. “I thought it was I who made myself an independent man. But I’ve seen this is not the truth. The seed was watered by Rosamaria. She was the gardener.” He palmed the sweat from his beer bottle. He saw a pattern in his feelings, a rising hope. Around this he gently cupped his long-fingered hands, as if it were a moth he was lifting from a flower. “Now it has been watered again.”

  The men looked thoughtful, David Cordera, his brother-in-law Miguel Escalante, and the others; and they were silent. Thomas Lowdermilk’s urge at that moment was to speak of his wife’s paintings, but he let it pass. “Felipe,” he said instead, “your loan from Bank of America. Where does it stand now? Tell us the story.”

  Felipe looked around the table, and then with a philosophical shrug began to tell them the most recent news.

  In the Garden of the Lords of War

  One hundred and twelve years after the Universal Holocaust, in the natural deserts of what was once western China, the Dobrit practice of staying War had reached a plateau of refinement. The Four Lords, nameless men chosen by a council of women, moved from season to season in cycles regular as the Once migration of birds, and there attained a Lyric Passage, the harmonics of stability.

  In countries I had walked through in the preceding six years—Beywan, Cruel, Muntouf, and tiny Begh on the Yellow Sea in old Manchuria—I found consistent agreement at all levels of society on the worth of the Four Lords and their Rule. It was my privilege as a Wenrit scribe and a Deformed to visit the Garden of the Lords of War. Now, I convey that story, another given me on a Witness Path to the Black Sea, along which, by every country, I have been given Safe Passage.

  The Circle of Women for the Study, with whom I apprenticed for five months, numbered thirteen. The youngest was maturely fifteen, the eldest eighty-one. My apprenticeship occurred at irregular hours during the wint
er and spring moons. I occupied one chamber, alone, adjacent to a central meetinghouse. It was made clear that I should always be available to listen when the women told stories or during the preparation of food. When the women convened to discuss the Cultures and Texts to be presented the Lords, I was sent out into the city. I memorized thirty-four of my tutors’ stories in this apprentice time, good by their account. The women were always gentle in instructing, but strict that my accent and inflections should not interfere in the Music.

  I will transcribe these stories into my Given Pattern when I one day arrive at the Black Sea, the fourth, now, of the books of my Sent Journey.

  The Garden of the Lords of War is surrounded by a wall three times my height. It is woven of peacock feathers in such a way as not to impede the movement of air but to be opaque to passersby. The four walls do not meet squarely at corners but in round, enclosed spaces, roofless, inside each of which stands an attendant’s small house. In the outer wall at each corner is a Gate of Admission. Within, a Gate of Entry opens to stretches of wild grass, gardens of flowers and vegetables, the separate houses of the Four Lords, large pine and laurel trees, and small plots of maize, beans, and wheat. Of course, it is not permitted either to view or to speak with the Lords, so I can only offer an impression, based on the testimony of the Circle of Women for the Study.

  Most often, men in their late twenties are chosen as Lords, and it is rare for one to serve past his middle forties. The unvarying criteria for selection are as follows: (1) a man must never have taken a human life, for any reason; (2) he must never have struck or in any way harmed a woman; (3) he must be Dobrit, though I was told this designation refers to spiritual and philosophic temperament, not ethnic origin; (4) he must have raised children not his own. Finally, he must read with perfect fluency in at least three languages. Added to these criteria are some requirements of a more general nature. To be considered at all, a man must be formally recommended by an aunt, and then an uncle must compose the Story of his life and recite it before the council of women and all the Dobrit. At this presentation, any person may object to his appointment. With cause, following deliberation, the candidate might no longer be considered.

  After his selection, a man begins his time of service by becoming an attendant. It is his responsibility to prepare meals for the Lords, to see to the plots, orchards, and gardens in the interior, to the pathways and a wood lot, and to assist those people chosen to change the Texts. (These are always young women and men from among the Dobrit, chosen Word of Mouth, who study under the Circle of Women before performing their duties four times a year, at Change of Season.)

  From the outside, the houses of the Lords resemble one another closely, though slight differences in construction, for instance in the mortise and tenon of framing, were apparent to me. Each house sits just off the ground on chestnut posts and is girt by a veranda. Sliding walls, inset with carved cypress panels, open all around onto the porch. The low-pitched shed roofs, composed of long, half-round tiles, slope outward. Inside, the four trapezoidal rooms converge on an open courtyard. These rooms are identical, each spacious enough to contain two or three large tables (upon which rest the Texts), a sleeping mat, or futon, and a small serving table. A flat chest for clothing, several wood chairs, and a washstand complete the furniture. A slate apron in the center of each floor surrounds a small firepit. Firewood is ricked on the porch outside, an ash bucket sits opposite on a tile. From two corners of the roof, chains lead to rain barrels.

  The day I was admitted to the Garden of the Lords of War was in the fourth week of spring. Many of the trees were in blossom, vegetable gardens were budding with early onions and two types of lettuce, and the flower plots were effulgent with carmine, lavender, and sulfurous blooms. I walked with two of my hosts, an older woman named Kortathena and a girl about eighteen called Marika, and with the attendant at whose gate we had entered. It was a visit of only three hours but we walked leisurely through the grounds—time enough for me to see well how closely tended they were, and to observe that though the design of the pathways and the placement of the gardens suggested symmetry, they were not so laid out. Some of the pines were of such great size I felt the area must have been sacred to others before the Dobrit arrived. Certainly nowhere have I ever seen so many spiders or butterflies, or heard so many sorts of birdsong—five altogether.

  The arrangement of the Prayer among the Lords of War is as follows: each Lord lives the whole of a season in a single room of the house he occupies. At Change of Season he moves across the courtyard to another room, which has been prepared with a fresh set of Texts and drawings, and enhanced with artwork—textiles, sculpture, and paintings. He remains there until the following seasonal change, reading and studying. This practice and sequence permitted me to view each type of room empty, though I was able to step into only two houses. (The design of these rooms is similar from house to house, though I was told the four styles of design found in each house are not meant to correspond to the seasons. The rooms are commonly called by the color of the glazed pottery on which meals in that room are served: ocean green, lantern red, Persian blue, poppy yellow.)

  When a room is occupied by a Lord, it is also vased with flowers and contains a pair of birds, doves usually, though sometimes crows. A lute, shamisen, or other stringed instrument is present, and small bowls of spice—ginger, cinnamon, sage, vanilla bean, clove—are set about. When a room is not occupied, it appears hollow and spare. The one bright spot of color is the stack of glazed dishes on the meal table.

  In the Ocean Green room I was shown, the floor was of quartersawn tulipwood, light-colored, straight-grained, with a matte sheen, as if holystoned. The long outer wall of sliding cypress panels was complemented by a taller cypress wall facing the courtyard, constructed to admit light and air in the same way. The interior walls were of unfaced stone. In the Ocean Green room, each was a single piece of micaceous granite. As well as I could guess, these massive but consoling walls were founded first and the rest of the house then built around them. How they were erected or squared I could not imagine. As was true elsewhere in this prefecture, a question was received as an impolite gesture, a condition under which I chafed, but only slightly. I was content to see and listen.

  I was informed that in the Ocean Green room the evening meal was always the flesh of a winged animal.

  From the Ocean Green room I was walked through a round orchard of loquat trees to see a Lantern Red room. The floor here was of clear larch, the walls of charcoal-gray basalt. The evening meal was the meat of a grazing animal. The empty basin of the hearth, the absence of candle stands, contributed to a feeling of repose or suspension in these rooms. On our way from there, in a southern portion of the grounds, we passed the entrance to a Poppy Yellow room, pointed out through a single lattice row of kumquat. Its dark floor was of mahogany and the pale walls were of a fossiliferous sandstone. The evening meal there, it was explained, was of vegetables, intentionally bland. The final rooms, the Persian Blue rooms, had floors of li oak. The outer wall of the one we walked up to was standing open and I saw within walls of brindled marble, the color of a flock of pigeons. The evening meal here was of carp or other freshwater fish.

  In the courtyard of each house the Lords grow some flowers and vegetables, as they are inclined.

  I was not permitted to look into any room that was in use—a Lantern Red room in one house, two Poppy Yellow rooms in other houses—so again must rely for these descriptions upon my companions. When a Lord steps into a new room at Change of Season, he finds lying neatly upon the tables several dozen bound and unbound Texts (in the Dobrit and other languages), along with dictionaries, paper, and pencils. The books, manuscripts, and folios of drawings all bear on a single culture—here my younger host volunteered that the Lords were then reading, respectively, of Quechua, Tomachan, French, and Xosha peoples. It is the determination and desire of each Lord to have at the end of three months enough of an understanding of the culture in which he is readin
g to be able to make up a single story, one that gives evidence of his study and reflects his respect, but demonstrates no enthrallment. On each of the four evenings before Change of Season, the Lords gather at the center of the gardens to listen to one story each night, recited before a fire kept by two of the attendants. When the Circle of Women speaks of the Prayer, it is to these stories told at the end of each season that they are referring.

  My hosts pointed out that the Texts are not chosen solely on the basis of impeccable scholarship but consist, instead, of a variety of printed materials—novels, treatises on natural history, biographies of politicians, works of reference, ethnographic documents, hydrographic records, works of architectural theory. It is, too, a collection chosen to match the strengths in language and metaphor of an individual Lord.

  I chanced here one question: Were the stories the Lords told ever written down? No, the stories were only spoken once, said my elder host. She said, further, that in their reactions to the stories, the Lords tried to reinforce in one another a desire to do well. And it was this desire—to perform their tasks well, to read carefully, to give in to the manuscripts, to think deeply—as much as the Litany of Respect that the Lords produced, she believed, that kept War at bay.

  As we walked toward the Gate of Entry, my younger host suggested I might wish to be alone for a few moments. I was grateful for her kindness, and walked some steps back along our gravel path to sit on a ginkgo-wood bench. In my six years of travel, I knew I had never before been in a place so peaceful, so eloquent. The evidence of turmoil to be found in each country, including the one I was then traveling in, was here absent. By virtue of their ferocious concentration and expertise, the architects and builders of this garden had made all that line, shade, and color might do to compose the soul work, as if a terrified animal could be calmed completely and solely by what the eye beheld.

  I ran my fingers along the precise joinery of the ginkgo-wood bench, a plan of assembly that let the various pieces of wood expand and contract in the rain and sun but that did not compromise the bench’s strength, its sturdiness. The alignment, the proportions, and the forgiveness of the joinery were exquisite.