Death of a Political Plant

by Ann Ripley

  Water flower fanciers find that flowers must take second place to the koi. They are rooting fish, and like nothing better than to nose about in plant dirt. Some say that if baby koi are put straight into a pool with plants, they will get used to their presence and leave them alone. Others recommend elaborate underground chimney netting systems to protect the plants. Fortunately, the water lily is one variety with which koi can live in peace. To avoid problems, some clever pool designers simply place a bog garden near the koi pond in order to have plants nearby but out of harm’s way.

  Clean water is essential to healthy koi, affecting not only the fish’s health but also its color. Those brilliant swirls and spots of red and black on white can fade and lose their sheen unless given the best conditions. It helps to have the finest biological filtration system, and it doesn’t hurt to be an engineer or a chemist. (An editor of KOI USA, the magazine of the Associated Koi Clubs of America, owner of two dozen koi, was teased about her real motives when it was learned she was marrying a water engineer.) The basic problem is to remove the voluminous wastes of these robust-sized fish without clogging the filter system. As far as the method chosen, one koi fancier declared it is a choice between paying capital costs at the outset or paying maintenance costs later on. Improvising can lead to problems. Hobbyists should be aware of simple basics such as the gallonage of their pool, for adding too much of anything to the water can endanger the fish’s very existence.

  Koi can cost big money, ranging from a few dollars for a small fish without a pedigree, to many thousands of dollars for a fine specimen from Japan. The winner of the all-Japan show will command six figures. The Japanese started this fish craze by breeding these carp back in the 1700s, but did not export them until after World War II. The fish have many names, with Kohako, Sanke, and Showa the most popular breeds. In Japan, koi competitions create a frenzy of interest, and it is no different in the U.S., and particularly California. Unfortunately, as in all competitions, contestants can bicker over the judging, proving koi owners are no different from Little League parents. As one hobbyist said, koi retailers and breeders aren’t the best judges, because they have a natural bias: the best judge, in his opinion, is the hobbyist.

  People who get involved in raising koi soon learn to become amateur vets, because these fish can succumb to a list of diseases that fills thirteen pages in an eight-point-type koi handbook. There is more literature coming out every day in veterinary medicine journals about operating on injured fins and lacerations in the fish’s side. Many hobbyists learn to treat their own fish. Often, antibiotics are put in the water, but sometimes the fish is injected, and bigger fish undergo operations while anaesthetized. This is done by a vet or a trained koi “doctor,” whose numbers are increasing, since all vets don’t choose to toy with koi.

  Breeding is another challenge. One seasoned hobbyist said, “Just don’t do it.” Fish sex is not fun for the female koi, as the males tend to bang her against the side of the pool to flog the eggs out of her body. (Could this be a payback because female koi invariably win at koi shows, being rounder and fuller?) One owner had his lovely lady koi jolted clear out of the pool. The 100,000 or more eggs laid, and the males’ chemical reactions to them, create enormous changes in pool chemistry. That’s why those who do breed koi often use separate holding pools. Next comes the job of culling the thousands of koi fry, mainly for color. This is done periodically until specimens with good color potential remain; however, those full, vibrant colors do not emerge for a while, some at six inches, some not until twenty inches, which is why koi can be so expensive.

  And then there are the heron: they love to eat koi, and are a major threat. Keeping them out of pools is an engineering feat. Many a koi pond in California, especially, will be tented permanently with net, with multiple pools in one California yard making it look like the ingenious roof of Denver International Airport.

  Once you read up on the responsibilities of raising this fish, your choice might be different: even a water garden with a twenty-foot waterfall may look easier! And some pools are no trouble at all, not even requiring a filter if kept in proper balance with oxygenating plants and an appropriate number of fish. There are other splendid fish besides koi, such as the golden orfe, a pretty, smaller variety that always swims with its buddies in schools, likes to leap in the air for the sheer fun of it, and lives more sedately with water plants. They, too, will come when they’re called and eat out of your hand.

  This is, provided that you haven’t already fallen in love with koi.

  Eleven

  “BUT, DEAR, WE KNOW WHAT IT’S like to have children tramping in gardens,” said Tessie. She was absolving Louise as a priest would a sinner in the confessional for not having perfect gardens out back. “You have done quite well regardless. But—” She stopped in mid-sentence and looked around her at the trees, many of them twenty times her height.

  Barbara took advantage of the pause. “I just love your bog garden, Louise. A nice commitment to skunk cabbages. Magnificent, in fact. Did you know Gil uses the western variety for arrangements? He also does fantastic flower arranging, in case you didn’t know it.”

  Louise was distracted from Barbara’s commendation of her swamp plantings by Tessie’s ominous “but” that was left hanging in the air.

  All three women drew closer to Louise, knowing something definitive was coming from Tessie. “But I think all three of us agree, Louise, you should take down some of these trees.” Suddenly, Louise conjured up the scene from a Faulkner novel, the one where black slaves downed huge trees to make a clearing around the Sartoris family mansion in the primitive forest wilderness of Yoknapatawpha County.

  She laughed nervously, hoping they were kidding. “Take down trees?”

  But Tessie’s face was serious. It was if she were asking Louise to kill her own children. Each of these trees was her friend and she knew every knob, gall, and scald spot; why, these trees practically had names. “And, just which trees would you have me take down?” A huge swath, perhaps, down one side of the yard, from in back of the addition to the bog garden? Or maybe all around the house, to encircle it with open space to a radius of twenty feet or so? Her two mature prize yellowwoods, perhaps?

  “There are lots of options, aren’t there, girls?” said Tess, and then described the very scenarios that already were running through Louise’s head. There was no mention of touching the elegant yellowwoods: They were after those sweetgums and swamp oaks, Louise knew, just because they were the indigenous trees and probably not as precious in the eyes of these effete gardeners.

  Donna, seeming to sense Louise’s growing discomfort, tried to smooth things out a bit. “Maybe just a couple of trees nearer the house, to provide more sun for perennials.”

  “Perennials aren’t everything,” Louise muttered under her breath.

  “What did you say, Louise?” asked Donna.

  “Oh, nothing.”

  Tessie, having paid no attention to any of this unimportant conversation, crossed her arms, her brown button eyes thoughtful, “I’d go further than that, Barbara. More than a few trees must go. This yard is a veritable deep woods. It is almost impossible to support any decent amount of perennials.” She shot a glance at Louise, to be sure she was taking all this in. “It’s nearer the house that she needs to do the work. I’d say, take two out of every three down, in a radius of thirty feet.” Throwing out her hands in a magnanimous gesture, she said, “Why, the Eldridges have over half an acre here. They would still have hundreds of trees.”

  Louise was feeling shaky. Was it hunger, was it Jay McCormick’s departure, or was it talk of tree felling that was getting to her?

  She had to speak out and take control of this situation. “Ladies, I appreciate your ideas. Bill and I will certainly think about them—”

  “It is such a shame he isn’t here,” said Tessie.

  “—but right now, let’s go and start dinner. I don’t know about you, but I’m famished.”

  They
went in the house, Tessie looking pointedly at the newly planted santolina, fat and sassy with bright, yellow blossoms. “And just how long have those plants been here?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Just a week.”

  “Not enough sun. They’ll languish and die in a season.”

  Louise sighed and opened the patio screen door and led the way into the house. In the kitchen, she flipped on the radio to All Things Considered on NPR. It being the turn of the half hour, she should hear any breaking political news. When she went to the refrigerator to take out the prepared dinner materials, she heard a click behind her. She turned.

  Barbara, tall, gracious, and as intimidating as Wonder Woman, stood in front of the array of brown bags she had brought in earlier and put on the kitchen counter. She had her hand on the radio dial, haying just switched it off. “Sorry, Louise, can you go watch TV news in the other room? I can’t work with the radio on.”

  “Barbara,” Louise said in a careful tone, “I know you brought some things, but I have a dinner prepared. Tell me what you have, and we’ll work this out.”

  The woman put a hand on Louise’s shoulder. “No, you tell me what you have. Chicken breasts, did Tessie tell me? And vegetables, for stir-fry? No problem. Now, I just want you to show me where a few things are and then you can go sit down with Tessie while I take a half hour or so and make you ladies dinner.”

  Louise wasn’t up for an argument over who would cook dinner, especially when she didn’t particularly love cooking. What the heck, she could turn over her kitchen to a bossy stranger.

  It was a little harder than she thought it would be. After finding out where the corkscrew and other obscurely placed utensils were, Barbara gently shoved her out of the room.

  During all this, Tessie had said nothing, but had found the bar in the cabinet in the recreation room, fetched ice and water in a pitcher, and was ready to offer Louise any kind of drink she wanted. Louise was faint with what her jocular husband called “guest adjustment” those first delicate moments with guests when the hosts found out what they had to put up with. “Why don’t I have a nice stiff vodka and tonic?” She was a poor drinker and knew she shouldn’t drink at all. It gave her headaches, and sometimes altered her perceptions, as she told Bill. Yet who was there to embarrass? Why, these nervy women might even admire her more if she hung one on and told them all off, tree murderers that they were!

  Donna was missing. While Tessie prepared her drink, Louise excused herself and went to hunt down her third houseguest and thwart any evil plans she might have.

  She found her in Janie’s bedroom, which had a large alcove with some sun and therefore housed family plants on glass etageres. Donna was rearranging the plants. Louise gasped at the woman’s nerve; she was a little surprised, for she had thought Donna was a more introverted guest.

  “I know they may not look so good,” the woman apologized, self-consciously brushing her blond hair from her face, “but I just moved them a bit to give them better light.”

  Louise conjured up a patient tone of voice: “I used Bill’s light meter when I arranged these plants, and the differences in light requirements seemed to be insignificant.”

  Donna reached out and touched Louise’s arm in a gesture of repentance. “Louise, it was just an experiment. Let me move them back to their former positions.”

  Louise pressed her lips together. It was a moment of truth: she was either going to hate these women or love them. “Really, it’s okay; let’s not bother. We should go back. Tessie is making drinks.”

  As they passed her kitchen, she gave a nostalgic look in, as if she were someone who had been banned from the premises. “Hi-i,” said Barbara, as she heard them pass. She didn’t bother to turn to them, but simply gave them a little wave with two waggling fingers raised in the air over her shoulder. Her long curly hair was bobbing above a cookbook she apparently had brought with her, for it looked like none of Louise’s. Things were boiling merrily on the stove and the oven was on preheat.

  Louise’s shoulders sank. Talk about being taken over by enemy hordes. Genghis Khan had nothing on these three. She and Donna went to the recreation room, where Tessie awaited her; she was ensconced in the recliner chair, drink and snacks at her side, a stenographer’s notebook and pen in her lap. “Now, Louise, we can’t waste a minute. I want to interview you for the story we’re doing on you as Plant Person of the Year.”

  Two could play this game. “Excuse me a minute.” Louise went and got herself a notebook and pen out of her Windsor desk, collected her vodka and tonic, and sat near Tessie.

  She drank for a moment in silence, thirstier than she thought, downing about a third of the tasty drink. “Okay, Tessie, when you get through asking me questions, can I ask you some?”

  “About?”

  “Everything I don’t know about the Perennial Plant Society, and the perennial plants of the year, and how they’re chosen. And how you people get that way, anyhow.”

  Much later, the Perennial Plant Society people were tucked in their beds and Louise stood alone in the silent living room. Actually, she felt safe and well fed, and was grateful for the company, since Bill was gone and so were most of her neighbors. Nora’s somber warning had stuck in her mind. Though it was easy to discount the spooky side of Nora’s nature during the daytime, it was harder at night, especially with strangers hanging around her house.

  As she went around locking up the house, she couldn’t help giggling. Her three women visitors had taken over house, kitchen, and garden. They had discovered almost everything about her home and yard, including the toolshed and its contents, and the existence of a fake rock near the front door that held a door key. They learned a few things about her husband, her children, and her farming ancestors, including her darling old grandmother. And it turned out these P.P.S. people knew how to clean up a kitchen. They made hers shine as it had never shone before, following a delightful dinner served stylishly at ten on Louise’s best china—an appetizer of delightfully sautéed morel mushrooms, chicken Florentine, a salad with tiny, fresh garden vegetables, plus a tart from heaven: there were ground-up black walnuts in its buttery dough, and it was filled with mangos and fresh apricots.

  She hadn’t worried about Jay McCormick all evening, and before she threw herself in bed at one, she looked out the front window at the Mougeys’ far across the street. The house was dark. Good: The man was getting some rest.

  Twelve

  “YO, LOUISE!” CRIED THE FRISKY John Batchelder, his big smile showing as he waved at her from across the Hilton’s lobby: her cohost was a happy man. She walked over and joined him and Marty Corbin and the Channel Five crew. They had just arrived and were standing with their camera and sound equipment, ready to get to work. She had just done her duty by having brunch with the officers and board members of the P.P.S., hoping they considered her a worthwhile choice for “Perennial Plant Person of the Year.”

  John had been lukewarm about this show, but his spirits revived when he heard from Marty that he was interviewing the koi doctor. Slouching gracefully like a statue of the young David, John looked down at Louise with dark-fringed hazel eyes reminiscent of the young studs roaming the squares of Rome or Florence. “I like this Gil. We got together for breakfast this morning and have things pretty well worked out. I bet I know everything there is to know about koi.” For her part, Louise was glad John would not be accompanying her on the shoot in the exhibition hall, which involved talking about dozens of special plants that growers had brought with them; it would have been awkward to have the two of them exclaiming about every new variety they came across.

  “So, how are your houseguests? Pretty nice people?” In spite of his exotic looks, John was a person from plain midwest origins with plenty of common sense. Illinois was a place where being “nice people” counted. When he broke up with his last girlfriend, Cheryl Wilding, a manipulative Washington TV newswoman, Louise knew that he was on the right track as a human being.

  She gave him
a droll look. “Actually, those gals remind me of you. Remember how you visited our house and suggested we topple about half the trees in the yard?”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t mean to offend. Don’t forget, I come from a place where they don’t exactly have woods. If you like living in a forest, well, hey, that’s your choice.”

  “These women were twice as opinionated as you. Of course, I was supposed to listen, because they’re experts. But don’t get me wrong: I like them. They just have unbelievable chutzpah. On the plus side, one of them cooked a divine dinner, and they made me sit and put my feet up while they cleaned up.” She grinned. “They didn’t want me to be tired and ugly when we taped the program today.”

  “I help clean up, too, Louise, when you invite me to dinner,” he pointed out plaintively.

  “I know, John. And I appreciate it.” She gave him an encouraging smile. He was at the top of his form, just where they all wanted him, ready for a good interview with the fish doctor. Marty, however, was much less good-natured. His dark bushy eyebrows were pulled down in a dark valley of a frown. His brown eyes were wary as he watched her approach. He stepped up to her and put a placating hand on her arm. “Louise, honey, I’ve been thinking things over. I even talked to the G.M. yesterday. This program on the environmental bill—we gotta tread carefully. The G.M. doesn’t like the idea of politicizing Gardening with Nature.”

  Damn. Why did Channel Five’s general manager have to get in on this? “But, Marty, the environment is at the very heart of our program—”

  “Yeah, I know, you’ve said that before.” He gave her his most sympathetic look. “Louise, you know I love ya, and I love your work. Okay, G.M. be G-damned, I’ll go this far: We’ll get a script from our clever Rachel, one that doesn’t fawn all over the President. If we were to rerun this program later in the year, the G.M. doesn’t want us to look like fools if Fairchild loses and the Congress rolls back all these drastic new proposals they just passed.” He shook an avuncular finger in her face. “That’s the problem, my dear, in a nutshell. And it ain’t gonna go away too easily. It’s all up to what Rachel is able to do.”