Дэймон Найт - Orbit 13

Plant diseases, virus, bacteria and fungi—the pathogens, in short—were not at all my business at Beltsville. I worked with organic insecticides, but I knew a little about precautions. I divided the seeds into three parts, wrapped one-third in plastic and put them into a screwtop can, sealed it and had Marian lock it in our safety-deposit box. I treated another third the same way and put the tin into a Mason jar at the back of the refrigerator. The last third I soaked in 120° water for an hour, dried, fumigated and coated with a mercurial dust.

I sterilized my potting mixture in the oven. It is a somewhat different mix of vermiculite, sand and peat than is recommended by the University of California. I planted the seeds two diameters deep and waited. I did not attempt to control the humidity in my little greenhouse, but shaded the seeds, assured good air circulation and kept the soil moist.

Germination took twenty-three interminable days with a soil temperature at about 68°. Tomato seedlings emerge in eight days and lettuce in three, cabbage in six days. I became irritable and morose and unlike my usual self. I told a woman at a pot-luck dinner of our ZPG chapter that this preoccupation with sex was a vicarious voyeurism like reading vulgar novels; Marian’s purchase of Portnoy’s Complaint made me wish she had her money back and the writer had the book stuffed—”What is a gunny-budger?” she asked, and I said it was all sublimation, and complained that the success of ZPG would limit births of the very people who should reproduce. Twenty-three days is a long, long time.

When the seedlings did show, I thought of telling my customers I was going to Honoruru, but with eighty-eight percent germination and growth proceeding normally, there was no real need to give my plants hour-by-hour attention. The U.S. standards of germination for the brassicas run seventy-five to eighty percent and the seed had survived my action against the pathogens, though that may have accounted for the long germinal period.

Growth was rapid. Wherever the seeds came from, our location was an approximate region of adaptation. Four weeks after sprouting, I transplanted to the garden. I used ethylene dibromide as a treatment against nematodes and certain soil fungi. I varied the distance between plants from six to thirty-six inches and the rows were five feet apart. I used furrow irrigation. The best fertilizer response was to a liquid fish preparation, 4-10-4, but the five rows with different treatment (and even the check row) showed, in fact, little difference.

Marian’s reaction to this absorbing enterprise was ambivalent. She is not a person to avoid responsibility, but more than once she suggested turning the seed over to a U.S. Experiment Station. She was comme ci comme ca as the oracle at Delphi. And at the same time I noted a resemblance to the goddess Demeter as she looked at the plants, brooding and enigmatic, with a faint mysterious smile and a subtle shift in body stance which I was at that time unable to interpret.

The plants threw up a central shaft, a fluted column on the order of anise but a great deal thicker in relation to height. Leaves occurred at intervals, cupped around the column and tapered to three-fingered lobes at the tips. The root structure was creeping, matted and heavy. The stem and leaves were covered with a natural wax to reduce transpiration, an adaptation to low or variable humidity. Our conditions in the dry hills ten air miles from the ocean seemed to suit them admirably.

“How do you know they’re not poisonous?” said Marian.

I borrowed a mouse from a young acquaintance whose parents’ lawn I tended, and it ate the leaves with no reluctance and no particular enthusiasm. I borrowed a guinea pig and a rabbit for a few days and returned them to their owners in good health. The sap of the leaves had a spicy odor I found attractive, though, once again, Marian’s reaction was mixed.

San Diego County has some good men at the operations Center on Kearney Mesa, but all agricultural experts are necessarily evasive. “There are two thousand named varieties of apples,” the man told me apologetically, “and heaven alone knows how many plants like yours. Are you troubled by bugs?”

“I had some beetles, but no problem. How about a guess?”

“It could be a primitive cabbage or a kind of stem lettuce,” he said doubtfully, and went on to explain that asparagus lettuce had long harrow leaves and a tall, thick edible stem. Not close, and no cigar.

The plants were a foot tall and it was obvious that those at six-inch intervals would be overcrowded, so I cut four of them. I boiled the leaves separately for five minutes until tender. The stalks resembled solid stems of broccoli, except they were a lighter green. Cut up, they took ten minutes to become fork-tender. The cooking fragrance was not cabbagy but something promising, equal to but totally other than celery.

The flavor was distinctive as pepper or parsley is distinctive. The leaves had a sharper flavor, but there was no doubt in my mind that the stalk was the piece de resistance. The texture was between that of artichoke heart and celeriac, the root form of celery. There was a ghost of a sweet, spicy aftertaste, immediately obvious when you took a sip of water.

Marian said, “We might as well go together when we go,” and sampled the portion I served her. She grew very thoughtful and squeezed a lemon on the leaves, and tried the stem with mayonnaise. She ran the tip of her tongue over her upper lip. “I don’t feel like waving my six legs in the air,” she said. “I wonder how it is fresh?” That’s what we had for dessert, with olive oil and vinegar dressing. We did not stay up late that night.

The next morning I slipped out of bed and went to the phone in the kitchen. I called Don Pashard, a doctor friend, who said it was all nonsense: no chemical agent in food can effect a direct physiological reaction upon the genito-urinary tract. Powdered blister beetles are an irritant of the mucous membrane and the individual response varied so greatly, as did the active ingredient of the material, that cantharides was downright dangerous. “Don’t fool around with Spanish fly,” he said. “You might scratch yourself to death. As for the old wive’s tales—no pun—they’re ridiculous—oysters—truffles— avocados. I have a suspicion the Avacado Advisory Council tried that route twenty years ago—a whispering campaign— but the allegation has no base in fact. Harry, there’s no such thing as an aphrodisiac. Except—maybe—a stacked and willing blonde.”

“Thanks—uh—”

Marian took the phone from my hand and cradled it. Her straw-gold hair was touseled. Her lips were full, her eyes heavy-lidded. “Come back, baby,” she said.

An inhibitory factor in our marital relationship has been Marian’s reluctance to consider herself in other than a coldly physiological light, though she abhors the diagrams and step-by-step procedures so popular today. She contends they are revolting. This attitude has been distressing to me, especially when she sniggers at the wrong moments. This peculiarity no longer pertained. Fortunately it was Saturday.

We had a pot luck scheduled the next evening at our house. We developed a system of purchasing entire filets in Tijuana from our general fund, while the hostess provided the other items of the meal. Our ZPG group is heavily larded with gourmets—though in fact they tend to watch their weight—and Marian’s salad and casserole excited their admiration. I had thinned more of the six-inch plantings.

“Out of this world!” said Hazelrigg. He teaches at UCSD.

“What is the special scrumptiousness?” Connie Wechsler is secretary to a corporation, with secretaries under her.

“Or is it a family secret?”