Leslie Silko - Gardens in the Dunes

Hattie took a deep breath and exhaled slowly; then she remarked about the amazing Mediterranean light — the moist atmosphere filtered the light so it was luminous but not burning, as the sun’s rays were in Riverside. Hattie felt so much better now that they were on land again. The vibrant colors of the buildings delighted Hattie and Indigo, who made a game of the colors: umber, sienna, ocher, eggshell, sage, tea, mint — they made up names for the amazing new colors they saw. They saw gardens of every sort, even wild gardens of calla lilies and overgrown grapevines in vacant lots along the streets. Hattie was pleased they planned to visit the wonderful gardens of Aunt Bronwyn’s friend in Lucca before they boarded the boat for Bastia.

While Hattie and Indigo bathed and rested, Edward took a cab to the U.S. consulate for any messages or mail. Ordinarily the walk to the consulate would have been just the tonic he needed, but the old injury to his leg began to ache, though, oddly enough, the leg was not swollen or discolored.

He found a letter from his lawyer in Riverside, and two cablegrams. He tried to appear calm as he tucked the envelopes into his breast pocket and made small talk with the deputy consul about the hot weather. Edward commented that Riverside got much hotter, but it was dry desert heat. He regretted his idle comment, as the deputy consul seemed to welcome the opportunity to ask questions.

Edward smiled. He and his wife and her maid were on a tour of the Mediterranean area for his wife’s health; he thanked the consul again and turned to go before the man asked their destination. The deputy consul clearly relished an opportunity to talk with another American and continued the conversation all the way to the front door. Due to civil unrest since the assassination, U.S. citizens were advised to avoid travel outside of Rome, and certainly not to the south.

Edward felt he must stop and listen politely or his haste might be noticed, and suspicions aroused. The deputy consul remarked the assassinated king was scarcely cold in his grave before political tensions began to rise. Of course, they were quite safe in Genoa; Genoa was an international port of great mercantile importance that all parties to the dispute sought to protect. It almost sounded as if the deputy hoped they’d stay on in Genoa so he’d have Americans to talk to. At the door, Edward shook the deputy consul’s hand and assured him they had no intention of visiting the south.

He did not take the cablegrams from his pocket until he was a distance down the street from the U.S. consulate. He had an unsettling suspicion prying eyes at the consulate knew the contents of the cables. The heat on the sidewalk was crushing; the flimsy paper of the envelope stuck to the moisture of his fingers and left dark smudges. He found a bit of shade around a corner and stopped to rest his sore leg; there were no cabs in sight.

He wiped his hands and then his brow on his handkerchief before he opened the first cablegram, sent two days before the other. It was an odd message from Mr. Grabb, at the law firm that represented Lowe & Company: “Agriculture secretary refuses authorization. Do not proceed. Return at once. Company not liable for expenses after August 18.”

The second cablegram was also from Mr. Grabb; it urged him to contact Lowe & Company at once concerning a trek to the Himalayas to collect specimens of Asiatic lilies. Edward felt light-headed from the heat and the sore leg, and he feared he might not find a cab back to the hotel before he got sick.

Indigo fanned herself and the parrot with a fan of woven palm fiber she found in the room; the two of them played Keep Away with the fan on the floor of the suite, while Hattie wrote a note to Aunt Bronwyn’s friend, the professoressa in Lucca. Hattie realized she would prefer to stop in Lucca and let Edward go without her and the child — the English-language newspaper cited instances of suspected unrest. Her skin felt flushed and moist; her underclothing clung in the most annoying way; she was tired of traveling.

On the floor the child and the parrot were becoming more animated; Rainbow picked up the fan by its handle in his beak and flapped his wings before Indigo heard a loud crunch: Rainbow crushed the fan’s bamboo handle with his beak, and now he took half-moon bites out of the edge of the fan, leaving broken fibers he plucked out one by one. Indigo laughed so hard she dropped from her knees facedown on the rug. Hattie’s annoyance only made Indigo laugh harder because the parrot was able to anger human beings so easily.

Indigo ignored Hattie and invited Rainbow to ride on her shoulder to the maid’s alcove, where she already arranged the bedding on the floor the way she and Rainbow liked it at night. She whispered to Rainbow something was bothering Hattie but not to let that upset him because she was there to take care of him. She shut the door so their new game did not disturb Hattie. The fat feather pillows and bedding made a perfect soft landing for Indigo as she practiced flying off the end of the bed with Rainbow on her shoulder flapping his wings, making gusts of air behind them. She told him about all the crows in the bare branches of the trees along the river, the winter the Messiah came. The Messiah especially loved birds, Indigo told Rainbow. Maybe it was because he and his family and followers flew like birds to travel great distances — even across oceans.

Edward’s appearance alarmed Hattie; he was pale and complained of soreness in his leg, and the heat had left him queasy. He was about to go lie down when he remembered the letter in his pocket from their Riverside lawyer. Mr. Yetwin reported land values were rising rapidly now that the dam and the aqueduct from the Colorado River were under construction. Edward began to feel better as he read this; a new source of abundant cheap water would assure the success of his new citron groves even in dry years when the wells were undependable. But almost immediately the cablegrams came to mind and again Edward felt too warm and nauseous. He gave Hattie the letter and went to lie down.

Hattie skipped over the paragraphs about real estate prices and other business, to learn how Linnaeus and his cat were faring. Mr. Yetwin reported all was well with the house and gardens, though the cook complained the maid spent too much time playing with the monkey and the kitten. Indigo stopped her game to listen.

While he waited for the pills to take effect, Edward listened to Hattie and the child in the sitting room as they chattered excitedly about Linnaeus and the kitten. He did not wish to spoil their fun, so he did not mention it, but cats were known to harbor diseases dangerous to humans, and probably monkeys too. He was grateful to his new friend, Dr. Gates, for the extra supply of morphine pills he gave them in case Hattie suffered another headache or the pain in the leg flared up. Doctors and pharmacies were few and far between on Corsica.

He swallowed each pill with a generous amount of water, and experienced only a little nausea before a luminous glow rose inside him and all pain in the leg subsided. He lay back on his pillow and basked in the bliss; all anxious sensations in his stomach subsided, and his heartbeat and pulse steadied themselves. He heard footsteps and slipped the bottle of morphine tablets from the nightstand into the pocket of his robe; he did not want to worry Hattie.

But the footsteps passed by and no one came. He tried to keep his thoughts focused on the good news in the letter — abundant cheap water. He visualized the aqueduct snaking through the dry gravel flats and greasewood, and the glitter of the moving water in the sun. He had to keep his thoughts restricted to the water in the aqueduct; otherwise the unsettling message of the cablegram intruded and turned his stomach: Return at once. Do not proceed. Authorization canceled.