Leslie Silko - Gardens in the Dunes

Though he could not sleep, still Edward experienced odd dreamlike reveries from the morphine. He followed his father through the groves of oranges and lemons in clouds of heavenly scents as his father plucked handfuls of blossoms into the tin pail he carried. Edward had been only nine years old but he remembered vividly how his father gathered pail after pail of waxy sweet blossoms and carried them upstairs to carefully spread them over the bed in his mother’s room.

Edward remembered that summer vividly because his father set up a separate laboratory for perfumery in one end of the library, where he sat for hours, sipping brandy as he pressed whole dried cloves into dainty Persian oranges to make spicy pomanders that might help capitalize his perfume venture after Edward’s mother refused to fund it further. She did not mind paying his gambling debts because she herself was quite successful at gambling. However, the experiments with citrus perfume were pointless, a waste of money.

Before they parted in Genoa, Dr. Gates prescribed laudanum drops in ginger tea for Hattie. The laudanum permitted her to sleep soundly; after her sleepwalking experience with the odd glowing light and loud knock, she often woke with her heart pounding in the middle of the night. She was reluctant to confide in Edward because it was his nature to demand a rational explanation; he’d call the light she saw in Aunt Bronwyn’s garden a hallucination, and the loud knocking noise hysteria. She feared there were no other rational explanations.

She tried to listen to the tiny voice she called conscience, but strangely she could hear nothing; she did not think she was experiencing a nervous collapse like the first one — she remembered that feeling. No, this time she felt quite different: not unpleasant, but she was concerned because she could not think or reason her way to any certainty about that night in the garden. What presence had she sensed? What presence had occupied her nightmare about the tin mask and Edward?

They were up at dawn for breakfast before the cab to the train station. From Genoa the train took them to Lucca, where Aunt Bronwyn’s dear friend the professoressa met them at the station and graciously invited them to stay with her. Aunt Bronwyn met the professoressa at a museum in Trieste, where their mutual interests in Old European artifacts and gardening persuaded them to travel together for the duration of Aunt Bronwyn’s time on the continent. Of course, they had only five days before they must leave for Livorno and the voyage to Corsica; but Edward agreed the rest would do them good, and Aunt Bronwyn urged them not to miss the professoressa ’s gardens.

Hattie was surprised to discover a woman much younger than her aunt when the professoressa presented herself at the train station in Lucca. Hattie worried Edward might be reluctant, but he graciously accepted her invitation to visit her home in the hills overlooking the town. Hattie was eager to see the gardens the professoressa designed to celebrate her love of Old European artifacts. This would be their only opportunity to stop; once Edward obtained the citrus cuttings from Corsica, they must depart at once for the United States to ensure the survival of as many of the twig cuttings as possible.

Although Edward was anxious to reach Bastia, the stopover in Lucca would give them all a much-needed rest. He was not much interested in the crude stone and pottery figures of the Old European cultures, which he found quite ugly; however, he was interested in the old gardens of the villa. He was curious to see if any of the oldest varieties of Persian roses might be found in an out-of-the-way corner of a terrace or in the family cemetery. Of course he was always on the lookout for old pots of citrus trees on the chance he might see a specimen of the Citrus medica in Tuscany, though the mountainous regions of coastal Corsica suited C. medica best. Edward smiled. Riverside’s climate was ideal for citrus growing, as was the climate of northern Australia where Dr. Gates was from. One day their sweet oranges would outsell all others, and the doctor would produce candied citron for export to Asian markets. Before Dr. Gates parted from them in Genoa, he and Edward arranged to keep in touch to plan a visit in the winter to the site of the meteorite mine in Arizona.

The carriage ride from the station in Lucca to the old villa high in the hills required more than an hour, which passed quite pleasantly for the adults, who discussed archaeological excavations and the citrus known as bergamot, used to make orange water and other perfumes; but Indigo felt ill from the lurching vehicle on the narrow winding road, and she and Rainbow were greatly relieved when the coach stopped outside the golden yellow walls of the old villa.

As the professoressa said, the heat made the walled city unbearable in early August, but here in the hills they were cooled by the steady stream of cool air off the mountains. Though the professoressa was disappointed to learn their visit must be brief due to Edward’s business in Corsica, still there was ample time to show them the restoration of the gardens with her collection of Old European artifacts.

Their rooms had high ceilings richly adorned with frescoes of birds and flowers in lovely delicate colors. Indigo lay on the bed at once to study the painted figures of fluttering gray doves in blue clouds above cascades of white and pale pink roses. The windows were open wide to catch the cool breezes, and the professoressa ’s housekeeper showed Indigo how to tug, tug, tug on the long cords to lower or raise the window cover to keep out insects or the sunlight.

Indigo opened Rainbow’s travel cage and he climbed out to the cage top and flapped his wings. She scratched the top of his head and he ruffled his feathers with pleasure. She looked out the window at the driveway gently ascending the meadow edged with groves of great trees. If this were her place, she would have herds of cattle and sheep graze there.

She opened her valise and took out the green silk notebook with the names of the medicinal plants written in English and in Latin. She took the little pencil that belonged with the notebook and practiced copying the Latin names and the English names on a blank page: monkshood, wolfs-bane, aconite, Aconitum napellus . Aunt Bronwyn had pointed out how the topmost petal on the dark purplish blue flower spike was shaped just like a helmet or a monk’s hood. Indigo drew the long stem of petals, but she had difficulty drawing the top petal so it did not look too large in proportion to the other petals. Below the picture she copied its medicinal uses from Aunt Bronwyn’s list: anodyne, febrifuge, and diuretic. Hattie added these words to her spelling list, so Indigo wrote their definitions right beside them. “Anodyne” is Greek for “no pain”; “febrifuge” she remembered as “refuge from fever.” Hattie told her the English word “febrile” came from the Latin febris , for “fever”; “diuretic” was from the Greek for “urine.” Indigo studied the pencil lines of her sketch before she carefully erased the monkshood petal that was too large, and tried again.

Hattie and Edward’s room was down the hall. Indigo was amazed to see the big bed with a roof and side curtains on a raised platform. The curtains kept out the cold draughts in the winter, Hattie explained. With a roof like that, one could sleep outdoors in that bed. They laughed together, and Edward joined in. He was seated comfortably in the plump armchair with his shirtsleeve rolled up, soaking his injured hand in a basin of warm water.

The professoressa ’s house was full of good spirits; Indigo felt them at once. She could tell Laura was kind because her eyes did not shift away when she saw Indigo with the birdcage. Rainbow relaxed his grip and Indigo lifted him off her shoulder and set him gently on her lap, petting his head constantly until he allowed her to cradle him in her arms on his back like a baby. She watched his pale yellow eyes watch her anxiously as his body remained poised to spring away from trouble. She loved how he made her smile even when she was sad. She missed Sister and Mama; were they together now? Hattie was very kind to her but she missed her sister and mother so much.