Leslie Silko - Gardens in the Dunes

Edward called the sculpture primitive, but Hattie disagreed; although the clay figures were simple in form, the expression of the mother’s body as she cradled her baby in the arms touched Hattie deeply and she felt a surge of emotion that caught in her throat until tears filled her eyes. The bird goddess loved her baby as fiercely as any mother! Hattie wiped the tears away quickly with the back of her hand. Edward would not understand; he’d think she was ill again. How dare Edward call these Old European sculptures boring or ugly?

Hattie studied the terraces of black gladiolus all around her; the black-reds looked especially striking against the bright blue sky. She would never forget this black garden with its little madonnas, as Laura called them.

Edward knelt on the stone ledge of the pedestal. He examined the terra-cotta inch by inch to note any erosion of the surface or other damage of the slightest to the rare artifact. He noted one questionable spot on the clay of the right breast, but nothing more.

At first Rainbow was uncertain about so many tall black flowers all around, and he gripped Indigo’s shoulder tightly as a breeze caused the black faces of the flowers to bow forward and back, nodding at them. What did the flowers mean by their nods? she asked the parrot. She sat on the bottom step across from the lily tank with the parrot in her lap. She wanted to remember everything she could so she could properly describe the garden to Sister Salt and Mama. She watched Hattie and Edward walk ahead with Laura while she sat with the bird-mask mother holding her baby. I was a baby like that and my mother and my grandmother held me, she told Rainbow; that’s why she wanted to stay there a while longer, though there was another garden yet to see.

As they made their way up the steps from the lily tank to the gateway of the rain garden, Indigo wished she could stay in the black garden longer; she had so many questions about the figures, especially the snakes.

Laura stopped briefly to pull off dried blossoms, while Edward and Hattie walked ahead. Indigo’s heart pounded as she worked up her nerve to ask Laura about the snakes. Were there any snakes here in the garden? A few small green snakes and black snakes, but they were very shy. Indigo looked here and there under the foliage and at the base of the stonework, where a snake might rest in the shade. Laura pushed back the tall stems of the flowers to search too, but they found no snakes.

Laura said when she was a girl her grandmother always kept a black snake in the storeroom to protect it from mice and rats. Indigo smiled; yes, Grandma Fleet always thanked the snakes for their protection — not just from rodents but from those who would do you harm. At the spring above the dunes lived the biggest snake, very old — the water was his.

Laura paused and smiled; they’d caught up with Edward and Hattie, who were waiting at the gateway seated on one of the stone benches that flanked the wall.

“We’ve been exchanging snake stories,” Laura said as she sat down. Indigo let Rainbow climb down her arm to investigate the edges of the stone bench with his beak. He examined the stone very carefully, touching the surface with his smooth, dry tongue to get additional information.

One of Laura’s favorite stories was about a white princess who returned a lost child from the forest to the village. She helped the sick and gave gold coins to the poor. But she had to return to the forest at night.

A man fell in love with the princess and she loved him, but always she returned to the forest at sundown. She warned him never to follow her; others who did were always found asleep at the forest’s edge the following morning.

He promised to honor her wishes, but after some time, her lover became curious. He took food to the blackbirds to ask for help. They told him to tie sprigs of mistletoe berries to his ankles and his wrists first. That night he followed her into the forest; as the twilight slipped into darkness, he feared he would lose sight of her, but the gleam of her fair hair, the white dress, and the pearls gave off a soft glow that seemed to increase with the darkness.

As they approached the middle of the forest, the glow became more luminous and dazzled his eyes — in the center of the brightness she seemed almost to shimmer herself. Then, in a clearing at the edge of lake, she stopped and he heard strange music, a choir of voices, and she began dancing slowly as legions of green snakes and black snakes emerged dancing from the wood. The glow pulsed even brighter and her hair began to glow now with a blinding light. He rubbed his eyes and when he looked again, he realized her hair was a crown of gold, silver, and pearls. On she danced until her very features shimmered, and suddenly he saw the lake’s edge as bright as day, where a giant white snake in a lustrous crown swayed gracefully, surrounded by legions of smaller snakes all dancing with her.

Laura paused to see if her guests wanted to hear more; Indigo nodded enthusiastically with Hattie. Edward deferred to them rather than seem rude; it was an interesting folktale, but he was concerned about how little time was left. He lifted his watch from its pocket by the chain; as departure time neared he could feel his blood stir; the palms of his hands were damp; and the scar on his hand itched. They’d never see the other garden if they sat here listening to fairy tales all afternoon!

After her lover confessed his disobedience, the white princess had to go. At the lake’s edge they said farewell. She stepped into the water and the swirl of her blond hair on the water’s surface became luminous, and then it was a shining crown. At that instant the white snake in her golden crown reared up gracefully out of the water and bowed to him before she disappeared under the water. In her footprints at the water’s edge, her lover found coins of pure gold intended for the poor and sick, who became his life’s work.

Hattie wanted to ask Laura about the luminous glow in the story — so similar to the glowing light she saw that night in Aunt Bronwyn’s garden. She still regretted she had not asked her aunt more about the story of the luminous glow seen in the King’s Bath. There must be other, similar stories Laura might know. But Edward was already on his feet and brushing the back of his trousers, clearly anxious to move on to the rain garden.

Along the walls stood treelike aloes on eight-foot stems, some bearded with dead leaves, others towering on scaly stems the diameter of a man’s torso, while the tallest plants stood ten feet or more. Dozens of species of aloes — an amazing collection made during the time her husband was in Africa — filled the garden terraces.

African warriors, Hattie thought as she gazed at the spiked leaves and the clusters of tiny red-orange flowers that crowned them. Coarse sand the color of ivory replaced the dark Lucca soil in the terraces, and river-smoothed pebbles and fist-size stones, pale yellow and gray, were scattered beneath them. But what caught Hattie’s eyes were the giant clamshells nestled in the sand and pebbles to form shallow basins here and there at the feet of the giant plants. Here and there were conch shells so large Hattie thought they must be from the coast of Africa.

There were no trees even along the wall; the reflected light off the sand and shells was quite intense; here was a garden designed to be seen by the light of the moon or in the cool mist and overcast of an autumn rain. The scent of the first rain on the dry sandstones and aloes must be wonderful. She wanted an aloe garden for Riverside.

Now a breeze stirred; a cluster of fluffy clouds momentarily shaded the sun. Indigo didn’t think this sun felt terribly hot — this sun was nothing like the fiery sun above the river back home. Indigo let Rainbow down from her arm to explore the pebbles and sand while she examined a big spiral seashell with long spines down its back at the edge of the path; when she held it up in both hands its inner layers of blue-violet glowed in the sunlight.