Leslie Silko - Gardens in the Dunes

The next day Laura put them on the train to Livorno, but only after she got promises from them to come stay with her again. She gave them a card with instructions how she might be reached in case they needed her assistance.

♦ ♦ ♦

By the time the train reached Livorno, Edward’s face appeared pale; was he ill? Oh no, he quickly answered, he was only a bit tired. He’d not slept well the night before, he said, but managed a smile for Hattie. Actually he’d barely slept at all; after he managed to fall asleep, he woke shaken and wet with fear from a nightmare about giant African snakes in their bed. Perhaps in her sleep Hattie flung her arm over his shoulder to set off the bad dream.

Of course, all the snake figures he’d seen in the rain garden the previous afternoon were bound to affect his dreams, though yesterday’s terra-cotta snakes were small and European. It seemed more likely the nightmare stemmed from an anecdote Laura told the evening of their arrival; as she showed them around the house, she repeated an old rumor — almost a local legend by now. The foreigners who previously owned the villa kept giant African snakes in the wine cellar, then later abandoned the snakes there. According to the story, the great pythons found their way into the foundations of the villa, where they subsisted on rodents and feral cats. Laura reiterated there were no pythons or any other large snakes on the premises; nonetheless Edward dreamed a giant snake embraced him around the shoulders.

The train’s arrival in Livorno stirred his blood, and the fatigue dissipated; he felt a tingle of anticipation and excitement; at last he was on the threshold to Corsica and the Citrus medica twigs that would free him entirely from debt and secure his share of the family estate. Financial improvements brought other changes as well; actually, the improvement already began on board the ship to Genoa with his acquaintance with Dr. William Gates of Melbourne and a possible investment partnership in meteor ore; the C. medica twigs were to be his collateral. It all would work out very nicely; he knew Hattie wanted to go to Arizona to determine if the child had any living relatives, and Dr. Gates’s meteor crater was only a few hours by train from Flagstaff.

As soon as they were settled in their hotel, Edward took a walk to reconfirm their reservations on the steamship to Bastia the next morning. He wanted no errors or delays; he double-checked to calm his nerves. He was careful to avoid the U.S. consulate lest he be noticed by the authorities there. He was counting on the inefficiency of the civil servants at the Agriculture Department and Mr. Grabb’s busy schedule to give him enough time to carry out his plan. They would assume his reply to their cables had been lost but he would turn back as they had directed; he’d never given them any reason to assume otherwise. Time was of the essence now.

Livorno was a port city, but the downtown area was somewhat low lying and did not always get the breezes off the sea in August. Edward was hot and little out of breath when he reached the steamship office, but an alert young clerk immediately brought him a chair and a glass of water. Edward complimented the clerk on his excellent English, and the young man bowed modestly, replying he had lived two years with an uncle in Chicago.

The reservations for tomorrow were all in order; the clerk carefully printed out receipts good for passage for the three of them. The old injury to the leg was acting up, and the clerk was so hospitable, he sat a while longer. The clerk said he was grateful to have this opportunity to practice his English with an American; British visitors usually declined. Perhaps it was the clerk’s friendliness or simply the heat that caused him to ask about the citron industry. He regretted his indiscretion almost as soon as he spoke, then decided he was silly to worry; the Italian clerk was harmless.

The clerk was quite knowledgeable about the citron since the export of pickled citron rind was primarily from Livorno. As it happened the clerk also knew a good bit about the processing of the Citrus medica from raw rind to candied spice. Edward was pleased to point out that in the United States, candied citron had become one of the most sought after spices for Christmas plum puddings and those rich wedding cakes guests took home to dream on.

Edward listened with great interest to the clerk’s description of the brine tanks used to rot the thick-skinned rinds before it was candied. All this information would be invaluable for Edward’s future work with the citron. He promised to send the clerk the recipe for Christmas fruitcake before he excused himself and thanked the clerk for all the information. The man expressed his regret Edward and his family were departing so soon; otherwise, he might have arranged a tour of a citron processing shed.

Edward felt the ticks of the clock drawing him closer and closer to his destiny; he had no appetite at dinner. Afterward, while Hattie wrote and the child and parrot played on the floor, he tried to concentrate on a review of cutting slips from twigs but found it nearly impossible to concentrate.

Hattie wrote Laura a note of thanks for her generous hospitality and for the wonderful opportunity to see the rare artifacts in their lovely garden settings. She regretted the haste that compelled them to depart so soon, but she hoped to return to Lucca soon.

The child and Hattie slept soundly, but he tossed and turned; a nauseous sensation and pounding of his heart continued until he got up and found the paregoric. He was about to possess the first slips of C. medica out of Corsica! His future depended on the rough-skinned citrons, those ugly little lemons! He tipped the brown glass bottle and tapped its bottom and managed to get a good dose without opening the last bottle. They must find a pharmacist as soon as they returned from Bastia. He lay back on his pillow and floated away in a glow.

The next morning, while the luggage was taken downstairs and Edward and Hattie completed last-minute details before checkout, Indigo played with Rainbow out on the balcony in the fresh air off the ocean and the bright sunshine. Her head over her shoulder, Indigo loved to watch him spread both wings above her like a mighty eagle; as she ran, she felt the weight of his strong little body lift off as his wings flapped harder, but he did not release his grip on her shoulder. Indigo knew he was too smart to let go because his clipped wing feathers wouldn’t carry him. They were having so much fun she did not want to stop although she could see Edward and Hattie were nearly ready to go. She didn’t want to put Rainbow in his travel cage until the last moment. She turned to make a last run with Rainbow up the long balcony when she felt the breeze off the ocean suddenly rise against her face, and an instant later, Rainbow lifted off her shoulder in the wind and landed in the top branches of the big chestnut tree in the hotel garden. Indigo could tell by his expression he was surprised, then delighted to find himself free in the top of the tree. Indigo called his name and he looked at her, but she could see he was much more interested in the tree. She watched him climb, rapidly using his feet and beak, and by the time she ran to tell Hattie, the parrot was no longer visible.

Down in the hotel garden, a small crowd of staff and a few curious gathered around the tree to crane their necks and point up. Hattie stood with her hand on Indigo’s shoulder and tried to reassure her the parrot could not go far with clipped wings; someone would find him and return him. The head gardener boosted one of his assistants into the lower branches and he disappeared up the center of the great tree. More people gathered to watch the man in the tree. Edward noticed even the cabdriver and the hotel porters stopped loading the luggage to look up at the tree.