Banana Rose (13 page)

“Cute, Nell, real cute. But no. You’ll have to live without chocolate if you finish yours.” I grimaced. I already had finished it.

Oh, who cared. I smiled. No brontosaurus had eaten me last night. That was all that mattered.

“Let’s go.” Gauguin put on his shoes.

We followed the stream, which cut a swath of green through land that was mostly rock, arroyo, and cactus. After hiking five miles, we found a good spot to camp under a cottonwood, near a place where the water formed a pool. This would be our base camp and we could hike out to the ruins for a few hours at a time. There was no water near the ruins.

Each morning, Gauguin worked on a song about a waterbug. It was not going well. If he asked me, I would have told him a waterbug was nothing to write a song about, but he never asked me and I kept my mouth shut. I had other things to do. I was drawing airplanes and coloring them in with a box of pastels I had brought. I drew houses the way kids do, with smoke coming out the chimney, and colored tall buildings with many windows. No nature drawings. Nature was too hard to draw. I was just having fun, not caring if what I drew expressed anything deep. I read
Tortilla Flat
while Gauguin sat by the stream and watched waterbugs for inspiration. He watched them real hard and then wrote fast for three pages, hoping something brilliant would flow from his pen. Nothing brilliant came, and he ripped the used pages out of his notebook and balled them up. We used that paper to start campfires.

Near the end of the week, I filled a plastic bag full of water, clasped it with a rubber band, and ventured out by myself into the desert and the unexcavated ruins. The sun was hot, and there was no shade. In the daytime, Gauguin and I wore no clothes, so I was very brown. I put on only my sneakers to go out to the ruins.

The ruins in the back country looked like sand mounds. Cacti grew through the doors and windows of the timeless structures. As I climbed over a fallen wall toward the doorway to a small room, there was the eerie feeling that the ancient Indians were with me, and I wasn’t sure they approved of what a human being had become. I felt self-conscious and wished I had worn clothes. Decades of pale dirt had filled in any square corners. My utter aloneness in the small room scared me and I climbed out quickly.

On top of a buried mound, I found a red anthill. It was the only action in this ghost town, so I squatted down to watch, feeling the sun on my back. Two ants dragged a dead fly up the hill. One lost its half of the fly and ran behind to push. Ants crawled in and out of a hole in the center of the hill. My attention was riveted.

Suddenly, I sucked in my breath. A bit of blue emerged from the center hole, balanced on the back of an ant. I looked closer. It was a turquoise bead—very small with a hole in it, a sky pearl you could string on a necklace. My fingers moved fast. I grabbed it, toppling two red ants. I stood up and stepped away from the hill, holding it in my open palm. It was so small. I groped for a pocket to put it in, but I had no pockets. I was naked. I stuck the bead in my mouth, under my tongue for safekeeping.

I ran most of the way back. I was so excited—I couldn’t believe my find. The ancient people had given something to me. I wanted to show Gauguin. Leaping over a dirt mound, both legs spread in the air like scissors, I swallowed it. It wasn’t big enough to feel go down, but I knew it. I stopped dead. The last of the American Indians, and I had been stupid enough to swallow it. I took a deep breath and walked steadily back to camp, half angry, half foolish, and another half wild—I had ancient turquoise inside me.

Gauguin was by the stream, still watching waterbugs, and his shoulders were burning in the sun. I leaned down over him and pushed him back on the soft dirt, held him by the arms, and stared at him hard. “Forget the waterbugs,” I said. Gauguin was below me, watching. My face elongated into a beak. I had the force of an eagle. I lifted him in my talons, and together we flew over the trees by the stream, then past that, over the ruins, then higher into the blue sky until sunlight obliterated everything. We flew in that light, in circles and half circles, rolling over each other. I could have traveled for a long time, but I lost Gauguin.

He fell to earth, suddenly sat up, and went over to the campfire to make dinner. He stirred the brown rice with a fork, slowly dropping in salt granules from between two fingers. I walked over.

“Banana, I’m sorry, but I feel frustrated about that song. You’re in a different space.” He paused. I was quiet. “Besides, this is it. We have nothing left to eat. I told you we should have carried in more.”

“I’m hungry,” I said. It was my only response.

“Tomorrow, if you want to stay—”

“I want to stay,” I cut him off.

“We have to fast,” he finished his sentence.

“Okay by me.” I was determined.

He turned his back to me. I didn’t bother telling him about the turquoise. I went down by the stream and hunched at its edge, watching the water’s moving light. His disappointment wasn’t going to taint me. It was too good here to let anything bother me for long. Gauguin would get over his snit. I let the air comfort me. It was the best time of day, right before the sun goes down. Cool but not cold, long shadows and a soft quiet in the trees.

“Nell,” Gauguin called. “The rice is almost ready. Want some?”

I hesitated. I walked over to the fire. “Okay.” I nodded and picked up a bowl.

“Of course,” he said slowly, “
I
’ve been saving my chocolate.” He was in a completely different mood.

My face lit up. I forgave him everything. “Gimme!” I reached out my hand and fell from a squat onto my butt.

He shook his head and laughed.

“Gauguin, I will do anything.” Then I tried a new tactic: I looked demure.

Sorry, there’s nothing I will want after dinner more than chocolate.” He grinned.

“Me either,” I said.

After we ate the very last rice kernel in our bowls, Gauguin pulled out his Kit Kat. I forgot he hadn’t gotten a Cadbury, like I had.

I pleaded with my eyes.

“No, and quit looking at me like that,” he said.

He opened the aluminum foil. Four wafers. He broke off one and ate it slowly. I watched and then I grabbed. He blocked me. “Now, now, Rose.” He was cruel.

I knew what a dog felt like. He finished his second wafer, first holding it up in front of me. I sat still. He looked down, paused. “Here, you can have the last two.” He reached out his hand.

I jumped, then stopped. “Let’s share the last two.”

Gauguin was startled. “Okay, thanks,” and we both smiled. He handed me one and we ate them at the same time. “Why, Rose, sometimes I think you’re growing up.” I knew I wasn’t, but I let him think whatever he wanted.

We fasted the next day. “Banana, let’s leave half a day early and have chile rellenos at Sophie’s.” Gauguin was never good on a fast.

“No.” I was resolute.

“Well, well, Miss—excuse me—Ms. Determination,” he said, and we stayed.

The next day, high from fasting and a week of living in the woods, we ran down along the narrow footpaths at the edge of stone cliffs, my lightened red knapsack streaming through the green needles of ponderosa pine, and Gauguin’s white sneakers flopping against the beige and then red earth. The smell of the outdoors went straight into our bodies and stayed there as we hit the old car and dashed out through rutted roads to civilization, to Santa Fe, to Sophie’s.

We sat in the pale blue-green wooden booths, and both ordered chile rellenos with green chile. After the woods, humanity seemed extraordinary. There were forks, napkins, water in glasses, a table to lean our elbows on, and signs spelling out,
MOCHA CAKE, PEACH COBBLER, DUTCH APPLE PIE, CHEESECAKE, HOT FUDGE SUNDAE
. What an amazing thing a human being was! Not only could we bake cakes, we could have posters saying what we baked, and the mere reading of the poster made my eyes water, my mouth go slack.

I thumped my fingers on the blue tabletop and watched plates of food go by. “Maybe I should have gotten enchiladas,” I told Gauguin.

“Naa, Sophie’s rellenos are the best.” He waved his hand. We were both hungry.

I nodded. He was right.

The waitress brought us our plates. “These are hot. Careful.” She held them with potholders and placed them before us.

The green chile poured to the edge of the plate was still bubbling. On the side were pinto beans and Spanish rice.

I reached for a flour tortilla. I put a pat of butter on it, which slid off, leaving a trail of yellow liquid.

“Hey, these are hot,” I exclaimed admiringly.

“Banana, your hands look like monkey paws.” Gauguin watched me tear the tortilla in half.

The white cheese oozed out of the relleno as I cut it with my fork. I used the tortilla to collect it and I also smeared it in the sauce. “Ummm, good.” It was finally in my mouth.

“I wonder how they stuff these?” Gauguin called over the waitress and ordered a cup of coffee.

“Who cares?” I said with another bite in my mouth. “I’m going to get peach cobbler for dessert.” I gulped some water. “This was the best trip I’ve ever had. What was your favorite part?”

“Well, it wasn’t trying to write that damn song about the waterbug. What was yours?” He looked up at me.

“Everything,” I said, feeling the turquoise inside of me.

“G
AUGUIN, YOU’RE NOT
going to believe this.” I’d just returned to the house from a teachers’ meeting at Red Willow. We always had them in late August.

“What?” Gauguin looked up from a magazine he was reading at the kitchen table.

“My mother is flying in this Friday. She arrives on American at 11:35 in the morning. She left a message for me to phone her.”

“Wow!” Gauguin said, and I looked at him expectantly. He smiled. “Hey, I’d love to meet old Edith.”

“Oh, yeah?” I said, raising my eyebrows. “Don’t be too sure.”

“Is she going to stay with us?”

“Are you kidding? Where? No, I’d better make reservations at the Kachina.”

“How long is she coming for?”

“I don’t know. I just got the message. I have to call her. Not too long, I hope. Rosh Hashanah is early this year, so she’ll have to get back.”

“What’s that?” Gauguin asked.

“The Jewish New Year.” I was half out the door and called back, “I’m going to see Blue for a minute.” I had just heard her pickup drive past our house.

“Hey, Blue!” I ran up the hill, waving my hand with the note in it.

She slammed the truck door. “Hey, sugar, help me carry these groceries in.” She handed me a brown bag.

“What’s this?” I asked, as I unpacked her bag on the kitchen table. “Christmas lights—and tinsel? It’s August.”

“Yeah.” Blue was beaming. “I found it in Safeway on sale. I’m going to decorate the whole house.”

“Now?” I almost forgot my mother was coming.

“Sure, and then I’ll take it down before Christmas and give it away.” Blue was very pleased with herself. She hummed as she opened the refrigerator. Blue was always so logical.

“My mother’s coming this Friday,” I said.

Blue held the fridge door open. “What good news! I always wanted to meet her. Does she have pretty eyes like you? Let’s have a party for her.”

“A party?” I asked in disbelief.

“We can ask Neon, Happiness, Tiny—”

“Blue, please. I’m nervous enough. I haven’t seen her in more than a year.” I sat down.

Blue stopped putting cans of dog food away. She blinked her eyes several times and then came and sat down beside me on the couch. “Oh, I get it. Your mother. Well, what’s she like?”

My mother’s plane was two hours late. There had been a thunderstorm in Chicago, and they’d had to circle a long time before they could land. “Nell”—my mother began weeping in my arms—“I thought the plane would crash and I’d never see you again!”

I smiled weakly. “Of course you would.” I patted her back and then took a bag she was carrying. “What’s this?”

“Oh, I brought some things for you. A kosher chicken, Barton’s truffles, Ebinger’s cookies, dill pickles, stuffed cabbage, a challah Grandma made. Some things from the freezer. You’ll see.” Talking about what she brought pleased her. She looked around the Albuquerque airport. “My, this is”—she dug around for the right word—“primitive.”

I smiled. “Well, it’s not Kennedy.”

After we got the rest of her bags off the carousel, we walked out to the parking lot. She squinted, not used to such bright sun. She took hold of my arm and looked out at the Sandias. “My,” she said, “that looks like Israel, in the Negev desert.” She grew quiet.

We stopped for a bite to eat in Santa Fe and continued on through Española and Velarde and then entered the gorge. “My,” she said. “My.” She said that word over and over. New Mexico was a strange place to her. Sage, chamisa, dirt roads, treeless hills, and such open space. She was out of her element. She had no words for what she saw.

“Those houses”—she pointed to an adobe—“they’re made of dirt. And that”—she pointed to the Rio Grande—“it’s not that big. I thought it would be like the Hudson River. And look at that.” There was a white cross leaning off a steep cliff. She bent her head near the windshield to see it better.

We stopped for peaches at the Russian woman’s stand in Rincoñada. She touched the red chile ristras hanging above her head and insisted on paying for the peaches. “My,” she said when we were back in the car and she bit into one. “They’re so juicy and ripe.” I realized I’d almost never seen her outside of Brooklyn.

“My, everything’s so big,” she said, swiveling her head around.

“Yeah,” I said. “I love all the space.”

“Well, we have the ocean back east,” she said defensively. “There’s Coney Island, Jones Beach.” Now she was on a roll. “We have some things. There’s the subways, the
Daily News
, the synagogue, your father and mother, your grandmother and sister. Nell, why don’t you consider coming home?”

Just then, we completed the horseshoe turn below Taos, and Taos Mountain became visible. The plain swept out from it, revealing the distant gorge that looked like a crack in the earth.

“Look,” I said, and nodded my head out at the scenery.