Gardens in the Dunes (62 page)

“Yeah, be quiet!” Sister Salt warned them. “Don't spoil the cards for me!”

So in silence they leaned close to watch Delena lay down the cards; each time the Bell upside down did not appear, Sister whispered thanks to the old ancestor spirits. When the last card went down and no overturned Bell appeared, she exhaled deeply, her heart pounding.

Delena studied the ten cards for a long time before she began to read them. The skeleton, Death, the first card, was gracefully covered by the Flowerpot of red blossoms, and both were crossed by the Sun. This looked very promising, indeed, she said, and both twins patted Sister on the back enthusiastically. La Muerte has a good
dicho
, she told them: “ ‘Death's here, death's there'—that's nothing unusual. That's the way life is; it means some sort of change.”

The
dicho
of the Flowerpot said, “One born in a flowerpot does not leave the room”; this was a reminder each being had its limits. “Cover for the poor” was the
dicho
of El Sol, the Sun card; all the poor have over their heads is the Sun, but that is enough because the Sun is a mighty presence. The Sun card might also be read as the Son of the God who shelters the poor in the world. This was among the best cards in the deck.

Sister was so happy to hear this, she leaned down to kiss the little sleeping grandfather on both cheeks.

Following those three cards was the Spider's Web, which indicated a struggle but also one who refused to give up. The Web might look delicate but it wasn't weak and didn't give back anything entangled in it. The Cooking Pot card overturned meant some upset or trouble, but the
dicho
said it was “little”—the Spider's Web more than balanced the Pot upside down. Sister wondered if this Cooking Pot card had anything to do with the big dinner Candy was preparing for the boss and his friends.

Above all these cards was the lovely card La Estrella, the Star. “The shining guide of the sailors” was its
dicho
, and it was the most important—it meant Sister would find her way back to her sister.

The Watermelon card—a fat slice cut from the ripe red fruit—came up again for Sister, with its tidings of abundance and success. Sister recalled the delicious melons they shared from the old gardens, and the wild melons she ate the day the little grandfather was born.

The Apache card above the Flag card and the overturned Rooster card meant the people hiding in the mountains from the soldiers would escape destruction. This was the only time Delena looked up from the cards to smile and nod at them. Sister knew she was thinking of the people in the south where she had come from, as well as the Messiah and the dancers here.

“The last card is the most important of all,” Delena said, tracing her finger over the ocean blue of La Sirena, the Mermaid. As Delena recited the
dicho
—“Don't get shipwrecked by siren songs”—Sister realized it was some kind of warning; but when she asked her, Delena only shrugged. Maybe the card wasn't hers; maybe it was Big Candy's.

Edward was shocked, but he did not protest after she booked separate cabins and shared hers with Indigo. He wanted to explain, but each time he started, Hattie shook her head and turned away from him. There was nothing to explain. It did not seem to occur to him she wanted apologies, not explanations.

She occupied herself with Indigo; they were reading about gladiolus and they'd nearly finished the book of Chinese monkey adventures. There were moments when she forgot about the arrest, but then the awareness swept back over her, and she scarcely noticed the sun's warmth against her face or even the refreshing ocean breeze. Sometimes she experienced an odd breathlessness while resting and could think of nothing else but the poor giant beetles suffocated under their bell jars at the Natural History Museum. Behind the glass she felt nothing, yet all was visible.

She experienced strange dreams that took her back to Laura's garden of aloes and sand, where she was alone but did not miss the others or wonder where they were. Variations of the dream took her to Laura's wild forest, where she always felt fearful alone and turned and ran back, to awaken bathed in sweat and shivering. She slept a great deal on the return voyage—often twelve hours each night. Awakening was the most difficult because she forgot and was happy for a moment before she remembered Edward's treachery; then her heart raced and she felt her spirits sink into her stomach, where the flutter stirred a vague nausea. Fortunately she had
Indigo along to remind her here was an opportunity to rearrange her life's priorities. She scarcely thought of her thesis now; it was already part of another life, and another person, not herself.

After she refused to hear his explanations, Edward assumed Hattie simply wanted to put the incident behind them, and made no further mention of it. Though he was initially stunned by his arrest, his shock gave way to an odd sense of relief as if some dreaded task were now over. He was confident his contacts in the Plant Industry Bureau would persuade the customs authorities in Livorno to drop all charges. He was weary of plant collecting for others when the large profits lay in the propagation and sale of hybrids. Already he was developing a new plan.

The customs authorities seized all the twig cuttings, but Indigo was delighted to discover all the cloth sacks of gladiolus corms were intact; she'd counted them before and not one was missing. Likewise, all the little envelopes of seeds from Aunt Bronwyn and those from Laura were safe; and even she found the cloth bag of green and yellow feathers she saved whenever Rainbow dropped them. Now they were moving west with the sun, and Indigo began to feel a stir of excitement each morning when she woke: going home! Rainbow seem to sense it too, because he began to call her as soon as the sun rose. While Hattie sat motionless in the deck chair or slept in the cabin, Indigo talked to Rainbow about where they were going, and about their real home. First they had to return to Riverside to get Linnaeus and for Hattie to contact the boarding school superintendent. Then they'd all go on the train to Needles together; Hattie promised to hire a driver and buggy for the two of them to search for Sister Salt and Mama until they both were found. Rainbow would have to be patient and get used to Linnaeus little by little. When they got to Needles, both of them must stay close to Indigo at all times or someone might steal them or a golden eagle or big hawk might carry them away and eat them.

They enjoyed lovely weather over the Atlantic crossing; the days were sunny and clear, and they encountered no storms, only light rain showers. The fair weather had a tonic effect for Edward, though it did not seem to cheer Hattie much.

When they stopped to refuel in St. Augustine, Edward wired Susan and Colin to propose a final settlement of the estate, and a cancellation of all his indebtedness to them. The citrus groves around the Riverside house would be sold at once, but he proposed to lease the house from Susan and Colin until his new prospects began to pay dividends.

In New Orleans, Hattie and the child rested at the hotel before their departure on the train the next morning. Thoughts about the details of his new plan left him restless; were it not for this restlessness they might have stayed a few days in New Orleans, time enough for his sister and her husband to wire him their response to his offer. He sent a telegram to his new business associate, Dr. Gates, at the Albuquerque address he gave. Then, out of habit, he walked to the waterfront to search out curios and oddities and, of course, unusual plants.

Among pallets of green bananas on the dock, Edward saw pallets of burlap bags of vanilla beans, then noticed a pallet of bundles with delicate green stems pushing heroically through the burlap. On impulse he lifted a bundle from its pallet for a closer look. Here were dozens of Guatemalan orchids—robust specimens of
Brassavola nodosa
with huge white birdlike blossoms of a heavenly fragrance. They'd be just the orchid to win over the public. Sun priests of the Maya reputedly held the orchid sacred because it invariably bloomed on the autumnal equinox. Flowers of the gods! He could imagine the ads in magazines now. He was in such high spirits he bought bunch of bananas for Indigo to take to her monkey. He had to hire a cab to bring him and his purchases back to the hotel.

Hattie took one look at the orchids and bananas and thought perhaps he was suffering a breakdown of some sort, as Edward excitedly described the palletload of fifty
Brassavola
plants he'd managed to buy. She did not ask what he planned to do with the orchids because with Edward all comments led back to explanations, and she did not have the energy to listen to him then.

After he left to supervise the packing of the orchids for tomorrow's departure, Hattie ordered a simple dinner—split-pea-and-ham soup and bread, brought to the room for her and the child. When Edward returned later, he asked if they would like to dine with him, but Hattie merely shook her head and turned back to the child's sketchbook; Indigo's drawings of the parrot and her sketches of gladiolus blossoms in color pencil were quite wonderful. Together they'd begun to read an English book about gladiolus culture that Laura sent along. There was a wonderful description of the first time a European saw the thousands and thousands of violet-and-white flower spikes of the wild gladiolus flourishing in the coastal desert of North Africa. Indigo began a sketch of the scene as she imagined it, but fell asleep with the sketchbook and white and purple pencils
in her bed. Hattie carefully retrieved the sketchbook and the pencils, then pulled the bedcovers over the sleeping child. She was ashamed to admit that some part of herself hoped that Indigo was an orphan, that her mother and sister would not be found.

After a meal alone in the hotel dining room, Edward returned to his room, which adjoined the room Hattie shared with the child. He saw light from under the door but it was extinguished almost at once, as if Hattie heard him. She was exhausted from travel now, but after they got home and she had a chance to rest, he was confident she would understand.

Hattie and Indigo shared one sleeping compartment while Edward shared his compartment with the orchids he dared not trust to the baggage car. As the train left the coastal plain outside Houston, he sprinkled each plant once lightly with water, though rot was more of a threat to these plants than drought. He wanted to optimize their survival rate so he would have plenty of breeding stock. Though he still could not bear the heavy scent of gardenia or honeysuckle since his father's funeral, the night scent of the
Brassavola
was so subtle and refined he could inhale it with pleasure. The orchid's flowers resembled exotic white birds, wings spread in flight. He would create his own fragrant orchid hybrids to sell to florists from Los Angeles to San Francisco. The
Brassavola nodosa
with its dark green sticklike leaves was used to heat and occasional dry spells; it would tolerate the heat and dry air during shipping more easily than the hybrid
Cattleya
found now in florist shops.

His plan was to ship florists the
Brassavola
blossoms, plant and all; later, when the blossoms ended, the customer returned the plant to him. As Hattie listened to his new plan she realized a quality of tone in Edward's voice had changed or perhaps her hearing changed. She no longer recognized the connection she'd once felt with him, perhaps because she no longer trusted her own judgment. The glowing light in Aunt Bronwyn's garden and the disembodied mask she dreamed seemed more real now than her manuscript or her marriage.

Indigo was delighted with Edward's gift for Linnaeus, and while she let Rainbow get a closer look, she was careful the parrot did not take a bite. The fruit was so fragrant and each day she watched the color of the smooth green skin change ever so slightly. She could hardly wait to see her dear little friend again and to give him the wonderful gift.

The days were still hot as the train left El Paso, but already the nights were cool; the days were growing shorter now. She and Hattie continued their geography lessons with the map, and Indigo counted the days, then
the hours, before they reached Yuma. She missed her best chance months ago in Needles; this train they were on followed a southern route through Yuma; Indigo didn't know her way around Yuma.

The moon was low in the sky; its first quarter shone brightly through the window of the compartment onto the bananas on the seat; in the strange light they reminded her of a giant severed hand. She could hardly wait to see Linnaeus to give him his gift. Just as she was going to sleep, she felt the train slow and heard the conductor call out, “Yuma.” Hattie did not stir despite the jerks and creaks of the train. Rainbow slept with his head tucked under one wing; she thought she saw one eye open at her from under the wing, then he went on sleeping. If she wanted to get away, here was her chance. She pressed her face against the coolness of the window glass: the sandy hills approaching the river were a dark blue silver from the moon. She tried to see if she could locate the place where the Indian police held her and the other children—the last place she had seen Sister Salt—but all that seemed so long ago; she recognized nothing. She looked at the bananas again—she promised Linnaeus she'd come back. How could she leave Rainbow behind? Yet she couldn't jump off the train with him; he might be killed. Tears filled her eyes, and she felt swallowed by loss—Mama, Grandma, and Sister—all over again. Hopelessness paralyzed her and despite the voice in her head that told her to go now, hurry, before the train picked up speed, she did not move.