Gardens in the Dunes

by Leslie Marmon Silko

  Hours later, after Hattie was asleep, Indigo began to feel an odd pressure in her ears and head; then her stomach began to feel unsettled. The pressure in her head tightened and suddenly she was about to vomit. She woke Hattie, who sent for the ship’s doctor and ordered a basin of ice water and wet cloths for Indigo’s forehead. Give the child a day or two and she’ll get her sea legs, the ship’s doctor advised after he administered syrup of paregoric. By morning she only felt worse.

  While Hattie cared for the seasick child in one cabin, Edward retired to the other cabin to review his notes on citrus culture, especially the procedures for rooting slips cut from trees. He needed to know the best way to pack the citron slips he obtained for their long journey.

  A day later the seas were calm and the sky was bright blue, but Indigo still felt every slow-rolling motion of the ship. Hattie coaxed her to swallow lemon water and plain bread. Throughout her seasickness, Indigo insisted the parrot’s brass cage be kept in the corner of her bunk near her feet; even when she was nauseous, Indigo never failed to remove the cage cover in the morning and replace it at night. She found if she talked to the parrot the nausea wasn’t as bad. Indigo told the parrot all about Mama and Sister Salt and the old gardens where Grandma Fleet rested next to her little apricot trees to nourish them.

  The parrot did not seem interested and sometimes tucked his head under his wing while she talked. She knew the parrot was upset to leave its home to be bounced around in a small travel cage. Worse yet, before the parrot was put into the travel cage, Susan directed the gardener to clip the bird’s wing feathers to prevent the bird from flying away. One feather bled and had to be plucked. The parrot blamed Indigo; she could tell by the expression in his eyes.

  Fortunately Mrs. Abbott sent along a two-pound tin of ginger cookies, which, with weak tea, were all Indigo could tolerate in her stomach. The parrot did not touch his fruits or seeds, so Indigo fed him bits of ginger cookie, careful to keep her fingertips well clear of the sharp curved beak. Even in the dimness of the ship cabin, the parrot’s feathers were brilliant, almost as if they glowed with their own light. Only in a rainbow had Indigo seen such shades of emerald, turquoise, yellow-gold, and blue.

  When she felt better, she opened the cage door, but the parrot only gripped the perch tighter.

  “Look, I won’t hurt you,” she said, holding out both hands palms-up to show she meant no harm. The parrot ignored the open cage door, so Indigo left it ajar and opened the book Hattie had been reading to her earlier, stories of the old British Isles, stories about the dun cow and the fairy dog. There was a picture of the dun cow encircled by curious standing stones on the hill where she appeared one day when the people were starving. The dun cow promised each family a bucket of milk every day if the people agreed to take only one bucket each. But a greedy person who thought no one would notice began to fill a second bucket, and when he did, there was flash of lightning and the dun cow disappeared.

  As Indigo turned the pages to find the next picture, she glanced over at the parrot cage and saw the bird had climbed out and was sitting on the cage top. Delighted, Indigo put down the book and began to talk to the parrot to try to coax him to come to her, but the bird wanted no part of her. He fluffed and preened his feathers while he refused to obey, so Indigo turned back to the book and the picture that showed the arrival of the white fairy dog just as the family hurried off to bed. In the picture was evidence the family had been sitting around the fire, enjoying the evening—a man’s pipe was still lit on the table; a child’s doll and toy ball lay in the middle of the floor. The family had dropped everything to prepare the food, drink, and fire for the visitors about to arrive. In the story, the family could hear the fairies, but the only one they could see was the white dog. Indigo was enjoying the details of the picture, picking out everyday objects she recognized, when she glanced over at the top of the brass cage but saw no parrot.

  Immediately she regretted opening the cage door; just because the bird couldn’t fly didn’t mean he couldn’t walk or climb. She wanted to give him his freedom because she was his friend, but now he was gone. She looked carefully in every corner and behind every valise and trunk; just as she began to despair, she thought she saw Hattie’s calfskin train case move in the closet alcove. There he was with his beak on the corner of the case. Indigo knelt to pull the case away from the parrot and felt a sharp prick in her left knee. Scattered on the floor near the train case were small brass tacks that used to decorate the leather; the appearance of the case was ruined! Indigo pushed the train case to the back of the closet and began to try to lure the parrot back into the cage. Although only six ginger cookies remained, Indigo broke one in half and put half inside the open cage. The parrot hesitated as if he knew she planned to close the cage door the instant he went inside, but the piece of ginger cookie was irresistible. The parrot ignored Indigo and nibbled the cookie as she shut the cage door.

  She sat on the floor beside the cage and watched the parrot.

  “How do you like the name Rainbow?” she asked. The parrot looked at her steadily, and daintily trimmed its claws. The parrot book in the Abbotts’ library had color pictures of wild parrots in jungles surrounded by great trees and lovely flowering plants. The parrot was so far from his beautiful home; no wonder he didn’t want to speak!

  Sometimes Indigo woke in the middle of the night and could not remember where she was—the smell of burning coal caused her to confuse for a moment the steamship with the train—but then she’d feel the roll of the ship and see the outline of the parrot’s cage and she knew immediately where she was. Sometimes in the middle of the night when she woke and reached for the glass of water she saw the parrot watch her. She whispered to the parrot about his family—Edward said the parrots lived in large families in giant dead trees deep in the rain forest. Indigo talked to the parrot about how she imagined the baby parrots played hide-and-go-seek with one another in the big tree. She pulled the blanket up over herself and the parrot cage to form the safe, cozy nest Indigo imagined for the parrots. She pretended she and the rainbow bird were baby parrots in the nest together and all their older sisters and brothers, all their grandfathers and grandmothers—everyone was there with them in one towering tree.

  The ship encountered more rough seas, and they discovered that Indigo felt the seasickness less sharply when Hattie talked to her or read her a story. They discussed what Linnaeus and his kitten might be doing right at that moment; scampering up the wisteria in the glass house perhaps. As the ship rolled, sweat broke out on Indigo’s forehead; she asked Hattie please to read more of the adventures of the naughty Chinese monkey born from stone.

  Already the Chinese monkey was up to mischief, taking bites from the apples of longevity, stealing the golden pills of immortality and gobbling them down with the special wine for the banquet of the immortals; Heavenly King Li sent heavenly soldiers to trap the monkey on Flowers and Fruit Mountain. Indigo leaned back against the pillow with her eyes closed. The seasickness began with a swelling pressure in her ears that ached throughout her head. She wanted Hattie to go on and read the story of the capture of the rebellious monkey by the Buddha. The capture alone took five pages, and Hattie began to tire.

  “Monkey refused to believe what he saw and was just about to jump away when Buddha turned the fingers of his hand into five mountains, which buried the rebellious Monkey.” Hattie paused and glanced to see if the child was asleep; but just then Indigo’s eyes opened wide and she said, “Don’t stop now! The monkey is buried under five mountains! Read how he gets away!”

  The rolling of the ship had subsided and Indigo’s face was not as pale; Hattie glanced at the pages ahead and shook her head.

  “Monkey doesn’t seem to escape for at least six pages—it’s too late to read it now. Tomorrow,” Hattie said, firmly closing the book.

  “Good night, and sweet dreams.”

  “Sweet dreams,” Indigo replied.

  She tucked the covers around Indigo and kiss
ed her forehead. The parrot’s head was tucked under its wing but a glittering eye watched as she put out the light. It was after nine so she did not disturb Edward in the adjoining cabin, but she did not feel like going to bed quite yet. During the afternoon she felt an odd lethargy that slowed her motions and demanded her conscious effort to climb the steps to the ship’s dining room. She recognized the feeling at once: it was that old companion of melancholy, inertia, which the doctors blamed on her reading and writing and lack of exercise.

  When she was first stricken, the doctors mistook her lethargy for a more serious illness; fortunately her introduction to Edward at the ball banished the symptoms. Surely the melancholy had not returned!

  How ironic if the malaise were to return during their visit with Aunt Bronwyn. In the months she suffered most from melancholy, the letters from her grandaunt had meant a great deal to Hattie. Aunt Bronwyn followed the latest theories of the mind and emotions, and it was her observation Hattie’s illness could be cured if she completed her thesis. After the announcement of their engagement, Hattie’s melancholy lifted and she was reluctant to return to the notes and manuscript for fear the anxiety and hopelessness might reoccur. Once or twice during Edward’s absence a fatigue tried to take root, but Hattie warded it off with cool baths and green tea. Since Indigo’s arrival, Hattie felt so fit and was in such good spirits she assumed herself cured. After travel and a visit with one’s family, fatigue was not unusual, but Hattie also felt a vague discouragement that she could not articulate, a feeling similar to the one that preceded her illness before.

  She summoned all her energy to break free of the heaviness in her limbs to pick up the portfolio. She did not open it at once; the very sensation of its weight in her hand brought back vivid memories. So much had seemed possible in the beginning; Hattie took pages and pages of notes—copying entire sections of Dr. Rhinehart’s translations. She shuffled through the pages of notes until she found the quotations from the Coptic manuscripts she intended to use to illustrate her thesis. Here it was! the passage that had excited her so much, and inspired her thesis—the same passage that caused such consternation on the thesis committee:

  I was sent forth from the power,

  and I have come to those who reflect upon me,

  and I have been found among those who seek after me.

  Look upon me, you who reflect upon me,

  and you hearers, hear me.

  You who are waiting for me, take me to yourselves.

  And do not banish me from your sight.

  And do not make your voice hate me, nor your hearing.

  Do not be ignorant of me anywhere or any time. Be on your guard!

  Don’t be ignorant of me!

  For I am the first and the last.

  I am the honored one and the scorned one.

  I am the whore and the holy one.

  I am the wife and the virgin.

  I am the mother and the daughter.

  I am the members of my mother.

  I am the barren one

  and many are her sons.

  I am she whose wedding is great

  and I have not taken a husband.

  I am the midwife and she who does not bear.

  I am the solace of my labor pains.

  I am the bride and the bridegroom,

  and it is my husband who begot me.

  I am the mother of my father,

  and the sister of my husband

  and he is my offspring.

  How naive she had been to think her thesis topic would be approved! Hattie could smile now, but at the time of the committee’s decision her entire world seemed to have come apart, especially after the dreadful encounter with Mr. Hyslop! Hattie had planned to continue auditing classes until term’s end at Christmas, but the morning following the encounter, the symptoms appeared.

  The doctor was called, and with one look he pronounced her condition female hysteria, precipitated by overstimulation. He prescribed complete rest and above all no books. Hattie refused to give up all books, but she no longer had the heart to read early church history; it was obviously incomplete, and the orthodox church had no intention to ever acknowledge the other gospels. But now she felt as if she were reunited with an old friend as she shuffled through the pages. She felt the old excitement stir; she wanted to learn more about the Illumined Ones, those to whom Jesus appeared and whom he instructed in secrets not revealed to the bishops or cardinals or the pope himself.

  The parrot’s damage to the train case was not discovered until Hattie began to pack her toilet articles, and by this time they were only a few hours from docking in Bristol. They were in sight of land, and Hattie was so relieved at their safe Atlantic crossing she only laughed when she saw how carefully the parrot removed the brass tacks.

  “Oh it’s easily repaired,” Hattie said when she noticed Indigo’s stricken expression. “Odd how it happened. I don’t remember the train case being near the birdcage.” They were about to dock in Bristol, where they’d take the train to Bath.

  Edward gathered the notes he made from his reading about citrus horticulture. He lingered over his notes on the pome-citron, as the Citrus medica was known. The largest groves were in Corsica, but the authorities there were wary of foreigners who might be agents of foreign governments seeking to cash in on the growing popularity of candied citron rind. Agents for Lowe & Company reported the best specimens of Citrus medica were to be had in the mountain villages outside Bastia.

  Aunt Bronwyn insisted on meeting them in Bristol for the short train ride to Bath. She was the same Aunt Bronwyn Hattie remembered, jolly, bright blue eyes enlarged by the thick lenses of her glasses. She was anxious to get out of Bristol—too much coal smoke and dust, too much noise in the streets.

  Hattie watched Indigo’s grip on the parrot’s cage tighten as she was introduced to Aunt Bronwyn, but the child seemed to relax after Aunt Bronwyn praised Rainbow’s beauty. Indigo leaned back on the wide leather seat and clutched the parrot cage tightly as the coach lurched through the port traffic. She had a feeling Aunt Bronwyn was going to be fun to visit.

  From time to time she caught glimpses of the waterfront—so many tall ships, so many coaches and freight wagons in the streets. The noise and smoke and the odors of cooking food resembled those in the streets of New York City, except here the overcast sky and high thin clouds reminded Indigo of winter.

  Ah, the great port city of Bristol astride the river Avon, Edward thought as he scanned the docks where workmen unloaded bales of cotton and pallets of lumber. The cab passed the wide doors of a large building where people and carts of raw wool darted in and out.

  “What is it?” Hattie asked, noticing Edward’s attention to the wool market building. Aunt Bronwyn took one look and guessed immediately.

  “The site of the old slave market,” Aunt Bronwyn said, watching Edward’s expression. “No great English port city was without its slave market.” The slave market in Bristol had been one point of the golden triangle of world trade. Ships sailed out of Bristol Harbor with English textiles, tin, and glass for the coast of West Africa, where the goods were traded for slaves; in the Americas the slaves were traded for cargoes of tobacco and cotton, which were transported back to Bristol, where the golden cycle repeated itself.

  Hattie glanced at Edward, whose face reddened a bit.

  “Of course, all the port cities of the Americas had slave markets too,” Edward added.

  “And we in the Americas kept our slave markets longer,” Hattie said as she watched Indigo kneel on the seat to get a better view out the window. Indigo wanted to see the place where slaves used to be sold because Grandma Fleet told them stories about such places, like Yuma and Tucson. In the old days, twice a year, in the fall and the spring, the slave catchers brought their harvest of young Indian children to trade to the cattle ranchers and miners. The Sand Lizards preferred the old gardens because the slave hunters did not usually travel that far; she and Mama always warned the girls to be care
ful because the slave hunters didn’t care what the law was; they tied you to a donkey’s back and took you so far away you’d never find your way home.

  “My sister and I know how to hide from the slave catchers,” Indigo said, turning away from the window. Both Hattie and Edward looked a bit shocked, but Aunt Bronwyn nodded.

  “Oh Indigo! There are no slave hunters anymore!” Hattie didn’t want the child to make a habit of exaggeration to get attention or approval. Indigo’s eyes got round and her face was serious.

  “I’ve seen them, Hattie,” Indigo said breathlessly. “We were on the hilltop with Grandma Fleet. Off in the distance we saw the children tied together in a line!” Indigo could tell Aunt Bronwyn believed her but Hattie and Edward did not.

  As they boarded the train to Bath, Indigo thought her ears were failing her, but then she realized the people here spoke a different language. The people looked a bit different too, with light pink skin, light blue eyes, and light brown, thin hair; the damp cool air and the abundant shade of the tall trees must be the cause, Indigo decided. The people on the train stared at Indigo, but not unkindly.

  The motions of the train felt quick and sharp after the days on the ship, and the air smelled of the locomotive’s coal smoke. The train left behind the noise and congestion of the waterfront. The dingy tenements at the edge of Bristol gave way to green rolling hills above the river; the sky’s color shifted from gray to green-blue. The railroad followed an embankment along the river. How lovely to drive along under the green canopy formed by the old elms and oaks along the meandering river. For a moment, off in the distance on the southern horizon, a shaft of sunlight broke through thin clouds. Indigo excitedly pointed at the sky. The sun had seldom been visible during their ocean crossing. Indigo pressed closer to the window but the sun slipped behind the clouds again.