The Reluctant Trophy Wife

by Judith Petres Balogh

  “My dear Pater, before you turn sentimental or heaven forbid verbose over my wine, I would like to ask Lena and you for a walk through my garden,” she said. “A little postprandial exercise is the best way to keep the body in form. At least that is what my wise grandfather always said. After a heavy meal he never failed to move his body from the table to his easy chair across the room to drink his good Port and to smoke his cigar. He then lectured us on the benefit of exercise and when finished, sunk into a noisy nap. His snoring could be heard at the village square. Let us follow not the example, but the good advice and start walking.”

  Sarah was obviously very proud of her garden, and after just a few steps, there were some surprises. First, the garden was much larger than first suspected, and through a simple scheme it showed itself even larger than it was. This illusion was achieved by a careful plan. The path winding around plants, shrubs, small trees, ornamentations and sections of carefully trimmed hedges twisted left and right. The path frequently bent back on itself; therefore, the meandering walk took much longer than it would have on a straight path. Because of the denseness of the growth, the walker did not notice when the winding path made a turn and was unaware that the section just traveled was but a few feet away, but perfectly hidden by the lush foliage.

  At one point the path made a sharp turn and through a vine-covered trellis they stepped into a long, straight path, the end of which curved slightly and seemed to disappear into a stand of bushes and trees at the far end of the garden.

  “Sarah, this is magic!” exclaimed Lena with surprise and admiration as she realized what her friend has achieved. “Landscape painting done in living matter! I wonder how Filippo Brunelleschi or Donatello would react to your linear perspective!”

  “I’ll ask next time I meet them,” Sarah answered, but she was pleased. The lovely deception was surprising, but very simple. Since objects appear smaller as the distance from the observer increases, Sarah very cleverly fooled the observer to see a distance that was not really there. She trimmed the evergreens that lined both sides of the path to a steadily decreasing height. She even trimmed the hedge behind the evergreens in this manner. For good measure, she placed two identical pots of different sizes at the two ends of the path. The closest was quite large and had an intense blue-green glaze. At the far end the pot was only half as large and was painted a faded, almost misty blue-gray. The illusion of the road disappearing in the distance was perfect; applied mathematics did its wondrous magic in the garden. It was delightfully witty in this corner of the world, where flowers blossomed richly in the cemetery, but every other available square foot of land was economically used to produce food. This was not the place on earth where one would expect to find creative, sophisticated horticultural ideas and refinements. Sarah created a preposterous contradiction to the strict utilitarian philosophy of the locals. Her garden was as incongruous as the house Lena rented, and both were enchanting for that very same reason.

  “Once a painter, always a painter,” he remarked. The second surprise was that the wild confusion of shrubs, trees and flowers was not haphazard. As they walked on the twisting path, the garden unfolded and revealed that the leafy tangle was not a fortunate accident .Every corner was well planned, every plant carefully selected for color, size, texture and fragrance, and tended with care to give the luxuriant impression of a tropical garden. The heavenly blue of the irises mingled with the intense color of the celosias, and the lobelias offered refreshing counterpoints for the eyes. Verbenas were discreetly grouped, hydrangeas in several colors were a dramatic attentioncatcher behind a tiny pond. The flowering onion lifted its purple head regally on its tall stem, proudly surveying the shorter plants. Clumps of lavender perfumed the air at one point and at the next turn a group of Mexican hair grass swayed in the gentle wind. At every step there was something to discover and to enjoy. When Lena expressed her surprise at the richness of the garden, Sarah said that she considers every plant an individual with its special needs; therefore, she loves and respects each as much as she does any other living thing on earth. Of course out of sheer gratitude, this makes the plants grow.

  “And of course, you talk to them.”

  “Yes I do, I told you so. Honest and loving dialog is always of importance.” Flies and weeds were exceptions to her encompassing love. “I have no

  mercy with those, and especially hate the weeds. Every single one is an insult to me, a personal affront, and I eliminate them with the same vengeance and thoroughness a hated adversary deserves. Weeds do not have the right to exist. I am a good hater,” she declared, “and I can hate them out of my garden, and if it were possible even off the planet.” As an afterthought she added that she has a deep respect for manure and is a passionate composter. “Now you know my deepest secrets,” she concluded.

  Half way up the gentle hill, they arrived at a plateau. It was the site of Sarah’s vegetable and herb garden. In great contrast to the natural variety and wild richness of the section they just left, the vegetable garden was surprisingly formal. She chose a classical geometric design for it that imitated the great formal gardens of Italy and France, but she used edibles instead flowers or bushes for the intricate patterns. Cabbage and lettuce, parsley and chives never lived this elegantly, not even in royal gardens. White pebbles covered the paths between the segments, the emerald of the spinach served as edging. In the middle of the central section, surrounded by lavenders, stood a marble birdbath.

  These spoiled plants, elevated into aristocracy, would probably never end up in a cooking pot, simply because there were so many of them. Obviously, Sarah did not plant for utility but for creating the geometric patterns of the classical gardens. To achieve the full effect she needed many more plants than she would ever need in her kitchen. Most of the plants were set out recently, and were still relatively small, but with a little help from Shakespeare and some good manure, Sarah could surely convince them to grow into sizes worthy of Guinness records.

  “This spectacular vegetable garden is not just witty, but also outrageously unexpected,” Lena complimented.

  “Maybe not all that unexpected,” he argued. “When I first saw this section years ago, I too was surprised by its classical formality. I knew Sarah to be flamboyant, creative, committed to nature and its entangled charms, and when she created something like this it… how do you say it in your delightful vernacular? It floored me, yes it did. But I found the contradiction fascinating, and as the years passed, it no longer surprises. I learned to expect the unexpected from Sarah.”

  “I told you before, esteemed friend, never take a woman and her moods for granted. We retain the privilege to surprise the world with our incongruities. I wanted to create an unexpected contrast between the jungle below and the refined formality above. I hoped to give an emotional punch to the viewer. You must agree Padre that it has a spiritual message as well: chaotic jungle below and well-ordered tranquility above. As a man of religion, you should perceive this immediately.”

  Sarah was not boasting and only half jesting. Overflowing with the irresistible love for life, she merely expressed her delight in what she created. “The beauty of it is that my husband does not object to it in the least. He inherited terminal frugality from his German ancestors, and the cost of so many flower plants would have caused him to lose his speech. Planting flowers over such a large area equals a financial meltdown, declared my beloved. He can spend spectacularly when it comes to big sums, but he is ridiculously pennypinching with the small items. I guess contradictions in character are not just exclusively female attributes. However as you know, vegetable seeds cost just a fraction of flower plants, so I did not have to skimp on the area devoted to this formal garden. The downside of the affair is that whenever my neighbors see me approach with a basket of my bounty, they go into hiding. They claim that there is a definite limit, how much vegetables they can consume during the summer months.”

  They circled the area, walked on the paths between the segments and prai
sed the hostess for the delightfully whimsical idea.

  “We come up here often when it is bathed in moonlight, and love to keep watch over the sleeping world,” Sarah continued. “Tiny lights mark the village, beyond it rests the large black expanse of the lake, unruffled, at peace, its presence more a suggestion than a reality. Its blackness however is not absolute, because the moonlight slants across it in a way that the beauty of it could transport you into a state close to ecstasy. The villagers call this shining path across the water the ’silver bridge’. They have no idea what it bridges, but it hardly matters. This is the way of bridges, when they are made of nothing more substantial than reflected light and dreams. They are beautiful, but do not connect anything. She bent down to pull a few tiny weeds. “You can easily tell the difference between plant and weed,” she announced cheerfully. “Weeds grow day and night, but plants do it only in daylight, and even then with reluctance. I am merciless though. Plants that do not grow up to their full potential end up in the compost with the lowly weeds. Now you know my dark side too.”

  “I have been up here with Sarah and George, and the nights are truly magical,” he said quietly and took the weeds from Sarah and pitched them into the compost bin.

  “Oh yes the nights are magical!” she bubbled. “Just think of the wonderful small noises you don’t hear during the day! An owl hoots, a small animal scurries among the plants, somewhere a dog barks at the moon, and then it is silent again. The pebbles in the vegetable garden glow white in the silver light, and the herbs have a more intensive fragrance at night. Or perhaps it just appears so, because nothing else intrudes. We like to walk the paths, my husband and I, and as we pass the lavender, basil, rosemary and mint bushes we touch them so that they release even more of their fragrance.” Sarah was becoming quite poetic, which generally was not her style, but she was a woman of many facets, and poetry was apparently one of them. Despite her sometimes brash statements, Sarah was a generous woman, filled with passion. Her eyes, her smile, her bodylanguage radiated her generous and boundless love of the world.

  “You are and always will be the Earth Mother, but you also have a soaring, romantic spirit. It is good to have someone like you around to help us see”, Father Paul remarked.

  “I always believed that this is exactly what artist and poets give to mankind. They walk on the beach, pick up a common shell and hold it up to us, and we see the thing with something like surprise, because it is suddenly special and different and shows a quality we did not notice before.

  ”Lena spoke softly because she walked on treacherous grounds and an overdose of poetic effusiveness could be embarrassing. Sarah could get away with it, but she could not.

  “If I am romantic, than so are you, both of you,” the hostess said with amusement.

  “We might have romantic notions but you are the true artist.”

  “Well, it all depends on who the judge is, on who makes the decision about the crucial question of who will be admitted into the exclusive guild of artists. Case in point: One day last year I had a notion to walk beyond our property, even higher up on the hill into the woods. I lugged along my canvas and paints, found a good seat under the shadow of a tree, and was happily working, choosing colors to match the trees, leaves and far below, my beloved lake. It was a great and satisfying afternoon. I was on my way home, carrying the still wet canvas, painted side outwards, when I met a young child, not much older than perhaps three years old. She was with her mother from the village; they were searching for mushrooms. This sweet little thing stopped, stared at my painting, than in a very loud and indiscreet stage whisper asked her mother. ’Mama, why is this lady bringing a mirror into the woods?’

  “After her mother explained that it was not a mirror, but a painting, she was very impressed. You see, in her young and innocent eyes I was an artist beyond compare, almost as good as a magician. At least to her, I was reliable and truthful, because I gave a recognizable copy, a mirror image of the real thing. However, if I would take my ‘masterpiece’ to a gallery in town, you know very well what the verdict would be there. So I declare that art, or the understanding of art, is relative and terribly subjective, and it depends largely on who is looking at it. I prefer children to be my judges.”

  “As a lady, you have the indisputable right to have the last word,” responded Father Paul. “But I think Mrs. Cambray would agree with me that your talent shows up in whatever you touch, be it serving a lunch, arranging the vegetable garden, or bringing like-minded people together. In addition, this shows up in your paintings, no matter how modest you are. “

  “My dear Reverend, I am deeply disappointed in you! I thought that because of your occupational requirements and job description, you are supposed to comprehend human nature better than the average mortal does. Obviously your presumption is gravely incorrect if you sincerely think that I am modest. You are very, very mistaken, honored friend. I thrive on compliments and recognition,” Sarah said, but nobody believed her.

  There was a bench at the end of this section, an invitation to meditate or to dream, but Sarah urged her guests to climb the remaining stretch to the top level. After they left the formal garden, once again they were in a miniature forest; but not as lush as the one below and the path was also straighter, although steeper.

  “I had no choice but to go easy on the planting here, Sarah explained. “The length of my cobbled together garden hose just reaches the vegetable garden, not to mention the water pressure which fades away after it reaches the vegetables. I had to forgo the more thirsty plants up here.”

  She received no comments, because this after-dinner stroll was turning into a cardiac challenge, visibly affecting vital signs and speech was difficult without obvious and embarrassing panting. Even Sarah, who was used to this alpine climb, was puffing.

  As they reached the very end of the property the effort was richly rewarded. The view was unobstructed and postcard perfect. Trees and bushes hid Sarah’s cottage; only a splash of red indicated the presence of a roof. Vineyards stretched all the way down to the village, where the small white church with the single tower guarded the houses huddled around it. Beyond the village, still lower, stretched the lake and the opposite shore was barely visible. Seagulls were cruising high over land and over the water, and to the left somebody’s meadow sprouted the first wild poppies. The trio of friends stood for a while silently and enjoyed the sight. When Sarah invited them to an arbor which Lena did not notice before, they moved with reluctance.

  Just like the arbor below, here too grapevines all but hid this shelter. Sarah furnished it lovingly with comfortable wicker chairs and whimsically patterned pillows. Sometimes earlier, she already set the table for coffee and added a bowl of fruits and a vase of flowers, as colorful as the garden. The baroque still life was most inviting.

  “Beautiful.” Lena said pensively. “I have something of a déjà vu.”

  “Heaven have mercy on us, the girl is paranormal! I knew you shouldn’t have that last glass of wine!”

  “Don’t worry, Sarah, there is nothing bizarre about it. It is just that during my excursions into museums and galleries, I have often seen settings such as this on canvas. I used to stop and wish I could magically step into the painting and be invited to spend a summer afternoon at such a congenial place and drink coffee with good friends. And here it is, exactly as I saw it, as I wished it. I can now step into the painting, into somebody’s summer dream and enjoy it.”

  “Wow! After all, you are perhaps really paranormal! This is a weird explanation, but I can understand you. I wanted to share with you this sensation of stepping into another world and I guess I succeeded, even if getting here feels like a cardiac extravaganza. Perhaps when we get much older, I might hanker for some sort of a ski lift for convenience, but hankering would be pointless. George would surely object because of the expense.”

  Conversation was slower up here; words became superfluous. They sat with deep contentment enjoying the companionship and were sin
king into gentle drowsiness, which comes after a good meal followed by a good walk.

  “Our generation seems to suffer from a colossal case of nervous agitation,” he remarked. “But if everyone could find a place similar to this and could spend time there every day to depressurize, the malady could be cured. In the deepest recess of our soul there rests a deep silence, a precious gift of God. When we turn off the world’s noise, the silence surfaces and we experience true peace. It is at such moments that God is closest to us.” Nobody contradicted. The sun was gradually losing its heat and eventually and regretfully Lena stood to leave. She helped pack the coffee service into a basket and Father Paul carried it back down to the cottage.

  “If you enjoyed this day half as much as I did, I hope to see you next Sunday, same place, same time,” said Sarah as a farewell. Lena and Father Paul walked companionably part of the way. At the crossing, where Lena was turning left toward her house, she offered her hand for farewell.

  “It was again a lovely day,” he said, “and I am glad to have met you, Mrs. Cambray. If you should need any help during your stay, please do not hesitate to ask for it.”