by Marlene Lee
Agnes closed the book about Gregor Mendel. Absently, in the margins and above the masthead of the school paper lying on her desk, she sketched plants she’d grown up with: hollyhock, tomato, rabbit brush, columbine. The sunflower, milkweed, and burdock she remembered from Missouri. Outside the margins, unsketched by her, beyond the circle of visible stem and leaf, petal and fruit, hovered an intense and disturbing world she was afraid to enter.
She stood up from her desk and went to the window. The dark campus lay spread below. She watched the tops of palm trees, just visible under starlight, stir in the night breeze. Formless hopes swirled in her mind. She wanted to understand everything. Do something important and good for Mother, Father, John, Sam, and Myrtle. For Aunt Tillie and herself. Redeem failed lives.
She took a jacket from behind the curtain hanging across her tiny closet and descended to the first floor of the dormitory. With a cold eye, the housemother watched her sign the in-and-out book. Agnes stepped into the night and began walking toward the music. When she drew near enough to hear voices, she made herself small in the shadow of a hedge and watched couples strolling on the lawn. A slender girl in a beautiful long dress looked up at her escort; her quiet laughter was like a low melody. Agnes moved away from the shadows and set out for the edge of campus and the desert beyond. She supposed the lovely young women in their long gowns would not dream of walking out in the desert alone, and instead of looking up at a sky filled with planets and galaxies, worlds beyond imagination, they must spend the evening looking up into their escorts’ faces. It struck Agnes that, in choosing the sky, she would never have a man’s face for her universe. And she would never be universe to a man.
The night air cooled her skin as she left the campus behind. San Pablo, the Mexican town at the foot of the butte, glowed with light. Lanterns swayed gently in the trees. Agnes could see the little fires in their glass chimneys rise and fall. Here was another kind of music, plucked strings, murmured Spanish. Another sound, too. She had heard it throughout her childhood: a grunting, rooting, animal sound she despised.
She skirted the butte and walked out into the flood of cool silver light poured out by the pitcher of desert moon. She wished she could walk all night, past the seguaros standing guard, their spiked arms flung upward. Past the flowers, now closed, and the rocks and buttes, straight into the heart of the desert.
At Christmas time the campus closed. “Christmas vacation,” everyone called it. To Agnes there was magic and careless good fortune in words like “Christmas vacation,” “semester,” and “matriculate,” but she did not use the college words. She was a miner’s daughter, and miners know nothing of such language.
The dormitory closed, too. She could not stay in her little room. She packed a worn carpetbag and carried her dormitory blanket to the biology lab in Old Main. Professor Irish, she knew, would not mind if she spent her vacation in his classroom. While others exchanged gifts and ate Christmas dinners, she would be writing an article and a story for the newspaper, The Tempe Normal Student. In the carpetbag were books about the Indian tribes who had settled the Salt River Valley. Her article would have facts and information about the Hohokam, a remarkable people who arrived, the book said, around the time of Christ and built irrigation canals and created a flourishing culture. But she was not going to say anything about “the time of Christ.” She felt it silly to measure Indians’ time by a man they had never heard of.
The story, she would make up. Love between the races. The idea came to her one day when she was thinking about a Mexican-Indian boy she had taught in New Mexico. She remembered his well-modeled head. She remembered his wrists, brown neck, broad shoulders and narrow waist. What if an Indian man and a white woman married and had a child; a daughter, say, like herself? Because she, Agnes Smedley, was part-Indian. Father had often told her so.
And what if the mother was the kind of mother who explained things to her daughter; a mother who liked to discuss things? They might have a conversation about the Indian man. The mother would explain why she loved the girl’s father and why she was glad she had married him, and the daughter would listen to every word, proud of her Indian father, proud of her blood.
Agnes turned to the picture of a Maricopa woman taken in 1900 and gazed so intently into the proud face and dark, disinterested eyes that she felt she was that woman looking out at the white photographer.
By the time she had written the first part of the article in shorthand, the sun had set. She got up from the desk, stiff from concentration, and unfolded the dormitory blanket. She swung it around her shoulders, shawl-fashion, and walked over to the long, narrow east windows of the third floor. President Matthews’ brick house lay beneath her, bright and warm. Someone had lit the Christmas tree candles in their little red and green and yellow glass chimneys. They illuminated the bay windows of the fine house and threw points of color into the night.
The beauty softened her heart, but Christmas was for others. She turned back to her writing. In the dark, ideas flowed. She scrawled large, slanted lines. At last, tired and hungry, she eased herself out of the desk and went to her carpetbag where she took out two hard-boiled eggs and some cheese she’d snitched from the dormitory kitchen. There was cold bacon she’d placed between slices of bread and wrapped in a cloth napkin. With the blanket still hanging from her shoulders, she stood at a laboratory counter and ate her dinner in the dark. She considered yet another essay, trying to ignore the cold bacon grease that lined her mouth. She drank water at the tap in the lab sink and lay down in the corner beside Professor Irish’s desk.
Next day she put down her pencil long enough to cook and clean for the faculty wife who hired her once a week. She made mincemeat pies for Christmas Day and cared for the children until late in the afternoon. Then she hurried back to Old Main, removed the wedge of paper she had stuck in the lock, and went up to the third floor where she worked feverishly on her article and story as long as the light lasted.
She tried to sleep through Christmas Eve. Instead, she lay listening to wisps of laughter and carols that drifted through the night. She heard the train pass along the foot of the butte, heading east toward New Mexico and the Colorado coal camps, riding through her heart.
She fell into a half-dream, half-memory: she, Myrtle, John, and Sam gathering coal from the train tracks. At the far-off shriek of a whistle, they drop their gunny sacks. Flirting with danger, they kneel beside the iron rail nailed to the earth. They put their ears against the track. Pebbles and weeds on the roadbed look enormous as they lie with their heads near the ties, listening to the thin metallic whine, advance warning of a splendid danger approaching. Far down the track a pinpoint of light grows larger. It shimmers above the rails, a single eye of such power that everything moves out of its way. The whistle shrieks again, as if in pain from the hot ash and scalding steam in its inner boxes; in its tubes and valves and cylinders. They jump back, terrified of being swept up in the wind and roar of the great engine, thrilled by the last few rotations of the coupling rods and the noise of the steam shutting down.
Agnes struggled to her feet and went to the north windows. Catty-corner from Old Main, the stained glass windows of St. Mary’s glowed, lit by candles burning inside the church. The bell began to toll. From her window she watched people arrive by foot, by wagon, carriage, and car for the midnight service. Singing wafted up to her. Outside the church, horses stood at hitching posts, as calm and imperturbable, patient and dumb, Agnes thought, as the cattle in the barn at Bethlehem.
She spent Christmas Day serving dinner and washing dishes at the faculty home where she worked. She took more of the Christmas goose than the professor’s wife knew, wrapped bread spread with butter and cranberry sauce in a napkin, and returned to Old Main.
She entered the biology lab and came to an abrupt halt. Professor Irish was waiting for her. He had found her encampment. Agnes sat down in a desk and stared at the red wool scarf he’d tossed around his neck.
“Merry Christmas, Agne
s,” he said solemnly. She blinked.
“I don’t usually come to my classroom on Christmas Day,” he said. Agnes lifted her chin and continued to stare at the bright scarf. “Do you know why I’m here?”
Agnes shook her head.
“The janitor noticed that someone was coming in and out of the building. He kept finding the lock to the west door cleverly wedged open.”
Agnes looked into his eyes. “I needed a place to stay.”
“Did you want to stay here particularly, or is it the only place you could think of?”
“I could have stayed where I do housework,” Agnes said, “only the children have to be looked after and I wouldn’t have time to write.”
“What are you writing?” he asked. She went to the carpetbag which rested on the folded blanket beside his desk and took out a stack of papers.
“This,” she said. “An article and a story and the beginning of an essay. I haven’t typed them up yet.”
“May I ask what is so pressing that you must write through the Christmas vacation?” Professor Irish unwound the red scarf from his neck and laid it on his desk. He sat down in the swivel chair.
Agnes’ color heightened. “An assignment for The Normal Student.”
“A signed article?” asked Professor Irish.
“Maybe.”
“Agnes Smedley,” murmured Professor Irish.
“Ayahoo.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Ayahoo,” Agnes said. “My new name.” She put the papers back into the carpetbag and looked at him sideways to see what he would think. “I’m going to sign my articles “Ayahoo.”
“Why will you do that?” Professor Irish turned his swivel chair first one way, then another, following Agnes as she paced back and forth in front of him.
“I am Indian,” she said. “My father was part-Indian and I’m part-Indian.” She lifted her head. “I would have fought the white man if I had been with Geronimo.” Professor Irish nodded his head now and then. His eyebrows went up when she said, “The white man has driven us off our land, humiliated us, murdered us.”
“You are white, too, Agnes,” Professor Irish said. “You are Agnes as well as Ayahoo.”
“I am no longer Agnes,” Agnes said.
Professor Irish fell silent. He swiveled to face his desk. “How do you spell ‘Ayahoo’?”
Agnes stood with her feet apart, her hands on her hips, and spelled her new name.
Professor Irish handed her a piece of paper on which he had written, “Ayahoo has my permission to use the biology classroom through the Christmas holidays for study and work. I am releasing a key to the building which she will return at the resumption of classes in January.”
He signed his name and asked Agnes to do the same.
“Have you told your family about your new name?” he asked.
“I don’t have a family.”
“No one at all?”
“My aunt lives in Denver. I’ll tell her when I see her.”
“Does your aunt know you’re in Tempe? Does she know you’re enrolled in college?”
“She doesn’t need to know,” said Agnes. “My mother was interested in my education, but she’s dead.”
“I imagine she would be proud of you.”
Agnes stood mute. Her people did not give compliments. “Talkativeness doesn’t run in my family,” she mumbled.
“Of course it does,” said Professor Irish.
Agnes looked sheepish. “Except for my father,” she amended.
“I’ve read your articles in the paper.”
“That’s not talking,” said Agnes. “That’s writing.”
“Writing is written-down talk,” said Professor Irish. “Tell me about the story,” he said, glancing at the stack of papers beside her carpet bag.
Agnes blushed. “You can read it if you want to.” She could not speak to him about the subject: a woman who had married an Indian, an Indian who looked very much as Agnes remembered her student in New Mexico, tall, with jet-black hair and soft dark eyes. His voice had been gentle and musical, and when his hands brushed hers, his skin was as smooth as it was brown.
Professor Irish picked up his red scarf from the desktop. “Did you read the Mendel biography we talked about?”
“I read it.”
“Did it capture your interest?”
“It captured my interest.” She shifted her gaze to the window. “I like plants. I like gardens.”
“So did Mendel.”
“But he looked into it too much.”
“Is it possible to look into a thing too much?”
“Well … .” Agnes turned away from him, unable to express her uneasiness. She could not say the words “reproduction” or “breeding.” She crossed and uncrossed her legs. “People and plants live and die,” she said. “What’s all the fuss about?”
“I, myself, sometimes wonder what all the fuss is about,” Professor Irish said. Agnes looked encouraged. “Could you,” he continued, “summarize for me what Mendel is fussing about?”
Agnes stared at her long skirt. “Heredity.”
“Yes. It is a new scientific concept,” said Professor Irish. “It will change the world.”
Agnes sat straighter. “How can it change the world?”
Professor Irish’s long, narrow face came to life. “When we can produce what we need when we need it,” he said, “we can control nature.” He ran the tip of his index finger over his small moustache. “We won’t have to wait for whatever God has in store for us.”
Agnes sat still straighter.
“Crops can be bred to withstand weather. Famines will some day be a thing of the past. We can eradicate disease. People may not have to die.”
“Rich people will still take the food,” Agnes said after a few moments of thought.
“Perhaps that will change, too. Perhaps everyone will be rich.”
“It’s easier to pollinate plants than it is to change people.”
Professor Irish adopted the vernacular. “Agnes,” he said, “whether something is easy or not doesn’t amount to a hill of beans.” He threw the scarf about his neck, stood, and handed her the key to Old Main.
She took it and watched the thin figure disappear down the hall. Perhaps if he were more like Big Buck, more like the miners she had known as a girl in the coal camps, perhaps if Professor Irish had some of Father’s outrageous humor, exaggerated stories, imagination, yes, even his habit of lying and embellishing the truth until it was something much better than reality, Agnes could have told the professor about the young Mexican-Indian she remembered; could have told him about her story and about herself.
But Professor Irish was a gentleman. Agnes sat down on the folded blanket by his desk and studied the large iron key resting in the palm of her hand. He was high-class and educated, but he was not strong and suntanned. He did not tell yarns and stay up half the night laughing at tall tales, drinking too much, stumbling to bed and rising early to a day of hard labor. College people could not understand miners and prostitutes and beaten-down women who died early, and children who were farmed out to strangers. They could not understand Agnes and her family. They could not understand Ayahoo.
Tempe, Arizona 1912
Thorberg Brundin watched the girl stride into the tiny dormitory room with a holster about her slim waist and a scalpful of pincurls. The young teacher lifted her blonde head off the pillow and pulled the blanket up under her chin.
“I’m Ayahoo,” said the girl whose striking face, direct blue eyes, and wide forehead took one’s breath. “You’re using my room for the week.”
“How do you do—‘Ayahoo,’ did you say?” Thorberg extended one pale, slender arm from the bedclothes. The intense young woman gripped it with a hard hand and gave an abrupt handshake.
“Thank you for the room,” said Thorberg. She eyed the riding hat and Mexican quirt hanging on the wall.
“Don’t mention it.” The girl removed her holster from the waist
of her long skirt, slung it over the bed post, and began to remove pins from her hair until curls stood out in all directions, only slightly tamed by the brush with which she lit into them.
“You sure do go to bed early.”
“I was reading,” said Thorberg.
“What are you reading?”
“Boas’s The Mind of Primitive Man.” Agnes eyed the volume lying on the bedspread. Thorberg buttoned the top button of her flowered flannel nightgown and sat up against the pillow. “I understand you’re a member of the debating society.”
“I am,” said Agnes.
“Perhaps I will hear you in one of the debates.”
“It’s likely. I’m debating tomorrow. The topic is, ‘Resolved: Woman’s Suffrage Should Be Adopted in Arizona.’ I’m arguing for suffrage. My position is that half of the human race has been subjugated by the other half. Women must acquire equality with men.”
“I’m afraid I can’t discuss the topics,” Thorberg said in a well-modulated voice, though she looked interested. “I’m obligated to maintain neutrality.” She’d been invited as one of the judges for the spring debating contest. In the mirror Agnes studied the cool blonde beauty, the patrician eyes. She gave a final swipe to her hair and turned to face the bed.
“Do you like ice-cream sodas?”
“I love ice-cream sodas.”
“Then after the debates are over, before you go back to wherever you come from, I invite you to have a soda with me. I want to interview you for the paper.”
“Very well,” said Thorberg. “And I want to interview a woman who wears a gun and holster over her skirt and has the interesting name ‘Ayahoo.’”
