The Laboratory of Love, page 11
When MJ and Lily return from school, Donald entertains visions of a trio skipping rings around three trees with joined hands, incanting spells of safe and swift and steady growth. But his brother and sister are reluctant to leave the back bedroom; facing away from the windows, they play intricate games involving distant landscapes where snakes do not slither constantly past the corners of your eyes. “What I really wanted was a dog,” mentions Lily, when Donald reminds her and MJ of their neglected gifts out in the yard. Her thin face and crooked teeth will one day inhabit the same clinic in which the mother currently shivers. “I never asked for any kind of tree at all,” Lily flatly adds.
Sun whitens Donald’s hair; it tinges his skin gold: in shade, he might be yellow. Folding arms around knees, he makes a shelf to rest his heavy head on. Africa consists of one long dream. He tastes intangible lemons; chews phantom, slippery pulp. (Why is he always thirsty now and why won’t water slake this thirst?) Above the dozing boy, just out of reach, dangle golden globes, a whole galaxy of flavour; if he were taller, he could pluck them, peel them, devour them. As it is, he can only view the tart contents of his unconscious with proprietary interest, find slim consolation in owner’s pride. If there were justice, his lemon tree would be twice as tall and broad as the untended trees of Lily and MJ; it would be as majestic as Donald sees it in his sleep. Something is not right that the three trees remain equal-sized—each still hardly taller than Donald himself, with only hints of branches, the illusion of buds. It is difficult to believe that though they continue to appear identical, and belong to the same genus, they will one day bear fruit of varying colour and size and shape.
Mitch’s gardens insist on growing with the speed of hallucination, on swallowing up space around the house. They consume sunlight and gulp water and block out sky. Do they steal all nourishment from the vicinity, deprive the children’s trees of elements they need? Donald must poison what his father cultivates in order for the object of his own hope to flourish? Only the death of one may permit the other life?
Soon Donald fears losing himself in Mitch’s tangled gardens. They become like the jungle that presses around the mission: aswarm with wild animals always on the prowl, too rich in scent and colour, enough to make anyone feel faint. It seems possible that the way will never be found from this maze of twisting paths already choked and leading to no clear destination. Donald will wander such wilderness forever, searching for a sign to point him back to a time when there was order on earth, and when a canopy of dazzling green did not lie between himself and watchful eyes above. Then his lemon tree appears, something safe to run toward. Its trunk is still slender enough to wrap arms around, but insufficiently thick to fill them.
“Citrus limonia,” states Mitch. “Once it flowers, your lemon tree will bloom all year and never stop bearing.” He peers down at his youngest child. “It will be worth the wait,” he vows with such assurance that Donald will always remember this promise even as it is broken over and over in a whole multitude of ways. In spite of a scrupulously nurtured talent for revising the past, Donald will never be able to erase the image of his father’s face imposed upon the sky like some extra planet, another sun. Mitch adds that soon there will be more lemons than Donald will know what to do with. Fulfillment has its flip side too, may be the implication. It would be safer if dreams did not come true? Were not allowed to materialize as ordinary, as unsatisfactory, as more sour than sweet? Donald’s mouth puckers; his face twists.
When it’s too late to know anything for certain, Donald will wonder if their trees were given to the children as some kind of perverse joke. He learns that citrus does not flourish in the tropics; one season of intense rain, on the Ngondo hills, would have illustrated this fact. (In the Morogoro market, there is an absence of lemons and limes; confusingly, oranges are always green.) Mitch must be aware of the climate’s unfitness for a citrus crop—even as once again he describes in luxurious detail how Donald’s tree will look when it matures: here are pale, pointed leaves and short, stout spines; there reddish buds growing singly or in clusters, there blossoms of pure white exuding strong fragrance after dusk. Does something sly, even malicious, cross Mitch’s face as upon a canvas of air he paints these pictures? Is there some simple lesson here to do with life being one long series of small disappointments, and might Mitch intend the early transmission of such knowledge, which he himself has learned too late, to be his real gift to his children?
Before Mitch decides that Catholicism corrupts, Donald is sent with MJ and Lily to the mission church where the Dutch priest collects souls in his big black hat on Sunday. While monkeys screech in protest beyond the stained-glass windows, Father Franklin explains that in one God are housed three divine Persons: Father, Son, Holy Ghost. The Son is of the same substance as the Father. The Holy Ghost comes from the Son through the Father, or, theologians alternately propose, from Son and Father jointly. This is much too fine a distinction for a child who can glimpse no ghosts, sacred or otherwise, nearby. The son closes eyes against wavering incense, views the father stalking through a world of his own creation. Dwarfed by papayas and mangos that thrust themselves toward the sky, three small trees stand in a row. On the pew beside their brother, MJ and Lily inhabit an apparent trance. Donald will not be able to save their bodies; he will be unable to save their souls. The Holy Ghost, invisible in shadows, whispers another acidic promise of divinity.
When the rains arrive, and there is no need to water the lemon tree, Donald hovers with MJ and Lily in the back bedroom. Mist creeps down the hills in the middle of the morning and wraps itself around the house until dusk. It isn’t possible to see the lemon tree through the window, at the far reach of the dripping garden. Donald tries to remember how it rose before him. Faith is required to believe it stands there still.
Already artful at reminiscence, Lily and MJ discuss the past while the heavens leak. Lily says that in Greece the garden was on a cliff, and MJ says that in Panama a muddy river ran where the garden ended. “There were paths among the stones and roses,” muses Lily. “And apple trees,” MJ recalls. Where was that? What garden contained roses and stones and apple trees? For every garden outside every window there exists a previous garden; always another room lies beyond whatever walls hold the present. Each in their own way, Lily and MJ will finally wander from sight of everyone. They will press through the neglected gardens of the past—wild and overgrown, conquered by armies of thistles and weeds and thorns—in search of the original garden that flourishes far from the mirage of an oasis beside which Mitch’s skull bleaches white. “Don’t forget the bench next to the willow,” reminds Lily. “Or the swing beneath the oak.” Perhaps it is the mist outside that makes her voice muffled, turns it into sound travelling through thickened time and space. In the future, Donald will wander lemon groves of California and Crete, trample fallen fruit alive with wasps and ants. Then his sister’s voice will sift through leaves in the way it speaks to him now, recollecting citrus secrets that reach fruition only in the orchard of Mitch’s mind.
It is the hour when MJ and Lily sigh in unison across the dark room, when Mitch meditates to music down the hall. Outside the air is clear and cool. The rain has ceased until morning; mist has retreated up into the hills. Too large and heavy, the axe trails like a plow behind Donald; a furrow follows him from the house, deep into Mitch’s gardens now muddy and slippery, and occupied by hoarse frogs. The lemon tree shines in the dark. Its green trunk resists the axe. Anyway, Donald is too young and small for such a task; like MJ and Lily, he should be in bed dreaming of somewhere far away where every promise bears fruit and the wait is always worth it. For a moment, Donald doesn’t see the shape that looms beside him, the darkness made solid as spirit was once made flesh. “It’s not sharp enough,” explains Mitch, taking the tool from his son. Despite this fact, he is able to sever the trunk with one blow. The lemon tree topples, causing not the slightest tremor of the earth. Two trees remain; a trinity is broken. There is the father and there is the son, but where is the Holy Ghost?
Wild Dogs
During hot, still afternoons, when only wasps disturb the glassy silence, Lily hunts for ticks. On the hard, shaded dirt to the east side of the house, beneath the bougainvillea, she holds our dog tight between her legs and combs fingers through secret places of his coat: below the neck, beneath flaps of ears, within the pits of legs. The swollen pests are pinched between a finger and a thumb until the tight skin of their sac bursts and Ginger’s blood spurts over my sister’s hands. She sprinkles white powder where the parasite has nestled; this is supposed to discourage further infestation. But a hundred more ticks will fasten to Ginger on his journeys through the brush tomorrow; especially during dry season, there are always too many to be killed. Our dog squirms beneath Lily’s ministrations. Dissatisfied with our company, he is forever slinking from sight, losing us easily when we try to follow. Lily says that Ginger hunts for the tail that was chopped off shortly after his birth as a boxer pup. (“It’s the custom,” our father informs us. “Something people do,” Mitch adds weakly, when our puzzled faces request a better explanation.) Only the stump remains, scarcely enough to wag. One day Ginger will return home with his missing tail between his teeth—instead of the usual rats and snakes. Perhaps then he might become our loyal companion, our faithful friend, no longer prone to prolonged disappearances or battles with other dogs that leave his torn ears as permanent attractions for flies. “These ticks will drink all his blood,” Lily tells me, not looking up from Ginger’s coat. Lips pressed tightly together, she ignores my suggestion that we venture down the hill to visit the sugar man beside the road. If we sing a number from Mary Poppins, he will give us as many lengths of cane as we can carry. All afternoon, we’ll be able to chew the sweet, stringy meat his big machete has peeled and spit out a trail of exhausted pulp that shows where we wander through a Tanzanian translation of Hansel and Gretel’s haunted forest. Still disregarding me, Lily moves her thin, freckled face nearer our dog’s coat. She doesn’t look up when a ripe pawpaw falls with a splitting thud from a nearby tree; within ten minutes, its sweet flesh will swarm with ants that feed so ravenously you can almost hear the click of small, sharp teeth. Suddenly Lily loosens her legs and claps three times near Ginger’s ears. Our dog bounds away. My sister holds blood-stained hands to the sky, squints at them with satisfaction. With broad, sweeping strokes, she paints her face with crosses; the marks are nearly the same colour as the ochre earth. After the blood dries, Lily must be careful not to smile, or her face will crack.
Our dreamy father has few rules, all laxly enforced. Mitch forgets to check the correspondence lessons we’re supposed to do each morning, and he doesn’t remember about bedtime and brushing teeth and writing letters to our mother. Also overlooked is his law that we three children must stay close to each other. “There’s strength in numbers,” Mitch likes to points out. That we do sometimes play together, MJ and Lily and I, is from necessity. There are no other children on the Catholic mission—except for black ones who sing taunting rhymes to our backs, or throw bowls of white mush in our faces if we come too near. Mitch encourages us to explore as far and wide as we can, and doesn’t express fear for our safety as long as we’re home before dark. “Where did you go today?” he asks eagerly each evening, when secrets concealed from light come out to prowl in the darkness beyond the door. “What did you see?” We look at each other and select the stories Mitch can be told. Our ability to move as a trio across the disturbing landscape is often impaired because MJ has to lie with tightly closed eyes in bed. His head hurts. You can see veins beneath his brow beat with blood angrily trying to get out. When he comes home from teaching, Mitch will massage MJ’s temples, rub his scalp with strong fingers. “It’s just the heat,” he says again. With MJ waiting to heal and rise, Lily loses what little loyalty she has to our broken group. I turn to see her nearly out of sight, one of the old, pleated skirts donated by the nuns swishing around her scissoring legs. When I try to follow, my sister walks more quickly, or she pushes me efficiently aside, as you do a branch or vine that blocks your path. I never know where Lily goes alone; upon returning, she will not tell me and deflects Mitch’s inquiries neatly. I suspect she follows the trail that climbs above the mission and twists through jungle to where the Ngondo River roars between the rocks. Up high, the air turns into a thin, cool element that feels alien to me, unsuitable for human lungs. There birds cry too loudly, flowers bloom too boldly, the jungle looms too thick and dark. Lily meets Ginger by the river, I think. I never fear that Lily might become lost up in the jungle, like Sister Bridget did; two years older than me, eleven, she can surely find her way back down with Ginger. They will arrive home when they’re hungry; they will be home before dark. I believe that, like our dog, my sister searches for something severed from her shortly after birth. What is it that Lily hunts during those afternoons above, when at the dazed house below the only sounds are the ancient gardener’s machete striking stones in the yard, the houseboy’s croon as he wrings dripping clothes behind the kitchen, the whimper of MJ from his dim, painful room? What will Lily bear between her teeth when she returns?
I’m sure Mitch had the best of intentions when he gave us a dog. “I had one when I was a boy,” he says; then we hear once more about his tough Regina youth. Probably Mitch holds in his head some clear, focused photograph of three children frolicking with a happy pet. Caring for their dog, the children will learn responsibility; in return, he acts as comrade and strengthens their number. Mitch doesn’t seem to notice that from the start our attention to Ginger goes unreciprocated; we’re neither interesting nor necessary to him. We are unable to teach him to fetch or sit up or to roll over and play dead. “He’s getting big,” Mitch observes happily, as in the kitchen, Ginger lifts his head at the bark of wild dogs in the distance. They bay at a rough beast who slouches through the night, says the houseboy. Our dog scratches on the door until we give in and let him out. Returning the next morning, he will smell of something rotten, bad. Lily disregards the stink, picks more ticks from his coat, tries to brush it smooth. Perhaps things would have been different in a more bland setting, without the scent of wild blood to lure our dog from us. Mitch’s hopeful vision may have unfolded more perfectly against a background of neat lawns and fences, tidy sidewalks and maple trees. It is our father’s fatal tendency to disregard the landscape upon which he sets his fantasies. And to believe that as long as we reach home before dark, everything will be all right.
During our latter years in Morogoro, Lily stands taller than MJ and me, with hair hacked by Mitch into the shape of a bowl. He enjoys playing barber, shaves mine and MJ’s and his own head to the scalp, pronounces pleasure in the cool results. My sister’s face is sharp, her new teeth grew in crooked, scabs always decorate her knees. I am not aware that other girls play dolls and house or dress up in a mother’s clothes; Lily doesn’t mention such things. She likes to swim and run, and climbs to the tops of trees. She enjoys silent activities, such as our visits to Father Joe, the mission naturalist, who keeps guinea pigs and snakes. The biggest boa doesn’t like to eat when watched by curious children. You must be very still and patient to catch him strike at the guinea pig shivering at the far side of the cage. Lily stares hard as with a gulp the live meal is swallowed whole. Later, I will always envision my sister intently studying what lies before her eyes, while MJ and I have to turn away. It seems to me that I was usually watching Lily rather than the world; she saw for all of us, I think. When we’re shown how a cow is slaughtered then skinned at the prison farm, Lily’s eyes widen slightly; then they quickly narrow, seal the sight inside herself. Later, Mitch attempts to butcher the beef in our kitchen. He scratches his head at a puzzle of sides and quarters, waves the saw through aromatic air, clutches his famously weak stomach. Lily splashes in pools of blood alongside our father with suggestions and advice. From where I hover with MJ in the doorway, I believe I see my sister’s nostrils quiver as they inhale the stench of intestine, the stink of death.
While MJ sometimes tells stories about where we lived before Africa and what happened to us there, Lily refuses to discuss the past, and shows scant interest in what isn’t plainly visible now. My brother recalls the dancing goat on the white island in Greece and the little one-armed girl in Spain. He describes our mother, Ardis, far away in Canada. “She has blonde hair and red lips,” MJ muses again, while, without a word, Lily wanders from our secret place beneath the lemon tree. We find her occupied with an army of soldier ants. In an endless file of perfect pairs, they move toward a distant destination we’re unable to fathom. You can stir the marchers with a stick or douse them with pails of water, but this interrupts their progress only for the moment it takes to scramble back into rank. MJ says the ants are returning home. I suggest maybe they are lost. Lily insists they’re going to war. We agree that these insects can strip the flesh from a large beast in seconds. Leave bones clean as a whistle in the blink of an eye.
