He engaged in another bout of silent contemplation,
the delicate features solemn and still. We locked eyes for a moment.
“There was some kind of trouble,” he said. “Exactly
what kind was never publicized. Knowing the girl, it had to be of a sexual
nature.”
“Why’s that?”
“She had a reputation for promiscuity. I don’t seek
out gossip, but in a small town one overhears things. There’s always been
something libidinous about the girl. Even at twelve or thirteen when she walked
through town every male head would turn. She exuded—physicality. I’d always
thought it strange that she sprang from such a withdrawn, isolated family—as if
somehow she’d sucked the sexual energy from the others and ended up with more
than she could handle.”
“Do you have any idea what happened at the Retreat?” I
asked, though from Doug Carmichael’s story, I had a strong hypothesis.
“Only that her job was terminated abruptly and
snickers and whispers circulated around town for the next few days.”
“And the Touch never hired town kids again.”
“Correct.”
The waitress brought the check. I put down my credit
card. Maimon thanked me and called for another pot of tea.
“What was she like as a little girl?” I asked.
“I have only vague memories—she was a pretty little
thing— that red hair always stood out. Used to pass by my place and say hello,
always very friendly. I don’t think the problems started until she was twelve
or so.”
“What kinds of problems?”
“What I told you. Promiscuity. Wild behavior. She
started running with a bunch of older kids—the ones with fast cars and
motorcycles. I suppose things got out of hand because they sent her away to
boarding school. That I remember vividly because on the morning she left
Garland’s car broke down on the way to the train station. Just gave out in the
middle of the road, a few yards from my nursery. I offered to give them a lift
but of course he refused. Left her sitting there with her suitcase until he
came back with a truck. She looked like a sad little child, though I suppose
she must have been at least fourteen. As if all the mischief had been knocked
out of her.”
“How long was she away?”
“A year. She was different when she returned—quieter,
more subdued. But still sexually precocious, in an angry kind of way.”
“What do you mean?”
He flushed and drank tepid tea.
“Predatory. One day she walked into my nursery wearing
shorts and a halter top. Out of the blue. Said she’d heard I had a new kind of
banana and she wanted to see it. It was true—I’d brought in several fifteen-gallon
Dwarf Cavendish plants from Florida and had taken a lovely bunch of fruit to
the town market for display. I wondered why she’d be interested in something
like that, but showed her the plants anyway. She looked them over in a cursory
manner and smiled—lasciviously. Then she leaned over and gave me a frank view
of her chest, picked a banana and began eating it in a rather crude manner—” He
stopped, stammered—“You’ll have to excuse me, Doctor, I’m sixty-three, from
another generation, and it’s hard for me to be as uninhibited about this kind
of thing as is fashionable.”
I nodded, trying to seem empathetic. “You look much
younger.”
“Good genes.” He smiled. “Anyway, that’s the story.
She made a production out of eating the banana, smiled at me again and told me
it was delicious. Licked her fingers and ran off down the road. The encounter
unnerved me because even as she vamped there’d been hatred in her eyes. A
strange mixture of sex and hostility. It’s hard to explain.”
He sipped his tea, then asked, “Has any of this been
relevant?”
Before I could answer the waitress returned with the
charge slip. Maimon insisted upon leaving the tip. It was a generous one.
We walked out to the parking lot. The night was cool
and fragrant. He had the springy step of a man a third his age.
His truck was a long-bed Chevy pickup. Conventional
tires. He took out his keys and asked, “Would you like to stop by and visit my
nursery? I’d like to show you some of my most fascinating specimens.”
He seemed eager for companionship. He’d unloaded a lot
of alienation, probably for the first time. Self-expression can become habit
forming.
“It would be my pleasure. Could being seen with me
cause problems for you?”
He smiled and shook his head.
“Last I heard, Doctor, this was still a free country.
I’m located several miles southeast of town. Up in the foothills where most of
the big groves are. You’ll follow me, but in case we disconnect I’ll give you
directions. We’ll cut under the freeway, ride parallel with it, and turn right
on an unmarked road—I’ll slow down so you don’t miss it. At the foot of the
mountains there’ll be a left turn onto an old utility trail. Too narrow for
commercial vehicles and it floods when the rains come. But this time of year it’s
a handy shortcut.”
He went on for a while before I realized he was
directing me to the back road I’d seen on the county map in the sheriff’s
office. The one that bypassed the town. When I’d asked Houten about it he’d
said it was sealed off by the oil company. Perhaps he considered a utility
trail too insignificant to be thought of as a road. Or maybe he’d lied.
I wondered about it as I got into the Seville.
THE TURNOFF was sudden. The road, apart from being
unmarked, was hardly a road at all. Just a narrow dirt ribbon, at first glance
one furrow of many that cut through the vast table of farmland. Anyone
unfamiliar with the area would have missed it. But Maimon drove slowly and I
followed his taillights through moonlit fields of strawberries. Soon the
freeway sounds were behind us, the night hushed and aglitter with moths
spiraling up toward the stars, pressing frantically and hopelessly for the heat
of distant galaxies.
The mountains hovered above us, grim hulking masses of
shadow. Maimon’s truck was old and it lurched as he shifted into low gear and
began the climb into the foothills. I stayed several car-lengths behind and
trailed him into darkness so dense it was palpable.
We climbed for miles, finally reaching a plateau. The
road veered sharply to the right. To the left was a broad mesa surrounded by
chain-link fence. Pyramidal towers rose from the flatlands, skeletal and still.
The abandoned oilfields. Maimon turned away from them and resumed the ascent.
The next few miles were groves, unbroken stretches of
trees recognizable as such by the serrated silhouette of star-kissed leaves,
shiny satin against the velvet of the sky. Citrus, from the perfume in the air.
Then came a series of homesteads, farmhouses on one-acre plots shadowed by sycamore
and oak. The few lights that were on blurred as we drove by.
Maimon’s turn signal went on two hundred feet before
he swung left through an open gate. An unobtrusive sign said RARE FRUIT AND
SEED co. He pulled up in front of a big two-story frame house girdled by a wide
porch. On the porch were two chairs and a dog. The dog rose on its haunches and
nuzzled Maimon’s hand as he climbed out of the truck. A Labrador, heavy and
stolid, seemingly unimpressed by my presence. Its master petted it and it went
back to sleep.
“Come around to the back,” said Maimon. We walked
along the left side of the house. There was an electrical junction box hanging
from the rear wall. He opened it, flicked a switch, and a series of lights came
on in sequence, as if choreographed.
What unfolded before my eyes was as textured and
verdant as a painting by Rousseau. A masterpiece entitled
Variations on the
Theme of Green.
There were plants and trees everywhere, many in bloom,
all thick with foliage. The larger ones sat in five and fifteen gallon
containers, a few were rooted in the rich dark soil. Smaller plants and
seedlings in peat pots rested on tables shielded by canopies of mesh. Beyond
the canopies were three glass greenhouses. The air was a cocktail of mulch and
nectar.
He gave me a guided tour. Initially I recognized most
of the species but found the varieties novel. There were unusual strains of
peach, nectarine, apricot, plum, low-chill apples, and pears. Several dozen fig
trees in pots were lined up against a fence. Maimon picked two figs from one of
them, handed one to me and popped the other in his mouth. I’d never cared for
raw figs but ate the fruit to oblige him. I was glad I did.
“What do you think?”
“Wonderful. Tastes like a dried fig.”
He was pleased.
“Celeste. Best taster by my standards, though some
prefer Pasquale.”
It continued like that, Maimon pointing out choice
hybrids with unconcealed pride, sometimes stopping to pick one and offer me a
taste. His fruit was unlike anything I’d found on the produce shelves, larger,
juicier, more vividly colored and intensely flavored.
Finally we came to the exotic specimens. Many were
aflame with orchidlike blossoms in shades of yellow, pink, scarlet, and mauve.
Each group of plants was accompanied by a wooden sign staked into the ground.
On the sign was a color photograph of fruit, flower, and leaf. Under the
illustration were botanical and common names in neatly lettered text, along
with geographic, horticultural, and culinary details.
There were species with which I was vaguely familiar—litchies,
unusual varieties of mango and papaya, loquats, guavas, and passion fruits—and
many others I’d never known existed—sapotes, sapodillas, acerola cherries,
jujubes, jaboticaba, tamarinds, tree tomatoes.
One section was devoted to vines—grapes, kiwis,
raspberries hued from black to gold. In another, stocked with rare citrus, I
saw Chandler pommelos three times the size of grapefruit and sugary sweet,
Moro, Sanguinelli, and Tarocco blood oranges with pulp and juice the color of
burgundy wine, tangors, limequats, sweet limes, and Buddha’s Finger citrons
resembling eight-digited human hands.
The greenhouses protected seedlings of the most
fragile plants in the collection, those Maimon had obtained from young
adventurers who explored the remote tropical regions of the world for new
species of flora. By manipulating light, heat, and moisture he’d constructed
microclimates that assured high success in propagation. He became animated as
he described his work, tossing out esoterica followed by patient explanations.
Half of the last greenhouse was given over to stacks
of carefully labeled boxes. On the table were a postage meter, scissors, tape,
and padded envelopes.
“Seeds,” he said. “The mainstay of my business. I ship
all over the world.”
He held open the door and took me to a cluster of
small trees.
“Family
annonaceae.”
He poked among the leaves
of the first tree and uncovered a large yellow-green fruit covered with fleshy
spines.
“Annona muricata
, the soursop. And this red one is
Annona
reticulata
, the custard apple, Lindstroms variety. There are no fruit on
this one here, won’t be until August—
Annona squamosa
, sweet-sop or
custard apple, seedless Brazilian variety. And these,” he indicated half a
dozen trees with drooping, elliptical leaves, “are the cherimoyas. Right now I’ve
got several varieties—Booth, Bonita, Pierce, White, Deliciosa.”
I reached out and touched a leaf. The underside was
fuzzy. An orangelike scent issued forth.
“Lovely fragrance, isn’t it?” More probing among the
branches. “This is the fruit.”
It didn’t look like the stuff of which dreams were
made—a large, globose, heart-shaped mound, pale green and dotted with
protrusions, resembling a leathery green pine cone. I touched it gingerly. Firm
and gently abrasive.
“Come inside. I’ll open a ripe one.”
His kitchen was big and old and spotless. The
refrigerator, oven, and sink were white enamel, the floor, linoleum waxed to a
gleam. A table and chairs fashioned from rock maple occupied the center. I
pulled up a chair and sat down. The big Lab had moved indoors and lay snoring
at the base of the stove.
Maimon opened the refrigerator, pulled out a
cherimoya, and brought it, two bowls, two spoons, and a knife, to the table.
The ripe fruit was mottled with brown and soft to the touch. He sliced it in
two, put each half in a bowl, skin down. The pulp was a creamy off-white, the
color and consistency of fresh custard.
“Dessert,” said Maimon and spooned out a shimmering
mouthful. He held it aloft then ate.
I put my spoon to the fruit. It slid in and sank. I
pulled it out filled with custard and put it to my lips.
The taste was incredible, bringing to mind the flavors
of many other fruits yet different from each; sweet, then tart, then sweet
again, shifting elusively on the tongue, as subtle and satisfying as the finest
confection. The seeds were plentiful, beanlike and hard as wood. An annoyance,
but tolerable.
We ate in silence. I savored the cherimoya, knowing it
had brought heartbreak to the Swopes, but not permitting that to adulterate my
pleasure until all that was left was an empty green shell.
Maimon ate slowly and finished a few minutes later.