Mendoza in Hollywood (Company) Page 12

  I thought privately that he’d been too hard on poor Juan Bautista about the birds. It’s all very well to break the news to a young operative that love is a mistake, that attachments can’t be formed because of what we are. But Porfirio had found a way around that, hadn’t he? For him there was always a home fire burning somewhere, no matter how far he wandered on the dark plain, while the rest of us made do with ashes and ghosts.

  Someone was standing on the other side of the fire, looking at me. The others didn’t see him. I refused to lift my eyes.

  “So, where are they now?” I asked. “Your family.”

  Porfirio shifted, uncomfortable. “Most of the direct line are working on a ranch in Durango. One of the girls married a man with some property, and all the brothers have moved in to work for them. They’re doing all right, I guess. I haven’t been down that way in ten years. I’ll need to wait a few more years before I can go back there again.”

  I put his story out of my mind as I went to my room and set up my credenza for work, and I kept it out of my mind while I processed my specimens. In the end I had to shut it off and go to bed, though, and the second my head hit the pillow, the question leaped out at me like a thief from ambush: What had become of my family?

  Long dead, their remains probably stacked in a charnel house beside some village church in Galicia. Had there been descendants? I’d had lots of brothers and sisters, so perhaps there were some distant relatives running around somewhere. There might be some woman even at this moment with my face, my hair, buying onions in the marketplace in Orense or Santiago de Compostela.

  When I finally fell asleep, I had the nightmare again, the old nightmare that I always forget until I’m actually inside it once more, where I’m in my parents’ house in the middle of the night. It’s dead-black night, but the moon shines like an arc lamp, and I can see them all lying together in the one big bed. There is my skinny father and my ever-pregnant mother, and there are all the little children I used to fight with so bitterly for our shared toys, or a scrap of food, or our mother’s attention. I know all their names, but I always forget them when I wake up.

  My family is asleep, as silent as though they were underwater, and nothing will wake them. I’m the only one awake. I try my best, but I can’t get anyone to wake up and be company for me. The moonlight is so white, the night is so still. I wander around the room disconsolately, but they never wake up to notice I’m there. They will sleep forever. Only I am awake; only I can never sleep.

  This time, I couldn’t bear it and ran outside into the moonlight. It was a mistake. Apple trees stretched in every direction, white with blossom, and the air was full of perfume. He was standing there under the trees, tall in his black robe, waiting for me. As I halted and stared, he extended his arm in its long sleeve, that graceful gesture that was one of the first things I’d ever noticed and loved in him. Inviting me, beckoning me, summoning me.

  I struggled upright on my narrow cot, gasping like a fish out of water, soaked with chill sweat, and for one terrifying moment I thought the spectral moon was shining in here too, because it seemed to me there was a flash of eerie blue that faded and flickered away. I sagged against the wall and wept, not bothering to wipe away my tears. Here came the footsteps again, Porfirio running out to see what the disturbance was; but he stopped, and after a long while turned and went away without speaking.

  I lay down again, shaking, pulled up the blanket, and curled on my side. I was so cold.

  “I WISH WE HAD SOME TOAST,” Oscar was complaining at breakfast. “Oatmeal. Soft-boiled eggs. Real food.”

  “This isn’t a civilized country yet, remember?” Porfirio said to him with a grin. “You’ll get your oatmeal eventually.”

  “Anything would be preferable to this monotony of leftovers.” Oscar rested his chin on his fist, staring glumly at the beef in the skillet.

  “You want to talk to Dr. Zeus about allocating me a bigger budget to run this place?” Porfirio flipped the steaks adroitly. “So, hombre, how’s that pie safe? Got a buyer for it yet? Should I start peeling those parsnips?”

  Oscar pursed his lips. “I feel lucky today,” he said. “Mendoza, will you come with me and bear witness?”

  “To what?” I looked up groggily from my coffee. I hadn’t been sleeping well lately, to put it mildly.

  “I want someone present who can testify to my triumph.”

  “Oh. Actually I was going out into the temperate belt today, Oscar.”

  “We can go that way. There are houses out there. Why, I haven’t even visited that area yet. Those people are probably desperate for good-quality merchandise at affordable prices.” His eyes grew wide and reverent.

  “Okay,” I said, getting up to fetch my field gear. It’d save me a long walk; why not? When I came out, he’d already hitched up Amelia and was pacing back and forth, energized.

  “Your chariot awaits, ma’am.” He bowed me to my seat. “Where shall we go?”

  “Take Franklin to Hollywood to Sunset,” I said. We had all adopted Einar’s use of future street names, and that was the route that followed the foothills through the temperate belt. He gee-hawed to Amelia, and away we rolled.

  This was a much prettier drive than the road that cut across the plain, with inviting green canyons that opened up to the north; unfortunately it was also a lot more dangerous, as bullets sang out of the thickets at regular intervals. We dodged them and shot back if they seemed too persistent; I scarcely wasted a thought on it now. I was able to get good specimens of Vitis girdiana near the future intersection of Laurel Canyon and Sunset Boulevard; I found an interesting mutation of Chrysothamnus, with possible commercially valuable properties, at Sunset and Queens Road. Oscar bore with my frequent stops patiently, but kept his eyes trained on a thin column of smoke that rose ahead.

  When we finally came around a foothill and saw its source, he sighed in disappointment. The house was old, built of tules in the local Indian style, and in fact there was an Indian lady in the yard, standing on a rock to load acorns into a kind of basketwork silo. If not for the fact that she was wearing European clothing, we might be back in pre-Columbian days. She turned to stare at us as we pulled up before her yard.

  “Good morning, señora,” I called to her in Spanish.

  “And to you,” she said, getting down and wiping her hands on her apron.

  “Look at that!” gasped Oscar. I thought he was enchanted by the primitiveness of it all, but it was the silo that had his attention. He was out of the wagon and into the yard much too fast for the dogs who lived there, for they surrounded him in a snarling mob before he could reach the lady.

  “Please excuse him, señora, he means no harm,” I said from my seat in the cart. She nodded and called the dogs off. Oscar had his hat in his hands at once.

  “My apologies, a thousand pardons, señora, but I couldn’t help seeing that you are in dire need of superior food-storage facilities!”

  She just nodded and looked at him. Probably she was deciding that the white man was up to no good if he apologized to her this abjectly, but her face was blank, her expression mild.

  Oscar gestured with his hat at the acorn silo. “This structure, señora, it’s very ingenious and well made, but it’s nothing more than natural materials. Are you not at the mercy of the ground squirrel, the raccoon, the scrub jay, and a host of other pests? Do they not voraciously deplete your larder?”

  “Sometimes,” she said.

  “Well, allow me, señora, to offer you a solution to these depredations, a way of ensuring that your hours of backbreaking labor gathering the fruits of Jove’s tree are not for naught!” He bowed her toward the cart. She went with him, placidly folding her hands, no doubt wondering who Jove was. The dogs snarled and followed, but kept their menace low-key.

  “What you need,” Oscar said, unfastening the side of the cart, “is a modern, sanitary method of preserving food. Now I think, señora, I think you’ll agree that what I have here just fits the bill.
Behold!” He flung back the side, displaying the pie safe gleaming among his wares like the central diamond in a crown. “The Criterion Patented Brass-bound Pie Safe!”

  Her face remained perfectly still, but a light flickered in her eyes. Then they grew a little bleak.

  “It’s very beautiful, señor,” she said.

  “Oscar—” I said. He ignored me.

  “Regard the metal fittings. This is a first-rate device guaranteed to be impervious to pests, whether of the gnawing, crawling, or pecking variety. No less than eight separate compartments for the storage of your acorns and, er, whatever other fine foods you wish to keep pure, fresh, and unsullied. Now, I’ve a talent, if I may say so, señora, for supplying needs, and I can see plainly that you need this. It may have been designed for other forms of edible goods, but such is the versatility of its design that it will admirably preserve foodstuffs from any ethnic cuisine whatsoever.”

  “I’m sure it would, señor.”

  “Oscar—”

  “Now, it may be,” he said, raising a hand, “that you’ve put aside hard-won savings, in the anticipation that Necessity may call at your, uh, door. I might suggest that you could make no better investment against Want than this splendid item, which will safely reserve your stores against all possible losses. Ordinarily the Criterion Patented Brassbound Pie Safe is sold for no less than thirty dollars; but for you, señora, in your most obvious need, I will offer it for the special low price of ten dollars. Only say the word, señora, and you need never fear the loss of your acorns again.”

  I buried my face in my hands. She was taking them all in in a long bitter stare, all those pretty and improbable things she’d never thought of having and shouldn’t have thought of having, because she’d never have them.

  “It is certainly a beautiful thing, señor,” she said meekly. “I am afraid, though, that I have no money.”

  Oscar gaped. “Well—why, I’ll tell you what, then. You can pay for it on the hire-purchase plan! Twenty easy installments of fifty cents each, how about that? With the first payment deferred six months. You can’t afford not to take advantage of this once-only offer.”

  “Yes, I can,” she said. “I have no money at all, señor. My husband works on the big rancho, and the man who owns it lets us stay here in return. We never have any money.”

  “But—but my good woman, how do you live?” he said.

  She waved a hand at the acorns, at the venison jerky drying on the fence, at the neatly woven baskets of pinole meal.

  “Come on, Oscar,” I said.

  “Uh, well. If you ever should obtain hard currency, I’m sure a thrifty housewife such as yourself will invest it in the wisest possible way,” Oscar gabbled. “And may I present you with a complimentary volume of the poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley? I trust you’ll remember me, señora, when you require the finest in home furnishings. Good day.”

  “Thank you. Good day,” she said, staring at the little book in its bright pasteboard binding. Oscar leaped into the seat, and we rocketed off.

  “Shelley!” I asked.

  “That was my low point, my absolute nadir,” Oscar groaned. “Dear Lord, what possessed me? It was her need, you know, her utter need. It seduced me. I must supply where I see demand. It’s a compulsion. Other operatives would be content with simply gathering valuable anthropological data or ferreting out hitherto unrecorded ethnographical statistics. I must be more. I must be the genuine article. That’s my problem: my standards are too high.”

  “Well, it’s not like you’re a failure,” I said helpfully. “You’re doing great work for the Company.”

  “For Dr. Zeus, I’ll grant you. But what about the worthy gentlemen at the Acme and Criterion Companies? Mere mortal merchants, say you; yet I believe in complete commitment, absolute fulfillment of all responsibilities, be they ever so trivial.” He shook the reins with noble determination. “Giddap, Amelia! To the next customer.”

  But worse was yet to come.

  Farther down the road, in a green clearing beside a still-bubbling spring, we saw a fine adobe and garden. The walls were freshly plastered, the window frames painted, and a tall paling fence warned trespassers away from the yard, where cabbages were growing in precise lines and peach and plum trees stood to attention.

  “Now, look at that,” said Oscar, laying down the reins in admiration. “Look at the industry and thrift evident in that pleasant scene. Surely this is the residence of a wage-earning individual. And his spouse. Prudent housewifery is in every line of that garden plot. I can taste that New England boiled dinner now.”

  “Those are awfully big dogs,” I observed. They sat alert, one on either side of the door, watching us silently. I hadn’t the slightest doubt that if Oscar so much as put his foot inside the gate, they’d tear it off.

  “Hem, you’re right. Well, let’s not repeat my previous error.” Oscar got down and went around to the back, where he drew out a pan and a long wooden spoon. He commenced to beat out a brisk tattoo on the pan, looking hopefully at the house. The dogs pricked up their ears but made no move.

  “Good day! Hello there! Is there anyone at home?” he called. The door opened, and a woman looked out.

  Whoops. I transmitted to Oscar. She’s an Anglo. Off-limits for your pie safe.

  He faltered only a moment in his disappointment. “Well, good morning, there, ma’am!” he said in English. “I wonder if you’d be interested in any of the superior merchandise I have to offer?”

  “Nein,” she said, and he shot me a look of triumph.

  “You are German, madam?” he said in a close approximation of her regional accent. “From Bavaria, yes?”

  “You, too?” Wonderingly she emerged from the house and came a little way toward him. “In this foreign land?”

  “Many years now, but I assure you it is so. How pleasant it is to hear a cultivated voice again! Come now, my dear, I have many things here that you may need, though you may never have considered that in such a lawless and unimproved country they could be obtained. Come, see what I have to offer to you.” Oscar put his hand on the latch, and the two dogs instantly sprang to their feet, growling. She shushed them and came a little closer, peering at us. He might have been a countryman, but he was still a peddler.

  “Have you the polish with which to clean silver?” she said.

  “Yes, natürlich! And I have additionally stove blacking, laundry bluing, wash powders, and these very fine clothespins that have a patent pending for the superior spring mechanism that they employ. Consider, here, the little figures of china bisque, very sweet, the little doves billing and cooing and the little shepherd boy playing love songs with his flute. And this pan for the baking of cakes, with the hearts printed in the bottom so as to make the design upon the finished cake, wouldn’t you like to have this?”

  “No,” she said. “Just the polish for silver, thank you.”

  “Ah, but, my dear! Here is your silver polish, to be sure, but behold! Printed music for performance on the piano, the spinet, or the organ. And confections also, barley-sugar sticks in the flavors of apple, blackcurrant, or strawberry. And see what fine things I have for sewing.”

  “Thank you, no. How much for the silver polish?”

  “Five cents American.”

  She raised her eyebrows slightly but fished in her apron pocket and paid him. He handed her the silver polish, and she turned to go. He nearly made a desperate lunge over the fence, which the dogs were only too happy to have him do.

  “But, dear lady!” he screamed at her back. “See, here, this thing which you will find is an absolute necessity in this wild and dirty country. It is the Pie Safe Patented Criterion Brassbound.” He flung wide the panel, revealing it in all its glory. “It keeps the bread loaves and the rolls from going stale. It keeps the mice, the rats, the insects from invading the pastries. You of all people would want such furniture for the kitchen that you bake in.”

  The woman turned and followed his gesture with her eyes. F
or a moment they were warm and approving. “Ah, yes,” she agreed, nodding her head. “I do not know what I would do without the one I have.”

  “You have such a one?” Oscar asked, going pale.

  “Natürlich, there in my kitchen inside the house. But mine is bigger than that, and bound not in brass but in nickel that is plated with silver. And it has not pineapples upon it but the design of pheasants.” She looked closer, critically. “Also, yours does not have the egg timer or the barometer built into the cabinet, as mine has.”

  Immortal or not, I thought he’d keel over dead right there on the spot. She realized she’d dealt him some sort of near-fatal blow, though, because she hastened with a kindly word: “All the same, it is a very good pie safe, and you will certainly sell it to somebody. I have no need of it, however. Good day, my dear sir.”

  Well, I couldn’t laugh, he looked so stricken when he crawled up on the seat beside me. We drove away in silence. About halfway back to La Nopalera, he drew a deep breath and said, “I’d be obliged to you, Mendoza, if you wouldn’t mention this mortifying occasion to the others.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. I had no wish to gloat. The day’s outing had been successful for me; I had got a couple of good specimens not only on the drive out but also on the way back, I scored a previously unclassified member of the Celastraceae, some exotic low-elevation form of Euonymus by the look of it. Happy me.

  I COULDN’T GET THOSE green canyons out of my mind. Accessing topographical data, I decided that Laurel Canyon, with its drastic range in elevations, had the best chance of mutation-yielding microclimates and diversified habitats. I was intrigued, also, by the blue-hazard notations on every reference to the area I encountered.

  “I thought I’d stroll over to Laurel Canyon today,” I said, one morning at breakfast, casually.

  Porfirio choked on his coffee and glared at me.

  “Are you nuts?” he said. “That’s a blue-hazard precinct, dummy.”

  “So my files tell me, but I’ve never encountered one before. It’s just a kind of energy sink, right? A locus of natural unnaturalness in the landscape?” I was a little taken aback by his reaction.