the
rocks: “Oh that was four wives back!” The wives disappeared, but the children
remained. They were so deeply tanned it was difficult to distinguish them from
the native children. Edward worked at odd jobs: designing fabrics, tending
silver shops, or building a house for someone. At the time Lillian met him he
was distributing Coca-Cola calendars all over Mexico. To his own amazement, the
people loved them and hung them up on their walls. The last one, which he now
unrolled to create a stir among the bathers, was an interpretation of a Mayan
human sacrifice. The Yucatan pyramid was smaller than the woman, and the woman
who was about to be sacrificed looked like Gypsy Rose Lee. The shaved and lean
priest looked unequal to the task of annihilating such splendor of the body.
The active volcano on the right-hand side was the size of the sacrificial
virgin’s breast.
Tequila always brought out in Edward a total
repudiation of art. He was emphatic about the fact that he had deserted the
musical world of his own volition. “In this place music is not necessary.
Golconda is full of natural music, dance music, singing music, music for
living. The street vendors’ tunes are better than any modern composition. Life
itself is full of rhythm, people sing while they work. I don’t miss concerts or
my own violin at all!”
The second glass of tequila unleashed
reminiscences of concert halls, and the Museum of Modern Art, as if they had
been his residence prior to Golconda. With the third glass came a lecture on
the superfluity of art. “For example, here, with the lagoon, the jungle, you do
not need the collages of Max Ernst, his artificial lagoons and swamps. With the
deserts and sand dunes, the bleaching bones of cows and donkeys, there is no
need of Tanguy’s desert scenes and bleaching bones. And with the ruins of San
Miguel what need do we have of Chirico’s columns? I lack nothing here. Only a
wife willing to live on bananas and coconut milk.”
“When I felt cold,” said Lillian, “I used to go
to the Tropical Birds and Plants Department at Sears Roebuck. It was warm,
humid, and pungent. Or I would go to look at the tropical plants in the
Botanical Gardens. I was looking for Golconda then. I remember a palm tree
there which grew so tall, too tall for the glass dome, and I would watch it
pushing against the glass, wishing to grow beyond it and be free. I think of
this caged palm tree often while I watch the ones of Golconda sweeping the
skies.”
But at the third glass of tequila, Edward’s
talk grew less metallic, and his glance would fall on his left hand where a
finger was missing. Everyone knew, but he never mentioned it, that this was the
cause of his broken career as a violinist.
Everyone knew too that his children were loved,
nourished, and protected by all in Golconda. They had mysteriously accepted an
interchangeable mother, one with many faces and speaking many languages, but
for the moment it was Lillian they had adopted, as if they had sensed that in
her there was a groove for children, already formed, once used, familiar, and
which they found comfortable. And Lillian wondered at their insight, wondered
how they knew that she had once possessed, and lost, children of the same age.
How did they know she had already kissed such
freckles on the nose, such thin elbows, braided such tangled hair, and known
where to find missing shoes? It was not only that they allowed her toy the missing mother, but that they seemed intent on
filling an empty niche in her, on playing the missing children.
She and the children embraced each other with a
knowledge of substitution which added to their friendship, a familiarity the
children did not feel with their other temporary mothers.
To her alone they confessed their concern with
their father’s next choice of a wife. They examined each newcomer gravely,
weighing her qualifications. They had observed one infallible sign: “If she
loves us first,” they explained,
rocks: “Oh that was four wives back!” The wives disappeared, but the children
remained. They were so deeply tanned it was difficult to distinguish them from
the native children. Edward worked at odd jobs: designing fabrics, tending
silver shops, or building a house for someone. At the time Lillian met him he
was distributing Coca-Cola calendars all over Mexico. To his own amazement, the
people loved them and hung them up on their walls. The last one, which he now
unrolled to create a stir among the bathers, was an interpretation of a Mayan
human sacrifice. The Yucatan pyramid was smaller than the woman, and the woman
who was about to be sacrificed looked like Gypsy Rose Lee. The shaved and lean
priest looked unequal to the task of annihilating such splendor of the body.
The active volcano on the right-hand side was the size of the sacrificial
virgin’s breast.
Tequila always brought out in Edward a total
repudiation of art. He was emphatic about the fact that he had deserted the
musical world of his own volition. “In this place music is not necessary.
Golconda is full of natural music, dance music, singing music, music for
living. The street vendors’ tunes are better than any modern composition. Life
itself is full of rhythm, people sing while they work. I don’t miss concerts or
my own violin at all!”
The second glass of tequila unleashed
reminiscences of concert halls, and the Museum of Modern Art, as if they had
been his residence prior to Golconda. With the third glass came a lecture on
the superfluity of art. “For example, here, with the lagoon, the jungle, you do
not need the collages of Max Ernst, his artificial lagoons and swamps. With the
deserts and sand dunes, the bleaching bones of cows and donkeys, there is no
need of Tanguy’s desert scenes and bleaching bones. And with the ruins of San
Miguel what need do we have of Chirico’s columns? I lack nothing here. Only a
wife willing to live on bananas and coconut milk.”
“When I felt cold,” said Lillian, “I used to go
to the Tropical Birds and Plants Department at Sears Roebuck. It was warm,
humid, and pungent. Or I would go to look at the tropical plants in the
Botanical Gardens. I was looking for Golconda then. I remember a palm tree
there which grew so tall, too tall for the glass dome, and I would watch it
pushing against the glass, wishing to grow beyond it and be free. I think of
this caged palm tree often while I watch the ones of Golconda sweeping the
skies.”
But at the third glass of tequila, Edward’s
talk grew less metallic, and his glance would fall on his left hand where a
finger was missing. Everyone knew, but he never mentioned it, that this was the
cause of his broken career as a violinist.
Everyone knew too that his children were loved,
nourished, and protected by all in Golconda. They had mysteriously accepted an
interchangeable mother, one with many faces and speaking many languages, but
for the moment it was Lillian they had adopted, as if they had sensed that in
her there was a groove for children, already formed, once used, familiar, and
which they found comfortable. And Lillian wondered at their insight, wondered
how they knew that she had once possessed, and lost, children of the same age.
How did they know she had already kissed such
freckles on the nose, such thin elbows, braided such tangled hair, and known
where to find missing shoes? It was not only that they allowed her toy the missing mother, but that they seemed intent on
filling an empty niche in her, on playing the missing children.
She and the children embraced each other with a
knowledge of substitution which added to their friendship, a familiarity the
children did not feel with their other temporary mothers.
To her alone they confessed their concern with
their father’s next choice of a wife. They examined each newcomer gravely,
weighing her qualifications. They had observed one infallible sign: “If she
loves us first,” they explained,
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