Oppenheimer died of cancer in 1967.
Then there was Ann: in good health, she was confident in her marriage, satisfied, and secure. She worked at the public library and gave to local and national charities, typically modest amounts in response to direct mail. She preferred gentle, reasonable solicitations to those that shrilled “This bunny was blinded by hairspray!” Of course, in recent times bad things were happening: planes flew into buildings and democracy was waning. War was everywhere erupting and as people multiplied obscenely and advanced on open space they were driving all the plants and animals extinct.
But much of this was far away. The world kept its distance.
Although she was sometimes withdrawn and thoughtful she had never been prone to depression, had never in fact suffered from any major affliction, disorder or syndrome described by the American Psychiatric Association. In other words there was little in her makeup to presage disruption, little on which, subsequently, to look back and nod knowingly.
It was a day in March with low skies and rain threatening, and she had walked Ben to work on her way to the library. He was helping to design and plant a garden for a middle-aged couple who had just bought one of the largest adobe houses in east Santa Fe. It had been said that this man and his wife had been in business together in high finance on Wall Street, and together had perfected what she once heard described as “the art of the leveraged buyout.” In fact they were practically the inventors, it was said, of the leveraged buyout.
She did not understand this. It did not sound like “inventors of the player piano.” It did not sound like “inventors of the donut.”
They had hundreds of millions of dollars at their disposal, Ben had told her, and so they had casually bought one of the largest adobe houses in east Santa Fe. Strictly speaking it was a mansion, not a house. She had seen the mansion long before, when others had owned it, and she liked the high adobe walls around it, the walls that were so thick that they themselves had roofs. She liked the old acequias that flowed beneath the house, some of which dated from 1700. She liked the hand-carved wooden gates and the apple trees; she liked the lilacs and sand plums that grew against the walls, scraping on the curved tiles when the wind blew.
But the inventors of the leveraged buyout found little to like in the house, despite the quickness of their purchase. One thing they did not like was the mansion’s garden, so they bulldozed it. And then they hired Ben, along with a well-reputed Japanese landscape architect named Yoshi, to make them some new gardens.
Ben was often invited to the homes of clients after he had worked for them. He rarely accepted these invitations, and when he did it was always in consultation with Ann. And then, when Ann and Ben arrived at the dinner or cocktail party, the woman of the house would introduce him fondly to her guests—often, Ann had observed, with a proprietary air. —This is my gardener, the hostess would say, or “landscaper,” or even “garden consultant” or “horticulturist,” and once, with relish, “yard man.”
And typically the man of the house would give Ben a brief sidelong glance, grudging and skeptical. If Ben and Ann were the only guests the host might clap him on the back and steer him through the house showing him the expensive items, stereos or plasma televisions or kitchen appliances in brushed stainless. He might do this casually, as though, despite the fact that he wished to give the tour, it was his wife who insisted on owning everything.
Once, while Ann lingered in the background, a husband had shown Ben the head of a Dall sheep he had shot in Alaska, now mounted on a peach-colored wall. He told Ben a story about the kill—a trek that had lasted for days, the report of which involved the timeless phrase slithering on our bellies—and then led him away to show him something else, leaving her in front of the sheep head. She stood there, without knowing it, for half an hour, gazing into the dark, dewy glass eyes where she wandered and lost herself. She felt the city receding behind her, its twinkling lights forgotten, felt herself leaving the city as she walked through the gates of the eyes. In the eyes there was welcome, an envelope of pity.
Oh sweetheart, they said, you see, there’s no more they can do to me.
Finally the wife had come in from the living room to retrieve her. Ann had followed her in a daze past an altar to the goddess and a beadwork tapestry to where the guests sat drinking frozen margaritas and eating mixed nuts in the living room, beneath a vaulted ceiling with a tinted skylight. The women were clustered together on a black-and-white cowhide sofa, talking about how it felt to be Rolfed. The men stood outside the sliding doors on the patio, one of them flipping steaks on the barbecue with long tongs.
Ann was not afraid she would be stuffed and mounted.
Ben’s employers often treated Ann as though she was a bookend to him, the two of them a matched set, both slight and shy, except with each other, and tending to smile gently when nervous. Moreover she was a librarian, which was felt to be quaint and properly humble, not unlike gardening.
It was a day with low, dark banks of thunderclouds that might produce dramatic storms, storms that would make the high desert turbulent, an epic country. She was looking forward to the smell of the rain, its cool fragrant breezes, and warm blankets tucked around her and Ben at night. The large adobe mansion was not far away from her small adobe house, and
