December 1 - December 24, 1998

CHAPTER II

WE WERE VERY TIRED, WE WERE VERY MERRY

At eight-fifteen the next morning, in the polished granite lobby of the Midtown high-rise where her fiancé, David, lived, Julia phoned her apartment. "You sound loaded," Julia's sister Renee said after Julia’s uncharacteristically ebullient greeting, and Renee was finally awake enough to realize this person gushing at her over the phone was Julia.

"I’m not. I’m just...besotted," Julia said. She couldn’t suppress a giggle,

"I’m going to make a wild guess and presume this besotation had nothing to do with David."

Julia didn't answer.

"Jules, you’re scaring me. What’s the deal?"

"‘We were very tired,’" Julia recited, "‘we were very merry. We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry. It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable--But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table. We lay on a hill-top underneath the moon. And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.’"

"Oh, brother," said Renee.

"That’s the first stanza from Edna St. Vincent Millay’s Recuerdo. What’s wrong, don’t care for poetry?"

"I like it as much as the next person. What I don’t like is that you’re spouting it to me at this hour and that you haven’t been home all night. I get the feeling you weren’t with a girlfriend. I kind of got that feeling last night when you called."

"Mom and dad suspicious?"

"Not yet."

"I was nearly killed by a man with a knife on the subway yesterday."

"Jules! They apprehend him?"

"Yes. Don't be a cop right now. I’m okay," Julia said. She leaned back against the granite wall and felt its coolness through her jacket. "I've been waiting for two years to fall in love with this city, the way I dreamed I would before I came here, the one I fell in love with in movies like "An Affair To Remember," "Tails of Manhattan," "Westside Story." You know the one I mean."

The uniformed guard at the security desk where the phone was couldn't avoid overhearing Julia's rhapsody. He smiled at her. She grinned back.

"I guess so," Renee said.

"Last night it finally happened. Manhattan now seems crowded with castles topped by spires and ramparts. The sidewalks are glittering."

"Okay, Jules, what’s the name of this guy who can make the sidewalks sparkle? Not the one with the knife, I hope."

"Paco. Paco Berelli. He rescued me."

"Oh, boy."

"I knew his name but I couldn't place it at first. Then I remembered. Renee, get this! He’s Executive Art Director at Elle. Definitely single. Definitely straight. And, a dresser! His dad's a professor at Columbia (Anthropology? Ethnology? I'm not clear). He's written two books on the Inuits (Eskimos), and one monograph on Hopi Indian courting and marriage customs. They've got an Uncle Nick, who I get the idea is kind of on the fringe of the mob."

"Jules, where are you?"

"The lobby of David’s building. Trying to find the courage to go upstairs and tell him what's happened." She noticed that a lot more people were coming out of the elevators, passing through the lobby and out the doors on their way to work. Always punctual, David would be down soon.

"Don’t say anything, okay? Not until you’ve had a chance to think this over," Renee said.

"There’s nothing to think about."

"Man oh man! I recognize my sister’s voice, but there’s nothing else familiar about this person I’m talking to."

"Renee, even if what happened with Paco last night doesn’t go any farther, the fact that it happened at all, indicates to me that I can’t marry David."

Julia saw the doors of one of the elevator cars glide open. To her surprise, David and his assistant, the gorgeous red-headed Penny Kelly, came out of the elevator with their arms around each other's waists. Julia hung up the phone with the sound of Renee’s voice telling her--rapid fire--not to do anything rash, anything foolish.

David and Penny abruptly stopped when they spotted Julia. They dropped their arms. David came toward Julia. Penny stayed in the background, leaning against the wall near the elevator. Julia noted David's long legs moving in their proficient gait, noted that as usual his suit was perfect, that he hadn’t missed a single spot when shaving, and that he didn’t have a hair out of place.

"You're a wreck," he said embracing her perfunctorily and then holding her at arm's length.

Julia looked down at the grass stains and dirt smudges on her skirt and jacket from her night of roaming Manhattan with Paco. David was looking at them, too, and with open disapproval. Normally, Julia would've been appalled at her messy appearance. That morning, however, she was delighted by every mark, since each one commemorated some wonderful moment with Paco from the night before when they'd wandered hand-in-hand all over lower Manhattan and the Village, sat on the grass on the commons of NYU to eat the pepperoni slices they bought at a little joint on St. Marks Place, and had, indeed, repeatedly traveled back and forth on the Staten Island Ferry, watching from the deck as Manhattan loomed and receded. They'd kissed at daybreak in Battery Park until their lips were sore, then strolled to the Fulton Street Fish Market to get coffee; all of which had been hell on the white linen suit.

Julia glanced at Penny, then back at David.

"Penny was dropping off some briefs I need and forgot to bring home from the office last night." David turned, glanced at Penny and nodded. Penny shrugged and headed for the lobby door. "Let's go up," he said to Julia.

They were alone for the elevator ride to his apartment on the 27th floor. "This encounter with Penny isn't anything you should worry about," he said, apparently unruffled, as he regarded his reflection in one of the car’s mirrored walls. "It isn't anything, period." He straightened the already precise Windsor knot of his tie. "You ought to have more trust in me."

Five minutes later he raised the elaborate Roman shades in the stark living room, light poured in, and toast popped out of the toaster in the ultra modern kitchen. As Julia buttered the toast, she finished telling him about what happened on the subway and about Paco.

"You're making this up because of Penny," he said, pouring himself a glass of grapefruit juice from the carton she'd gotten from the refrigerator.

"Right, I got up this morning, stabbed myself in the cheek, dressed in this suit covered with grass stains, then positioned myself in your lobby because I suspected all along about Penny and I wanted to go you one better," Julia said slathering Damson plum preserves on one of the slices of toast, then licked her fingers.

David looked at her in annoyance. "Don't."

"Sorry." She took a bite, chewed, swallowed, then said, "Before this morning I didn't suspect about Penny.

"You're blowing this way out of proportion. You should be more trusting."

"I trusted you completely."

"Did you find another home for the cats yet?"

"No."

"We can't have them here," he said.

She looked around at the black leather sofa and club chairs. He was right. Her industrious cats would shred them in a week. "Under the circumstances, I suppose feeling betrayed is kind of ridiculous. But at least I haven't lied to you."

He impatiently turned away and headed down the hall.

Julia remained in the kitchen and finished her toast. What surprised her was the way that David's more than probable involvement with Penny Kelly complicated rather than simplified the situation with Paco. Experiencing her second lightning bolt of intuition in less than 24 hours, she knew as sure as she was standing there eating Damson Plum preserves and toast that David had been involved with Penny for some time. She realized that in all the ways that count, she never really knew him. How could she now think that after only one night she could know Paco? She rinsed her dish, waited five minutes more, and when David didn't come back she went to find him.

She found him shaving before the mirror in the green marble bathroom. He'd removed his jacket and tucked a hand towel around his collar to protect it.

"I feel like I missed a few spots this morning," he said.

"You didn't. You never do."

They were silent for a time. She could hear the razor scraping his face. She felt in an odd way like they were both skipping school.

"So you met some guy," he said finally.

She nodded.

"Well, Julia, I really resent that you’re laying this on my doorstep not simply the day before the wedding--that’s inconsiderate enough--but also two hours before I deliver the summation for one of the most important cases the firm's ever handled," he said, then shook lather off the razor, rinsed it under the hot water, and started on the other side of his face. "The big one. The one that makes me a senior partner and gives us the what-with to afford the two-point-five children, the black Labrador Retriever, as well as the house on the Hudson to put it all in; the one that assures our happily-ever-after."

"I don't think I want a dog," she said.

"What’s wrong with dogs?" he said.

"I don’t know. I’ve just never cared much for them."

"What kind of person doesn’t care for dogs?"

Julia shrugged and chuckled. "It's all coming out now."

He exhaled. "Come to court with me. Watch me in action. You can invite your parents, and your sister, too."

"No."

"You can't really believe I'm going to let you trashing our lives over some artistic-type you met on the subway less than twenty-four hours ago." When Julia didn't say anything, he went on; "Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful that he got you out of the jam you were in. It was a close call and I expect you’re, grateful too.( I’ve told you a thousand times to stay off that damn subway). But let’s not get carried away here. Let’s not mistake gratitude for . . . what? What are you presently calling this?"

"I'm not calling it anything yet," she admitted

"Whatever it is, it can't touch what we have."

"The last eighteen hours have been the most amazing eighteen hours of my life," she remarked.

"The wedding's in twenty-six hours," he said. "There are two hundred guests coming from as far away as London and Florence. I’ve purchased a new tuxedo for myself, and a Vera Wang for you. We’ve spent twenty-four hundred dollars on first class airfare to Bali and plunked down thrice that much for the resort. The flowers are ordered (armloads of them), and the caterer has prepared two hundred filet of Chilean seabass en croute with raspberry coulis lunches at eighty-seven dollars a plate. Do you see what I’m driving at?"

Julia nodded.

"You gave me your word when you accepted my proposal. You made a covenant with me," David said. "It’s like a contract."

She pulled the engagement ring off her finger and laid it on the rim of the sink, then turned and left the bathroom. He caught up with her in the hallway, grabbed her arm and pulled her around.

"Julia, I recommend that you take one of the Valiums in the bottle in my medicine cabinet, go home and get some sleep. I’ll see you tonight at the rehearsal. We won’t talk about this again."

"You're hurting me." She pulled her arm away and headed through living room for the foyer.

"Where are you going?" He shouted and when she didn't answer, he picked up an enormous Costa Boda leaded crystal bowl from the coffee table and hurled it at the wall.

Julia wasn't sure what she expected would happened when she told David the wedding was off, but she didn't expect this.

"I can tell you right now," he said glaring at her and grabbing her arm again, "there's no way in hell I’m tolerating the humiliation of this eleventh-hour bailout."

The phone rang.

Without a word, he released her, pulled the towel out of his collar and grabbed the phone. "Yes?" he said into the receiver. She headed for the door. He stepped in front of her, covered the mouthpiece, cocked an eyebrow and looked at her. "It's the doorman. Paco Berelli's in the lobby. He insists on seeing you."

"Tell him to wait. I'm coming down."

David snorted, then said to the doorman, "Ask Mr. Berelli to come up."

September 3, 1960

Felt weary an hour out of Durango, so I stopped at a tourist camp for the night. I had a hot shower, which felt absolutely great, and because it’s the last time I’ll be able to do that for a while, I took another one this morning at daybreak.

I began ascending the mesas from the East this morning, up Rt. 77. It was hot (105 degrees), according to the thermometer with stick-um on the back Uncle Nicky slapped on the dashboard before I left last week. I looked at the topography and felt as though I was entering the jagged ramparts of a medieval citadel. In a way that's exactly what the mesas are, since these people have existed on these high desert, element-swept promontories for something like 800-1000 years.

About eight miles in I spotted the eagle Kwahu gliding above me. Dewey Kayenta's messenger sent to see me safely in, I'd like to believe. I watched it ascend and float and dive and soar above me: A dance of welcome.

On the lower mesa, I drove through the village of Polacca, established by Tom Polacca (a Tewa from Hano) in about 1890. Back then, the Bureau of Indian Affairs attempted to disrupt the unity of ceremonial life on First Mesa by trying to lure the people down to Polacca. The carrot was free housing (your basic three acres and a mule, I suspect). Not many fell for it. Now, as then, the culture of Polacca remains inextricably bound to that of First Mesa (there is much about the Polacca question which appeals to me as a subject for my dissertation. Although both the courtship and marriage pattern topic, as well as the schism at Old Oraibi (down below, on Third Mesa) in 1906, have strong appeal, as well. I've just got to make up my mind!!!!!).

In the valley beneath Polacca, I saw a thriving field of corn (life). Despite a nod to tourism (sale of Katcina figurines, pottery and ceremonial baskets to the occasional visitor) the economy remains agrarian. Over the centuries, these people have managed to virtually squeeze blood from stone . . . Blood being, of course, water. They’ve discovered that the Black Mesa itself is a subterranean reservoir. During the winter, water from rain and melting snow collects in the porous surface and then filters down through layers of sandstone, which trickles out of the strata. There are no methods of modern irrigation employed here yet. I seriously doubt there ever will be. The culture is highly resistant to the influences of the outside world. This is partly due to the isolation of their location, and partly because the Hopi Way of Life is so internalized. Even the intrepid Spanish plunderers and missionaries, who overran much of the rest of the real estate in these parts, had little luck here, and were twice thrown out on their greedy and presumptuous ears.

As I bumped up the steep road to the village of Hano the truck began plinking and sighing again, but with a new accompanying boink, a bit like a timpani. The wooden shacks and lean-tos, the homes carved from rock, the swirl of dust, and the heat that makes everything look wavery and under water, were all so familiar. Not just because of the months I spent here last year, but also because these mesa-top villages habitually haunt my dreams. Magic and mystery so envelop everything up here that even the smallest and most mundane occurrences (taking a sip of water, lying down to sleep) seem like holy ritual, and indeed, for these people that's what they are.

I came to a stop in the plaza of Sichomovi (only a blink past Hano) and got out. I was immediately surrounded by the same children who began running with the truck when I entered Hano, and, by the usual pack of ragged stray dogs. There were some among the children who remembered me from last year. Both kids and dogs competed for my attention. I'm crazy about the kids. I don't have much use for dogs. But there was one dog (puppy, more accurately), chestnut brown, with a black mask, a long nose, long legs and ears, who appealed to me in some strange way. I saw something in his reddish-brown and grave eyes, or imagined I did, and it threw me. Odd. It annoys me when people start assigning human qualities to animals.

I was just about to approach the little guy, for what reason, I don't know, when I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to see the handsome, proud face of my good friend Dewey Kayenta, beaming a welcome. He's delighted I have so much more time to spend here this year.

Dewey and a few of the children helped me carry my gear to Dewey's house (half rock, half slatted wood, with a door painted brilliant vermilion), where he has invited me to stay (in the lean-to, like last year). His family can ill-afford the room, or another mouth to feed. I'm touched beyond words that they're so insistent, so anxious to take me in. That puppy padded arrived when we were having supper. Without remarking about it, and despite the raised eyebrow of Dewey's mother, Dewey fed the mongrel from his own plate. I fed him something, too. What is it about this mutt?

Joy is my pillow as I go to sleep tonight. Only one day used up of the three months I'm to spend in this Eden.

(to be continued)

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