The Summer Garden

She blinked back. “Why don’t you put on your sixty pounds of gear and pick up your weapons, soldier.” Backing away with a swirl, she walked back to the Nomad, while Alexander remained like a post in the sand. In a moment she returned with some water, which he gulped gladly, then went to look for Anthony, finding him near the prickly pears, deeply immersed in a study of rocks. Turned out it wasn’t rocks, it was a lizard, which the boy had pinned to the ground with a sharp cactus needle.

“Ant, isn’t that the cactus your mother told you to stay away from?” Alexander said, crouching by his son and giving him some water.

“No, Dad,” Anthony replied patiently. “Cholla is bad for playing with lizards.”

“Son,” said Alexander, “I don’t think that lizard is playing.”

“Dad, this place is swarming with reptiles!”

“Don’t say that as if it’s a good thing. You know how afraid your mother is of reptiles. Look how you’re upsetting her.”

They peeked out from the prickly pears. The upset mother was leaning back against the Nomad, eyes closed, palms down, sun on her face.

After a while, he returned to her, splashing water on her. That made her open her eyes. Alexander paused to take her in, her square-jawed flushed face, outrageous freckles, serene seaweed eyes. He appraised the rest of her up and down. She was so arousingly tiny. And bewildering. Shaking his head, Alexander hugged her, he kissed her. She tasted as though plums had dried on her lips.

“You are out of your mind, my freckle-faced tadpole,” he said, eventually stepping away, “to have bought this land in the first place. I honestly don’t know what in the world possessed you. But now the die is cast. Come on, Arizona-lover, cholla-expert, before we go see the appraiser, let’s eat. Though we’ll have to go somewhere else to put water on our bodies, won’t we?”

They brought out their flasks, their bread, their ham. Earlier that morning they had bought plums, cherries, tomatoes, cucumbers at a farm stand. They had so much to eat. He rolled out the canopy, they sat under it, where it was a hundred in the shade, and feasted.

“How much did you say you paid for the land?” he asked.

“Fifty dollars an acre.”

Alexander whistled. “This is near Scottsdale?”

“Yes, Scottsdale is only twenty miles south.”

“Hmm. Is it a one horse town?”

“Oh, not anymore, sir!” said a real estate agent in Scottsdale. “Not anymore. There’s the army base, and the GIs, like you, sir, they’re all comin’ back from the war and marrying their sweethearts. You two are newlyweds?”

No one said anything, as the four-year-old child sat near them lining up the real estate brochures in neat rows.

“The housing boom is something to behold,” the realtor went on quickly. “Scottsdale is an up-and-coming town, you just watch and see. We had nobody here, almost as if we weren’t part of the Union, but now that the war is over, Phoenix is exploding. Did you know,” he said proudly, “our housebuilding industry is number one in the country? We’ve got new schools, a new hospital—Phoenix Memorial—a new department store in Paradise Valley. You would like it here very much. Would you be interested in seeing some properties?”

“When are you going to pave the roads?” asked Alexander. He had changed into clean beige fatigues and a dry black T-shirt. Tattoos, scars, blue death camp numbers, no matter—he could not wear a long-sleeve shirt in Arizona. The real estate man kept trying not to glance at the long scar running up Alexander’s forearm into the blue cross. The realtor himself was wearing a wool suit in which he was sweating even in air conditioning.

“Oh, every day, sir, new roads are being paved every day. New communities are being built constantly. This is changing from farm country to a real proper town. The war has been very good for us. We’re in a real boom. Are you from the East? I thought so, by your wife’s accent. Much like your Levittown communities, except the houses are nicer here, if I may be so bold. May I show you a couple of—”

“No,” said Tatiana, stepping forward. “But we would be interested in finding out the going price of our own property here. We’re up north, off Pima Road, near Pinnacle Peak.”

The realtor’s face soured when he heard they weren’t in the market. “Where, near Rio Verde Drive?”

“Yes, a few miles south of there. On Jomax.”

“On what? They just named that road. You have a house there? There’s nothing up there.” He said it as if he didn’t believe her.

“No house, just some property.”

“Well,” he said with a shrug. “My appraiser is out to lunch.”

An hour later, the appraiser and the realtor’s faces were trying to maintain their poker expressions, but it wasn’t working. “How many acres did you say you have?” the appraiser said, a short man with a small head, a large body and an ill-fitting suit.

“Ninety-seven,” repeated Tatiana calmly.

“Well, that’s impossible,” said the appraiser. “I know all the land bought and sold here. I mean, the town of Scottsdale is just now thinking of incorporating—do you know how many acres?—sixty hundred and forty. Three and a half square miles. A smart man bought them last century for three and a half dollars an acre. But that was then. You’re telling me you have ninety-seven acres? A sixth of the land of our whole town? No one sells in large parcels like that. No one would sell you ninety-seven acres.”

Tatiana just stared at him. Alexander just stared at him. He was trying to figure out if this was a ploy, a game, or whether the guy was actually being rude, in which case—

“Land’s too valuable,” stated the appraiser. “Around here we sell one acre, two at most. And up there, there’s nothing but desert. It’s all owned by the Federal Government or the Indians.”

So it was a ploy. Alexander relaxed.

Tatiana was silent. “I don’t know what to tell you. You don’t think I can count to ninety-seven?”

“Can I see the deed, if you don’t mind?”

“Actually, we do mind,” Alexander said. “Are you going to tell us what the land is worth or do we have to go somewhere else?”

The appraiser finally spluttered that being all the way out there, all the way out in the boonies where no one wanted to go, the land now would probably be worth about $25 dollars an acre. “It’s a good price for it—there’s nothing up there, no roads, no electricity. I don’t know why you would buy land in a location so isolated.”

Tatiana and Alexander exchanged a glance.

“Like I said, it’s worth twenty-five dollars,” said the appraiser quickly. “But this is what I can do for you. If you sell, say, ninety-five of those acres, keeping two for yourselves, we can give you a one time deal, take it or leave it, of … forty dollars an acre.”

“Mister,” said Alexander, “we’ll gladly leave it. We paid fifty an acre for that land.”

The appraiser wilted. “You vastly overpaid. But … to get your business, I’ll be glad to give you fifty. Imagine all that money in your pocket. You could buy yourself a brand new house with that. For cash. We have an outstanding development near here in Paradise Valley. You only have the one boy? But perhaps more in your future? How about if I show you some new communities?”

“No, thanks.” Alexander prodded Tatiana to go.

“All right, wait,” said the appraiser. “Sixty dollars an acre. That’s nearly a thousand dollar profit on your original investment. Half a year’s salary to some people.”

Nodding vigorously, Tatiana opened her mouth to speak, but Alexander squeezed her hand to cut her off. “I made that in three weeks driving a boat in Miami,” he said. “We’re not selling our land for a thousand dollar profit.”

“Are you certain about that?” The appraiser glanced at Tatiana beseechingly, looking for her support. Alexander mock-glared at her. She stayed impassive. “Well, then, I’m going to tell you something,” said the appraiser. “If you don’t take your money out of the land now, in a year’s time, it won’t be worth twenty-five an acre. You wait until your boy starts school, you won’t be able to sell your ninety-seven acres for three dollars and fifty cents. All the way up there past the Indians? Forget it. No one of sound mind will want to live north of the reservation. Go ahead, you wait a while. Your land will be worthless by 1950.”

Alexander ushered his family out. They stood on a dusty Western street. They didn’t talk about what the appraiser told them. Alexander wanted to get a cold beer. Tatiana wanted to go to the general store on the corner and buy some ice cream. Anthony wanted a cowboy hat. In the end, Alexander didn’t get a cold beer, because he wouldn’t take his family into a saloon, but Tatiana did get an ice cream, and Anthony did get a hat. They walked around the town square. Alexander didn’t know why, but he liked it, liked the Western feel of it, the frontier expanse and yet the small town intimacy of it. They drove around in their Nomad, saw that much of the farmland around the town square was being turned into housing developments. For dinner they had steak and baked potatoes and corn on the cob at a local restaurant with sawdust on the floor.

He asked her what she wanted to do and she said that perhaps they ought to take one more look at the land before they made a final decision.

It was seven in the evening, and the sun was arching downward. Because the sun was a different color, their mountain turned a different color—the rocks now glowed in three-dimensional orange. Alexander appraised the land himself. “Tania, what are the chances that you had been prescient when you bought this land?” he said, bringing her to him after they walked around a while.

“Slim to none,” Tatiana said, her arms going around his waist, “and Slim has already left town. We definitely should sell it, Shura. Sell it as quick as we can, take our money, go someplace else nice and not as hot.”

Leaning down, he placed his lips on her moist cheek. “You’re so nice and hot, babe,” he whispered. She smelled of vanilla ice cream. She tasted of vanilla ice cream. “But I disagree. I think the appraiser is lying. Either there is a housing boom, or there isn’t. But a housing boom means land increases in value.”

“He’s right, though,” she said. “It’s very out of the way.”