Blood Test

He went on for a while before I realized he was directing me to the back road I’d seen on the county map in the sheriff’s office. The one that bypassed the town. When I’d asked Houten about it he’d said it was sealed off by the oil company. Perhaps he considered a utility trail too insignificant to be thought of as a road. Or maybe he’d lied.

I wondered about it as I got into the Seville.

20

The turnoff was sudden. The road, apart from being unmarked, was hardly a road at all. Just a narrow dirt ribbon, at first glance one furrow of many that cut through the vast table of farmland. Anyone unfamiliar with the area would have missed it. But Maimon drove slowly and I followed his taillights through moonlit fields of strawberries. Soon the freeway sounds were behind us, the night hushed and aglitter with moths spiraling up toward the stars, pressing frantically and hopelessly for the heat of distant galaxies.

The mountains hovered above us, grim hulking masses of shadow. Maimon’s truck was old and it lurched as he shifted into low gear and began the climb into the foothills. I stayed several car-lengths behind and trailed him into darkness so dense it was palpable.

We climbed for miles, finally reaching a plateau. The road veered sharply to the right. To the left was a broad mesa surrounded by chain-link fence. Pyramidal towers rose from the flatlands, skeletal and still. The abandoned oilfields. Maimon turned away from them and resumed the ascent.

The next few miles were groves, unbroken stretches of trees recognizable as such by the serrated silhouette of star-kissed leaves, shiny satin against the velvet of the sky. Citrus, from the perfume in the air. Then came a series of homesteads, farmhouses on one-acre plots shadowed by sycamore and oak. The few lights that were on blurred as we drove by.

Maimon’s turn signal went on two hundred feet before he swung left through an open gate. An unobtrusive sign said RARE FRUIT AND SEED co. He pulled up in front of a big two-story frame house girdled by a wide porch. On the porch were two chairs and a dog. The dog rose on its haunches and nuzzled Maimon’s hand as he climbed out of the truck. A Labrador, heavy and stolid, seemingly unimpressed by my presence. Its master petted it and it went back to sleep.

“Come around to the back,” said Maimon. We walked along the left side of the house. There was an electrical junction box hanging from the rear wall. He opened it, flicked a switch, and a series of lights came on in sequence, as if choreographed.

What unfolded before my eyes was as textured and verdant as a painting by Rousseau. A masterpiece entitled Variations on the Theme of Green.

There were plants and trees everywhere, many in bloom, all thick with foliage. The larger ones sat in five and fifteen gallon containers, a few were rooted in the rich dark soil. Smaller plants and seedlings in peat pots rested on tables shielded by canopies of mesh. Beyond the canopies were three glass greenhouses. The air was a cocktail of mulch and nectar.

He gave me a guided tour. Initially I recognized most of the species but found the varieties novel. There were unusual strains of peach, nectarine, apricot, plum, low-chill apples, and pears. Several dozen fig trees in pots were lined up against a fence. Maimon picked two figs from one of them, handed one to me and popped the other in his mouth. I’d never cared for raw figs but ate the fruit to oblige him. I was glad I did.

“What do you think?”

“Wonderful. Tastes like a dried fig.”

He was pleased.

“Celeste. Best taster by my standards, though some prefer Pasquale.”

It continued like that, Maimon pointing out choice hybrids with unconcealed pride, sometimes stopping to pick one and offer me a taste. His fruit was unlike anything I’d found on the produce shelves, larger, juicier, more vividly colored and intensely flavored.

Finally we came to the exotic specimens. Many were aflame with orchidlike blossoms in shades of yellow, pink, scarlet, and mauve. Each group of plants was accompanied by a wooden sign staked into the ground. On the sign was a color photograph of fruit, flower, and leaf. Under the illustration were botanical and common names in neatly lettered text, along with geographic, horticultural, and culinary details.

There were species with which I was vaguely familiar — litchies, unusual varieties of mango and papaya, loquats, guavas, and passion fruits — and many others I’d never known existed — sapotes, sapodillas, acerola cherries, jujubes, jaboticaba, tamarinds, tree tomatoes.

One section was devoted to vines — grapes, kiwis, raspberries hued from black to gold. In another, stocked with rare citrus, I saw Chandler pommelos three times the size of grapefruit and sugary sweet, Moro, Sanguinelli, and Tarocco blood oranges with pulp and juice the color of burgundy wine, tangors, limequats, sweet limes, and Buddha’s Finger citrons resembling eight-digited human hands.