Booth, Bonita, Pierce, White, Deliciosa.”
I reached out and touched a leaf. The underside
was fuzzy. An orangelike scent issued forth.
“Lovely fragrance, isn’t it?” More probing among
the branches. ‘:This is the fruit.”
It didn’t look like the stuff of which dreams were
made–a large, globose, heart-shaped mound, pale
green and dotted with protrusions, resembling a
leathery green pine cone. I touched it gingerly. Firm
and gently abrasive.
“Come inside. I’ll open a ripe. one.”
His kitchen was big and old and spotless. The
refrigerator, oven, and sink were white enamel, the
floor, linoleum waxed to a gleam. A table and chairs
fashioned from rock maple occupied the center. I
pulled up a chair and sat down. The bigLab had
moved indoors and lay snoring at the base of the
stove.
Maimon opened the refrigerator, pulled out a cher-imoya,
and brought it, two bowls, two spoons, and a
knife, to the table. The ripe fruit was mottled with
brown and soft to the touch. He sliced it in two,
put each half in a bowl, skin down. The pulp was a
creamy off-white, the color and consistency of fresh
custard.
“Dessert,” said Maimon and spooned out a shimmering
mouthful. He held it aloft then ate.
I put my spoon to the fruit. It slid in and sank. I
pulled it out filled with custard and put it to my
Lips.
The taste was incredible, bringing to mind the
flavors of many other fruits yet different from each;
sweet, then tart, then sweet again, shifting elu-
siVely on the tonge as sulemut satisfyig as the
finest confection. The seeds were plentiful, beanlike
and hard as Wood. An annoyance, but toierable..
We ate in silence. I savored the eherimoya, know-lng
it had brought heartbreak to the Swopes, but
not permitting that to adulterate my pleasure until
all that was left was an empty green shell.
Maimon ate slowly and finished a few minutes
later.
“Delicious,” I said when he put down his spoon.
“Where can you get them ?”
“Generally two places. At Hispanic markets
they’r.e comparatively cheap but the fruit is small.
and’irregular. If you go to a gourmet grocer you’ll
pay fifteen dollars for two good-sized ones wrapped
in fancy tissue paper.”
“So they’re being grown commercially?”
“In Latin America and Spain. On a more limited
basis here in the U.S., mostly up near Carpenteria.
The climate there’s toocool for true tropieals but
it’s even more temperate than what we get down
herE.”
“No frosts ?”
“Not yet.”
“Fifteen dollars,” I thought out loud.
“Yes. It never caught on as a popular fruit–too
many seeds, too gelatinous, people don’t like to
carry spoons with them. No one’s found a way to
machine-pollinate so it’s highly labor-intensive. Nevertheless,
it’s a delicacy With a loyal following and
demand exceeds supply. But for the Fates, Garland
would have been wealthy.”
My hands were sticky from handling fruit. 1
washed them in the kitchen sink. When I returned
to the table the dog was curled at Maimon’s feet,
LOOD TEST 265
eyes closed, crooning low-pitchedcaninesatisfac-tion
as the grower stroked its fur.
A .peseeful scene but it made me restless. I’d
lingered too long in Maimon’s Eden when there
were things that needed to be done.
“I want to take a look at the Swopes’ place. Is it
one of those farms we passed on the way up?”
“No. They live–lived further up the road. Those
weren’t really farms, just old ‘home tracts too small
to be commercially viable. Some of the people who
work in town like to live up here. They get a little
more space and the chance to-earn spare change
growing seasonal cash crops pumpkins for Halloween,
winter melons for the Asian trade.”
I remembered Houten’s sudden anger when he
talked of farming and asked if the sheriff had ever
worked the land.
“Not recently,” he said hesitantly. “Bay used to
have a plot nearby. Grew conifers that he sold to
Christmas tree brokers.”
“Used to?”
“He sold the place to a young couple after he lost
his daughter. Moved into a rooming house a block
from city hall.”
The possibility, that the sheriff had lied to discourage
me from snooping around hadn’t left my