“That’s not a man’s nature.”

“You’re kidding.”

I tickled his navel.

44

But Ensinanco’s too mystical. I do not want to tell stories of heaven’s punishment, or abandoned healing powers, of modern-day Jonahs running in the world. I want to tell of everyday people, like you and me.

There’s that Malagasy time. There’s Vinandratsy and his wildflower sister, Miandra.

I sat on the long porch of his cattle ranch, on a wicker sofa. He had given me a raffia fan and I was fanning away flies with it.

“You’re quiet for an American woman,” he said.

I laughed because I’d heard that joke before.

“Did you think we were all made up of chitchat?”

His sister, Miandra, who lived with him, did not like me on sight.

“It’s not you she sees,” he explained. “It’s any American woman.”

“Any American woman?”

“She thinks all American women are rakes!”

45

I stood at the flower seller’s stand admiring the orchids. Suddenly there was the smell of something like saddle soap, and I turned to stare at the most beautiful brown eyes. I had asked the flower seller in French why one orchid was more expensive than the other, but my French was a very formal, book-learned French, my American accent very thick, and she hadn’t been able to understand. The man started explaining. I do not remember the names of the orchids, though he named all of them by the individual names—giving the Malagasy, the French, and the English names for them. I’ll just have to call them “this girl” and “that girl.”

“This girl, though she’s prettier than that girl, is cheaper because she’s the easier to find. She grows just about anywhere. Now that girl, you only find in the mountains and it’s hard climbing to get to her, so she’s very precious and very expensive. This girl can grow just about anywhere, but she always surprises you, you never know exactly where she’ll pop up—her price never stays the same. When she’s plentiful, she’s cheap; when she’s full of her tricks and games, she’s expensive. And this girl here grows only on the barest mountaintop. You take the hardship to climb up there and you never know whether you’ll find her at all. You may spend weeks looking for her, gathering lesser flowers, and then, all of a sudden, when you’re least expecting, when you’re not even looking anymore, you turn around and there’s the beauty!

But it’s a beauty—not a flashy beauty but still a beauty some might overlook until they know how hard it was to come by.”

One believing any beauty in the world was hard to come by could hardly say no when this beauty invited me to have a drink with him in the hotel lounge.

“Are you her orchid salesman?” I asked when we had settled. “You know them so well.”

“No, I’m a cattle rancher.”

Saddle soap. Mixed with the smell of brilliantine. His hair glistened.

“I should have thought of that,” he said, and sprang up suddenly. When he came back he was carrying the orchid that was the hardest to come by.