He invited me to Three Winds. It was an invitation that could mean many things, and only as I felt my stomach tighten did I realize that I had been waiting for it. The estate was more than an hour away by car, on the coastal plain. I rode up front with his driver while he rode in the back seat, and from time to time I felt his eyes resting on the back of my neck, very lightly, like a fly. Three Winds was a garden turned inward. It was there that he cultivated himself; there that he experimented most wildly, without restraint. When he gave me a tour of the grounds, I remember the shock I felt coming upon the concrete walls with no roof, like a ruin from the future, or the shiny, damp path that wound through the undergrowth to a cathedral of trees. Afterward he led me to the nursery, the tropical plant collection, the herbarium, to the little Benedictine chapel dedicated to Saint Francis, and finally to his painting studio, engulfed by vines. As I stood before one of his large canvases, a riot of interlocking colors, I felt a hand glide heavily to my shoulder. His breath was warm and heavy, and he smelled of sandalwood and wine. What do you see? he said close to my ear. It’s a fine painting, sir, I told him. I heard a gurgle in the back of his throat. Perhaps you aren’t the man I thought you were, he whispered. I see a precipice in front, and wolves behind, I said. His fingers tightened their grip on my shoulder. You do, don’t you? he said. You do?

Not long after that, my things were sent for and the small room next to the kitchen that faced east was given to me as my own. The bed was narrow but comfortable, and from the chair I had a view of a cherry tree, whose fruit got riper by the day. On the windowsill I set the little pewter box from where I was born, with the views of Henkersteg, the Opera House, and Bratwurst Glöcklein, and on the shelf I arranged my botany books. I quickly took up my new duties. I answered letters, oversaw the orders, arranged the schedule, supervised the staff, and saw to the needs, great and small, of Latin America’s greatest landscape architect. His work was never done, but sometimes there were quiet moments together, too, and I don’t think it’s too much to say that then he was the happiest I ever saw him.