The Rose Garden, Chapter 4 – Eden

Yellow Chrysanthemums, Source https://flickr, Author Joe Lewis,
(CC BY-SA 2.0 Generic)

“The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed” (Gen. 2: 8).

I am told that at age three I was fearless — routinely toddling along in determined search of adventure, several steps ahead of my grandmother.

Roses

One particular day our path took us past a neighbor’s rose garden.  Evidently drawn to the blossoms, I entered the garden before my grandmother could stop me.

Entranced by the glorious shapes towering above me, I was only vaguely conscious of the heated discussion which ensued when the agitated neighbor rushed anxiously into her yard in defense of the roses.

At that moment, roses — in all shades from ivory to crimson — served to form one of my earliest recollections.

The Bronx

The Bronx is not widely known as a bucolic setting.  A borough of New York City originally named for Dutch settler Jonas Bronck, the Bronx by the 1970s had become a nationally recognized symbol of crime, urban poverty and decay, renowned for burned out buildings.

I was unaware of this growing up.  For me, the Bronx was host to a series of botanical marvels as cherished and familiar as family members.

A Peach Tree, An Apple Tree, and A Pear Tree

To begin with, there was the peach tree in the backyard, valiantly brandishing its fragile petals each spring.

Near that were the brilliant azalea bushes, and the apple tree whose graceful branches stretched past my second floor bedroom window.  Many a daydream was lazily conceived in view of those branches.  A stunted pear tree completed the picture.

Little did I realize that the peach, apple, and pear trees were mere shadows of the lush orchards my grandfather had to leave behind in Hungary.

The Neighbors’ Yards

In the next yard over to the right behind the house reigned a majestic oak, which in the summer months provided both shade and support for a hammock.  I was permitted to use this hammock when on speaking terms with the boy next door — the hammock, a definite incentive to peaceful coexistence or, at any rate, the temporary cessation of hostilities.

The oak truly came into its own in the fall at which point it dropped bushels of acorns before entirely losing its leaves.  The boy and I fought jealously over ownership of the fallen acorns while our fathers — from a rather different perspective — fought over the leaves

The yard to the rear and left of the house was occupied by our Italian neighbors’ carefully cultivated pepper, zucchini, and tomato plants.  Though looked upon with disdain by my Hungarian grandmother, these always grew with abandon.

Adjacent to them, in the yard belonging to my great aunt, grew hydrangea bushes with the mysterious ability to change from pink to blue depending on whether pennies or nickels were buried at their base by attentive children.

Two stately fir trees and a holly bush marked the boundaries of our small front yard.

An Extraordinary Woman

My Spartan grandmother’s garden, however, dominated the yard.  Her garden was one of the few indulgences Grandma allowed herself.  That she could allow herself anything approaching indulgence — given the many hardships she had known — was a testament to her strength.

My grandmother was an extraordinary woman.  In Hungary during World War II, Grandma had survived invasion first by German then Russian armies.  At risk of her life, she disobeyed a Nazi directive and avoided shipment to Siberia.

Though aware that the possession of Hungarian documents was cause for execution under the Nazi regime, my grandmother retained the family’s Hungarian passports throughout the Nazi occupation.

When Russian invaders supplanted Nazi, she was able to produce these passports.  From among some seventy-five persons, only my grandmother, my mother (then still a girl), and two or three others successfully avoided deportation to Siberia.

Grandma did not come to the US as a war refugee until she was around forty.  A woman of exceptional intelligence and integrity, she was totally unfamiliar with English, had little formal education, and owned nothing but the clothes on her back.

Faith and a Work Ethic

What she did possess was an unwavering faith, and a tremendous work ethic.  She had an absolute determination to make a better life for her daughter (and, ultimately, her grandchildren), whatever the personal cost.

We would sit at Grandma’s knee and listen to stories of the old country.  Late in the evenings, this woman of valor with worn and bleach-scarred hands would read quietly from her precious, many-times mended Hungarian Bible.

From the very beginning we were told about Christ.  I sincerely believed; said my prayers sure that they would be answered.  Though a constant, the incest seemed a separate thing from the rest of my life.

Did the serpent, I wonder, stalk Eve?  Did she represent his lost innocence?  Or was she just there, an apple for the picking?

Grandma’s Garden

Grandma’s garden was a riot of color.

Rainbow hued zinnias good naturedly jostled the taller gladioli.  Fiery geraniums held their ground alongside bright orange marigolds.  Red roses climbed the trellis beside the porch.  China blue morning glories clung tenaciously to the front gate.

White and yellow chrysanthemums (known colloquially in German as Winterbusche because they could withstand harsh conditions) stood guard at the door.   For their endurance, chrysanthemums became my favorite flowers.  They have ever since reminded me of my grandmother.

Next to these in the garden grew bleeding hearts, so called because their delicate scarlet and white blossoms resembled inverted valentines and tremble at the slightest breeze.  Mint and violets, the latter actually difficult to cultivate, grew wild in the yard and so were not considered of much worth.

There was, of course, the Japanese cherry tree against whose backdrop annual photos were taken of us girls in our Easter finery.

The Reading Bush

Last but not least there was my reading bush.  I have never been to able to determine what type of hedge it was, but in the shelter of this ragged little shrub I passed long days, contentedly lost in topics from history to high romance.

It was here that I braved the Antarctic; here that I met Tarzan, Elizabeth Bennett, and Jane Eyre; here that I regularly went in search of Prince Charming.

From the children’s section of the Encyclopedia Americana our parents had purchased, I taught myself how to make dollhouses.  I used shoe boxes and tissue paper for these, highly pleased with my efforts.

In fact, I read my way from one end of the children’s section to the other.  I taught myself magic tricks from the encyclopedia; learned to identify mourning doves and lady slippers from the volume on plants and animals.  I absorbed indiscriminately the diverse subjects covered, equally fascinated by volcanoes and Rembrandt.

Fairy tales, I devoured.  Why these were so nourishing, I could not at the time have said except that by the end the dragon was slain.

My favorite fairy tale involved a shunned and malformed dwarf.  By dint of enormous sacrifice, he manages to free the princess he loves unrequitedly.  Only afterwards — transformed — does the dwarf discover himself to have been a bewitched prince.

The possibility of being the princess seemed out of reach.  But I loved that dwarf.

Grandma who could not abide sloth tolerated my ravenous appetite for books.  Although she never said as much, it must have been clear to her that I derived something of benefit from the long hours engrossed in worlds beyond her reach.

To such an extent did I make use of the reading bush as a young girl that gradually, over the years, it gathered itself protectively around me.  The little bush never did regain its original shape, even after I had managed to move on and make a life elsewhere.

Copyright © 2008 – Present Anna Waldherr.  All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-60247-890-9

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