John Sanford - A Palace of Silver

A Memoir of Maggie Roberts

JOHN SANFORD

For Maggie
who dwells in the gardens

We will build upon her a
palace of silver
SONG OF SOLOMON 8.9

A Palace of Silver, like much that Ive
written, is dedicated to my beloved Maggie.
As to this book, Im sure shed feel as I do
that its publication is largely due to the efforts
of a selfless friend, Jack Mearns.
J-S.

Near one end of the Santa Barbara Beach rises a hill called Bellosgarda, and spreading over its rounds is a cemetery. From the grounds, no part of the city can be seen; the view is of mountains inland and the Channel seaward, an expanse of some twenty miles to a chain of islands lying lavender along the horizon. Here and there, a cypress casts a filigree of shadow on the grass, and down in the hollows live oaks grow. Headstones are few, the new custom being a tablet of metal or marble set flush with the sward, and rows of these curve with the fluted contour of the hill. Roadways wind through the reserve and lay out irregular divisions, one of which runs along a cliff rearing from the waters edge. This lands-end place seems to be bounded only by sea and sky, and what sound can be heard there is the wind, the surf, and, if rain has fallen, the shrill of shore-birds come to drill the softened earth.

In one of the rows close to the cliff-face, a bronze plaque carries this inscription:

MARGUERITE A. SANFORD
19051989
JOHN SANFORD
1904

Ten years have passed since it was embedded in her grave, and its components of copper, tin, and zinc have begun to give it a dapple of brown and green. In days to come, this will deepen almost to the color of the turf, and by then you too will be under the memorial, and it will be others, if others ever come here, who remark on the patina and read the mottled names. Ten years have passed.

Im glad I changed my mind, Johnny.

About what?

Having our ashes put in the Channel. It was a foolish notion of mine.

Why foolish?

Dont you see? Wedve gotten separated. I dont want that; I want to be with you.

Why not with your father and mother? You loved them dearly.

But, Johnny, youre my husband.

Over the course of half a year, shed suffered recurrent chest pain, a symptom of arterial blockage, and on each occasion, shed spent several days in the hospital, lastly for the implanting of a pacemaker to regulate the rhythm of her heart. In her room just before she was taken to Surgery, you reached across her bed rail to stroke her hair. Itd long since gone gray, but never had you thought of it as gray, and when arranged to your liking, it revealed her ears, the most shapely, the most perfect, youd ever seenAnd then an orderly had come and wheeled her away.

Following as far as the waiting-room next to Surgery, youd idled through a magazine with your mind elsewhereon a small, elegant being, now fifty years your wife, but in your eyes still the girl of earlier days and still possessed of her winning ways. Still, youd thoughtand she was eighty-three! Rarely had you dwelt on her age, and though you knew her date of birth as well as she, itd been little more than numerals and a name. But for once, itd been imperative, demanding attention, and what it told you was that your girl, lovely still, was old. Old, you thought, and with the word, another had sought a hearing, ailing, and then a third, this one so direful that youd striven to deny it. Even so late in Maggies illness, you couldnt allow that she might be in danger, that in a nearby room something might be going wrong, that her numbers might be dwindling or growing, that she might at that very momentand youd listened for telltale sound in the corridor, for commands, collisions, the rush of racing feet, for someone coming to say Im sorry, Mr. SanfordBut itd been your sped-up heart that you heard, and at length someone did come, only to say that Maggie had been returned to her room.

When you rejoined her, shed soon dismissed you to go about your businessbut, Maggie, its here with youand you left for home, saying that youd come back in the afternoon. You have little memory of how you whiled away the hours that intervened, for with dread still upon you, it beclouded whatever you may have done. You may have wandered through the house, opening doors only to close them, you may have eaten without tasting, read without comprehension, or simply stared at a wallor you may have done nothing, you may have done nothing at allBut vaguely in your disquiet, you seemed to be aware of seeking her presence, the life that enlivened the air.

Later in the day, youd gone again to the hospital, and again you were sent back home. It was a ten-mile drive to the house in Montecito, and hardly had you gotten through the door when the telephone rang, and a voice said Mrs. Sanford is having a heart attack. Itd taken you only a quarter of an hour to reach the hospital, but you arrived too late to see her alive. In your fancy, though, shed seemed to be just then going, dying in the act of saying goodbyeto you, it could only have been to you. Her eyes half-open, she was taking a last look at you, and she was speaking softly, with the last of her breath. Youd taken up her hand and kissed its mist-smooth palm, and youd kissed her mouth, still as fresh as falling rain, and then youd wept at the thought that this was all youd ever know of it, that her special flavor would go with her into the grave. More than once had you said I hate to see you leave a roombut shed left this one, and the room of the world as well.

Itd been almost evening when you left the hospital, and for the third time that day, youd driven back to your homebut it was a home no longer. It was a still life now, and you stood among the equivalents of flowers, fruit, and bloodshot game birds. For half a century, you and Maggie had acquired things of wood and metal, of leather and paper and glassbooks, rugs, china, bedside tables, illustration for the walls, the collect of a marriagebut it was all bereft now and still-life dead.

Her relics had wrung you as you scanned them; shed rested there, on that sofa, and thats the afghan you brought her when you thought her cold; those are her slippers beside the bed, thats the Tiffany she read by, and from that crystal shed given you a health in wine. These cubic spaces had known her voice, her laugh, her fragrance, and it anguished you that theyd know her rare company no more. But most painful, most piercing, had been seeing what shed worn. Her wardrobe spoke of her shipshape figure, and you fancied it in a suit, a dress, a jacket, fingering one and another as if to trace it through the fabric, but her cordial dimensions were gone, leaving only the decoration she once had adorned.

Why dont you give it away?

But itd be like giving you away

It isnt me. Its old clothes.

I was with you for everything you ever bought.

Sometimes I wasnt there. I remember a robe you brought home from Bullocks. I wore it for twenty years before throwing it away.

I pulled it out of the trash.

You did? Why?

Youd worn it for twenty years