Of Bees and Mist

by Erick Setiawan

  Fear strapped her from head to toe, but a power outside and beyond her was steadying her legs and pulling her toward the window. In a dizzy roar, blood rushed to her ears, so loud it almost drowned the snorting, stamping noise. Meridia drew back the illuminated curtain by an inch. Trembling violently, she thrust an eye into the gap and looked down on the ground below.

  The moon was hiding behind a veil of clouds. The ivory mist obscured the light from the street lamp. Yet in spite of the dimness, one look was sufficient to confirm Meridia’s fear. It was indeed the ghost in the mirror, stumping up the stone steps as if her legs were made of metal. Her yellow eyes were no longer dull, but glistened like gold. The rest of her face remained in shadow. What at first sounded like hissing was in fact a chanting, directed at the glass and steel of the house like a malediction. The ghost was cloaked in black from head to toe, with a long train dragging heavily behind her. Even if she was human, the train would sweep away her footprints from the damp earth.

  Pressing her head against the window, Meridia struggled to think clearly. Her breath came short and stifled, her bladder screamed to be relieved, and the cold of the house had mingled with fear to rattle her bones. She was sure that at any second the ghost would turn those yellow eyes on her, enter the house, storm up the staircase, and break down her door. What could she do? Where must she hide? As the thoughts clanged in her brain, a curious thing was happening on the ground below. The ghost, having reached the topmost step, was glaring at the mist. Her yellow eyes were sharp and burning.

  Then the ghost charged. Like a hawk on the wing, she tore at the vapor, her fingers beaked like talons, her arms slashing, quartering the air. Her chant leapt into a battle cry, while snakelike, her train jerked and slithered along the ground with each blow. The harder she hit, the thicker the mist grew. The vapor appeared to have become solid, more robust than a wall of steel. Losing her ground, the ghost backed down the stone steps and fell to the grass in a heap. The ivory mist swirled around her, claiming victory, then retreated to its post. The ghost unhooked her cloak and muttered a curse. Meridia gasped and yanked the curtain open.

  A strong breeze blew from the east and shifted the mist from her view. The moon emerged from behind the clouds, and for a brief second poured its light unobstructed upon the ghost. First there was the face, severe and angular; then the nose, long and generous. The yellow eyes had faded to gray, restive with fatigue and anguish. A cry broke from Meridia when she glimpsed a bonelike structure projecting from behind the head.

  In a second she was out of the room. Night shadows roved the hallway, but Meridia pushed past them without stopping. Reaching the whimsical staircase, she struck her fist against the banister and in two steps made it downstairs. The front door opened with a grunt and let her out into the mist.

  “Mama!”

  She could not see a thing. The ivory mist roared at her, a thick powdering of flakes that stung and blinded. Meridia shielded her face with her arms and advanced as best as she could. It was deathly cold inside the mist. The hard hand of the vapor spun and tossed her, muddling her sense of direction, closing every path of escape. Then all of a sudden the commotion died. Meridia opened her eyes to an aching white silence. She had fallen into a place where time was suspended. Everything—her movement, the swirl of the mist, even her heartbeat—slowed to a deathlike pace. From inside this vacuum she could see Ravenna clearly. Foiled like a mad prophetess whose desires were lost in their own labyrinth, her mother sat on a stump of grass, less than three feet away, but worlds and worlds apart. The ghost was, and had always been, Ravenna. That night in her infancy, after the bright light flashed and the crash followed, it was this ghost who had snatched her and held her. Ravenna had worn the same expression then as she did now, one of absolute terror and hopelessness, bleeding out life from every crevice in her soul.

  The shout Meridia gave was a forceful one, but not enough to penetrate the mist. Trapped in that vacuum without being heard or seen, she was suddenly seized with a painful affection for her mother. She longed to run to her and bury her face in her neck. She longed to feel, even for only a moment, warmth and guidance, acceptance, comfort, and, above all, forgiveness for the tumult that raged in her heart. But cold and impregnable, the mist stood between them and would not let her go. Sinking her teeth into her hand, Meridia wept quietly. She told herself that any other daughter would have found a way to drive back the mist.

  The words that finally pierced through the vacuum were the same ones that lay in the bottom of her drawer. A dark and private language, expelled in a deluge from Ravenna’s mouth with a furious passion. The mist carried the words without distorting them, forcing Meridia for the first time to hear them in their purest rudiments. Long after Ravenna rose from the ground and went back inside the house, Meridia stayed still. She was now free to move, but something kept her paralyzed. She had located the missing key, the fundamental element to unlock her mother’s words. There inside the mist, she at last understood that for almost as long as she had been alive, Gabriel had been keeping a mistress.

  FOUR

  For weeks Meridia puzzled over her notes in the company of the mists. Each at first resisted in its own way but, worn down by her persistence, gradually surrendered a different part of the story. First to concede was the ivory mist. Following their fateful scuffle in the night, it now made space for her as she approached, a warm, dry space that sheltered her from wind and even rain. In turn, Meridia did her best to delay answering the door, thereby exposing the milkman and the paperboy to a longer period of bullying. In order to appease her guilt, she gave the victims chocolates and whatever treats she could smuggle out of the kitchen.

  The yellow mist was not so accommodating. Not only did it make off with Gabriel faster than she could run, but it spat dirt on her face, flipped her skirt over her head, and scattered her notes peevishly up and down the street. Hiding behind a tree or a neighbor’s fence, Meridia learned to ambush it, racing in hot pursuit while reciting as much of the notes before her lungs gave out. This was torture, and yet she preferred the sulkiness of the yellow to the duplicity of the blue. When the latter appeared in the morning, it never hurried or harassed her, but injected so much noise into her notes that they became incomprehensible. In this way, she wasted a lot of time disclaiming false information, chasing after erroneous clues, and going over grounds already examined. Nonetheless she persisted, and after many weeks succeeded in translating her notes. She found Ravenna’s dark and private language to be this:

  Gabriel’s mistress has a face that resembles a baboon’s and a behind that puts any goat’s to shame. In fact, so vast is the terrain of her flesh that the woman needs a map to identify her parts. She has been known to blind people with the paleness of her skin, for she does nothing all day but hibernate in her room while half a dozen maids feed her raw meat. The length of her armpit hair alone has inspired legends. Gabriel, a tyrant elsewhere, is putty in her hands; all the she-demon has to do is crook a finger and he will come panting on his knees. He puts her up in a mansion on a hill, showers her with gifts, and wipes her very drool with his hand. Heaven knows what acts of perversion that woman is willing to perform for him. Bestial acrobatics surely, even immersions in blood and excrement. A tart like her never stops from putting all her apertures to use. Oh, curse her blasted face! Curse any bastards she might have borne Gabriel! Her predatory arts might have locked him in her embrace these twelve years, but one of these days, that nasty lecher will see her for who she is and beg for forgiveness. And when that day arrives, his home will be barred to him, his wife and daughter will spit in his face and turn their backs and chuck his repentance to the dogs…

  Shocked by the intensity of Ravenna’s hatred, Meridia returned her notes to the drawer and stopped interrogating the mists. Ravenna was absentminded, yes, but Meridia had never known her to speak cruelly. Had she misunderstood the notes? Or had the mists deceived her from the start? Meridia’s loyalty naturally lay with Ravenna, but she f
ound it impossible to despise a woman whose existence was confined to a few pages in her drawer. There was one thing left to do. By hook or by crook, she must trick the yellow mist to take her to the mansion on the hill.

  So Meridia began to plead, bribe, and bully, but the yellow mist continued to vanish without a trace. In vain, she scoured the sky for clues, and went as far as dusting the street with starch in hope of trapping Gabriel’s footprints. In the morning, the blue mist similarly swooped down out of nowhere, invisible one second and impregnable the next. Stymied, Meridia had no idea how to proceed.

  If Gabriel was aware of what his daughter was up to, he did not let on. It was possible that the mists sheltered him so completely that he never saw her run after him with her skirt aflutter. It was also possible that he never noticed the looks she gave him—piercing and melancholy, as though she was both hoping and dreading to surprise a confession. Every morning, she placed herself in his way, pecking his proud stoop with her eyes as he emerged out of the mist. She followed him as he marched into the dining room and faithfully stood guard outside the door even after Ravenna bolted it. Later, she examined the food he did not finish, the cutlery he used and the cigar stubs he left in the front hall, but found no trace of the woman in the notes. Gabriel betrayed nothing, keeping his face as blank as a rock. It occurred to Meridia that the mistress, despite the names Ravenna called her, was no more visible than she was. They both came into view only when Gabriel and Ravenna invoked them from the bitterness of their memory.

  MERIDIA BECAME SO ATTUNED to the sound of Ravenna’s grievance that she would snap awake if she heard it in her sleep. Because of this, she knew every time her mother stumped up the stone steps and attacked the ivory mist below her window. It was Ravenna’s habit to storm for a few nights, then, finding no victory, retreat into a silence that lasted months. Meridia noticed another thing: her dream of the bright light always preceded these attacks, and it came and went with the same frequency. In addition, the yellow-eyed ghost was more likely to appear during this time, haunting mirrors around the house with her grimace. After a few recurrences, Meridia concluded that the dream and the ghost were a direct reflection of her mother’s emotions.

  The discovery deepened Meridia’s devotion to Ravenna. Often, propelled by an overwhelming feeling, she would run home from school and stand outside the kitchen just so she could rest her eyes on her mother’s back. She felt as if she could speak to her then, could promise and assure her that no ghost or mist would ever again come between them. Yet when the feeling inevitably passed, Meridia was left with the impression that a greater distance had in fact opened up between them. There were many things about Ravenna she still did not know, perhaps would never know. For one, she was no closer to learning what the bright light was or why it traveled at great speed in the dark of night.

  TO MERIDIA’S DISMAY, HER invisible state did not persist inside the school gate. The second she walked past the handsome plaque that commemorated the founding of the school, she became painfully and awkwardly conspicuous. It was not her look or dress that set her apart—it was her inability to blend in with the rites of the schoolyard. At recess, as she ate or walked alone along the dappled row of almond trees, she radiated Ravenna’s air of solitude without being conscious of it. Her teachers, who applauded her accomplishments in class, called this a case of shyness—“something she’ll grow out of in time.” A number of boys found her attractive, but she unnerved them by responding stiffly to their advances. The girls were a different story. One camp was awed by her intelligence and respected her from a distance. Another dismissed her as odd and dull, and wanted nothing to do with her. The third and largest was the most critical. Since she seemed to project no need for them, they retaliated by talking viciously, always out of earshot, for in actuality they feared her. They said that if she would only tame that wilderness of a jungle on her head and learn how to match colors, she would look less like the wrath of God. They took a keen interest in the contents of her lunchbox, both appalled by and envious of the strange delicacies their mothers never prepared for them. The fact that Meridia appeared not to notice them only increased their resentment. “Proud and scornful,” they called her. “Are we no better than dirt to Her Majesty?”

  Contrary to their belief, Meridia was aware of everything that was said of her. But among those girls whose mothers attended the school fairs and whose fathers rubbed elbows with the teachers over coffee and tea, she felt her presence was unwanted and immaterial. As much as she wanted to, she did not know how to make friends; Ravenna never taught her the necessary skills, and the nurse had been too protective to let her spend much time with other children. The small talk that sprang readily to their lips came to hers only with a tremendous effort. After an opportunity had come and gone, she often scolded herself for not saying this or doing that, for laughing too loud or smiling too little. Whenever she tried to re-create the moment of contact, she was easily rebuffed by the slightest gesture, withdrawing all too quickly if she thought she was in the way. The old stone-and-brick schoolhouse, with its four gabled roofs and round little windows, was the only thing that seemed steadfast to her, while the beings that populated its rooms and thundered down its corridors were unreal and unpredictable. It gripped her like a monstrous truth that she was condemned to lead life without belonging or feeling close to anyone.

  Meridia was fourteen when she had her first taste of friendship. One warm October day, when the term was already half over, a new girl walked into class and took the seat next to hers. During History and Geography, the girl looked several times in her direction, but looked away again before Meridia could meet her eye. When the recess bell rang, Meridia ran as usual with her lunchbox to the farthest bench in the yard. The new girl followed, sitting down next to her without invitation.

  “You might as well tell me your name,” she said with a smile. “We’re going to be the dearest of friends.”

  Meridia could do nothing more than oblige. Listening to the girl talk on, she felt a curious tremor invading her heart.

  Hannah was the daughter of a traveling merchant. A little older and shorter than Meridia, she was expressive and high-spirited, with agile feet and flowing reddish hair. Although she was not beautiful, Hannah carried herself with a self-assurance that made her striking. She had been in town only a week, and due to the nature of her father’s work, she did not expect to stay more than a few months. She took it upon herself that Meridia should be the one to show her the town.

  “But I don’t know anyplace to go,” said Meridia. “I walk between school and home and nowhere else.”

  “Then we’ll explore together,” decided Hannah. “Imagine living in a town and not knowing what it’s got to offer!”

  Thus began their after-school and weekend adventures. Strolling east along Majestic Avenue took them to Independence Plaza, where an endless parade of entertainers performed on rough cobblestones around the statue of the town founder. There Meridia saw her first jugglers and magicians, sword eaters and fire dancers. An ageless man whose beauty once launched a thousand ships sold love letters guaranteed to end in marriage. A seven-year-old girl turned into a pillar of salt whenever she faced the sun, and a jigging elephant made Meridia laugh so hard she doubled over in pain.

  Four blocks east of the schoolhouse was Cinema Garden, that serene paradise of golden swans and jasmine blossoms where the nurse used to take her for brisk strolls. Now, accompanied by her new friend, Meridia could spend as much time there as she liked, sitting idly on the grass, eating hard-boiled eggs and strawberry sandwiches while Hannah poured syrup into tin cups. Every Friday night, when the weather permitted, a big white screen was put up in the middle of the Garden. On it were projected the most incredible moving images she had ever seen: birds of the sea and fish of the air, sparkling stars and a radiant moon, shadow puppets singing and dancing, titanic beasts waging battles over the universe. The two girls laughed and screamed along with the crowd, snuggling under their coats a
nd coiling their arms around each other. At such times, they had no thought in the world and were as glad as they could be.

  Traveling west on Majestic Avenue one Saturday, they ended up at a loud and dirty square. As soon as Meridia saw the crowded stalls and smelled the thousand different odors, she stopped cold in her tracks. The memory of being pushed and stepped on, of cleaver hacking against bones and flies feasting on rivers of blood, rose up and horrified her. It was here that she had lost Ravenna, crying her throat hoarse until the woman in the sea green hat came to her rescue. Overwhelmed by the memory, Meridia hung back, but Hannah would have none of it.

  “Come on!” said the redhead. “I bet we can get anything we want here.”

  At the touch of her friend’s hand, Meridia sent her doubts to the firing squad.

  Up until that day, Meridia had saved the money Ravenna had given her in a pewter box under her bed, not knowing how or where she would use it. But that afternoon, she bought Hannah and herself sweet flour omelets and deep-fried potato cakes from the tattooed man who swallowed radishes whole. On their next trips, she purchased ribbons and hairpins, cinnamon pastries, milk candies, preserved mango slices, and perfume from a woman who bottled her own exquisite-smelling sweat. Next to the courthouse was a bookshop, and here Meridia wandered happily from shelf to shelf while Hannah gobbled up the fashionable magazines that told her which hats and shoes were in for the season. One day they stumbled across a beauty parlor, and at Hannah’s insistence, Meridia agreed to have her hair trimmed. Forty-five minutes later, the girl Meridia saw in the mirror was a complete stranger, her hair so short it barely grazed her shoulders. “What do you think?” asked Hannah anxiously. Meridia turned her head to the right and left and right again and finally said, “I think I like it.” Hannah whooped and the two girls clasped each other. It was then that Meridia realized, looking once more into the mirror, that she could not see her friend’s reflection. Inside the mirror the hairdresser was frowning and Meridia was embracing nothing but air.