“I appreciate your concern. But do you honestly think I’d let her go through with the marriage if she’s making a mistake? My own sister? What do you take me for?”
Angry now, he shut the vault and locked it. Aware of the dismissal, Meridia planted her feet more firmly.
“They have more than twenty years separating them, Daniel. She’s a virgin and he’s a man of the world. What can they have in common?”
He spun around quickly. “Have you seen the way he looks at her?”
“He’s a lover, without a doubt. A ravenous one. But a husband?”
“I never took you to be a cynic.”
“Everything is happening so fast. Don’t you find it the littlest bit odd?”
“Find what odd?”
“Until a week ago, we knew nothing about this man.”
“So naturally you suspect—”
She took a deep breath, placed her right hand on the desk between them. “Your mother is up to something. I have a feeling it was her idea to arrange for them to meet.”
In a flash the fence sprang up between them and all his resentment bubbled up to the surface. “I knew it! Enough with your suspicions! Again, what proof do you have? This has nothing to do with Mama. This is about you.”
Placing her other hand on the desk, Meridia leaned her whole body against the fence.
“You know very well she’s capable of masterminding this. I wouldn’t put it past her to sacrifice Permony for her own self-interests.”
Daniel leapt forward, eyes wide and livid, and slammed both hands on the table. “My mother isn’t the monster you make her out to be!”
Incredulous, Meridia charged against the fence.
“Need I remind you of what she’s done over the years? To me? To Patina? To Noah?”
“It was an accident with Noah. If anybody was at fault, it was Papa.”
“What about Patina’s feet?”
“A lie Pilar embellished over the years. Nobody knew what really happened. Patina herself never confirmed anything.”
“And my womb? Are you going to tell me she had no hand in destroying it?”
“Do you really believe she was out to murder you that day? The mother of her own grandchild? Unforeseen complications arise during labor. Why do you hold her responsible for things that clearly lay beyond her power? We’re a family, Meridia. You should forgive and forget and release that bitterness in your heart.”
Her astonishment was so absolute that for a moment she could say nothing. Only the movement of her dress, vigorously shivering though there was no breeze, betrayed the tumult inside her. Before her the fence towered without a dent. Meridia withdrew her hands and balled them into fists.
“You are no longer a child, Daniel. Why can’t you see what others see? Your mother is a woman who’ll stop at nothing to get what she wants. How many times does she have to trample you before you realize this? It’s time you look her in the eye. Let go of her skirt.”
Swift as thunder, he swept his hand across the desk, hurling a lamp and a jeweled clock to the floor.
“Damn you!” he shouted. “How dare you talk to me like that! You walk around with your superior airs and you judge, you condescend, you presume to know what’s best for everyone. Mind your own business! I leave your mother alone even though the house reeks so much of her I can’t stand it. Why don’t you do the same with mine?”
All at once she appeared to relent. Her shoulders relaxed, her eyes turned mild, and the tension that had pulsed in her throat died as her fists unclenched. Yet he knew it was the farthest thing from a concession. She could not fool him; smile as she might, she was not the same person who had returned to him after their separation ten years ago. Back then she had been made of flesh; the woman standing before him was made of flint.
“I’ll drop the matter on one condition,” Meridia said with a shattering certainty. “Permony must tell me it is entirely her choice to marry him.”
“Then ask her by all means!” Daniel shouted, his voice choked with resentment. “But if you go back on your word, by God, I won’t let you hear the end of it!”
AFTER SUPPER, MERIDIA SET off to Orchard Road with the same thoughts clanging in her head. She must knock down the fence between her and Daniel. Eva could not be trusted. Ahab was hiding something. God knows what those two were up to together. Deserted under a languorous sky, Independence Plaza rang loudly with invisible steps while the town founder waved his fist. Meridia picked up her pace. When she reached the Cemetery of Ashes, the smoke that guarded it was cold and bitter; at first whiff she turned up her collar and held her breath. The town bell chimed twice before she got to 27 Orchard Road. As soon as she glimpsed the familiar wood-and-brick structure, another thought hit her: Daniel had not taken her here since Gabriel fell ill. The front lawn was now a jungle of marigolds without a single rose left. In the moonlight, the house looked more disheveled than she remembered.
Permony answered the door on the second knock. It was true then: Eva had not had a maid since Gabilan skipped town with a dozen copper pans.
“Mama said you might be coming.”
Permony looked grown up in a lime tulle dress that revealed the young slope of her breast. The brightness of her smile did not rate second to the diamond on her finger.
“How did your mother know—”
Meridia did not finish her sentence. Daniel must have warned Eva of her arrival.
Permony’s smile grew wider. “Come. I want to show you something.”
She took Meridia’s arm and led her to the bedroom. Since Malin moved out, Permony had taken possession of the entire room and adopted the orange furniture as her own. Presently, the two beds were strewn with dresses. On the table was a vase filled with lilies of the valley. Permony picked up an olive cashmere dress and caressed it with affection.
“Isn’t it pretty? Ahab said I should dress with care now that I’m to be his wife.”
She posed with the dress in front of the mirror. Her joy, pure and simple, suffused her cheeks with a delicate bloom. Meridia went straight to the point.
“I want you to tell me if you’re at all unhappy.”
Permony turned with a perplexed gaze.
“Why should I be unhappy? Ahab has shown me nothing but kindness.”
“But are you sure you want to marry him?”
The girl’s color burned deeper. “Mama has nothing to do with it, if that’s what you’re asking. The decision is mine entirely.”
The ceiling creaked above their heads. Try as she might, Meridia could hear no bees. In fact, the house no longer smelled of them. Had she overstepped her bounds and let suspicions get the best of her? Thinking Eva might be listening in her sitting room, Meridia took the dress from Permony and laid it on the bed.
“Do you love him?” she whispered.
Permony blushed even more. “I’m very fond of him. He’s strong and incredibly manly.”
“But do you know who he is, his thoughts and inclinations and feelings?”
Permony bent her face as a struggle raced inside her. Placing her hand on the girl’s shoulder, Meridia searched for signs of Eva’s bees, but there were none. No threat, no bruise, no intimidation. From head to toe Permony glowed with powdered gold.
The girl said, “Do you remember our stories? Those gentle kings who woo their sweethearts with songs and gallantry? Ahab is not like them. He woos me by kissing me until I grow faint and beg for breath. Sometimes he is so strong and so full of desire I fear he might break me. But always I cry for more, because when he holds me and takes me I feel fire, and while that fire burns everything else stops to matter. I’ve spent my whole life fettered to Mama’s chains, serving her whims and enduring her hostility. But then Ahab came along and burned those chains right off. Look at me! All these dresses and flowers! They’re silly and immaterial, I know, but when did anyone ever think to put my happiness first? So I beg of you, if you come to tell me things I’d rather not hear, keep them to yourself. I can’t g
o back to Mama’s chains now that Ahab has set me free.”
Her voice had sunk and become plaintive, yet her lavender eyes were fiercely alive. In them there was no confusion. The girl had decided to marry without love.
Meridia slowly took back her hand. “So you know? You’ve heard?”
Permony nodded. “I don’t believe a word of it. Please give me your blessing. That’s all I ask from you.”
“I don’t want you to be deceived. I’ll never forgive myself if I fail to help you.”
“And for that I’m grateful—you can’t know how much—but my mind’s made up. I’m going to marry Ahab by year’s end.”
Permony untangled a sealskin coat from the bed and put it on. She smiled, tiptoed to the mirror, and twirled. Childish as it was, it was this gesture that convinced Meridia she was no longer speaking to a girl, but a woman who knew her business exactly.
“Is there nothing I can say? Nothing to change your mind?”
Permony shook her head. “I need only your blessing.”
Meridia looked at her for a long time before nodding. Permony screamed, showered her with kisses. It was then that the certainty sank in. Somehow, despite her best intention to honor it, Meridia knew she had broken a promise she could not remember making.
THIRTY-FOUR
By February, the odor of the house had become intolerable. In the beginning it had the whiff of something sulfurous, coming upon Meridia one morning as she was waking. By afternoon, the odor in the bedroom had grown so strong she had to throw the windows open. She ordered the maid to beat the rugs and wash the curtains, scrub the floor and boil the sheets, but instead of diffusing the stench, the effort merely added a whiff of offal and rotting fish. In three days, the stink permeated the entire house. Desperate for fresh air, the maid indulged in excessive pruning in the garden. Noah walked around with a hand clamped over his nose. Daniel went out and stayed out as soon as the shop was closed. Customers sprinted to the door without waiting for their purchases to be wrapped.
Only Ravenna’s room was exempt, and here, Meridia took refuge with increasing frequency. In her absorption, she did not notice that the stench only grew fouler the longer she stayed in that room. Yet even this sanctuary came to an end the morning she awoke and detected the odor in her own skin. She jumped from the bed, dashed into the bathroom, undressed, scrubbed her body with pumice, but the stench remained. As the pale light of day penetrated the wooden slats of the window, she put back her nightgown and returned to bed and smelled the same odor emanating from Daniel’s body. It hit her then that she had been sleeping for an eternity with her face confronting the great wall of his back. The fence, erected by the bees, had turned into a fortress. A few times in the last six months, propelled by sheer urgency, he had tossed a rope down the wall to admit her, but those moments of reunion had been as unmindful as they had been quick. In the cold morning light, she suddenly felt that if she could burrow her face in his skin, or run her lips across the span of his chest, then the stench would disappear. The arc of his naked back was long and graceful, the fuzz on his nape a tender dare. Breathless from the need, she pressed her breasts against his spine and aimed a hand at his shoulder. He shrugged them off—breasts and hand—as if they were clammy or dirty and moved away.
A FEW DAYS LATER, the wind changed direction and ushered in the winter cold. The townspeople hardly noticed, however, so enthralled were they by the sight of a glorious Eva strolling through the market square in a new mink coat. It was the first time in years that they saw her wear her triumph so conspicuously. Even back in December, the month of Permony’s wedding, they had heard little from her. Not once did she brag about the couple, the fortune-teller’s predictions, the lavish party at the Majestic Hotel, or the number of guests invited. Her unprecedented discretion not only boggled them but robbed them of the delicious pleasure of talking about her. And so when they saw her beam at them in her resplendent new coat on that wintry February morning, they were only too glad to welcome her return.
“I’m the most blessed mother on earth,” she crowed to the fruit-sellers. “My son has made a name for himself, my daughters are married well, and the three of them are loving and generous children. My grandson, Noah, is handsome and wonderful; in fact, he adores me so much he always asks for me the instant he wakes up. He’s my only grandchild so far, but not for long! Look at this coat. My son-in-law Ahab gave it to me just this morning. Isn’t it absolutely ravishing?”
Unanimous, the town concluded that Permony was with child.
When Eva appeared on Magnolia Avenue with the news, Daniel introduced her to everyone in the shop as “my dear, dear mother.” Shooting Meridia a vindicated look, he told a misty-eyed Eva to select any piece of jewelry she wanted from the shop. For the rest of the afternoon, he circulated the news to all their neighbors. His smile was so bright and wide Noah could not help teasing him, “Watch out, Papa! Your teeth look ready to fall out.”
At dinner he spoke his first words of the day to Meridia. “You could have at least cracked a smile. The way you act, people might think you don’t care for Permony at all. Don’t you think everything turned out nicely for her after all?”
Meridia refrained from replying. Thus far, her concerns regarding Ahab had proven unfounded, since the man had done nothing but worship Permony. Whenever she ran into them, they were one creature fused at the hip and joined at the head. Leah said that Ahab bought Permony a dozen lilies a day. Rebecca claimed that the seamstress they worked for had her hands tied with Ahab’s orders until next year. Recently, Permony herself declared that she could not imagine leading a fuller or happier life. More astonishing still, Eva’s bees had not created a stir for some time. Nevertheless, Meridia’s doubts persisted; the more she strained to evict them, the deeper they lodged in the center of her thoughts.
Meanwhile, Ravenna’s condition continued to worsen. Now nearly blind, she had become as frail as a moth’s wing, her proud back bent and her breathing fitful. If not moved, she would sit all day in her room like a statue. If not fed, she would build a maze out of her food without eating it. When she heard someone talking, she would smile placidly at the voice without recognizing the speaker. It caused Meridia no end of heartache that Ravenna had not spoken a word to her since Gabriel died.
The morning after Eva’s announcement, Meridia took her mother to view the blossoms at Cinema Garden. She led her gently like a child, sat her down on a warm bench in front of the fountain of the swans, and then tempted her with flowers from the trees. The air was crisp and smoky, the Garden empty but for a few mothers and their children. Meridia was arranging the blossoms in Ravenna’s lap when a woman in a heavy robe stumbled from the direction of the cemetery.
“Malin!” Meridia started from the bench. “Are you all right?”
The girl jerked to a stop. A wilting clump of butterfly weed dropped from her hand. From her swollen eyes Meridia gathered she had met the dawn weeping.
“Permony’s having a baby?” she whispered. “Permony—a baby?”
It was anguish, not envy, that lay smoldering beneath the question. Meridia took both of Malin’s hands and squeezed them.
“You’ll have children of your own one day,” she said. “In a year’s time you could have a little boy or girl to keep you up at night.”
Malin shook her head and cried. “There will never be one for me.”
“Don’t say that. You don’t know what heaven has in store for you.”
Malin shook her head harder. “You don’t understand. We have tried and failed, so many times. I have failed, that is. We’ve seen doctors everywhere, but no matter what they tell me to do, I can’t hold the baby inside. Jonathan’s given up and hasn’t come near me in months. He says it’s killing him to have his hope dashed every time he gets it up. He won’t admit it, but I know he thinks it’s my fault. I’m not a woman, you see! How can I be one when I can’t bear him children?”
Meridia squeezed her hands harder. “If you’re not a
woman, then what does that make me?”
Malin stopped sobbing. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to—”
“I know you didn’t.” Meridia released the girl’s hands. A sound she did not like was pulsing through the air, barreling its way into her ear with the beastly tenacity of the bees. Meridia glanced at her mother: Ravenna was busy tearing the blossoms to pieces. Meridia glanced the other way and the sound hit her hard and clear. It was the other mothers. No longer watching their children but pointing and whispering.
Meridia began to walk and motioned for Malin to follow.
“Does your mother know?”
Malin’s face suddenly twisted with anger. “I wish someone would stop her! She goes around telling everyone she’ll soon be grandmother to my children. ‘Malin’s womb holds the seeds of ten thousand generations. Any day now they’ll spill out and make the world a brighter place.’ How do you reason with someone like that? Someone with such self-delusion she can fool herself into believing anything? And now she won’t shut up about Permony and she tells me how everyone is dying to hear the same news from me. Oh, I just feel so mad and low and useless—”
“Don’t let her do this to you.”
“She says everyone…everyone—”
Malin choked on her words. The women’s whispering was getting louder. Meridia glared at them. Their number seemed to have doubled in a matter of minutes.
“Listen to me, Malin. You’ve gone out of your way to mend things with your sister and I’m proud of you. Don’t you see what your mother is doing? She’s setting you up against Permony by making you jealous. If you let her, you’ll end up despising your sister again and giving your mother control over the both of you.”
Malin nodded without surprise. “She’s done this our whole lives. All through my childhood she told me, ‘Papa’s got no room for you now that your sister’s pushed you out of his heart.’ She always said Permony was doing this and that behind my back to steal Papa’s affection. I used to get so angry and make Permony’s life a living hell. Then Mama would be so pleased and she would kiss me and let me have everything I wanted. If only I’d wised up to her tricks sooner.”
Of Bees and Mist Page 31