A hummingbird had flown up to Augusta’s window on the train that morning, showing off its green iridescent neck plumage before shooting off. It was late in the year for a hummingbird sighting, she thought, although they sometimes flocked in late August after coming down from the mountains. But they rarely stayed more than a day or two before flying south.
When Augusta had been a girl, birds had been as abundant as the food they fed on. Every farm in the valley had several pairs of bluebirds, sweet, trusting little birds that nested in birdhouses farmers nailed to fence posts, and blackbirds that sang out their territory in the marshes. Crows followed along behind her mother, plucking up the Lincoln Homesteader peas as she planted them. Goldfinches clung to the stems of bobbing cosmos and took their dinner right from the flower heads that had gone to seed. Birds pooped on the laundry hung out on the line, and generally made themselves so available that Manny went out with the shotgun each morning of the garden season to shoo them away.
Even Helen’s funeral had been besieged with birds. Augusta had been fifteen at the time. So young! She couldn’t remember much of the service now, of what the Reverend had said about her mother. What she did remember, she recalled with such clarity that it was as if she were there now, standing by the grave, staring down at her mother’s casket. It was a plain wooden box, built by Mr. Rivers, Martha Rivers’ father-in-law. He built all the coffins for the congregation. She had brought rosemary to toss in the grave, a promise that she would never forget her mother or her baby sister, and she squeezed this bouquet so tightly that the sweetness of rosemary drifted around her. She must have cried during the service because standing here, looking down at her mother’s grave, she tasted the saltiness on her lips.
A crowd of people stood behind her, mostly women. The women who had known her had brought dishes of food for the meal that followed. The few who didn’t know her mumbled among themselves at the unfairness of a God who would make childbirth so heavy a burden. They didn’t talk about the questionable paternity of the baby, not here at the funeral, though by then all of them must have known. Certainly that was why it was so well attended. For them the funeral was a carnival of sorts; they came to see how she and Manny would react. They watched so they would have something to entertain themselves with later. Nevertheless each of the women carried flowers to throw into the grave.
Where was her father? He wasn’t standing with her and she hadn’t thought much about it until that moment, but it was strange that a girl should stand alone at her mother’s grave. She glanced tentatively at the crowd, but turned quickly back to stare down at her handful of rosemary. There were so many people watching her. She tossed the rosemary down into the grave, onto her mother’s casket. Then the others threw flowers into the grave; delphiniums and foxgloves, Indian paintbrushes, bundles of bachelor’s buttons, sweet-smelling snapdragons, marigolds and calendulas, wild roses and handfuls of shasta daisies. The casket was completely covered in flowers, so that no wood showed through. It could have been a pit full of flowers, and like a child leaping onto a bed of leaves she could have jumped into the flowers and landed softly.
Martha Rivers came over to Augusta at the luncheon that followed, and pulled her outside by the arm and made her stand on the steps of the church. She put an arm around Augusta and despite herself Augusta calmed a little under her touch. Martha pointed at the trees around the church, and at the rooftop, and at the air above them, because the trees, the church roof, the air was thick—black—with crows. Augusta held her ears against their chatter. “Crows don’t flock together this time of year,” said Martha. “Those are angels, come to take your mother. Most times when people die, they get themselves just one angel to come help them over to the other side. But when a baby that young dies, then a whole chorus of them comes, to help that little soul along. Your mother and your sister are lucky, to have all that help. It’s not always easy to get there. Look at that!” The whole flock took to the air then, shocked into flight by some passing car, and they quite literally darkened the sky. Feathers lost in flight or from their short-lived airborne battles drifted down.
Manny shook Helen’s bees out of their hives the evening after the funeral. It was a European tradition to force bees out of their hives on the death of the beekeeper. Bees couldn’t belong to anyone else, and in some way they aided the ascent of the beekeeper’s soul. Maybe that was so, because one of the hives collected in a great ball against the kitchen window that Helen had spent so much time looking out of. They stayed there until sunset, then, catching the last of the light, flew off in a glittering golden-red globe that moved through the sky as if guided by a single mind. Swarms rarely flew far. Augusta watched as this swarm, attracted to the lingering smell of honey, found a knothole in the honey-house roof and took up residency in the rafters. The descendants of Helen’s bees lived there for decades afterwards.
Augusta saw Harry Jacob in town about a month after Helen’s funeral. She paid for her grocery order at Colgrave and Conchie’s, picked up her two bags, and turned to see Harry walking in the door. He stopped when he saw her glaring at him. He was all slicked up for town, likely pursuing some new woman, she thought. The anger must have shown in her face because his eyes darted around the room as if he were searching for escape. Finally he turned on his heel, jogged down the store steps, and headed off towards the train station.
After the funeral Augusta went numb all over. She slept and slept. Then, when nothing was getting done around the farm because grief had hit her father in pretty much the same way, something clicked inside and she worked herself to exhaustion. She filled her days to fill her mind and keep her mother out of her thoughts. Even so, the grief snaked up and rubbed itself against her when she was thinking of some other thing: were these pickles still good? Should she count on a late summer and plant another row of peas? Did the floor need washing? And suddenly she’d be weeping. Grief invaded her lungs and left her short of breath. It leapt into her heart, bringing its skip-beat panic. It wound itself around her neck and tightened against her throat; it pulled at her hands, making her drop the pickle jar to the floor. It slid into her belly and squeezed her stomach so she had no desire to eat, and then it fingered its way into her mind and stole names—names of people she had known for years, names of plants she had known from her mother’s garden. She forgot why she had entered a room and would have to retrace her steps. And she walked in her sleep, as she’d done since seeing that rosemary vision of her mother’s death, except she didn’t run around the house. Now she’d wake and find herself out in the garden, or standing in the barn, with a hazy notion that she’d been hunting for something she’d lost. But once she was awake, she couldn’t think what it was she was searching for.
Shortly after Helen’s death, Tommy Thompson was killed. Somehow he’d got himself enlisted during the war, despite the fits. He must have lied to get in. But why, wondered Augusta. He must have known that anywhere, any time—driving a truck or shooting across a muddy patch of ground at some German soldier who was shooting back—possession could take his soul up and out of his body and replace it with a thrashing, incoherent demon. At home he’d been avoided because of his fits. He’d been called “wild man” and “savage,” as if he were an Indian, though not by Augusta. Were the seizures in some way to blame for his death? Did the possession take him during some crucial time, on some battlefield, leaving his body without the wits to defend itself? She never found out. She could never bring herself to ask his parents when she saw them in town, although she had written to them after she saw his death announced in the newspaper.
The letters she sent to that boy’s parents were strange, and unsigned, and they shamed her still. It must have made their grief more intolerable, to be reminded of it weekly by this stranger, because she had written every week for nearly four months. The letters rambled on about how she had loved him, how brave he was, how considerate and kind, how unfair the war was, and how unfair death was; she went on about the sorrow that nearly ripped
her apart, the nightmares that plagued her, her inability to sleep or eat, the weight she had lost over his death, the sadness that made it impossible to carry out the most basic daily chores. All this about a boy she barely knew and had hardly spoken with. The letters were nutty, and Augusta blushed when she thought of them.
Augusta led Karl and Rose into the living-room, where they took their seats. “Would you want to know when you were going to die?” she asked.
“No,” said Karl.
“Absolutely,” said Rose.
“Why? Why would you want to know?”
“So I could prepare.”
“How could you prepare for something like that?” asked Augusta. “I’d worry to death.”
“I’d get my affairs in order. Plan my funeral.”
“That’d be a waste of time,” said Karl. “Leave that to the living, after you’re gone. It’s one less thing to worry about while you’re alive.”
“What would you do, then,” Augusta asked him, “if you knew you were going to die?”
“I already know I’m going to die,” said Karl. He laughed, but Augusta didn’t. She couldn’t bear the thought of it. She had known when she married Karl that she’d likely be widowed at some point. Women generally outlived men, and there was such an age difference between her and Karl. She should count herself lucky to have him with her now, she thought. Even so, living without him was a prospect she shunted to the back of her mind.
When Manny had died, grief hadn’t hit Augusta right away. She had kept herself busy setting things straight at his farm—Augusta’s farm. She had to sell most of the animals and some of the equipment to pay off his debts, and then they rented out the house and farm to Martha Rivers’ younger brother, Teddy Grafton, so he could be close enough to help out his parents. The rent brought in a little money; not much, but it was regular, and Augusta and Karl could call it their own and stick a little of it away each month.
The baby made the gossip that much worse. One day Augusta had Joy in the pram and was walking with her from the train station, where Karl had parked the truck, to Colgrave and Conchie’s. Karl was already at Yep Num’s, having walked there as Augusta settled Joy into her carriage. Augusta saw Martha Rivers approaching from the direction of the store and speeded up her walk, but Martha ran to catch her. She caught up with her out of breath and placed her body in front of the pram so Augusta had to stop to avoid running into her.
“Well!” she said. Not even a decent hello. “Let’s see!” She bent over the pram and took a perfunctory peek at Joy sleeping there, but she hadn’t really wanted to see. It was only an excuse to say it. “My, doesn’t she have her father’s eyes?” Then she smiled, turned heel, and walked briskly back to the store. Joy didn’t have Karl’s blue eyes. Joy’s eyes were turning brown, as brown as Joe’s. Anyway, Martha Rivers hadn’t even seen her eyes, as Joy was sleeping.
Augusta walked with the pram a little distance towards the store and then turned a wide arch away from it. If Martha Rivers knew about Joe, then the men who haunted the café knew about him. The old men without the strength to work. The bachelors, like Percy Martin, and the men without jobs. They would all know by now. She stood there, on the wooden platform of the train station, at the point where the platform turned into a sidewalk that led to the café. Harry Jacob left Colgrave and Conchie’s and crossed the street. When he saw her standing there he stopped and tipped his hat to her, before going on his way. It was a gesture of what, she wondered. Respect? No man tipped his hat to her in that town any more. Even he must have heard the gossip. Then that was why he tipped his hat. They were equals now. Some time later Karl left the café, and when he saw her standing there, he came over. When she said she hadn’t done the shopping, he didn’t ask why. He left her in the truck and bought his supplies alone. If he had heard anything about Joe in the café, he didn’t say a word. Not then. Not ever.
After that Augusta stopped going to Chase for supplies altogether, and made Karl pick up mail or pay bills. It was the city of Kamloops she lingered in, where she shopped and visited the Silver Grill café for a cup of coffee and a bit of sweet reminiscing. On days when she could leave Joy at home with Karl, she sat in the café for hours, watched by the questioning eyes of the cook, trying to look calm as she drank coffee and ordered pie she couldn’t eat so she could justify sitting another hour, but Joe never did turn up.
Around this time she dreamed she was dressed in rags and walking alone down a lonely road. A car pulled up beside her and the driver was Joe, dressed in his medals. She felt awkward because she was dressed so poorly and because she was homeless; she felt lost and ragged. Even so, she got into the front seat beside him, and as they drove along she started to feel better, and her clothes began to change from shabby to fashionable. They went on driving down the road with no destination in mind. Joe happily whistled “Fascination.”
She tried phoning him once. She parked herself in the phone booth near the café and found his name and number in the phone book and forced herself to pick up the receiver. But that was as far as she got. If his wife answered, what would Augusta say? If Joe answered, would he really want to talk to her? She stood in the phone booth, holding the receiver, until a man wanting to use the phone tapped on the door.
After that, she began searching for Joe along the streets of Kamloops. She’d walk for hours, pushing Joy in the pram, haunting the pretty window displays full of things she couldn’t afford, hoping she might bump into him. Once she thought she had seen him turning a corner, and ran after him, only to find it was some other man. Another day she stepped out of the pharmacy and was standing on the fan-shaped imprint in the sidewalk that said “Rexall Drugstore,” tucking her wallet back into her purse, when she looked up to see not Joe but Manny passing by and walking down the street. Was this one of her visions? Was he a ghost or had she really stepped backwards in time?
She called, “Dad!” and ran after him, and took him by the shoulder. When he turned he wasn’t Manny at all, but some stranger. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “I—”
The man smiled and tipped his hat to her and walked on. She stood in the centre of the sidewalk for some minutes, bumped and jostled by passers-by, watching her father walk away.
“I saw Gabe walking around Nanaimo today,” said Augusta.
Karl looked at her and blinked. Rose said, “What?”
“I saw him walking around, as if he weren’t sick or lying on the operating table.”
“A vision?”
“Not exactly. I thought it was him, but then it wasn’t. I was so sure I’d seen him.”
“That’s encouraging, don’t you think?” asked Rose. “Maybe some part of you is saying he’ll be up and walking around in no time.”
Augusta didn’t tell Rose the rest, about how she had been so convinced it was Gabe that she’d called out his name. But still she’d been groggy, half asleep. She’d been dozing as the train pulled into the station. Esther had woken her. “Is this your stop?” she said, shaking Augusta’s knee, shaking her awake. “Hey, are you getting off in Nanaimo?”
Augusta grunted groggily and looked around. The train had come to a stop and somehow she had remained asleep as the three young men and the rest of the passengers left the train. Had she slept through the conductor’s call as well? She must have. “Where are we?” she said.
“Nanaimo,” said Esther. “Are you getting off here?”
“Nanaimo?” said Augusta. “No, no, I’m staying on to Courtenay.”
“You want something then? Something to eat? They have a snack bar here. We’ve got fifteen minutes.”
“Yes, maybe.”
Augusta slipped her fingers under her glasses and rubbed her eyes as Esther took her massive basket with her and left the train. When Augusta followed, the conductor was leaning against the station, smoking a cigarette. The Nanaimo station was much like the others, although this one had several planter boxes in which maroon chrysanthemums had been planted. Its platform connected
with a back alley on one side and a sidewalk leading to shops on the other. A snack truck selling coffee, doughnuts, and chips was parked in the back alley, in front of the station building. Esther stood beside the snack truck, talking to the woman who ran it. She laughed a shotgun laugh, sending the crows on the roof of the station flying off in all directions. Crazy birds, thieves, Augusta thought, they’d snatch any shining thing that caught their eye. She had seen them swoop down to pick up bits of glass glittering by the roadside, had yelled at them as they pinched new penny nails from Karl’s barnside workbench. She watched one crow fly over—its wingtips transparent in the sunlight—then followed its shadow as it slid across the platform. Several people were walking by, in a group. One of them, a man in his late forties, turned and Augusta saw that it was Gabe. She took a quick painful step forward and called, “Gabe!” but when he turned he wasn’t Gabe at all. The man looked away as he would from any stranger, and continued walking with the group of people.
Esther went on talking to the woman who ran the snack bar, and the conductor went on smoking and staring off into the sky as if nothing had happened. Perhaps they hadn’t witnessed her folly. Why on earth had she seen Gabe? she wondered. What was her mind telling her? That he would pass on? Or maybe that he would make it, he’d be walking around in no time? Sometimes her premonitions were vague like this. She could tell what they meant in hindsight. When the event was over she could tack on meaning to the gut feelings she’d had when she knew something was wrong, or to that strange dream that had meant nothing at the time. Other times she knew what her visions meant at the time she had them, like when she saw her mother’s death, and her father’s.
A Recipe for Bees Page 16