The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow

by Rita Leganski

  Tap on photo, questioning look as if to ask, —Where is he now?

  “He died before you were born. It was an accident. He’s not here anymore. He went to live in heaven. It’s a place where everything is always nice, but you can’t see heaven from here, or drive to it or anything like that.” Though Dancy did not believe in God or his heaven, she could not bring herself to take those ideas from her child.

  Knitted brow, hands palm up as if to ask, —What do you mean?

  “Do you remember the time we saw that cat in the street and you thought it was sleeping, but Grand-mère said it must’ve gotten hit by a car by accident and that it died and went to heaven?”

  Nod, nod.

  “Well, it was kind of like that with your dad. He wasn’t hit by a car, but there was another kind of accident and his body went still and then he went to live in heaven.”

  Bonaventure turned his attention back to the photo album, examining each picture carefully and turning the pages slowly and listening to the story of his father’s brief life. He was so absorbed in the photos that he did not even notice when Dancy left the room.

  When he visited Bonaventure that night, an anxious William asked, “What did you do today?”

  —Me and Mom looked at pictures of my dad. He died by an accident, but it wasn’t from a car like the cat in the street. His body went still and he went to live in heaven. It’s a place where everything is always nice, but you can’t see it from here or drive to it.

  “I know,” William said.

  —How do you know?

  “Because I’m him. I’m your dad.” William had to choke back emotion. He had wanted to tell Bonaventure the truth for so long but hadn’t known how to go about it without confusing or scaring him. He desperately wanted to be real to Bonaventure, to be alive in some way. “There really was an accident and my body really did go still. But I’m still me and I still have my voice and that’s how I can talk to you.”

  A surprised yet very happy look came to Bonaventure’s face; he had always loved the voice. —Mom thinks you stay in heaven.

  “Well, I do. Sort of. I’m in Almost Heaven. It’s a different special place. I can leave Almost Heaven and visit you. You can’t see me, but we can still talk.”

  —Can you see me?

  “I sure can.”

  —Will Almost Heaven ever let me see you?

  “No, it doesn’t work like that.”

  —Why?

  “Because it’s more special this way.”

  —Why?

  “I don’t know.”

  —Maybe God knows. Grand-mère says God lives in heaven and he knows everything. You should ask God.

  “If I see him, I will.”

  —I’m glad you’re my dad. I love your sound.

  William took that to mean “I love you,” for sound was all he was to Bonaventure.

  “I love you too,” he said.

  Within a year, Bonaventure Arrow could hear flowers grow, a thousand shades of blue, and the miniature tempests that rage inside raindrops. He’d built up a great store of words, every one of them left unspoken, save for those telepathic talks with his father.

  Bonaventure had begun to collect mementos of his favorite sounds and put them in a box that he kept beneath his bed. It wasn’t just any box; it was one that Mr. Silvey had helped him make from a wooden shipping crate he’d found in the attic over the carriage house. Bonaventure dearly loved that box. His great-grandfather, Alphonse Arrow, had brought that crate home from Europe a long time ago. It had “PORT OF NEW ORLEANS” painted in big letters on its top, its bottom, and all four sides, which made it very special. That box always brought the sound of steamships to Bonaventure’s ears.

  One of the first things in Bonaventure’s collection was a jar of sand from the sandbox. The sand let him hear the water and rocks and seaweed from where it used to live. He’d also put in an India-rubber ball that held the sounds of tigers and wild parrots, a stub of chalk that offered up the sounds of tiny creatures building seashells out of lime, and a piece of twine that spoke to him of banana stalks in a place called Papua, New Guinea.

  Sometimes his silence let new sounds in, sounds with no physical memento to keep. Once, when he was playing outside, he looked up and translated the white of the clouds into the joyful noise of possibility. Then he looked at the grass and turned the sound of green into the molecular chatter of growing things. In the pink and orange of a sunset, he heard the measured beats of earthbound time.

  Bonaventure was getting ever closer to the day he would hear festering sounds that were locked up with secrets in the house on Christopher Street, for his mother and his grand-mère kept mementos of their own, closed up in special boxes. One of those boxes was kept in a closet and the other in a niche in the chapel.

  Up Next to a Eucalyptus Tree

  TRINIDAD Prefontaine was sitting with her mending when all of a sudden the bottoms of her feet itched fiercely, as they had right before she’d walked away from the Hortons of Pascagoula. Once again, she let her feet have their way, and they took her into Bayou Cymbaline up next to a eucalyptus tree that stood amongst cypress and live oak with their cloaks of Spanish moss. Oil melted out of the silver-green leaves, flowing down the tree’s trunk and through the cool, cool grass until it worked its way to her itching feet bottoms and made Trinidad all kinds of grateful.

  She stared hard at the Spanish moss with its curved and curly scale-covered foliage that hung like living chains. She knew about Spanish moss and how it sheltered all manner of creatures—rat snakes and bats and a breed of jumping spider. She also knew that it had been planted by God and brought to the trees on the hand of the wind or by birds that were trying to nest.

  Trinidad stayed there till night came on, when lights from a house across the way twinkled their way through the lacy Spanish moss and were reflected in her eyes. She could sense the house’s inhabitants: two women, one little boy, and a presence. She could not at that moment define the presence, for her gift of Knowing brought nothing to mind. One of those women had the feel of the past about her, along with tears and begging.

  The Knowing trembled in the veins of Trinidad’s legs then, and made its way past her navel to waft along the conglomeration of her vertebrae before coming to rest on her opposite heart. So that is to be the place, she thought.

  Inside the house, Letice had just hung up the phone after having a conversation with Sergeant Turcotte in which he told her he was officially closing the investigation. He promised to let her know if anything turned up in the future. He also said, “The fact that the man didn’t even give a thought as to how he would get away from the scene points to the fact that he wasn’t rational, Mrs. Arrow. He didn’t have any bus or train ticket with him. Would a sane man think he could kill someone in broad daylight in a public place and then just walk to the depot and buy a ticket out of town? He didn’t have any car keys either. He didn’t think that far ahead, ma’am. He didn’t make any plans. Do yourself a favor and accept that your son was killed in a random shooting that had nothing to do with anyone or anything except a crazy man with a torn-up face and a grudge against the world.”

  Letice Arrow could do no such thing. She did not believe in random. God does not deal in random.

  Accusation

  BONAVENTURE cheated, Miss Wells!”

  Frightened headshake. —No!

  “Yes he did! He peeked when we weren’t supposed to! He cheated!”

  Frightened headshake!

  “Yes you did too, Bonaventure Arrow! You cheated and now you’re a liar!”

  Frantic tapping on his ears as if to say, —I could hear the color orange, couldn’t you?

  This accusation came from a little girl named Theodosia in late September of 1955, during a game of Find the Pumpkin being played by Bonaventure’s kindergarten class as they celebrated the coming of autumn. Each child took a turn hiding a paper pumpkin somewhere in the classroom while all the other children closed their eyes and put their
heads down on the tabletops. After hiding the pumpkin, the hider was to sit back down and the others could get up to search for the hidden thing.

  Jeffrey Coulter was a clever little fellow. He stomped over to the sand table and took off his shoes before tiptoeing over to the bookcase. It was there that he hid the pumpkin. Then he tiptoed over to the cubbies, put his shoes back on, and stomped around the room a bit before returning to his chair.

  The children dashed to the sand table, but the pumpkin wasn’t there. They looked and looked but could not figure out Jeffrey Coulter’s cunning ruse. The only one not looking was Bonaventure. He didn’t have to. The color orange had called to him, and he went right to it.

  And then the accusation.

  “Bonaventure had his head down, Theodosia. I was watching,” Miss Wells said. But the other kids kept whispering, and no one sat by him in story circle.

  He wet the bed that night. No other children sat by him again the next day. His shoulders sloped lower and lower, and he wet the bed again. Bonaventure Arrow didn’t know what to do. The kids in his neighborhood were all older and had always been very nice, and so he had no past experience to draw on. He had never been ostracized.

  That visiting beat, that unknown companion, came to Bonaventure’s heart. Anonymous as ever, it walked very softly with respect for his misery and didn’t even try to tumble and twirl. It just wanted him to know it was there.

  After two more wettings and refusals to eat, Dancy was determined to get to the bottom of whatever was going on. “Did something happen at school, buddy?” she asked.

  Very solemn nod.

  “Okay, sugar. You can stay home today. We’ll get it straightened out. Don’t you worry.” She went to see his teacher that afternoon.

  “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Arrow,” Miss Wells said, and explained what had happened. “I’ll have a talk with Theodosia’s parents. Bonaventure did nothing wrong. I won’t allow him to be mistreated, but I’ll do it in such a way that no one will call him a teacher’s pet.”

  Dancy was relieved and grateful.

  Bonaventure went back to school on Monday, but things were not the same. It broke Dancy’s heart and Letice’s too; he’d been so excited about kindergarten. Up until then they’d sheltered him in the world they’d created, where everyone understood him and thought him brilliant and knew exactly what he meant to say. In that regard, they were just like any mother who understands her child’s gibberish. Dancy and Letice could keenly read the way he asked —Why? with a tilt of his chin; the excitement of his fluttering fingers; the way his nose would scrunch up to say, —Yuck; his smiling happiness; his curious eyes; the bounce in his step; his contented breathing. They’d been able to control what happened to him, and they’d had a tendency to allow only the pleasant. And now this, the sharpest side of meanness.

  “We should have known,” each was heard to say. “We really should have known.” What bothered Dancy and Letice most was that their beloved boy couldn’t defend himself or even tell them what exactly had happened, or how he felt.

  What bothered Bonaventure was that no one else even said they’d heard the color orange. Why was he the only one? On the first day of kindergarten when he’d seen all the other children, he’d felt himself part of something, a child the same as the others. He’d hoped that maybe his way of hearing would spread itself around, but now he knew that it didn’t, and he wasn’t really part of something at all. Bonaventure had no idea how to be so different. William was always telling him that he was the only one with super hearing, but sometimes he forgot. Bonaventure didn’t like being different. Different was lonely. He wished he could put his ears in the coat closet at school, underneath the jump ropes and kick balls, where they couldn’t get him into any more trouble.

  Dancy and Letice put their heads together and decided there was one thing they might do to empower him, and that was to employ a sign language teacher. The irony of it was not lost on them—a child with very keen hearing learning the ways of the deaf—but what Bonaventure needed was a solid means of communication, one that would tide him over until he learned to write. Sign language fit the bill. They were giddy with relief when they came to this conclusion, and set about finding a teacher who would understand their situation. Dancy suggested they start with the Yellow Pages, but Letice told her not to worry, that she sat on several committees for one cause or another and surely someone could make a recommendation. It was true, she did sit on several committees, but it wasn’t to them that she turned. Letice Arrow did as she always did; she turned to God.

  She began by saying the Prayer to Saint Thérèse de Lisieux, which was a plea for guidance. Then she turned to Saint Anthony of Padua, who could restore lost things, even speech to the mute. But her prayers did not ask that her grandson find a voice; rather, she asked Saint Anthony to help them find whatever means of speech God meant for Bonaventure to have. Letice did her praying at all times of day and in all kinds of places: in her garden, or at her dressing table, or in the rear seat of her new Cadillac while Mr. Silvey drove her where she needed to go. Sometimes she even woke up in the night and went to her chapel, as if a saintly messenger waited there to take her prayer to heaven. And then it occurred to her to beseech Saint Bonaventure for help, for wouldn’t a mystic understand their dilemma? Forever after, she would credit Bonaventure di Fidanza with leading her to Saint Gerard, patron saint of motherhood, who in turn led her to the Saint Gerard Community for the Deaf. And that is how she found Gabe Riley, a very nice fellow who came to the house on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at four in the afternoon to teach the hearing Arrow family how to speak in sign.

  Gabe Riley was of average height and slender. He had fine, light brown hair, a smooth, calm voice, and very kind hazel-colored, near-sighted eyes. He was the son of a hearing father and a deaf mother, and he’d learned to sign before he’d learned to speak. Gabe actually preferred sign over speech; he felt it was more honest, since no trick of tone or modulation could work to bend the truth. He firmly believed that hands and faces were more expressive than voices could ever be. Gabe didn’t view his new pupil as handicapped at all.

  He explained to Dancy and Letice that sign language has its own grammar and vocabulary, and that words could be spelled out letter by letter or communicated through a distinct motion. He told them it involves not just the hands but the face and the rest of the body as well. As an example, he hung his head and let his shoulders slope in dejection to show how loud a posture could be. He told them to imagine words being acted out, but in consistent, specific ways.

  It so happened that Bonaventure was a natural at signing, helped along by the fact that he could indeed hear. Dancy and Letice were good at it too. Grandma Roman had been offered the opportunity to learn but declined. Her exact words were “I won’t have any part of it, and I don’t think you should either. You might just as well stick some big sign on him that says: ‘There’s something wrong with me.’ ”

  Both Dancy and Letice were secretly glad to be free of her. They were also secretly glad that Gabe was the same age as William would have been, with Bonaventure being short a father. Both women admired Gabe and thought him an ideal teacher. He was patient yet demanding, and he knew how to strike a fair balance between the two. Inside of two weeks, members of the Arrow family were trying to sign to one another every time they spoke, in consideration of the fact that practice makes perfect. Their signed conversations were uncluttered and meaningful and right to the point.

  All the while, the telepathic conversations Bonaventure had with his father went deeper.

  —Last night before I fell asleep I heard someone toasting marshmallows, he said to William in one of their talks.

  “Which is louder, the marshmallow or the fire?” William asked.

  —They’re the same kind of loud. The fire sings to the marshmallow, and the song turns the marshmallow brown because that’s what marshmallows do when they’re happy.

  “You should listen real hard inside the house. Yo
u might hear some interesting things.”

  —Like what?

  “Oh, I don’t know, like things that might help somebody. Maybe you’ll be a hero someday. Come to think of it, you sort of look like a hero.”

  —Are heroes different from regular people?

  “Nope. Heroes are regular people who do something special.”

  —Are you a hero?

  “I don’t think so. Why?”

  —Because you can still be here like regular, but you’re not regular; you got dead.

  “Well, I don’t think that makes me a hero.”

  A thoughtful expression came over Bonaventure’s face as he changed the subject. —How exactly did you get dead?

  “Did you forget? I died in an accident.”

  —But what kind of accident?

  “It’s hard to explain,” William said.

  Sometimes they talked about very ordinary things. For instance, William might ask, “What’s new?”

  And Bonaventure might say, —I heard a caterpillar out in the garden, and when I went there, it crawled over my hand. But more often than not his reply was along the lines of:

  —I watched some kids play ball in the park.

  or

  —I watched some kids play tag on the playground.

  or

  —I watched some kids play jacks on the sidewalk.

  And William could see how it was for his boy.

  Up until the sign language came along, William never had to worry about Bonaventure telling anyone about him. Because Bonaventure couldn’t speak and wasn’t writing things out, there hadn’t been a problem. But now all that was changing, and William wasn’t ready. He felt some anger toward Gabe Riley, because what really bothered him was the bond that was forming between the Arrows and the tutor. It also bothered him that Gabe could talk to Bonaventure in a private, special way. William wanted to be the only one who could do that. He began to attend the tutoring sessions so that he could learn sign too. Even though no one would ever see him do it, he would see them and know what they said.