The Bird Artist

by Howard Norman

  He got me in a bear hug, then let go and stepped back. “Orkney said I wouldn’t believe how you’d grown.”

  “It’s been a few years, Uncle Bassie.”

  “It has indeed.”

  “You talked to my father, of course. You said, ‘Orkney said—’ which meant you were coming to see me. He must know the law is after him.”

  “It’s almost laughable, isn’t it? Here, for the first time in a long time I’m not on the lam, and Orkney is.”

  “How did you find him? Or he find you?”

  “Let’s step away from the house, all right? I don’t want to wake up Mr. Mitchell Kelb. He’s got a reputation. I know that he’s in the house. I was over to see Romeo Gillette, who remembered me. I don’t want to wake up Alaric, either. She wouldn’t be all that pleased to see me, I’m afraid.”

  We walked past the charred tree and sat down.

  “I’ll fill you in,” Bassie said.

  I could not see him all that clearly; in the starlit dark, his voice so closely resembled my father’s that it was difficult to tell the difference. Perhaps Bassie’s was a bit raspier, but that was all.

  “Orkney stayed in Lamaline for one night,” he said. “I know that’s where you watched him come ashore. He said he slept in the cemetery, having taken a blanket from somebody’s wash out on the line. Said he neatly folded the blanket and returned it before daylight. Now, that does sound like Orkney, doesn’t it?”

  “Neatly folding it. Yes, it does.”

  “He traveled mostly by dark, though. He made his way to Burgeo. He found a mail boat there.”

  “The Doubting Thomas.”

  “By chance and by luck. He persuaded the skipper, man named Arvin Flint, to carry him to Halifax. And what do you suppose he did then? He wrote me, his brother, a letter. Care of Buchans, because he knew I’d been a free man awhile this time around, and always after prison I go home. Which in fact I’d done.

  “The letter said he was staying under an alias in the Hagerforse Guest House. He asked that I come see you, and that if I got to see you, to mention the Hagerforse Guest House in particular and wait for a confused smile to cross your face.”

  He leaned close, peering into my face, contorting his mouth the way he had when I was a boy and he was trying to make me laugh. I smelled sweat, snuff tobacco, and hair grease on him. “I’m not a kid,” I said. “I’m not going to laugh at that.” And then I did laugh.

  “Orkney’s gone from Halifax now,” he said. “He’s somewhere else. I know where, but I can’t tell you. Because then you’d have that knowledge. If you don’t have it, you can’t be responsible.”

  “I bet he’s hightailed it into Canada. Somewhere into Canada.”

  “Let me put it this way. Basically, there’s Canada and there’s the United States of America, and Orkney, since he was a boy, never had one spark of interest in going to the latter.”

  “Will you go see him? Will you join him, or will he be alone?”

  “I’m a free man now, Fabian, for the eighth or ninth time, I forget. So if I want to go and visit my brother, I can, and most likely I will. Hell, if he and I reminisced about everything that’s happened even since we last saw one another, we’d walk out of the room old men!”

  “Uncle Bassie—”

  “Now, who’s this Margaret?”

  “My father mentioned her?”

  “Yes, he did. He said he was out of his mind trying to persuade you to marry the girl from Richibucto, New Brunswick, whose name I’ve misplaced. He said he was trying to force a life outside of Witless Bay on you. But he realized—too late—you were striving for an outside life on your own. He thought this Margaret Handle might have kept you here, locked into sameness. Orkney used to like sameness—until he didn’t. I guess he found out the hard way how Alaric dealt with sameness, didn’t he. Between men and women, it’s complicated and simple at the same time, eh? Anyway, I don’t know all the man-and-wife details. So far I have only the one letter from Orkney, though it was a long letter. He says he was wrong. He is ashamed. He wants to be forgiven for his mistake.”

  “Maybe he just now wants to disagree with my mother about Margaret. About everything.”

  “Could be. I don’t know. But to my mind, it’s just a straight-out request for forgiveness.”

  “Why did you come here, Uncle Bassie? I know, to tell me that my father was all right. But he would have been all right whether you came all this way or not.”

  “I broke his jaw. I owe him.”

  “I’m happy to see you, don’t get me wrong. I could use you here, too. Believe me, I could. Just to know you’re here, during the hearing. Just to have you sitting in the store, so that later, if they don’t hang me, I can say, ‘Did this really happen?’ and you can say, ‘Yes, it did.’”

  “I know you can use me here. I’m a free man. I’ll stay through Guy Fawkes, at least.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I have to stay away from the house, though. Mr. Kelb is not my friend.”

  “I understand.”

  “Now listen carefully, Fabian. There’s one last thing that Orkney insisted I tell you. Listen carefully to it. He said, ‘Tell Fabian it’s fine to blame me for the murder. They won’t catch me. I’m far out of jurisdiction, or at least the means of the magistrate. If it can guarantee your freedom’ —he didn’t mention anyone else’s—‘then go ahead. Go ahead, twist the story around to blame me.’ Blame him for the lighthouse keeper’s murder. Even to the point of being an eyewitness to Orkney having shot the bastard.”

  “I could just as easily say it was my mother who did it.”

  “You’d have to look her in the eye, though. And a son sending his own mother to Mr. Ellis—”

  “Either way is sickening.”

  “More if someone hangs. Now, did you hear clearly what Orkney wanted me to tell you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. I’m going to leave now and get some sleep somewhere.”

  We embraced for a long time. When Bassie was out of sight, I realized that I was shaking. I do not believe I have ever wanted someone to stay near me as much as Bassie over the next few days. I realized, too, that I had given Bassie no return message for my father. Now it was too late to shout one out or catch up with my uncle.

  I fell asleep on the kitchen floor. What startled me awake the next morning was the sound of Margaret crashing into furniture on her bicycle. I got up and saw her sprawled on the floor, spokes spinning. She was bleeding at one knee. She looked up at me. “I’m riding my bicycle under house arrest,” she said.

  Kelb appeared in the doorway. “How can you drink that poison so early in the morning,” he said, picking up a bottle from the floor. He looked in a foul mood. “Goddamn it, Miss Handle. You woke me up. And I’ve got to keep a clear head today.”

  We had a breakfast of eggs and fried potatoes, prepared by my mother. Then Margaret wheeled her bicycle outside and rode it to Gillette’s store.

  In the store, Kelb shut the windows against the cold. He announced, “It’s November four, nineteen and eleven.” Mekeel Dollard wrote that down.

  The store was as crowded as ever, less Reverend Sillet.

  “I’m back to the gun,” Kelb said. “Mr. Gillette, how did the revolver get into your hands after the murder?”

  “Margaret Handle gave it to me.”

  “In your opinion, why?”

  “I don’t know. I only know what she said when she gave it to me. She said, ‘This gun was used to kill Botho August.’ Then she walked right out the door.”

  “At what time of day did this take place?”

  “I’d say around 7 a.m.”

  “How did Miss Handle seem?”

  “Seem? I don’t know that either. But she suddenly came back into my store and said, ‘If you walk to the lighthouse, you’ll find Botho lying in his yard. He’s dead and I’ve covered him up.”

  “Is that all she said?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did
you do then?”

  “I placed the revolver inside an oilcloth. I put on my coat and walked to the lighthouse. You can imagine how high my curiosity might have been.”

  “And found what? At the lighthouse.”

  “Just as Margaret said. Botho August, dead as a doornail. His nightshirt torn away, right next to him on the ground. He was covered with a wet blanket. I went to the wharf, told some men. They went back with me. I went to get Reverend Sillet, but he wasn’t at home. I looked for him. I found him at the Harbisons’ house having a late breakfast. By the time he and I got back to the body, people were gawking.”

  “You can sit down.”

  “All right.” Romeo sat down.

  Mitchell Kelb looked at John Rut. He sighed, then turned toward Margaret. “Miss Handle,” Kelb said, “is what Mr. Gillette just reported how you remember it—the parts about you giving him the revolver and so forth?”

  “Yes. Except I forgot I’d covered Botho August with a blanket,” Margaret said. “Do you want to hear about that?”

  “Not necessarily—”

  “I took the blanket off his bed, brought it down the stairs. It was raining hard still. I covered him with it.”

  “Did you participate directly in the murder?”

  “I saw Orkney Vas run off from the body. I came downstairs. As I said. As I said, I found the revolver.”

  “Did you put a bullet in Botho August is what I’m asking?”

  “We’re not wasting the crown’s time now!” John Rut said.

  “Miss Handle?” Kelb said.

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Even after he’d been shot twice already. How—”

  “It all happened very fast. Fast in the rain. That Botho seemed to fly awake and reach for the revolver. I grabbed it first. I thought he’d kill me. I don’t know what I thought. I shot him.”

  Margaret did not break down; she in fact stiffened her posture.

  “So you lied before. Perjured yourself before, when I asked if you at any time that night had possession of the gun.”

  “Yes. I’m sorry.”

  “Did you at any time that night see Fabian Vas?”

  “No. That’s the truth. No.”

  “A lie will come back around at you some way or another. You know that. That’s all of my questions for you just now, Miss Handle. Mr. Vas, stand up, will you?”

  I stood up.

  “Fabian Vas,” Kelb said, “that night, did you participate in the murder?”

  “Be sure to speak up, Fabian, so we can hear you!” a voice said from the back of the store. It was my Uncle Bassie; it was my father’s messenger.

  His presence, and my cowardice, emboldened me to lie. I knew then and there I would lie. I lied. “My father and mother had been quarreling all night. It was awful,” I said. “My mother kept crying out, ‘Do you want me to drown myself in the sink?’ Other things. Other things out of shame at the adultery. It went on for a long time. Hours. I’m their son and I heard it all. I heard my father say, ‘I’ll kill him!”

  “Kill whom?”

  “Botho August.”

  “Orkney Vas actually said he was going to kill Botho August?”

  I looked at my uncle. “Yes, he did. I heard him.”

  “On the night of October 8, did you see Orkney Vas in possession of the revolver?”

  “This is my father—”

  “I’m asking.”

  I took a deep breath. Bassie stepped out onto the porch.

  “Yes, I saw him go to the woodshed. I kept out of sight, following my own father that way. Out of sight in the rain, on to the lighthouse. He shot out a window. That happened right away. Then Botho stepped out of the door. They had words. I heard words but couldn’t hear what they were exactly. My father—”

  “Fabian?”

  “Shot Botho August. He shot him twice. He dropped the revolver and ran.”

  “Orkney had a lantern, as Miss Handle testified. Did you see the murder by lantern light, then?”

  “What I saw of it, yes. Then my father doused the wick.”

  “Did you see Miss Handle fire the third shot?”

  “No, I did not. I was very confused. I was afraid for my father. I hated Botho August. It was as if I’d shot him myself. I was afraid for my father, for what he’d done. I went to my childhood hiding place, though I’m twenty years old.”

  “Where was that?”

  “Boas LaCotte’s barn.”

  “And before dawn, there was a family reunion, you might say—”

  “I wouldn’t call it that.”

  “—wherein, you, Alaric Vas, and Orkney fled Witless Bay. On the Aunt Ivy Barnacle.”

  “For Halifax. Yes.”

  Kelb picked up the revolver, spun the empty cartridge, then said, “Mr. Gillette said he emptied this cartridge. Mrs. Dollard, be sure to note that.” He inspected the revolver for a moment, for all the world like a man browsing in a store. Holding it by the barrel, he tapped the table with the handle. “I’ve got some thinking to do,” he said. “Adjourned.”

  Margaret rode her bicycle back to the house.

  Though I did not attend that year’s Guy Fawkes activities until the very last moment, I can describe them in general, because I had been to them since I was four years old. During the day, wood is stacked: warped doors, driftwood, fireplace logs, sticks thrown in by children, and mostly green boughs and tar barrels, as they produce the thickest smoke. I remember when I was eight a house burned down in September; in late October, the charred roof beams, windowsills, porch railings, steps, and scraps of furniture were hauled by wagon to the Guy Fawkes bonfire heap.

  Potluck supper is served at the church around six o’clock. The bonfire has blazed since dark, and by its light a mocking rendition of the original Guy Fawkes Day is performed. Traditionally, in Witless Bay, Romeo Gillette dressed up as King James I. He might wear a white wig with exaggerated curls; one year curls fell to his waist. Another year he wore a miniature weathervane on top of a hat. He might wear a vast, flowing court robe hemmed with cork net floats that drag along, all festooned with fishbones. Cotton stuffing protrudes from the robe in fistfuls at the sleeves. His king’s throne is ten feet high, making him look like a dwarf. When I was fifteen, Romeo asked me to paint a flock of gulls on a bedsheet, and to have the gulls raining down gull shit. The sheet was stretched between poles and held above Romeo during the procession. The sheet took me three whole days to complete.

  Near the bonfire, novices would have tar pitch applied to their faces, smeared on arms and legs. Then they were led through the smoke, and the wild dancing and reveling began, all to the accompaniment of drums, accordions, even a bagpipe, if the only bagpipe player in the region, Peter Reid, accepted Witless Bay’s invitation. He was in popular demand, though. Most every year, too, a few people succumbed to smoke and had to be dragged away and revived. The dancers all had smoke tears streaming down their faces.

  The failed ambush on the throne was at once laughable and serious: the king had to go, if not this time, then soon! One year Romeo stood up and said, “I declare a free Newfoundland!” His declaration was his way for history to service his own hopes, and he drew applause and drunken cheers.

  Anyway, around dusk on that November 5, Mitchell Kelb walked into our kitchen, took up an iron pot, and clanged it with a ladle. We all came in, obedient as schoolchildren. “I’ve decided, out of curiosity, mind you, to attend the Guy Fawkes bonfire,” he said. “Llewellyn Boxer seems to be a day late getting back here. Much to my chagrin, I can’t find a guard for you, so you’ll be on your own, which I’ve advised myself against. Nonetheless, I’m going. I can’t allow you to attend, naturally. I can’t allow you to leave this house, so don’t. House arrest is serious business. Each of you will be accountable. I’ll be gone no more than two hours, maybe three, according to my timepiece.”

  He took out his watch, gold-rimmed, on a chain. He looked at the watch and said, “Exactly 4:18.” He returned the watch to his pocket.
“Difficult and lonely as it might be, try and have a pleasant dinner without me.”

  He set out down the road. We all stepped out onto the porch. There was a clear sky, night falling. We could see smoke from the bonfire. They had begun it a bit early this year, I thought. It looked to be where it always was, though, a few hundred yards south of the lighthouse, in a field back from the cliff.

  I turned from the porch and saw Margaret go into the pantry. I went into the kitchen. My mother joined us there. Margaret threw back three shots in a row.

  “Oh yes, to be sure, Margaret Handle,” my mother said. “That’s your way in times of trouble, isn’t it?”

  “Not just at those times,” Margaret said, pouring another shot.

  My mother began to cook furiously. She sliced and fried some onions. Scraping the onions from the cutting board into a bowl, she then filleted a sea trout that Romeo had brought us. “There’s leftover codfish stew, but I don’t want any more of that,” she said. “Three days in a row it’s been in the house.” She rolled the trout in butter and fried it on a skillet. When this was ready, she all but slammed a loaf of bread onto the table.

  “My God,” she said, holding on to the table edge. “Why don’t we simply call ourselves by our true names here! Adulteress, murderer, and murderer!”

  My mother opened a window. She leaned out and breathed the night air. When the smell of onions died down a little, she served supper.

  “The harbor’s been smooth as a mirror all day, I bet, since there’s been so little wind,” my mother said. “And I’m so cooped up inside. Have you noticed that since our one time rowing, Mr. Kelb has refused to take me out again? He’s outright refused. I call it mostly his fault I’m so cooped up. Therefore, I’m going to act directly against his orders. I’m going to ignore his warning. I have to. I’m going to row out. I want to see the bonfire from a harbor view. I’ve always wanted to.”

  Margaret made a hollow clucking. “Alaric,” she said, “Helen once warned me never to row in one direction if seabirds are towarding in the other. A sea hag will capsize you. So, Alaric, if you see gulls or the late-staying bullbirds flying toward shore, don’t, don’t, don’t row out to sea. Just float in on the tide. Or wait till the birds are out of sight, then do what you please.”