Of Bees and Mist

by Erick Setiawan

  Meridia drew up in surprise. “Then where will we live? You can’t mean—here?”

  His contempt returned to blast her. “And let his family wash their hands of him? Don’t be stupid. He’s still their responsibility. I won’t have him live off my bounty.”

  “Then where do you want us to live?”

  Gabriel sharpened his stare cruelly.

  “I want you to understand that if you return to him, you’ll be on your own. I won’t give you money, you’ll have to suffice on what you make. Should you find yourself out in the street again, do not expect me to provide you with shelter. Give me your word, and I’ll settle the rest.”

  Meridia turned very pale. In the long pause that followed she came to grasp the full extent of his condition.

  “Why don’t you want me in your life, Papa?”

  His gaze, for once, was wistful and full of pity. His answer, however, was not.

  “Because your mother destroyed all the space I had for you.”

  Biting her tears, Meridia nodded. He did not have to ask her a second time.

  “If I find myself in the street again,” she said, “you’ll be the last to hear of it.”

  GABRIEL FULFILLED HIS PROMISE. Without leaving any room for negotiation, he declared to Elias the following:

  “My daughter will no longer live under your roof. Neither will she abide by your wife’s rules. If you want your grandchild, you will provide your son with a separate house and sufficient capital for a business. You are to give him your unflagging support, but never orders. Your wife will limit her interactions with my daughter, and she will cease interfering in their household affairs. Should you fail to comply with my demands, I will adopt the baby myself and wash your name off its blood forever.”

  Gabriel did not stop here. After grilling Meridia with the relentlessness of a prosecuting attorney, he discovered Eva’s deception with regard to the dowry and the wedding presents.

  “What a stupid, stupid girl you are,” he berated her sharply. “Didn’t your mother teach you anything? It’s too late to reclaim the gifts, but I’ll get the money even if I have to pry it from her teeth.”

  Thus, he added a final clause to his list of demands: the dowry money must at once be returned to Meridia in its full amount, plus interest.

  Overjoyed upon learning he was to become a grandfather, Elias would have accepted all of Gabriel’s terms in the blink of an eye. Nonetheless, anticipating his wife’s reaction, he kept his happiness to himself and acted up an indignant storm in her presence. He cursed Gabriel with a perfectly livid face, calling the man “presumptuous, ridiculous, unconscionable, toxic, and predatory.” For days he made a big show of going to Monarch Street in a huff and coming back hours later claiming he had at last beaten some sense into his in-law’s skull. In truth, he spent those hours conferring with his business partners and scouring the town for a suitable place to house his grandchild.

  Eva’s resistance was nothing less than epic. Day and night her bees needled Elias, demanding that Gabriel put up the money for the house and provide half the capital for the business. But the jeweler, for once in their marriage, found the words to thwart her. “That man won’t yield—you know how stubborn that family is. If we don’t do as he demands, he might drag us through the mud and say all kinds of filth about us. People will talk. People will say we’re mean and heartless and stingy. There will be a scandal. Are you ready to have the town gossip about you around the clock?”

  Eva, always in dread of losing face, grumbled some more before relenting.

  “Fine, we’ll do as he said. But rest assured I won’t let that impudent upstart cheat us out of a single penny!”

  And so in the first brilliant day of winter, while the sky sparkled and the bees went into retreat, the newlyweds moved into a tiny house on Willow Lane, ten blocks south of Orchard Road. Unbeknown to Eva, Elias had secretly furnished the rooms with secondhand furniture, hung clean cotton sheets for curtains, and spread a new rug in the hallway. A small unit connected to the house had been turned into a modest jewelry shop. It was agreed that the young couple would manage without a servant.

  SEVENTEEN

  The house at 175 Willow Lane wheezed with an old man’s lungs. The rafters sniffled in cold, the floors in heat, and the walls never stopped coughing from their blistered paint. There were leaks in the roof, holes on the floorboards; opening a door triggered an avalanche of dust. The air, trapped by the low ceilings and narrow rooms without an outlet, smelled as if the asthmatic old man had been bricked alive in his own bed.

  Yet nothing made Meridia happier. She flung the windows open, beat the air with perfumed sheets, squashed giant spiders with a broom, poured vinegar over cockroaches, scrubbed the bathroom floor until every tile gleamed. Refusing help from Monarch Street, she swept and washed and dusted for three days, polishing even Elias’s threadbare furniture with a care befitting an heirloom. The house was hers. Hers. She was mistress of it as much as she was wife to her husband.

  While she cleaned the house, Daniel set up the store. He painted the walls a bright yellow, sanded the floor, fitted in a window, coated the battered display cases with a brilliant varnish. He spent an entire day consulting a manual on how to arrange the space to bring the most luck, factoring into consideration the flow of air and the position of the sun at every hour. For wall decoration, Meridia pieced together an embroidery of mermaids and elf kings, magical creatures she had retained from her days with Hannah and Permony. Her work was at best elementary, yet Daniel praised it to the sky, saying it would bring them more fortune than a holy charm.

  Their first dinner was both a delight and a tragedy. Without Patina’s supervision, Meridia burned the rice and overcooked the pork. The mushroom soup tasted strongly of lead, and the fried bananas she had planned for dessert emerged limp and defeated from the skillet. While she contemplated her failure at the dinner table, Daniel cut out a large piece of the pork. He chewed it thoughtfully before declaring, “I’ve never tasted anything better in my life.” Bursting into laughter, Meridia threw her napkin at him and shouted, “And I’ve never met a worse liar in mine!”

  A few days later, Ravenna made a surprise visit to the house. Resentful, Daniel removed himself to the shop. Ravenna did not seem to mind, and began putting the lilies she brought into a vase. Refusing Meridia’s offer of tea, she walked through the three rooms in the house with her absentminded grace, fluffed a pillow here, straightened a chair there, and made a lone comment on how Meridia should cook the chicken and not the fish. In five minutes Ravenna was gone, but instantly the house felt brighter, the air no longer smelling of dead flesh. An hour later, dressing a catfish for dinner, Meridia noticed that it had indeed gone bad. She scratched her head, looked around the kitchen, and sighted a chicken she had not bought sitting on the counter.

  That night Meridia received another surprise. Opening the back door after dinner, she found a large, cloth-wrapped parcel lying on the doormat. The night was crowded with stars, yet the tiny yard was deserted. Meridia bent to lift the parcel and, finding it heavy, dragged it with some difficulty into the kitchen. No sooner had she untied the cloth than the sweet scent of verbena escaped into the air.

  “Daniel! What on earth are these?”

  Daniel quickly joined her on the floor. “Gold bars,” he declared in amazement, lifting one and then the other. “They look solid, at least a kilo each.”

  “Gold bars? Are you sure?”

  “I’m a jeweler, dearest. Who do you think put them there?”

  “Smell the cloth,” Meridia said without hesitation. “Who else can it be?”

  He said nothing but helped her carry them to the bedroom. A day earlier, she had discovered a loose floorboard under the bed while cleaning, and had hidden the dowry money and the gold jewelry set there. To these she now added the two bars. “How did she—” Overwhelmed with gratitude, Meridia let the question drift unfinished.

  When the first batch of jewels arrived from Lot
us Blossom Lane, she pestered Daniel to tell her what they were. Aquamarine pendants, he said. Jade bracelets, tanzanite rings, garnet necklaces. She rolled their names off her tongue like a prayer, committing each one not just to memory but to heart. The next day she had Daniel instruct her on how to spot defects in diamonds, how to appraise gold by taste and spot genuine pearls from the counterfeit. Keeping a chart of precious stones by her bed, she recited nightly the properties of ruby and topaz, agate, amethyst, opal, and others. The thirst for knowledge lit her face like a fire in the sky. No one stopped her this time. No one took away the gems she studied with such rhapsodic fascination. After lovemaking one night, Daniel teased her that the moonstone was making her passion more unbridled. “Don’t be silly,” she retorted, pinching his buttocks savagely. But in her blood she knew that their future lay in the hands of those jewels.

  Three days later, the shop opened with little fanfare. A few loyal customers from Lotus Blossom Lane, along with friends of family. Ravenna sent a gold-lettered banner and a basket of oranges for good luck. Elias beamed with pride, Eva found fault in everything. However, wary of Gabriel’s conditions, she directed her criticisms only to Daniel. Meridia pretended not to hear. From Gabriel she received no acknowledgment.

  Despite their high hopes, the next two weeks went by without a sale. The number of people who stopped in to browse could be counted on two hands.

  “What are we doing wrong?” Meridia asked Daniel one night after closing.

  “Patience,” he answered serenely. “Our luck will turn when the time is right.”

  When another week went by and still nothing was sold, Meridia decided she had to do something. That afternoon she left the store early and went for a walk. How long would the drought continue? Even then Eva was already crowing to see profits. The idea that the shop would fail was unthinkable. She could not go back to Orchard Road, and Gabriel had made it clear she was not welcome on Monarch Street. They still had the dowry money to live on, but how long would it support them if things went on in this fashion? Rambling from one alley to another, Meridia battered her brains for a way out. There must be something she could do. Something to stand the business on its feet.

  The answer came to her less than a minute later.

  “Look up. You won’t solve anything by staring at your toes.”

  Meridia looked up. A woman no more than twenty, fitted in boots and bangles and a revealing carmine dress from overseas, was speaking to her. Stouter, slower in movement, but with the same flowing red hair Meridia would recognize anywhere.

  “Hannah!”

  Her mouth fell open. Before she recovered, her old friend had enfolded her in a kiss. Time stopped then, or rather unwound to the day they had last seen each other.

  “What are you doing here?” she shouted with joy.

  “Keeping my husband on his toes,” said Hannah with a grin. “My father retired a year ago, and out of sheer perversity, I pledged my life to another traveling merchant. So here I am, on the road once again.”

  Meridia laughed. “You haven’t changed. How long will you stay this time?”

  “Months. Years. But let’s eat first. All this talking is making me hungry.”

  Their feet tacitly agreed on the same place: the bookshop café next to the courthouse. They walked with their arms twined, recalling nonstop the adventures of their girlhood days. Hannah told her the many countries she had visited, the strange spectacles seen and stranger characters befriended. She had just returned to town last week, she said, and had been searching high and low for her dearest friend ever since.

  “You’re pregnant, aren’t you?” Hannah said as soon as they sat down. “Does your husband treat you right? I’ll skin him alive if he doesn’t.”

  Snacking on grape soda and strawberry sandwiches, Meridia acquainted Hannah with her married life. “Daniel’s a good man,” she said. “He will make a wonderful father.” She painted her in-laws in broad strokes, never once alluding to Eva’s behavior or her own ousting, and became specific only when she talked about the difficulty the store was facing. Shoppers, she said, did not seem to notice it when they walked by.

  “Make them see it then,” said Hannah simply.

  “What do you mean?”

  The spirited redhead gave a broad wink, followed by a vigorous shaking of her bangles. “Meet me here in the morning and I’ll show you.” Then, more seriously, she added, “You haven’t always been happy, have you? Yet prettier than I remember.”

  For the rest of the day, Meridia was walking on air. Daniel, watching her break into smiles for no reason, finally asked, “Why are you so excited?”

  “I ran into an old friend,” she said coyly. “We haven’t seen each other in ages.”

  “But you’re blushing,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. “If you aren’t careful, people might think you’re in love.”

  When Meridia returned to the bookshop café the next morning, Hannah was waiting for her. A simple white dress this time, no boots, no bangles, her wild hair neatly framed with a schoolgirl’s headband.

  “Take a deep breath,” she told Meridia. “I’ll show you how to get people into your shop.”

  So for the second time in their friendship, Hannah introduced the town to her. With her old self-confidence, the imperturbable woman made Meridia approach complete strangers in the streets, made her compliment them and then tell them about the magnificent new shop on Willow Lane. Meridia, shy at first, quickly learned her lesson. That day she covered Majestic Avenue from end to end, shaking hands with so many people whose names Hannah insisted she memorize. “Young or old, each one is special. Next time you see them, make sure you greet them.”

  The next day they repeated their rounds in the commercial neighborhoods surrounding the market square. “We’ll focus on the retailers and the servicepeople,” explained Hannah. “You need customers, they have plenty of them.” Meridia purchased two dozen tins of cinnamon toffee and wrote down her address on elegant business cards. That day she made the acquaintances of three hairdressers, seven dressmakers, two teahouse owners, a florist, four milliners, six storekeepers, and one proprietress of a beauty parlor. Thanks to the toffee and Hannah’s instructions, many of them happily agreed to mention the shop to their customers.

  On the third day, Hannah met her at the most curious of places—around the corner from the jewelry shop.

  “Why here?” Meridia was baffled. “Hardly anybody walks this way.”

  “Know your own turf,” replied Hannah coolly. “Don’t expect your business to take off before you shake hands with every one of your neighbors.”

  Without waiting for an answer, the redhead marched straight to the nearest door and began knocking. For the next four hours they visited every home in the area. From these conversations, Meridia learned that Willow Lane was a developing neighborhood, comprised mainly of hardworking tradesmen and their young wives, most of whom sewed or took in laundry for extra income. Only a handful of businesses serviced them—a smoke shop, a newsstand, a fabric shop, and a little café with a light blue awning. The young wives expressed hope that the jewelry shop would inject new life into the neighborhood.

  Finished with their rounds, the two friends walked over to 175 in great spirits. One arm fastened around the other’s waist, they talked animatedly about how kind the neighbors were and how welcoming.

  “I can’t thank you enough,” said a beaming Meridia when they reached the shop. “Please stay for dinner. Daniel would love to meet you.”

  She had opened the shop door partway, but Hannah pushed it shut again.

  “Stay a minute. There’ll be time for that.” Hannah’s voice had changed, low and feverish. Without a warning she pulled Meridia in an embrace. When they drew apart there were tears gleaming in her eyes.

  “I behaved shamefully last time,” said Hannah. “All these years I wanted to explain why I left without telling you.”

  “There’s no need,” said Meridia quickly. “I understand.”r />
  “But I want you to know—”

  “There’s no need,” Meridia firmly repeated. “I know.” Against her will, a single tear tore its way down her cheek. The door was opening from inside.

  “Are you coming in?” asked Daniel. Meridia wiped her cheek and turned.

  “Yes, Daniel. This is—”

  She felt Hannah’s hand pressing hers with urgency. When she turned, her friend was nowhere to be seen.

  “Why are you standing here all alone?” said Daniel. “I swear you were talking to yourself just now. Where is this mythical friend of yours? I must have a word with her for hogging you these three days.”

  “I was—didn’t you see—” She could not speak. “It’s nothing. Are you hungry? I’ll get dinner ready in a minute.”

  The next morning, when Meridia saw a letter from Hannah waiting for her on the kitchen table, she did not open it. Neither did she toss it into the wastebasket. Instead, she hid it carefully in a pile of dresses, a memento of need and loss, along with the part of her that had once again shut.

  EIGHTEEN

  Two days after Hannah’s departure, Meridia sold her first pair of earrings. From that point on, a growing number of customers came into the shop, paltry by Lotus Blossom’s standards, but many left with purchases in hand. Heeding Hannah’s advice, Meridia not only greeted each one by name, but urged them to return with friends and families. Pleased with the results, Daniel could not help bragging one day.

  “I told you our luck would turn. Do you believe me now?”

  Meridia tried her best not to grin. “Of course, dearest. Heaven must have sent down a spirit to help us.”

  Before long, he discovered her talent for selling. Her gift did not come in the form of bargaining or persuading, but from listening carefully to her customers’ wishes. One morning, he saw her help a young man pick out an engagement ring. Reserved and bashful, the young man had no idea what he wanted. Meridia began not by showing him rings, but by asking about the woman he loved. The man’s face instantly brightened.