Of Bees and Mist

by Erick Setiawan

  “She’s the gentlest of souls,” he gushed without restraint. “She speaks only when necessary, but even when she’s quiet she fills the room with peace and happiness.”

  Meridia considered this thoughtfully. “You want something like this then, a simple ring with a square diamond. It’s quiet and understated, yet shines with purpose and authority. What do you think?”

  The man took one look and bought the ring.

  “Who taught you to do that?” asked Daniel after.

  Meridia shrugged her shoulders. “Everything was written plainly on his face.”

  Her friendships with the women of Willow Lane developed rapidly. Tossing aside any feeling of awkwardness, she baked orange and vanilla pastries for them, invited them over for tea, and inquired after their children with fondness. Drawn to her intelligence and honesty, they repaid her advances by spreading a good word about the shop to their relatives and employers. Two of the younger women—Leah and Rebecca—Meridia was particularly fond of. Round and broad-hipped, Leah was the garrulous wife of a printer. Rebecca—thin, freckled, quieter—had been married to a successful mechanic for three years. Both women were sensible and resourceful, wise about the ways of the world. It was their idea to create three different posters for the store and paste them all over Independence Plaza. “One for the men, one for the women, one for the in-betweens,” they explained. Meridia saw the logic and did it.

  In this way the business began to grow. Every night Daniel counted the profits, and though small, they were always more than the previous day’s. Yet somehow money remained scant. The more they sold, the more difficult it was to meet expenses. The problem was Eva, who carted the money off to Orchard Road as soon as it was made.

  DESPITE HER AGREEMENT WITH Gabriel, Eva watched the couple like a hawk. Two or three times a day, she blustered her way into the shop without being invited, always at the most inconvenient hour, and made it her business to know everything. Every evening she inspected the account books to see how many items had sold, and then copied each transaction in her own ledger while her tongue clacked in displeasure. At the end of the week, she totaled the numbers and made sure Daniel paid Elias sixty percent of the proceeds. This was the figure they had agreed upon, but Eva, when it suited her, sometimes raised it to as much as ninety. Her excuses were innumerable—“The shop loan is due this week,” “Your sisters need new uniforms”—and Daniel, not wishing to aggravate his mother, grudgingly relented. Meridia did her best to hold her tongue, knowing she was still dependent on Eva no matter how much she hated it.

  At the beginning of each month, along with a fresh supply of inventory, Eva also delivered the small stipend Elias had agreed to give the couple until they became independent. She did this as if it were the greatest of sacrifice, loudly cautioning Daniel that “your poor father worked very, very hard for this, so please don’t spend it unwisely.” She only had to arch her brow to reduce Meridia to a charity case, a pauper pleading for crumbs, and the experience was among the most humiliating in memory. Still, Meridia followed her reason, not her emotion, and said nothing in return.

  Eva’s menacing did not stop at the shop. Soon her bees were all over the house, spoiling the food, suffocating the air, even swarming Meridia’s growing belly. One afternoon, she showed up at the house while Meridia was cutting a pear. Eva did not say a word but marched straight into the shop. “I’m glad you’re putting your father’s money to good use,” she said curtly to Daniel. “If only he could live as extravagantly as you, eating imported pears every day. But we’re just humble people. We count ourselves lucky if we could eat watermelons once a month.”

  Daniel’s ears burned as he listened to his mother. “I’m sorry, Mama,” he said. “Meridia bought that pear for me. I’ll tell her it won’t be necessary in the future.”

  At another time, a grocer’s boy delivered a bottle of milk to the shop during one of Eva’s visits. Meridia, ringing up a customer, felt a nail clawing at her throat when she saw Eva frown in disapproval.

  “It’s for the baby,” Daniel explained. “To make it strong and healthy.”

  “Of course,” returned Eva acidly. “I’m sure you know more about it than I do. I wish somebody had pampered me while I carried you in my womb, but nobody did, and you turned out just fine. But if your baby needs it, who am I to say anything?”

  From then on, Daniel had the milk delivered in the morning before Eva came.

  Meridia consoled herself by outwitting Eva in money matters. Through Daniel, she learned that despite Eva’s being married to a jeweler for almost three decades, her knowledge of jewelry was at best superficial. Meridia exploited this as follows: When she sold a piece of jewelry, she would replace it with an imitation she bought from a street vendor for a fraction of the price. The account books still listed the item as unsold, Eva was unaware of the difference, and Meridia put away the profit under the loose floorboard in the bedroom. In order to avoid suspicion, she did this only when she could find a truly good imitation. Furthermore, when a customer brought in an item to sell, she would record the purchase at a price higher than what she paid and pocket the difference. Daniel, catching on to what she was doing, quickly followed suit. In this way they saved up little by little, adding whenever they could to the stash under the bed.

  Inspired by her craftiness, Daniel came up with the idea of cluttering the account books. His reasoning was simple: “Mama’s never been very good with numbers. You are.” Meridia did not need to be told twice. That day she began to ensnare Eva in endless columns of numbers, turning the books into an impenetrable maze where ten times ten did not equal a hundred, but ninety. “What does this mean?” Eva asked a few days later, sliding off her spectacles in frustration. Daniel, armed to the teeth with explanations, pulled out so many receipts so rapidly that his mother, in order not to lose face, had no choice but to nod. “Yes, yes, of course,” Eva said with the impatient air of an expert. Behind her, Meridia began coughing so as not to laugh at Daniel’s solemn face.

  AS HER BELLY ROUNDED, Meridia grew weaker. Her skin lost its shine, her appetite waned, and her body defected into a territory whose laws she no longer understood. Some days she walked as if trudging through a swamp, her feet so swollen they felt cast with lead. Some mornings she looked at her reflection without knowing what she was—not a woman, barely a life-form, with grotesque alien stumps posing as limbs. Daniel constantly fussed over her, adamant that she eat even when her tongue could not tell sweet from sour. “Stay in bed,” he said. “Rest whenever you feel like it.” Meridia shook her head, knowing too well what Eva would say if she found her napping.

  But neither could she sleep. In dreams, the bees pestered her, their stink churning her stomach more than the dying roses. One night, they chased her to the edge of a cliff; rather than surrender, she took a leap into thin air. She was falling, falling, the rocks below springing to meet her, when a hand jerked her back into the sky. For a moment there was nothing. Only breeze and a blur of sun. Then suddenly she was back on the ground, covered in so many scarves and underclothes her skin broke out in a rash. The same rescuing hand was now herding her toward Cinema Garden.

  “Nurse,” she said from her little-girl body, “why did you never come back?”

  The good woman had not aged. The same stout figure. Robust cheeks. Vast breasts exhaling interminable sighs.

  “You don’t think I tried? Your mother thwarted me every inch of the way.”

  “But you’ll stay this time? Please tell me you’ll stay.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t, my dear. My last wish is to see you before I die.”

  The little girl began to cry. “Please stay. Don’t leave me again. Please.”

  No sooner had she said this than the mists appeared. Blue, yellow, ivory. The nurse bore down and looked at her intently.

  “Shh! What would your mother say if she saw you? Listen carefully. The next time you see the three mists together—”

  The nurse never finished her words
, for the mists had pounced with a roar and whisked her into the sky. Screaming, the girl ran after them.

  “Come back, Nurse! Come back!”

  “Wake up.” Daniel was shaking her shoulders. “You’re having a bad dream.”

  Meridia panted in the dark and arranged her arms frantically around her belly. “No—no—not a dream,” she stammered. “The nurse—my nurse—was saying good-bye.”

  Then she remembered. What would happen the next time the three mists appeared together? The thought pinned her head with needles and kept her up for hours.

  MEANWHILE, NOT ONE OF Elias’s gestures was lost on Meridia. The fumbled, diffident smiles. The apologetic looks. The awkward hemming and hawing. While the cold war raged between her and Eva, Elias was trying to make amends.

  One day, she saw him smuggle a crate into the shop and then leave without a word. Inside the crate were a dozen imported pears and a large jar of medicinal roots, known to boost the appetite of expectant mothers. Attached was a note for Daniel: Your wife mustn’t lose more weight. Hide these from your mother. When Meridia tried to thank him the next time they met, Elias blanched and walked away. From then on, he dropped by every Sunday when Eva was not visiting and quietly left a present behind. A silver baby rattle one week. A remedy for swollen ankles the next.

  One Sunday, he brought Malin and Permony with him. After Meridia proved she could stand up to Eva by leaving Orchard Road, Malin no longer treated her with contempt, but with a grudging respect that sometimes passed for admiration. Malin was still cold, still indifferent, but her sneer, once an indispensable part of her armory, was now kept to a minimum. Meridia smiled to herself when she saw the girl drink the tea she had poured for her. Malin would not have done this a few months ago.

  Permony, on the other hand, made no pretense of missing Meridia.

  “I’m sorry Mama made you leave,” she confided in secret. “Will you still tell me stories after the baby comes?”

  The look of longing and regret in the girl’s eyes went straight to Meridia’s heart. Eva must be hard on her, now that Permony had no one to protect her.

  “Of course. We’ll make up stories together for the baby. You know you can come here anytime…when things aren’t pleasant at home.”

  Permony understood and was grateful. Before Meridia could tell her about the golden phoenix that eclipsed the moon once every two hundred years, Elias cleared his throat and shook hands with Daniel.

  “I knew you’d turn this place into a success, son.”

  “Thank you, Papa. Meridia has been a tremendous help.”

  “I know.” Elias smiled, caught himself, and turned to the girls. “We’d better go,” he said, then added, quite unnecessarily, “before your mother gets any ideas.”

  “WHAT EXOTIC DELICACIES IS your wife craving today?”

  The question, whispered none too softly in the living room, was addressed to Daniel, but Meridia had no doubt it was meant for her ear.

  “Honeyed venison? Plum roasted goose? With dishes that fancy she’ll not only spoil her uterus, but burn a hole in your pocket and leave the baby with nothing.”

  “Meridia hasn’t been craving anything,” said Daniel. “But if she wants plum roasted goose, then she’ll get it, even if I have to make a pact with the devil.”

  Eva pretended to ignore this.

  “Are you her servant? Why were you fixing her lunch just now? You’re too kind, too soft, and I’m afraid she’s taking advantage of you. I wish your father was half as understanding, but he wouldn’t stand any laziness from me. Even when an iron stick was prodding my womb, he still insisted I make him dinner!”

  “Meridia’s been ill all morning,” said Daniel curtly. “I told her to rest a little.”

  “Are you sure? A woman has ways to make a man work for her. Trust me.”

  By this point Daniel was clearly irritated. “Yes, I’m sure, Mama. If you’ll excuse me, I have a million things to do.”

  Meridia was lying in bed with a migraine. A wall separated her from the living room, yet she could hear Eva as clearly as if she were standing next to her. How did the woman do it? Still, even with her head splitting, Meridia could not deny that she was pleased by the note of irritation in Daniel’s voice. Lately he had acted brusque around his mother. If Eva was smart, she would give Daniel space to breathe.

  A chair suddenly scraped in the living room.

  “She’s coming—that odious woman!” hissed Eva. “I can smell her even with my nose pinched. I’d better leave before she hits me again.”

  Meridia winced in pain as Eva’s footsteps slapped the floorboards. The front door opened, slammed with a crash. Hurriedly Daniel withdrew into the shop. A minute later the door opened again. The scent of lemon verbena drifted into the bedroom. Meridia closed her eyes. Now that Ravenna was here, it would not be long before her migraine subsided.

  The incident planted an idea in her head. The next day, she went to a perfume shop and purchased a bottle of verbena essence. Back at the house, she waited until she heard the faintest buzzing of bees coming from a distance. Then she took the bottle from her pocket, walked to the curb, and sprayed a few drops of perfume into the wind.

  “What are you doing?” yelled Daniel from inside the shop.

  “Magic. Just you wait and see.”

  That day Eva did not come. When Meridia explained her ruse to Daniel, he nearly fell off the chair with laughter.

  “Clever girl,” he said. “Why didn’t you think of it sooner?”

  “I thought you enjoyed your mother’s company.”

  Daniel’s laughter turned into a groan. “She’s my mother. But sometimes I’d rather be trapped in a cave with a mountain lion than speak to her.”

  “What was that woman doing here yesterday?” Eva grilled him the following day. “Insanity is catching, son—do you really want it to rampage freely under your roof?”

  Daniel put on his game face and assured her it was not so.

  THOUGH MERIDIA WAS CAREFUL to use the perfume only when necessary, Eva quickly wised up to her ruse. Furious that she had been tricked, the mother-in-law heightened her surveillance to an uncanny degree. When Meridia bought a dress on the sly because her old ones did not fit anymore, the next day Eva said to Daniel, “A dress from that store must have cost an arm and a leg. Your father will be thrilled to hear how she’s spending his money.” A few days later, during a particularly hot afternoon, Daniel bought two bowls of shaved ice from an itinerant peddler outside the shop. The next morning, Eva walked into the house with her bees clouding around her. “Guess what I did yesterday? Sweltering in the garden weeding while your father patched a leak in the roof! Oh, sometimes I wish I could forget all about work and responsibilities and stuff myself silly with shaved ice!” Meridia overheard this and frowned. How did Eva know?

  She solved the mystery by accident. One morning, having tea with her new friends from the neighborhood, she happened to glance out the living room window and see a boy standing across the street.

  “Do you know who that is?” Meridia said.

  Leah and Rebecca approached the window. The boy looked no older than twelve, wearing a shabby military jacket and a cap drawn low over his eyes. Aware of the women’s stares, he pretended to lace his shoes before walking away.

  “Of course,” said Leah, who knew everyone in the neighborhood. “His father operates the newsstand around the corner.”

  Rebecca’s freckled nose wrinkled in disapproval. “A delinquent, from the looks of him. Why did you ask?”

  “Never mind,” said Meridia. “I thought he was someone else. Would you like some more biscuits?”

  After her friends left, Meridia dragged her swollen feet to look for the boy at the newsstand. He was standing alone inside the kiosk, reading a magazine. Meridia crept up to the entrance and blocked it. The boy looked up in shock. Although she had nothing more concrete than a suspicion, his guilty face at once gave him away.

  “How much did she pay you?”
Meridia was trying to keep calm.

  “I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “How much?”

  The boy stammered out a sum.

  “What did she ask you to do?”

  The boy shrugged, took a hard swallow. “Watch the house. Keep track of where you go. What you buy. If you have visitors.”

  Meridia seized both his shoulders. “Come with me this instant.”

  “I can’t leave the kiosk.” The boy shook his head. “My father will kill me.”

  Meridia did not hold back her anger. “You come this minute or I’ll tell your father what you’ve been doing. Then he’ll kill you all right.”

  The boy stared up in fear and nodded.

  DANIEL WAS OUTRAGED. HE grabbed the boy by the collar before he could finish speaking and lifted him off the floor.

  “Tell my mother you won’t work for her anymore. If I ever catch you loitering outside the house again, I will thrash you silly. Do you hear me?”

  The boy cowered in terror. Daniel dropped him, smacked the back of his head, tossed him out the door.

  “Damn her!” cursed Daniel, his eyes tight with anger. “What did she think she was doing?”

  Meridia went up to him and took his hand.

  “What are we going to do?” she said. “I know we’re still dependent on your mother, but this cannot go on. We can’t let her dictate how we should live our lives.”

  Daniel clenched his jaw. “Leave her to me. Don’t upset yourself. It won’t be good for the baby.”

  An hour later, Eva’s laughter preceded her entrance into the shop. From her jubilant mood, Meridia concluded the following: One, she had not spoken to the newsstand boy. Two, a number of merchants at the market square were kicking themselves for yielding to her.

  “You’ll never believe the bargains I found!” Eva exclaimed to Daniel. “This serving dish is sixty percent off. This beef flank, seventy. And these lobsters—”