“Mama.”
Something in Daniel’s tone silenced her excitement. Bewildered, Eva shoved her purchases back into the basket and stared at him across the empty shop.
“You’re exhausting yourself, Mama, coming here two, three times a day. Why don’t you stay home and let me bring the books in the evening? Don’t worry. The shop is doing well. Why, we made a dozen sales just this morning! Isn’t that right, dearest?”
Meridia, her heart pounding in her ear, was ready.
“Fourteen, actually, if I counted right.”
Eva, caught off guard, was silent for a moment. Then her laughter rang shrilly.
“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s no bother at all. I’m happy to look in as often as I can.”
Daniel was not finished. This time, there was no mistaking his meaning.
“I’m serious, Mama. It makes no sense for you to be here. Go on. It’s a beautiful day. Why don’t you shop some more? I’ll make sure the store turns a huge profit by the end of the day.”
Eva’s face darkened at once. “You mean I’m not welcome here?”
“That’s not what I said. There’s simply no need for you to be here.”
“Son! What’s the matter with you?”
“What’s the matter with you, Mama? Why did you hire a delinquent to spy on us? Don’t try to deny it! I can drag him here if necessary.”
Eva’s mouth dropped open, and her hand flew to her stomach as if she had been punched. Bristling with menace, she lifted a finger and pointed at Meridia.
“She’s behind this, isn’t she?”
Daniel walked to the door and opened it. In those seconds Meridia realized that she had never loved him more.
“Son!”
Eva was not about to leave without a fight, but a customer walked in. Huffing with rage, she snatched her basket and stormed out. It was not until her feet hit the curb that her bees began to scream.
“Thrown out by my own son! Who would have thought that someone who had nursed from my breasts would stick a knife into my back! Oh, don’t think I don’t see your hand in this, you arrogant fiend! Turning my own flesh against me when I have nothing but love for him! Just you watch. As my son has made me weep today, that baby in your womb will be your anguish. When the time comes, it will refuse to go in or out until you drown in your own blood!”
Inside the shop, Meridia alone heard the curse. Even as she tried to dismiss it, a shiver already ran down her spine and settled in her womb.
NINETEEN
Two months later, six weeks earlier than anticipated, Meridia went into labor. Dawn had just broken when a panic-stricken Daniel pounded on Leah’s door and sent her to fetch the midwife and the two grandmothers. Not knowing what to do while he waited, he stood anxiously beside the bed, holding Meridia’s hand and wincing when a contraction seized her. After what seemed an eternity, Rebecca came and led him out of the room. “Don’t worry,” Meridia assured him with a smile. “The baby will come before you know it.” He kissed her hand again and again until she teased him, not once suspecting that the next time he saw her, her bravery would be replaced by terror.
Ravenna was the next to arrive. Without saying a word to anybody, she burned three sticks of incense, placed fresh towels by the bed, stripped off Meridia’s dress, and helped her slip into a robe. A strange chant issued from her lips while she worked, a toneless, meaningless incantation that effectively put Meridia at ease. She positioned Rebecca outside to keep Daniel company. When the midwife arrived with her ancient bundle of instruments, Ravenna did not beat around the bush.
“I’ll kill you if anything goes wrong.”
The midwife, a small, pleasant woman with an abundance of silver hair, laughed good-naturedly. “That won’t be necessary, madam. Your daughter has more good luck than she knows what to do with.”
Nobody could have foreseen the disaster that was about to occur. After reciting a prayer, the midwife spread open her bundle of instruments. The hairsbreadth needles went into Meridia’s arms, the sacred oil on her head, chest, and stomach. In order to invoke the aid of benevolent spirits, the midwife hung a colorful wooden amulet on the bedpost. “The womb is opening in good time,” she announced brightly. “You’ll have the baby in your arms before noon.” Meridia grimaced with each thrust of pain, but they were not great and she bore them without sound. Along with the midwife’s words, Ravenna’s self-possession continued to give her strength.
Much later, she would blame her memory for setting off the catastrophe. While everything was going smoothly, she suddenly remembered Eva’s curse. The baby will refuse to go in or out until you drown in your own blood. The words awakened all her fear, and at once Meridia spotted dangers everywhere in the room: the crooked angle of the bed, the spider crawling across the ceiling, the amulet swinging above her head. The midwife, not yet alarmed, tapped more needles into her arms. But Meridia knew something terrible had happened. She had conceded room for the bees to enter.
The next thing she remembered was seeing Eva in the room. Meridia did not know when she arrived, who had let her in, or if she had simply materialized out of thin air. Dressed in heavy crepe and dull black kid gloves, Eva looked every inch the angel of death as she hovered near the door away from Ravenna’s reach. One glance at her amused face sent pain coursing through Meridia’s body.
“Mama, what is she—”
Her question turned into a scream. Something sharp was piercing her eyes, and when she opened them, a legion of bees had surrounded her from head to toe. Shrill and wrathful, the insects jabbed their wings into her face, stung her throat, pried her legs, undid her robe, bit her breasts and belly. The air was rotten with their stink. Desperately she tried to slap them away, but her movement only increased their fury. Meridia screamed, struggled, screamed again. Away in the corner, Eva’s smile was growing wider.
“What is it, child?” cried Ravenna, pinning her to the bed. “Keep still if you can.”
Meridia yelped when the baby began to twist. Daniel was pounding on the door, begging to be let in, but no one heard him.
“Steady now, steady,” said the midwife. Though her voice spoke of control, sweat was transforming her brows into a beaded landscape. Ravenna shook Meridia’s face and told her to keep breathing. Her authority prompted the bees to retreat, but only for a short time. Ravenna could not see them, did not hear the racket they made.
Meridia stopped moving when blood began oozing from her womb. The baby was kicking inside, pushing with impatient fists for a way out. She tried to scream that the bees were blocking the passage, but managed only a whimper. Was Eva planning to kill her, or only to frighten her?
Suddenly a shout erupted from the doorway. The midwife turned, gasped, covered Meridia’s bloody parts with a cloth. Standing in the open door was Daniel. Eyes wide, jaw slack, face drained of color. Leah and Rebecca detained him on each arm.
“Get out!” barked Ravenna, rushing to the door without seeming to notice Eva. “This is no sight for a man to see!”
She pushed him out to the hallway, but Daniel put up a struggle.
“She’s my wife—let me stay with her!”
Ravenna was unmoved. “Keep him calm,” she charged the two neighbors before bolting the door. In the hallway Daniel raged, pelting his mother-in-law with curses. Impervious, Ravenna swept back to the bed and rebuked the midwife for not locking the door. But Meridia knew better. It was Eva who had let Daniel in and branded the image of horror into his brain.
“Push, child, push.”
Meridia was worn down. The bees kept up their attack, and no matter what method the midwife pursued, the bleeding continued. When another spasm wracked her, she could barely whimper, so tired had she become from the struggle.
“Push, child, push.”
Meridia shook her head feebly. Clear the bees, Mama, she wanted to say. But her tongue had swollen to fill up her whole mouth.
“It’s lying feet first,” said the midwife, wiping her brow. “The bab
y’s blocking its own way out.”
“Then reach in!” said Ravenna. “Grab the brute by the heels and drag it out!”
The midwife shook her head. “She’s losing consciousness. If I reach in now, only the baby will survive.”
The midwife had not even finished talking when Meridia heard it: a laughter so thin and ghostly it might as well have been a figment of her imagination. Nobody else heard it, or seemed troubled by it. And if Eva had refrained from speaking, the bees might have accomplished their mission then and there.
“Some monster it is, refusing to go in or out. So stubborn, just like its mother. To think that she might not be around to raise it herself…”
Startled, Ravenna whipped around, noticing for the first time another person in the room. Eva, peeling off her gloves slowly, took no trouble to conceal her delight.
“Get out,” said Ravenna.
She moved so rapidly that Eva did not realize she was being ejected out of the room until Ravenna’s fingers cut into her arm. Eva dropped her gloves. Her cry of pain rang louder than Meridia’s.
“Don’t touch me, you lunatic! I don’t give a damn what you did to your husband, but it’s my grandchild you’re murdering!” Ravenna shoved her out the door. “Son! They haven’t a clue what they’re doing in there. I tried to help but they wouldn’t let me. If you don’t stop them, the only way your wife will leave this house is feet first!”
Daniel shot out of the living room, where he had been pacing and sweating while Leah and Rebecca consoled him.
“Stop,” said Ravenna staunchly. “Before you listen to your mother, consider all the lies she’s told you. If you want your wife and child alive, keep her away from them.”
With that, she flung Eva at him and slammed the door shut. At once Eva commenced shrieking as if she were being butchered alive.
“Tell me what to do, woman,” Ravenna told the stunned midwife back in the room. “Nobody is dying today. Not on my watch.”
Gulping, the midwife looked at her in fear and collected herself. “Keep your daughter awake, madam. I have to cut her open. That’s the only way.”
Ravenna bent and slapped Meridia on the cheek. “Wake up, child. Look at me.”
Meridia could not open her eyes. Her lids, though no one registered the change, had grown as swollen as her tongue. Now the bees were twice as vicious, lustful and furious on Eva’s behalf. Feeling their sting deep between her legs, Meridia was convinced her next breath would be her last.
Ravenna snatched a brass jug from the nightstand, parted her daughter’s lips, and poured water down her throat. Caught unawares, Meridia choked and coughed, opening her eyes a fraction. Light hit her like a blast of sun. Daniel was pounding, pounding on the door while Eva urged him on. In panic, she saw the midwife spreading ointments on her abdomen, preparing it for the knife’s passage. Don’t! Meridia wished she could shout. The bees will get to the baby if you cut me.
“Those bees! What are they doing here?” Ravenna suddenly screamed.
She ran to open the window, but the latch stuck fast. She smashed the glass with a chair, ran back to the bed, and beat the empty air with all her might. The midwife stared at Ravenna as if she had gone mad. Shrieking, the bees flew helter-skelter, knocking against wall and ceiling before scattering out the window. A torrent of cold air burst into Meridia’s lungs. She sat up on her elbows, and for the first time heard the sound of two hearts beating inside her. “Don’t give up on me,” she told the baby, finally out loud. “I want more than a yowl from you, do you hear?”
“What are you waiting for?” Ravenna scolded the midwife. “Cut her already!”
The midwife snapped into action. In the hallway Daniel’s pounding slowed and then became completely silent.
A LONG TIME PASSED before she heard the first cry. A long time in which no amount of cutting, tearing, shifting, extracting, or stitching measured to the earlier pain inflicted by the bees. While Ravenna and the midwife went about their task, she felt only an overwhelming urge to hold her child. When the first indignant cry pierced the room, her arms were ready, weary as she was. “A boy,” announced Ravenna, wiping the baby with a towel. “No wonder he put you through hell.”
Meridia received her son with tears streaming down her face. Touching the little nose and delicate lips, she shuddered when she realized how closely they had come—and eluded—to danger. What if Ravenna had failed to beat back death with her two hands?
“Mama,” she began to say, wrenched with gratitude. The woman with the implacable knot took one look at her, sensed what was coming, and shook her head.
After Meridia was made presentable, Ravenna quietly opened the door. Daniel stormed in and gave his mother-in-law a dirty glare. The second he laid eyes on his wife, however, all the hardness melted from his face.
“Are you all right?” He rushed forward in alarm. “I’ll never forgive myself if—”
“I’m all right. Look.”
He was struck speechless. Taking the baby from her, he nudged and teased and poked him gently as if to make sure he was real. He kissed the round pink cheeks and the thick midnight-colored hair, cooed and chuckled and kissed and chuckled again before proclaiming, “What a handsome little devil!”
Leah and Rebecca came in and doted over the baby like two proud aunts.
“He’s beautiful,” gushed Rebecca. “He’s got his mother’s pretty little nose.”
“And he’s got your eyes,” Leah told Daniel. “The freckles, I’m afraid, are his aunt Rebecca’s.”
Smiling through her pain, Meridia thanked them for their help. Soon, the kind neighbors took their leave, promising they would return later to look after her.
Meridia took the baby from Daniel the instant Eva walked into the room. Though she was weak and in pain, anger at once blazed from the pit of her womb. She dared her mother-in-law to look her in the face, and when Eva failed to do so, dark words at once surfaced to her lips. Yet instead of firing them like bullets, Meridia burst into laughter, a pure, thunderous laugh that cut Eva deeper than the sharpest knife. Holding her newborn son, Meridia was seized with such love, such wonder, such joy, that she wiped her tears and laughed all the harder. For the first time in recorded memory, Eva’s mouth pinched shut. Meridia was transformed. She laughed and laughed and laughed until she drove Eva out of the room.
A SHORT TIME LATER, thinking Meridia was asleep, the midwife stole up to Daniel and tapped him on the elbow. He was standing over the bassinet with his eyes glued to the baby, a position he had occupied with little change for the past half hour. Ravenna was in the kitchen brewing a tonic. Eva was nowhere in sight.
“May I have a word with you, sir?”
Daniel turned and looked at her in surprise.
“It’s not enough, the money in the envelope?”
The midwife quickly shook her head. “No, it’s not that. You and your wife’s mother have been very generous. But there’s—something—”
She glanced sideways at the bed, then returned her anxious gaze to Daniel.
“I did the best I could,” she whispered, “but her womb took quite a beating. I’m afraid that baby will be her last.”
The smile vanished from Daniel’s lips. His face turned very pale, and for a long time he simply stood and said nothing. Then turning to the bassinet, he lifted his son and held him as if he would never let go.
“Can you keep this to yourself? There’s no need to upset my wife.”
The midwife promised. Unbeknown to either of them, Meridia was not only awake, but heard every word. She kept her eyes closed, still as a corpse, while an image of horror rose from her memory and cleaved her. On the day she surrendered herself to Daniel, more than a year ago, a gutted fawn had washed up on the beach—bluish of skin, frothing with worms, innards splayed like ribbons. Now she knew what it meant. It was her womb she saw that day, pecked to pieces, tossed in a coffin, cut up by bees.
Standing outside the door, Eva, too, had caught every word. Her laug
h as she walked away was one she could barely keep to herself.
And so Noah was born on the evening of June 6, eighteen hours after the labor began.
TWENTY
For six days Ravenna appeared with the morning dew. Fetching the paper from the porch, Leah would see her stiff black cloak plodding through the fog, face veiled, shoulders erect, basket swinging from one arm. Rebecca would see the same woman but in a billowing white dress, head bared and feet riding on a rapid sailor’s breeze. Once or twice they greeted her, but Ravenna never seemed to see or hear them. Later in the day, when they went to visit 175, they would find not only the house clean and in order, but tins of food spread on the table and baby Noah fed and bathed. Meridia would be sitting in her bed, still too weak to stand, sipping a tonic Ravenna had brought in her basket.
On the seventh morning, fetching the paper with hair up in rollers, Leah did not see the black cloak trudging through the fog. Nor did Rebecca the white dress, try as she might to crane her neck out the window as she made breakfast. When they got to 175, Meridia was on her feet, nursing Noah while studying the account books. “What are you doing?” they scolded her with concern. “You’re not well enough to be up!” “Yes, I am,” she replied without delay. “I’ve never felt readier to get back to work.” Trading glances with each other, the two neighbors kept their astonishment to themselves.
One night, walking home with a pile of sewing work from a local seamstress, they spotted a yellow vapor lingering outside Meridia’s door. They made nothing of this, until a man with a stoop surprised them by appearing out of the vapor. He looked well dressed and extremely dignified, with streaks of gray hair visible in the moonlight. Yet like a thief he crept around the house and looked through all the windows until he came back to the front and found what he was looking for: Meridia’s bedroom.
“Who is it?” whispered Leah in alarm.
“I don’t know. He’s looking at the baby.”
Of Bees and Mist Page 19
