Of Bees and Mist

by Erick Setiawan

“Few people can stand up to your grandmother Eva. One day you’ll understand.”

  “Are you one of those people?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Papa?”

  “When he chooses to.”

  “What about me?”

  Meridia pushed her nose against his. “By God, I hope so! Now go to sleep.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  Eva’s mistake had been grave, and no one knew it better than herself. Without intending to, the blow she had aimed for Meridia had missed and struck Noah. At present, Magnolia Avenue did not welcome her. When they met, Meridia spoke no more than two words, barely troubling to conceal her displeasure. Daniel acted curt, full of insufferable excuses. He no longer came alone to Orchard Road as in the old days, but brought his wife and child with him. Did he think he needed protection from his own mother? There he would sit in her living room, drinking her tea yet consulting her opinion every three minutes as if he had none of his own. “What do you think of this, dearest? Should we do as Mama suggested?” Though Eva was too proud to breathe a word, his behavior wounded her. Why was he punishing her for something that was clearly an accident?

  Noah added to the insult by refusing to greet her. Every time they met, he kept his lips pursed and his expression hostile. And every single time, his blasted mother had to make a production out of it in front of everyone. “Where are your manners? I didn’t raise you to be a savage. Greet Grandma. Don’t you see her? She’s right there. Repeat after me. ‘Good afternoon, Grandma.’” And the boy just stood there, mortified, and gaped! Eva had no doubt this was a routine they had rehearsed often and to perfection.

  They had deceived her, of course. Somehow, all her vigilance notwithstanding, they had pilfered money from Willow Lane. Or rather, she had pilfered money. How else could they afford a house and open a shop? Something was amiss. Daniel said Meridia had received a loan from her father—a plausible but unlikely story, given how that adulterous boar had declined to fund Willow Lane in the first place. Oh, if only she could expose their treachery and breathe life back into stupefied Elias!

  For he was no longer the same man. Since the accident, he had been spending more time glued to his rocking chair on the terrace, not to read those tiresome books that were now collecting dust on the shelves, but to contemplate his hands. He lost interest in his caged birds, and the bees swirled round and round without even stirring him. One by one, the birds died from neglect, the bees dropped from exhaustion. Elias began to limp, and his face took on the look of a shriveled fruit. From the few roses left on the lawn and the odious sea of marigolds surrounding them, Eva gathered that Lotus Blossom Lane was in trouble. But what did the shop matter to Elias when the memory of Noah’s scar so tortured him he had to knuckle his eyes raw to stop it?

  Exasperated by her husband, Eva turned to her daughters for comfort. She took immense satisfaction in the fact that Malin, almost twenty, had caught the interest of a handsome suitor. The son of a wealthy silk merchant, the young man wooed Malin so ardently that the indifference with which she treated him only served to fuel his passion. Judging from his spellbound look and the number of gifts he sent to the house, Eva predicted marriage before the year was over.

  Without Patina to abuse, she concentrated her faultfinding on Permony. The girl’s face, weight, and manners became permanent and delectable topics of castigation. Given the severity of her censure, it was a miracle that Permony grew up to be a charming and complacent young woman. Now in her seventeenth year, she was no longer shy or awkward, but carried herself with an easy grace. After Patina disappeared, an armor seemed to descend and isolate her from the bees; however ripe with spleen, their droning went into one ear and fell out the other. Permony alone possessed the magic to roust Elias from dejection. All this was lost on Eva, who resented the girl more when she realized she no longer took her scolding to heart.

  Once she realized the futility of cutting more roses for the shop, Eva took to casting her eyes vindictively in the direction of Magnolia Avenue. There to the southeast, in that plain two-story house cramped with nondescript others in that noisy street, they neither needed nor respected her. Her son and grandchild, corrupted by that detestable woman to scorn her. How could she right this wrong? Remedy this gross injustice? After months of consorting with fury, the answer came to her loud and clear.

  ONCE SHE MADE UP her mind, Eva was unstoppable. Aware of Meridia’s opposition, she came up with ironclad excuses to visit Magnolia Avenue. One day she brought sweet rolls filled with condensed milk, which she knew Daniel liked; the next, she brought Permony to play with Noah. Shrewdly leaving her bees at home, she made amends with her grandson by giving him coloring books and jigsaw puzzles, things she knew Meridia would not object to, and feeding him milk candies and lemon cookies on the sly. She learned from Elias’s mistake not to become a nuisance to the introverted boy, but to flatter him with a few choice words and then withdraw. One morning, three months after her campaign began, Eva reaped her first reward. When Noah saw her climb the staircase from the shop, he broke away from his mother and ran to her. “Grandma,” he said warmly. Meridia looked as if a thunder had struck her deaf.

  Soon, other victories. When Eva deliberately stayed away for a few days, Noah grew restless and pestered his father to inquire if she was ill. The next time Eva showed up, he welcomed her with a hug, causing Meridia’s heart to leap to her throat. Sensing the enmity between his mother and grandmother, the clever boy used it to his advantage. When Meridia forbade him to play past his bedtime, Noah retorted, “Grandma Eva will let me. She says I can do anything if I live with her.” Too taken aback for anger, Meridia let him stay up another hour.

  “Your mother is plotting something,” she told Daniel that night. “Noah is always irritable after her visits.”

  In bed, Daniel raised his brows but did not close the book he was reading.

  “I think it’s good she’s making an effort to befriend him. Would you rather they bicker like enemies?”

  “She never came near him before. Now suddenly she can’t get enough of him.”

  Daniel cocked his head and regarded her with amusement. “Noah seems to take to Mama. You’re not jealous, are you?”

  “Of course not,” she said, a little abrupt. “I don’t trust her, that’s all.”

  “She won’t dare harm him again. She knows we’re watching her.”

  “Are you? Watching her? I know I am.”

  He smiled wryly, then fixed on her the helpless look he used to humor Noah.

  “What do you suggest I do? I can’t tell him to stay away from his grandmother.”

  His teasing tone aside, Meridia knew this was fair. Particularly since she had not heard the slightest buzzing of bees. Before she could reply, Daniel’s smile had widened.

  “Why are you smiling like that?” she asked.

  “You know I love you, dearest,” he said. “But just now, you sounded exactly like Mama.”

  To make his point, Daniel snapped open his book until the spine cracked. Meridia, reminded of how Eva used to pester Elias to the most remote corner of his encyclopedias, hurled a pillow at Daniel.

  “Laugh all you want,” she said. “But the second your mother slips, I’m going to be all over her.”

  A few days later, Noah asked her if he could have a bird for a pet.

  “Like Grandfather Elias’s. I want it to talk to me when I’m bored.”

  “A bird?” said Meridia, intrigued. “But you can talk to me when you’re bored! Believe me, once I put my mind to it, I can be more entertaining than a bird.”

  Noah, thinking he was being teased, kept his face long for the rest of the day.

  When Eva showed up with a white cockatoo in an antique brass cage the next morning, Meridia realized it was her mother-in-law who had put the idea into Noah’s head.

  “I hope you don’t mind, dear,” said Eva. “Noah’s been telling me how much he wanted a talking bird. I managed to get one with the voice of an angel.”r />
  As if on cue, the cockatoo trilled out Noah’s name. The boy ran into the living room and hollered, “Grandma! What did you bring me today?”

  “Just a minute…Ask your mother first if you could keep it.”

  “Oh, Mama! Could I keep it? Please…please…”

  Aware that she had been trapped, Meridia could do nothing but nod.

  “Give Grandma a kiss,” said Eva. “The other cheek, too.” Smiling broadly, she handed Noah the cage. “Careful, don’t scratch your mother’s beautiful floor. Shall we put it in your room, right next to your bed?”

  Holding the cage high, Noah shot his mother a triumphant glance. Had he forgotten it was Eva, too, who had branded him with the scar?

  In no time, Meridia grew convinced that the cockatoo had been enchanted. Enslaved by the same sorcery Eva had once practiced upon Elias’s caged birds. But instead of shrieking “Fire!” or “Thief!” the bird declaimed, “Who loves Noah dearly? Grandma Eva…” The mischief did not stop here. Fueling Meridia’s suspicion that black magic was at play, the bird could sense, from any position in the house, every single time she undressed to bathe, and would shrill “Filthy! Shame!” at the top of its lungs before whistling innocently the instant she charged out of the bathroom. Daniel heard nothing, stared as if she had gone clean out of her mind with only a towel around her. Once again, Eva had kept her alchemy hidden from him.

  The change in Noah was startling. Bewitched by the bird, he no longer called for Meridia when he awoke, shunned her kisses, and preferred the cockatoo’s lullaby to her bedtime tales. He developed a rash when she tried to hug him, stopped speaking to her for three days, and could only swallow her cooking with the utmost difficulty. At the same time, he ate everything Eva brought him and insisted she spend every morning at the house. The grandmother, jumping at the invitation, settled herself comfortably on his bed until dinner. All day long they laughed and whispered, arms linked around each other while the cockatoo squawked obscenely. Even without the bees, Eva’s pearl white smile was enough to darken her daughter-in-law’s blood.

  Meridia’s attempt to remove the bird met with a scream more deafening than gunshot. Feet thumped angrily on the floor. Hands clawed at the scar as if the boy wished to reopen it. Meridia had no choice but to withdraw. Eva wisely stayed away for two days until the heat cooled. When she returned, Noah ran to her and squeezed her with all his might.

  Daniel was not the slightest bit troubled. “Noah is proving to be a good influence on Mama,” he told her with the air of one who had been right all along. “I’ve never seen her so happy and active. Now that she’s taking care of him, you have some free time for yourself. Didn’t you say you wanted to plant more flowers in the garden?”

  Meridia looked at him with eyes that could freeze fire.

  More humiliations followed. Even as she refused to believe that Noah had sided against her, her head swelled to the width of a pumpkin. Her face clouded with angry purple pustules, which burst and multiplied painfully at the touch of a finger. Not willing to be outdone, her neck sprouted a hard lump the size of a peanut, which in a day’s time grew as big as an egg, and later still, a gourd. An alarmed Daniel sent for a doctor. The man needed only one glance at Meridia to declare that she had fallen victim to a viral plague overtaking the town.

  “All you need is a week’s rest until the virus clears,” the doctor assured her. “Funny, the ailment only afflicts strong-willed young mothers in their twenties.”

  Swallowing with agony, Meridia did not question him. After he left, she whispered to Daniel hoarsely, “It’s the bird. It’s been cursed to make me ill.”

  “Half the women in town have your symptoms!” he replied with impatience. “Are you saying that harmless little bird brought on the epidemic? Enough suspicions. Mama had nothing to do with this. The sooner you rest, the quicker you’ll feel better.”

  For the next four days Meridia could not leave her bed. Alternating between feverish sleep and oppressive wakefulness, she vomited twelve times in half as many hours—red and green bile, though she had consumed nothing but water. As her face continued to swell, ponderous thoughts clamored behind her eyelids, and all her muscles ached as though she had performed a tremendous labor. One afternoon, kept awake by the cockatoo’s mocking cry, she overheard Eva saying to Noah outside her door, “You can live with me if your mama doesn’t get better. I have a beautiful room all prepared for you.” Meridia scrabbled to get up, a scream and a curse knotted in her throat, but what she heard next drained the anger from her head. Noah was laughing, clear and bell-like, accepting Eva’s offer as if it was the one thing he had been hoping for.

  On the sixth night of her illness, a giant birdcage dropped on her chest and smacked her awake. Neck thick as a pillar, shoulders sore, she squinted her eyes in a stinging daze and craved water. The lone dim light pressed heavy around her. It was not yet midnight. Daniel must still be doing the books in the office downstairs. Next to the clock on the nightstand was a half-filled glass, which she could not command her hand to reach despite her thirst. Her hearing ebbed and flowed—one second revelers whooped in the street and then the next there was nothing.

  Suddenly she realized she was not alone. With difficulty she rolled on her back and faced the door. Noah. He made no move when their eyes met, but studied her with Gabriel’s old expression as though she were a specimen in a glass. Had he come to laugh at her? Inspect and report back to Eva? She’s half blind because her nose is swallowing her eyes, Grandma. How long had he stood there recording her deformity?

  “Mama,” he said.

  The cockatoo shrieked. The revelers whooped louder. Meridia could not speak, could not lift her head. Fire raced across her lungs as tears dampened her cheeks.

  “Mama!”

  His voice was stern now, angry. Before she could make a sound, he slammed the door and was gone. She scrambled to get up, thinking now or never, but the giant birdcage flew back out of nowhere and crashed down on her head.

  In a dream, the cockatoo shrieked and shrieked and shrieked.

  Meridia awoke the next morning as if she had never been ill. Along with the swelling, the pain and pustules were gone. Her mind cleared and strength restored, she sprang from the bed and went outside. Golden light flooded the hallway. She opened Noah’s door and found him sitting in bed.

  “Where’s the bird?” she said, overwhelmed by the silence.

  “It flew away,” he replied. “The cage door was open when I woke up.”

  He did not break into a rash when she hugged him. Asked even if he could have eggs for breakfast.

  “Of course,” she said. She bolted the cage door shut and went back to the hallway.

  Stepping out of the bathroom, Daniel greeted her brightly. “Up already? It’s just as the doctor said—seven days for the virus to clear.”

  Meridia did not trouble to correct him.

  That afternoon when Eva came, Noah marched to his room and shut the door in her face. Angry and confused, the grandmother retreated downstairs with her bribe macaroons untouched. Two days later, a neighbor’s dog dug up the remains of a bird from a rain gutter. The neck was wrung; cats or rats had gotten to the wings. Noah displayed no reaction when he heard the news.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Malin’s wedding took place eight days after Meridia’s twenty-fourth birthday. In keeping with the bride’s favorite color, the groom’s father had a massive orange tent erected in the middle of Cinema Garden. Swaddling the canvas walls were twenty layers of orange silk. Draping the conical ceiling like waterfalls at sunset was sheer orange organza. A constellation of candles floated above the two hundred guests, reflecting beads and shimmering spangles on their merry faces. Each table was equipped with a towering bouquet, crystal flutes, gold-plated china, and silver candlesticks. The bride and groom sat at a table raised in the center of the tent. Surrounding them were seven pairs of groomsmen and bridesmaids. The latter were made up so identically in bright violet dresses it took the
guests a while to realize the bride’s sister was not among them.

  For months in advance, Eva had been trumpeting her daughter’s good fortune. To the butchers and fruit-sellers she enumerated the virtues of young Jonathan: his wealth and upbringing, education, social position, gentlemanly manner, and devotion to Malin. To the florists and wreath-makers she professed her adoration for his family, snapping her purse shut before the carnation vendor developed any ideas. “The father listens to reason, never scowls or condescends, and is not in the habit of keeping mistresses at the outskirts of town. The mother is a delightful woman who has no violent bone in her body. I’m sure she has never scolded a cabbage in her life either. Do you know that they are providing the couple with a mansion on Museum Avenue?”

  Courtesy of Leah, a tireless seeker and cataloger of news, Meridia got wind of these words two hours after they were uttered. Instead of flaring with anger, she merely laughed and continued playing with Leah’s little boy in the stroller. Three months previously, she and Daniel had purchased the building next door and combined the two units together. After weeks of renovation, the shop had reopened with a splendid new look: ethereal blue walls, taupe carpeting, gilded ceilings, warm mahogany cases. Gracious wingback chairs and carved tables re-created the splendor of an old-fashioned drawing room; it was Meridia’s idea to serve complimentary tea and pastries while customers shopped. Business instantly boomed. The partners, headed by Samuel, were ecstatic. To keep up with the expansion, Daniel hired a clerk and a live-in maid. In light of this success, it was easy to imagine Eva’s envy getting the better of her.

  Although Meridia guessed right, she failed to calculate the price imposed on Permony. Unable to wound her daughter-in-law, Eva turned on her youngest with all the force of her acrimony. “It’s a pity you’re nothing like your sister. Just look at you. Plain and silly, with no grace or curves to save your life. How will you find a man half as clever or handsome as Jonathan? Those evil-colored eyes alone are a guarantee you’ll end up grim and unwanted. Let me spare you some embarrassment. How about letting another girl take your place as a bridesmaid? One who will live up to the beautiful dress your sister has selected? Once you’re up there with all those pretty girls, you’ll be sure to feel awful about yourself. Don’t you agree, Malin?”