The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow

by Rita Leganski

  “We need to talk about keeping secrets, Bonaventure,” William said one day.

  —What’s a secret?

  “It’s something you don’t tell anyone else.”

  —Are secrets bad?

  “Some are bad and some are good. For instance, I don’t want you to tell anyone that we talk to each other. That’s a good secret.”

  —Why can’t I tell?

  “Well, it might hurt their feelings, because they can’t hear me.”

  —And then they would wish they had super hearing like me, wouldn’t they?

  “Exactly.”

  There was a pause in conversation before Bonaventure returned to what he was most curious about. —Do you remember anything about your accident?

  “I remember that it happened on my birthday.”

  —Did it hurt?

  “Not really. I think it happened too fast to hurt.”

  —Oh. That’s good.

  William didn’t say that there are many kinds of hurt.

  THE Wanderer came down with a cold. It went from his head to his chest, enflaming and infecting his bronchi and lungs. He coughed as if to die from it.

  A feeling came to Trinidad Prefontaine that she must will away the suffering of one unknown to her. She did this by handling herbs and roots as she prayed for that nameless soul.

  The Wanderer began to get better, and he started to read again. He tended toward the classics, especially the books of Alexandre Dumas. When Eugenia Babbitt became aware of this preference, she made sure he had them all.

  The Wagon

  JUST as he was short one father, Bonaventure was short a couple of grandfathers too, but that void was nicely filled by Mr. Silvey, who conducted himself with a grace born of gratitude. He felt he’d been given another child to love, so long after the death of his own.

  Bonaventure had designated certain hallmarks of the workshop experience: the heft of the tools, the cold smell of iron, and the handmade solidity of the old hemlock bench. He and Mr. Silvey spent entire afternoons examining the contents of cast-off sewing machine drawers and rusty coffee cans, while Mr. Silvey provided a history of purpose for such things as ball-peen hammers and square cut nails, planes and chisels and a brass plumb bob. But Bonaventure’s hands-down favorite was the hawk’s bill snips that could cut a circle in a pipe if the need for such arose.

  February 1, 1956, was Bonaventure’s sixth birthday. It was a school day, and when he got home, he chose to spend the rest of it out in the workshop with Mr. Silvey. He was writing in complete sentences by then, so in addition to keeping up his side of a conversation through the likes of gestures, facial expressions, and sign, Bonaventure often wrote things out on a small notepad. One such conversation with Mr. Silvey marked a significant turn of events.

  —What is this? Bonaventure asked with the point of a finger and the raising of his brow.

  Forrest Silvey reached for the article in question and said, “Why, that’s a nail puller. It’s used to remove horseshoes. Yup, that’s what it is all right. Don’t know why I’ve kept it though; there hasn’t been a horse around here since I don’t know when.”

  —Did my dad have a horse? Bonaventure wrote the question out because he wanted to be very clear. One thing about school was that most kids talked about their dads. He desperately wanted to join in but wanted to get the facts from a person anyone could talk to, just in case they wanted proof, which meant someone other than his father, who had to be a secret because he was dead.

  Bonaventure’s reading and writing skills surpassed those of his classmates, but he was aware of that fact and would make adjustments if it meant he could somehow join in. Ever since the hidden pumpkin incident in kindergarten, Bonaventure had remained on the outer edge of acceptance, a place assigned to those who are different. It was the reason he never tried to tell anyone, in any way, about the sounds he heard.

  Mr. Silvey reached up and scratched the place on his head he referred to as his thinking spot and replied, “No, I know for a fact that he didn’t have a horse. But I’ll tell you what he did have is that wagon over there,” and he pointed toward the corner to the left of the window where a wooden wagon stood still in the shadows.

  —Did he get it for Christmas?

  “Nope, not for Christmas. There was a young fella knew your grandpa Arrow, and it was him that made it and brought it around one night after supper. I remember it like it was yesterday. He made the handle from an old plow blade, and you won’t find a better one.”

  —Does he still make things?

  “Now, that I couldn’t say. He left town not long after he brought that wagon over. Nobody ever heard from him again. There was talk that he joined up to fight in the war, but I can’t say for sure that he did.”

  —What was his name?

  “By golly, I sure can’t think of it right now, but I’ll let you know if it comes to me.”

  Bonaventure went over to the corner and took hold of that very fine handle, and when he did, he felt the warmth of his own father’s hand the same as he would feel it in a handshake. It was the first time something like that had happened.

  “Happy Birthday, buddy,” he heard his father say.

  —Hey, Dad! Could you feel my hand? Because I think I felt yours!

  William chuckled and said, “That was my birthday present to you. It’s something I’ve been working on for a while.”

  —It was great!

  “Can you come back later, pal? I’d like to talk when it’s just you and me.”

  —I’ll come back. I just have to eat dinner.

  After his birthday meal, Bonaventure gulped down his milk and wolfed down his cake.

  “Did I miss something?” Dancy asked.

  A stop in mid-chew, eyebrows raised, eyes shifting side to side as if to say, —Miss something? I don’t know what you mean.

  “Did somebody forget to mention that we’re supposed to be in a race here?”

  Shoulder shrug, casual reach for milk as if to say, —I’m just eating like I always do.

  Bonaventure knew he had to slow things down, but it was difficult. When he finished eating, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, cleared his plate, pushed in his chair, and gave his mother a quick kiss on the cheek before he took off for the workshop.

  Everything looked the same. All the tools still hung in their places or rested in metal boxes or in wooden ones if they were very old, and they gave off all their special smells of sawn wood and oiled steel, which was very reassuring. The silence had opened up like it always did to let Bonaventure and his father use their thoughts for conversation.

  —Hi, Dad. I’m back.

  “I see that.”

  —Can I ask you something?

  “Sure.”

  —Are you part alive or are you all the way dead?

  “I’m all the way dead.”

  —Do you sleep in our house with us?

  “No. I sleep different now.”

  —Do you have a cape that makes you invisible?

  “Where are all these questions coming from? No, I don’t have a cape. I’m just invisible.”

  —I sure wish I could see you.

  “I wish you could, too.”

  —Hey, Dad?

  “Yes?”

  —Will I ever be able to tell Mom our secret?

  “No, buddy. Not ever.”

  —Why not?

  “We’ve talked about this. She can’t hear me like you can; it might hurt her feelings.”

  —Would it hurt Grand-mère’s feelings, too?

  “Yes, it would.”

  —Okay. I won’t tell her either.

  “You can’t tell anyone, Bonaventure, just like we said. Got it?”

  Bonaventure gave a disappointed nod.

  “Okay, then. I have to go now. I just wanted to tell you that I love you and to say Happy Birthday one more time.”

  —I love you too, Dad.

  “It makes me happy to talk with you, son.”


  —It makes me happy to talk with you, too. Bye, Dad.

  “G’night, buddy. Go ahead and get back to your birthday now. Your mom is probably waiting for you. Maybe she’ll let you have another piece of cake.”

  —Maybe she will!

  “See ya soon.”

  —See ya. Oh, hey, Dad! I almost forgot! I’ve been listening real hard around the house like you said I should. Guess what I heard today!

  “I can’t guess; you’ll have to tell me.”

  —I heard some powder come off a moth’s wing, and he was way up in the attic and I was way down in the kitchen.

  “That’s my boy!” William praised Bonaventure’s listening the way another father might praise a home run. Then he went to the sea in Almost Heaven and sat there staring at the waves, trying to remember what birthday cake tasted like.

  Bonaventure went back to the house, and Dancy gave him that extra piece of cake. But he would have traded the cake and everything else he had if his father could be a real live dad and stay with him forever.

  Bonaventure often knew when his father was entering or leaving a room because the air made a sound like it was zipping its pocket: open for hello, closed for goodbye. He knew when Gabe Riley was coming into a room too because Gabe had his own particular sound. It was the note of an eagle soaring. Eagles had a special place in Bonaventure’s silence; he liked the steadiness of their sound. He wished he could be an eagle, one that could unzip the air and soar behind the sky. He liked everything about eagles, and he liked everything about Gabe Riley too.

  He wasn’t the only one.

  “I think hiring Gabe was one of the best things we’ve ever done,” Letice said to Dancy one Friday afternoon before the teacher arrived for lessons.

  “You can say that again. He sure is in the right line of work,” Dancy responded.

  “He has high standards. I like that,” Letice said.

  “To tell you the truth, I was worried about being able to learn sign, but having a teacher like Gabe has made all the difference. And he’s so good with Bonaventure! He’s patient, but he pushes him in an easy kind of way,” Dancy said.

  “I know Bonaventure looks forward to sign lesson days. So do I. It’s like we’re all getting a different kind of voice, isn’t it?”

  Neither of them mentioned that Bonaventure was able to write things out and could probably get along with the notepad alone. Gabe Riley was giving them a silent voice to have in common, one that engaged the eyes, took the mind to the hands, and gave life to unspoken, unprinted, deeply felt words. The Arrows didn’t want to give that up.

  Both Dancy and Letice had come to accept that Bonaventure was never going to speak, but neither of them mentioned it, just in case the other one still held out hope.

  Gabe also looked forward to Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Bonaventure grasped things more quickly than any child Gabe had ever taught. He initially chalked this up to the fact that Bonaventure could hear, but soon realized there was more to it than that: the boy was incredibly observant and curious and had the mind of a poet. Sometimes he would come out with something touching and rather personal in their concise, signed conversations.

  —My mom willow.

  “Do you mean widow?” Gabe asked.

  —No. My mom willow. Tree, beautiful, cries.

  Gabe let it go.

  In spite of the fact that he felt he had no right to any personal information about Dancy, Gabe sometimes tried to steer conversations with Bonaventure along those lines. He thought about her all the time and had from the moment they’d met. He got into the habit of talking with Dancy after the lessons on the pretense of giving an update, but what he really wanted was to get to know her. He wanted to smell her perfume; he wanted to make her smile. He dreamed about her sometimes, and as the months went on, he began to fantasize that Bonaventure was his son and that Dancy was his wife. Then he would catch himself and remember that Dancy Arrow had never given even the slightest hint that she saw him as anything other than the sign language teacher who came to her house three times a week and was paid to help her son. But that didn’t stop Gabe’s feelings.

  The Dancy he’d fallen in love with wasn’t the same Dancy William had known; she was more worn down now, like the side of a seawall that faces the breakers. One thing Gabe loved about her was how she stood solid in her life and did her best to keep things right. But strong as she appeared to be, he sensed that she was fragile at the same time, and so he admired her even more. He loved her dry sense of humor and the way she enjoyed learning. But he kept those things to himself because he was afraid that if he told her how he felt, the worn-down, widowed part of her would rise up and demand to know how he could say such a thing. She would be filled with disgust and send him away. So he did what he could to maintain an easy friendship in the hope that, if nothing else, a certain kind of love might find its way to her heart—most likely the kind that was one part attraction and nine parts appreciation. But one part would be enough. For now he clung to the memory of the last time he’d addressed her as Mrs. Arrow, and she’d said to call her Dancy.

  Dancy did not know of Gabe’s feelings, but Bonaventure could hear them and he thought they sounded like a pearl that forms in concentric layers of kindness to protect a helpless oyster from a hurtful grain of sand.

  Powerful Wangas and the Loup-Garou

  DANCY had spent her childhood summers with the Cormiers on Bayou Deception Island. She took to the bayou like a duck to water; even the outhouses didn’t bother her and she wasn’t afraid of bugs or the dark or the swamp or even voodoo stories. There were Creole and Cajun folk thereabouts who could sing and dance and play music on washboards and cook crawdads that melted in the mouth. Never in her life had Dancy heard anybody tell stories the way the Bayou Deception Islanders could, tales about spells and charms and the loup-garou and gris-gris, which was pronounced “gree-gree,” even though it wasn’t spelled that way.

  Old Miz Antonet told the best stories of all, especially about the loup-garou. The loup-garou was said to look like a wolf; he could catch you in the woods and take your blood and make you crazy if you told anyone that you’d seen him. Miz Antonet had lived on the island her whole entire life and claimed to have firsthand knowledge of the loup-garou. When she talked about the creature, her voice was a rasp that started in the hollow of her neck and came out through lips that curled over toothless gums. She said she’d met up with the loup-garou when she was “nine yeah ole, ya ya. Right here on ’Ception Island.” She could describe how its eyes glowed red and how it took three drops of her blood before it got scared off by a hoot owl that was her familiar, ya ya, and how she lived to tell about it because she never said a word for “nigh on ten yeah.” Miz Antonet knew how to survive the loup-garou: “You just has to keep shut you mouth and the loup-garou leave you alone.”

  Dancy had started hearing those stories when she was only six, and in the years to follow she learned that the loup-garou wasn’t nearly as powerful as voodoo and gris-gris.

  Right before she turned thirteen, Dancy had thought she was dying. She was positive she suffered from some dreadful disease that came and went on a regular basis. These certain symptoms would appear and disappear, and she figured that every time they came around she was dying a little bit more. Summer couldn’t come fast enough for Dancy, because if she was going to die, she wanted to die on Bayou Deception Island and be buried in a tomb erected and whitewashed by her grandfather and decorated by her grandmother with fresh chrysanthemums and colored glass beads. Someone would sing the old Cajun waltz, “J’ai passé devant ta porte,” and there would be a sad, slow procession, and everyone would cry and say how she had had her whole life ahead of her and how she was such a sweet, pretty girl and how only the good die young. Adelaide would fall to the ground and cry out how she really did love her daughter, and beg Dancy to forgive her mother for not paying attention when she tried to tell her how sick she was. Dancy’s almost-thirteen-year-old eyes filled with tears at the m
ere thought of her imagined passing.

  The symptoms always came on the same way: a terrible headache and a sleepiness that came over her no matter the time of day. And as if that wasn’t enough, her face would break out in spots and her stomach would bloat up, and when that happened she knew the worst was about to come: blood would start to drain out of her body and keep draining for at least four days, sometimes more. By the third time this happened, Dancy confided in her father, who was still alive back then, but Theo got all tongue-tied and kept clearing his throat and finally croaked out that she should go tell her mother about it.

  “I thought as much, moody as you’ve been,” Adelaide said, and showed Dancy an advertisement for Kotex in a magazine and sent her off to Charbonneau’s Drug Store to figure things out for herself. But she needed something more than a magazine ad and some sanitary napkins. She needed to know why this was happening and she needed someone to tell her that it was going to be all right. When she and Theo made their annual pilgrimage to Bayou Deception Island, Grandma Cormier gave the answer in her earthy, bayou way.

  It was early evening and they were sitting on the porch shucking peas for supper when Dancy dove in with, “I been getting my monthly since March,” and then it was woman-to-woman. Grandma talked about the pull of the moon and the making of new life. She hugged Dancy to her in her warm, strong arms and said the bleeding was a magical thing, an initiation into the mysteries of the body and the first step toward becoming a woman.

  Eventually the conversation led to the use of a woman’s bloody flux by hoodoo women in the making of powerful love potions, which were a favorite topic in some circles.

  “Hoodoo? Don’t you mean voodoo?” Dancy asked.

  “No, I mean hoodoo. Hoodoo is about conjuring, you know, bringing magic. The hoodoo maker puts together what’s called an amulet—that’s a little cloth bag—and they put things inside it and that’s the gris-gris.”