The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow

by Rita Leganski

  When she opened the sassafras jar, a story escaped and found its way into Bonaventure’s silence and began to tell him how Dancy had made filé gumbo a long time ago, how happy she’d been and how worried she’d become as she watched the clock and waited, and how she went to the door when someone rang the bell and how there were policemen on the other side who asked if she was Mrs. William Arrow . . . And then his mother put the lid back on the sassafras and returned it to the cupboard.

  Bonaventure was subdued through dinner and he still wasn’t saying much by bedtime.

  “Everything okay, Mr. Venture Forth Arrow?” Dancy asked.

  —How did my dad die? (He wished she would finally tell him because his father kept saying he didn’t remember much about the accident.)

  There was a noticeable pause before Dancy said, “Oh, Bonaventure, not again,” and she let out a tired sigh. He could tell that she still didn’t want to talk about it, and he decided that there was another way to find out.

  The next day when everyone else was busy, he went to the kitchen, pushed a chair over to the counter, and reached for the sassafras jar. He put it in his pocket, got down, and quietly moved the chair back where it belonged.

  The voice came from his mother’s closet then, beckoning to him and telling him to bring the sassafras along. When he got to the closet door, he began to twist the jar’s lid slowly, lefty-loosey, and then the sassafras picked up with its story about the policemen at the door:

  “There’s been an accident, ma’am. We need you to come along to the hospital with us,” and then Bonaventure heard his mother saying the same things over and over . . .

  “What’s happened to William? Where is he? Oh, please, please tell me. Why won’t you tell me? I’m begging you! Please!” And then he heard a terrible sound like nothing he’d ever heard before. It was coming from the box way up on the top shelf.

  Bonaventure began to feel dizzy and sick to his stomach, and he was afraid that maybe being sneaky was making him feel that way. He put the lid back on the spice and returned it to the kitchen. His curiosity was gone. He no longer wanted to know the secret that was hiding inside the word accident.

  As he did on so many nights, William came to Bonaventure’s room; he knew what had happened in the closet and he wanted to see for himself that everything was all right.

  Bonaventure heard that stir in the air and looked up from his book about airplanes.

  —Dad?

  “How ya doing, buddy?”

  —I didn’t have a very good day. I think I found that bad thing in Mom’s closet and it made me feel sick.

  “Are you feeling better now?”

  —Yeah, but it was pretty scary.

  “I promise it won’t hurt you, son. Let’s forget about it for now.”

  —Yeah. Let’s forget about it and talk about something else.

  So they talked about how to build a really good go-kart, until Bonaventure nodded off.

  William had a look around the room while Bonaventure slept. It was obvious from the book and the balsa-wood model planes hanging by strings from the ceiling that Bonaventure was fascinated by flight. William wondered how he hadn’t known this before. Gabe Riley had known it for a while.

  Bonaventure felt fine in the morning. After breakfast, he went to wait outside Grand-mère’s chapel; they were going to look at stuff in her library after she finished her prayers and had something to eat. Bonaventure couldn’t understand how Grand-mère could wait so long to have breakfast. He listened for the morning sounds to finish their quiet concerto: the click of rosary beads, the whispers that went in search of God, and the windy little breath that put out the candle. He heard all of that, and then he heard something else. It was a new sound that was small and sad and was coming from the chapel. He wasn’t scared by it. He just felt sorry.

  Bonaventure started signing with Grand-mère the minute she stepped from her chapel:

  Roll of eyes, blowing breath out loudly. —You, no food?

  “Man does not live by bread alone, Bonaventure,” she said to him in reply.

  —I know. We eat gumbo two days. Remember?

  Letice pulled him into a hug and told him that she loved him and that she had her work cut out for her. Once in the kitchen, she made herself some tea and attempted to poach an egg but gave up on it and had toast instead.

  —Find new Mrs. Silvey today?

  “Oh, Bonaventure, don’t I wish! I think the only thing that has stood between us and starvation has been the grace of God,” which was pretty much what he would have expected her to say.

  Grand-mère finished her breakfast, and they went into the library. Waiting there for Bonaventure was the newest sound yet: drums low-whispering in an unbroken rhythm.

  Grand-mère talked about Saint Bonaventure and his special prayer, which she had on the back of a holy card. While she read it out loud, the whispering drums put a good solid tempo to the peaceable words of the prayer:

  Be Thou alone ever my hope; my entire confidence,

  my riches, my delight;

  my pleasure, my joy

  When she finished reading the prayer, Bonaventure signed, —Okay, ask God for something?

  “Like what?”

  —New Mrs. Silvey. You remember lady, grass hat, pie, when you drive?

  “Yes I do. What about her?”

  Eyebrows raised, palms turned up as if to say, —Maybe she can cook.

  “You might be onto something, Bonaventure. You just might be onto something. What made you think of her?”

  Bonaventure shrugged his shoulders as if to reply, —I don’t know.

  Actually, he did know. The Spanish moss had been speaking to him again, and it mentioned that the lady with the itching feet was the pie lady, and that she was magical. Bonaventure didn’t care much about food, but he did want to be with someone magical.

  He returned to the library later that day to find out if the drums were still there. They were. He tracked them down to a book by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and since he was all by himself, he could give them his full attention.

  Books are generally considered to be soundless things, but Bonaventure knew better. He pulled Longfellow from where he stood between Oliver Wendell Holmes and Herman Melville, carefully, as Grand-mère had taught him to do, relishing first the unsticking and then the sliding sounds the book’s cover made when it broke ranks from its place on the shelf. When he opened the volume, its binding made a pleasant cracking noise. There was a wonderful peeling-away sound when he grasped the corner of the first page and turned it, and the gold leaf on the page’s edge let out a snapping salute. A picture appeared on the frontispiece that showed a young Indian girl wearing beautiful beads and a fringe-sleeved dress. The caption said “Minnehaha, Laughing Water,” and Bonaventure heard that lovely name flow across the page.

  A fine piece of leather with a ribbon on one end marked a place in the pages of the book. When Bonaventure went to it, the whispering drums became louder and louder until they filled the room with trochaic tetrameter and steady rumbling voices:

  Forth then issued Hiawatha,

  Wandered eastward, wandered westward,

  Teaching men the use of simples

  And the antidotes for poisons,

  And the cure of all diseases.

  Thus was first made known to mortals

  All the mystery of Medamin,

  All the sacred art of healing

  While Bonaventure was listening to the voices of drums, Trinidad Prefontaine was in her root cellar putting the twelfth Mason jar into a wire basket. That’s when the itching returned to her feet. She took the jars to the kitchen, set them in the sink, put on her fescue-grass hat, and walked to Christopher Street in town to find that certain eucalyptus tree where she’d found cooling for that itching before.

  Once there, she fixed her feet on the ground and found that hole in the Spanish moss that let her look upon the house across the way.

  Then she started to Know.


  She knew who lived in that house. She knew Bonaventure had put a book back in its place and was right at the moment scavenging the pantry, as if maybe he was starving. She knew he’d reached for a jar of peanut butter and a sleeve of saltine crackers. She knew Dancy had tossed aside a magazine and was pacing back and forth. She knew Letice had gone into an unused bedroom and plumped up the pillows as if such a thing was necessary. She knew Bonaventure was keeping still every now and again, as if maybe he was listening.

  And then an important thing happened: the beat that was Bonaventure’s once-in-a-while visitor, and the gentle quivering feather that floated through Trinidad every now and then, found each other and got pressed between two hearts that fit together, one of them right-sided and one of them left.

  And the Spirit’s task was done.

  THE Wanderer was allowed to dig holes at the far end of the garden. It was a large garden, a half acre at least, used for therapeutic purposes. The staff kept an eye on him, after it had been suggested that what he was digging looked like a grave. In his personal actuality, The Wanderer was digging a tunnel in the Château d’If, trying to reach the Abbé Faria. He had become Edmond Dantès once again, locked away in a lonely place.

  There are many kinds of prisons. The Wanderer’s was brick and mortar, while William Arrow’s was an ethereal place somewhere between physical death and eternity. As he watched The Wanderer digging a hole to nowhere, back bent, arms trembling, William realized the man suffered greatly inside his own mind, and he wanted the man’s suffering to end. It was then that William forgave his killer.

  The first challenge had been met.

  Like Ripples on the Surface of a Pond

  TRINIDAD Prefontaine was not surprised to see Letice Arrow come driving up the Neff Switch road. She’d been expecting her.

  Letice couldn’t seem to talk fast enough. “We’ve been looking to fill the position for months but haven’t even come close to finding anyone . . . we so greatly admired your baked goods . . . I know you’ve built up a very fine business, and I will certainly compensate you for it if you’ll be so kind as to hear me out . . .”

  Trinidad knew she would take the job. The only requirement subject to negotiation was the assumption that she would live in the carriage house lately occupied by the Silveys. No, she said; she would continue to live in her own house, but they didn’t need to pick her up or take her home because she liked to walk. She promised to be there by seven in the morning, six days a week, but she would not work on Sundays. She volunteered the name and address of the Virgil B. Hortons for reference. Letice said the offer spoke well for her, but she just had a feeling about things, and would August 1 be a good day to start? It was a Wednesday, but of course she would be paid for the whole week.

  Trinidad accepted.

  “By the way,” Letice said, “I would swear that you and I have met before. Do you get that same feeling?”

  “It occur to me, yes,” Trinidad replied. “I think maybe a long time ago. You ever been to Pascagoula?”

  “No. Never. It must have been someplace else,” Letice said.

  “Okay, then, but I do believe it was a long time ago.”

  “Hmmm. Well, I’m sure it’ll come to me. Oh, I almost forgot! Our address is 918 Christopher Street.”

  But Trinidad knew that already. The address had been visible through the Spanish moss that hung from the eucalyptus tree.

  All the way home Letice tried to think of places she might have met the woman, and Trinidad wondered when further Knowing would come. She was certain she and Letice had been bound together briefly before they were thrust apart. Perhaps if they saw each other nearly every day, she would remember the first time they’d met, and why.

  It was Bonaventure who answered the door when Trinidad reported for work on August 1. He’d heard her coming long before she got there; in fact, he’d heard her wash her face that morning all the way out on the Neff Switch road. Her eyes went to his, and neither of them blinked as each looked into the soul of the other.

  Letice walked briskly into the kitchen. “Why, Trinidad, I was listening for you at the front door. Come in. Come in. I see you’ve met Bonaventure.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I remember him from when you come by my stand that first time.”

  “Oh, that’s right. Well, I don’t think I mentioned it when we spoke, but Bonaventure here is the best boy you’ll ever meet. He’s smart and he’s friendly and he’s funny. But even more than that, Bonaventure is unique; he has special ways of talking that have nothing to do with a voice.”

  Trinidad smiled and said, “Hello, there, special-talking boy.”

  Bonaventure gave her a smile that lit up his beautiful eyes.

  “Are you thirsty after your walk?” Letice asked.

  “No, ma’am. I be just fine.”

  “All right, then, in that case let’s get started. Come along with me and I’ll explain things, get you situated a bit and familiar with the house.”

  Letice turned for the door and Bonaventure took Trinidad by the hand. They followed the tip-tap-tip of Letice’s high-heeled shoes as she passed over the hardwood floor of the dining room and down the hall that led to her office. Letice laid out the details of the job: “Groceries are ordered by telephone on Mondays. Can you read, Trinidad? Yes? Wonderful. A list of foodstuffs we like to keep in stock is posted inside the pantry; laundry can be done at any time, but bed linens are always changed on Fridays. The Hoover is used on the big rugs weekly, but the small ones get shaken out or beaten; the hard-surface floors are dry-mopped, except for the kitchen, which is also washed once a week. The baths are scrubbed weekly as well. Oh, yes, and dinner is served at six. Naturally, no one expects everything to fall into place at once; there needs to be a period of adjustment. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

  Trinidad felt closer to the unnamed with every step she took. The air in the house seemed to curdle at times. It was cooler here and warmer there and sticky with dried-up tears in places. She had no concerns about the job; she knew she could do it. It was the sense of suffocation and the smell of noxious secrets that made her ill at ease. They skimmed around beneath the surface, and in some rooms pressed in on her from every side. But more than that was the constant haunting. She knew as surely as she knew her own name that the folk in this house did not dwell here alone. A spirit moved among them and watched them and loved them.

  It was the love that disquieted her, for it was the kind of love that doesn’t know when to leave itself to memory.

  Bonaventure tried to concentrate on the sounds at hand. He was able to tune everything else out with two exceptions: that sinister sound from his mother’s closet and the one that was small and sad in the chapel.

  On Trinidad’s second day, Bonaventure heard Grandma Roman a full ten minutes before she drove past the house. The first sound of her was always the same: a lip stretching into a sneer.

  Adelaide saw Trinidad sweeping the front steps and wasted no time in getting over to Dancy’s shop. “My baby girl sure has come up in the world. Had them Silveys working for you and now you got a nigger woman.”

  “Don’t talk like that, Mama.”

  “I saw her sweeping your porch steps. Isn’t she the one who sells pies and stuff out there on the Neff Switch road? I swear I’m sick to death of hearing about her and her miracle pies or whatever it is she fools people with. What’s she doing sweeping your porch?”

  “She’s our new employee, and outside of being a lovely lady, she may very well be the best damn cook and housekeeper in Dixie.”

  “Don’t curse, Dancy, it’s low class,” Adelaide said, and then continued, “Eustace Hommerding told me she gave him some treatment for the gout. You just go ahead and tell me what curing feet has got to do with cooking.”

  “I don’t have time for this, Mama. Do you want your hair done or what?”

  “How about if I bring my ironing over and slip it in with yours?” Adelaide Roman loved the idea of a black
woman ironing her clothes on a hot and humid Louisiana day. It was the life she should have had.

  As the days passed, Bonaventure became more and more enthralled by the look and the sound of Trinidad Prefontaine. He thought she was just the right colors: the golden brownness of her skin reminded him of maple syrup, and when she laughed, her pink tongue and very white teeth made him think of a cake Mrs. Silvey had made for Easter once. He also liked the way Trinidad moved, fluid and graceful, like ripples on the surface of a pond. He could hear the contralto voice of her gracefulness, thick as butter and smooth as satin.

  Bonaventure took pride in providing Trinidad with the information she needed to make the most of the kitchen and to keep the house running up to snuff, since Grand-mère’s instructions hadn’t gone much beyond, “You’ll find everything you need in the cupboards, the pantry, or the mudroom.” Grand-mère didn’t know much about housekeeping. Sometimes common sense just wasn’t enough to take you right to the something you needed to find. Anybody would know that the measuring cup should be in the cupboard, but which one? And what about the Hoover, the rug beater, the broom, and the dustpan? Those things weren’t kept in the cupboards or the pantry or the mudroom at all; they were kept in a closet under the back stairs. Bonaventure excelled at helping Trinidad out, and in no time the house was running smoothly.

  Bonaventure loved that it never bothered her when he sat on a kitchen stool and watched her work. His note writing didn’t bother her either; nor did the fact that some of the notes posed questions of a personal nature.

  —Where do you live?

  “Off the Neff Switch road, just a little ways from my stand where you bought a pie that time your mama say you all stumbled up to me.”

  —Are you married?

  “Not anymore.”

  —Were you married before?

  “Yes.”

  —What was your husband’s name?

  “He be named Jackson.”