Autant
Page 8
“Yes.”
From inside the house they heard Florence spitting about disgrace and shameful behaviour and how it was Juliette who had caused Séraphin to choke in the first place.
“You have made enough supper conversation I think,” Edgar said. “Go to your room and be with Bella for awhile. After supper is done for everyone else, you can come with us to get some honey.” He tapped the pipe against the step.
He winked and this freed Juliette. Her father did not hold a grudge. It was done with him.
She scooted off the porch steps. She climbed the stairs up to their room and saw Bella wiggling her way out the window. “Shit-sakes, Retard, what are you doing?” She gently pulled her sister back in.
Although there was slim chance the little one could have gotten through, Juliette knew she would be held responsible if Bella fell. “Bella! What are you doing?” she said.
Bella looked wide-eyed, but she was asleep. “We are going to visit the bees,” she said.
“Who we? What are you talking about? Belle, you are dreaming.” Juliette knew better than to shake her sister when she was like this.
Bella yawned and picked up the leather bag Ruel hadn’t had time to retrieve before Juliette walked in. “No, I am not dreaming. I have friends, you know.” She looked at Ruel who sat quietly on the stool on Alice’s side of the bed.
“Like hell you do. Hey, where did you get this old thing? Is it Alice’s?” She took the pouch from Bella and stretched it open, sniffing the inside. “What was in here?”
Bella shrugged. “Bees,” she said.
“Beads? Ashes and burned things more like it. Cigarettes butts. Bella? Are you smoking?” Juliette tucked the pouch under her mattress.
“Hey, that’s mine,” said Bella.
Juliette slapped her hand away. “Finders keepers. Anyway, you stole it and stealers can’t be choosers. Move over.”
Ruel’s eyes were blue again. Bella shook her head. “Not now. Later,” she whispered.
“Shut up, Bella.” Juliette yawned and plucked a book from the low-slung shelf before flopping onto her stomach to read. Ruel looked longingly at the pouch, its ties dangling free, and reached for Bella’s doll instead.
Downstairs, Alice’s sobs were reduced to hiccups. Lucille gave her a mouthful of honey wine in the bottom of a teacup, much to Florence’s dismay.
“I would certainly never give my children alcohol,” she said. She was organizing the table; plates stacked one on top of the other, spoons together, forks all facing north.
“Oh, Florence, a drop won’t hurt her. It was a shock to hear about — ” she looked over at Alice’s tear-stained face and sighed “ — it was a shock. This is just to calm her down. She won’t get drunk. Flor, stop messing with those.”
Lucille reached over and gently touched the other woman’s arm. “Come, sit awhile. Let’s pray for a miracle and maybe the damned dishes will do themselves for once.”
Florence opened her mouth, but something in Lucille’s face stopped her. Her mouth snapped shut as she peered closer. There were dry, dark circles under Lucille’s eyes, a strained look at the corners of her mouth, the telltale swelling round the breasts.
“So, when is it coming?” she said, sitting down.
Lucille smiled thinly, sat down facing her and poured a teacup full of wine for both of them. Now that the men and children were gone, there was a shift in the rapport between the two women. They were no longer upholding family virtues or protecting husbands’ reputations. Now they were simply two women, neighbours, almost friends.
Alice recognized this and reacted by sliding a little lower down on her chair. If they forget I am here, they’ll keep talking. I have never heard them talk like this before. I thought they hated each other. What do grown-up ladies talk about? What does Madame Toupin mean, “When is it coming?” What is coming? She studied the bottom of her cup.
“Ah, not for a while,” said Lucille. “Février early, I think. Maybe fin janvier.”
“A winter birth. Winter isn’t the easiest time to get to the hospital,” said Florence, taking a tentative sip from her cup.
“Not the hardest either,” said Lucille. “I think I can remember what to do. At least I will have the time to do this one properly. Bella was born la fin d’août, just in time for canning season. What a mess that was!” She put the cup down on the table and smiled at Alice. “Do you remember that, Alice?”
Alice looked up. Like a deer caught between the lantern and the knife, her eyes darted from her mother’s smiling face to Madame Toupin’s surprisingly softened expression. Today, all the ugliness must have meant something. It was good that Bella didn’t drown, of course. Roméo’s death must have paid that off. She could only nod. Her mother smiled back and patted her hand across the table.
Florence chuckled. “I, for one, certainly remember that day. When I arrived I thought there had been a murder! Edgar’s mother on the floor, you spread out on the table here and what I took to be blood splattered from one end of you to the other. Who would have thought the old lady would faint from the heat of the stove? She had never fainted a day in her life, that one. Touch of the influenza, as I recall.” Florence sipped again.
“Yes, it nearly killed us all that year,” said Lucille, swirling the contents of her cup. “And I never did put up that last batch of beets,” she laughed.
“Ah yes, to bloody beets,” said Madame Toupin. She raised her teacup and the women clinked cups together.
“What a mess,” said Lucille. She poured another measure into Florence’s cup.
“And how do you make this?” asked Florence, eyeing the liquid in her cup.
A ray of west sun slanted through the window and trapped itself inside the bottle on the table.
“There was a recipe, that came with the first batch of bees.” Lucille walked over to the shelf by the door and retrieved Edgar’s bee log. She flipped to the front part and found the slip of paper glued there for safekeeping. She smoothed out the cahier in front of Florence.
“Huh,” said Florence. She quickly scanned the recipe. “This,” she tapped her tea cup, “is not that. Not by a long shot. Would be a different colour for starters if you don’t boil it.”
Lucille laughed. “Well, I had to skip a few parts and added some tartness. Too sweet otherwise.”
“Someday you must give me the actual recipe,” Florence said. Her tight smile cracked open to swallow another mouthful of the amber-coloured wine. “For now, it would be nice to think there was a bottle or two of this for la Fête. With l’abbé’s blessing, of course.”
“Of course there will be. And of course, his majesty requested and blessed it. Along with a few jars d’eau forte.”
“Amen to that!” Florence touched her cup to Lucille’s and they smiled.
Lucille stood and began to scrape the bowls into the garbage pail. “Alice, time to start the dishes.”
Alice, numbed by the conversation that had passed deep and quick as churning water between the two women, blinked and struggled out of her chair towards her mother.
“Oh thank you,” she said, hugging her mother’s waist.
Lucille was taken by surprise by the sudden burst of affection. She had no idea why her daughters behaved as they did, reacted as they did these days. Give me another boy. She kissed the top of Alice’s head. Boys are so simple.
Alice hesitated in front of Florence Toupin, ready to hug her as well. But Florence’s all too familiar pinched expression had returned, so Alice grabbed her hand and shook it firmly.
Madame Toupin’s jaw dropped and she puffed herself up to ridicule the girl. Lucille put a finger to her lips, not wanting to embarrass her daughter.
COYOTE AND GOD ARE PLAYING double solitaire. Coyote studies the four cards, flips over the queen of diamonds, and slaps her on the King. He signals the bartender for two beers.
God waves him away. “No, thank you, I’d rather a nice tea.”
“Are you sure about this?”
“Nothing, nothing at all, it’s just . . . Ruel? You send a puppy out there, for this? I’m not messing around this time. Lily is on the job for me back there you know.”
“It will be fine, he needs the experience. I see great things...”
“Me too. I see great things happening for me!” Coyote barks and laughs. He stands and slaps two coins on the table. “One pays for the beer, and the other is a tip for you.”
“A tip? For me?”
“A yup. Don’t fuck with me. I lost her once and I will not lose her again. I mean it.”
“Keep your money, Coyote. You will need it to buy more beers, to drown your sorrows.” God flips the last card and, although it is against the rules, lays the jack of hearts over the queen of diamonds. He feels the queen bee shiver inside his sleeve.
Friday
THE NEXT MORNING, EDGAR WAS up early to check on the hives. He stopped at the shed for his smoker. It felt to him as though all his bones were melting, his insides turning to soup. He found a shady spot on the other side of the shed and rolled himself a cigarette, amazed there was enough spit left in him to seal the paper shut, and squinted through the trees. Early morning really and already so damned hot.
Females are peculiar. Juliette so mischievous and getting downright mean. Lucille jumpy as a tic. When they synch their bleeding, I will have to enlarge the shop and live there.
He settled himself more comfortably on the ground, stretching his legs. He inhaled and blew out smoke rings.
If Lucille would get pregnant again, everything would settle down. She’d quit worrying about Bella so much. Ah, we make good babies and Bella’s almost six now. It isn’t for lack of trying. We try all the time, always on Sundays if the weather’s bad and the kids are asleep. Maman was dead wrong about her. She is not evil. Hasn’t killed me in my sleep, grabbed all the money and gone off drinking. She is a strong, smart-as-a-whip woman, and maybe, yes, a little too set in her bush ways for some people’s liking. All that talk about spirits and Coyote and such. Well fuck them and anyone who looks like them. When that woman walked into my life, everything got better.
It wasn’t the best beginning . . . so drunk that I just wanted to sleep after that party we had when Toupin’s fencing was done. Lucille, dark angel, came to me under the wagon. Pulled off her dress and just lay there. Said I was calling her, that I was a stone she would pick up and put in her mouth to tame. Stone or not, I was rock hard. And she put me in her mouth all right. I will never forget that part.
He heard thunder. He blinked up at a clear blue sky. Storm still a ways off.
He pinched the cherry off the end of his cigarette, squished the ember completely under his boot and pocketed the stubby for later. I pray for rain but if there is going to be a storm, I better get to the hives and back double-quick. He began to whistle and walked a little straighter down the road. His sex hardened at the thought of maybe another party when his own shed was done and, perhaps, another go at the stone in the mouth.
He dreamed on about honey, the hives and the queen. Approaching the windbreak, he saw from the corner of his eye the shifting grass shadow of a coyote moving behind the hives. The coyote sat on his haunches between bars of shadow and light.
He noticed something else, approaching from the west, perpendicular with the windbreak, though with the sun at that angle, it was difficult to see clearly. He shaded his eyes. A person, a very tall person with long, wild hair. The hair spread out behind, like wings. A giant of a woman with wings. Imagine that! She’s waving. Whatever it is, it can’t be a woman or that tall. Wings? Wait, there are two heads now, and who’s that laughing?
The sun sifted light through a blanket of cloud. A shadow darkened and disappeared and two small girls, his daughters, not more than three hundred yards away, were coming through the field, parting the wheat, to reach the hives ahead of him.
The girls, of course that was it, trailing a blanket. A trick of the sun, them so tall with a blanket billowing out behind that looked like wings.
“Hi Dad!” shouted Bella. “We came to see the bees!” She ran towards him.
His face broke into a smile. “Allo, la Belle! Come here, come to me.”
Juliette hung back. She and the coyote regarded each other, her dark blue eyes resting on his honey yellow ones. The sun rose a little higher, brushing them all with a coat of pink-red-gold cloud. Summer was buttoned with roses and dripping with bleach along the edges. The coyote howled. The air filled with a sudden wall of smell and the sound of bees.
Edgar was hunkering down to receive Bella. He twisted up when the smell hit him. The peculiar odour wending itself from the hives was panic and fear. Sapristie ‘pi tout les saints . . . there’s only one queen. “She’s going to swarm!” He stood and ran towards Bella who had just crossed in front of the hives. He lunged to save her from the brunt of the impending rage.
Thousands of bees broke to the surface. The hives boiled over with gold, black and brown bodies. The colony rose in a roar, lifted as one mind, one voice, but what purpose? Edgar threw Bella to the ground and rolled over her. They lay face down in the grass. The bees dipped low over their bodies, hovered for a moment then honed in on Juliette, standing still just behind the hives.
The coyote delicately stepped away from the windbreak, sniffed the air, then loped towards the bees. There was a crack of thunder. He leaped and was swallowed within the swarm, became part of the swarm.
Juliette would forget about the coyote and remember how she’d caught Bella’s eye as she peeked out from under their father’s arm before the bees flew over them and descended upon her like rain.
From where she watched, it looked to Bella as though Juliette was wrapped in a luxurious chenille blanket.
Instead of being warm, Juliette was cool. Thousands upon thousands of small wings were fanning her. She shivered and a ripple went through the colony. Every hair on her arms, every nerve in her body received the sound. It blotted out everything else. She wasn’t afraid. She forgot to be afraid and listened instead to the sound. Her mouth was shut tight and covered with bees navigating her face. Her ears were muffled and filled with the song bees sing in their hives to welcome and encourage their new queen. Her eyes were shut and the patterning of a million small feet gave her a map to wonderful places. The musky scent of hives and honey, community, unyielding and forever, told by wings and clawed feet, every colour reflected through all the facets of one eye.
The bees shrank, tightened their grip on the girl. They stopped moving. Stopped fanning as another layer of bees settled on her already sealed body. She felt heat; fire was filling her up completely. She stopped breathing. One voice was clear through all the bees.
this o n e she goes allto flame clean brighthot freeh er from thehive clean thedistancebee tween one and the next
The bees lifted from her. She fell to the ground, lungs bursting for air and saw through glazed eyes the swarm, dark as deep water, sway up and through the trees, taking with it all the colour and sound from the world. She lifted her head up off the ground and spoke in a voice she did not recognise, “This is not over. We are not afraid.”
She righted herself. Blundered her way towards her father and little sister who were already struggling to stand and reach her. She saw the angel with blue hair. She heard him say, “This is not over. We are not afraid. We are walking in light, we are walking with the light. This is not over and we are not afraid.”
MADAME TREFFLÉ AND ALICE APPLIED cold tea bags to the stings and Madame and Lucille recited promissory prayers to St Bernard de Clairvaux. To keep Juliette from cursing, Lucille decided that some honey wine might be a good thing and liberally poured her two cups, one after another.
Juliette lay on her bed, eyes closed against the spinning in her head. Bella’s singsong voice talking softly to her friend, the angel she saw at the hives. She could hear adult voices downstairs ri
sing and falling, “The child needs to rest and drink water.” Her father’s rumbling voice each time the screen door opened, saying hello to Monsieur Toupin, her mon oncle Joseph, ma tante Léah, Monsieur Trefflé and Adrien. She slowly drifted towards sleep with Bella curled up beside her. She rolled to her side facing the open window and listened to the conversations both inside and outside the house.
Ruel, silent now, sat on the stool, wings tucked against his body, precise as a Japanese fan. Pouch tied to his waist again, his blue eyes were ticking between the girls on the bed by the window. He held Léah-banane and absently stroked her hair.
As the adults poured coffee and rehashed the day, Alice looked over at Adrien. He winked and they slipped out the door, onto the porch.
“Alice, you’re pretty smart for a girl,” said Adrien.
“What do you mean for a . . . ”
“I mean you are smart. To save Bella the other day, and now Juliette all full of bee stings.”
“Bella — you know that when she bleeds we need your . . . ”
Adrien continued in a rush as though he hadn’t heard her. “Wanna watch the fireworks? Tomorrow? With me, I mean? We’ll sit on the hill by the school. I did that last year.”
Alice looked at him, her nose wrinkled in consternation. “I’ll ask my mom, later. Tomorrow Juliette and I have to pick the raspberries. Or maybe not. Maybe just me. Mom and Dad want to be in town early. How about I meet you in the old barn before? I can tell you for sure then.”
“Okay,” he said. “What do you say though? You want to come?”
“Sure, if I can,” she said.
The door swung open and Philip, Joseph, and Edgar stepped out. The children pulled themselves back into the shadow between the door and the window.
Philip lit a cigarette and Joseph used his fingers to blow snot from his nose over the porch rail.
Edgar said, “Joseph, unless you want to suffer the wrath of the women in this house I wouldn’t blow mucous all over the flowers.”