Of Bees and Mist (4 page)

F
or weeks Meridia puzzled over her notes in the company of the mists. Each at first resisted in its own way but, worn down by her persistence, gradually surrendered a different part of the story. First to concede was the ivory mist. Following their fateful scuffle in the night, it now made space for her as she approached, a warm, dry space that sheltered her from wind and even rain. In turn, Meridia did her best to delay answering the door, thereby exposing the milkman and the paperboy to a longer period of bullying. In order to appease her guilt, she gave the victims chocolates and whatever treats she could smuggle out of the kitchen.

The yellow mist was not so accommodating. Not only did it make off with Gabriel faster than she could run, but it spat dirt on her face, flipped her skirt over her head, and scattered her notes peevishly up and down the street. Hiding behind a tree or a neighbor’s fence, Meridia learned to ambush it, racing in hot pursuit while reciting as much of the notes before her lungs gave out. This was torture, and yet she preferred the sulkiness of the yellow to the duplicity of the blue. When the latter appeared in the morning, it never hurried or harassed her, but injected so much noise into her notes that
they became incomprehensible. In this way, she wasted a lot of time disclaiming false information, chasing after erroneous clues, and going over grounds already examined. Nonetheless she persisted, and after many weeks succeeded in translating her notes. She found Ravenna’s dark and private language to be this:

Shocked by the intensity of Ravenna’s hatred, Meridia returned her notes to the drawer and stopped interrogating the mists. Ravenna was absentminded, yes, but Meridia had never known her to speak cruelly. Had she misunderstood the notes? Or had the mists deceived her from the start? Meridia’s loyalty naturally lay with Ravenna, but she found it impossible to despise a woman whose existence was confined to a few pages in her drawer. There was one
thing left to do. By hook or by crook, she must trick the yellow mist to take her to the mansion on the hill.

So Meridia began to plead, bribe, and bully, but the yellow mist continued to vanish without a trace. In vain, she scoured the sky for clues, and went as far as dusting the street with starch in hope of trapping Gabriel’s footprints. In the morning, the blue mist similarly swooped down out of nowhere, invisible one second and impregnable the next. Stymied, Meridia had no idea how to proceed.

If Gabriel was aware of what his daughter was up to, he did not let on. It was possible that the mists sheltered him so completely that he never saw her run after him with her skirt aflutter. It was also possible that he never noticed the looks she gave him—piercing and melancholy, as though she was both hoping and dreading to surprise a confession. Every morning, she placed herself in his way, pecking his proud stoop with her eyes as he emerged out of the mist. She followed him as he marched into the dining room and faithfully stood guard outside the door even after Ravenna bolted it. Later, she examined the food he did not finish, the cutlery he used and the cigar stubs he left in the front hall, but found no trace of the woman in the notes. Gabriel betrayed nothing, keeping his face as blank as a rock. It occurred to Meridia that the mistress, despite the names Ravenna called her, was no more visible than she was. They both came into view only when Gabriel and Ravenna invoked them from the bitterness of their memory.

MERIDIA BECAME SO ATTUNED
to the sound of Ravenna’s grievance that she would snap awake if she heard it in her sleep. Because of this, she knew every time her mother stumped up the stone steps and attacked the ivory mist below her window. It was Ravenna’s habit to storm for a few nights, then, finding no victory, retreat into a silence that lasted months. Meridia noticed another thing: her dream of the bright light always preceded these attacks, and it came and went with the same frequency. In addition, the yellow-eyed
ghost was more likely to appear during this time, haunting mirrors around the house with her grimace. After a few recurrences, Meridia concluded that the dream and the ghost were a direct reflection of her mother’s emotions.

The discovery deepened Meridia’s devotion to Ravenna. Often, propelled by an overwhelming feeling, she would run home from school and stand outside the kitchen just so she could rest her eyes on her mother’s back. She felt as if she could speak to her then, could promise and assure her that no ghost or mist would ever again come between them. Yet when the feeling inevitably passed, Meridia was left with the impression that a greater distance had in fact opened up between them. There were many things about Ravenna she still did not know, perhaps would never know. For one, she was no closer to learning what the bright light was or why it traveled at great speed in the dark of night.

TO MERIDIA’S DISMAY, HER
invisible state did not persist inside the school gate. The second she walked past the handsome plaque that commemorated the founding of the school, she became painfully and awkwardly conspicuous. It was not her look or dress that set her apart—it was her inability to blend in with the rites of the schoolyard. At recess, as she ate or walked alone along the dappled row of almond trees, she radiated Ravenna’s air of solitude without being conscious of it. Her teachers, who applauded her accomplishments in class, called this a case of shyness—“something she’ll grow out of in time.” A number of boys found her attractive, but she unnerved them by responding stiffly to their advances. The girls were a different story. One camp was awed by her intelligence and respected her from a distance. Another dismissed her as odd and dull, and wanted nothing to do with her. The third and largest was the most critical. Since she seemed to project no need for them, they retaliated by talking viciously, always out of earshot, for in actuality they feared her. They said that if she would only tame that wilder
ness of a jungle on her head and learn how to match colors, she would look less like the wrath of God. They took a keen interest in the contents of her lunchbox, both appalled by and envious of the strange delicacies their mothers never prepared for them. The fact that Meridia appeared not to notice them only increased their resentment. “Proud and scornful,” they called her. “Are we no better than dirt to Her Majesty?”

Contrary to their belief, Meridia was aware of everything that was said of her. But among those girls whose mothers attended the school fairs and whose fathers rubbed elbows with the teachers over coffee and tea, she felt her presence was unwanted and immaterial. As much as she wanted to, she did not know how to make friends; Ravenna never taught her the necessary skills, and the nurse had been too protective to let her spend much time with other children. The small talk that sprang readily to their lips came to hers only with a tremendous effort. After an opportunity had come and gone, she often scolded herself for not saying this or doing that, for laughing too loud or smiling too little. Whenever she tried to re-create the moment of contact, she was easily rebuffed by the slightest gesture, withdrawing all too quickly if she thought she was in the way. The old stone-and-brick schoolhouse, with its four gabled roofs and round little windows, was the only thing that seemed steadfast to her, while the beings that populated its rooms and thundered down its corridors were unreal and unpredictable. It gripped her like a monstrous truth that she was condemned to lead life without belonging or feeling close to anyone.

Meridia was fourteen when she had her first taste of friendship. One warm October day, when the term was already half over, a new girl walked into class and took the seat next to hers. During History and Geography, the girl looked several times in her direction, but looked away again before Meridia could meet her eye. When the recess bell rang, Meridia ran as usual with her lunchbox to the farthest bench in the yard. The new girl followed, sitting down next to her without invitation.

“You might as well tell me your name,” she said with a smile. “We’re going to be the dearest of friends.”

Meridia could do nothing more than oblige. Listening to the girl talk on, she felt a curious tremor invading her heart.

Hannah was the daughter of a traveling merchant. A little older and shorter than Meridia, she was expressive and high-spirited, with agile feet and flowing reddish hair. Although she was not beautiful, Hannah carried herself with a self-assurance that made her striking. She had been in town only a week, and due to the nature of her father’s work, she did not expect to stay more than a few months. She took it upon herself that Meridia should be the one to show her the town.

“But I don’t know anyplace to go,” said Meridia. “I walk between school and home and nowhere else.”

“Then we’ll explore together,” decided Hannah. “Imagine living in a town and not knowing what it’s got to offer!”

Thus began their after-school and weekend adventures. Strolling east along Majestic Avenue took them to Independence Plaza, where an endless parade of entertainers performed on rough cobblestones around the statue of the town founder. There Meridia saw her first jugglers and magicians, sword eaters and fire dancers. An ageless man whose beauty once launched a thousand ships sold love letters guaranteed to end in marriage. A seven-year-old girl turned into a pillar of salt whenever she faced the sun, and a jigging elephant made Meridia laugh so hard she doubled over in pain.

Four blocks east of the schoolhouse was Cinema Garden, that serene paradise of golden swans and jasmine blossoms where the nurse used to take her for brisk strolls. Now, accompanied by her new friend, Meridia could spend as much time there as she liked, sitting idly on the grass, eating hard-boiled eggs and strawberry sandwiches while Hannah poured syrup into tin cups. Every Friday night, when the weather permitted, a big white screen was put up in the middle of the Garden. On it were projected the most incredible moving images she had ever seen: birds of the sea and fish of the air,
sparkling stars and a radiant moon, shadow puppets singing and dancing, titanic beasts waging battles over the universe. The two girls laughed and screamed along with the crowd, snuggling under their coats and coiling their arms around each other. At such times, they had no thought in the world and were as glad as they could be.

Traveling west on Majestic Avenue one Saturday, they ended up at a loud and dirty square. As soon as Meridia saw the crowded stalls and smelled the thousand different odors, she stopped cold in her tracks. The memory of being pushed and stepped on, of cleaver hacking against bones and flies feasting on rivers of blood, rose up and horrified her. It was here that she had lost Ravenna, crying her throat hoarse until the woman in the sea green hat came to her rescue. Overwhelmed by the memory, Meridia hung back, but Hannah would have none of it.

“Come on!” said the redhead. “I bet we can get anything we want here.”

At the touch of her friend’s hand, Meridia sent her doubts to the firing squad.

Up until that day, Meridia had saved the money Ravenna had given her in a pewter box under her bed, not knowing how or where she would use it. But that afternoon, she bought Hannah and herself sweet flour omelets and deep-fried potato cakes from the tattooed man who swallowed radishes whole. On their next trips, she purchased ribbons and hairpins, cinnamon pastries, milk candies, preserved mango slices, and perfume from a woman who bottled her own exquisite-smelling sweat. Next to the courthouse was a bookshop, and here Meridia wandered happily from shelf to shelf while Hannah gobbled up the fashionable magazines that told her which hats and shoes were in for the season. One day they stumbled across a beauty parlor, and at Hannah’s insistence, Meridia agreed to have her hair trimmed. Forty-five minutes later, the girl Meridia saw in the mirror was a complete stranger, her hair so short it barely grazed her shoulders. “What do you think?” asked Hannah anxiously. Meridia turned her head to the right and left and right again and finally
said, “I think I like it.” Hannah whooped and the two girls clasped each other. It was then that Meridia realized, looking once more into the mirror, that she could not see her friend’s reflection. Inside the mirror the hairdresser was frowning and Meridia was embracing nothing but air.

As November slipped into December, Meridia could think of no one but Hannah. Nothing got her down—not Ravenna’s absentmindedness or Gabriel’s rage; not the dampening weather, the unpredictable mists, or even the vicious girls in the schoolyard who took relish in the misfortunes of others. When she woke up, it was Hannah she thought of. It was as if with this one person, this one person alone out of the multitudes, she had been granted ease of movement, eloquence of speech, and the exquisite privilege of laughter. At night, exhausted from their adventures, she would recall fondly their mad dash across Independence Plaza in the rain, or their animated talk over biscuits and grape soda at the bookshop café. In the moments before sleep came, she would imagine Hannah lying next to her, so near she had only to reach out a hand to touch her.