Meridia did not hear the last words, for everything was rushing at her all at once. The kitchen was spinning, the floor bobbing, the ceiling plunging, and in the midst of the commotion she saw a blinding flash leap up from the haze of nightmares. Lit by the moon, traveling at great speed in the dark of night, the ax swung to its lethal destination. Meridia heard the crash and the familiar tumble, followed by the terrible scream that could have come from no other throat but Gabriel’s. Spinning, spinning, the haze dissolved and her eyes flew from Patina hunched by the sink to Eva laughing in the doorway. Eva. Soaking up every twitch of pain that coursed through Meridia’s face.
Collecting herself, Meridia strode toward the door. Eva met her halfway. Before either one knew it, they were glaring at each other with only the length of a grown man between them. Meridia felt no fear as she lifted the tray and smashed it to the floor. The porcelain bowl jumped, made an arc toward Eva, and shattered to bits. Eva shrieked and drew back, but not before the red bean soup splattered her white dressing robe. For an instant there was only silence. Then Eva’s battle cry set everything into motion.
“How dare you!”
Patina rushed to help, but Eva shoved her to the floor. Meridia stood still with eyes dark as night.
“You insolent girl! I knew you were trouble from the day I met you!”
“Yet the size of my dowry was enough to silence you. Isn’t that why you let Daniel marry me? Well, you can fool him but you can’t fool me. Don’t think for a second you can do with the money as you wish.”
“How dare you accuse me of stealing from my own son! Daniel knows very well he can take back the money anytime he wants.”
“Then give it to him this minute.”
“As soon as I hear him ask.”
“He’ll ask for it, all right.”
“No, he won’t.”
“I’ll make him ask!”
“He won’t say a word.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Because he trusts me more than he does you.”
The words hit Meridia harder than a blow. Before she could retort, Patina began wailing with such anguish that the two women jerked apart.
“Leave her alone!” cried Eva, seeing Meridia hasten toward Patina. “That old crow doesn’t need you to take care of her.”
“Neither does she need you in her life,” returned Meridia. “Heaven knows why she loves you when you don’t deserve an ounce of her goodness.”
“Keep talking. Before the day is over you’ll be eating your own words.”
“Very well. I’ll let you know how they taste.”
Enraged, Eva stormed out of the kitchen. Gently, Meridia lifted Patina from the floor. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I won’t let her hurt you anymore.”
It was after they were both standing that Meridia realized her own legs were bleeding. She lifted her skirt and found pieces of porcelain stuck to her flesh.
SHE HAD NO TIME to examine her feelings or ponder the consequences of her actions. When she returned to her room, Daniel was already dressed in his work suit.
“Mama wants me to go to the shop,” he explained.
“Today’s Sunday.”
“Papa has a meeting scheduled but he’s unwell. I’ll be home at two.”
“I need to speak to you, Daniel. It’s urgent.”
“Can it wait, dearest? The partners don’t like to be kept waiting.”
She detected no difference in his manner, but neither did he notice the cuts on her legs. As he kissed her good-bye, a wave of worry nearly drowned her on the spot. While Meridia was consoling Patina, Eva might have come up with a move that could seal her doom.
Master and mistress did not come down at breakfast or lunchtime. When Gabilan knocked on their door, Eva sent her away with a sharp word. All morning long, Meridia kept her ears attuned to the noises upstairs, but heard nothing. Malin’s cunning glance was her sole indication that the bees were in full session, and Elias, in all likelihood, had been placed in the executioner’s box without the possibility of escape.
After lunch, Meridia retired to her room. Too anxious to do anything, she sat on the bed and prepared herself for the worst. Ten minutes later, Eva’s door slammed open, angry steps slapped down the stairs, and Meridia’s four walls at once shook from the tremor. She got up without hurrying and bolted both the hallway and garden doors. The furious sound of Elias’s breathing reached her before his fist met the door.
“Open up!”
Meridia sat back down on the bed with her hands calmly knotted in her lap.
“Open the door, goddamn you!”
A whisper in the hallway. Footsteps around the room. And then Eva’s loud curse when she found the garden door was also locked. Now both doors were being pummeled mercilessly, the bolts and hinges straining to break. And yet, though it sounded as if a hundred rifles were going off at once, Meridia did not stir from her seat.
“Come out and show your face, you coward!” yelled Elias from the hallway.
“Who do you think you are to insult us like this?” cried Eva from the garden door.
This went on for some time until Eva, thwarted, rejoined Elias in the hallway. The master of the house proceeded to throw his shoulder against the door and kick it. Both were screaming loud enough to wake the dead.
“You rotten ingrate!”
“Just wait until I get my hands on you!”
An eternity seemed to have passed before Daniel’s voice rose in the hallway.
“What’s going on, Papa?”
“Your wife insulted your mother! Calling her things you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy!”
“I beg your pardon?”
“She called her a liar and a cheat—”
“A thieving, two-faced snake,” clarified Eva.
“—and accused her of abusing Patina! Where would that old woman be without your mother’s generosity? Yet your coward of a wife called her vile and heartless.”
“And to spite me further—”
“She threw a whole steaming pot of soup at your mother! Look at her legs all scalded and her dress bloody like she’s been butchered!”
“I don’t believe it,” gasped Daniel.
“Are you calling me a liar?” Eva stifled an indignant sob. “Has she turned you against me? My own son, my flesh and blood?”
“It’s obvious her insane mother and depraved father never taught her how to respect her elders,” said Elias. “It’s time she learns we’re not barbarians in this house!”
The bedroom door flew open, startling Eva and Elias into silence. Bathed in a flame of fury, eyes wild with animal courage, Meridia was both fearsome and glorious to behold.
“Leave my parents out of this. You’re not good enough to wash their socks.”
“Listen to her talk, more arrogant than a queen,” said Eva through her tears.
Elias lunged forward. “You owe my wife an apology.”
“I owe her nothing.”
“Then how do you explain this?”
Eva, crying and wincing, still had on her white dressing robe, now splotched in big red stains that did not previously exist. Her feet displayed wounds the soup could not possibly have caused.
“I take no responsibility for her make-believe,” said Meridia.
Daniel took her elbow. “Dearest, did you say those things to Mama?”
“She certainly did. Patina saw everything. Patina!”
Like a terrified child, Patina hobbled in from the kitchen. Instantly Eva and Elias were upon her, asking so many questions with such rapidity that the old woman could only stare from one to the other in misery.
“Did she or did she not throw the soup at me?”
“Speak up! Why are you standing there shaking like an idiot?”
Meridia would not tolerate this. “I threw the soup. And I don’t regret it one bit.”
“She admits it!” exclaimed Elias triumphantly. “You see what kind of demon you’ve married, son?”
/> Meridia gave her father-in-law a look so cutting that any other man would have smarted from the slice. But Elias—she saw right away—was not himself. Bloodshot and haggard, he looked as though he had not slept in days, and there was a ruthlessness to his movement that told her he was demented enough to do anything. Only once had Meridia seen that look, the night Eva got him into a rage over the neighbor’s mastiff. All of a sudden it hit her with a bolt of panic. Eva’s bees had put in more than one morning’s work on Elias. In the flush of her rebellion, Meridia had misunderstood one thing: the dying stench of the roses was not meant to afflict her sleep, but to mask the bees’ insidious drone. For five nights, while her eyes watered and her throat rasped, the abominable insects had been laboring overtime—accusing, distorting, toting up every act of disobedience. She could only imagine the damage they were causing Elias.
“Is it true, Meridia?” asked Daniel. “Why did you do it?”
She had avoided his eyes until then. What she saw now confirmed what her heart already knew. He looked baffled and wounded, yet though her whole being ached with tenderness for him, she recognized him for the boy he still was.
“What does it matter?” she said. “You won’t take my word over theirs.”
“Dearest! What are you saying?”
“Don’t listen to her, son,” said Eva. “Can’t you see how she’s toying with you?”
“If she doesn’t apologize, Daniel, there’s no room for her in this house.”
“What do you—but that’s absurd, Papa!”
“Put her in her place, Daniel. Who will defend your mother if you won’t?”
Eva backed this with a wracking sob.
“We need to calm down, all of us,” said Daniel. “I’ll take Meridia out for a walk. When we get back, we’ll discuss this rationally.”
Elias looked as if he was ready to explode. “Has she turned you into a woman? Robbed you of manhood and dignity? Tell your wife she’s got two words to choose from. Sorry or good-bye. Which will it be?”
Daniel was speechless. It was Meridia who made the decision for him.
“I’ll leave,” she said. “There’s room for me in my father’s house.”
For a few seconds no one said anything, realizing the challenge had been thrown and taken too far. And then Eva looked at Elias until he roared in anger.
“Then leave at once! I won’t tolerate your impudence a moment longer. And don’t you dare take anything that doesn’t belong to you!”
Not deigning to reply, Meridia went into her room for the most precious thing she owned. At the bottom of the sandalwood trunk, hidden beneath layers of her bridal dress, was the gold jewelry set Gabriel had given as part of her dowry, the same one Eva had decided she could keep. She had no time for anything else. Lashed by the voices behind, Meridia took the velvet box and returned to the hallway.
Daniel moved toward her, but Elias pushed him back.
“Stay where you are,” he warned.
“Papa! You can’t do this to us.”
“Don’t call me Papa if you’re stupid enough to defend that varmint. In two months’ time, I’ll marry you to a wife who knows how to respect you.”
“Papa!”
Eva, flooded in tears, enfolded Daniel in her arms. “It’s all my fault, son. I knew from the start she wasn’t right for you, and yet I let you marry her. It’s best to let her go.”
“You let go, Mama. Meridia isn’t leaving without me.”
Without warning, Elias punched the wall two inches from Daniel’s head.
“Enough! Follow her out that door and you won’t see the inside of this house ever again.”
Meridia watched in silence as Daniel, who stood well above his father, stepped back. The air had grown so still that his heart was pounding audibly in her ear. When their eyes met, she laid bare with all her soul the gentle memory of their caresses, and when it did not draw him to her, she began to pity him without anger. He looked so pained and aggrieved that she thought she must take it all back, take back her words and her pride as long as he was spared this anguish. Yet no sooner did the thought occur than a steel rod slid up her back and made her say the one thing Ravenna never could to Gabriel.
“Good-bye, Daniel.”
Meridia turned. Silenced Eva with a look. Sailed past Elias as if he did not exist. Clutching the velvet box to her chest, she strolled past the door where Permony sobbed and Malin stood openmouthed, transfixed with awe. She did not look back when she reached the terrace and the front door slammed behind her.
There she waited.
The caged birds were silent and the marigolds clamored and she waited.
She waited and still he did not come.
FIFTEEN
Ravenna had been mute for three months, three weeks, and three days, and not a soul knew it. The morning after Meridia’s wedding, she had been midway through addressing a bowl of pea shoots when she realized that her mouth was making no sound. For the first time in sixteen years, her dark and private language failed to animate the kitchen. Astonished into silence, the knife cut without zest, the bread did not rise, the kettle refused to boil. The maids, by then accustomed to their mistress’s odd habits, took little interest in the sudden quiet. Gabriel noticed nothing. Since the morning she outraged him by smashing eighteen dishes in the dining room, he had yet to spare her more than a moment’s glance.
Muteness had a way of beating Ravenna. By the end of the first week, she had grown so weary she could not shake her fist when she saw the yellow mist swirl up the stone steps. When morning came, a gulp was all she could muster when she smelled the baboon-faced mistress on Gabriel. Meridia’s absence had done it. Took away her speech and rusted the hate she had so meticulously preserved. Despite her years of training, Ravenna missed her in the dreadful quiet of the plates, in the empty doorways—she missed the footfalls that no longer filled the house. She missed Meridia as if she were missing a limb; the only thing worse was the certainty that her child was gone forever.
Many times the silence nearly drove Ravenna to Orchard Road. Before her feet started, however, a memory stopped her: a flash of metal slicing in the dead of night. Along with this came shame and sorrow. She would slap her hands over her tears, twist her knuckles deep into her eyes, but not once, not ever, would she allow doubt and regret to come between her and her daughter.
Ravenna remembered the night the cold wind knocked her to the ground. All she did was fasten the window, but before she knew it, she was pinned helplessly against the wall while Meridia’s bassinet flew across the room. That night the world suddenly teemed with dangers, herself helpless and a stranger in it, and in the days that followed she lost her reason and her strength. For months after, she saw Gabriel shiver and she could do nothing. He could not sleep a wink, he said; the bed was colder than snow, and she could not help him. Even when she saw ice forming on Meridia’s lips, she could do nothing. “The wind will run its course,” she had assured him. “Try to keep warm a little longer.” He gave her his word that he would stick by her. Three months after the wind turned the house upside down, the yellow mist appeared. The next day she twisted her hair into a knot because she knew he had not kept his promise.
She tried her best to exonerate him. Failing that, she gave him ample opportunities to explain. But Gabriel said nothing. He sulked and watched her nurse Meridia and went out into the mist and said nothing. Her pride revolted. She had asked for understanding, and in turn, he had let another woman desecrate what belonged to her. There was nothing in the world that would make her forgive.
When she suspended the blade above his head, her only wish was to forget. Shush the anger that was howling in her heart. Obliterate his lies and the damage they caused. When she swung, she did not think of it as an end, but as a beginning. Of all the things that happened next, she only remembered one—Meridia howling in her bassinet, a second before the metal struck. That cry had saved Gabriel’s life, but not her own. The blade might have missed, but her child had
witnessed what she should not have. After what she had done, Ravenna could only view her daughter through a curtain of forgetfulness.
The passing years diminished neither her shame nor her anger. By degrees the curtain thickened, made opaque by misunderstandings and stifled intentions. To vent her rage, she stormed the mist and took up a dark and private language. Neither of these brought her closer to Meridia. Gabriel’s ultimate victory was not in smashing her heart, but in condemning her to watch their child grow without feeling adequate to love her.
When the girl asked for her freedom, Ravenna thought it was the least she could give her. Little did she know that the days of muteness would be long and vengeful. Not since she wrestled with the cold wind had she felt so tired, so exposed and beleaguered by the tenacity of memories. Not even the thought of Gabriel’s mistress stirred her. In the night she no longer had strength to storm the mist. The stillness that answered when she called for Meridia convinced her that she was shouting from beyond the grave.
Then three months, three weeks, and four days after Meridia left, the muteness came to a halt. That afternoon, seasoning a goose in the kitchen, Ravenna seized up all of a sudden and dropped the pepper mill she was holding. Someone was approaching the front door, and from the way the mist bellowed, she understood it was no ordinary visitor. Sharply, she lifted her chin and tossed back her shoulders. Before her brain could articulate the miracle, her feet had flown of their own accord. Reaching the front door, she threw it open and was overcome by the sight of a nymphlike figure shambling up the stone steps. She ran on ahead of the mist and pulled the limping phantom into her arms.
“Child!” she cried, just before Meridia’s knees scraped the earth.