They came closer, making as little noise as they could. Sensing them, the man stepped back into the vapor and glided away.
When they broached the incident to Meridia the next morning, her breath momentarily stayed in her throat before she answered.
“A stray peddler, I’m sure. A lot of them have been coming to the house.”
“He seemed to be looking for Noah. Aren’t you afraid he might come back?”
She laughed at this outright. “What for? There’s nothing here he wants.”
In her ordinary voice she began asking them about their husbands. But in that moment where her breath stayed, they had read her longing, before she snuffed it with all her will, to believe otherwise.
LEAH AND REBECCA ALSO bore witness to the mysterious habit of another visitor. Early in the morning or late into the night, the man they soon learned to be Daniel’s father would approach the house like a convict on the run, hiding behind trees and under shades as if the sky might fall on him. And yet, there was no denying the happy spring in his steps, his irrepressible smile, or the light that illuminated his eyes from within. He stayed long enough to elicit a laugh from Noah, entertain him with silly faces, or simply stroke his hair if the baby was asleep. He was never without gifts. Sometimes he would bring one or both of his daughters; the older one bored and unsmiling in pretty orange dresses, the younger thrilled as a freed bird. Leah was the first to notice how fond Noah was of his grandfather. The baby could sense his arrival from a distance, and if he was crying, he would stop before Elias entered the house.
“Why is he skulking around to see his grandson?” asked Rebecca one day.
Meridia creased her brow as if the answer could not have been plainer. “You would, too, if you were married to my mother-in-law.”
The two neighbors wished she would elaborate further, express a grievance, if not articulate a secret. True to her character, Meridia said nothing more on the subject.
TO MERIDIA’S DELIGHT, NOAH did not take to Eva at all. No matter how hard his grandmother tried to wheedle him, Noah cried angrily when she came near. He greeted her kiss with a gush of saliva; every time she held him in her arms, he relieved himself all over her. He refused to touch her, never gave her a smile, and broke into alarming hiccups when she sang to him. Meridia, who never left Eva alone with the baby, felt her heart swell with pride as she watched him.
To save face, Eva pretended it was she who chose to stay away from the baby. He would only ruffle her dress, she said. Undo her hair, and heaven knows how unhygienic babies could be. She endlessly cautioned Daniel to air Noah out in the morning sun, to sanitize him by scrubbing his skin at least three times a day, and to have him sleep enclosed by two layers of curtains so his germs would not fly about the house. She recounted innumerable parasites and diseases that a baby could host, citing anecdotes of massive epidemics caused by filth-ridden infants. Meridia ignored her. It was Daniel who gave his mother a long, steely glare that would have daunted a less resolute critic.
Two weeks after the birth, Eva sent Gabilan to the shop with a gift for Noah. Wrapped in butcher paper and tied with kitchen twine were half a dozen baby clothes—moth-eaten, yellowing, with seams frayed at the edges. From the lace and flower patterns Meridia suspected they were Malin and Permony’s baby clothes. Her first instinct was to throw them into the garbage, but Daniel told her to save them.
“What for?” she asked.
“Magic. Just you wait and see.”
When Elias came around the next morning, Daniel dressed Noah in these clothes and paraded him before his grandfather.
“Why are you dressing my grandson in rags?” asked an outraged Elias. “A baby girl’s rags, for that matter.”
“They’re from Mama,” said Daniel blithely. “Fit him well, don’t you think?”
Elias patted his head as if he had hair and went off. An hour later, he returned with a boxful of new clothes, unwrapped them by the bassinet, and put some on Noah.
“Burn those,” he ordered Daniel, pointing to the old clothes on the floor. “No grandchild of mine is dressing like a pauper.”
A few days later, Eva asked Daniel why Noah had not been wearing the clothes she gave him. “They’re too nice, Mama,” he said. “We’re saving them for special occasions.”
FOR THE NEXT SEVERAL months, baby Noah tormented Meridia to the limits of her endurance. Sleeping little and crying nonstop, he bruised her nipples without taking her milk, screamed when put down in his bassinet, and slept only when one parent rocked him and the other sang. Daniel solved the eating problem by taking money from under the floorboard to buy costly milk formula. The sleeping problem, however, left him dumbfounded. No matter what trick he tried, both parents ended up awake all night, taking turns between rocking and singing. In addition, Noah was always too hot or too cold, always sweating or shivering regardless of how he was dressed. One time, he had a case of diarrhea that lasted three days. When the illness finally ran its course, the parents looked a good deal more depleted than the baby.
Having no siblings, Meridia was ignorant in the subject of childcare. She did not know how to calm a peevish child, and instead relied on her instincts to guide her. In the beginning, she had her mother to count on. However, when Ravenna inevitably withdrew behind her veil of forgetfulness, she was left to fend for herself. Leah and Rebecca tried their best to help, but not having children themselves, they knew little more than she did. In her most helpless hours, Noah’s crying sounded so much like Eva’s bees that she wondered if those insects had gotten to him after all.
At the same time, Meridia’s own emotions were turning against her. She was often befuddled, unable to recall what task she needed to complete. Sadness, fear, and anxiety plagued her without end. She would burst into tears for no reason, then plunge into a restlessness so great it made her irritable. Her breasts ached to be emptied, and the baby’s rejection of them hurt her more than she cared to admit. When alone with Noah, she felt herself lost in an ocean of darkness. It was absurd to think that she, in her bumbling youth and inexperience, was responsible for his care, his well-being, for the flow of blood and pump of heart that kept him alive for another day!
As Noah’s demands multiplied, she tolerated Daniel’s advances less and less. In the little time they had away from the baby, she shuddered when Daniel touched her. The heat of his breath reminded her of the bees, of the womb they had destroyed and the child who would start bawling the instant she closed her eyes. To ward him off, she pleaded headaches and exhaustion, and then guiltily watched him retreat to his side of the bed. Her failure as both wife and mother crushed her like a mountain of steel. Was it possible that she had caught it, too, the cold wind that had knocked Ravenna to the ground and turned Monarch Street upside down?
Once the thought took root, Meridia pursued it to its conclusion. Attempting to calm a furious Noah one morning, she cobbled up a possible reason for Gabriel’s resentment toward her. Perhaps Ravenna’s story was not that of a wife betrayed and abandoned to disillusionment, but of a mother worn down by her child. Perhaps it was not the cold wind that had turned Ravenna against Gabriel, but Meridia’s own demands as a baby. As she wiped bits of Noah’s vomit from her hair, she wondered if she herself had absorbed all of Ravenna’s attention at Noah’s age, worn thin the love between her parents, chased Gabriel into the arms of another woman. The rest was easy to fill in. Ravenna and Gabriel would only take so much before arguments began, all leading to the inexorable devastation of the ax. What if she was doomed to repeat their fate? Once her bed frosted with ice, how long would Daniel wait before he looked for warmth?
The question had no sooner formed than it shamed her. Daniel was not Gabriel. Since their reconciliation, he had given her no cause to doubt his devotion. In fact, the opposite. One evening, while Daniel had gone to present the books to Eva, Noah began crying and would not stop. Meridia, armed with little rest the night before, was at the end of her tether.
“Please,” she be
gged the child. “What is it you want?”
Noah screamed louder. Her patience exhausted, Meridia left him in the bedroom, went to the kitchen, crouched next to the stove, and burst into sobs. She did not stop crying until a pair of arms lifted her and carried her to bed. By then she was too tired to open her eyes. When she awoke, the room had come alive with sunlight. She got up and went to the living room. Daniel was on his feet, holding the baby. His wearied face told her he had been up all night.
“He’s asleep now,” he whispered. “I’ll hold him a while longer just in case.”
At that moment, she realized he had become a man.
MEANWHILE, THE SHOP WAS declining in profits. Eva, aware that the couple had been flourishing, stiff-armed Elias to furnish them with second-rate inventory. Through her interference, only items that had not sold in months were transferred to Willow Lane. Her answer when Daniel tried to reason with her: “A man must rely on his own resources, son. Do you expect your father, who has sacrificed so much, to rescue you yet again? If only your wife knew how to economize, you wouldn’t be in this jam today. I’ll tell you what, doesn’t she still have that jewelry set from her father? Why don’t you tell her to sell it to me? I have no use for it but I’ll buy it as a favor to you.”
“Tell your mother I’d rather saw off my own arms,” said Meridia when Daniel told her.
Following the incident with the newsstand boy, Eva no longer came to the store every day, but still found ways to assert her presence. Apart from limiting the inventory, reducing the couple’s stipend, charging Daniel with miscellaneous expenses while increasing her own share of the profits, she began using Patina as a pawn. The old woman turned out to be her most effective weapon to date.
Every morning Eva sent Patina to Willow Lane with an order to purchase food from restaurants in the surrounding neighborhoods. “Grilled calamari and coconut beef for lunch today,” a shamefaced Patina would whisper to Meridia. “For dinner, seared abalone and fried octopus with mushrooms.” Eva never wrote these orders down on paper, and she told Daniel that they were to pay for them from Elias’s share of the profits. However, when it came time to settle the bills, she would deny she had ordered most of it. During one of his nightly visits to Orchard Road, Daniel showed his mother the receipts, but Eva only grew furious at Patina.
“Come up here, you deceitful hag!” she thundered down the stairs. “When did I ever ask you to buy a grilled flounder stuffed with roe?” she attacked as soon as Patina hobbled into the sitting room. “We are a simple family—our stomachs turn at the mention of such a dish! You know what’s going on here?” Eva turned to Daniel, broiling with wrath. “This old woman must be scheming with the restaurant owners! I asked her to buy plain roasted chicken, they billed you for tangerine duck. Now confess! What have you done?”
Patina blanched, shaking from head to toe. Unable to bear the sight, Daniel interrupted.
“I’m sure it’s a simple mistake, Mama. There’s no need to accuse Patina. Meridia and I will pay for these dishes.”
The next morning, Patina showed up on Willow Lane with welts on her face and cigarette burns on her hands. Seeing these, Meridia cried out in alarm.
“Did she do this to you?”
“It’s nothing,” said the old woman. “I fell and scalded myself on the stove.”
Meridia’s eyes flamed with anger, but she knew she could not fight Eva on this ground. Fearing further consequences on Patina, she motioned to Daniel to open the register.
“It’s all right, Patina,” said Daniel. “Buy Mama whatever she wants today.”
The old woman began to cry. “I’m so sorry. You both are too kind to me. I know how much you need that money for Noah. Let me go home without the food. I’ll make up some excuse. I’ll tell her I was robbed on the way to the restaurants.”
Meridia firmly pressed the money into her hand. Shocked to feel Patina’s bone-thin wrist, she wondered if the old woman had again fallen ill.
“Don’t worry yourself, Patina. We’ll find a way to manage.”
From that day on, Daniel stopped disputing Eva’s bills. When there was not enough money in the register to pay for them, Meridia reached under the floorboard for her dowry. Each time it felt no less painful than cutting her own flesh.
TWENTY-ONE
The decline of summer amplified the demands for money. Growing Noah needed milk, clothes, vitamins, lotions, and shoes. The old house demanded a new roof, the cold bed a second blanket, the walls a thicker insulation against autumn. One afternoon, an endless stream of cockroaches erupted from under the shop, chasing away half a dozen customers before they could make a purchase. When a home remedy of vinegar and quicklime failed to work, Daniel was forced to hire an exterminator, and the process of annihilation required the shop to close for three days. They were yet to recover from this setback when Eva dealt them her next blow.
In addition to the dishes, she now included rice, flour, tea, and spices in her daily demand. At the same time, she continued to supply the shop with obsolete inventory: garish rings and necklaces, impure gold, tarnished silver, stones the color of mud and ditch water. The young couple would be lucky to make two sales a day. Yet when profits plummeted, Eva’s look became no less excoriating than her words.
The dowry money kept them afloat for two months. Then one morning in October, reaching under the floorboard to pay for Eva’s grocery, Meridia counted only a small amount left. Another week at most, and they would have to sell the gold bars. Tasting panic in her throat, she fished out two crisp bills and gave them to Patina in the shop. As soon as the old woman left, Meridia rested on Daniel the full weight of her gaze. He needed only one look to grasp the thought whirling through her brain.
“What if Mama finds out?” he said.
Meridia allowed a quiver to betray her panic. “Our heads. The chopping block.”
“We can ask Papa for a loan.”
“For how long? If your mother hears, our heads will be on that block even sooner.”
Daniel shifted his eyes to the bassinet in the corner. For a long minute he listened to Noah breathe before assenting.
Meridia had come up with the idea one night. At first they both had dismissed it as too risky, too difficult, too outrageous. In recent weeks, however, Eva’s behavior increasingly warranted a drastic maneuver. Compared to the prospect of living indefinitely under her rule, the idea no longer seemed farfetched. Now that the dowry was almost gone, they could not afford to waste the gold bars in the same way.
The plan was to establish a partnership with another jeweler, without Eva or Elias knowing. Once they had a steady stream of quality inventory, the couple could hope to make profits and gain independence from Orchard Road. Daniel had cautiously approached a handful of trusted merchants with this idea. Some expressed unwillingness to work with a young jeweler with no independent means, others wondered why the partnership had to be kept a secret. The risk was great, the return uncertain. But Meridia believed that if they could find the right partner, the plan would pay off handsomely.
Four days after their agreement, Daniel came into contact with a renegade dealer in jewelry. The man lived in another town, had no acquaintance with Lotus Blossom Lane, and was known for taking risks in fledgling businesses. Although his endeavors met with mixed degrees of success, his daring resourcefulness had much to recommend him. He acted solely as a dealer and had no shop of his own. As initial capital, he required at least two kilos of gold. Daniel’s preliminary assessment of the man was positive. Before they made a decision, Meridia wished to meet him in person.
To prepare herself for the interview, Meridia carefully reviewed Eva’s masterful ways at the market square, borrowing the words but tempering the tone with Gabriel’s elegance. She rehearsed what she would say if asked this or that, armed her weak spots with bulletproof arguments, and examined her position from every conceivable angle. She went through this process for hours, quiet yet unstoppable, so that by the time Noah was ready for bed
she was as exhausted as a farm laborer.
The following afternoon, a barrel-chested man with coal-dark skin and thick black beard came into the shop. From his well-tailored suit and confident gait, there was no question that he was successful, yet his manner carried no trace of arrogance. His long black eyes were especially audacious. He was about Gabriel’s age, patient and round whereas the other was brusque and angular. The man introduced himself as Samuel.
They sat down in the living room while Noah slept a few paces away. After pouring him tea, Meridia asked the dealer about his family.
“My wife and I have been together for twenty-five years,” Samuel said proudly. “We have two daughters at the university. The older one is engaged to a civil engineer. We hope to become grandparents by the end of next year.”
Pleased by his answer, Meridia inquired about his business. She put him at ease by posing her questions lightly, yet there were no stones she left unturned. In twenty minutes she ferreted out of him his various enterprises, his discipline and work ethics, his knowledge of jewels. Never once forsaking her smile, she spread her questions wide like a net, hoping to catch him in a lie, but his story remained consistent. By chance, the conversation turned to a recently bankrupt jeweler, who happened to be a friend of Samuel’s. The dealer admitted that he had been given the opportunity to purchase his friend’s assets far below market price, but he had declined.
“Why did you refuse?” asked Daniel. “Reselling the assets alone would have made you a lot of money.”
“It’s wrong to profit from a friend when he’s down,” said Samuel. “The way I see it, money takes a backseat to loyalty.”
This made up Meridia’s mind. Satisfied, Daniel, too, nodded.
“Do you have a question for us, sir?” Meridia poured Samuel another cup of tea.
“Only one. Have I passed the examination, madam?”