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.
T
HE
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
T
RINIDAD
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.”
—Jackson was his first name?
“That’s right.”
—That was a president’s name, but it was his last name.
“I know.”
—Did your husband die?
“Yes.”
—When?
“A long time ago.”
—How did he die?
“He got too close to a horse that be scared by a storm. That horse reared up and knock him to the ground and then come back down on him. His chest be crushed by that poor scared animal, and that’s why my man died. And him never sick a day in his life.”
Head hung down, shoulders sloped. —An accident, Bonaventure wrote. (It was just as he’d suspected: people who died before they got old probably all died in accidents.)
“I don’t know if it be a accident, Mr. Bonaventure. I just think it be his time.”
Well, there was something new. Bonaventure didn’t know what to say. He decided to come back to it later, and so took the conversation in a different direction.
—Do you have kids?
“No, I am sad to say I never be so blessed.”
—Do you have a cat?
“No, sir, I surely do not.”
—A dog?
“Nope. No dog neither.”
—Do you wish you did?
“I don’t believe I do.”
—Do you have a bird?
“Oh, I got plenty of birds. They out in the woods and they sing to me every day. And a little old hoot-owl sing to me at night.”
—I like birdsongs and owl hoots.
“Me too, Mr. Bonaventure, me too.”
When the day was done and dusk had gone to bed, Trinidad sat in the rocking chair left to her by her old maiden aunt and thought of little Bonaventure Arrow. She knew the purity of his heart and the completeness of his innocence, for she’d felt them the first time she’d ever laid eyes on him, back on that day at her roadside stand when she looked at his beautiful eyes. She also knew that while she had certain gifts that let her know of secrets, little Mr. Bonaventure had something very much more than that. She knew that was why he did not speak, and she knew he was part of her Purpose.
D
ANCY
Arrow’s social life was confined to haircuts and manicures. She had put on widowhood the day William died and had not once taken it off since. In all those years, she’d never felt that anyone really understood her aloneness, as there were no widows among her friends. But maybe that had changed.
“Hey, Venture Forth, is Trinidad married? Do you know?”
Headshake. —Nope.
“Is that, no, she isn’t married, or no, you don’t know?”