Meridia inspected the iron knot on her mother’s head and hoped that her ear would be more yielding than her back. A glance around the room told her what she was up against: a knife furiously beheading cauliflowers, a teapot shrilling like a banshee, shallots frying on a hot pan, the eyes of a flounder staring in deathless rage. Imperious in solitude, Ravenna reigned over them with her dark and private language, bewitching the shallots, entrancing the cauliflowers, casting a spell over the flounder to preserve her bitterness from the rust of time.
“Rattling the house like dice before breakfast settled in his stomach! If he wanted to raise the dead with all that racket, he should have warned me to plug my ears! What will the neighbors think? They’re already laughing at him for slinking around every night to see a woman who actually looks worse than a warthog! And now thatsomeone is asking for his daughter’s hand in marriage, he makes himself even more of a laughingstock! Who will want to propose after this? I gave him a clever and beautiful daughter when everyone thought he was as barren as the desert, but did he ever thank me for my trouble? Oh no, he said he wanted a son. Well, he should have advised me of this before my womb dilated so I could make a little arrangement with God! The next thing I knew, before his child could pass her first gas, off he went to suckle that gorilla’s breasts, mounting and riding her like she was the last humpback whale in the sea—”
“Mama!” Meridia stepped into the kitchen.
“—Anybody who’s got no more sense than to impale a primate’s ass should be hanged on the street for crows to feast on—”
“Mama!” Meridia turned off the stove so the banshee would stop shrieking, covered the flounder so the eyes would stop glaring.
“—Does he think she’s going to give him a son? How can something so old and desiccated produce anything but its own shit—”
“Mama!” Meridia sidestepped the vegetable crates scattered on the floor and tossed the hissing shallots onto a plate, all the while trying not to breathe that reek and stink of solitude she had come to associate with forgetfulness.
“—He’s got no shame carrying on like a lecherous goat now that his daughter is old enough to marry—”
Meridia placed a hand on the small of that ramrod back, not a moment too soon, because the furious chopping of the knife was beginning to sound like thunder.
“Mama!”
Ravenna turned in surprise. Holding the knife to her waist, she regarded Meridia without the faintest awareness. Her tense eyes were ringed with shadows, and her frown deepened the imminent network of wrinkles she never once fought with creams other mothers purchased by the jars. Despite the strong aroma of shallots, her scent of lemon verbena dominated the air. A full minute passed before her frown eased in recognition.
“Is everyone in this house trying to burst my eardrums?” she chided, the sleet in her voice slowed into a gentle rain. In the next breath she was off again, registering Meridia’s face for the first time: “Child, you look miserable! Are you unhappy?”
Meridia tried to speak, but a painful rush of emotion stopped her. She could not remember the last time she had stood this close to Ravenna, breathing her scent and reading her face as if it were a map of another world. There was so much to be said, so many questions unasked, yet already she found herself thrust into the same vacuum that had bound her inside the ivory mist. There was no stopping it. In a second Ravenna would fade, retreat behind her veil of forgetfulness without a trace for her to follow.
But the veil did not descend. For once in her life, she had her mother’s attention.
“What is it?” Ravenna laid down the knife in alarm. “What is troubling you?”
Unable to collect herself, Meridia began to tremble. The words she wrested from the depth of the vacuum sounded frail and hollow.
“Papa. Why does he hate
“Rattling the house like dice before breakfast settled in his stomach! If he wanted to raise the dead with all that racket, he should have warned me to plug my ears! What will the neighbors think? They’re already laughing at him for slinking around every night to see a woman who actually looks worse than a warthog! And now thatsomeone is asking for his daughter’s hand in marriage, he makes himself even more of a laughingstock! Who will want to propose after this? I gave him a clever and beautiful daughter when everyone thought he was as barren as the desert, but did he ever thank me for my trouble? Oh no, he said he wanted a son. Well, he should have advised me of this before my womb dilated so I could make a little arrangement with God! The next thing I knew, before his child could pass her first gas, off he went to suckle that gorilla’s breasts, mounting and riding her like she was the last humpback whale in the sea—”
“Mama!” Meridia stepped into the kitchen.
“—Anybody who’s got no more sense than to impale a primate’s ass should be hanged on the street for crows to feast on—”
“Mama!” Meridia turned off the stove so the banshee would stop shrieking, covered the flounder so the eyes would stop glaring.
“—Does he think she’s going to give him a son? How can something so old and desiccated produce anything but its own shit—”
“Mama!” Meridia sidestepped the vegetable crates scattered on the floor and tossed the hissing shallots onto a plate, all the while trying not to breathe that reek and stink of solitude she had come to associate with forgetfulness.
“—He’s got no shame carrying on like a lecherous goat now that his daughter is old enough to marry—”
Meridia placed a hand on the small of that ramrod back, not a moment too soon, because the furious chopping of the knife was beginning to sound like thunder.
“Mama!”
Ravenna turned in surprise. Holding the knife to her waist, she regarded Meridia without the faintest awareness. Her tense eyes were ringed with shadows, and her frown deepened the imminent network of wrinkles she never once fought with creams other mothers purchased by the jars. Despite the strong aroma of shallots, her scent of lemon verbena dominated the air. A full minute passed before her frown eased in recognition.
“Is everyone in this house trying to burst my eardrums?” she chided, the sleet in her voice slowed into a gentle rain. In the next breath she was off again, registering Meridia’s face for the first time: “Child, you look miserable! Are you unhappy?”
Meridia tried to speak, but a painful rush of emotion stopped her. She could not remember the last time she had stood this close to Ravenna, breathing her scent and reading her face as if it were a map of another world. There was so much to be said, so many questions unasked, yet already she found herself thrust into the same vacuum that had bound her inside the ivory mist. There was no stopping it. In a second Ravenna would fade, retreat behind her veil of forgetfulness without a trace for her to follow.
But the veil did not descend. For once in her life, she had her mother’s attention.
“What is it?” Ravenna laid down the knife in alarm. “What is troubling you?”
Unable to collect herself, Meridia began to tremble. The words she wrested from the depth of the vacuum sounded frail and hollow.
“Papa. Why does he hate
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