The Bird Artist Read online

  There were only a few practising Moravians in Witless Bay, and of course they had to travel down to Renews to worship. Catherine Jobb was one, as was Archibald Benoit, while both Catherine’s husband, Thomas, and Archibald’s wife, Florence, were Anglican and in fact made a practice of sitting next to each other in Sillet’s church. With their religion having traveled down from Labrador, the Moravians were a mysterious lot to me. Through gossip and some mention in school, I had gathered a few facts about Moravians, whose church’s real name was the Church of the Unitas Fratrum, or Renewed Church of the Brethren. They were known as “God’s singing people.” They had different services that consisted entirely of singing. For instance, in a Saturday-evening meeting, Sander Muggah would sit down and start the hymns himself, and there might be ten or fifteen hymns in all, and then people would go home. I had heard that most Moravian ministers were good singers. I had heard that Moravians used fiddles in church, accordions, and even brass bands, all of which struck me as lighthearted. But at Helen’s funeral they were all dressed in dark suits and dresses. I noticed an accordion in one of their wagons, hanging from the seat, and thought that maybe someone had played it along the road to Witless Bay. The Moravian children kept to the wagons, well behaved, talking quietly amongst themselves.

  I sat next to Ruth Henley, the undertaker’s wife. At one point she craned her neck to look down the center aisle and out the door. “I didn’t know that Helen had befriended so many Moravians,” she said to Rebecca Newton in the pew behind us.

  “Befriend one, befriend all,” Rebecca said. “I think that she respected their God’s house more than ours.”

  Because of the large crowd the temperature in church quickly rose past comfort, and it seemed that all at once hand-held fans bloomed all down the pews. Eight women in my pew alone were working fans near their faces: Ruth Henley, Mekeel Dollard, Chelsea Webb, Lisa Flood, Clarissa Lindon, Edna Forbisher, Mary Kieley, and Olive Perrault. Reverend Sillet himself went through three glasses of water in less than half an hour. My attention flagged in the heat, but I recall that in his eulogy Sillet described Helen as a “dogged, otherwise-minded woman, contrary, opposed to the general sentiment of any given moment—and therefore a rarity, a source of deep yet unpredictable delight.”

  I truly wanted to like what Sillet said, because I liked Helen so much. And I could see where he had attempted a loving remembrance through honesty. Deep in my heart, though, I felt he had fallen short, that he had patronized Helen in death, right there in her coffin, which was made by Giles LaCotte in his father’s sawmill. As an unbridled rage toward Sillet rose in me, I was relieved when he finally moved on to the idea of prayer in general. I knew that his eulogy was nearly at an end.

  “We talk of inexorable laws,” he said. He poured a glass of water from a pitcher and drank it all the way down without stopping. He wiped his brow with a handkerchief. “ … but without any interference with the fixed order of nature, may not the spring be touched, away and above all general laws, in answer to prayer which brings the result that the believing heart craves for. The law of prayer is real and potent as any other. ‘Ask and ye shall receive,’ and so long as tragedies exist in human life and tears fall on the faces of the dead; so long as want and woe and suffering mark the path of humanity, so long will prayer continue to ascend to the ear of the All-Merciful One.

  “Amen,” he said.

  “Amen.”

  He paused, drew in a deep breath, then nodded to Mari-Lyma Fsjikskedjal, who was sitting in the frontmost pew. She was a tall, beautiful Norwegian woman in her late thirties. She rose gracefully—the back of her dress was stained with sweat—set down her fan on the pew, and walked up the two stairs to the organ, which had a vase of flowers on top. She placed one hand on the organ, the other on her chest. Francis Beckett began to play and Mari-Lyma sang:

  Oft hath the sea conferred Thy power,

  And given me back at Thy command;

  It could not, Lord, my life devour,

  Safe in the hollow of Thy hand.

  Mari-Lyma had a soprano voice and was in perfect pitch despite the heat and the sadness. The highest notes lifted her chin slightly. When she finished the third and final verse, she closed her eyes, opened them, and returned to her seat. She picked up her fan.

  In the silence immediately following Mari-Lyma’s hymn, the vaguely discernible sound of gramophone music drifted into the church. No matter how loud the gramophone’s volume, no matter how windless a day, music could not have carried in from as far as the lighthouse. Botho August must have brought the gramophone to the high meadow behind the church, cranked it up, and played his dirges. His and my mother’s dirges.

  In a short while the murmur of conversation started up, and I heard two entirely different sentiments.

  “If Botho August hadn’t been dallying all night with Alaric Vas, we might’ve had the lighthouse’s help and found Helen in time,” Abner Pittman, a man I had always liked and had worked with, said in a loud whisper. He sat in the pew in front of me and now, for the first time, suddenly seemed aware of my presence. “I’m sorry, Fabian,” he said. “I should’ve kept what everybody’s thinking to myself.”

  The second comment came from Elias Cutter, two pews back and to my left. He had leaned forward and said to Romeo Gillette, “Well, Reverend Sillet didn’t slide backwards in my esteem for that eulogy.”

  “Neither backwards nor forwards in mine,” Romeo said. Then both men stood up, and along with everyone else filed out of church and walked to the field behind the general store for a testimonial and lunch.

  Mrs. Berenice Elgin and her husband, Davey, had set out tables, and Bridget and Lemuel Spivey supervised the placement of food and drink. “The Moravians will eat, all right,” Davey said within my earshot, “but they’ll prefer to sit at one table together.” The Moravians’ table was at the north end of the group of tables.

  Then it began. At any point in the afternoon, I would say that almost every man, woman, and child in Witless Bay was in attendance, if only to pay brief respects, have a plate of food, and then go home. Platters of lobster, codfish stew, trout, potatoes, parsnips, and fruitcakes were on a separate table and people helped themselves. I carried a plate of food to my mother, who sat at the table farthest from the Moravians. I saw Margaret leave the church, but did not see her sitting down or milling about afterwards. I figured she had simply decided to go home, or off to drink by herself, perhaps to sit on Helen’s cold-storage shack. We had agreed to meet at Spivey’s that evening. Reverend Sillet more or less blended in, and Romeo took up the role of a kind of master of ceremonies.

  He was dressed in a formal black suit and neatly pressed white shirt, and wore a black beret, the only beret in Witless Bay. There were too many children shouting, crying, running about, too many separate conversations rising and falling, too much over-all commotion for Romeo to command everyone’s attention. Yet he managed quite well with the three or four tables nearest to him. I sat four chairs away. He tapped a glass and shouted, “This testimonial for Helen Twombly has commenced!” Things did generally quiet down then, a few screaming children were carried off, and Romeo tapped the glass again. “Anyone care to begin? A prayer might be in order.”

  Adele Harrison, a woman near Helen’s age, stood up across the table, assisted by her niece, Rhea, who remained standing as long as her great-aunt did. Rhea held Adele’s elbow with one hand and put her other arm around Adele’s waist. I recall looking at Adele’s plate. She had taken the smallest helpings of food I had ever seen an adult take, a few bites of meat and peas. For her advanced age, she had a remarkably strong voice and did not take a prayerful tone. “In 1905,” she said, “on the Feast of St. John the Baptist Day, which people up in St. John’s celebrate in a colorful way … I was visiting my grandchildren there. I’d decided to take a walk by myself down to the harbor. It was a very cold day. And that’s when I saw with my own eyes an iceberg in the shape of the Virgin Mary. Well, why in hell was it so bitterl
y cold so nobody else was there to witness this? I don’t know. I didn’t even risk trying to convince my thick-headed daughter of what I’d seen. When I got back home to Witless Bay, I asked myself, Who’d believe me, let alone grasp the meaning? … Helen Twombly. And to this very moment, Helen Twombly was the only one shared my secret.”

  Adele and Rhea sat down. The Moravians said “Amen” in unison.

  “Was that a prayer?” Romeo said. “I’m not suggesting that it wasn’t, Adele.”

  “It was a personal reminiscence,” Adele said, “to offset the sort offered by Reverend Sillet, who was embarrassed to have Helen in his church.”

  “Well, thank you, then.”

  Apparently what Adele had said had wholly sufficed, because nobody else offered a second testimonial. Looking around at silent faces like an auctioneer, Romeo sat down, and an afternoon of steady eating, drinking, and talk followed.

  It was threatening rain now, though not foggy at all. Yet at about four o’clock the foghorn sounded a single, long blast. There were perhaps a hundred people still gathered, and while nothing could entirely sober the drunkest, the foghorn did silence everyone for a moment.

  Soon Botho August appeared at the top of the grassy incline in clear view of the tables. He held a whiskey bottle and had obviously been drinking. I stood and looked at my mother. She covered her face with her hands.

  Botho dropped to his knees. He had on a suit but no socks or shoes. He tucked his head to his chest, clutched his knees, and tumbled to within feet of the Moravians’ table. None of the Moravians moved from their chairs. Botho got slowly to his feet, grabbed a breast of quail from Jarvis Bellecamp’s plate. “Ever drawn one of these, Fabian?” he said. He stuffed some quail meat into his mouth, then spit part of it out.

  “Before I did those somersaults,” he said, slowly shaking his head back and forth, “I planned on holding a grudge for nobody inviting me here to this testimonial.”

  “The whole village was naturally invited,” Romeo said. “There wasn’t a thought to print up a special invitation for you.”

  “Well, no matter,” Botho said. He picked up a bottle of wine, cocked his head back, held his mouth open in an exaggerated O, and dribbled in the remaining few drops. “I feel a lot better now, anyway. It may be of interest to the truth”—he steadied himself, hands flat on the table—“to the truth, to inform you, my dear neighbors, that Helen Twombly came to me with her intentions.”

  My mother set out toward our house. Rocking on his heels, Botho squinted and watched her leave. He turned back and spoke more or less at Romeo.

  “We had a little chat, Helen and me, early on the day she died,” Botho said. “In that regard, count me as an accomplice to her drowning, but at her own request. Keeping the lighthouse beam off, as I did that night.”

  Botho then fell over onto the Moravians’ table. More precisely, his head shattered Jarvis Bellecamp’s plate.

  Jarvis got up and said, “We’ve felt welcome, anyway.” He nodded to his families and began walking toward the wagons. In only a few moments, the Moravians’ wagons made a dust-up down the road, south.

  I was one of the last to leave. Well after the dishes, spare food, and bottles were cleared, after the other tables were taken in, Botho remained sprawled across the Moravians’ table.

  Helen was buried next to Emile. A light rain had begun. By dark, Spivey’s was packed to the last table. I think Lemuel even brought a few chairs down from his own dining room. Margaret had saved me a place at a corner table. I got a cup of coffee right away. I drank it, then suddenly needed some air. “I’ll be right back,” I said to Margaret. “You go ahead, order anything for me.”

  I walked back to the Moravians’ table. I sat next to Botho. He groaned, yet did not fully wake. I could hear rain right on Botho’s back, on the table, and out on the sea.

  By the time I got back to Spivey’s, my clothes were soaked through. Margaret had finished her meal. “Where’d you go in such a hurry?” she said.

  “To look at Botho August close up.”

  “Not a pretty sight, I imagine.” She took out a little flask and poured whiskey into her empty water glass.

  “He’s ruined a perfectly good suit.”

  6

  The Murder

  It was a chill morning in mid-September. I had not slept all night. In fact, from just after supper I drank coffee without letting up, a binge unlike any I could remember. At dawn I made my way to Margaret’s house. I knew that Enoch was away to the north. I pounded on her door until its rough wood chafed my knuckles to bleeding.

  “I hear you!” she said. “Hold on! A girl’s got to wear clothes to the door!” The door opened. Margaret had on her nightshirt. “No surprise it’s you, Fabian.”

  “Please row out with me to Mint Cove. I need you to figure out for me what’s on my mind.”

  “Why there in particular?”

  “Past the lobster boats nobody’s around.”

  “Just us school kids sharing nasty secrets, eh?”

  “Just us, yes.”

  She left the door open. I saw her slip on a raincoat and galoshes, then take a revolver from the desk drawer.

  Once outside, she shifted the revolver from one pocket to the other, slowly, so that I would see it. Looking at me, she shrugged. “Scoters have stayed late this year, I’m sure you’ve noticed,” she said. “And I’ve got nothing for supper.”

  The wind was up, but we could hear the cries of gulls in the air. As we made our way down to the wharf, we locked arms and stumbled a bit because of the fog. Near the wharf, we heard dories knocking against the pilings.

  “Let’s use that one,” Margaret said, pointing to a dory. It was secured to a bollard on the embankment. A spare oar was under a tarpaulin puddled with rain. Leak water pooled at the bottom. The rail was chalked with gull droppings, ground in by gulls walking it. We climbed in and faced each other.

  “I think I’m coming down with something,” she said. Her nightshirt was hiked up. Her raincoat was open. Her face was flushed, sweaty. Spools of her hair lay tamped against her forehead. “You don’t look at the peak of health, either.”

  “I drank thirty cups of coffee last night.”

  Margaret rowed. Mint Cove was about half a mile to the north. The name itself was wishful; even on a day as brisk and clear as that one broke, the wind going seaward, the cove reeked of rotting kelp. Halfway to the cove, Margaret let the boat drift. “Such a lovely courting date you’ve asked me on, Fabian. And so early in the morning. I guess you just couldn’t wait to see me, eh?” She ran a finger along the rail, chalking it up. “A little behind each ear,” she said, daubing it on as though it were perfume.

  “Wash that off.”

  “I’ll do no such thing.”

  The outline of land was forming, scrag spruce, cliffs; puffins, guillemots, razorbills every which way, like confetti against the dark rock face. There were a few lobster boats out, and Margaret rowed far clear of them, then secured the oars. She placed the revolver on her lap.

  “Over there,” she whispered.

  She pointed to where a gather of common scoters rested on the swell. She took out a handkerchief full of bullets from her pocket, loaded, spun the cartridge, then laid the revolver back on her lap. She stared at me, rubbing her thumb with her other thumb.

  “You’ve painted pictures of scoter ducks,” she said, “and now we’re out to kill some. But that hero of yours, Audubon, he did the same.”

  “It’s true, he didn’t always paint from life.”

  She suddenly pointed the revolver at my face, then swung it around, aimed it at the distant lighthouse, and said, “Bang! Bang!”

  Lowering the revolver, she turned and saw that I was shaken.

  “Fabian, for God’s sake. Here your father’s off to Anticosti, hoping to earn enough money for your stupid goddamn arranged wedding, to that fourth cousin they foisted on you. Meanwhile, your very own mother is shacked up with Botho August. Up there playing gramo
phone records. Cozy, the two of them. And she hasn’t been at your breakfast table since Orkney left.”

  “Those are facts I swallowed a ways back.”

  “And they’ve torn you up inside. You can borrow this gun any time you like.”

  Her arm fully stretched, she popped a scoter straight on. She rowed to it as the others flurried off, then settled all at once ten or so yards away. She lifted the dead one on the flat of an oar, then dropped it into a wooden bucket.

  “What say we name this first little dead bird Mr. Botho August?” she said.

  “Let’s not name it anything. Margaret, maybe I could stay with you tonight, even though it’s one night early.”

  “Afraid not. I prefer keeping it to Tuesdays and Thursdays like always. It keeps life familiar.” She held out the revolver. “Care for a shot?”

  “No, I’ll watch.”

  “Just as I thought.”

  As easily as if they were mechanical ducks floating in a carnival moat, Margaret picked off five scoters in quick order. She reloaded. The bucket was now crammed full. She emptied the birds into a burlap sack. She buttoned her raincoat to the top and shivered.

  “I’m coming down with something for sure,” she said.

  “Maybe I should row back.”

  “No! If it’s a fever, I want to work to make it worse as soon as possible. The sooner it gets here, the sooner it’ll leave, is my opinion. Maybe I’ll swallow some of that powder from Gillette’s pharmaceuticals later on, that makes me piss off-color. Fever or no, I’ll expect you tomorrow night. I’ll go on sleeping with the village idiot. Mostly for pity’s sake.”