Bee Season (28 page)

“Of course,” he says, but it’s the same voice Aaron uses when told there’s no more room on the team.

Even though there’s nothing left to say, Aaron remains standing beside the open car door, his father within arm’s reach. The two resemble nothing so much as a couple concluding an awkward first date. After refusing the camera, Aaron feels he shouldn’t make the first move to leave. The longer they stand there, the longer Aaron feels that this is the time to say everything.

Saul’s silence and immobility are linked to similar feelings of immanent and fleeting opportunity. Aaron having refused the camera, Saul feels the need to leave him with something else, a small acknowledgment, perhaps, of Aaron’s increasing independence, or an admission of his own recent preoccupation. The air between them carries an imbalance of the kind a few well-chosen words could correct.

“Dad?” Aaron says, making Saul’s heart jump. “I just wanted to tell you …” Aaron feels how easy it could be, can actually sense the truth on his tongue.

But looking up from his shoes is a mistake. The undisguised eagerness of Saul’s face frightens him. It’s a face that begs to be pleased.

“I just wanted to tell you to have a good weekend.” Aaron can feel the heat in his face as he blushes, digs his fingernails into his palms in disappointment.

“Thanks, son. You too.” What felt like possibility has soured into awkwardness, the weight of unexplored conversations too much for the moment to bear. Saul clasps his son in a hug. It was the hug meant for words unspoken, a hug which, in their absence, feels staged.

Aaron suddenly wants to get as far away from his father as possible. “Well, I guess I’d better get going. Everyone’s waiting.”

“All right.” Another pause, shorter this time. “I love you, son.”

“Yeah, Dad. I love you too,” but Aaron is already getting into the car, mumbling his words to his seat belt as he closes the door. Though he has been cultivating the ability to observe himself and the world at a spiritual remove, Aaron is suddenly mired so deep inside himself that he can barely breathe, weighed down by what he has done as much as by what he hasn’t.

Watching his son drive away, Saul wishes they could back time up and try again.

As soon as the
ISKCON
temple comes into sight, Aaron feels lighter. He has to struggle not to speed into the parking lot. The woman at the door is familiar to him now, smiles at the sight of his arrival.

“Hari Bol. Chali tells me you’ve come for the weekend?”

Aaron nods, grinning. Being here reminds him how inconsequential the camping story is compared to what it is allowing him to do. He takes off his shoes, cherishing the feeling of his feet on the smooth floor.

“Chali is upstairs. He’s expecting you.”

Aaron hesitates, waiting for the woman to lead him. When she doesn’t move, he realizes that he already knows the way.

It is only as Aaron is changing out of his jeans that the reality of what he is doing hits. Until now, the idea of spending a weekend in the temple was purely conceptual. Staring at his
karmi
clothes on the floor, Aaron realizes he is really doing it. The smell of incense wafts from the saffron cloth he wraps around himself. Aaron wills the scent to mark his body the way the beads have marked his fingertips. A phrase from the Shabbat service suddenly pops into his head:
I am anointed with fragrant oil.

The robe changes everything. Bowing before the statue of Pra-bhupada and the deities feels natural. He is no longer an outsider. If someone were to walk into the temple they wouldn’t see Aaron, but a devotee performing
arati.
Aaron loves how his voice blends with the others, as if they were all singing with the same mouth.

When the preliminary mantras and invocations are completed, the
Hare Kṛṣṇa
chant begins. It starts slowly, almost delicately, the words flower petals on Aaron’s tongue. The chant is so familiar to him now, each syllable so much a part of him, that it has acquired the unconscious grace of breathing. Then, with the sound of the
mridanga
drum, the chant begins to quicken. Without looking to the others for reinforcement, Aaron begins to dance. Aaron, who at Homecoming always keeps to the wall. Aaron, who refuses to go skating. His legs and arms are moving on their own, the rhythm of the drum emanating from every muscle, the chant a synaptic message. Aaron finds himself holding finger cymbals. He throws his hands above his head and feels their reverberation down his arms. He is laughing now, his head tilted toward a ceiling painted a cloudless blue. Aaron occupies the center of a dancing circle. Every face is smiling. Every arm reaches toward him. At the sounding of the conch shell, Aaron knows he is home.

Even though Eliza knows there’s no chance of anyone coming through the study door, the act of reaching up to the shelf and removing a book is terrifying. She halfway expects her father to storm into the room, his disappointment freezing her in place, prolonging her betrayal. Instead, the moment of removing the book is so completely normal as to be anticlimactic. The book slides off the shelf and into her hand like any other. In the space of a few seconds, a lifelong spell has been broken.

It is a slim volume like
Hidden Eden,
leather-bound with Hebrew on its spine. Elly is unsure she has selected the right one until she finds the notes toward the book’s back.
Light of the Intellect
greets her in her father’s slanted hand. The first few pages bore her with lofty language and convoluted biblical passages, but Elly knows to keep reading. She finds what she’s looking for in a single sentence separate from the rest of the text:

This is the mystery of how to pronounce the Glorious Name.

The words that follow are so familiar Elly forgets she’s reading them for the first time. Abulafia’s instructions for preparing to chant are identical to
Hidden Eden,
save for additional Blessed Holy Ones and King of Kings along the way. It’s when Abulafia gets to talking about vowels that Eliza gets really excited.

The names of the vowels are different because Abulafia is talking about Hebrew, not English, but the sounds they make are the same. Eliza knows them.
Kametz, Tzeré, Chirek, Cholam, Shurek.
A, E, I, O, U. And now Eliza realizes why her father was so pleased with her. Because Abulafia’s instructions for each vowel describe what Eliza is already doing.

Standing alone in her father’s study, the sole light above her father’s desk casting long shadows across her face, Eliza follows Abulafia’s instructions for the chanting of יהוה
Adonai.
It is a little different than she’s used to. She has to breathe at certain times and not at others. Ultimately, she’s not transmuting the letters so much as exploring how each one sounds with every vowel. The first time, she has to refer to her father’s translation for every successive step. Every time she makes a mistake she has to start over. What keeps her going is Abulafia’s description of what happens next. His instructions are free of flowery prose and biblical confusion. They are simple as a recipe. If an image appears, bow before it. If a voice is heard, say, “Speak, my Lord,” and prepare to listen. Eliza thinks back to countless Amidahs spent waiting to hear that voice. Abulafia’s words speak to Eliza like a promise. She will master the breaths, the vowels, and the movements attending these four simple letters, and then she will listen. And finally, she will hear the voice she has been waiting for, the one that will explain everything.

Miriam has realized that she prefers to sleep alone. Her attempts to use Saul as a buffer between herself and the houses was just one more drain on her energy. She knows she is fighting a losing battle. It is only a matter of time.

Some nights she gets as far as putting the key in the ignition before making herself stop. Once she keeps the urge at bay by sleeping in the car. No night is complete now until she has entered the garage not less than twice, at least one of those times getting as far as opening the driver-side door.

She knows her preoccupation is causing her to miss things. Saul and Eliza’s study habits are taking up more and more of their time. Miriam knows that she should probably do something to console Aaron, but Aaron has always been Saul’s child. Even as a baby he seemed happier in her husband’s arms. The effort required to resist the houses leaves Miriam just enough strength to ghost the motions of her daily routine. There is no surplus energy for motherly words of wisdom to a boy obviously replaced in his father’s attentions.

Miriam had thought the night of her final capitulation to the houses would be presaged by something to push her over the edge, but it is a night the same as any before. Perhaps Aaron’s absence makes a difference, lessening as it does the family’s gravitational pull, but more likely Miriam just realizes she has nothing left with which to resist. As she gets into her car, her rational objections to what she is about to attempt — the higher risks of night entry, the greater likelihood that someone will be home — sound as far away as the sleep-time rhythms of her children’s breathing. Backing out the driveway, coasting with the engine off to avoid making a sound, Miriam feels a huge internal release, as if a secret pair of lungs, frozen all this time inside her, have taken first breath. Bearing down the empty highway, the silence of the street pouring into her open windows, Miriam cannot believe she waited this long. For stretches, there are no other cars to be seen, not even the wink of lights in her rearview mirror. The world has become Miriam’s empty mansion, rooms stretching to the horizon waiting to be filled. Miriam is young again, the immortal girl whose life is infinite, who can drive a familiar back road with her headlights off because she knows nothing bad can possibly happen.

With the road deserted, Miriam hears the Dopplered
phwa
of exit ramp signs rushing past her open window. More than ever, the thought that these signs speak to her makes sense, the sound reinforcing the notion that they’ve been guiding her all along.

Miriam ends up in a planned community, four models of home alternating in varying patterns to give the perception of diversity. It’s a neighborhood devoid of streets or roads, having traded up for lanes, passes, and ways. Miriam finds herself at a house, dark save for the steady yellow illumination of its front door. She parks her car in front instead of down the street, secure in the knowledge that there is no one awake to see it.

It is late enough that the grass is filled with tomorrow’s dew. Its moisture seeps through the cuff of Miriam’s pants to lick her ankles. It feels to her like a benediction. The movie-set stillness of the picture-book houses and manicured lawns adds to Miriam’s sense of invincibility. She is both director and star of this show, entirely in control of the action.

The fact that it is the nicest home she has ever approached doesn’t deter her from walking up to its front door and feeling surprised to find it locked. She checks the mailbox and beneath the macramé doormat without success for a spare key. She is about to walk around back when she thinks to check the garage door. She is unaccustomed to houses with attached garages.

When Miriam pulls up tentatively on the door handle, she encounters no resistance. The air is cool. An occasional cricket rubbing its legs together is all that pricks the night’s silence. Miriam’s senses are so acutely sharpened that she imagines she can feel the slight differences in temperature resulting from the pinpoints of feeble light cast by distant stars upon her skin.

The garage door is halfway raised when there is an explosion of sound. Miriam is knocked onto her back. Her night vision collapses into itself, her senses reeling from sudden overload. She does not realize at first that she has been knocked over, tries to walk, and is confused by her legs striding uselessly through the air. There is something pressing into her, something making sound and weighing her down. The back of her head strikes the driveway and immediately begins to swell. Even as she realizes she is being attacked by a dog, a distant voice inside herself is concocting a story to explain away the emerging bump.

It is a mid-size dog but heavy. Each time it barks, Miriam’s face is awash in dog breath. Its front paws press upon her chest. Miriam begins to wrestle, instinctively rolling in an attempt to slide the dog off rather than try to force it off her body. She manages to roll onto her stomach and push up from the ground. She is standing. She wants to return to the night’s previous stillness just long enough to give her a chance to breathe, but the dog is lunging. She must force her suddenly leaden limbs to run. She moves quickly toward the car, not noticing the dew now as the dog runs barking behind her. A light comes on in an upstairs window before she has reached the car door. By the time a face appears she has already pulled away from the curb, thankful to have left the front door unlocked, the dog, still barking, running after her.

Miriam will never know what kind of dog attacked her, will imagine a Doberman or a German shepherd with snarling, angry teeth despite the fact she bears neither bite marks nor broken skin. It will never cross her mind that the dog was a beagle and that she was knocked over from surprise more than force. The children of the house she fled will use the incident to convince their parents to keep the dog, which had been on the verge of being given away for its propensity to shit at the slightest hint of thunder, it having been sequestered in the garage that night because of a stormy forecast. The family will never know what manner of burglar their dog deflected, will imagine a scruffy, heavy-set man with scars and a limp groping the family jewelry. It will never cross their minds that their intruder was an upper middle-class wife and mother of two who would have had eyes only for their Chinese teakettle.

Aaron’s difficulty falling asleep is perhaps augmented by the knowledge that he will have to get up at 3:30 A.M., a time so exotic its possibilities seem endless. Until now, three thirty has been a time only inhabited by adults like his mother, a time suspected to harbor great secrets. By setting foot inside this mysterious temporal zone, Aaron is certain he will be making a foray into his own adulthood. He is still child enough to believe that adulthood brings certainty and self-confidence. In waking at 3:30 A.M., Aaron anticipates that the strength to face his father will sprout from an internal seed waiting to take root.