Archive for the ‘Kat Beyer’ Category
Aunt Mary’s Place
Tuesday, September 25th, 2007
My aunt left me a house. Well–I was the third cousin in line, anyway. The first two didn’t manage to spend a whole night alone in the place, which is what she asked them to do in her will.
Of course the house is on the edge of town on a high hill, and of course it is surrounded by gnarled trees that need pruning. I walked up slowly, feeling more forty-five than ever, and thought to myself, ‘This place isn’t any more gloomy than it was when I was a kid.’ But I’d come in the afternoon on purpose. Not smart arriving at dusk.
The caretaker had left me a dinner in the fridge, and I ate it out on the front porch. It was that first day in September when you know summer is gone for good, and the wind gets tricksy and just a little bit mean.
I had this odd idea that if I turned on her ancient television set I would see her face, so since no one was around to catch me being a superstitious idiot I read a book instead. I went to bed early, 8:30 by my wristwatch (of course all the house clocks were stopped by other superstitious idiots).
At nine I thought I heard my name: “Rooobert? Rooooobert?” But it turned out it was just the door creaking open in the wind.
At eleven I woke up with a start. Someone was grunting, “Who’s there? Who’s there?” in the corner. Shaking, I turned on the light, and saw a bullfrog that had somehow made its way into the house. I took a pretty glass bowl from the nightstand, scooped the fellow up, and took him outside. “A tad late in the season for you, little guy?” I said as I liberated him.
At the stroke of midnight my aunt flew out of the shadows, hair streaming, eyes starting out of her skull, shrieking these dreadful words:
“I didn’t bake that pie so you could leave half your slice on the plate, boy!”
I was so scared I sat up and started laughing out of sheer terror. “Shi—Jes—holy tomato, Aunt Mary, why the he—heck did you have to come at me like that?!”
She stared at me, and believe me a ghost with eyes half out of her sockets can stare.
“Anyway, I finished all my pie tonight,” I added reproachfully.
I guess this was what she wanted, because her hair calmed down and she sat on the edge of the bed. I waited, still really shook up. Finally, she said, “So, was my sister Lucy happy with the silver, or did she want the house too?”
“Oh, no, though she was mad Matt didn’t stay the whole night.”
“He was fun. Didn’t stay to argue about pie, for sure.”
We spent the rest of the night catching up on gossip since the funeral.
She still shows up sometimes. It annoyed my wife at first, and she’s a good-natured woman as a rule. But the kids think it’s cool.
The Water Lily House
Friday, August 31st, 2007
The Waterlily House at Kew closes in November, and, nearly always, I am the last visitor there. Then I wait–without noticing I’m waiting–through the entire chilly, bone-wet English winter for it to open again. The Waterlily House doesn’t float on the surface of my mind through December, January, February and March, not at all. Only, sometimes, when I’m having a cup of milky tea at home after a long day at work, I will feel the steam on my eyelids when I lean over it, and think of the House.
Through those months I think, without meaning to think, of one lily in particular. It’s the sacred lily of the Nile, and it has translucent blue petals and a yellow heart. I wonder where that cup of color goes in the dark months. I think it sinks into the roots buried in the mud at the bottom of its pool. Does it sleep in winter, or is it always standing ready to return, or both?
In April the lilies and I both return. I take the first Saturday I can, even if I was up late with my mates the night before, and if April is being a bit chilly I wrap up against her, but always in layers, starting with my favorite dress and with a jumper and a jacket and a scarf. In April the Waterlily House is still silent. I stand inside the door and take off the scarf, jacket, and jumper, and walk through the silent steaming air. I fill my lungs with the smell of green tropics.
I come back again and again, waiting until the Nile lily blooms. I’ve begun to realize that the day it blooms, and all the days that its blue and yellow petals are open to the air, are the only days I feel truly calm in the whole year, the only days when I make sense to myself. I wish I knew why.
This year, while I gazed on the open flower for the first time this spring, I heard a sound like the ringing of tiny tambourine bells. The next weekend it was trumpets, and I thought I saw the water flash with hot sunlight.
I once overheard my mother saying to my father, “I miss the temples. I miss the silence on the river. So much noise–cars are so noisy!” I think one day soon I will have an answer. In the meantime, I stand before the lily, my jumpers and scarves on my arm, and stare into that translucent cup of blue and gold.