September/October 2015

  “Beautiful, aren’t they?” It was a cold Sunday morning in the fall. The trees were bare and looked like they needed a coat. The ocean water lapped up against the sand, liquid ice. Two boys played by the beach, each daring the other to go farther into the freezing water. A little girl sat atop a sand dune, staring but not seeing anything, her eyes dark blue and blank, her mind traveling far from the chilly scene laid out in front of her. *          *          * My mind was with my grandmother. I could just imagine her sitting next to me on the frigid sand, in her bright red coat, pointing out all kinds of clouds in the sky, finding things that were invisible, like fat Arctic terns hidden between the sand dunes. Then she would take me home, make her cinnamon hot chocolate, and sit down and keep knitting striped slippers to sell at her shop the next day. My brothers would come home, cold, wet, and laughing. Mother would return from the bakery and settle down, close her eyes, and listen to some unheard music. After dinner we would all sit around the fire. Papa would come from the kitchen and tell a story about growing up in Denmark. The story usually involved his brother, Uncle Alge. Uncle Alge was special because he could feel no pain. He did ridiculous things. He once took a swim in the ocean in December, came out, and rolled around in the snow. My grandma would be sipping elderberry tea, Mother would be stoking the fire and drawing things on her sketchpad. My two brothers would be playing some card game. I would be listening to Papa’s story. Now Grandma has gone back to her home in Wales and Papa has gone to help Uncle Alge in Denmark. It is just Mother and I running the bakery. Grandma’s knitting shop has a big, mean, red “For Sale” sign in front of it. Mama says that once we sell the shop we will go back to Wales and join Grandma. I do not want to leave our town in Quebec by the sea. This is the only home I have ever known. I am Glas Aaderyn Eden-Pasãre. The funny thing about my name is that if you translate it into English it would literally mean blue bird bird-bird. As it happens, I love birds. It was seven o’clock when a knock splintered the soft morning silence. Mama opened the door and was met by a stream of apologies, in French, of course. This must be the postman, Étang, I thought. He is our village chatterbox. Once the swell of explanations had subsided, he handed my mama a small, rather plain, brown envelope, the kind of envelope that could not contain anything good. He left, and Mama promptly shut the door, locking out any further disturbances to our morning. She slit open the letter with a satisfying rip, as if ripping it would make all the trouble it might contain disappear. My mama looked distinctly unhappy with the contents of the letter. She opened her mouth to speak but closed it again, an indecisive look on her face. Finally, after giving the distinct impression that she was a fish, she spoke. “It seems that your cousin Maskine is coming to visit.” Maskine is the daughter of Uncle Alge and my dead Aunt Marge, who died when Maskine was ten. She arrived two days later. I saw her in the driveway, a small, coat-shaped figure, looking up at the house. The house is beautiful, it has a looming presence that you cannot easily forget. She seemed to be relishing every last detail, as if imprinting all of the worn, smooth stone in her mind. She struck me as a person who would not miss anything. Perhaps she could teach my brothers not to dump their green beans on the floor for Galapagos, our dog-like pet tortoise. She finally came inside. Placing her suitcase down in the center of the entrance hall, she proceeded to start staring again, looking up at the stairway that spiraled like a snake, a beginning but no apparent end. At dinner that night Maskine was silent. In the days that followed, the silence expanded, an ever growing puddle. She did not seem to be able to speak. Some tricky hobgoblin had stolen her tongue. She seemed to wear sadness as a second skin. I decided to give her time to adapt, like a new species. It takes them millions of years to develop all the skills that they need to survive. If they don’t die out first. One cold December day I was sitting on my favorite sand dune. As usual I was watching the birds run from the crystallizing foam. I loved the way they did their complicated dance across the frigid sand, as if their feet were flying to escape the cold. I wish I could dance that well. I am a horrible dancer. When I try I stomp on my dance partner’s feet, and then my brothers keel over laughing at the look on my mother’s face. Soon we are all holding our sides, we laugh so hard. “Beautiful, aren’t they?” I was rudely jumped out of my imagination and back into reality. I turned around. Maskine stood there, looking cold. “What do you mean?” I asked. “The birds, of course. Aren’t they dancing?” And those words would echo in my head for a long time after that. In that moment she saw the birds exactly the way that I did. The silence still hung around Maskine afterward, but it was more comfortable, like one between old friends who understood one another. One morning, about a week later, the doorbell rang. I was in my attic room, working on my mechanical birds. I love to make things. Especially things involving birds. My father started to teach me how to make mechanical animals when I was five.