Bearded Women (4 page)

He figured she’d probably look better once she passed. Most people did. It was the in-between time that was upsetting, when people had bodies that were withering or oozing and not much could be done about it. Such had been the case with his mother and tea-loving aunt who both died in nursing homes. Martin went to visit his aunt once, his mother twice. They were barely more than skeletons, had machines that breathed for them, fed them, removed waste from their bowels. They blinked at Martin sadly and touched his hand. Their skin smelled peculiar and was slightly sticky, had been claimed by odours and textures no amount of washing could remove. After the initial visits Martin stayed home and worked on the coffins—his aunt’s teacup, his mother’s pink pump.

His mother loved shoes, fancy ones. She had beautiful feet, ones that looked like they belonged to a forty-year-old even when she was seventy-eight and needed a walker to shuffle around her house. She did so in gold beaded slippers, red sequined sandals, low fuchsia heels, or lavender flats with daisies embroidered along the side. Her neighbours called Martin on the day they found her collapsed on the kitchen floor. The doctors told Martin her insides were failing. The first time he visited his mother, Martin took all her shoes to the nursing home and lined them up in bookshelves along her wall so she could see them from her bed. The second time he visited, the exquisite definition of her bones was too much for him to bear.

While she lay between too-sterile white sheets, he knelt in his garage, glued five thousand magenta sequins on the outside of the pump, and remembered his mother at fifty-five when she was plump and brown-haired and smelled of cinnamon. Martin could not explain why, but the shoe had emerged as naturally as his animal carvings, as if that block of wood had only ever wanted to be a very large high-heeled pump.

Martin made a point to go to all of the funerals where his work was displayed. Even though he was ambivalent about some of his caskets, he felt a duty as the artist to attend the memorials as there were few other places where his art was praised. The deceased always looked pleasant, wore fancy clothes as if ready for a concert or dinner party. His mother and his aunt had been tucked snug in their coffins in nice dresses, their faces made up, their hair neatly permed. Both of them seemed to have gained a little weight and there was a hint of colour to their cheeks. It was reassuring how their bodies had been restored, how they were now caught in a moment of pristine order. Martin could make himself imagine they had died like that.

Martin called Odessa after four weeks, earlier than she had expected. He wanted her to come look at the shell and check the fit.

Odessa still hadn’t figured out how she was going to kill herself, but hoped Martin might have some knowledge on the subject of death.

“What’s the best way to die?” said Odessa after she pulled into his driveway and got out of her car.

“I don’t do consulting,” he said.

“I’ll pay you extra,” she said.

“I’m really not an authority on the matter.” Martin turned and started walking to his workshop.

“But you see a lot of dead people,” Odessa said, hobbling after him on her sore feet.

“When people come to me,” Martin said, “they usually aren’t in a situation where they can choose how they’re going to die.”

“Nobody opts to go out early?” said Odessa.

“If they have plans they don’t share them with me,” said Martin. “I’m just an artistic advisor. Sometimes they ask me what they should wear after the fact.”

He opened the door to his workshop.

“What about how not to die?” she said.

“Drunken and penniless in an alley,” he said.

“I hadn’t considered that,” she said.

“Don’t,” he said.

The shell was on his worktable, lovely and cream coloured and satin smooth, perhaps five feet long and five feet wide and two and a half feet high when the halves were together.

Martin said, “I still have to sand the inside a bit and screw on the hinge plates, but I figured you should try it so I know if I need to carve out more room.”

Odessa’s legs were paining, she’d forgotten her pills in the car, but she grimaced only slightly when he helped her up onto the sturdy worktable, lifted the top off the shell. The hollow inside bore slight grooves from Martin’s chiselling tools, but despite the roughness Odessa curled herself into a dreamy foetal position. It was perfect.

“I like it very much,” she said.

Martin stood by the table.

“Looks good,” he said after a moment. “You can stand up now.”

“No,” said Odessa because the shell seemed to make her elbows and knees ache less. It would hurt to get out. In the shell her insides felt different. Softer.

Martin chewed on his bottom lip for a moment.

“You have to go. I need to keep working on the shell,” he said.

“I like it in here,” said Odessa. “I don’t want to get out yet.”

Martin said, “I told you, it’s not done.”

“You have to work on it right now?” said Odessa.

Martin didn’t say anything, stood there for three or four more moments. He’d progressed on the shell more quickly than expected, found once he started working on the scallop it became an obsession. The shell mesmerized him with its contours, the grooves in its smooth surface. Martin studied scallops before he began working, loved how the sea creatures could secrete a hard casing around their bodies, how they lived out the entirety of their lives in the shell.

When he started to carve he found the scallop was already in the wood, smelling of sea, waiting to be released. The shell was not merely a box. It was a creature. He lavished the outside with sandpaper, regretted having to hollow it out as he wanted to carve the scallop itself. It was what belonged there, not an elderly woman.

Martin wanted to line the shell in cream satin, paint the whole thing periwinkle, imagine a three-foot-wide scallop could rest there. He wanted to float it in his bathtub and watch the scallop’s massive foot poke out between the two wooden shell halves, flawless and petal-smooth, to explore the ceramic contours of its new home.

But Martin was afraid of Odessa, didn’t like looking at her for very long. Partly out of anxiety and partly out of hunger he decided to be nice, have an early lunch and give her a few more minutes in the shell. In the kitchen Martin lingered over his ham sandwich and the newspaper, waited a full hour before returning to the garage to confront Odessa.

“Time to get out,” said Martin.

“No,” said Odessa, “I’m staying here.”

She had been thinking about the shell every day for a month. There was ample time to do so since most of her hours were spent watching television and trying to alleviate her pain through learning about gardening and cooking and needlework. She kept forty bags of peas in her freezer, pulled twenty out each morning after breakfast and put them all over her body while she lay on the couch. There was still pain but it was numb pain, made it easier to separate her mind from her body. Around two in the afternoon she put the twenty defrosted bags of peas back in the freezer and took out the remaining twenty bags of frozen peas, repeated the process.

The wooden shell felt warm and cool, even more soothing than frozen peas. When she concentrated she thought it was rocking her back and forth.

Martin said, “Don’t you need to go to the bathroom or eat?”

“I’m going to die here,” said Odessa.

Martin flexed his fingers, wanted to protect his shell, haul the scallop to the water where it belonged. He thought Odessa’s face had turned a shade paler since she’d arrived, but he could not be left in his garage with the beautiful shell and the husk of a woman. He would not be able to control the drool threading from her mouth, the loosening of her bowels. Usually when Martin carved he did not feel his body, it became part of the wood. He was the wood. If there was an ache in his elbow or a sliver in his thumb it was overlooked, unimportant. Nothing existed but the next stroke of the chisel. Odessa, like his other clients, made him aware of the fragility of his lungs, the stiffness of his fingers, the twinge in his lower back.

“You can’t die in the shell,” Martin said. “You’ll ruin the aesthetic. People are supposed to look nice for their funerals. If you starve there, all covered with shit, it’s not going to be pretty.”

Odessa winkled her nose and shifted her legs slightly. Martin had a point. If she stayed in the shell to die she might look more like a bag lady than Venus. Not that she’d entertained the thought of looking like Venus. Perhaps Venus’ aunt or first grade teacher. Presentable. But in the shell her body curled happily, able to rest as it wanted.

“I’ll call the police,” Martin said, his words echoing on the concrete floor. “They’ll come and dump you out.”

Odessa coughed. “Let them,” she said.

Martin paused.

“If you don’t get out, I won’t sell you the shell,” he said.

“You have to,” she said. “I gave you an advance.”

“No contract was signed,” he said. “I’ll give back your money and keep the shell myself.”

This was a wonderful and an awful idea, and one he’d been considering since Odessa arrived and he realised how badly he wanted the shell. If he didn’t sell it he might not have enough in his account to pay for his mortgage and food and car loan, but he also knew Odessa couldn’t die in his garage and he guessed she had the power to do so.

Odessa was quiet for a moment.

“Bring my pills from the car,” she said.

He found her purse. He found her keys. He found a small bottle of pills on the passenger seat, gave Odessa the four she requested along with a glass of water and a half hour to get ready.

Odessa knew she needed something to drink. Even more importantly, she believed Martin when he said he would not sell her the shell.

Pain surged as she stepped out of the scallop. She lost that sweet peace with her body. When she went to the bathroom she had diarrhoea. Martin was good enough to make her some mint tea, though, and when she held the warm mug her fingers hurt a little less.

“The shell could be finished now,” she said. “Just tie it to the top of my car and I’ll take it home and pay you in full. It would be less work for you.”

Odessa knew that if she had the shell, if she could lie inside it without pain, it wouldn’t matter so much if she lived or died.

“No,” Martin said. “It isn’t done. I have to paint it.”

He couldn’t part with the shell, didn’t know if he could find another piece of wood that would contain a shell so lovely. Better to go into debt while he made Odessa another scallop. He wanted this one.

Odessa finished drinking her tea. They walked back outside to Martin’s garage and stood by the worktable.

“If you’re not going to let me take it home yet,” Odessa said, “let me get back inside. Just for a little while. I don’t ache as much now. I’ll be able to get out.”

“You need to go home,” Martin said.

Odessa put both of her hands on the lip of the shell. Her fingers were thin as crab legs.

“Please,” said Odessa.

Her nails dug into the wood. Martin grabbed the other side of the shell and pulled. The shell was heavy, moved a few inches across the wooden tabletop. Odessa didn’t pull back, her arms were not strong, but her fingers were set, her muscles locked.

“You’re supposed to have more compassion for the dying,” she said.

“Dying people aren’t supposed to be belligerent,” he said. “They’re supposed to be sickly and meek.”

“Forget meek,” she said. “If I really wanted to I’d make myself drop dead right here, and then what would you do?”

Martin stared down at the floor and imagined Odessa’s insides leaking out.

“I’ll give you twenty percent extra if you let me get back inside,” she said. “Just for a moment or two. I promise.”

Martin gritted his teeth but nodded. He’d carve a second shell and charge her more for that one.

“Two more minutes in the shell,” he said. “That’s all.”

Odessa asked if he could put the top on the shell first, attach the hinges.

Martin wrinkled his nose.

“It’ll be harder to finish the inside and paint it,” he said, but eventually he agreed because he was eager to see the shell together, too. He hurried through the half hour it took to position and screw on both brass hinge plates. When he was done, Martin raised and lowered the top half several times before helping Odessa back on the table.

Odessa curled herself inside the shell. It still felt warm.

“Close it for a minute,” she said.

Martin obliged, lowered the top half gently onto the bottom.

Odessa heard him count to five before opening it again.

“No,” she said, “I mean a minute.”

Martin rolled his eyes but closed the shell again. It was dark and warm and Odessa heard him whispering one-one thousand, two-one thousand, three-one thousand. She heard the sea. Her joints loosened and she felt floaty, as if she was immersed in a pool of water that wasn’t wet. Too soon the crack of light at the opening of the shell widened to an annoying brightness.

“Okay, that’s it,” Martin said, tapping the side of the shell.

“No,” she said.

“If I have to push the shell off the table to get you out,” said Martin, “I will.”

“It might break,” said Odessa.

“Get out,” said Martin.

She didn’t.

It was too much. Odessa’s skin smelled medicinal. Martin imagined her hands caught in a clench, her face becoming paler and harder, her chest ceasing to rise even the tiniest bit, her cheeks caving in. There could be no dead things in his shell.

Odessa heard a door open and close. After a couple minutes she heard it a second time. Then she felt the shell start to move. She still didn’t believe him, figured it must be an empty threat until the scallop slid off the edge of the table, dumped Odessa onto the couch cushions Martin had arranged on the garage floor. The shell gaped over Odessa like a huge open mouth, just missed hitting her arm. Odessa started sobbing.

“You didn’t give me much choice,” Martin said quietly as Odessa lay on the cushions.

The smell of the sea filled her nostrils, soothed her slightly so her eyes did not burn so much. Martin walked around the table and eased the shell off Odessa, centred it on one of the couch cushions.