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The Bird Artist: A Novel
The Bird Artist: A Novel
The Bird Artist: A Novel
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The Bird Artist: A Novel

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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Howard Norman's The Bird Artist, the first book of his Canadian trilogy, begins in 1911. Its narrator, Fabian Vas is a bird artist: He draws and paints the birds of Witless Bay, his remote Newfoundland coastal village home. In the first paragraph of his tale Fabian reveals that he has murdered the village lighthouse keeper, Botho August. Later, he confesses who and what drove him to his crime--a measured, profoundly engrossing story of passion, betrayal, guilt, and redemption between men and women.

The Bird Artist is a 1994 National Book Award Finalist for Fiction.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateApr 1, 2007
ISBN9780374706272
The Bird Artist: A Novel
Author

Howard Norman

HOWARD NORMAN is a three-time winner of National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, and a winner of the Lannan Award for fiction. His novels The Northern Lights and The Bird Artist were both nominated for National Book Awards. He is also author of the novels The Museum Guard, The Haunting of L, What Is Left the Daughter,Next Life Might Be Kinder, and My Darling Detective. He divides his time between East Calais, Vermont, and Washington, D.C.

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Rating: 3.788235214901961 out of 5 stars
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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Liked this quite well for the first half or so, but my interest waned about midway through and it didn't pick back up again, unfortunately.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Fabian Vas discovered at a young age his talent for drawing the birds of his small Newfoundland village. He cultivated his talent and began making a little money from his artwork while still a teenager. He also began secretly seeing Margaret, the older, alcoholic daughter of the local mail boat captain, a girl his mother dislikes.When Fabian is twenty, his father leaves for a hunting trip, one that is expected to last many months, where he will earn money from killing birds. Fabian's mother immediately begins an affair with the lighthouse keeper, Botho August. The two conduct their affair without discretion, so that the entire village is aware, which humiliates Fabian. It's Margaret, always drunk and bold, who puts the idea in Fabian's mind for avenging his father.I had to get a copy of this after seeing some comments in the group read here a few months back. It was one of David Bowie's favorites!This story of Fabian delivers to the reader a young man who would likely have led a quiet life if not for his mother's actions, which in turn leads him to follow Margaret's advice. Or perhaps Fabian is so easily manipulated that he was destined to get into trouble. Either way, this is really well-written. 4.5 stars
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I don't remember who recommended Howard Norman to me, but thank you. This book is set in Newfoundland, which already endears it to me. Right off the bat, our protagonist Fabian, a bird artist, reveals that he has killed the lighthouse keeper. Now we will come to understand Fabian and see what led such a gentle, contemplative soul to this act. Wonderful descriptions of the countryside and its inhabitants are part of the package.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Setting: Coastal Newfoundland, Canada 1911Norman creates a very strong sense of place and time in a story simply written. But the emotions and actions of the characters are not simple. Tension builds in the lives of the nearly isolated villagers until there is a murder. We know who did it. It doesn't seem to matter all that much though. There is little sympathy for the victim and little condemnation of the murderer. And yet, the earth has shifted for the entire village. Strange ending after all that happened.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is the story of Fabian Vas, a teenage boy in a very small town in Newfoundland, Canada, over 100 years ago. Although he has been sleeping regularly with Margaret, a girl four years older than he, his mother has secretly been planning for her son to wed his own fourth cousin whom her son has never met. The boy sees that his mother has taken to shacking up with the lighthouse keeper, Bothos August, while his dad was away for two months on work trip. This leads the boy to murder the lighthouse keeper (which we know as the book opens. No spoilers here). The pace of this book is halting, and the story hugely interesting. There is an undercurrent of subtle, dry humor very much covered over by the harsh realities of life. Fabian is a bird artist. His lovely pictures of birds are purchased by magazines, while in his own life, family and friends shoot and eat birds (and are not reticent to let Fabian know this).Names of so many people abound in this story. They are also odd. Fabian's dad is Orkney Vas; his mom is Alaric Banville. The lighthouse keeper is Botho August. We hear lots of names in this book but are not intended to remember most of them. The book also talks about the Beothuk, who were an indigenous people to Newfoundland. Perhaps the names in this book are of Beothuk origin (as are the songs that some of the characters sing or hum). This is a captivating story. It is also a look at one of the more unusual mother-son relationships that I've encountered in a novel. I'd say to give this book a read! It is quite different from the run-of-the mill stories of small town life that I've read in th past. It's really a great book!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Hard to review because I did not like or feel any connection with any of the main characters at all:Fabian Vas = too weak to stand up to parents arranging his marriage and his life or to Margaret for killing his mother or to admit a murderMargaret Handle = assertive, yes, but dishonest, responsible for two murders and disrespectful of allAlaric Vas = self-centered liar and cheatOrkney Vas = murdered birds for their feathers The only person I admired and who carried the plot was Enoch.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Set amidst the backdrop of Newfoundland in the early twentieth century, The Bird Artist is an interesting read full of writing contradictions which probably shouldn't work yet somehow do. The writing is spare yet the atmosphere of the small coastal town's natural environment is an enveloping combination of the wilds of the natural coastal environment and the suffocating smallness of the local community. Pace of life on the island is slow and the writing reflects this, despite the reader finding out in the first paragraph that the protagonist has murdered the lighthouse keeper. It's an interesting juxtaposition; the gravity of the felony versus the unhurried first person narration through a protagonist who seems quietly honest and uncomplicated and at odds with the crime he admits to the reader he has committed.For some the pace of this book may challenge their attention, but I really enjoyed it. The characters were really well developed - flawed and complex yet at the same time wholly simple and honest in what they're expecting from life. Norman created an an especially wonderful feisty female character who lives by her own rules and morals, to hang with the opinions of the gossiping villagers. A young Helena Bonham Carter would have played a wonderful Margaret if ever they'd made a film of this novel.Another hit from my personal selections out of Bowie's 100 list. I'll look out for more from this author.4.5 stars - a great read if you enjoy slow, spare writing with brooding atmosphere.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This was the first Howard Norman novel I picked up, after chancing upon it at the library. I checked it out mainly for the title, as a bird-obsessed person myself, and ended up enjoying it far more than I expected to. Norman is criticized for writing sex scenes with the sophistication of teenage fumbling but these interactions have a vulnerability to them that I find appealing.

    Also, his female characters are surprisingly more dynamic, developed, and engaging than his male characters, something I find rare in male authors. I subsequently read two other of his novels (The Museum Guard, and The Haunting of L) and found this to be true for the characters in those books as well. The only other male author I can think of immediately who creates such female characters is Haruki Murakami.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    One of my favorite books all time. Wonderfully original and compelling story of early 20th century Newfoundland. The book The Shipping News wishes it had been.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Overall I liked this, but not as much as What is Left the Daughter which was my first Norman book. One reason is Margaret’s character was unrealistic to me. She thinks about and has sex pretty much all the time. I’m not saying women don’t like sex, but pre-birth control this seems too risky. Also, Fabian seems to see more deeply into other people than men usually do. On one hand he’s very emotional and can’t forgive his mother’s affair, then at other times he acts coldly and dispassionately; like how matter of fact he is while telling about the falling out with his mother. And the live-and-let-live attitude just went too far when it came to the murder. For a while there I didn’t know there’d be any call to justice and when it came I didn’t see it coming. That was nicely done.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    The spare, dead-pan narration is at first attractive, but as the story develops, the writing, particularly the dialogue, comes across awkwardly. Characterizations are thin, they elicit no emotion from the reader - this one in any case. Behaviors don't fit circumstances, parts seem rushed, arbitrary. A fast read, and the concept had potential, just subpar execution of it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Such a different, yet compelling story, set before World War I in an isolated part of Canada, Witless Bay, Newfoundland. Fabian, grows up here, a place where everyone knows everyone else, where gossip is spread almost instantaneously, where it takes over a month a get a reply to a letter. The novel starts with Fabian admitting to having killed someone, but this is so much more than a murder mystery. It is also a coming of age story, a story where the setting and Fabian's love for birds and the drawing of them, is a huge part of Fabian's life. I loved the clean and clear prose, the characters names are so quirky, the story drew me in, quietly and slowly. I became immersed in this island and the lives of it's inhabitants. I absolutely adored the character of Margaret, she does and sees things in her own way which is hard to do on a small island. Also loved all the descriptions of the birds and I did look up several of these birds to see what they looked like. It was just an added bonus to this quiet but satisfying read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I decided to read this book because I read a New York Times article by the author. This book was also a National Book Award nominee. I found it interesting because he dealt with a place and time( Newfoundland in 1911) that is not something I read too much about. The book lets you know immediately that the lead character Fabian Vas had committed a murder. Although it took away the suspense, it did not impact the story. The characters were quirky and interesting. They reflected the harshness of life in that part of the world. It also reflected how things were changing for women through the character of Margaret. Although the book did lag a bit in the middle, ultimately it was a worthwhile read. I probably would not read any other books by Norman but I am glad I read this one. If someone is looking for a little history about that part of the world than I recommend "The Bird Artist".
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Setting: Coastal Newfoundland, Canada 1911Norman creates a very strong sense of place and time in a story simply written. But the emotions and actions of the characters are not simple. Tension builds in the lives of the nearly isolated villagers until there is a murder. We know who did it. It doesn't seem to matter all that much though. There is little sympathy for the victim and little condemnation of the murderer. And yet, the earth has shifted for the entire village. Strange ending after all that happened.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Howard Norman is a singular voice in modern literature and The Bird Artist is yet another success in his rock-solid oeuvre. Fabian is a young man in isolated Newfoundland in the twenties. His murder of the local lighthouse keeper is mentioned in the first page, but it takes a novel to unravel not only why he did it, but what it means for him. Norman's writing is, I suspect, something that either works for you - or it doesn't. I've read four of his books now, and in my opinion they are uniformly excellent, but they are also similar in many ways. A Canadian chill seems to permeate his prose. The protagonists are always alienated, out of place, nonplussed by the lives of others - and perhaps even their own lives. The writing is simple, not simplistic, and very clean. The Bird Artist is no exception to this. Despite the lurid plot, replete with murders and affairs, there's something very, not domestic exactly, but very human and pedestrian in the commonplace sense. The dramas in these books are always internal, and Norman has an intertwined gift for characterisation and dialogue. He never stoops to telling us how his characters feel. He lets their actions and words speak for them; sometimes these feelings are clear as vodka, other times they are clouded and obscure. It gives his characters a human, layered aspect that is wholly believable, and with that believability comes empathy - you care for these people, quickly and effectively. Even more impressive, this holds true for the entire cast in The Bird Artist; every character is as interesting as Fabian, and there's a sense - in these brief glances against them and their personal histories - that they all hold novels within, equally compelling, from which we only see a few paragraphs in this particular book. His prose is equally thoughtful. It's classic, lean without being spartan, descriptive - where necessary - without being gratuitous or lush. He has a flair for calling attention to the unappreciated senses: smell, taste, touch, at particular junctures in the novel, and in doing so can anchor you to a scene with an hypnotic immediacy. Used to propel a narrative that actually contains a wealth of plot and character development in a compact number of pages, it's easy to recommend this book. Indeed, I'm puzzled that Norman isn't a bigger deal, really. His books lack ostentation I suppose. He's too invested in his characters to suborn them as mere illustrations for a theme or idea. Mark my words though, that's an investment that will yield rich dividends in years to come, long after most prize winners are on history's remainders table.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I read this book for my Newfoundland entry in John Mutford's Canadian reading challenge since my personal challenge was to read a mystery set in each province and territory in Canada. I suppose that to call this book a mystery is sort of a stretch since it is not your classic whodunit type of mystery. Right from the first you know that Fabian Vas has murdered Botho August. The mystery is why and what happens to Fabian after the murder.First of all I have to say I loved the names of the characters in this book: Fabian Vas, Botho August, Boas LaCotte, Romeo Gillette, Orkney Vas and on and on. And the personalities of the characters are as quirky as their names would suggest. Fabian spends his days drawing birds and his nights (well Tuesdays and Thursdays anyway) making love to Margaret Handle; Margaret has parlayed a facility for mathematics into a bookkeeping business but really only wants to drink whiskey, ride her bicycle and make love; Fabian's mother, Alaric, commences an affair with Botho August when her husband is off on Anticosti Island for the summer; Botho August keeps to himself in his lighthouse playing gramophone records and making shadow puppets in the lantern light; Helen Twombly stores huge quantities of milk and butter in her cold storage shack and thinks that everyone is out to steal it.I thought the middle of the book dragged but the beginning set the stage well and once the trial started I was quite caught up in it. Newfoundland has always seemed almost foreign to me and after reading this book I think I understand why. Before Newfoundland joined Canada it wasn't really British (or at least the people didn't perceive themselves as British) but it certainly wasn't part of Canada. This is reinforced throughout the book by references to Canada as a place apart. I think that long period of separateness affected the people of Newfoundland and they have never quite lost that.I would recommend this book to anyone who wants a glimpse of life in a Newfoundland outport just after the turn of the century but don't go thinking, as I did, that it will be a mystery novel.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A quirky book about small town life in Newfoundland in the 1800's. The characters were vey real, and exactly that, characters! The book starts out with a confession. The writer admits to killing the keeper of the lighthouse. The rest of the story is about what led up to that murder and why. Interesting relationships between the townspeople, and an example of how people alter their lives and dreams to "get along" with the people they are surrounded by. I liked it!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Set in Newfoundland in the second decade of the 20th century (when Newfoundland was a semi-autonomous British territory, and NOT Canadian, as its inhabitants frequently make clear), it's the story of Fabian Vas, a young man with a modest talent for sketching and painting waterfowl. Through Fabian's narration, we meet many rare birds including a mail boat operator and his hard-drinking daughter; an old woman who hoards milk; a stiff-necked preacher; Fabian's own tormented parents; and the lighthousekeeper, Botho August. We know from the first page that Fabian will murder Botho. We keep reading to discover why. It's a simple story of complex emotions, told in a slightly drifting style that always seems to come back to the point just when you think you've lost the thread. It has sex, murder, adultery, deception, and betrayal, but you won't find an obvious "moral" in it anywhere. There is also plenty of symbolism, which I may revisit at leisure one of these days. I assume it did its job on me subconsciously; I was too engrossed in reading to parse it. Recommended.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I looked forward to reading this book because it had gotten such good reviews, was set in Newfoundland (I loved The Shipping News) and had an orinthology connection. However, I found it oddly emotionally disconnected and therefore unsatisfying. It may be that he was intentionally conveying the disconnect between the characters. It does have an oddball sense of humor which I did enjoy but I would not recommend it as a great book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    From the very first page of The Bird Artist, Howard Norman wants to draw you into the story by having his main character, Fabian Vas, nonchalantly admit that he murdered lighthouse keeper Botho August. The hook is why. Why did seemingly quiet and charming Vas kill August? Why does he admit to it so readily and so casually? Norman will drop other mysteries along the way to keep the reader strung along. Like, why is it risky to write about Fabian's aunt? Fabian lives in Witless Bay, Newfoundland. Ir all begins when Fabian befriends town troublemaker Margaret. As a thirteen year old she accidentally killed a man. Soon their relationship blossoms into the "with benefits" type despite his arranged marriage to a distant cousin. Maybe it is a cultural thing, but the curious thing about Fabian is that nothing seems to really faze him. His apprenticeship with bird artist Isaac Sprague is shortlived when Sprague disappears in the spring of 1911. Fabian blames himself for being too much a critic of his mentor's work. When he is moments away from marrying a complete stranger and being arrested for murder almost at the same time, Fabian shows little emotion. His emotion amounts to getting a little nervous when law enforcement shows up. For all of Fabian's calm, Margaret is his exact opposite. She was my favorite character. Motherless and meandering, Margaret sets fire to life's challenges. You end up rooting for their dysfunctional relationship no matter what the cost.

Book preview

The Bird Artist - Howard Norman

e9780374706272_cover.jpge9780374706272_i0001.jpg

Table of Contents

Title Page

Epigraph

1 - The Garganey

2 - Cora Holly

3 - Morse Code

4 - Botho and Alaric

5 - Helen Twombly

6 - The Murder

7 - Coffee

8 - My Marriage

9 - The Hearing

10 - The Guy Fawkes, Tragedy

11 - Birds of Witless Bay

12 - Isaac Sprague

Also by

Acclaim for The Bird Artist

Copyright Page

For Jane and Emma

For George

Suddenly, with extreme violence, he felt

himself seized by the desire to be, rain or

no rain, at any price, in the midst of the

valleys: alone.

GIORGIO BASSANI, The Heron

1

The Garganey

My name is Fabian Vas. I live in Witless Bay, Newfoundland. You would not have heard of me. Obscurity is not necessarily failure, though; I am a bird artist, and have more or less made a living at it. Yet I murdered the lighthouse keeper, Botho August, and that is an equal part of how I think of myself.

I discovered my gift for drawing and painting birds early on. I should better say that my mother saw that someone had filled in the margins of my third-form primer with the sketches of wings, talons, and heads of local birds. I thought this primer was brand-new, she said. But it’s full of these bird drawings. Well, somebody has talent. After a night’s sleep she realized that the pencil work was mine and was what I had been concentrating on during my school lessons. Actually she seemed quite pleased, and at breakfast the following morning said, Awfully nice to learn something so unmistakable about one’s offspring. She tore out a page full of heads of gulls and ospreys, wrote, October 28, 1900, on it, and nailed it to the kitchen door.

Witless Bay’s librarian was Mrs. Paulette Bath, a spirited woman in her late fifties or early sixties when I was a boy. She claimed to have read every one of the hundreds of books in her library, which was her own living room, dining room, and sitting room. She had not claimed that in a bragging way but as if it had been a natural obligation. Her house overlooked the wharf. She gave out hand-printed library cards. Like in the city, she said. Each card had the silhouette of a woman reading in a bathtub, which I assume was a humorous turn on her own last name. You either remembered your card or had to fetch it. No exceptions were allowed. No book left her library without the date printed in her cramped script on a piece of lined cardboard tucked into a pocket glued to the inside back cover. She kept scrupulous records. She had taught my childhood friend Margaret Handle the fundamentals of bookkeeping. She would reprimand borrowers in public about overdue books. She featherdusted, humming, and was all but constantly alarmed about book lice. Some afternoons I would come in and immediately be aware that she had been spraying book spines with rubbing alcohol, her own remedy. On her mantel was her framed certificate of Library Science, earned in London, where she had been raised. She had left there when she was thirty-four.

In her library I discovered a few books on natural history, including First Book of Zoology, by Edward Morse, which was published in the United States. But it contained only technical illustrations. Whereas the volume that changed my life—I should better say gave me purchase on it—was to be found in Mrs. Bath’s private collection, sequestered in a glass case that had five shelves. The book was called Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands, 1731-1748. It had been a gift from her Aunt Mina, a patron of libraries in London; Aunt Mina’s photograph was next to Mrs. Bath’s certificate on the mantel. This book was a true revelation for me. It held 220 hand-colored engravings of North American flowers, weeds, and wild animals. But what I memorized and actually dreamed about were the 109 birds. The naturalist’s name was Mark Catesby. He was the first real bird artist I knew about.

I sat every afternoon, I think for two years, in Mrs. Bath’s living room, the main reading area, turning the pages of Catesby’s work. I can still smell her sofa. At the thick-legged oval table, with its lion’s-paw feet, I would set out my scrap paper and copy. Copy, copy, copy. One morning Mrs. Bath stood next to me, looking over my shoulder. Mr. Catesby, dead so long now, she said. Yet his birds are so alive in these pages. To you, Fabian, I imagine this art is as important as Leonardo da Vinci’s.

Who’s Leonardo da Vinci?

A great genius.

Did he ever paint birds?

Truth be told, I don’t know. He never painted them in Newfoundland.

She laughed, sharpened a pencil for me, and left me alone until she closed the library, at exactly six o’clock, by the chimes of her clock.

When I finally stopped my formal schooling after fourth grade, having learned to read and write, my mother kept after me to read books. She would make lists of words, set them out on the table after supper, and go over them with me. I’m not as good as the real dictionary, she said, but pretty close.

I did keep up with my reading. I struggled to write clearly, too. I took pride in my secret diaries. These were not diaries full of a boy’s confessions, though a few of those might have crept in. More, I made up travels to places I had read about, and described birds, landscapes, certain dangerous encounters with the local natives, and there always seemed to be earthquakes, volcanoes, and monsoons as well. Anyway, by age eight I was practically living out in the coves, the wetlands, or at Lambert Charibon’s trout camp. Lambert was a friend of my father’s. He let me stay around sketching kingfishers, ospreys, and his crippled pet owl. At age eleven, I put a lot of time into a field guide to coastal species, made up of my own drawings, of course. I sewed the pages together and donated it to the library. Now and then I would check to see if anyone had taken it out. People here know the birds already, Mrs. Bath said. They don’t need a guide. Every book is a curiosity of sorts, I suppose. Yours is a local example of that. But maybe a tourist will pass through and need it. You never can tell.

All through those years her advice, given once, but very firmly, rang in my ears: "Just draw. It’s a God-given gift." Before she died, when I was seventeen, she often provided me with money out of her own till for pens, pencils, inks, special paper. Drawing birds was what I most loved. It had been from the beginning.

Besides Mrs. Bath, I showed my drawings only to Margaret Handle, beginning when I was fifteen. Margaret was four years older than I. She lived with her father, Enoch, who piloted the mail boat, the Aunt Ivy Barnacle, the first steam-engine vessel I ever saw. Her mother had died when she was seven. She had, I was told, her mother’s red hair; colorwise, this contradicted her father’s ancestry, which was part Beothuk Indian. There were no longer any Beothuks left in Newfoundland by the time I was born, in 1891. As my own mother once put it, Margaret was on her own earlier than most, because Enoch was away for such long periods of time, collecting and delivering mail north and south along the coast. I might have been merely two or three years old, but I remember a night my father carried me on his shoulders past the lighthouse and all the way into the village to show me Margaret’s house lit up by candles. As far as I am concerned, this was my first memory. Lambert Charibon accompanied us that night. We stood about a hundred feet away. There was a candelabrum on the dining-room table, consisting of five candles. There was a candle in each window as well. She can’t sleep, Enoch told me she told him, unless the house is lit up like Christmas, my father said.

If that’s going to be a lifelong habit, Lambert said, she might want to learn to dip candles herself, to save money.

Lambert carried me back home.

One day when I was thirteen Margaret found me sketching scoter ducks at the wharf. She sat down next to me. She had just cut her hair. It was the shortest I had ever seen it. She looked at my drawing. You know, she said, my father taught me to shoot ducks, him being away so much. I’ve seen scoters close up. I’ve cleaned them. In my opinion, you’ve caught its likeness, except for the face. Close up, a scoter’s got a more delicate face. You’ve got yours looking like a decoy. A wooden face. But you’re an artist, Fabian, and I’ve never sat with an artist before. It was a hot summer day. No breeze at all off the sea. She tightened her hand around mine, the one with the pencil in it, and drew my hand to her chest and fluttered her own on top. She moved my hand to her breast for a moment. Then she got up and walked home. Well, for days after, I drew only scoters. I went too far at first, making their faces almost human, and then, after many hours of work, came around to something Margaret approved of. I thought she would put my hand on her breast again, but she did not.

For several years in decent weather we took long walks together. I brought a feeling of nervous mystery to these walks, based mostly on one thing, really: when would Margaret provoke me out of my silence? I desired not to talk. She would get annoyed. "Don’t you have an opinion? If you don’t have opinions, you’re the village idiot." The actual provocation reminded me of a saying that aptly pertained to the unpredictable and sudden shifts in Newfoundland weather: Every breeze may messenger a storm. One time, for instance, Margaret was just talking along about this or that; then, as if interrupting herself, said, I saw your mother touch Botho August’s collar. Well, no doubt she was flicking away a moth—

I’ve seen her do that to one of our window curtains at home, I said.

Alaric’s particularly fussy about that sort of thing, I guess.

I guess.

Still, it was an intimate gesture, don’t you think?

How far away from them were you, to see it?

Here’s what. I was in Romeo Gillette’s store, along a wall aisle.

Left or right of the counter?

Right, facing the counter.

And—

And I was looking at a pair of fancy stockings.

I know the store pretty well. I didn’t know that Romeo had lady’s stockings in there.

"Have you ever seen a pair, let alone on anyone?"

No.

Anyway, you know the customer bell Romeo has. Well, Botho and Alaric were standing at the counter. And neither of them was tapping the bell. Romeo must’ve been in the stockroom, maybe.

My mother’s so rarely in the store. Botho’s rarely in the store, too, I’m told. What a coincidence!

Your mother bought sewing thread.

This was yesterday?

Yes.

That’s right, then, because she brought home black thread.

Botho told Alaric he was there to pick up gramophone records, which my father had brought from Halifax.

So, all right. My mother was there for thread. Botho for the gramophone discs.

Nobody was ringing the bell. They were talking with each other.

And.

And. With somebody mid-sentence, I think it was Alaric, she reached out and touched his collar. I for one didn’t see a moth, though a moth might’ve been there. I right away stepped out and said, ‘Hello, Mrs. Vas!’ and she nearly jumped out of her shoes. ‘I have stockings,’ I said. Botho walks right up to me, takes the stockings out of my hand, holds the pair the length of my legs, impolite as an ill-bred child. Says, ‘I don’t yet have anyone to buy French stockings for.’ At which moment Romeo steps out from the back room. ‘They’re not French,’ Romeo says, ‘they’re from Montreal, Canada, though a French seamstress might well have made them.’ Botho squints and tilts his head and narrows his eyes, like he does.

I’ve seen him do that.

"And Alaric—your mother got so flustered, she rang the customer bell! Romeo standing right there! She says, ‘I’ll come back for this thread,’ sets it on the counter, walks to the back of the store, turns around, and pays Romeo for the thread and leaves the store."

And Botho?

Says, ‘Did my gramophone discs come in yet?’ Yes, says Romeo. ‘Well, then, I’ll pick them up tomorrow,’ says Botho. He leaves the store.

Where are we walking to, anyway?

"Guess what else? I went to the store this morning and found that Botho August had paid for my stockings. I have them in a dresser drawer at home."

Wherever will you wear them?

Maybe only by myself, Fabian. At home. In the privacy of my house.

We’re almost to the cliff. Where are we going?

We can turn either left or right, or go back down the path. There’s choices.

Margaret, this conversation—Botho, my mother in the store. It feels like an insult to my father. That’s my opinion.

Probably it was just a moth.

She took my hand.

Where are we walking to, anyway? I said.

We’re just walking along and talking. It’s enough not to be chaperoned on such a balmy night.

I agree.

The eeriest thing about fate, it seems to me, is how you try to deny it even when it’s teaching you to kiss. A few weeks after my sixteenth birthday in April, Margaret said, I’m going to give you a lesson. Just like that. We were standing on a dock. The Aunt Ivy Barnacle was tied up at the end. Fabian, you kiss like I imagine an old man does. Like you used to know how but can’t quite recall. It makes me almost start laughing. And I don’t want to laugh when I kiss somebody, Fabian. I want almost the opposite, whatever that is. Maybe to be on the verge of tears every second of it.

She led me from the dock onto the Aunt Ivy Barnacle, the wooden, two-tiered wedding cake of a boat. We climbed down into the bunkroom. Margaret said, Lie down there. It’s all right. I looked around as if there was some place other than the bed she might have meant. The bed, she said. I got under the one blanket, fully clothed. Watching, Margaret simply shook her head back and forth. Then she took her clothes off entirely and got in next to me.

Now Margaret was at the center of my life. I did not fully recognize this fact at first, did not consider it possible while lying with her that night. Maybe I had come to believe that tenderness was the least practical part of my nature, so what could be the use of it? It’s all right, she said in the middle of the night. She may have been asleep when she said it.

I think it was about five o’clock in the morning when we heard Enoch up on deck. When he started down the stairs, Margaret wrapped her legs tightly around me and said, Shut your eyes. We heard Enoch go back up the stairs.

I’ve never been all night anywhere but my own house, I said.

Now you have.

I’m going to have to explain it.

Not to me.

My mother, I meant. My father.

If we walk right up to your house hand in hand, stand right in the kitchen and ask for breakfast together, I bet they’ll get the hint.

Margaret, my mother doesn’t like you. You know that.

She can’t bear me. But I can keep you separate from Alaric. I don’t know if she can.

Your father’s right up on deck.

Put on your clothes, Fabian, and walk up there. Say good morning to him, because it’s morning. You don’t have to add anything. I’m getting more sleep.

I climbed up and said, Good morning, to Enoch. He was mopping out the steering cabin.

He did not look up. You know, I’ve let Margaret steer this boat since she was ten. Why, she could take over my job any minute, if need be! She can take apart and put together this newfangled steam engine. She just learned it with native intelligence, eh? She’s always had a talent for mechanical things. That’s something she might not have told you, so I thought that I would.

Roughly from 1908 to 1911, I was faithfully apprenticed to a bird artist named Isaac Sprague. I had followed up on his advertisement in the journal Bird Lore, which Mrs. Bath had ordered specially on my behalf. In her will, in fact, she left me all the back issues.

Sprague lived in Halifax. Above my desk I had tacked a reproduction of his painting of a red-throated loon, which I had torn from an issue of Bird Lore. It was so graceful and transcendent that each time I sat down in front of it to work, it made me want to give up. But then after I had stared at it, the loon became an inspiration. It was uncanny how that change overtook me. The pencil seemed to move of its own volition. The brush made a beak, feather, eye. It was as if to hesitate or think too much, to resist in any way, would impede the progress of my calling. I was convinced that birds were kinds of souls. Not the souls of people but of previous birds whose mystery and beauty were so necessary on earth that God would not allow them to be anything in their second life but birds again. This was an idea I had come up with when I was nine or ten, just after Reverend Sillet’s sermon on the transformation of souls in heaven. I sometimes went to church with my mother. Witless Bay had the Anglican Church of England. I would sit antsy in the pew, or daydream. Having made my own connections between God and birds, I felt moral enough not to have to listen too closely to Sillet’s sermons. Besides, I had already passed my own judgement on Sillet; I had made a few drawings of him taking potshots at a woodpecker on the church belfry.

It went like this. I would send five carefully packed drawings or watercolors to Halifax, and Sprague would comment by return mail; this might take one summer month, if the Aunt Ivy Barnacle was in good repair and if Enoch did not dawdle on his mail stops, and if fair weather prevailed. But when I sent drawings out just before winter, I would not get Sprague’s reply until spring, because the Aunt Ivy Barnacle would be in dry dock. Anyway, once I did get a letter from Sprague, I would send him two dollars, a lot of money for me. For anyone in Witless Bay, for that matter. To pay my parents’ room and board, which I had done since I was thirteen, I worked at the dry dock, repairing and painting schooners, trawlers, dories. I sometimes worked side by side with my father. Still and all, I was barely able to afford the inks, special paper, and brushes which I ordered through Gillette’s store, especially after Mrs. Bath died.

Isaac Sprague’s letters were detailed and impersonal. They kept to subjects such as the shaping of a beak, shadows, color accents. He wrote to me about consciously denying certain background landscapes the opportunity—as he put it—to dominate rather than feature a bird. In one letter he said that bird artists should invoke a bird, feather by feather, not merely copy what we observe in the wild. He had, for me, a difficult vocabulary and I wrote him a separate letter to say that. He sent me a dictionary for Christmas, 1909, along with a note saying, Read each of my letters from now on with this book in hand. I’m not going backwards in my education on your behalf. The dictionary had arrived in October, Christmas greetings inscribed in advance.

Sprague offered strong opinions in each letter, not just about my work but about bird art in general. Much later, after our correspondence had ended, I realized that all of his musings, asides, complaints, all of his fervor added up to a rare education, not just in craft but in his own passionate character as well. Birds, he wrote, and the making of a bird on the page is the logic of my heart. And yours? He examined life closely and described things in close-up language. That belted kingfisher you sent me, he wrote, is pretty good-fine. A solid effort, Mr. Vas. Yet the foot does not seem to encircle the branch but to be laid on a differently pitched surface. I looked up pitch in the dictionary. I drew kingfisher feet on branches for hours, days in a row.

Whatever praise he divvied out I was intoxicated with

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