Marcel (8 page)

“All this time I’ve been wondering,” she said in her squeaky voice, “who the little chap might be, the one who’s always by himself. I see you every day, you know, from my kitchen window. You don’t play marbles. You don’t join in with the others. You don’t play Cowboys and Indians. Just as well, too, I’d say. All those nasty guns going bang bang bang …”

“Takes after Marcel, he does,” growled Norbert.

By the time Louise came into the room he had terminated his tooth-cleaning session, much to my relief.

“Marcel always kept to himself, too.”

“But his heart was in the right place,” said Louise, “and he had a wonderful singing voice. Goodness me, how that boy could sing. How about you, can you sing well? Marcel was a right nightingale.”

“A right idealist, too. Perhaps too much so …” Norbert opined. He could not resist the temptation to stick his pinkie in his ear and give it a little twist.

“Not like you, eh,” grinned Louise. “Always making a run for it, you were. They probably needed special bullets to keep up with you.”

Norbert’s cheeks reddened. A fresh eruption announced itself in his intestinal tract. He tilted his chair back and stabbed the air with his forefinger.

“And I’d do a runner all over again, Goddammit! What d’you take me for? Some poor sod cowering in a trench? Convenient, that – all they’d need to do is shovel some earth on top. For Flanders, they told us. To battle! I’d do a runner, that’s for sure …”

“You wouldn’t have lasted more than two seconds before dropping dead like a stuck pig,” Louise chuckled. “We’re getting on, Norbert. Rickety farm carts, all three of us.”

Norbert calmed down. His eyes were fixed on mine, and his expression softened. “Let’s hope he’ll have some gumption, if it ever happens again.” His voice took on an unexpectedly fatherly tone. “If I had a boy of my own and all that stuff and nonsense started up again, I’d keep him chained up in the cellar. Well, it’s all in the past now, what’s done is done.”

He retreated into silence. Footsteps thumped down the stairs.

“And so,” cooed Miss Veegaete as she swept into the room, “we’re all prepared to brave the cold of winter. Such a nice new ensemble. How much do I owe you, Andrea, do tell me …”

She took out her purse. Little Linda skipped out from behind her back and climbed onto a chair. She wore hair clips
in the shape of jaunty ladybirds with big spots on their backs. The sight of them did not make me like her any better.

Linda came to the grandmother’s house only once. Miss Veegaete brought her along when she paid her autumn visit to discuss her spring wardrobe.

While Miss Veegaete’s measurements were being taken I lured little Linda to the attic, to show her my lair, my secret hiding place behind a forgotten dresser, an old armchair and the suitcase stocked with goodies I had filched piecemeal from the cupboard in the sewing room.

I offered her a big sweet with a runny filling.

“
Très jolie
,” she murmured.

“
Regarde moi
,” I said, “this is how you’re supposed to eat it.”

I bit into the side of the sweet and sucked out the blood-red syrupy filling.

“Go on, you try …”

Little Linda took a bite. The filling spilled from her lips and trickled down her chin. Next thing her face was covered in sticky goo and she was looking around anxiously for something to wipe her hands on. Before she knew it the goo was dripping from her chin onto her dazzling white blouse.

She stared at me, wide-eyed. Not in anger, not in dismay, but in sheer panic. I felt a stirring of sympathy. I pictured her, trembling like a leaf in the Brussels flat while her
Papa
and her
Maman
made a scene.

She held out her arms sideways, as if I had nailed her to an invisible cross.

“
Tu … vous …
” she faltered.

Dear me, how upset Miss Veegaete would be when she saw the mess her little china doll had made of herself!

Little Linda’s face turned red. Her hands fluttered about helplessly, her sky-blue eyes filled with tears and her mouth was set in a grimace. The red filling oozed from the corners of her lips. She did not make much of a noise, other than a hoarse sort of whistling. Then she clutched her stomach and doubled up, sobbing. I felt like a monster.

“You came on foot,” Miss Veegaete remarked as she let us out. Little Linda lolled against her aunt’s legs.

“We thought we’d take a stroll along the fields,” the grandmother said. “Saves meeting all the local worthies.”

“I know what you mean,” said Miss Veegaete. “Would you believe it, Andrea, I can still see the spite on their faces. I can always tell how they felt about the blackshirts, even if I’ve never set eyes on them before. It’s written all over them.”

“It’s time they stopped picking on us,” said the grandmother. “All those last-minute heroes, yes indeed, once the Germans had gone it was fine for them to be brave. I can still hear them marching up the drive in their shiny boots … inspection for this, inspection for that. Whether I charged fixed prices. Whether I kept the books in order … it got to the point where I suffered stomach cramps when the milkman came to the gate … But we must be off now.”

“Don’t forget,
jeune homme
,” Miss Veegaete called after me, “that we’re going to do something special on our last day of term. You won’t forget, will you?”

I nodded.

“The boys are going to give their own lessons,” Miss Veegaete explained, “about the animal kingdom.”

“Ah well, that won’t be a problem then,” replied the grandmother. “He spends all his time in the fields. He knows exactly where the ducks’ nests are.”

“All the better,” laughed Miss Veegaete. “It’ll be most instructive, I’m sure.”

“
Au revoir, campagnard,
” little Linda simpered.

The door closed.

“Well,” said the grandmother, “they do like showing off their French, don’t they?”

It was nearly dusk and clouds were gathering. The soft blue sky faded into swathes of pearl-grey. A brassy, menacing glow rose up behind the poplar trees, and from the horizon came the rumble of thunder.

“It looks like we’re in for a real downpour,” the grandmother said, glancing up at the clouds accusingly. She hastened her pace and hurried me along.

The first drops were plopping onto the sandy garden path when we reached the gate. A gust of wind tore at the crowns of the apple trees. She had hardly flung the front door open when the rain came down in torrents.

“Just in time! That was lucky.”

The first flash of lightning reduced her, for a fraction of a second, to a two-dimensional, dark shape in the hall. It had luminous hair.

Stella and the grandfather were sitting in the parlour playing cards.

“There you are at last!” he cried. “I’m sick and tired of gin rummy. It’s a game for milksops. At least we can play hearts now.”

He shuffled the cards and cut them in four stacks.

Stella got up to unplug the wireless from the wall socket. “I’m not too fond of thunderstorms,” she said.

Meanwhile the rain gushed down the roof, overflowing the gutters.

The grandfather made a fan of his cards.

“Come on, what’s keeping you?” he said brusquely, drumming his fingers on the table.

“I’m putting my money away,” she called from the kitchen.

“I don’t fancy lightning much either,” Stella said.

There was a loud crash of thunder.

“That was close!” Stella crossed herself. “The worst thing about stormy weather is that I always get this pain in my side. I wasn’t bothered when I was younger. Now I get this pain every single time. And when it hits me here,” she said, pointing to her hip, “then I know we’re in for a thunderstorm. Without a doubt.”

“It’s the same with my knees,” the grandfather said. “They’ve been like this ever since my operation. It must be the scars.”

The grandmother came into the room, sat down and picked up her cards.

“There are some advantages I suppose,” Stella said. “I don’t have to go out and buy a barometer, for instance – I’m a barometer myself. Just listen to it pouring down outside.
Silly of me I know, but whenever it pours like this I always think of Lucien. I’m glad he’s got his gravestone at last. At least that’ll keep him dry.”

Another clap of thunder rattled the window panes. Stella slumped against the side of the table and sat down, her face contorted with pain.

“If I were you,” the grandmother said without looking up from her cards, “I’d go and see the doctor.”

“It’s just old age,” Stella protested. “Besides, creaking carts last longest, so they say.”

The grandmother looked doubtful.

“I’ve never known anyone die of good health. You never know what it could be a sign of.”

She slapped a two of clubs on the table.

“Small aches great pains, I always say.”

THE LAST DAY OF TERM TURNED OUT UNSEASONABLY
chilly. Perhaps that was why Miss Veegaete had decided to wear her new dress to school. It looked as if it had been cut from the wings of a rare butterfly. The shade hovered between blue and purple, and lit up in streaks on the skirt and sleeves every time she moved. It was as though the grandmother had taken strips of rainbow and worked them into the fabric.

Miss Veegaete was all dolled up. Her hair was drawn into a flat fold rather like an apple turnover on the back of her head. Framing her face were two locks of hair hanging unfettered from temples to chin in rustic curves. A string of pearls from Thailand gleamed beneath the bolster of flesh at her throat.

The school hummed with bittersweet anticipation. Outside, under the gallery, the breeze rattled the fronds of the potted palms and lifted the yellow crêpe paper skirt around the platform on which the chairs for the notables were lined up.

“Well now boys,” said Miss Veegaete, “the Reverend Father will be here any minute to give us his blessing for the holidays.”

She stood with her back to the blackboard on which she had written “June: neat and tidy to the end of term” in red chalk. That was four weeks ago, and the letters were smudgy. She had written “time” instead of “term” by mistake, but had quickly rubbed it out.

“What do we say when our visitor arrives?” Miss Veegaete cupped her hands behind her ears demonstratively.

“Good afternoon Reverend Father,” the class droned in staggered chorus.

This was not good enough. “Try again! All together now.”

After the third attempt she was satisfied. She sat down at her desk, tugged her skirt down over her knees and crossed her arms.

“And now for the animal kingdom,” she said, “I wonder what you’ve brought along to show me.”

In fact Miss Veegaete had already shuddered at the sight of some of the boys’ contributions. One of them had brought a live hamster, which had been removed cage and all to a windowsill all the way at the back of the room, far away from Miss Veegaete. The rodent pedalled frantically round and round a plastic wheel above the shredded-paper floor of its prison.

Also the stuffed weasel, which was even now waiting on a desk somewhere behind my back, had sent a perceptible shiver of disgust through her limbs. The creature struck a grotesque pose of arrested movement while climbing a branch. It had probably been languishing in some garret for untold years while its rag-wool innards leaked from the gash in its belly.

Another boy had wanted to bring a live stone owl, but the bird had escaped in the night. Miss Veegaete did not seem to mind too much.

Someone else waved a few tatty peacock feathers, possibly stolen from some mother’s Sunday hat.

“In nature it’s usually the males that go in for display,” Miss Veegaete said in her teaching voice. “With humans it’s the other way round.”

There was also someone who had brought a photograph of a crown pigeon, a very silly-looking bird with an absurd fluffy pom-pom on its head, but Miss Veegaete was enchanted. “Animals in faraway countries are so much prettier than they are here, I always think. In this part of the world it’s dreary old raincoats all year round for man and beast alike.”

The vibrant blue of her dress made her stand out from her surroundings. Keenly aware that the end was near, I had eyes for none but her. The Day of Judgement was upon us. The sheep would be separated from the goats. We had yet to hear which of us would go home laden with prizes and which would be given homework for the holidays. A few hours from now summer would yawn like a chasm, in the depths of which Master Norbert would be waiting in his grey dustcoat, grinning and reciting multiplication tables.

The bird on the cover of Marcel’s letter lay right under Miss Veegaete’s nose, on the corner of my desk. One of its wing tips overlapped the postage stamp. I had raised and lowered a corner of the envelope several times with my finger, I had tapped it gently and had even rubbed it with
my cuff – in vain I knew – to wipe away the particles of ancient dust that had settled in the creases.

Miss Veegaete ignored me – deliberately, I was sure. From the pheasant she turned to the guinea pig, from the guinea pig to the partridge. I stared at her knees, where a fluttering hand appeared at regular intervals to adjust the hem of her skirt, as if she knew how mesmerised I was by her secrets.

“And what have you got there?” she inquired at long last.

I didn’t hear what she said at first, and she had to repeat her question.

I was startled.

“A bird, Miss. The eagle.” I picked the envelope up gratefully and laid it in her extended hand.

She gave no sign of surprise. Aside from the faintly knitted brow her expression was blank.

“It’s not very clear, I know. It’s the postmark. And the envelope’s been wet.”

“The eagle …” she echoed, feigning enthusiasm. She looked straight past me at the class. “When we see a bird with huge claws and a curved beak, what does that tell us? What kind of bird is it?”

“A bird of prey!” shrieked a trio of voices.

“Precisely. A predator …”

“It’s carrying something in its claws,” I said. “See? It looks like an alarm clock with four hands, they look like they’re broken …”

“I hardly think it’s an alarm clock,” Miss Veegaete said. “Eagles are rapacious creatures, but they don’t fancy alarm clocks. Sometimes they pounce on babies in their cradles.
Not where we live, there aren’t any eagles here, but in the mountains there are plenty and everybody knows they snatch babies.”

“Perhaps it’s a spider, Miss, a fat spider.”

Miss Veegaete laid the envelope on her desk.

“It isn’t a spider, my boy.”

She lowered her eyes, and then, in an oddly quiet voice, she said “It’s a swastika.”

I had never heard of an animal called swastika. Perhaps they lived in the mountains. Better a swastika than a newborn babe, surely. I was wondering whether I should ask her to tell me more when there was a loud knock on the door. In came the shepherd of souls.

The boys sat up straight. Miss Veegaete drew herself up. She waited for the priest to shut the door behind him and then, just as he swung round to face the classroom, she snapped her fingers.

“Good afternoon Reverend Father,” the boys droned.

He motioned with both hands for us to sit down. His cassock stopped just short of his ankles. He wore thick knitted socks and black high-cut shoes with chunky heels, in which he managed to walk without making a sound. He planted his feet firmly one after the other on the green-and-brown speckled floor, zigzagged among the desks, laid a hand on a head here, on a shoulder there, veered round and headed towards the blackboard, where Miss Veegaete awaited him. She dropped a little curtsy, and took his hand in hers.

The priest posted himself in front of my desk.

“Now boys, you must bide your time just a little longer,”
he croaked in a voice that seemed to come from a rusty cogwheel in his throat. “Have patience, the summer holiday is nigh.”

He rested one hand on my desk and gestured with the other half behind his back for Miss Veegaete to sit down. She obeyed.

“But during holidays, as at all times,” the Reverend Father instructed, “we must all behave …” he shuffled his feet, “like good, kind …” he took off his skullcap and laid it on my desk, “Christians.”

Miss Veegaete nodded in agreement.

The priest moved away from my desk towards the centre of the classroom. “Well, we’ve got quite a Noah’s Ark here, haven’t we, with all these animals …” he said, and suddenly, as if by magic, his face took on an indulgent, fond look. There had to be a church directory of regulation smiles and benign expressions, I thought, for priests always smiled in exactly the same unctuous way, as if they were posing for a portrait in oils.

“During holidays, too,” he went on, “we must do our duty every day. Every day without fail … Say the Lord’s Prayer … some Hail Marys, too. And don’t forget to recite a rosary from time to time. And the Acts, of course. Which of you knows the Acts?”

No one moved. The Last Judgement had begun. The shepherd, wolf in sheep’s clothing, pillar of black salt, looked round for a likely victim. His large hands, which he held clasped, were level with my eyes. The skin was wrinkled and scattered with tiny capillary veins, the nails were cracked, the
fingers bony and tipped with brownish-yellow stains. One of his thumbs rubbed slowly and raspingly over the other.

Looking past him I caught a glimpse of Miss Veegaete hunched over her desk. She had opened Marcel’s letter and was reading it attentively, holding her fingers to her forehead.

My heart was pounding in my throat. The priest moved a little to one side, thereby obscuring my view of Miss Veegaete.

Peering from under my eyebrows my gaze left his hands and slid up his chest, past the greasy stains and traces of hastily flicked-off cigar ash up to the wide dingy dog collar and the head emerging from it. The thick, shiny lower lip. The ginger hair protruding from the nostrils. The shaggy eyebrows and bulging eyes which, like his hands, had a tracery of little veins.

The hands separated. One slipped into a side pocket of his cassock and reappeared holding a checked handkerchief. The other hand lay heavily on the top of my head.

“
Allez
, come now my boy, let’s hear you recite the Act of Charity …”

I braced myself.

“The Act of Charity: my Lord and my God …” I murmured, summoning up all my courage to flounder on.

The hand left the top of my head and joined the other hand, and together they raised the handkerchief to the flared, bushy nostrils.

He blew his nose, sounding a fanfare of snot.

I fastened my eyes on the swarm of ink stains and names scratched in the varnish of my desk.

“Normally he is perfectly capable of it,” Miss Veegaete gushed from behind the priest’s back. “Normally he’s up to it all right.” The priest turned round. Miss Veegaete hove into view again. She eyed me with dismay. The letter, I could see, was no longer on her desk.

The shepherd was satisfied, now that one member of his flock had been ritually humbled. He strolled down the classroom and pointed to a boy in the back row, who promptly reeled off the whole text.

“Well done. Such diligence is always pleasing to Lord Jesus.”

The letter had vanished. Miss Veegaete kept her eyes averted from mine, despite my imploring looks. When the priest drew himself up to bestow the blessing she rose from her chair and stared over my head at the class. She crossed herself demonstratively, keeping time with the hallowing gestures of the shepherd as he laved us with the grace of God.

Then it was time for break. I wanted to go up to her, but she hurried off to the coat rack by the door, put on a cardigan (which didn’t go very well with the dress, I noticed), and crossed to the priest’s side.

There had been a heavy shower, but now the sun had come out again. Everyone was relieved that the ceremony could be held out of doors after all. The village worthies stepped into the courtyard and shook the raindrops off their umbrellas. Miss Veegaete sailed towards them gushing words of welcome and shaking hands. She seemed to swell up all over. Where could she have hidden the letter?

Not on her desk, for it was bare except for the inkwell next
to the blotting paper and the tray of pens with crystal handles. In one of her drawers, maybe. The knobs, polished monthly, gleamed invitingly, but I hung back. What if I was caught red-handed?

The platform filled up with bow ties and Sunday hats. The pupils were herded into the rows of wooden benches. The headmaster gave his speech in a voice akin to a wailing siren owing to the faulty microphone, but I was so distracted that I barely noticed. Miss Veegaete was sitting in the front row close to the yellow paper frill, conversing with her neighbour, the priest, who, so the grandmother had confided in me, was not averse to speaking French from time to time.

What had she done with my letter? She must have hidden it about her person, I thought. Slipped it under the elastic of her bloomers, say, in which case it was closer to the secret hairs between her thighs than any human being could conceivably come. Or further up, tucked into the waistband. Perhaps the eagle was hovering over her navel. What if it sought refuge in her bosom, where it would rub against her nipples along with Marcel and his tomatoes as sweet as apples?

There was a burst of applause and everyone turned to stare at me. Only Miss Veegaete went on chattering. Before I knew it I was heading toward the platform together with another boy – he was top of his class, I of mine. We were carrying a heavy basket of fruit between us.

“In gratitude,” it said on a card sticking out of the mound of fruit.

Miss Veegaete looked up. For an instant her smile seemed to freeze on her face. Perhaps I was staring at her too fixedly. My cheeks were ablaze. My jaws itched, my tongue groped for something to say, something razor-sharp that would slash her dress to shreds.

The shepherd leaned forward, turned his oily smile on the pair of us, patted us on the head and graciously accepted the basket of fruit.

I was presented with a book about the tundra, entitled
Polar Bears and Volcanoes
. The local photographer turned up to make a group portrait. There was no need to use a flash, as the sun was shining with dazzling brightness – but not brightly enough for me to be able to see through Miss Veegaete’s dress.

Afterwards the courtyard was deserted once more. The older boys carried the benches into the school, the potted palms were loaded onto wheelbarrows and taken away.

I set off home, and as I went past Miss Veegaete’s kitchen window I caught the reek of chips frying in boiling fat, and I could hear meat sizzling in a pan. Louise would be cooking supper. In my mind’s eye I saw her patting her wig and glancing furtively at her reflection in the shiny paint on the kitchen cupboards.

No one came to the door – not that I had knocked. Somehow I thought she would appear on the doorstep of her own accord, but there was no sign of life behind the net curtains. Miss Veegaete had made a breach in my soul, a letterbox, envelope-sized.