Days Like Today

by Rachel Ingalls

  ‘It was wonderful,’ Maria told him. But Anna said, ‘As soon as they pay up for the doctor, that’s the end. I don’t want them to get so scared that they try it again. I think if they ever see the chance, they’ll move.’

  Maria disagreed. ‘I don’t see why. It’s their word against yours. I wouldn’t.’ She turned to him and asked, ‘Would you?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘This is home.’

  One night he went out into the orchard and dug a false grave and filled it in again. Every time he pushed the blade of the shovel into the ground he thought what bad luck it was that after climbing free from the quarry he’d been too used up to think straight; because, if he’d been fully alert, he’d have buried his wife instead of taking her in the car. That way, they’d have had a body. As it was, he’d have to pretend – if anyone wanted to investigate – that he couldn’t remember exactly which spot he’d chosen, that he’d done the grave-digging at night in order to keep the children from being upset and he was as mystified as anyone else to find that what certainly looked like the place now turned out to be wrong. The authorities weren’t going to start digging up the entire orchard. However, if by some extraordinary chance they did, he’d be forced to admit in the end that he’d lied. But that wasn’t so serious. Anyone would understand that he’d want to tell a lie: to keep drawing the rations. He’d say that there wasn’t any corpse – the old battle-ax had fooled them all: she’d risen from her bed and gone off with one of the aid workers who had claimed that he could house her someplace closer to where she used to live.

  Nevertheless, he kept digging. And soon afterwards he went to town and reported the death of the old woman. No one did anything except put the information on paper. He was told that he was now eligible to receive another refugee.

  ‘We buried her in the orchard,’ he began to explain.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ the official said. ‘No possessions?’

  ‘I’m afraid we had to burn the nightdress. It was too –’

  ‘Of course. They have her age down here as “from eighty-five to a hundred”. It’s a miracle that she lasted so long.’

  ‘We already have a new refugee,’ he said. ‘She had some trouble with the family she was with. I can give you their name. They’ve agreed to let you transfer her. We’ve been taking care of her for a few weeks, but we need the extra rations.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ the official told him.

  *

  The new school was a success. Within days everyone had heard about it. It attracted more pupils every week and, luckily, a few extra teachers too.

  The next bit of good luck turned up when a huge shipment of flour, sugar and salt came through legally and was distributed by the authorities.

  Some of the old occupations came back, even if not as they had been practiced before the fighting. So few professionals survived anywhere that amateurs were considered better than nothing: as long as they did the work, who cared? Two girls, whose father had been a plumber, set themselves up in business using the knowledge he’d passed on to them and the tools and material he’d left behind. Even children joined the scramble for employment. A boy who had inherited his uncle’s optical equipment – and had discovered all of it, unbroken, behind a trick panel in the cellar – was now reading the medical books he’d been left. He planned to begin work as soon as he had some answers to the letters he’d sent out.

  ‘But that’s silly,’ Anna commented. ‘You need lenses and somebody’s got to grind them. That’s specialized work. They’re made in factories, in dust-free conditions. That belongs to another world. That’s all over now. I suppose you have to admire his initiative.’

  ‘And his optimism,’ Maria said. ‘He’ll probably be just the right age to be drafted when the next wave of fighting begins.’

  ‘Don’t even say it. Everybody’s talking about it again.’

  ‘They’re always talking about it,’ he said. ‘You can’t get a newspaper unless you know the right people and have the right stuff to trade, but if you do, you can read any publication you like from other countries. The only trouble is: what they print about us won’t do you any good because they don’t know what’s going on here any more than we do.’

  Local news traveled – as usual – by the grapevine, which was extremely effective, although the information relayed was occasionally completely unfounded. If you wanted customers, or were looking for a particular thing you needed for your work, the best way to get results was still to put out the word among friends, neighbors, acquaintances and strangers. A woman on the other side of town had done just that after she’d had a dream that she could cure her rheumatism by dancing. She’d talked an official into lending her a hall and some chairs and then she’d simply accosted people on the street to let them know that she was in business. One of the first men to turn up became her second-in-command by offering to bring his accordion and to supply the music. The woman rapidly collected a dedicated group of enthusiasts who were willing to pay. Her dream hadn’t mentioned remuneration; that was a natural development and a pleasant surprise. Even more unexpected was the fact that after she’d molded her idea into a reality and had given it the name of ‘The Tuesday and Thursday Tango Tea’, she was besieged by racketeers’ girlfriends who had time on their hands and wanted to pick up some refinement. Within a few weeks she’d become one of the luminaries of what – temporarily, at least – passed for society in their part of the world. It wasn’t long before the root tea and watery soup grew to resemble real tea and alcohol. To the accordionist’s dismay, the music also improved when the woman entered into a contract with a professional band that traveled from town to town all week long. They played on Thursdays, which became the popular day and helped to divide the clientele into rich and poor as well as dubious or respectable. Most dancers became Tuesday people or Thursday people. After a while no one went on both nights, except the woman who had thought the thing up and who, despite a life formerly marked by bouts of invalidism, managed to remain at the helm.

  Before the school began, there had been a local mail service run as a cooperative effort by children. Each child had had to complete a certain number of hours stamping and sorting and out on the rounds. An exception had been made for one of the founder members who was born lame and another two who had been injured in infancy by enemy action. The school cut into the children’s working time but added to the number of recruits. Since paper was scarce, their next project was going to be a paper factory and a shop where old paper could be exchanged for credits. That was for the future, as were most other similar ideas. But the town was getting organized, pulling the outlying regions into its returning life. A neighboring district had set up hospital facilities that were said to include emergency transportation to the nearest big city; no one had investigated the claim yet, as there was a strict list of conditions that had to be met by patients: all cases not considered critical were refused. However, the possibility was there and that meant hope for development: more medicine, equipment, doctors and nurses.

  Some of the schemes people dreamt up were crazy, some illegal and some – often both crazy and illegal – worked, like the convoluted system of barter and banking started up by an old man who said he was ninety but was probably in his seventies and who, after a few days’ trading, became known as Major Money.

  It seemed for a while as if life might continue along its peaceful course: getting back to normal and also heading towards a future of unbroken peace. But just as things were improving, the winter brought hardship again. No matter how happy they were, it was impossible to forget the cold and hunger. A series of fevers and children’s diseases ran through the entire sector. There were deaths as well as children who survived with damaged hearing, eyesight and lungs. Food was scarce and once more it was a long winter.

  The next time the aid workers turned up, they brought two nine-year-old children: a twin brother and sister, who were almost completely silent for a few days. They didn’t even trust the other c
hildren, preferring Anna’s company. But they helped with any work that had to be done. After a while, slowly, they joined in the conversation. Soon they were enrolled in the school and sharing sentry duty on the first planting in the garden.

  ‘They’re nice kids,’ Anna told him. ‘I think they’re going to be fine as long as nobody asks them any stupid questions, like, “Where are your parents?”’

  The days were warmer, longer, lighter. It was nearly spring.

  With the good weather came better food and more of it. One or two luxuries turned up as a result of haggling at the weekly market. It began to seem as if, for that year at least, they could be leaving the bad days behind. There was work and building material. He’d even been able to get hold of some cans of paint that hadn’t dried out.

  And then, after so many years, the fair came back to town. Everyone took its appearance as a sign that someone was sure about an eventual peaceful settlement to the hostilities. The traveling musicians had been the first professional entertainment to return to the region, but they hadn’t been the real thing: they could pick up their instruments and run if they had to. A whole fairground was different; you needed tents and ladders, transport trucks and food for the animals.

  Every day his children told him news of the marvels to be seen at the fair. He heard the same descriptions repeated by adults in town: that there was a big tent with a cage full of animals and even room for a trapeze act as well as tightrope walkers. The animals weren’t the wonderful striped, spotted or maned big cats; they were the more ordinary bears and seals, but the bears at any rate were dangerous, so the children could derive some pleasure from them. One of the bears in particular was gigantic. It was the only one kept muzzled and chained. Word of its size and fierceness spread through the neighborhood before anyone had seen it.

  Everybody wanted to go to the fair. It was traveling around the country, which meant that it would set down near them only for a short while. It would be the big treat of the year. Of course he’d have to take everyone in the house – the whole crowd of them.

  *

  He produced his wallet and counted out bills. A few of the children were so impatient that they danced up and down in front of him. He paid the money to the woman in the ticket booth. She handed him a long ribbon of paper, still unbroken. He passed it to Anna, who began to tear the single strip into separate pieces, giving a ticket to each child. ‘Remember now,’ she told them, ‘don’t get lost. Come back here just inside the gate when the whistle blows and don’t speak to strangers, even if they tell you they’re from school or the district hospital or the police.’

  ‘Especially not if they tell you something like that,’ he said. ‘If they try to get you to go with them for any reason at all, you just run away. And if they grab you: kick, bite, and yell as loud as you can.’

  The children nodded. They remembered what had happened to their mother: a man had come to their house and he’d made her say that their father had walked out on them, taking the old woman with him for the sake of the aid money. The real truth was that the man had killed the old woman and burned her in the stove. Then he’d beaten up their mother so badly that her face was covered with bandages; he’d said that their father had done it, but they didn’t believe that. Their mother had given them a hot drink and put them to bed. She’d told them that everything would be all right in the morning. And that was true, because in the morning their father was back. The man had tried to kill him and then he’d taken their mother away as a prisoner, probably to a different country so that she could never return. But their father was going to bring them up himself, with the help of Anna and her daughter, Maria, so at least they’d have somebody to look after them: somebody who loved them. And they were never to tell anybody about that other man killing the old woman. They should say that she died of old age and they’d buried her in the orchard; because if they didn’t, the aid people weren’t going to give them their food allowance and the authorities might even accuse their father of getting rid of her himself.

  Maria counted out the spending money for each child. ‘If you buy any food,’ she said, ‘try not to eat it too fast. And be careful of that ride over there – the one that goes up and down and tilts while it spins. It makes you feel horrible. I remember that one from my first trip to the fair. You feel awful for days.’

  Anna said, ‘I’ll take the little ones to see the baby animals.’ The smaller children shouted: yes, baby animals.

  ‘What are the baby animals?’ he asked.

  Anna shrugged. ‘Lambs, piglets, baby chicks.’

  ‘Yum-yum,’ Maria whispered.

  He laughed. Maybe that was what had happened to the tigers.

  ‘Remember, everybody,’ Anna repeated. ‘When you hear the whistle.’ The children ran, breaking into groups before they were out of sight.

  ‘They’ll all be sick this evening,’ he predicted.

  ‘Sick, but happy. And with nice memories. We’ll see you later.’ Anna moved away, the three smaller children clinging to her.

  ‘Isn’t she wonderful?’ Maria said. ‘If only my mother had been like that. God, it’s strange. All the best things in my life happened within twenty-four hours of being shoved into the pit of hell. What a comedy.’

  ‘Happy endings. That’s what I like. To survive and to live well, knowing that you’ve deserved it.’

  They set off hand in hand to investigate the shows. He looked around at the other parents and their children, all of them trying, and failing, to do simple tricks that had once been so easy for him: throwing a hoop over a wooden stake, hitting a moving toy bird with a ball, shooting down a target. He still had a good eye, but that wasn’t enough.

  Maria said, ‘I was always told those places were rigged: the stake is angled away from you and it’s just a little too big for the hoop to fit it. And the ducks over there are on a supporting piece that never moves unless you complain, and then they flip a switch that releases the spring and they show you that you can knock the thing over easily: you’re just missing it every time.’

  ‘I guess so. They get away with what they can. On some of these things they probably have a way of letting a few people win, so the others can see it.’

  ‘Their friends and relatives.’

  ‘But if you don’t win at one, you try the next. Or you can ride on one of the cars, or have your future told.’

  ‘Oh. Do you want to do that?’

  ‘Not for anything. It’s hard enough dealing with the past and the present. Come on.’

  They saw Anna a long way ahead. She was kneeling in the middle of her bevy of children and using a handkerchief to take a speck of dirt out of a child’s eye.

  He looked up at the big wheel and at the smaller, slower merry-go-round with its painted horses. ‘How about that?’ he suggested. ‘It wouldn’t be too fast.’

  ‘No, thanks. I seem to remember that it starts slow and speeds up. And then it’s too late to jump off.’

  ‘All right. Where to?’

  ‘How about the House of Horrors? That’s pretty tame.’

  ‘The House of Horrors. Definitely. Unless you don’t think it’s a good idea.’

  She put a hand on her belly, and said, ‘If this child can thrive on everything it’s been through already, I don’t think a haunted house or two is going to hurt it.’

  They couldn’t find the House of Horrors. They trailed around the stands and cages, wondering what they could do with their time until the whistle blew to mark the hour. They passed the seals and the bears, the table where there was a glass jar full of pebbles whose number could be guessed. Maria wanted to sit down. ‘Here,’ she said.

  They entered a tent inscribed with the name Professor Miracolo. The show was about to begin. There wasn’t time to bother with tickets; as soon as he’d paid at the desk, they were waved ahead into a small, semi-circular theater already crowded with other customers. They were barely in their seats when the side lights dimmed and the stage was flooded by a dazzli
ng glare from above.

  Two men stepped into the field of brightness. One told the members of the audience what they were going to see: ‘The world’s greatest … the most renowned … expert in the arts of contortion … the foremost practitioner of magic transformations learned through years of study in the fabled schools of the mystic East … The one and only Professor Miracolo will now perform his internationally celebrated repertoire of astounding magical acts, concluding with the incredible, supernatural finger-balancing exercise, a feat so hazardous that only the Professor himself has been able to master it.’

  They watched the Professor – who was dressed in a top hat and tails – remove his hat and go through the colored ribbon trick, the flags and the rabbit. Further well-known mystifications called for audience participation: children were chosen from the crowd to cut a piece of paper with scissors that had been functioning perfectly well for the Professor but, as soon as he handed them over, wouldn’t open for the child. Much laughter ensued at the expense of the young volunteers, who were utterly confounded by the business. ‘That’s so mean,’ Maria murmured. ‘It’s just a knob he flicks to the side every time he takes the scissors back to look at them. It locks the blades, like a safety catch.’ She applauded loudly as a child stepped back and rejoined its parents.

  Professor Miracolo set up a display that included four candles. He was helped by a woman in her forties who was dressed in a spangled costume with a skirt like a dancer’s tutu. Her hair was piled up in a glistening mound, her shoes were high-heeled gold sandals. As she retired behind the curtains with the announcer, the Professor lit the candles by pointing a wand at them, one by one.