“But I could tell! It was coming from there!” Sophie pointed across the city. “There! The Gare du Nord! The train station!”
Matteo didn’t look at her. “I know,” he said.
“Then why did you just say you didn’t? Let’s go.”
“I don’t go to the station. You can go, if you like. I can’t.”
“Yes, you can! I need you! You have to!”
“I can’t. The rooftops there belong to someone else.”
“To who?”
He shook his head. “I can’t explain.”
“Well, in that case can we go?” Her heart was booming in her ears. She had heard her mother play.
“We can go. But not tonight. If you want to go to the station, we’ll need the others.”
“The others?” This was annoyingly cryptic. Sophie said, “Who? The other who?”
Matteo sighed. “The other rooftoppers.”
“But you said there weren’t any others.”
“I know. I lied.” Then he turned to her. His gaze was the sort that sees your soul, and makes you wonder where to put your hands. “You said you could swim, didn’t you?” he said.
20
TWO DAYS LATER Sophie sat on a bench in the Tuileries Garden, fidgeting with her clothes. Her heart was hummingbirding. Matteo had sent her to sit there, in the dusk, and wait.
“I sent word,” he had said. “I signaled. They might come. They might not.”
“Who is ‘they’?” Sophie had watched him scrubbing the mud off snails in a pan of water. He didn’t look up at her as he spoke. She had felt herself growing increasingly tight around the chest. “And how long do I wait?”
“Maybe four hours, starting at dusk.”
“Four hours?”
“Or five, to make sure.”
“Five!”
“Waiting is a talent. You have to learn it.” Matteo laid each snail he cleaned upside down in front of the fire. He had a row of them; Sophie counted eleven. Their shells were mottled, and more beautiful than she had realized. Matteo said, “It’s like playing the cello.”
“No, it’s not.”
“It will be good for you.”
“What do I tell Charles? I’m not allowed on the streets. I’ll get caught.” Just the word, “caught,” made Sophie turn cold.
“Anything. Nothing. Whatever you want. Lie to him. It doesn’t matter. It will be dark.” It did matter, Sophie thought, hugely. But Matteo was a rooftopper, and he had never known what it is like to have to lie to the person who loves you most.
Sophie resolved to say nothing to Charles; it would be better, at any rate, than lying. And she could wear a scarf round her hair. She thought, It’s my hair that they’re looking out for. And she could perhaps pad out her clothes to make herself look fatter, or slouch, to make herself look short. All the same, the thought made her ache with fear.
She said, “Couldn’t you come and keep me company?”
From the look Matteo gave her, she might have asked him to eat an unplucked pigeon. “I don’t go on the streets. Ever.”
“Then couldn’t we meet on my rooftop? Or yours? Otherwise I might get lost,” she said. “Or caught. Please, Matteo. The police here look cruel.”
“Non. They don’t like roofs much. They like open spaces.”
“What do you mean? You said they were rooftoppers.”
“They are, sort of.”
“Why won’t you just explain?”
Matteo shrugged, and threw the snails into a pot of boiling broth. “You can never know who will tell. Often the ones who look safest are worst.”
“You think I’m going to tell?”
Matteo made a face. “It will be fine. You’ll see.”
She had been sitting there for an hour. It hadn’t been easy to get out. She had waited in her room for dusk, climbed out onto the rooftop, and shinned down the drainpipe.
She had left a note under Charles’s door:
Gone to bed early.
Don’t wake me.
Love, S.
The thought of him finding her gone was gnawing at her insides. And every time a man in uniform passed, she jumped, and bit chunks off the inside of her mouth.
Sophie looked about for something to keep her mind off policemen. The park was emptying as it grew dark, and there wasn’t much to see—only flower beds, which are boring unless you are allowed to pick the flowers; and sparrows; and beside her on the bench a cheese roll for her dinner. She broke off a corner and tossed it at the sparrows. Behind her, a voice spoke.
“That won’t work. Those sparrows only eat croissant.”
Sophie whipped round.
A girl was sitting on the back of the bench with her feet on the seat. Her blond hair was inches from Sophie’s face, but Sophie hadn’t heard a rustle—not a click, not a pigeon’s whisper.
“You— How did you do that? That’s incredible.”
The girl grinned. “Good evening to you, too. You must be Sophie.” She slid down to sit next to Sophie. “The birds are very spoiled around here. There’s a dove that only eats pain au chocolat.” She took the bread from Sophie, and instead of throwing it to the pigeons, she bit into it. “Oh, yum. Oh, heaven. I haven’t had bread for weeks.”
“It’s stale.” Sophie couldn’t think of anything better to say.
The girl shrugged. She licked the bread to moisten it. “ ‘Stale’ means old, doesn’t it? Old is wise. Wise bread. This is Safi, my sister. Say ‘Bonsoir,’ Safi.”
Sophie jumped half an inch. A dark-haired girl was lolling against the bench. The girl said nothing.
Sophie said, “But I didn’t hear you! How did you do that?”
The first girl shrugged. “Practice.”
The dark girl came and sat on the bench, tight-rolled, almost in her sister’s lap. A clock chimed, and a man began to light the streetlamps. For the first time, Sophie could see the girls clearly.
Both were small, and filthy. The blonde wore a cotton dress; it was greenish-brown, but judging by the stitching, Sophie guessed it had once been white. It looked as if someone had deliberately smeared it with grass stains. A beetle was clinging to the hem. Somehow, the girl made it look like the richest Chinese silk.
“I’m Anastasia,” she said. Her accent was odd, Sophie thought; it was French, but there was an odd twang to the vowels. The girl spread out her arms, as though she owned the place. “Welcome to Paris.”
“Thank you. I’m Sophie.”
“Yes. We established that,” said Anastasia. She laid her hand on the arm of her sister. “Safi says welcome also.” The dark-haired girl had the face of someone who had seen a lot, and wouldn’t mind punching most of it. She wore a boy’s shirt and a man’s pair of trousers, held up at the waist with measuring tape tied in a knot. She had something sticky smeared up one cheek, which might or might not have been blood; but beneath it, she was as beautiful as the blonde. Sophie winced with jealousy.
The blond girl smiled. “Matteo said you would be easy to spot. ‘Look out for eyes the color of candlelight,’ he said.”
“Matteo told you?”
“Of course. Who else?”
Sophie narrowed her eyes. “How did he tell you?”
“We signal. With candles. You know. Morse code, you call it? Shush, just for a second.” She looked Sophie up and down, and then jumped up and circled her to view her from the back, all without any apparent worry of being rude. Sophie tried to keep her face blank.
The girl said, “You’re very like he said. He talked about you quite a lot.”
The other girl raised her eyebrows, and said more nothing.
Unaccountably, Sophie blushed. “What did he say about me?”
The girl shook her head. “That’s a secret.”
Sophie scowled. She felt stupid, and she looked angrily at the ground.
Anastasia said, “It was all interesting, and mostly good.” The other girl nodded, and became more emphatically silent. Sophie tried to smile.
Anastasia said, “Safi wanted you to know that she’s very excited about meeting you.”
Safi was hiding it well, Sophie thought. But she only said, “Why?”
“Matteo doesn’t usually like people. So when he does, it matters.”
Sophie burned. She ducked behind her hair and tried to think of something to say. “Can I ask you something? You’re French, aren’t you?”
“Of course,” said Anastasia, and Safi thumped her chest. Anastasia said, “Vive la France!”
“Then who taught you to speak English?”
“The American tourists.”
“Really?” Sophie hadn’t expected that. “Oh. That was nice of them.”
“They don’t know they’re doing it, but they eat in the cafés in the park and sit on the benches and chat, chat, chat.”
“And you sit on benches near them?”
“Non! Of course not! The park rangers would start to recognize us. We sit in the trees. They never see us. Americans are not good at seeing things.”
“Aren’t they?” Sophie had never met an American.
“The adults aren’t, anyway. The children are quick-eyed. You’ve got to be careful of the children. We speak Russian, too, and either Italian or Spanish. We’re not sure which it is, but we speak it. Matteo speaks German, but not as well as he pretends he can.”
“And you’re sisters?”
“Yes. Safi is younger, I think,” said Anastasia. “At least, I think I can remember her not being around, but she can’t remember the world without me. So.”
This seemed extraordinary to Sophie. She said, “You think Safi is younger? Don’t you know how old you are?”
Anastasia shrugged. “Non. We don’t remember having a mother. Neither does Matteo. He keeps saying he is fourteen, but he forgets it has to go up every year.” Anastasia looked Sophie up and down again. There was a straightforwardness in her look Sophie had never seen in the girls at home. She seemed fearless. “How old are you? We’re about the same height, aren’t we?”
Sophie shook her head. “You can’t tell that way. I’m tall for my age. You look about thirteen, to me.”
“Good. I will be thirteen. Safi can be . . . what do you think?”
“Eleven? Ten, maybe?”
“Let’s say ten,” said Anastasia. “I like to be older.” She smoothed down her dress, like a princess at a birthday party, rather than someone with algae caked in her nails. “Please excuse my dress. It was white brocade, once. It was so lucky; I found it in a dustbin. People throw away so much in Paris. But you can’t wear white, if you want to stay safe. So we stain everything, with . . . Ach, what’s the word?”
“With paint? With grass?”
“There’s a green dust you get coating the trees. Like tree powder, you know?”
“Yes! I know what you mean! You can find it in white, too, actually, on willow trees. Charles—my guardian—calls it wild paint. I don’t know what it’s really called.” Sophie looked down at her own, cream-colored jersey. “Will this be all right?”
“The trousers, yes. The top . . .” The girl shrugged. “No, not really. White, and yellow—those are the most visible colors at night. And cream, and pink. They are like wearing a sign, LOOK AT ME. They’re for people who want to be at the center of attention.”
Sophie did not agree. Her cream jersey was very plain, and she had knitted it herself, in thick and uneven stitches. It had never occurred to her that it might be attention-seeking. She crossed her arms defensively across her chest.
Anastasia laughed. “It’s a very good sweater. You mustn’t be offended. But if you don’t want to be caught, you can’t ever allow people to look too much at you—you see?” Her English seemed to be faltering. “In exchange, we have the sky. Tu comprends, oui? You understand?”
Sophie nodded doubtfully. “Yes. Or, sort of.” Anastasia watched her with steady eyes. “Not really.” Sophie grinned. “I don’t see how you can have the sky.”
“More than anyone else, the sky belongs to us.” It was what Matteo had said about the rooftops.
Sophie said, “How? In what way?”
Safi tapped Sophie on the elbow. She rubbed her arms and pointed at the clouds.
Anastasia smiled. “She says, ‘Because we live nearer the sky than anyone else.’ She says, ‘Look up.’ ”
Sophie’s eyes followed the girl’s pointing finger. Amongst the uppermost leaves of the tallest tree in the park, which towered above all surrounding buildings, there were strung two hammocks. They were grayish brown, and—Sophie shaded her eyes against the setting sun—it looked as though they might be made out of sacking. She would never have spotted them if she hadn’t been shown where to look.
“They are made from the sails of a ship that washed up down the river,” said Anastasia. “Before that we used curtains from a theatre that burnt down, but the sails are better. The canvas is very strong, especially if you sew it double thick. We dyed them with squid ink.” Anastasia’s face was lit with pride. She might have been showing Sophie a country estate. “We use sacks for blankets. You only need six or seven to keep properly warm. In the summer, we don’t use them, and we hide them on the rooftop of the opera house so they don’t get stolen.”
“Who would steal a sack?”
Anastasia looked shocked. “Hundreds of people. I would. Sacks are valuable.”
The hammocks rocked very slightly in the breeze. They looked wonderfully comfortable. Sophie’s heart screwed tight with envy.
Anastasia said, “You see, Matteo, he is a rooftop boy. But we are better with trees than buildings. We’re called arbroisiers—tree-dwellers. And there are some boys who live on railway station roofs. ‘Station’ is ‘gare’ in French, so we say, gariers.” She screwed up her face. “The gariers are . . . pas bien, you know? Bad. They steal, they cheat, they cut.”
“Cut what?”
“People. Each other, sometimes. Matteo, once. But they are still sky-treaders.”
“Still what?”
“Is that not English? Um . . . danseurs du ciel. Sky-steppers. It’s what we call the children who live outside, but not homeless. Not on the streets; those are just street children. They’re no good. Streets can never be a home, because other people use them, all the time, and your home must be private. The trees are our home, Safi and me. Sky-treaders, you see?”
“Why do you do it, though? I mean, your hammocks look lovely—but don’t you get wet? And hungry? And how do you wash? And . . . the toilet? It must be difficult.”
Anastasia’s gaze shifted from Sophie’s eyes to the space above her head. The shutters of her face came down. “We prefer it. Nobody can lock you in a tree.”
Sophie was not stupid. She changed the subject. “So—should I stain my jersey, before we go?”
Safi glanced up at the sun, and then shook her head. She motioned to her chest, and Anastasia nodded.
“Safi says no. She says there isn’t really time. If you want to come with us, you can wear her spare sweater. She stores it in the oak next to the statue of Napoléon.”
“That oak?” It was a great pillar of a tree. The first six feet up were as wide as a giant. “She can climb that one?”
“Yes. We both can. I have a scarf and gloves in a hole in the cedar tree. We spread our things out; all the sky-steppers do. That way, if one thing gets taken, you’ve got more.” She looked again at Sophie’s jersey. “Safi’s jumper is gray. Gray will be better. Where we’re going is very gray.”
“Thank you,” said Sophie. She looked doubtfully at the smear on Safi’s cheek. “Are you sure? I mean—it’s very kind of you.”
“Safi will go and get it now.” The girls seemed to be waiting. Anastasia said, “You have to give her your jersey, in exchange.”
“Oh!” Sophie flushed, deeply, and began to pull it off. “Of course, yes,” she said, her voice muffled by the wool. “Sorry.”
As Safi ran off with the sweater bundled in her arms, Sophie gathered the courage to ask
a question. “Doesn’t she talk?”
“Of course, sometimes. But not when other people are around.”
Sophie tried to look like she understood. “Was she always like that?”
Anastasia looked as though she were deciding whether or not to be insulted. Then she said, “We—sky-treaders—we’re different. I guess you become strange, even if you didn’t start out strange.”
That made sense to Sophie. It was something she’d thought about before. “I think, actually, everyone starts out with some strange in them. It’s just whether or not you decide to keep it.”
“Maybe. Yes. I could believe that.”
They watched Safi glance around, then launch herself at the oak. There were no low branches, but she gripped with her knees and dug with her nails. In ten seconds she had disappeared amongst the foliage.
Sophie’s head was swirling with these new revelations. “How did she do that?”
“Practice,” said Anastasia.
The sun had almost set. Sophie wrapped her arms around her knees and shivered. Sunset seemed a good moment to ask questions. Sophie said, “Anastasia? Why do I need a gray jersey? Where are we going?”
“Matteo didn’t tell you?”
“No. He doesn’t tell me much. And he’s hard to guess.”
“Ah, I know! Safi is too. Likes cats, non? We’re going to visit someone. A fighter. To go to the station, we need numbers, you see?”
“And do they . . . does this person live in the river?”
“Why?”
“Matteo asked if I could swim.”
“Ah! The person we’re going to see can’t swim, and he always wants money.”
“Where will we get the money? Why does it matter that he can’t swim?”
“You’ll see. I think Matteo didn’t want me to tell.”
“Doesn’t he beg, this person who wants money? I’ve seen street children doing it.”
“Of course not!” Anastasia glared and moved a few inches down the bench. “I told you, we’re not street children. Begging would be boring and stupid and dangerous. We buy food, like normal people. Only, mostly from stalls, at night, because—” She held up her hands. They were layered thick with calluses. “My hands make me memorable, you see? It’s dangerous to be memorable. But I need them like that for climbing; it’s like having gloves. And Safi won’t go near stall owners.”
Rooftoppers Page 12
