“Why not? What’s wrong with stall owners?”
“Rien. I mean, nothing.” Anastasia shrugged. “Safi’s like Matteo. She does not want too much human in her life. She’d like it better if it were just her and me.”
Sophie knew that feeling. But before she had time to reply, someone tapped her on the shoulder. Safi stood behind her, clasping a gray rag to her chest.
“Don’t do that!” cried Sophie. “I swallowed my tongue.”
Anastasia laughed. Even Safi twitched around the lips.
“Let’s go,” said Anastasia. “Matteo will meet us there, half an hour after dark. It should be dark by the time we get there.”
“Where are we going?”
“It’s not far. The Pont de Sainte-Barbara. It’s a bridge.” She took Sophie’s hand. “You’ll like it. It’s beautiful; it’s like you, actually.”
21
THE BRIDGE WAS indeed beautiful, though it wasn’t much like Sophie; at least, Sophie couldn’t see it. It was fine wrought, with gold-painted railings and pigeons roosting on each end.
They ran, the three of them, down stone steps and came to rest under the bridge. Matteo wasn’t anywhere.
“Did he say he’d be waiting?” said Sophie. “Can you see him?”
“He’ll be here somewhere,” said Anastasia. She whistled, not very well, the same whistle Matteo had used on the tightrope. They waited. Matteo was still nowhere.
“You try,” said Anastasia. “He said you had a good whistle.”
Sophie tried to remember the shape her lips had made. She whistled—and then again, louder, and sharper.
“Again,” said Anastasia.
Sophie whistled until her lips buzzed and her ears hurt. She was just about to give up when there was a thump, and Matteo appeared, walking swiftly along the railing of the bridge.
“Bonsoir!” He sat on the rail and called down to them. “Are you ready?”
“Ready for what? Why won’t you tell me?” Sophie hissed. “And keep your voice down. I can’t be seen.”
“I thought you might not come if I told you. Take off your shoes.”
“Why wouldn’t I come?” Sophie bent to untie her laces.
“Because the water’s so cold,” he said matter-of-factly. “It’s like swimming in frostbite. We’re going river-sieving.”
“River-sieving?” Sophie halted, one shoe in her hand.
“Diving for coins. If I really need money, I collect coins, from under the bridges. And sometimes there’s wedding rings. People throw them in. I don’t know why—” He shrugged. “But you can sell them, sometimes.”
“But those coins are wishes! You’re stealing other people’s wishes!”
The look Matteo gave her was so flinty, she could have chipped a tooth on it. “If you have money to waste on wishes, you don’t need the wishes as badly as I need the money.” He stood on the rail, rose onto his toes, and disappeared in a flawless dive.
Sophie stood at the edge, waiting. It was almost two minutes before his head came up. He swam to the edge and dropped a handful of coppers at her feet.
“You said you could swim?” he said. “Safi and Stasia can’t, much.”
“I can, yes. I might not have told you if I’d known why you were asking.” Sophie crouched at the water’s edge. It was midnight blue, and the stars shone on its surface. It looked secretive. Sophie bent until she could see her reflection. She looked secretive too, and more beautiful than she had expected. She dipped a finger in the water. “My God, Matteo!” It was icy. Her toes contracted in protest.
“Then come on,” said Matteo. “There’s a lot. If we leave it there, the gariers will take it.” And, as Sophie rose, he hissed, “Take your other shoe off first! And quietly.”
“I was going to!” She pulled off her shoe and trousers and jersey and bundled them into a corner under the bridge, but left her underwear on. She glared at him, and dived—with some splash, but still quite well, she thought—into the water.
“Ugh. It’s freezing!” Sophie gasped and retched as the water clutched at her. She spat out a mouthful.
“You sound like a water buffalo,” said Matteo, treading water. “Come this way. The tides shift most of the coins to the left—over here. Keep moving, or your heart stops.”
He dived under, and she waited, kicking her frozen feet, until he came up.
“Matteo!” she said. “Listen to me. I won’t help until you tell me something.”
“What? I’m icing over inside, Sophie. This isn’t a good moment.”
“Those boys who live on the station. What’s wrong with them?”
Matteo shrugged, which is not easy to do whilst treading water. He said, “They’re dirty.”
Sophie said nothing. She tried not to let her gaze flick to the girls standing on the bank, dressed in mud and rags.
Matteo saw. Matteo, Sophie thought, saw everything. It was very annoying. “There’s good dirt and bad dirt,” he said to her. “The gariers are bad dirt.”
“Which is which, though?” said Sophie. “What counts as good dirt?”
“Je ne sais pas.” Matteo scowled at her, as he always did when she asked questions. “I don’t know. Ach, je m’en fous.”
“He says he doesn’t know, he doesn’t care,” called Anastasia. She must have been listening from the bank of the river. “I suppose good dirt is soil. And roof dust.” Safi made a sign. Anastasia added, “And tree dust, also.”
Matteo said, “And the grit you get if you run your hand along the top of a stone bridge. Bad dirt is dried blood.”
“And sewerage,” said Anastasia. “And the chimney dust on bad days.”
Sophie knew that by now. The chimney smoke could be corrosive in the nostrils.
“Usually it’s not too bad,” said Anastasia, “but when there’s no wind and the air is damp, it sucks up the smoke and wipes it over your face.” Sophie had noticed. She had also noticed that Matteo picked his nose a lot more than most people, and that on smoggy days the snot was black.
“And pigeon fat,” said Anastasia. “Pigeon fat’s bad dirt.”
“Non!” said Matteo. He turned and swam away from them. “No, pigeon fat’s good dirt.”
Anastasia exchanged a meaningful look with Sophie. “A tiny bit is okay, maybe. More than a tiny bit, and you start smelling like an open wound. Anyway, it’s not just dirt. They’re vicious, the gariers. They’re like animals.”
Sophie thought about that. Matteo had always struck her as being like an animal: a cat, or a fox. Anastasia and Safi moved with the same shifts and swings as monkeys. “Is that bad? To be like animals?”
Anastasia said, “They’re like dogs. Have you ever seen a mad dog? They’re cruel in the eyes.”
“Do they . . . bite?” She had expected the two girls to laugh, but they just stared back at her. Nobody moved, or smiled.
At last Safi nodded. Matteo popped up next to her, panting. He said, “Yes. They bite. Come on. Before my teeth freeze together.”
There was very little current, so the swimming was easy, but the water was murky, and in the dark it was almost impossible to see the glint of copper. Sophie found what she could by groping about on the riverbed. She and Matteo dived six times, then a seventh time, swimming to the side whenever they had a handful. She was gratified to find that her pile on the bank was double the size of his.
“Ach! It’s my fingers,” he said. Sophie and Anastasia exchanged another glance. “I can’t feel what’s a coin and what’s a stone.”
“Of course,” said Sophie. “Of course it is.”
When Anastasia called out that they had more than three francs, Matteo said that was enough. They swam, half-racing, to the bank. Sophie was faster, but Matteo reached out and ducked her under just as she was reaching out for the edge.
“Cheat!” She came up spitting. “You’re a filthy cheater.”
“Cheating doesn’t exist for rooftoppers,” said Matteo. “There’s just alive or dead.”
&nbs
p; “Anyway, that’s not cheating,” said Anastasia. “That’s fighting. Fighting’s better than cheating.” She hauled Sophie out of the water, and handed her a square of chocolate.
Matteo stayed in the water. Anastasia passed him another square, and he ate it treading water.
“Thank you,” said Sophie. Her voice came out in a croak. “Swimming always makes me thirsty. Can I drink the river water?”
“No! Sorry. Rat disease. Even Matteo doesn’t, and he’s immune to most things. There’ll be water when we get to the cathedral, though,” said Anastasia.
“The cathedral?” Sophie pulled on her borrowed jersey and stuffed wet feet into her shoes. “What cathedral?”
“The cathedral, of course. Matteo’ll meet us there.”
“Meet us there? But he’s here—” Sophie’s head whipped round. Matteo had gone.
“He’s like that,” said Anastasia. “He’ll be going by the river, and then the trees.”
Safi approached her silently, and stroked down the parts of Sophie’s hair that were scarecrowing, and picked out the pondweed. She took Sophie’s scarf from the ground and wound it round Sophie’s head.
“Oh!” said Sophie. “I almost forgot about my hair!” Her whole body swept with terror, and she tugged the cloth far down over her ears. “That was so stupid of me. Thank you.” Safi smiled; and then she suddenly blushed purple. She darted up the stairs and into the leaves of one of the trees lining the sidewalk.
“Will she be all right?” said Sophie.
Anastasia gathered up the coins and stowed them in her pockets. “Of course. She’ll go by treetop too,” she said. “Allez. If we walk quickly, you’ll be dry by the time we reach Notre Dame. Race you up the stairs.”
22
DARK SIDEWALKS ARE one of the best places in the world to talk. The girls walked quickly, so Sophie wouldn’t get cold. Anastasia hummed under her breath. Sophie waited until she was sure Matteo was nowhere close before she spoke.
“Anastasia? If I ask you something, could you not tell Matteo I asked?”
“Maybe. Probably. I’ll try, anyway. What is it?”
“It’s the . . . Is it, gariers? The train station boys. Why does Matteo hate them? He goes blank when he talks about them.”
“Oh. If you don’t know, I don’t know if I should tell you.”
“Please. It frightens me. His face goes dark.”
Anastasia ran her nails over iron railings as they passed. Under her touch, they played music. “There was a fight. A few years ago. The gariers, they didn’t want anyone else on the rooftops. Safi and I, we didn’t care much. We moved to the trees. Trees are better. But Matteo, he loves being a rooftopper. Rooftops are . . .” She stopped, and made a face. “Ach, this will sound too poetic.”
“Say it anyway.”
“They are all he has,” said Anastasia. She flushed. “Sorry. Alors, he couldn’t give them up.”
“What happened?”
“Nobody won. They bit . . .”
“Bit what?” Sophie stared at the girl, who looked away. “Bit what?”
“Nothing. Matteo lost the tip of his finger. A garier lost his hand. And have you seen Matteo’s stomach? The scar?”
“He said he fell on a weather vane!”
“Did he? Well, he lied. He almost died. He had to go to an orphanage for medicine. You know about that, oui? And now he never goes near the station, and never goes on the ground.” Anastasia halted, and grasped Sophie’s arm.
“Stop. We’re nearly there. Matteo will be somewhere around.” Her face was restless in the starlight. She bit her lip. “Promise you won’t tell him I told you?”
“Of course,” said Sophie, but the buildings around them were distracting. They stood at the foot of a great white building. It rose up into the night sky, as majestic as a god. “What is this? Where are we?”
“Notre Dame, of course! And Matteo’s in that tree, you see? By the door.” Sophie couldn’t see, but Safi was standing underneath it, looking up at the leaves. The courtyard was empty. Anastasia said, “Let’s go.”
Notre Dame was as painful to climb as it was beautiful to look at. The scramble to the top took twice as long as Sophie had expected.
Matteo went first, followed by Safi. They seemed to know it as well as Sophie knew her home in London; their hands found grips and holds in the stone without a second’s hesitation. Sophie followed more slowly. Anastasia came last, giving advice on handholds and guiding Sophie’s feet when she got stuck.
Balancing came more easily to Sophie now. She had taken off her shoes and her feet were tender against the stone, and her toes bled a little, but she was determined not to wince in front of the rooftoppers. They were not, she thought, the wincing sort. She rubbed her foot with spit, bit the inside of her cheek. By the time she was halfway up, it was pulpy with chewing. Twice she lost her footing, but she did not think anyone noticed.
To most things in life, there is no trick, but to balance, Sophie thought, there was a trick of sorts. The trick was knowing where to find your center; balance lay somewhere between her stomach and her kidneys. It felt like a lump of gold in amongst brown organs. It was difficult to find, but once found, it was like a place marked in a book—easy to recover. Balance has also to do with thinking. Sophie tried to think of mothers, and music, and not of dropping backward onto the street below.
Paris lay still below them. From where Sophie stood, with both her hands wrapped round the neck of a carved saint, the city was a mass of silver, except where the river shone a rusty gold color in the lamplight. “It’s beautiful,” Sophie said. “I didn’t realize the river was so beautiful!”
“Yes.” Anastasia looked taken aback. “It’s . . . brown, mostly.”
When they reached the base of the tower, Matteo and Safi were perched close together, scratching naughts and crosses into the slate with a nail. From their faces, they might have just sauntered up a flight of stairs.
“A tie,” said Matteo. He scratched out the game. “Sophie, can you whistle? We need to call Gérard.”
“Yes, of course.” The three waited. She felt suddenly self-conscious. “Um. The tune you use on the birds?”
“Yes. Make it loud, as loud as you can. He might be asleep.”
Sophie whistled the three notes she had heard on the tightrope. There was a pause; then the three notes came back, deeper and richer than she’d sent them.
“Was that an echo?”
“Non.” Matteo cupped his hands and gave two owl hoots. “That was Gérard.”
Up above them, from the bell tower, there was a small avalanche of dust, and a boy appeared. He swung down hand over hand, finding footholds on the open jaws of the gargoyles. He somersaulted down the last four feet and landed facing Sophie.
“Bonsoir,” he said.
His face was younger than Matteo’s, but his legs were so long that he towered above them both. He was so thin that Sophie could have snapped him, she thought, with one hand. He did not look like a fighter.
“Salut, Gérard,” said Matteo. “We want to borrow you.”
The boy grinned. “Bon. I know. Anastasia signaled.” He wore a musty, weevil-eaten jacket, which looked as though he had made it himself from a selection of doormats. Sophie coveted it immediately.
“Hello,” she said. “I’m Sophie.”
“Oui,” he said. “I know.” His English was a little halting, but he had a good face. His eyebrows were thick enough to shine shoes with, and his eyes were gentle. “You need to go to the station, yes?” He hesitated. He was obviously too polite, Sophie thought, to be good at life. He said, “Did you . . . bring me anything?”
“Yes,” said Anastasia. “Of course.” She tipped the still-wet coins into his cupped hands.
“Merci! Did you know, the candles in the cathedral, they have gone up to twenty centimes? C’est fou!”
Sophie said, “Couldn’t you just . . . take some? If you needed them? I’m sure they wouldn’t mind.”
“
Non! You can’t steal from the church! That’s a sin.”
“What do you do for light, then? When you can’t get candles?”
“Mostly nothing. Your eyes get better at dark. Dark is a talent. Or you can put oil-soaked cloths in tin cans and light them.”
“If you have cloths,” said Anastasia.
“If you have oil,” said Matteo.
Gérard laughed, an inward, guilty laugh. “So. We go to the station, yes? To fight, oui?”
“Perhaps to fight,” said Anastasia. “Hopefully just to listen.” She turned to Sophie. “Gérard is good at listening.”
Matteo did not seem jealous. He nodded. “It’s true. Listening is unusual. Animals have it. Most people only think they do.”
Gérard said, “I can hear a harmonica played in a classroom halfway down the river.”
“That’s impossible!” said Sophie. “Isn’t it?”
“Not impossible,” said Gérard. “Just unusual.”
It wasn’t polite to whisper, but she had to. She pulled Anastasia to one side and cupped her hands round the girl’s ear. “Is he telling the truth?” she breathed. “Is he just boasting? It’s so important. Does he realize how important it is?”
Gérard laughed. It was hard to tell in the dark, but he seemed to be blushing. “Yes, he is,” he said, “and yes, he does. Whispering doesn’t work around me. I didn’t ask to be born like this—it makes sleeping difficult. I have to wear acorns in my ears. But it is true. I think it comes from living on a church.”
Anastasia said, “He sings, too. He practices the choir’s songs every night, when they’ve left.”
Matteo scowled. “I said he sings. Didn’t I, Sophie?”
Anastasia rolled her eyes. “Boys. He doesn’t just sing. With him, it’s like the first snow. Sing something, Gérard.”
Gérard wrinkled his nose. “Non.”
Safi tapped her chest and held out her hand toward him. She tilted her head.
Rooftoppers Page 13
