by Sasha Troyan
“Hmm,” she says. With her lipstick, she carefully draws a red circle to match the one on her other cheek. She does not rub the circles in immediately so that for a moment she looks like a clown. All she needs is a little red circle on the tip of her nose. “Brussels is in Belgium and Belgium, well Belgium is close to France.” She leans away from the mirror and pinches the shoulders of her black satin dress, lifting the bodice slightly, only partly concealing the white powder gleaming between her bosoms.
“Where are you going, Juliet?” I ask. She turns sideways and inhales deeply, passes one hand over her stomach and tightens her gold belt by one notch. “Are you going on a secret rendez-vous?” I ask. She bends over and pulls on her stockings and I wonder whether her wig will fall off, but it doesn’t. I know she’s wearing a wig because her own hair is so thin you can see her scalp shining through.
“Stop, Gabriel. You’re like a radio. Talking on and on. Run along and tell Luis I’ll only be a minute,” she says.
Luis is leaning into his car and spraying it with more perfume. “She’s always late,” he says, looking over his shoulder.
Juliet says it’s good to keep men waiting. When we stay at a hotel and have dinner with her, she always makes the waiter stand for a long time while she tries her wine. “A bit dry but it will do,” she says, holding her glass high in the air with her pinky sticking out straight.
By the time I get back, Juliet has smoothed in the red circles and brushed her eyelids with purple and blue powder.
“Are you sure you can’t see the petticoat?” she asks, twisting her neck around. She tugs on the skirt of her dress.
“I’m sure,” I say.
“Run and get me a tissue,” she says.
She puts her tongue to one side of her mouth, then to the other. She wipes the corners of her lips with the tissue. We hear Luis honking several times. “Oh that man,” Juliet says. “It will only make me take longer.”
“Are you going on a secret rendez-vous?” I say.
“Yes,” Alex whispers, eyes widening, “a secret rendez-vous.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Juliet says.
“Maybe, maybe not,” I say, imitating Juliet’s voice.
“Now, Gabriel, don’t you be rude,” she says.
I hate grownups. They never want to tell you anything.
I mouth to Alex. “Juliet’s wearing her wig. I dare you to pull it off. Go on.”
“You’ll see,” Al says.
Al goes up to Juliet and says loudly, standing the way Juliet often does with her hands on her hips, “You’re wearing a wig.”
“No, I’m not,” Juliet says.
“You are,” Alex says.
“No, I’m not,” Juliet says.
“Yes, you are,” Al reaches up and touches the wig.
“Don’t you dare touch it or you’ll be sorry,” Juliet says.
Alex reaches for it again, but Juliet steps back.
“Don’t you dare,” Juliet says.
Al jumps up and pulls on the wig, but it doesn’t come off because Juliet has attached it very carefully with many hairpins. Al leaps up again, and this time the wig falls off and Juliet screams. “I’ve had enough. I’m leaving. Now.” She bangs her door shut.
Al’s face flushes as she stands holding the wig. She starts to cry, but I tell her not to worry. Juliet’s not going to leave. She’s been threatening to since the day she arrived, almost seven years ago, just after Al was born.
But I’m not sure I’m right. We’ve never done anything this naughty.
Carefully, I take the wig from Al. The hair feels different from real hair, coarse and stiff. I’m not sure what to do with it. In the end, I fold it in two and push it beneath the armchair.
We open the door in our room that leads to the attic. We climb the stairs. We’re not allowed in the attic because it doesn’t have a proper floor. It only has beams so we have to be careful not to slip or we could fall all the way down to the living room and land on Granny while she’s having her gin and tonic.
We stand looking out of one of the attic windows. We can see the swallows from up close now. We take turns holding each other’s legs to look at the nests with the little babies. Their orange mouths are stretched wide open, and they cry for more food. We know we must not touch them or their parents will abandon them and they will die. When it’s my turn at the window, I see Mummy talking to Luis.
We hear footsteps, light ones, hurrying up the stairs. They’re Mummy’s. We hear her knocking on Juliet’s door. We tiptoe down the stairs from the attic and open the door leading into our room. I hear Mummy say, “I just came up to let you know that Luis is waiting.” I lipsing everything to Al.
“Well, he’s going to have to wait,” Juliet says.
“Is anything the matter?” Mummy says.
“Nothing at all,” Juliet says. “I’ve had enough. I’m leaving.”
“Oh no,” Mummy says. “Whatever happened?”
“Nothing at all,” Juliet says, “Nothing unusual, that is.”
“But something must have happened to put you into such a state. Gabriel, Alex,” Mummy calls.
We walk slowly down the stairs, into Juliet’s room. She does not stop packing.
“What did you do?” Mummy says.
“She pulled off Juliet’s wig,” I say, “but Juliet lied. She said she didn’t have a wig, and I told Al to pull off Juliet’s wig.”
“I’m so sorry, Juliet,” Mummy says and then, turning to us, “You’re to apologize immediately.”
“They can apologize,” Juliet says, “but I’m still leaving.”
“Juliet, please. I can’t bear it,” Mummy says. “You naughty, naughty children. Why do you have to make my life so difficult? Can’t you see that it’s hard enough for me already? You’re to go in your room and wait there until I tell you to come out.”
We lie down on our beds and press our ears to the wall, but I can’t hear anything because they’re whispering.
“Got off lightly, if you ask me,” Juliet says after Mummy has gone. “If you’re not good, you’ll be sent to boarding school and believe me you’ll learn manners there.”
It’s too early to go to sleep. It’s still sunny in our room. Daddy and Mummy have already talked of sending me away to boarding school. They say I have no self-discipline. My father says I lack self-confidence. He says to get rid of the problem I must stand in front of the mirror every morning and beat my chest and shout, “I’m great. I’m great.”
When I’m feeling sad, I imagine myself floating outside of my body and into the corner of the room. Floating out of my body also helps me to go to sleep. Juliet says the best way to fall asleep is to think of sheep, but it never works for me. I think of the grass and the fence. I see one sheep after the other jumping over the fence, and then I hate the fence and get rid of the fence and then the grass and watch the sheep not jumping, but floating through the air. Later, when the sun has dropped and the air is cool, I climb into Al’s bed and she lets me use one corner of her white blanket. Al can’t lip read in the dark so we write across each other’s palms. We laugh, remembering the time in Paris when we were reading our books under our sheets with flashlights and I attached a string to Al’s toe that went from her room to mine so that I could warn her when Juliet was going to come but Juliet tripped on the string and landed with a big thud that woke up Mummy and Daddy who came running upstairs. Then Al and I both have to pee at the same time. We can’t be bothered to go downstairs to the bathroom, so we each take turns sticking our bums out the window.
Three
We’re walking up and down the stairs, in and out of the light that streams through the window. We’re gliding our dolls along the red velvet cord. Our dolls are slaves that have to do everything we tell them. Granny’s still asleep. She did not wake me to see the roses. Tiger, the cat, lies across her head. Juliet sleeps sitting up with her head resting against the wall. She’s started her puzzle but she’s done only a few pieces. Ethel has t
he covers drawn over her head, while Mummy lies with Max. He’s snoring very loudly and passing wind. The grownups were up late last night. The telephone rang several times. I wonder if it was my daddy. We heard footsteps. I thought it was a witch and slipped into Al’s bed.
We wander through the house playing you can’t touch the floor. We start on the yellow couch, then jump onto the carpet. Carpets don’t count as floor. Getting from the carpet to the bannisters is very hard. The white tiled floor is the ocean.
Then Granny appears in the doorway of her room. She says that we’re going to go into Malsherbes so that Mummy can get her beauty sleep. We’re going to pick up my surprise. The camping store was closed yesterday. I’m sure it’s a canoe. Granny says not to wake up Juliet. She had a late night. Al and I skip around the house, singing, “Juliet and Luis. Juliet and Luis.” Ethel insists we wear the red dresses with green stems down the front and white petals for collars, black patent shoes and white socks. It looks like we’re dressed for a party. I hate wearing the same clothes as Alex. Once I asked Mummy why we had to wear the same dresses and she said because we look sweet.
When we get into the car, I ask Granny and she says that next time she’ll send me a different-colored dress. She makes us laugh by pronouncing the names of nearby towns. She pronounces Malsherbes, Mallerbee, and Pithiviers, Pit-iv-ers. She tells Luis she’s thinking of walking next time—she’d get there quicker. She lets him swerve across the road like a fish even though Ethel complains.
Since we’ve left, Ethel has been trying to find the right page in her Michelin book. She just looked up again and said, “These French. Why don’t they include an index?”
“It’s a typical French day,” Granny says. The sun is trying to push through the clouds. Sometimes the clouds part for a minute and we see the sun but then the clouds cover it again.
“I suppose he thinks he’s just behaving like a typical Frenchman,” Ethel says. “Do you think he’ll be—”
“Sh—” Granny says, placing one finger over her lips. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised. That’s why I thought it best—”
“I’ve found it at last,” Ethel says. “Malsherbes. An unremarkable town. Really, what do they know? I think it’s charming.”
“Quite charming,” Ethel says as we sit in the main square of Malsherbes, under a white parasol. “If only they wouldn’t blare that awful music.” There are huge speakers attached to many of the buildings.
“I can barely hear it,” Granny says.
“Maybe you’re getting deaf like Al,” I say.
“Maybe I am,” she says.
We watch people weave in and out of stalls. Sometimes they stop and stare at us because we’re so dressed up compared to them. They probably think we look silly. Most of the older women are dressed in black. Granny and Ethel are dressed in pink and green. There are two markets. This one is for clothes. Large pink, yellow, and white underwear are on display beside spools of wool and reels of cotton, socks and tapes, old nightdresses. “Demandez. Demandez,” stall owners shout. Pigeons fly over the blue roofs. One swoops right over us. Through the white canvas, we see its shadow.
We go into a camping store and a man with a gold mustache shows us different kinds of inflatable boats. I have to translate for Granny. I choose a bright orange inflatable canoe. We buy a red pump and an oar and there’s even a little square piece of plastic with a tube of glue in case the boat gets a hole. I tell Granny I’m going to call my boat the QEII. She makes Al and me promise not to go beyond the grounds that belong to our house where the river is more like a rapid. If we want to go further, we must bring an adult. We laugh at the thought of Ethel or Juliet accompanying us.
As soon as we pass through the white gate, I smell the cut grass. I see his shiny black briefcase in the entrance hall. I run through the kitchen, past crates overflowing with fruit and vegetables, past glowing oranges. Their scent mingles with the scent of cut grass and lingers even as I run outside the kitchen door and across the stone patio towards the pool where Mummy sits in a yellow and white striped chair across from Daddy. But as I rush across the grass, through the cut path, I’m afraid that it won’t be him, even though I can see the shadow of his long legs on the grass and the top of his head above the chair. I’m afraid until I reach him and he smiles and jumps up from his chair and swings me up in the air. He swings me high; he does not care that I’m ten, round and round we go, higher and higher.
“Somebody’s happy to see me,” he says, putting me down and then swinging my sister Al through the air. He swings her faster and faster. He never gets dizzy. “Guess what I’ve just bought myself?” he says, sitting down. He leans back and places his hands beneath his head.
“A watch,” I say. Our father has a collection of watches. Sometimes I see him lifting them out one by one from a silver box. First, he wipes the face with his handkerchief, then he brings the watch to his ear, and if he can’t hear it ticking he winds it up. Sometimes, when he takes a pocket watch out, he swings it by its gold chain, and I watch the shadow go back and forth across his desk. He almost never wears a watch, but when he does, he wears it on his right wrist. He’s worn it on that wrist ever since he broke his left wrist falling from a tree when he was twelve.
“A good guess,” he says, “But not the right one.”
“A car,” Alex says.
“A shirt,” I say. Daddy has hundreds of shirts of every color, and each drawer is labeled for a different color. Sometimes, I open his closet door and close my eyes and pull out a drawer and guess the color.
“No, no,” he says, “I’ll give you a clue.” He takes his hands from beneath his head and leans towards us. He whispers, “Something which will enable you to see yourselves exactly the way you are today.”
We stare at our father. He isn’t wearing his brown felt hat. He’s wearing a white shirt and a blue suit the same color as the swallows. His face is tanned, and as he smiles two white lines run from the sides of his nose to the corners of his mouth. It’s very quiet, so quiet we can hear the buzzing of wasps and bees.
“It’s not written on my forehead,” he says and uncrosses his legs, revealing a black box lying in the grass beneath his chair.
“A camera,” I say and jump up in the air.
“You cheated,” Alex says. She pulls on my arm. “You saw it. That’s not fair.”
“Now don’t you two fight,” he says, pulling the camera from beneath the chair and then standing up. “I want to take some photographs. Where shall we go?”
The wind blows, and the cut grass swirls through the air, covering us with tiny bits of grass, flecking Mummy’s peach dress and Daddy’s white shirt, tickling my legs and the back of my throat. The grass has covered the pool. But I do not want the wind to stop. I look up at the sky and will the wind to keep blowing and the sun to stay, but the clouds close on the sun again, and the grass is blue and I can hear the buzzing of bees and wasps again.
“How about in front of the pink roses? On the stone wall?” Daddy says. We sit on the stone wall, swinging our legs, waiting for Daddy who is kneeling on the grass to adjust his lens. “Get out of my way, Max,” he says, as Max, our dog, circles him. The clouds and the sky are reflected in his lens.
“Smile,” he says. “Don’t move.” I stop swinging my legs. I even hold my breath.
“Watch for the birdie,” he says. A bird is going to fly out of the black box. Soon I shall see its black wings unfurl from the lens. Click.
Daddy turns and asks Mummy to come, but she says she doesn’t feel like having her picture taken. “I look dreadful,” she says, leaning against the kitchen door.
“No, you don’t,” he says. “You look lovely. Doesn’t she look lovely?” He turns to us.
“Oh yes,” Al and I say. “She looks lovely.”
Mummy is wearing a peach colored dress with tiny pearl buttons down the front and the hem makes little ripples like the water in the wind. With one hand she tucks in a strand of hair which has escaped from her
bun. She tries to flatten the curls framing her face.
“Leave them,” Daddy says. “You look even more lovely with your hair undone and even an unraveling hem.” Mummy reaches for her hem and pulls on the white thread, unraveling it even more.
“I think you’re fishing for compliments,” he says.
“You’re fishing for compliments,” we shout.
“No, really,” Mummy says. “I just don’t feel like having my picture taken. Anyway, I always look so dreadful in photographs, all teeth and gums.”
“Oh come on,” he says. “Don’t be a spoilsport.”
“Don’t be a spoilsport. Don’t be a spoilsport,” we shout.
She comes and sits between us. She holds my hand. Her hand is smooth like the petal of a rose, but cold.
“Give me a smile,” Daddy says. Our father takes many photographs. He stops only when Granny and Great-aunt Ethel come out. They have brushed their hair and applied fresh lipstick. Granny has lipstick on her teeth. When I tell her, she takes out her handkerchief and rubs her front teeth.
Daddy kisses Granny and Ethel and then he says, “Why don’t we have some pâté and bread and apple cider? I bought some in Malsherbes—pâté d’alouettes. I’ll run and get it. Gabriel and Alex, bring the blue fold-out chairs.”
All the grownups sit in a circle by the pool. At first they don’t say anything. They concentrate on balancing their plates upon their knees. They spread pâté on thick brown bread. Alex and I lie on our stomachs, our chins resting on our hands. When the clouds part for a second and the sun appears, the silver knives and Daddy’s gold cufflinks glint.
“Did you have a pleasant trip?” Granny says. She holds her knife in the air.
“Yes, thanks,” Daddy says. “The weather was terrific.”
“I can see that by your tan,” Granny says. “I trust it was not too fatiguing.”
“Oh no,” Daddy says, looking up from his plate. “It was quite enjoyable.”
“Well, I’m relieved to hear that,” Granny says.
