something more like wistfulness. If only Henrietta had fully respected our childhood view of justice; if only Clotaire the balloonist had respected it a little less.
When Harry was eight and I was ten, our mother fell ill. At that time, we had wonderful lodgings in the city, in an ornate copper-roofed house that overlooked one of the parks. Harry and I were in the habit of sneaking about in the dark after we were supposed to be asleep. One evening early in spring, we peeked around the drawing room doorway. By the warm, uneven light of the fire, we saw Mother in her dressing gown and a quilt, seated in the largest and softest of the armchairs. Father sat beside her on the floor, leaning against her knees, an empty brandy glass tilted in his hand. I had never seen him sit on the floor before. Neither of them spoke or moved, but something about the way they stared into the flames made me feel quite empty and afraid. At that moment, I realized for the first time just how ill Mother really was.
Father’s subsequent actions bore this out. In the middle of May we moved to a house in the country, where Mother spent most of her time lying in bed in a sunny room upstairs. The doctor gave orders that Harry and I were to see her no more than an hour each day and that even then we must be quiet and try not to excite her. This news terrified and infuriated me. In retribution, I took to breaking vases and scattering silverware about on the floor while Harry looked on in awe.
Two things happened because of this. First, Harry and I were firmly encouraged to stay outdoors most of the time, which is how we discovered Clotaire. And second, Father sent for his sister, Henrietta. So Clotaire and Aunt Henrietta entered our world together, the same way in which they departed from it.
One of those first country spring afternoons, as we stood with Father on the spacious lawn in front of our new house, Harry and I spied a balloon drifting high in the distance. I had never seen a balloon before and wasn’t at all sure what it could be. I still remember just how it looked—shining silver, with a magnificent sun, moon, and stars about its circumference. It belonged to Clotaire, of course, though we didn’t know it yet.
I jumped up and down, trying to see it better over the treetops, and cried, “What is it? It’s so beautiful!”
“That’s a balloon, Catherine,” said Father. “There’s a man hanging from it in a basket. He’s taking a ride.”
Harry leapt up as well, his cheeks all aglow, shouting, “Daddy, make him bring it here! I want a ride, too!”
Father laughed. His laughter in those days was brief and quiet and always made me think of Mother, lying pale in her bed. “I’m afraid he’s too far away to hear us,” he said, reaching down to tousle Harry’s brown curls.
Harry squirmed but flashed one of those empty, sunny smiles of his. Father looked down at him, returned the smile rather stiffly, and said, “Come inside now, children. I have a surprise for you.”
So, shielding our eyes and pointing at the receding silver balloon, Harry and I stumbled up the path to the front door and ran directly into Father’s surprise—Aunt Henrietta. He hadn’t told us he was expecting her, and I suppose we must have been playing and thus missed noticing the carriage that brought her from the station. At any rate, the unexpected sight of her ample, stalwart figure in the doorway affected us like a bolt of lightning from a cloudless sky. Harry and I were dumbstruck.
Tenacity and the smells of starched lace and lavender hovered around Aunt Henrietta, mothlike. We had never known her very well. She lived far away, visited our house only one week a year, and always brought with her a suit of scratchy new underwear for each of us. She taught at a private girls’ school and raised large maroon roses in her spare time. I had two vivid memories of her, both of which at that moment crashed around inside my head like trapped finches. The first was of her slapping my hand as I reached for a third piece of cake at teatime. The second was of Harry’s gurgling screams as she held him by the ear and washed his mouth out with laundry soap. He had made the mistake of saying aloud that he “didn’t give a hoot about the heathen children in China,” a turn of phrase that he had picked up from Father.
I suppose Harry and I must have looked a little bewildered as we stared up at her on the doorstep. She possessed hugely expressive black eyebrows, which she now raised into swooping arches that reached almost to the line of her stone-gray hair. “Children!” she said, her voice warm and sweet as those disgusting fig tarts she loved to eat. “How delightful to see you again.”
Father put a hand on each of our shoulders. “Henrietta’s come to stay with us until Mother gets better. Isn’t that good of her?”
The eyebrows dropped, and a sort of smile crackled its way across Aunt Henrietta’s powdery face. “Yes. I’ve come to help your father look after you for a little while. Won’t that be nice?”
I suppose she thought she was doing the right thing. Perhaps she even thought this type of sacrifice would assure her of a place in heaven. After all, she was a solid and confident woman, with lucid ideas of the world. In all likelihood, it never occurred to her that she might only make matters worse by volunteering her services.
Harry and I were too young to see any of this, however. I knew only that Aunt Henrietta’s presence at a time like this must mean that my mother was in terrible danger.
I started the new venture off well—with a bloodcurdling scream followed by, “I won’t! I won’t let you look after me. It’s Mother’s job. Leave me alone!” I ran straight across the lawn and into the woods, where I found solace in the rough branches of a maple tree. I cried until dark, when, as no one came looking for me, I climbed down and made my way home, feeling hungry and deserted.
Aunt Henrietta’s presence in the house caused Harry and me to spend more time than ever out of doors. By the middle of July, when we first met Clotaire, we already knew exactly which trees in our woods were favored by cardinals and which by mourning doves; we had explored every turnstile and rock wall inch by inch and even befriended the great black bull who sometimes grazed in the field adjoining our raspberry patch.
Most important of all, we had learned to guess when the wonderful silver balloon was most likely to come drifting past. It had to be just the right kind of day. There had to be a line of dust shimmering like a halo on the road, and the sky had to look like Mother’s blue crystal vase. Then, if luck and the high breeze came our way, we might catch a glimpse of the balloon, shining like an errant moon in the perfect sunlight. Now and then, it came so near to us that we could discern and wave to the man in the basket. Sometimes he waved in return, and sometimes he did not.
One afternoon during a fine round of our favorite game, missionaries and cannibals, we heard a strange sound. Harry and I stood still as rocks and listened. It was a noise like the beating of gigantic wings, accompanied by that odd roar and bellow that bulls sometimes produce when they are angry or afraid.
“Cathy, there’s something in the field,” whispered Harry. The dry willow branch he’d been using as a cannibal spear dropped unnoticed from his hand. That, and a slight croak in his voice, made the hair on my arms stand straight up beneath the sleeves of my blouse.
In a moment I saw what Harry was talking about—a huge, glowing thing that moved in waves just beyond the raspberries and the hedge. I got down on my hands and knees, crept through our secret hedge tunnel, and peeked out on the other side.
Harry was just behind me, not to be outdone by a girl. “Is it anything awful?”
I made room for him beside me. “Come and see.”
Before us in that ordinary field was a sight that visits the dreams of an old woman to this very day. A tall but otherwise unremarkable chestnut tree grew there, and caught in its branches was the grand silver balloon. We saw immediately that the basket, all askew, hung empty. But directly beneath it a man lay in the grass, half propped on his elbows and looking very distressed indeed. Our friend the black bull pawed the ground no more than two yards away from him.
I stood up for a better look and, as sometimes happens with little girls, fell in lo
ve straightaway. I had previously thought that no one could possibly be more handsome and dashing than Father, but as I stood watching in the afternoon sun, I knew that Father had met his match. The fellow sported aviator’s breeches and puttees and a lovely ivory-colored scarf. His eyes, the dazzling color of robins’ eggs, were set in a strong, well-tanned face, and his hair and mustache gleamed like heaps of gold coins. Moreover, he seemed clearly in pain and danger. At once I felt capable of even the most arduous rescue. I floated in visions of befriending him and showing him off to Father and Aunt Henrietta, who seemed to care so little for me that they would let me sit in a tree by myself half the night.
“We’ve got to help him,” I said. Bravely, and I now think rather stupidly, I walked out into the field and flicked a stone at the bull’s broad flank.
The bull looked around, distracted but unconvinced, and Harry yelped, “Don’t, Cathy! He’ll come after us.”
“Nonsense,” I said, hoping the handsome aviator could hear me. “The bull knows us. See?” And I clapped my hands and cried, “Shoo!” as loudly as I could.
Sometimes I think that God must station an angel on the shoulder of every little boy and girl and that only through that device does any child grow to adulthood. My angel must have been hard at work that day, for the bull turned and humped away as if it had been bitten by a fly.
“Shoo!” I said again, and it lumbered off even further.
Luminous with triumph, I turned to Harry. “Stand right here. Keep yelling ‘shoo’ and don’t stop until I tell you to.”
“But, Cathy …” he whimpered.
“Do it, or I’ll twist your ear off.” Poor Harry. I knew all of his weaknesses, even in those days.
So Harry crouched, all the little blue veins in his neck standing out, and screamed, “Shoo!” while I ran to the aid of the dashing young balloonist.
“Can you stand up?” I asked, breathless with a combination of excitements.
“Oui, mademoiselle, I think so,” he replied. Oh, my knees nearly turned to butter.
I helped him up. But he winced and jerked when he tried to put weight on his leg, so I told him to lean on me. Lean on me he did, heavily and deliriously, as we hurried toward the gate in the hedge. He smelled wonderful, like cold air and lightning and peppermint.
When we stood safely on the other side of the gate, I called, “Run, Harry! Run!”
Screaming like a wounded pigeon, Harry tore through after us, even though the bull did not follow him, its attention having apparently wandered from stranded hero to succulent grass. That is how Harry and I at last made the acquaintance of Clotaire, the ace balloonist.
Later that very afternoon, as Clotaire sat before our fire soaking his foot and ankle in an Epsom salts bath, he said a thing which eventually changed our lives. He said, “I owe you a great debt. If there is ever any way in which I can repay it, you must tell me.”
The peculiar look in his sky-blue eyes frosted the bones of everyone in the room, even Aunt Henrietta. Her twitchy eyebrows betrayed the nervousness that lay beneath her facade of haughty disapproval. It seemed as if a cold, sharp wind swept past the fire, for the flames, wavered ever so slightly, though the day was still and mild.
An hour or so later, Father got out our touring car, which he showed off at every opportunity, and drove Clotaire to town. The moment they left the drive, Aunt Henrietta turned to us, her face ratlike in the dim light of the parlor, and said, “You’re not to have anything more to do with that disreputable vagabond. Is that clear?”
I knew, of course, that Clotaire was a disreputable vagabond. It was the very reason I liked him so much. I already loathed Aunt Henrietta’s imperious commands with such passion that any word from her had the power to make me do just the opposite.
I leapt to my feet and cried, “You’re not our mother! You can’t make us stop seeing him. I hate you. I hate you!”
For which I got my mouth washed out with laundry soap, while Harry stood by, unable to contain a quiet snicker or two. When the ordeal was over, I stumbled teary-eyed up the stairs, sneaked into Mother’s room, and lay down beside her on the bed where she slept. I had a dream, which I remember even now. In it, Mother was well again, and we lived in the copper-roofed house that overlooked the park.
I made up my mind that I would do everything in my power to see Clotaire again, as a means of antagonizing Aunt Henrietta, if nothing else. Harry and I commenced spending virtually every waking hour out of doors, playing games of make-believe, always keeping a sharp eye out for Clotaire’s mighty balloon.
We actually saw him three more times in the course of the next several months. The first two times, he drifted past above the treetops, waving to us. We leapt in the air and waved back to him. But we could not tell whether he called our names or not, for on both occasions he was ascending, and the balloon’s burner roared and gushed flames like a dragon from a fairy tale.
The third time, however, the burner was silent, and Clotaire called down, “I will land in the field!” I was, of course, immediately transported to heights of perfect ecstasy.
I suppose I should tell you that many years later, when I was a full-grown woman, I had a suitor who owned a hot air balloon. I had it on excellent authority that this fellow was an adept balloonist and that his balloon, though it bore an unfortunate resemblance to a large Easter egg, was of the finest make. Yet I never saw him land where he really wanted to, and I never saw him attempt to take off or touch down without at least two strong men on the ground to help him. Whenever I recall Clotaire and that silver ship of his, I am astounded at the amount of control he seemed to have over it. Barring unexpected winds, and even then sometimes, he seemed perfectly capable of piloting his unwieldy craft without any aid whatsoever. That is precisely what he was doing on the occasion I now describe.
Harry and I had already reconnoitered the field once on this particular day, and we knew that the bull was nowhere to be seen. When Clotaire called down to us, we tumbled over one another like a couple of young rabbits as we dashed through the hole in the hedge to meet him. Quite clear of the chestnut tree, the balloon’s varnished wicker basket thudded to the ground. Just as it began to rise again, Clotaire jumped out, carrying one of the anchor lines. In the blink of an eye, he pounded a long brass peg into the ground and tied the line to it. That was that, and nothing could have looked easier.
Clotaire said not a word as he stood gazing at us. His smile felt like a candle flame in the darkness, edged somehow with cold wind and thin air. It made me shiver, frightened me and delighted me all at once.
“Oh please, Mr. Clotaire,” said Harry, clasping his hands before him, enthralled. “Please take us for a ride!”
I nudged him. “Don’t be rude, Harry.”
Clotaire rested one hand on his narrow hips and twisted the end of his golden mustache with the other.
“You might not like it. It’s a strange world from those heights,” he said. How chilly and wonderful those eyes of his were.
I remember my exact reply. Though I didn’t know it then, I could not possibly have chosen more fitting words. “Oh, we’d like it fine, wouldn’t we, Harry? We like strange worlds.”
“Well, we shall see,” said Clotaire, and he smiled again, as mysteriously as an Akkadian statue.
Clotaire lifted us over the rim of the basket as easily as he might have lifted two bags of thistledown and climbed in after us. He gave the anchor rope a surprisingly gentle tug; the brass peg pulled out, and we rose skyward.
For many years I have contemplated the rarities of that voyage. Some might be inclined to doubt their childhood memories of such events. But I can tell you this: I was born with a keen sense of what is real and what is not, and you may take my word for it. What Harry and I saw while peering over the edge of that basket was real.
Clotaire fired the burner, and we rose past the treetops, up into the cold blue cup of the sky. Not even the slightest breeze stirred the afternoon air, and when we stopped climbing we hun
g almost motionless, as if suspended on a string. Below us, we could see our house, the field, and the woods, and further off, the town.
Folding his arms across his chest, Clotaire said, “You do not yet understand about the worlds. Perhaps you never will, but I shall show you anyway.”
He stretched out his hand and motioned toward the scene below. “This is one world.” Then he snapped his fingers.
Harry and I sucked air as a shadow passed across the sun and a cold draft cut into our bones. I looked up, but I could see no clouds, no hawks or ravens, to account for the shadow. In a moment it was gone.
“And this is another world,” said Clotaire.
Twenty-five or thirty cows had suddenly appeared in the field with the chestnut tree. Some of them had gotten through the gate and were grazing on our lawn, which looked unkempt and weedy. The house needed paint. “In this world, you never moved to the country,” said Clotaire.
Snap. Shadows fluttered across the sun, and we spied a middle-aged woman and two children speeding down the drive in Father’s motorcar. The noise of the engine floated up to us with eerie clarity. “A world in, which your aunt became an avid traveler and learned tolerance from a Katmandese monk.”
Snap. “A world in which the rules of civility are not quite the same.” Two children looking very much like Harry and me came running across the field. We stared down at them, fascinated. Both of them wore fierce grimaces that revealed sharp yellowish teeth like those of wild rodents. The girl threw rocks at us with her powerful arms, and the boy carried a bundle of pointed sticks.
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