Ilsa

by L'Engle, Madeleine;

  He hurried into the library, followed by Dr. Brandes. Ilsa came after me through the rice portieres and into the dining room. My sister Silver was in there, wrapping the china in linen and packing it in buckets she had brought from the stable. Mamma climbed onto a chair, and with the carving knife slashed the portrait of her sister Elizabeth out of its heavy gold frame.

  “Give me a tablecloth,” I said to my sister.

  Into the tablecloth I put as much silver as I could carry. Ilsa filled another, and we staggered out, while Mamma dashed madly around brandishing her carving knife and cutting the portraits out of their frames.

  We dumped two loads of silver by the tree and went back for two more. My sister was still wrapping china in linen and packing it in buckets. By the time we had dumped our last load under the live oak tree, she had the eight buckets packed, and we helped her tote them out and load them onto an old wagon that was used to carry muck from swamp to garden. Then we got two spades from the tool shed and went back to the live oak. The shovels were gone and we saw Papa and Dr. Brandes digging by the magnolia tree nearest the river, surrounded by Papa’s rare and precious books.

  We dug until we were black as devils and pouring with sweat. Once Ilsa blew on her hands, which were covered with blisters and bleeding with splinters. Silver was somewhere in the house helping Mamma. There wasn’t a servant to be seen, and I guessed they had all joined the white-sheeted crowd of judgment-dayers.

  Then, over the trees, flew a living piece of fire. It flew through the tops of the trees, so that they became umbrellas of flame, and landed on the roof of the house. Papa said, “It’s time to go.”

  Most of the room in the carriage was taken up by the portraits. Aunt Elizabeth’s pale face, with its darks brows like Silver’s, stared at us with a strange expression as it lay sideways on the seat. Papa got on the driver’s seat, with Silver beside him; Mamma climbed into the carriage, surrounded by portraits and boxes containing her jewelry; Dr. Brandes and I climbed onto the seat of the wagon; Ilsa rode Calypso and led Billy. Just before we started off, Papa climbed down from the driver’s seat and let the other horses out of the stable, smacking them sharply with his whip so that they tore down the street away from the fire. He had harnessed his favorite horse, Lafitte, to the carriage.

  Flames were already coming from the house as we started down the driveway. Ours was the farthest house out to have caught fire. As we drove toward the bridge, we could see other families frantically trying to save what they could, as we had done. When we passed the Woolfs’ house, Violetta, Monty, and Edwin, my cousins, were all carrying portraits which had been cut out of the frames, and packing them in their motorcar. That was something great-grandmother Porcher had taught all her children, and she knew about it because that was the way many of her family portraits had been saved during the French Revolution.

  I thought with pain of the Silverton house. It was in the center of town, and I knew it must have burned again, because Cousin Randolph, in spite of Cousin Anna’s pleading for stone, had insisted on building another white, wooden home, with a neo-Grecian façade like all the Silverton, Woolf, and Porcher houses. I was sure that another fire would kill Cousin Anna.

  We overtook more families fleeing the fire. When we came in sight of the bridge there was a long line of all kinds of conveyances waiting to cross. The wind on our backs was like a tongue of flame. We were a long way from the bridge, and other carriages, goat carts, wagons, a string of impotent automobiles, unable to pass, were piling up behind us. One riderless horse, crazy with fear, reins hanging and flapping against its flanks, tore up beside us. Ilsa struggled to control Calypso and Billy, and I could see that Dr. Brandes was afraid she would be thrown. Our horse shied violently, and four of the eight buckets slid off the wagon onto the road. I could hear the crash of breaking china.

  When the mad horse had passed on, and our horses had quieted down, showing their fear only by a nervous whinnying, twitching of the ears, and an occasional tremor through their bodies, Dr. Brandes handed the reins to me and climbed down from the wagon. I didn’t dare turn around in case the horse should rear again, but I knew he was talking to Papa. In a few minutes he came back with my sister Silver, and drew the wagon to the side of the road, away from the line. Ilsa, Calypso, and Billy followed him.

  He said to us, “Unless the wind changes, the fire will overtake us before we reach the bridge. We are going to try to swim across with the horses. I will take the little girl with me on Calypso. Ilsa, you and Henry will ride the pony. Your father tells me, Henry, you have had the pony in the river before.”

  “Yes, sir, but not at night, sir. Not when we were afraid of anything.”

  “You must not be afraid now,” he said. “If you are not afraid it will be all right. Ilsa, I trust you.”

  “Yes, Father,” she said.

  I climbed onto Billy behind her and clung tightly to her waist. Her body was firm and strong, not wavery with terror like mine. Dr. Brandes held Silver in his arms. I couldn’t tell whether or not she was afraid. The more Silver felt anything, the more composed and quiet her face got, and her dark eyebrows seemed all the more startling against the blondness of the rest of her. When her face became cold and composed like marble, I was afraid she might grow up to be like Mamma.

  Dr. Brandes urged Calypso down the river bank and into the water. Ilsa dug her bare heels into Billy and made him follow. In comparison to the horrible hell-heat of the night, the water of the river was icy as it lapped at our feet. My toes curled in rejection, but soon it was over my ankles and then over my knees, and my trousers were wet against my thighs. Billy swam desperately, stretching his neck out to its furthest limit in order to keep his head above water. We kept our eyes glued to Dr. Brandes and Silver ahead of us on Calypso. He did not turn around, but every once in a while he would call, “Ilsa!” and she would answer, “Yes, Father!”

  The darkness of the river water lapping against us was nothing like the water of the ocean as it had lapped so gently at my neck and shoulders in the afternoon. I knew that if this murky river water, black from cypress, came up to my neck and shoulders, it would claim me forever, I didn’t know which was more horrible, the harsh breath of flame or the insidious licking of water.

  “Ilsa!” Dr. Brandes called.

  “Yes, Father!”

  We were halfway across the river.

  “Do you suppose snakes—” I whispered suddenly.

  “Don’t be silly,” Ilsa said. “The snakes have gone down the river to get away from the fire.”

  I felt something long and slimy twine itself about my ankle and waited for the stinging prick of a moccasin’s fang, but in a moment my ankle was free again, so I supposed it must have been a tendril from one of the water grasses, and Ilsa was right about the snakes.

  Dr. Brandes, Silver, and Calypso clambered onto the bank. Five minutes more and Ilsa and I on Billy were beside them.

  “Now pay careful attention,” Dr. Brandes said. “Ilsa.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “You will take Henry and his sister home on Calypso.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Back to town. They need everyone they can get.”

  “But, Father—”

  “Ilsa, don’t argue with me. Do as I say.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “You will walk Calypso. When you put her in the shed, see that she is comfortable.”

  “Yes, Father. Of course.”

  “When you get home, the first thing you will do is to run up the flag for Ira.”

  “But when will you be back, Father?”

  “As soon as I can. I want you all to go down to the ocean and wash your hands and feet in the salt water. Don’t go in above your knees. The water will sting your blisters, but I want you to stay in it until you have counted five hundred, slowly.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “Then go back to the house and get ready for bed. Ilsa, take Henry’s sister with you in your bed.
What is your name, child?” He looked at Silver for a long time, searchingly, and, raising one smoke-blackened finger, traced the line of her dark eyebrows.

  “Anna Silverton Porcher. And I don’t want to sleep in her bed.”

  “You will do as I say.”

  “I won’t.” Silver spoke in the same quiet, controlled voice that Mamma had used when she tried to throw Dr. Brandes out of the house.

  “There are only two beds,” Dr. Brandes said. “Ilsa, you will see that Miss Porcher shares yours.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “Henry can have mine. You can give him a pair of my pajamas. I want you to stay in bed until Ira or I come to you. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “I expect your complete obedience.”

  “You will have it, Father.”

  Dr. Brandes lifted us onto Calypso. Ilsa took the reins. Silver sat in front of her; I was behind. Dr. Brandes watched us while we went down the road.

  “If the wind doesn’t change, what will happen?” I asked.

  “Everybody in town who didn’t get across the river will be burned,” Silver said. “Papa will be burned and Mamma and all the Silvertons and Woolfs and Porchers. Cousin Anna Silverton will really be burned this time. And your father will be burned to death, too,” she said to Ilsa.

  Ilsa’s fingers tightened on the reins, but all she said was, “The wind will change.”

  4

  When we had gone down the beach road about a mile, it did change. All of a sudden Ilsa put her index finger into her mouth, drew it out, and held it up to the night, announcing, “The wind is coming from the ocean.”

  Silver started to cry. It was the first time I had seen her cry in over a year. Now her face became all contorted, and tears forced themselves out of her tightly closed eyes.

  “Why are you crying?” Ilsa asked.

  “Because the wind changed.”

  “Did you want everyone to burn up so badly?”

  “No,” Silver wailed. “I was so afraid they would! Mamma and Papa and everybody. I was so scared!”

  “They’ll be all right now,” Ilsa said.

  Silver cried for a few minutes longer. Then she fell asleep, and Ilsa had to steady her with one arm.

  Calypso walked very slowly. She was tired from the long ride into town and from the hard swim across the river. I knew that Ilsa, swaying to the slow rhythm of Calypso’s exhausted hoof beats, was wondering if her father had made it back across the river on poor little old Billy.

  The sun was coming up over the ocean when we got back to the beach. The sky over the horizon was flooded with deep reds that were so calm and quiet that they couldn’t remind you of the stain the fire had made against the sky. The revolving bar of light from the lightship flickered and went out.

  Ilsa took a flag down from above the kitchen table and ran it up a rough flagpole behind the house that I hadn’t noticed before. Under the chinaberry tree and the ilex bushes, hidden behind the corners of the house and the shed, night still lay hidden like black sand drifts. We went into the house and undressed, and followed Ilsa down to the ocean. Silver refused to take off her underclothes. She was very shocked, and wanted me to keep my shirt and trousers on because I wasn’t wearing any underclothes, but I wouldn’t. Our colored nurse gave me my bath at home because I was a boy, but often Mamma would give Silver hers, not trusting the old woman’s ability to get her really clean. And Silver told me that Mamma made her wash in her chemise, and that Mamma had never seen a naked body, not even her own. Mamma had every sympathy with Papa’s sister, our overly refined Aunt Violetta (after whom Violetta Woolf was named). Aunt Violetta was so delicate and so refined that she died of embarrassment in childbirth.

  “You said you thought it was silly about Mamma, and wearing your chemise in the bath,” I said. “Why are you being like Mamma now?”

  “I’m not being like Mamma. When I take my bath there’s nobody there but family or Nursie. Going in bathing in front of strangers is different.”

  “Oh, let her wear all that stuff if she wants to,” Ilsa said impatiently. “Come on, let’s hurry.” And her brown nude body flashed out the screen door, down the ramp and onto the sand. I tore after her; Silver followed slowly, lifting her bare feet high like a disdainful pony. The early morning wind, coming cool and beautiful from the ocean, blew her beach-colored hair back from her face, blew her white cotton underclothes tight against her body, that, like Ilsa’s, was just beginning to take shape. Ilsa and I waited for her at the ocean’s edge. When we went in and the salt water touched our filthy, blistered hands, I started to jump up and down and yell with pain, but Ilsa and Silver stood with their hands plunged in the ocean and glared, each daring the other to wince. I knew that Ilsa’s hands were more torn and cut than Silver’s. She had worked as hard as Papa and Dr. Brandes, digging and burying, while my sister had mostly followed Mamma about, and her hands were only a little blistered from the buckets of china.

  When Ilsa had finished counting five hundred, we walked back to the house, slowly, reluctant to go to bed just as morning was coming. The sky was no longer flame red against smoke gray; pale pink clouds on a soft blue sky were like illustrations from one of Silver’s books of fairy stories. The sand was silver and gold, and the froth from the waves blowing along it in the wind felt comforting against the fevered palms of our hands. When you walk along the damp sand in your bare feet just as morning breaks, I think, no matter who you are or how old you are, you feel ten years younger. Since I was only ten and a half, I felt practically unborn and deliriously, wildly happy, like a sea gull bursting from its shell. I began to run up and down, back and forth, kicking and digging with my toes in the sand, waving my arms about, tearing, shrieking, toward a troupe of sandpipers that strutted superciliously away, driving the sea gulls scolding aloft, singing and shouting to the sun that was leaping over the water’s edge.

  When Ilsa and Silver got to the ramp they called me. The cement of the ramp still held cool and wet from the night, although the sun had reached it. We went into the house and climbed the stairs.

  Silver said, “Henry, I’m going to stay with you.”

  “Dr. Brandes said you were to sleep with Ilsa.”

  “Well, I won’t.”

  “I’m sorry,” Ilsa said, “but you will.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Father told me that I was to see to it that you shared my bed. I don’t like it any more than you do. Stop making it difficult and come along. This is my room.”

  “I won’t!” Silver’s voice rose as much as it ever did. “Mamma said—”

  Ilsa took Silver’s wrist and began to twist it, not with anger, just with great determination. After a moment Silver screamed, and tears rushed to her eyes.

  “Will you go in the room?” Ilsa asked.

  For a moment Silver stood still in the hall, her wet, white underclothes clinging forlornly to her body. Ilsa reached out as though she would twist her wrist again, and Silver turned and went into the bedroom.

  “But I won’t undress in front of you,” she said.

  “You needn’t. Just let me get you a nightgown.” Ilsa went to her small chest of drawers, which was painted a blue green, the color of the sea, and took out a cotton nightgown which she thrust at Silver. “Here,” she said. “Come on, Henry. I’ll give you a pair of Father’s pajamas.”

  She slammed the door on Silver, and we went across the small hall to Dr. Brandes’ room. There were only those two rooms on the floor. The rest of it was used as a kind of attic storeroom, packed neatly with wooden crates, huge wicker boxes, and a couple of big black trunks.

  Ilsa took down the mosquito netting, tucking it in around the bed; then she took out a pair of her father’s pajamas and held them against her. “I wish Father’d come home,” she said, in the softest voice I’d heard her use. “I wish Ira’d come.”

  “Who’s Ira?” I asked.

  “Ira’s from Georgia. He helps Father find specimens,
and he stays with me when Father goes off on field trips or up North to meetings. He sings wonderful songs. I wish he’d come. Oh, well!” She suddenly threw back her head and braced her feet wide apart on the floor. “I guess he’ll be here in a little while and Father’ll be back as soon as he can. You go right to sleep. If you get to sleep your hands’ll stop hurting. I guess your sister Silver’s had time enough to undress. Good night, Henry.”

  “Good night, Ilsa.”

  She went out and shut the door, and I put on Dr. Brandes’ pajamas and got into bed. I slept, except for short intervals, all day. When at last I really woke up, I knew that it must be after six, although the sky was still bright and the sun had not abated its blazing against the house. I dressed and went downstairs. The living room was empty, but a good smell of cooking came from the kitchen. I went out and a tall man with thick, dark red hair, that looked as though it had been cut with a hunting knife, was stirring something in a big iron pot on the stove.

  “Hey,” he said. “You Henry Porcher?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Ilsa and your sister been up this past hour. They’ve gone for a swim. Hurry and join ’em before the sun sets down. I’m Ira.”

  “How do you do, Ira?” I said.

  “Hey, Henry Porcher,” he said. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Ilsa says you’re a right fine boy. Good for Ilsa to have a young friend. What’s the matter with your sister?”

  “Silver?”

  “I reckon.”

  “Nothing.”

  “She sure mighty stuck up about something. You go on and swim up a appetite for supper. Rabbit stew. Lemme see your hands.”

  I spread my palms out to him.

  “Kinda sore?”

  “Kind of.”

  “When you come back I’ll put some salve on them and fix you all up. Skeedaddle, now.”

  Ilsa and Silver were just coming out of the ocean when I got down to the beach, but they went back in the water with me. The salt stung my hands, but it wasn’t as bad as it had been. I wanted to cry when Ira cleaned the broken blisters with alcohol, but again Ilsa and Silver stood with stony faces, so I controlled myself. My disinfected hands hurt so that at first I couldn’t eat, but had to concentrate on staring down at my plate in order to keep the tears back. But after a while the stinging subsided, and I had three helpings of stew.