The Calder Game

by Blue Balliett

  Calder’s mouth fell open. “It’s the T-shirt, the one from the Chicago exhibit!” he said. “Cool, I thought the shapes looked like parts of a code when I first saw it.” Now the black shirt with its row of red Calder sculptures just looked kind of shocking.

  “Odd how human history and a sense of what things are supposed to look like in a certain place can influence how you actually see,” the man said. “Or what you allow yourself to see.”

  “Exactly! My dad and I — we were so surprised when we first saw this huge red thing in the middle of Woodstock. Actually, I think we were disappointed even though we both love Calder’s sculptures. And, now I’m getting used to seeing it here, I kind of like that it gives a person a jolt.”

  “But you’re American. Americans don’t worry about tradition, not like older cultures do. Plus, you’ve seen lots of Alexander Calder’s work. There isn’t that much of it in England, and this must be the only public Calder piece in the Cotswolds. I’ve heard mixed reviews coming from the people in this town,” the man said. “That’s putting it kindly.”

  “I know … but wasn’t it a gift?” Calder asked. “Pretty generous. If someone gave this to my neighborhood at home, everyone would be jumping up and down.”

  The man smiled and shrugged. He looked at the sky, and then at Pummy, who was now snoring. “But that’s Chicago. What happens if a gift like this isn’t understood or wanted? I can see it’s caused some real agony here in Woodstock. What I mean is, perhaps they don’t want something modern in a thousand-some-year-old place, or the attention it will bring.”

  “But tourists come to see Blenheim Palace year-round,” Calder said. “How is that different?”

  “Blenheim belongs,” the man said.

  Calder was stirring his pentominoes. “So why doesn’t the collector take the Calder back?” he said slowly.

  The man folded the paper into a tidy rectangle. “I don’t know what will happen. I’m only here to observe,” he said, reaching down to scratch Pummy’s one visible ear. Pummy didn’t move.

  “Who —” Calder began, but then realized that he couldn’t ask who had hired Black Jacket to watch the art. “How long does it take to belong?” Calder asked instead.

  The man glanced around again. “Perhaps too long,” he said. “But let’s talk about something else. Those diagrams — can you explain them to me? I’m interested.”

  Black Jacket pulled off his sunglasses, and Calder noticed that his eyes were blue and kind of wandery, like Miss Knowsley’s. At that moment, he half turned on the bench, eyes following a large, empty cart pulled by a Clydesdale horse, the kind with massive shoulders and hairy ankles and hooves. He now sat straighter, smiled, and looked directly at Calder.

  “They’re challenges,” Calder explained, and unfolded his graph paper. He moved, sitting down on the bench next to the man. Soon the yellow pentominoes were out of Calder’s pocket, and the man and the boy were bent over Calder’s diagrams, talking busily. Both waved their hands excitedly and spoke at the same time. An outsider would never have guessed that they had just met.

  Looking out the window of his bus an hour later, Walter Pillay spotted his son shaking hands with a man in front of the red Calder sculpture. The huge, black cat lay right nearby. His son was smiling; the man had his back turned. Hmm, at home with the locals already, Calder’s dad thought, then sighed as he picked up his briefcase.

  Walking toward the door of the bus, he saw a flash, something reflecting from a second-floor window. What was that?

  He followed the flash to a camera, and behind the camera was the girl who’d been taking pictures the night before. This time, he realized, she was photographing his son and the man he was talking with, in addition to the red sculpture. How odd. Perhaps that was as close as she was allowed to get.

  Well, Calder would be immortalized in some girl’s Woodstock photo collection, Walter Pillay thought to himself and smiled. His son was certainly finding his place here.

  Realizing that Calder was growing up, Walter Pillay felt a momentary twinge of sadness.

  The next morning at breakfast, Pummy was nowhere to be seen. Calder wriggled so much in his chair that Miss Knowsley frowned.

  “He’s going to the maze and Blenheim today,” Calder’s dad said, not wanting her to think that Calder had a bathroom issue. “A bit excited,” he added.

  “A bit!” Calder said. “That’s an understatement.”

  Miss Knowsley laughed. “Well, at least the Minotaur is here in the square and not in the middle of the maze,” she said briskly. “No worries there.”

  Walter Pillay looked at his son, wanting to exchange a glance, but Calder looked away. Slam-slam went Pummy’s door in the kitchen.

  “Oh, Pummy dear!” Miss Knowsley called in a chirpy tone. “Come to Mummy-Mums!”

  Pummy rolled into the room, ignored Miss Knowsley, squinted directly at Calder, then gave one loud yeow and headed up the stairs. Miss Knowsley looked oddly crushed.

  “Someone’s been leaving food for him again,” she said, her voice suddenly angry. “I do hate that! One never knows what the poor dear is trying to digest.” She clattered the breakfast dishes into a pile.

  Calder swallowed loudly, then busily retied his sneaker laces.

  As they shut the front door and stepped outside, both Calder and his dad took a deep breath. The street was quiet, and the air smelled sweet and damp. A window closed softly nearby. “Such a clean and cozy little world,” Walter Pillay remarked happily as they headed down Alehouse Lane. “The problems of an overfed cat and a surprising piece of modern art! I wish life in Chicago were that simple.”

  “I wish,” echoed his son with a little smile.

  In the distance, Calder spotted Black Jacket — he was walking rapidly down one of the twisty streets that led toward the edge of town. For some reason, and Calder wasn’t sure why, he hadn’t told his dad the details of the conversation yesterday in the square. Or about what had happened in the post office and the Lyon Tea Shop. Maybe because it was his own adventure. He figured that as you got older — and he would be thirteen this December — you didn’t need to share everything.

  If Calder and his dad had walked by just seconds later, he would have seen something that might have changed his mind: Angry Dad stepped out of a doorway, and he and Black Jacket shook hands. But as it was, Calder never knew.

  And Walter Pillay, for some reason, hadn’t mentioned the girl photographing the Minotaur from a second-story window. Perhaps he didn’t want his son to think he’d been spying on him.

  Five minutes later, Walter Pillay waved out the bus window. Calder waved back as he hurried away.

  Heading off to get safely lost, Calder’s dad thought to himself with a smile. How restful to be staying in a world where that was possible.

  As the bus drove in one direction and Calder walked in another, the boy was watched by three sets of eyes. One peered from behind a lace window curtain, another through a gate, and the third from behind the steering wheel of a parked truck.

  A fourth person studied one of the watchers and muttered softly, “Nothing to it! And they’ll never figure it out.”

  When Walter Pillay got off the bus that afternoon at five-thirty, Calder was not there. Knowing his son had lots to explore at Blenheim, he wasn’t concerned. He walked slowly back to Miss Knowsley’s house, enjoying the breeze, and marveled at the continued existence of this old stone community in a modern world. He was pleased that Calder was getting a sense of what it was like to stay in a place that had been lived in for so long; the experience of slow and visible time was just not a part of growing up in the United States.

  He rang the bell, since Calder had the key. Miss Knowsley opened the door.

  “Left you a note, your boy did,” she said briskly.

  “Oh,” Walter Pillay said, surprised. “Where is it?”

  “Dashed upstairs with it,” she said, as if the dashing part hadn’t been good.

  Walter Pillay felt a tiny
jab of worry as he climbed the stairs to their room. The door was closed but unlocked. He sank down on the bed and picked up the piece of graph paper left on his pillow.

  Dear Dad,

  I’ve been asked to do some speshal work over at Blenem Palace. I’ll be back later, don’t wate up.

  Love Calder

  Walter Pillay read through the note three times. He was used to Calder’s exotic spelling. But who had invited him to do something at Blenheim? A kid he’d just met today? And why stay out so late? Hurrying downstairs, he knocked on the kitchen door.

  “Come in!” Miss Knowsley and Pummy were both seated on stools at the kitchen table. Miss Knowsley had a chop, a piece of fried bread, and green beans. Pummy had an empty plate.

  “He’s waiting for his bits,” Miss Knowsley said fondly, giving Pummy a nod.

  Walter Pillay showed her the note. “Did you notice my son with anyone today?” he asked. She frowned at the piece of paper. Suddenly aware of the spelling, Walter Pillay snatched it back; this was not the moment for another critical comment about Americans.

  Miss Knowsley smoothed her apron and squinted her eyes. “No-o-o, I don’t think so,” she said slowly.

  “Is it likely that my son would have been invited to do something at Blenheim? By someone who lives or works there?”

  “Hmm, possible.” Miss Knowsley glanced at her chop and straightened her glasses. “It’s the end of the season over there, you know. Things get less formal. They’re used to kids — lots of educational programs. And of course many people work and live on the estate, as you can imagine. Might be a family over there; I’m not entirely sure.”

  “Fine, thanks. If Calder returns before I do, please keep him here,” Walter Pillay said, turning away.

  The front door shut with a slam, and Miss Knowsley put three little pieces of pork on Pummy’s plate. “That’s my boy. For a job well done,” she said lightly.

  “The grounds remain open until six-thirty this evening,” the guard at the Triumphal Arch, the closest gate to Blenheim Park, told a distracted-looking man. “It’s just gone six — no need to pay now.”

  “And if someone wants to leave after the gates are closed?” the man asked.

  “Oh, there’s always a groundskeeper to let them out,” the guard replied.

  The man arrived breathless at the palace. The grounds were deserted except for the occasional dog-walker. He circled the building, which was closed for the night, and rang several bells. No one answered, although he could see lights in one wing.

  He ran back to the gate, arriving just as the guard was locking his cash box for the day. “Is there any other place —” the man gasped “— where people live on the estate?”

  “Besides the family?” the guard asked cheerfully. “Many places. Cottages and lodges, some for guests, some for help.” He waved his hand toward the woods and gardens and lake that stretched as far as the eye could see. “Tucked here and there,” he added.

  Walter Pillay explained that he was looking for his son, who had left him a note. The man threw back his head and laughed. “And you’re American, is that right?”

  Walter Pillay nodded.

  “No need for worry, no need at all,” the guard said and patted him on the back. “No crime around here, not like the United States. Your son is most probably having a visit with one of the gardeners, and will be walked to the gate in an hour or so. Go by one of our nice little pubs and have yourself a pint. He’ll turn up in no time!”

  Walter Pillay walked slowly back through the streets. He would have given a lot, at that moment, to hear the clatter-clatter of Calder’s pentominoes. He reminded himself that his son was used to navigating Hyde Park and parts of downtown Chicago on his own. He’d done it for years. And Chicago, after all, was the third-largest city in the United States. In comparison, Woodstock was like someone’s backyard; Calder would show up any second.

  Calder’s dad turned down one empty street after another. Almost everyone in town must have been inside cooking or eating. At this hour, the buildings looked unfriendly, like small castles, and the unkempt graveyards seemed downright spooky. A cold wind was blowing, whooshing across the Calder sculpture, through church spires and trees, over ancient walls and around iron gates. Once the sun set, color drained from the streets and all was suddenly hard: stone, metal, stone, stone, stone. Old wasn’t always cozy, he noted to himself.

  What on earth could Calder, a twelve-year-old boy, have been invited to do at Blenheim? And by whom? Something didn’t feel right.

  Walter Pillay shook his head, trying to clear the thickening fog of worries.

  He jerked awake at dawn, still dressed. A package of biscuits was crushed under one elbow, and the tea he had heated on the electric burner in the room was still on the table. He must have fallen asleep — and Calder! — he twisted around in the chair, ready to see Calder’s black hair sticking out in all directions on the pillow.

  Calder’s bed was still empty.

  Walter Pillay stood so quickly that he saw black for a moment, and then yellow spots. His heart was pounding. As his vision cleared, he heard a shout from the street: “It’s gone! The sculpture is gone!”

  In no time at all, the streets had filled with police cars. The town square was outlined with wooden barriers. A police photographer worked busily, documenting every inch of the crime area. A number of townspeople had come out with their cameras, and now stood on benches or flower urns and snapped pictures, their cameras held high over their heads. Walter Pillay noticed the young girl from the day before yesterday, also taking photos. This time she didn’t look as furtive. Perhaps her father was away at work, or perhaps it was simply that other people were taking pictures, too. There was something yellow on the pavement where the sculpture had been, and a number of officers stood around it, talking. Walter Pillay ran over, his hair ruffled and his shirt untucked. He spoke with the closest man in uniform, describing his missing son and the note.

  The man frowned suddenly. He brought Calder’s dad inside the barriers and showed him what the police were looking at.

  Walter Pillay’s stomach lurched. The words were cleanly stenciled in yellow paint, each letter about five inches high:

  “Don’t know what to make of this,” the detective said. “A bit like the work of Banksy. Of course, no one knows what Banksy looks like, he keeps his identity a secret, and I must say I’ve never heard of him stealing. He’s more of a prankster, someone who likes to raise questions about art.”

  The detective sounded excited by the idea, and kept glancing around as if Banksy were watching. “Might be taking pictures of what he’s stirred up,” the detective went on. “Does it all the time. Could be anywhere. Could have hired one of these locals.”

  Walter Pillay had heard of the British artist Banksy, but was barely listening. The words prankster and likes to raise questions sparked a new set of worries. Two Calders gone in one day — was there a connection? Had his son been manipulated into helping with someone else’s joke? Or with a crime he didn’t realize was a crime?

  His heart heavy, he went back to the bed-and-breakfast and telephoned Calder’s mom. She burst into tears as they tried to reassure each other. The plan was for her to book a flight for London as soon as possible. If Calder showed up in the next hour or two, she would cancel her trip; otherwise, she’d be there by late that night. Meanwhile, she got busy e-mailing an image of Calder to her husband, an image that he could show the police.

  Miss Knowsley hurried out of her house an hour later. By then, Walter Pillay was walking through the grounds of Blenheim with two detectives, looking for any trace of his son and speaking with each of the groundskeepers who had been on duty the day before.

  When Calder’s dad saw Miss Knowsley trotting toward him, her apron flapping, he hurried over. No, not good news: It was an emergency phone call from his wife. Walter Pillay ran all the way back to the bed-and-breakfast and called her from the phone in the dining room. After hanging up, he sank do
wn in a chair, his head in his hands. Yvette Pillay had tripped over her suitcase and fallen down the front steps of their house, landing on her back on the cement walk. She couldn’t move without great pain, and had been taken to the hospital.

  Tears filled Walter Pillay’s eyes, something that hadn’t happened since his mother, Ranjana, had died a few years before. Calder had seemingly vanished. Yvette was now injured. This father-son visit to England had spun overnight into a nightmare. He hung up the phone and sat for a moment in the front breakfast room, trying to think.

  Calder, Calder, Calder … he knew his son inside out, but had to admit to himself that these days he didn’t always know what kinds of projects Calder was involved in until after the fact. Petra Andalee and Tommy Segovia, as his best friends, might know. The three of them had done some extraordinary detective work on their own in Hyde Park, some of it quite dangerous. And none of their parents, amazingly, had guessed or understood the seriousness of their investigations until they were over. Petra and Tommy certainly knew how Calder thought.

  Walter Pillay picked up one of the balls of wool in the basket and rolled it back and forth between his palms. Then he dropped the wool and reached for the phone again. It was worth a try.

  The floors in the house slanted in every conceivable direction, and the red ball rolled unnoticed out into the front hall, where it stopped by Pummy’s collar.

  “Yeow.” Pummy opened his yellow eye and batted at the ball. A loose strand caught on his collar buckle, and he pulled angrily at it. When he got up to leave minutes later, the yarn trailed behind him. The entire ball, still unrolling, shot out through the cat door in the kitchen.

  That morning, the police learned nothing about where the Calder sculpture had gone. The welded steel structure could, they admitted, have been lifted by five or six strong men onto a cart with rubber tires, the kind used on market day in the town square. A number of those carts, owned by the town and available to local farmers, stood in a field outside the walls to Blenheim, and no one could agree on exactly how many were usually available. One could be missing. There were always clots of earth and boot prints in town, so that was no help. And in the area around where the sculpture had stood, there were no streaks of paint indicating that the Minotaur had been scraped or dragged. No one had heard any disturbances during the night. The locals seemed quite cheerful about losing their work of art, and asked few questions.