Sun Alley

by Cecilia Stefanescu

  The woodshed door was shut with a makeshift wooden latch, resting on a twisted, L-shaped nail. Opening it was easy enough, but he feared that the persistent squeak of the hinges would fill the entire yard. Popping his head in, he looked around: a few stacks of wood, some gardening tools, several piles of coal that covered the floor in a velvety tar carpet that looked cosy enough to offer rest to tired travellers – all this left enough room for two children. What could have brought the old man there in the summer? Except for the watering cans, the multicoloured hoses coiled and hanging over a pole, the rake, the hoe and some other iron tools he might have needed for working his land, there was nothing else he could have needed. They could find shelter in the darkest, remotest corner; they could perch on the stack of wood; they could build up some kind of fortress, just as he used to do when he was little, curling down under the puffed feather duvet where his mum would feign not to find him. Her image sprang to his mind as he was closing the woodshed door and pulling the latch; he was seized with a feeling of remorse, and a terrible homesickness flooded him unexpectedly.

  He crammed his pockets with black mulberries, picked from the tree pouring its richness over the shingles on top of the ramshackle dwelling. Then he slowly started to wade his way back, throwing down a berry every few steps, while the rest of the juicy fruit started to seep through his trousers. He went crawling along like a true soldier on a mission through the rampant growth of weeds and the cool, scented vineyard corridor behind the deck chair. But the deck chair was empty. He stopped dead, awaiting the heavy fist that was bound to come down on him. He could already see its shadow growing over his skull; he could already feel a muffled pain behind his temples. His ears were hissing, amplifying the rustle of the leaves like a conch shell, and he could sniff an overbearing threat in the air around him. Closing his eyes, he dropped down and cringed completely, like sewage cockroaches shrinking in the face of danger. Then, as the blow seemed to tarry, he turned his head halfway.

  There was no one around. All he heard was the clank of metal dishes behind the open kitchen window framing the white, wild mane of the old man. His legs were shaking and fever flooded his groin, pushing him onward. He crept on through the grass like a reptile all the way to the fence, still scattering the mulberries mechanically behind him. He eased himself through the same two planks and barged into the street.

  The sun was beating down with such heat that even the planks in the fence were burning, scorching his fingers. Emi was no longer where he had left her. She was in the middle of the street playing hopscotch in the dust, hopping on one foot along the squares the local girls had drawn in coloured chalk, raising with each jump a whirl of tiny particles that shimmered in the strong daylight. She looked serene, seemingly on a break that her mother had granted in exchange for her promise to come home at the appointed time. She looked as if she had forgotten about the tiredness, the adventure they had embarked upon, the fact that he had disappeared through the shabby wooden fence, about their future fraught with uncertainty. She was alone in the world and carefree, as ten-year-old girls should be.

  He approached her, tired and sweaty. When she saw him, her face overflowed with terror and astonishment. She froze on one foot in a shaky balance while sizing him up and down; then she burst forth and shook him. ‘What’s happened to you?’

  She felt his tummy with her tiny, plump palms.

  ‘Are you hurt?’ she screamed, clutching him between her two little pincers.

  Angrily, he took a step backward. He couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. He felt his sweat trickling down his forehead, his arms and legs. Emi leaned over him and wiped his calf, then stuck her palms in his face. ‘What’s this?!’

  Her hands were red. He looked down and saw blood trickling from under his trousers. Then he became frightened and took a few more shaky steps backward.

  ‘Are you sick?’

  He shook his head. He only felt tired and hungry, but definitely not ill – not in the way he would have expected to feel after receiving a deathly stab. He could sense no pain that might have alarmed him; nevertheless, his heart was pounding wildly in his chest. Eventually, he mustered the courage to touch himself cautiously and discovered the mulberries left in his pocket. They both burst out laughing when they saw them, and Emi laughed even louder hearing that Sal had strewn them on the ground to make sure they found their way back.

  ‘How are we even going to see them through the grass?’

  ‘We will, don’t worry.’

  ‘You’re such a character,’ she interrupted abruptly. ‘There’s no way we’re going to see them! So much effort for nothing!’

  He mulled again over all those things he was dying to tell her: that this was no way to show gratitude to someone dear who had just risked his skin for you; that it was one thing to loiter around playing hopscotch, and quite another to shake with fear in a crazy old man’s garden. He wanted to tell her to keep her eyes open against any attack; that once you set upon such an adventure, love and concern and solidarity for your companion are crucial unless you want your first mistake to give you away completely – and so on.

  ‘Forget about that now and pay attention!’ He pulled a sober face to make her listen to him. ‘There’s this old guy in the garden. I have no idea if he lives by himself, but at the moment there’s no one else, so we must take this chance and go in. But you have to do exactly as I say: you will not stand up, no matter what; you will crawl along the whole way. You will follow me and do exactly as I do: if I stop, you stop; if I move on, you do the same. Right?’

  Emi nodded idly. She didn’t seem quite convinced by the drill, but she wanted to stop his nagging her, so she had agreed. Yet Sal knew deep down that at the slightest provocation, her head would rise above the weeds and her inquisitive eyes would explore her surroundings, lured by the strange voices of inanimate things, which she so often endowed with soul and will. He grabbed her hand and they slipped together into the garden, his eyes peering about carefully; he was no longer alone now, and being responsible for such a precious load, he wanted to make sure that the road ahead was safe and that they would reach their den with no dangers lurking along the way. He could hear her behind him, rustling softly, like a snake slithering through the beautifully grown vegetation; still wild, yet neatly planned at regular intervals by the old man’s maniacal and tired hand as it tried to tame nature.

  The deck chair was still empty and so was the kitchen; nothing could be seen through the open window but some charred pots hanging on the wall with flies buzzing all around them. The old man might have been asleep, or he might have been somewhere in the garden. He turned back to Emi to warn her and saw her half immersed in a raspberry bush, picking the dangling, sweet-and-sour fruit and biting them directly off the branches. At that point, he wanted to put everything behind, to get up and uncork the anger that was choking him, to rebuke her and reveal to her the real dangers that were rising and encircling them like walls. Was that what she wanted, to make all this tremendous effort worthless for a mere fistful of raspberries? But on seeing her like that, with raspberry juice smudged around her mouth and her keen attempts to shake the berries off the bush, he suddenly grasped the image of the terrible hunger that must have been gnawing her, obliterating any other detail unrelated to her craving for food. He had almost forgotten all about it; that mixture of strong anxiety and fear had put a lid over the hole gaping in his stomach and numbed his other instincts. But Emi, waiting and idly playing hopscotch, must have felt the first squirms and the claw tugging in her tummy; she had had plenty of time to think about the fridge back home, the comfortable table set in front of her, her granny’s fine white cotton cloth embroidered with silk on the edges and laden with everything that could be picked from the sombre shelves of the grocer on the main street or from under the counter of the pot-bellied shopkeeper who always had blood and grease smudges on his white apron. He was the one who would plaster a sleazy smirk on his face as he saw the ladies out from
his shop; as they bent over baskets hugged tightly to their chests, he kept his greasy hands pressed against their sweaty blouses and squeezed their arms meaningfully in a gesture that looked even more like abuse than if they had burst out naked and dishevelled from the back room where he sliced his meat and inventoried his stock.

  Emi’s hunger was storming down now like a hurricane, gathering heavy clouds above the garden where a moment before he had thought they could finally find peace. The trees were heavy with fruit, that much was true, but who could go on eating nothing but fruit forever? Fruit was meant to be eaten at the end of the meal, as dessert. ‘To grow up healthily, you need protein, you need milk and meat and cheese and eggs; otherwise you will be small and puny, your brain won’t develop and all the girls will laugh at you,’ Sal’s mum would preach in a thundering voice whenever she saw him squeamishly scattering his food with his fork, pushing aside bits of meat out of the tomato sauce in a string on the side of the plate. Then he would hear her grumbling around the house, voicing her discontent and complaining how hard it had been to get hold of the meat that she was forced to throw away because of him. How ungrateful he was, how careless of his parents’ striving, working from dawn till dusk just to provide for their children! He understood that to still Emi’s hunger, he should also set out on a quest for food, ingratiate himself with another shopkeeper, probably one that would be less repugnant than the one at their local grocer, and return with some slices of ham, some salami, a couple of sausages, a couple of yoghurt jars – supplies that would keep for a few days.

  She finally noticed him. She picked a few more berries and pulled herself away from the bushes, her pouting face showing how regretful she was. They went back in silence, and only when they lifted the latch and opened the door to enter the woodshed, struck by a stifling wave of heat that choked both of them, did they give out a dull cry. The smell of wood and heated coal scorched the air and burnt their cheeks as if they had entered the bowels of hell. They put up their arms in defence, but to no avail. In vain did Sal try to take a few steps forward; inside, fiery mouths were spitting flames at them.

  ‘Is this where you wanted us to hide?’ he heard her say. He knew she was perfectly right, but this was the only place he could find.

  At the very instant she spoke, they heard the plants rustle and stir outside, and the sound of muffled steps approached through the weeds. He only saw the wild mane of the old man at the very last moment, and all he could do was draw her inside, silencing her mouth with his palm despite her protests. The door had been left half open, and he held his breath. For about thirty minutes, he could clearly hear every movement nearby until, at the end, when they were almost unconscious from the heat and the terror, he saw the shed door close from the outside, locked with the wooden latch. They stood still, thunderstruck, and only dared to move long after the old man’s footsteps dwindled away on the soft, grassy carpet. Even then, they moved cautiously and only to pull apart in order to breathe, to disentangle their bodies on which trickles of sweat were falling in large drops, streaking their young, fuzzy, golden skin.

  Shortly afterward, Emi started to cry. She wasn’t angry; she was crying more to herself, whining and bemoaning the moment they had decided to run away together. He could hear her thoughts buzzing in the air, and the hotter it got, the noisier the sound of her doubt was. The shabby walls of the shed were whirring, the cobwebs were strumming in the corners, and the twigs were rattling under their feet.

  After ruminating on his annoyance and frustration all by himself, it struck him that he could stop her tears if he simulated – for he knew that he could only persuade her by pretending – an attempt to open the door. He squeezed his healthy hand through a slit between the doorframe and a wooden slat in the wall. But the opening was too narrow and, even though he slowly pushed it onward, gasping in pain, his hand was starting to give in. When he pulled it back out, besides the scratches that were already swollen and ready to release the blood collected inside, there were also splinters sunk deep under his skin. But not even this image of the self-flagellation to which her lover willingly submitted himself was enough to put an end to Emi’s sobs. The sunbeams had started to seep in through the cracks in the walls, mellowing them in a haloed light.

  ‘You do know there’s no way we can get out of here?’ he finally asked her, in a hoarse, worn voice. ‘You’re crying in vain. All you do is burn yourself out. Will you stop already?’

  It sounded like a command, but he knew this was the only way to make her stop crying. Everything suddenly went quiet, and he could sense that, choking back her tears, she was waiting for an answer in return or at least for a heartfelt proof of his deepest remorse.

  ‘There was no way for me to know he was going to lock us in. If we had stayed outside, we would’ve been caught, right? I know that deep down you think that it’s all my fault, but I only did what I thought was right. When we left home, we were expecting things like this to happen, weren’t we? I mean, it was clear that it wouldn’t be all milk and honey. But we’ll get through this; the important thing is to stick together. Let’s not start fighting already. Listen…’

  He halted, musing. Of course, he’d rather have had an honest fight, a sudden release of all the spite, but he had resolved that it was better to delay the moment.

  ‘And what do you suggest we do, if I may ask?’

  ‘Well, here’s what we’ll do. We’ll look around and try to find some piece of wire to help me lift the latch.’

  Emi stood listlessly on the woodpile, the tips of her sandals drawing trails on the dusty floor. He knew that was all he was going to get from her, so he started rummaging around alone. First he saw the bucksaws, hanging on several nails, then the pliers, the hacksaws, axes, hoes, reels of cable, rolls of tape and some scaly ropes. He rummaged through them with his uninjured hand, hoping he would come across the hook-shaped wire; he took them down one by one, then put them back in the same order so as not to arise the meticulous master’s suspicion. But it was all in vain. He strangled a curse, like a worker who realises that his entire work has been ruined because of one nail. How could he have known that the cunning old man would lock them up in there? He grunted something before finally sinking hopelessly to the ground.

  ‘Sal, we’re going to die of suffocation in here,’ Emi announced in a dull voice, like a long-distance call operator.

  The more he fidgeted around, the more he felt the heat grow and his body shrink under the burden of guilt and the fruitlessness of the search. He took off his T-shirt, baring his shiny, jutting ribs and his outwardly curved sternum. The sudden relief filled him with optimism. He took off his shorts and remained with nothing on but his white cotton underpants. Emi was watching him with growing amazement.

  ‘You should do it, too. It’s so much better.’

  It took more than a quarter of an hour for Emi to be persuaded. She climbed down the stack of wood and let her dress slip off. Then, to trump him, she took off her sandals as well and sat down by his side, wriggling her toes.

  ‘It really is better,’ she sighed contentedly.

  Sticking out through their thin, fine skin, their bones looked like latticework. Sitting there, legs crossed, with their naked chests and their bristly chocolate buttons, they could pass for a couple of young boys about to face puberty: similarly narrow-hipped, with similarly frail bodies, thin, bare arms and bony shoulders, with the same bristly fuzz covering their nape, arms and legs; the same hairless, smooth, rosy-cheeked faces resembling two cherubs, and their tiny, bulging underpants barely covering their chromosome marks. At first glance, they could have passed for siblings. Close up, you could see that Emi’s face was rounder, while Sal’s was pointed and solemn. Besides this, however, they had the same long, thick eyelashes, the same straight nose, the same mouth with rising corners, the same slightly protruding ears, the same dark cowlick on top of their heads. He stroked her thigh, the flesh barely starting to thicken, and sensed her still-damp skin.

 
‘I’m sorry things have turned out this way, Emi.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. It’s not your fault. But we can’t stay here any longer. Let’s say we’ll make it tonight, but tomorrow we’ll start over.’

  Sal nodded and she went on.

  ‘So, the way I see it, we have two possibilities. Either…’

  She stopped short again.

  ‘Either what?’

  ‘Either we run for it the minute the old guy opens the door, or, when he does it, we belt him over the head with a shovel and we can stay here as long as we want.’

  He stood dumb, following her train of thought. Of course; it was easy. The two possibilities were rising up against the shadows like a flawlessly devised scheme. But he was the one who had woven it; he had been the one who had brought her here, the one who had entered the garden, the very one who had dragged her to the back of the garden, where he had discovered the woodshed. He had been the one who had so intricately and ignorantly set the trap they had fallen into. He couldn’t blame her for hatching survival plans, since his own had failed.

  ‘What do you say?’

  He held his head in his hands and waited. Dusk had fallen and the hysterical chirping of crickets could be heard from the yard.