Letters From the Sky

by Tamer Lorika

  “Is it a lion?”

  Jeanne shook her head. “A sunflower.”

  Charles’ head snapped up. “Oh! Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

  “I don’t mind. I know I’m not very good. Besides, I’m used to Jedrick mistaking my drawings. He does it all the time. Mostly on purpose”

  Charles nodded tentatively. “O-okay.”

  Jeanne smiled in a way she hoped was encouraging.

  Charles retreated to the safety of his desk, a, nd Jeanne watched him go as she continued to sketch. It seemed as if he were about to speak; he was stock-still, and his mouth guppied open a few times. But he didn’t actually form a coherent word, so Jeanne continued with her picture until Ms. Milovskaya stumbled in as she did every morning.

  The day passed in a peaceful flurry, or so Jeanne thought. Charles was jittering quietly, and Paris continued to glance back, gaze flicking between the two of them. Jeanne failed to understand why they both seemed so unnerved.

  “…so, if you’ll take out your readers and turn to page sixty-nine…”

  In the flutter of papers and shink of desks that accompanied the order, Charles stretched his fishing wire patience to the breaking point and leaned across to Jeanne. “Do you have a partner to dance with at Cotillion?”

  Paris barely stifled a squealing gasp.

  Jeanne looked up. “I promised Jedrick I’d dance with him,” she answered truthfully. “And you?”

  “Umm…no, I don’t have anyone,” Charles replied, miserable.

  “Oh, sorry,” Jeanne said. “I’m sure they’ll assign you someone.”

  Charles just nodded in reply.

  Jeanne went back to her sketch until lunch. She was adding a background now—nothing in particular, only vague shapes, coloring, and shadows.

  The noon bell rang. There was the predictable scuffle and shuffle and the rush of students to leave. Jeanne barely noticed, waiting for Paris to nag her to leave for lunch.

  “Jeanne, that was the bell,” a much gentler voice called.

  Jeanne glanced up to see Ms. Milovskaya standing over her, looking at her with a worried, slightly skittish expression. No one else was in the room.

  Jeanne cocked her head. “Oh, sorry. Did you see Paris?”

  “She left, I think. Everything all right?”

  Jeanne shrugged. “I think so. I’ll find out later. I’m going to lunch now—thank you, Ms. Milovskaya.” She stood and trotted out, almost running into Ms. Roma in the doorway. She nodded politely to the nurse, who patted her on the head before shutting the door to the classroom.

  By the time Jeanne got her food and found Jedrick and Paris, she was hungry. She sat next to them and began to eat in companionable contentment.

  “Jedrick is going to be my dance partner this afternoon,” Paris announced without preamble.

  “I thought he was going to be mine?” Jeanne asked, placid. “That’s what we agreed on, right?”

  Jedrick looked faintly annoyed and mildly cowed. “Sorry, I’m being forced into this.”

  Paris gave him a smack on the arm and a look that clearly said be silent. Of course, the glare went right over Jedrick’s head, but Jeanne thought that was just him being selective in what he allowed himself to see.

  “Well, if that’s what you want—but what about Louis?”

  Paris flapped her hand airily. “He isn’t going to come. Uncultured boor.”

  Jeanne finished her soup. “I guess I’ll have to find a partner later, then.”

  “No need,” Paris said. “I talked to Charles—he still doesn’t have anyone to dance with him. He said he’d love to be your partner. Isn’t that great?”

  Jeanne shrugged. “Sure. I’m excited to learn the waltz. Do you think it will be hard?”

  “How hard can it be? You just cling to the guy and follow him,” muttered Jedrick. “We have to do all the work.”

  Paris pouted. “I won’t be doing any clinging or following, Jedrick. So you’d better get that through your head right now.”

  “So you’re going to learn the guy’s part?” Jedrick asked, incredulous.

  “I will if that means I get to lead.”

  She wasn’t jesting. Both Jeanne and Jedrick knew for certain. Neither argued though, just gathered up their things and went obediently back inside to settle into the end of school.

  The sketch was almost finished by the time students began to pack up their belongings. As the last bell rang, Jeanne looked down at her picture and saw the entire thing for the first time, instead of just the tiny individual pieces she was shading so carefully. She started.

  It was fire, an entire field on fire behind the sunflower, spectral faces peering from the heart of the flames, screaming with distorted lips and dripping, abyssal mouths and—

  With a sharp twitch, Jeanne ripped the paper in half—part of it remained in her hand, the other in her notebook. The sunflower was rent down the middle. She stared dumbly at the page in her hand. The background was just amorphous shadows, not the faces she had seen before. They weren’t even very good amorphous shadows.

  Charles, who had not spoken a word to her for the entire afternoon, stood up in a single, stiff motion. “Do you—want to go?”

  Paris had left her again, Jeanne realized. A few students were left in the room, but she and Charles were alone in the back corner. She nodded, noting she hadn’t been paying attention again, and hastily put her things away, folding her ripped paper with care and sticking it inside the pages of her notebook before placing that inside the desk, as well.

  “Where is it being held?” she asked.

  “Mr. DeGaul’s room,” Charles replied.

  Jeanne smiled and clapped her hands. “Armand! Oh boy, I hope this means he will be teaching us.” She took off down the hall, Charles in her wake.

  When she entered the classroom, it was already very full. The few desks were pushed aside so there was a large free space in which all of the students loitered and chattered excitedly. Armand fretted about in the front, writing something on the blackboard in large, scrawling letters. Jedrick stood next to him, leaning against the board and pouting about something. Probably Paris, who was in the corner flirting with a few of the boys who didn’t seem to have partners. And a few who did.

  Jeanne called Jedrick’s name and skittered over. To her surprise, Charles followed—at an awkward distance, but still following.

  “Armand!” she said, tugging the man’s sleeve as she passed. “Are you going to be our instructor?”

  He gave her a baleful glance over his spectacles. “Unfortunately. Mrs. Bonnefoy was supposed to be doing this, but she has claimed sickness. I’ve been assured my responsibility is only for this week’s lesson.”

  Jeanne smiled. “You act like you hate us, but I know you don’t!”

  Armand blinked. “I don’t hate you.” He frowned again. “But if Jedrick keeps running off under my watch, I, ‘m going to chain all three of you to your desks.” Luckily, his back was to Jedrick, who currently had his tongue stuck out at the teacher.

  “Now!” Armand continued sharply, clapping his hands together. “I want to get out of here as soon as possible. Everyone quiet down , so we may begin!” He turned to Jedrick and Jeanne. “That means you two, as well, so shoo!”

  The students in the room easily reverted to elementary school leanings, moving to sit cross-legged on the floor regardless of their skirts or starched pants. That sort of self-consciousness would begin later; giddy excitement seemed to cancel out all of it now.

  Paris curled up to Jedrick’s side as they sat. Jeanne flanked them, and Charles sat with her. Armand waited for the expectant silence to set in, then spoke.

  “All right. Now, while it wasn’t my first choice to be here teaching this—”

  In the back of the room, Monique spoke up. “Can you speak more clearly? Your accent is weird.”

  It was probably worth the rude comment to see Armand’s face, Jeanne thought. He sputtered and turned a shocking s
hade of red. It was pretty.

  “My parents are from across the channel!” he replied. “And that sort of comment exactly is the reason we are here today—I will teach you to behave like proper gentlemen and ladies, i, i f it kills you in the process.”

  Well, no interruptions there. The young man seemed to visibly shake himself free of his frustration, smoothing back his hair and continuing. “Now then. Cotillion is not just about the dance steps; it’s about deportment, manners, proper etiquette…”

  A concerted groan rose from the students.

  “However,” he continued, “Madame Bonnefoy left me explicit instructions to begin teaching you the basics of the waltz today and nothing else, so I must follow orders.” Armand sounded defeated. “Therefore, will you please pair up, boy/girl—that’s right, Phillip. I don’t care how well he dances, it’s propriety…”

  It was a long time before Armand could come up with anything resembling control in the classroom, so Jeanne and Charles stood next to each other for a long time, shoulder-to-shoulder. Paris wedged herself up next to Jedrick in an entirely inappropriate fashion, but Jedrick couldn’t pry her off and Armand was too busy “organizing”—herding cats, perhaps—that he wasn’t much help, either.

  “So, Charles,” Paris said, dragging out the r in an odd manner. “I don’t really know you.”

  As if that were a question. But Charles took it as one, as an invitation. “Well, I play a lot of rugby,” he said. “I want to play on the team in upper school next year.”

  “That’s neat,” agreed Jeanne.

  It was neat, but there wasn’t much else to say after that. Their conversation ground to a lovely halt. The only one who didn’t seem to notice was Jeanne, who fingered her braids absently. She wondered if she ought to get her hair cut eventually. She could ask Maman to do it for her, but Maman always did it the same way, every time—straight across the bottom. Jeanne had asked a few times for something different, maybe like Paris’s bangs. Once, she even asked if she could get the choppy layers she had seen in Jericho’s hair, but she didn’t know how to describe it, and Maman would not follow any instructions that involved, “Umm…uneven maybe? Long and short in different places?”

  She wasn’t particularly looking forward to having Maman cut it again. Perhaps she’d just let it grow awhile longer.

  “We’re going to learn a basic box-step!” Armand announced out of the blue. “Boys, grab your partner’s right hand with your left and hold it out.” He demonstrated by pulling Jedrick out of Paris’ grasp and making him take the girl’s role. A small scuffle broke out in the back as two of the boys who had been unable or unwilling to find female partners began to fight over who had to acquiesce.

  Charles grabbed Jeanne’s outstretched hand. His fingers were big and clumsy and she laughed quietly to herself. They were made for sports, not dancing.

  “Now girls, put your free hand on his arm; boys, the hand goes underneath, to rest on her shoulder blade—Michel, if you touch her waist like that, I will kick you out—good. Now. I expect you will all be looking down to see where your feet move, but by the end of these lessons, you must look up at your partner. It’s important to keep conversation while you dance, else it gets awkward.”

  Perhaps it was a little awkward already, Jeanne thought. She was so close to her partner, she could feel his body heat. It was very different from the way Jericho felt, she mused. With Jericho it was natural, even more natural than the way she would cling to Jedrick or Paris when they saw each other.

  Armand nodded in satisfaction that his students were wobbling through the steps correctly—and oh, it was hard to do this backwards when Charles didn’t really know his own strength. Then Armand clapped his hands again, striding over to an old record player in the back of the room to put in one of the large, black disks. With the touch of a needle, the grainy, wavering sound of strings and piano warbled out. Armand counted along with it: “One, two, three, one, two, three.”

  Again Charles strong-armed her back in their little square. They went around and around and around like the other couples in the room, never touching or hitting each other, on their little square of laminated wood. It was peaceful, the sounds of old composers who were never heard in the cities anymore, for the sake of patriotism; the measured, clumsy steps of budding adults; and the slow, measured counting, “one, two, three, one, two, three” in the still afternoon sun.

  Then, the sound of planes.

  Chapter 3

  They hadn’t heard the gradual rise of the buzz of engines as the planes drew closer, so caught up they had been in the scratch of music. The sound broke over the room in a liquid rush. Jeanne twitched a little, cocking her head. What were planes doing so far out here? She hadn’t heard the sound for a long time; actually, she could not even place how she recognized the sound, only that she did. It had been a long time since they flew over the tiny vichy in the foothills of these mountains.

  Most of the students reacted the way Jeanne did, stopping their movements and staring up at the blank ceiling with a bemused sort of interest. Jedrick clapped his hands over his ears.

  Armand stiffened. “Children, move away from the window,” he ordered. “Come on, move.”

  Reluctantly, the students closest to the window inched away. Buzzing, deep rumbling…then it began to fade. Slowly the noise of engines leeched away. The room was dead silent but for the continuous tinny musings of the record player.

  Finally Armand let out a sigh. “Yes. Well. Good.” He strode to the player and removed the needle, then turned off the machine. “I—do you all know what to do, in case of a drill, or planes, or…”

  A dozen voices clamored. “Move away from the windows!”

  “Duck under our desks!”

  “Lock all the doors!”

  Armand nodded tightly. “Yes, yes, all good. I’m glad you know. Just remember that, all right?”

  “Yes, Mr. DeGaul,” they chorused.

  “Though I haven’t the faintest how any of that will help you…” he muttered under his breath. Jeanne overheard him and stepped away from Charles.

  “I suppose this concludes our lesson,” Armand continued. “I expect you to not forget this next week, and commend yourselves to Madame Bonnefoy for me, lest it reflect badly on my own teaching. Go. Shoo, I’m done with you, I hope to never see you again.”

  “Same to you,” Jedrick replied in an undertone.

  It wasn’t long before the classroom cleared, and Jeanne skipped down the street with her face to the sky. She fancied she could still see a speck on the clear horizon where the plane might be.

  When she arrived home, she dropped her books on the stairs and threaded her way to the bathroom she shared with the rest of the family. There was a single, small mirror above the sink and she surveyed her hair in it incredulously, pulling on a braid and making a face. She was getting spots, she could see, though when she had started getting monthlies, Maman had warned such a thing might happen.

  Jeanne wanted someone to call her pretty. Thought about Jericho. Jericho was always…no, she wasn’t pretty. That wasn’t the right word at all. Jericho was another being altogether, and there was nothing about her that was human or ordinary. She was stunning.

  Jeanne, quite frankly, was not.

  She splashed some water on her face and went to greet her mother and grandmother in the kitchen.

  * * * *

  That night there were no dreams.

  * * * *

  Neither were there any the night after.

  * * * *

  By the third day, she had again grown despondent, and began to scan the sky at every opportunity, daydreaming out the classroom window for hours while Ms. Milovskaya rattled on about graphing and planar geometry. The days were clear and flat.

  * * * *

  Fourth day, Thursday. Her mind was quiet again and she had to fight down the sense of loneliness. Jericho had told her to have faith. Jericho had promised her return. That was enough.

  *
* * *

  Friday, there was wind.

  * * * *

  When she and Jedrick and Paris settled themselves on the school steps at lunch on Friday, she felt it. It was so subtle, at first, just a gentle brush against her cheek, as if warm fingers rested there and were fixing the errant strands of her hair. She didn’t notice the first time, nor the second, but when a chill ran up her spine from the sudden pocket of cold, she had to bite her lip to keep from gasping because here was the wind she had been waiting for.

  It was a dry air, a warm and dangerous sort. She smelled burning leaves and ash and there was something so malicious about the wind that it dug fingers into the sides of her mind, clawing at her skin. She didn’t care. These, the mistrals, were the most powerful winds she had known. If any could carry her message to heaven, then…

  She wasn’t the only one who felt the mistral, either; she noticed the rest of her classmates had gotten snappish, Paris and Jedrick bickering more than usual, but she let it go, let everything go, and sat at her desk and wrote a letter.

  Hello. I’ve been thinking about a lot of things this week. I wonder what it would be like to have someone to talk to as I stood at the stove cooking lima beans and coffee. I wonder what it would be like to have someone to walk by the river with, or to pick me up at the bus station. I want to have someone who would live right next door to me, and I could walk over and sit in their kitchen every day and eat grilled cheese on toast.

  I want that more than anything.

  She folded the letter into an airplane, then squished it flat and stuck it in her notebook for the rest of the day, and fidgeted fidgeted fidgeted until she could get home. Once she did, she crawled all the way out of her window, stood on the roof in her sensible loafers, and flung the airplane as hard as she could. It caught, so easily…but the wind was going the wrong way. It blew the plane backwards, in a spiral past her head because the wind had caught the airplane in its broadest point, but it was still airborne as it fluttered and flickered out of sight. So Jeanne was all right with that.

  * * * *

  Friday night she closed her eyes in her bedroom and, when she opened them again, she was still in her bedroom but it was lit with silvery-grey, and she realized Jericho was lying beside her. She smiled gently and Jericho smiled back, but the smile seemed strange and tense.