Among You Secret Children

by Jeff Kamen

  He shook his head, astonished. The thing was badly damaged and yet its purpose was clear to him: it was like the dried-up body of a pteranodon, some fantastical creature of flight. ‘Incredible,’ he said. ‘Don’t you think?’

  Cora gazed upon it coldly. ‘These old wing,’ she said. ‘He break them. Then he make new one, much bigger, easy to fly. Then he fly away.’

  He asked her what else she knew about it, if there was something he ought to try in order to test how it worked, but she remained silent and sullen. He manipulated the framework again, the struts creaking open and shut. That it was a flying machine, a glider, there was no doubt, the skeleton composed of a number of hollow poles fitted neatly inside each other, the underlying structure reminiscent of handbones. Peering closer, he noticed the wing fabric was fastened to the poles with a tough adhesive, its various sections folded along sharp creases which concertinaed open and shut in tandem with the movements of the wood. He was remarking on the ingenuity of the design when he realised Cora was leaving.

  ‘Where are you going?’ he said weakly.

  She stopped just outside, her garments, her loose hair whipping in the wind. When she looked at him she wore an expression of deep vexation and hurt. ‘I go home,’ she said. ‘You do what you wish. I cook, I care the garden, the field. I have my home. My life there.’ She wiped her eyes. ‘But you — you have a father. What, he goes. We all cry. We all want to be happy. We all want to know.’

  He stared at her, not moving.

  ‘Listen me,’ she implored. ‘One day, I have a husband. Kornél. He lives, all is good, then one day he die. No more husband for me. Dead.’ She lifted a shoulder. ‘You know this? No. Then one day you see his stone in the garden. Still he is dead, you see? Later, you know. You know I have this husband. He is dead still, no difference for him. Then … then you leave me. He is dead the same, no matter. Always. Forever. You say you live with me, share this life, but what? You want to be dead too?’

  ‘Cora, I … no one’s saying anything about him. This is different.’

  ‘No. You wrong, Motte. Very wrong.’ She pulled her coat around her, fastening it tight.

  ‘How am I wrong?’

  ‘Because I ... I am not dead. Me, I live. I feel. You come to me. We meet. Sudbina. Destiny. Now you want to go.’

  ‘Cora, I’m not say—’

  ‘Stop! Yes, now you want to go.’ She pointed inwardly with her fingers. ‘What, with my heart? You want to take it? You want these wing?’

  ‘Damn it, I have to know. I told you before, it’s not to hurt you.’

  ‘Then you go. But first I tell you something. All changes. All. My mother grows up near a bridge, old bridge. It’s a green river there. When she in love with my father, she says ... she says this is a green river love for them. Special. Just this one.’

  He looked down, wounded. He heard her sniffing into her sleeve and knew there was nothing he could do but allow her to continue, allow the pain to go on.

  ‘When I meet Kornél we love to dance. So we have a dancing love. Just one. No other. And now you come to me. New life. Motte and Cora. We still growing, we making what our love is. You see? It is now, it is with us. Not finish.’ Her lips trembled. ‘You making this love a Klaus love. I don’t want a Klaus love. It’s the past, I cry, it’s gone. It’s gone. Think what I say. Think. Please.’

  He couldn’t see properly. His eyes were full. She left in a watery shimmer.

  He didn’t know whether to chase after her and push her from the cliffs or burn the wings to ashes; whether to beg her to come back to him or smash his own head in with stones. In despair, he turned to the glider and saw in it his only solution.

  Cora was impossible. This was too much too resist.

  ~O~

  The gate was shut when he arrived home that evening, but the kitchen door was off the latch. He’d carried the wrapped package over his shoulder most of the way, but now he tucked it beneath his arm so he could carry it indoors.

  He approached the door with a shifty expression that was tinged with dread as he heard her inside. Hesitating, he left the glider to stand against the front wall, then knocked and entered. She was seated at the table, pouring a drink. Before he could say a word, her eyes told him it was all over.

  ‘Cora, listen,’ he said, going towards her. She tried to rise, but he pushed her back down. ‘Listen,’ he snapped, and she sat glaring.

  ‘You told me he was going a long way. Didn’t you.’

  ‘You go. Go. Don’t come back.’

  ‘Just shut up. I’m talking.’ He stood over her. ‘Yes, I’m going,’ he said, then flushed in growing frustration as she cut in again, accusing him of walking out on her. ‘Look,’ he snapped back, ‘if you can’t understand me, you’re not the woman I know. You’re panicking, being selfish.’

  ‘You selfish.’

  ‘You are. You.’

  ‘YOU!’

  ‘Shut up. Just because you lose one person doesn’t mean you lose another. Well? It’s true, isn’t it?’

  She looked up at him, her eyes hot with resentment.

  ‘I’m just being practical, that’s all. I can’t search everywhere. If he used a glider, it means I might have a better chance of finding him. People would have noticed him flying. I might be able to reach him. If I can’t, I can’t — but at least I tried. Then I can live with myself. Normally. Happily. Then I can live ... with someone else.’

  She shook her head. ‘You stay, then you stay. You leave, then you leave. You choose.’

  He felt his chest tightening, burning. ‘How dare you. How dare you. You’ve got no right to say that.’

  ‘Yes, I have right!’

  ‘You stupid woman.’

  She shot up and slapped his cheek. He growled. Then she leapt at him, clawing, and he grabbed her hair and they tussled left and right across the kitchen, gasping and changing grips until they’d wrestled each other to the floor. They rolled kicking and struggling into the hallway and fought until each held the other by the wrist. Locked side by side, they flexed and seethed, neither moving for fear of the other’s advantage. They lay snarling at one another like a pair of vicious dogs, both glaring ferociously until they began to lose their strength.

  Outside it was growing dark. A draught was coming in where he’d left the door open, gusting so that the hearth breathed out its ash.

  ‘I save you life,’ she hissed. ‘Now you lie.’

  He feigned resignation at this, slumping slightly; then before she could move, he rolled and mounted her and held her pinned her down between his knees. He raised a shaking fist.

  Her eyes glinted defiantly. His were flickering, half hidden by his hair.

  ‘Hit me,’ she jeered. ‘See what happen.’

  He knelt there breathing hard, tempted, so tempted, then at the last moment he stopped himself, let his fist fall. ‘You’re wasting my time,’ he said wearily, then he climbed off her and stood straightening his clothes. ‘I’ve tried to explain myself, but there’s no point. You know what your problem is? You don’t listen.’

  With that, he went out to collect the glider, returning with it under his arm. He was approaching the hallway when she blocked his path.

  ‘Go out of here,’ she said.

  He shoved her aside, brutally, so that she almost fell. ‘I’m going,’ he said, entering the passage. ‘Don’t worry, you won’t have to see me again.’ He angled the glider round and then he carried it upstairs and into the workroom, slamming the door behind him.

  ~O~

  The first thing he noticed when he checked the wings again was a striped rag of some rubberised material tied around the steering bar.

  Tied on like a good luck charm. He thought it was familiar somehow, and as he sat playing with it, stretching it over his thumbs, he realised it was part of a metsat balloon, a discovery which set him to thinking for some time.

  He looked around the room, planning his next actions, and decided to start by clearing the floor. He move
d Kornél’s desk into a corner, followed by the loom, his bundles of wool. The pile of fabrics. Then he lay the glider flat and spread its wings. He inspected every part of the contraption, and then by lamplight he wrote down a list of required repairs and some ideas on how to go about doing them. His notes detailed the poor condition of much of the wood, the threadbare state of the leather harness.

  After another inspection, he decided that the wings were not made of canvas after all, but something thinner and much more lightweight. He thought perhaps it had been given the strength of canvas by whatever it had been treated with, something which filled the room with its acrid musk. Fortunately, he reflected, he’d not found holes in it, just areas where it had come away from the wood, the adhesive having perished in places to dry white crumbs. When he cleaned and tested the material, he found it resisted water well, and decided it needed just another coat of preservative for protection.

  Rising early one day, he hiked up to the western market, later to return with resins and oils and a couple of new tools. He spent the next few days roaming the nearby woods in search of the right kind of timber. Hours after that he spent sawing and hollowing, planing and shaping the wood so that he had poles and struts of the exact dimensions needed. He laid them out according to size and function, and with each category numbered with ink, he began the long slog of replacing the ones which had broken.

  A fortnight later, and with the frame fully restored, the next job was to make sure that it was safely secured to the wings. He worked on this night and day in a reek of boiled hooves and birchwood tar, going from fuming pots at his desk to the wings and back again; going down to the kitchen fire to bring up yet more pots of freshly heated compounds. In all this time he slept beside the loom in a makeshift bed and only ever saw Cora in passing, most usually when he had need to go downstairs or into the garden. Once when he saw her, he asked about the balloon strip, but she had nothing to say on the matter, and he returned upstairs in silence.

  Next, he tightened the latches. He then replaced the main body of the harness, stitching onto it the buckle his father had used. He greased the straps designed to support the pilot, and used the same grease to waterproof the sleeve. He made sure the hanging loops were properly fastened, that the steering bar could turn without pulling excessively on the parts it was attached to, and gradually his tasks came to an end.

  He stood over the glider exhaustedly. He thought that if he’d tried to build it from scratch he could never have succeeded — it would have taken months of research even to have sourced and prepared the fabric. Now all he had to do was try it out. He looked down at his files and chisel, the pots scraped clean of glue. The magnificent greyish wings lying outstretched on the floor. Wiping his face with a cloth, he could not escape an eerie sensation of being there in place of his father. As if it was he that was the ghost of his life, not Klaus Matthëus.

  Lying on the floor that night he thought heard Cora crying. He lay listening, eyes shut tight, but did not go to her. He had to leave. Had to, regardless of everything. Had to do it while he could — while this hope, this opportunity, was in front of him. At daybreak, more nervous than he’d been in a while, he slipped into the bedroom. He took some clothes from his drawers and sorted through them hastily. She lay motionless on the bed, her face averted. Taking out some socks, he came across a square of card on which he’d once written a message. He read it with a hanging head. Stood sighing. Then he glanced back towards the figure lying in the covers. A foot sticking out, dark hair awry. Like a dancer. He looked at the note again.

  Returning to the workroom, he stuffed the clothes into a hide satchel and then he pulled on his jacket, the shoulders well padded to protect him from chafing in the harness. He checked around briefly, not wanting to delay things, then he wrapped the glider and tied off the sleeve and carried the package downstairs. From his old room he collected his goggles and a couple of blankets, then headed back to the kitchen. He ate a hurried breakfast and prepared himself some travel food, and when everything was done and ready, he took the glider outside along with his provisions.

  The early air was still. He took in a deep breath, looking sadly over the garden. Today in another world the two of them would be eating breakfast together, planning work on the field. Already they’d cleared most of the rubble from the area they’d cordoned off, and had piled the stones to form a low perimeter wall. The next stage would involve mixing soil in with the local sediment; a job long to be put off now, he imagined. He was buttoning his jacket when he heard a shuffling in the kitchen. He turned to find her approaching.

  She looked ugly and old, her birthday shawl hanging ropily from her shoulders. Her hair was flat and matted-looking, her features sickly pale. He clenched his jaw at the sight of her, and as she came into the light he saw in her eyes a destiny of such appalling solitude he had to look away.

  In his jacket pocket was his cap. He fitted it.

  She stood wretchedly, watching him. ‘So, Motte,’ she said. ‘You go.’

  He nodded. In the silence birds trilled glassily in the woods.

  ‘Look,’ he said, ‘... you must understand it’s not you. It’s just the situation, it —’

  ‘Don’t, Motte. Please.’

  He looked at her. ‘Did you find my note?

  ‘Yes. I find it.’

  ‘Did you read it?’

  She eyed him gravely, then nodded.

  ‘Give me two years.’

  ‘One.’

  ‘Two, Cora, damn it. I need two.’

  ‘One. I older than you. It matter.’

  He nodded. ‘One and a half.’

  She lowered her eyes. ‘No more,’ she said. ‘No more than that. After, it gone. Forever.’

  He went to collect the glider from the wall.

  ‘Motte,’ she said bleakly, and he turned. ‘One time I say to you, there is wolf in these mountain. There isn’t.’ She lifted a shoulder, tried to smile. ‘Maybe a few. Not everywhere.’

  ‘Why ... why are you saying this?’

  ‘I say it because I lie. I want to frighten you. Make you stay. Now, I won’t lie this time.’ She paused to cough, then added, ‘Be wise, Motte. Try. This world is wild place. I think wilder than you know.’

  As he digested her words, she withdrew. ‘Be lucky,’ she whispered, and he caught a glimpse of an eye, then solid oak replaced it as she closed the door. He heard the bolts slide across and almost ran to her to beg forgiveness, but the forces that the unfurling of the tapestry had released were fully in command, and instead he went to his gear. He hitched up his bag and seized the glider and left.

  The sunlight over the eastern rim of the valley was a wash of pale fire.

  ~O~

  Returning to the little cave seemed the only option open to him. He hacked at the weeds and made camp beside the scorchmarks of fires long past, where once his father had lived on the brink of just such a monumental journey, doubtless equally harrowed by circumstances, locked to the only course of action available to him. Men twinned, he thought, by the very events that divided them.

  A darkly brooding figure before the fire, he knew that his first night was to be a huge test of his resolve, his determination to continue. The hours passed very slowly and he thought of his father all the while, recalling that strained life of prisons and menace and disappearances; and in dwelling on that shadowy presence, he took from it the comfort it offered him, just as he’d drawn on it for years below the ground. Only this time, he reminded himself, he was free; this time he could breathe and there were no guards to run from, no conspiracies, no need to hide. All he had to do was master his wings and fly. He wiped the dirt from his goggles before placing them aside, then lay his head down. He would practise at a low height to begin with, he decided, then gradually increase altitude. Keep risks to a minimum; go step by step.

  He had no idea how long it would take before he could journey away, but then again, he reasoned, what did it matter? What else would he be doing? And if he cou
ld not cope now, then when could he? All this and more anguishing in his mind until sleep came. Then came dawn, and he rose into it shivering to begin.

  ~O~

  When the time came to leave, he realised he didn’t know how long he’d been up there, although it felt close to three weeks. In all that time he’d only gone out twice for provisions.

  Grazed and bruised and hungry as he set out from the cave, he thought that his greatest achievement, apart from simply surviving, had been finding the courage to run off into raw empty air the first time, trusting that the glider would hold his weight.

  On he climbed, his breath visible before him and thoughts of all he’d been through churning in his mind like ordeals he’d suffered so as to never suffer their like again.

  He’d landed heavily, awkwardly to begin with, and had turned an ankle; but what he’d learnt then he’d applied well to the second excursion, and the next, and the one after that, and eventually he’d found he could land without slamming into the ground simply by focussing on his timing, using a last-moment elevation of the nose and a brief scramble of feet.

  Afterwards, he’d discovered how to hold his weight steady at the centre of the craft, and how to adjust the movements of his limbs so that he could glide smoothly whilst remaining in full control. Next, he’d focussed himself on understanding more about the framework’s capacities, its positioning in relation to him as he moved. He’d put all his energies into these queries, and over the coming days had learned to tip and tilt at will. He’d taught himself how to stop the glider from rolling or stalling, how to perform banking manoeuvres. He’d taught himself to hang up high and drift.