A Cage Without Bars

by Anne Dublin

  Today, after Papa delivers his wood, we are moving all our bedroom things from upstairs to downstairs, and some of our living room and dining room things upstairs. The renters from England will be here soon, and I’m not sure if I’m worried or excited about that. But before anything else happens, I have to confess my sins. When the little door opens and I can see the dim outline of Father’s face, I begin. I try to breathe through my mouth so I won’t have to sniff his stinky breath. And then I start my confession, speaking much faster than usual.

  “Bless me Father for I have sinned. It has been one week since my last confession, and these are my sins: I said mean things to my sister, I made fun of a girl at school, I had bad thoughts after that girl kicked snow in my face, and I disobeyed Maman and Papa.”

  And that’s where I stop. Because I just can’t say what else I did. And when I really think about it, I “disobeyed” my parents by taking that coin out of Maman’s purse. There isn’t enough time to tell the whole story. Others are waiting behind me to polish their souls. I kneel there, waiting for my penance. I hope Father can’t read my mind like God can. And I hope God understands why I did this, why I’m too ashamed of myself to tell the whole story.

  The Act of Contrition, three Hail Marys, and an Our Father. That’s my penance today after Father Louis forgives and blesses me. The same as I always get from him. I scurry out from behind the confessional curtain with my hands folded in a pious way and my head bowed. I slip into the pew beside Yvette, who is still kneeling and murmuring into her hands. I begin to pray, thinking how hard it must be to become a saint, like Sainte Thérèse de Lisieux, who lived in France a long time ago and saw a statue of the Virgin Mary smile once when she was sick. I’ve stared at a statue of the Blessed Virgin in our church for hours, and she has never smiled at me. I glance up at the crucifix that towers over the altar. Jesus Christ always looks so sad, with his head slumped to one side and all those bleeding wounds. The ones he got for saving our wicked human souls. And as usual, I feel guilty for not trying hard enough to be good. As I begin to pray, I promise poor dead Jesus that I will be better this coming week. I will make a fresh start, starting right now.

  Mon Dieu, j’ai un très grand regret. O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, says the repentant voice in my head.

  And it’s not until I’m halfway home, with Yvette dragging along behind me, that I realize I forgot one sin. A very big one. I forgot to tell Father Louis that I said a bad word three times in a row. Not such a good start to the week after all. I’m hungry, and I’m disappointed with myself, and I just want to get home for lunch, but Yvette is so slow.

  When I turn around to tell her to hurry up, I spot someone coming around the corner: Jeanine Bonenfant. She’s got one of her little brothers by the wrist, and she’s half dragging him. He’s crying and fighting with her and trying to get loose, struggling like an angry cat. I can hear her yelling at him, telling him that he has to go home. I catch hold of Yvette’s hand and pull her closer to me as if I’m already trying to protect her.

  “There’s Jeanine,” I lean in and whisper. “She’s such an awful girl. Détestable! And she hates me. And I don’t even know why.”

  And right at that instant, Jeanine looks over and spots us, and her face becomes a grimace.

  “What are you looking at, maudite habitante? Are you talking about me again? To your stupid sister who’s always sick? You better watch your step, Sauriol. I hope you can run fast.”

  “Oh no! Let’s run home. Please, Aline.” Yvette tugs on my arm. She’s close to tears.

  But all I can think about is the way Jeanine knocked me down and the hot spit on my cheek, dripping out of her ugly mouth. And how she just called me “maudite habitante,” words I despise. And then I say it, because I can’t hold it inside anymore.

  “You are a horrible girl, Bonenfant,” I yell at her. “No wonder your mother is always sick! You’re probably the one who makes her sick. You will never ever go to heaven.”

  “Ferme ta gueule.” Shut your trap, she says. Then she lets out a howl of rage and starts to charge straight at us. Her little brother isn’t crying anymore. He’s running now too. They’re both chasing after us, and we won’t stand a chance against these two Bonenfant children who are acting like crazy animals, like mad dogs.

  Yvette and I start running then too. Poor Yvette is having trouble keeping up with me. She can’t help it, not being well at all lately. I can hear her coughing and sputtering, and I grab hold of her hand and pull her along behind me. All my good intentions have been crushed. All my prayers for redemption don’t even count anymore because I’ve taunted this awful girl. But I couldn’t help it because she is so mean and her soul must be as black as coal. And it’s true, she’ll never go to heaven. She’ll be stuck in purgatory forever.

  Home is close, but not close enough. Snowballs whiz past our ears now and smash on the road ahead of us. If it were summer, they would throw rocks; there is always ammunition for the Bonenfant children to hurl at everyone they hate.

  “Hurry,” I tell my sister. “If she catches us we are finished.”

  Yvette, her face all red, is bawling now. It’s all she has left inside her. I take a chance and glance over my shoulder to check how close they are. And there, gliding along the road, is a most wonderful sight. It’s Papa and his sled, coming home from delivering wood today. Jeanine sees him too, and stops dead in her sloppy galoshes.

  “Look! It’s the stupid habitant sled,” she yells, and she and her brother start laughing.

  But I don’t care. I’ve never been so happy to see our papa and his sled and horses.

  “Bonjour, mes belles filles,” he calls as the sled shudders to a stop beside us. Yvette and I clamber into the back atop the hay, Papa shakes the reins, and the sled slides off toward home.

  When I peer over the back, Jeanine and her brother are still pointing and laughing at us.

  6

  Blue Mittens

  The upstairs of our house looks strange. After church on Sunday, Maman, Yvette, and I walk through the bedrooms that once were ours. Our tenants, les Protestants, as I’ve come to think of them, will be here next Saturday, just three days before the calendar turns into December.

  Now we have bedrooms instead of a living room and dining room. And upstairs, in Maman and Papa’s old bedroom, is all our furniture: the chesterfield and armchair and small tables as well as the dining room table and chairs. It looks silly and sad at the same time, all squashed together in this not-so-big room. Maman stands in the upstairs hallway with her hands on her hips, looking in the boys’ bedroom, where the Coleman family will sleep. They will bring along their own beds that they’ve purchased here in Canada, Maman tells us, as well as a stove to cook on and an icebox. Their kitchen will be in the third bedroom, mine and Yvette’s. It didn’t take Papa and Arthur too long to move things around today. Yvette and I tried to carry a small table up the stairs, and Papa made a face when we dented the wall. Then he told us not to help anymore.

  “They should be very comfortable up here,” Maman says with a sigh. “And now we have a week to get used to the new arrangements before they move in. You girls and your brothers will be fine down in the living room, and Papa and I in the dining room. We have our nice big kitchen for sitting and eating in. And they will use our bathroom. It won’t be for too long. Just until things get a bit better.”

  What things? I want to ask, but I don’t dare. Yvette has tears in her eyes.

  “Will Papa still tell us les contes about Ti-Jean?” she asks. We love it when Papa tells stories about the little boy who always gets into mischief.

  “Bien sûr!” Maman smiles. “Of course. In the kitchen by the stove, like always.”

  “Where will we go to the bathroom and take a bath?” Yvette asks in her almost-crying voice. Her mouth is beginning to tremble and droop. She’s asking the silliest questions, b
ut I don’t mind because it saves me from asking the same ones myself.

  Maman chuckles a little. “We can use the bathtub and the bathroom whenever they’re not using it. They won’t always be using it, ma belle.”

  “J’aime pas ça,” Yvette murmurs, then stomps her foot.

  I don’t like it, either, strangers living in our bedrooms and nine people sharing one bathroom. But I don’t want to tell Maman and hurt her feelings.

  “Nous n’avons pas le choix, Yvette,” Maman says in a stiff voice before she spins around and clomps down the stairs in her heavy black shoes. We have no choice, she says.

  We don’t have much choice about anything in our house, I can’t help but think. My friend Georgette has lots of choices, including two kinds of store-bought cookies—Peek Freans and Dad’s—that we get to eat when I go to her house. She’s plump, with pink cheeks. She gets to pick out her own clothes downtown at Ogilvy’s too. I’ve never been there in my life. And I can’t remember ever having a choice in my life, either. Except for my blue mittens. Yvette got the red ones.

  0

  At school, the only person I tell is my cousin Lucille. And I beg her to please not tell anyone because I’m so ashamed that we will have another family, a Protestant family, living with us. That must mean we’re very poor, and I hate being very poor. Well, not hate, because hating anything is a sin, so instead I detest it.

  All through class on Monday afternoon, Jeanine Bonenfant stares at me with narrow slits for eyes. She’s already gotten the strap twice today and is in a nasty mood. When I look at her, she makes a slashing motion at her neck then points at me, and I gulp hard. Why is she so mad at me? I haven’t even said a single word to her today. I know I should have kept my mouth shut when I saw her on Saturday and she chased us, but my boiling anger wouldn’t let me even though I’d just been to confession to cleanse my grimy soul. Can she still be mad about that, even though she and her brother laughed at us?

  After school, I’m afraid to leave, so instead I stay to help Sister clean off the blackboard. I love doing that anyway, watching all the letters and numbers disappear as I make slow circles with my arm, then going outside and banging the brushes on the wall. Afterward, Sister asks me to write some arithmetic problems on the blackboard for tomorrow. I love writing with chalk, skating it over the black slate and taking my time to make every single number perfect.

  By the time I’m finished and heading for home, the afternoon light is starting to fade. Snow falls in a thick veil, covering everything so fast that it’s hard to see ahead of me through the blur. I keep my head low so the snow won’t get in my eyes. I kick a chunk of ice and watch it slide ahead of me on the frozen pavement—until it gets stopped by a pair of battered rubber boots covering a pair of huge feet. I look up. Jeanine Bonenfant’s hands are on her hips and her eyes are narrow slits, her angry face a twisted mask.

  “Is it true? You told people I steal from ma mère?” she growls.

  Suddenly I feel very hot under my coat. The only people I told are my cousin Lucille and my friend Thérèse. But I know Thérèse has a very big mouth and probably told some of her other friends, and then one of them said something to somebody else. And somehow or other, Jeanine heard about it. And now I’m a dead duck. It doesn’t matter what I say. Either answer will be the wrong one. So I make my choice.

  “Oui,” I tell her, trying to make my face hard and tough. “Because you do. That’s why you always have money for candy. And for Sister’s charity box.”

  Her horse nostrils flare like last time. Her mean mouth is a tight white line. Inside dark circles like bruises, her eyes are cruel slits. She takes a step toward me. I watch her slowly raise her hand, and I draw in a quick breath. Then her hand flies out and she slaps my face so hard that it makes me wince, and sudden tears jump into my eyes.

  I don’t move even though I would like so much to soothe the wicked stinging on my cheek with my cold mitten. Maybe I’m too scared, or maybe I want to pretend I’m not as scared as I really am. But I’m so frightened that I can feel myself quaking, and I’m sure my guardian angel must be too. I don’t feel her guarding me very well right now, either.

  “Take back what you said,” she growls in my face. “Take it back.”

  “I won’t,” I tell her. Nothing matters right now. Nothing will change her mind.

  I fear what might happen next, but it still takes me by surprise. When Jeanine begins to punch my stomach with tight, strong fists, my breath is gone. Each sharp jab is a blow like I’ve never felt in my life. Like nobody should ever feel. In another instant, I fold in half and topple over as hot tears finally burst from my eyes. Jeanine kicks a chunk of ice at me and, with one last sneer, jumps over a snowbank and disappears into the twilight, leaving me sitting there on the ground in the falling snow, sucking in great gulps of air. And moaning with a new ache that I’ve never felt in my life. Because I know somebody utterly hates me.

  I don’t hurry to get home. I slip-slide along through the tumbling snow in my old boots, going slowly, wishing for the ache in my stomach to stop. I pass a group of boys playing hockey on the road with a frozen horse ball. They make good pucks. I see some laughing rosy-faced children I know coming back from sledding. They wave at me. I wish I could be having fun like them instead of feeling so sick inside.

  I stop just outside the back door to make sure my tears are all gone, one last wipe with my blue mitten. Good smells are coming through the door. I can hear my family talking in there, Papa’s gruff voice. He’s already inside for supper, which means I’m later than usual. As soon as I step inside, all heads turn at once.

  “You’re late,” Maman says, frowning. She’s holding a pot of potatoes in one hand and a big spoon in the other. Then she frowns even deeper. “What happened, Aline?”

  “Rien,” I tell her. Nothing. Which is a lie, so I’ve sinned again this week. “I was helping Sister after school, that’s all.” At least that part is true, so I try to smile.

  Maman just nods, though I think she must know that there’s more I’m not telling. But how does she know? How can she tell that something really is wrong? I try not to look at them all as I take off my boots and hang my coat on the hooks by the door. We are having pork and turnip tonight with the potatoes. I don’t like turnip, but I’m too hungry to care and don’t even look up as I swallow my food without even tasting it.

  Jeanine Bonenfant beat me up today. The girl who is even poorer than we are. The girl who lives in Mechanicsville, on the other side of the railroad tracks. The girl who sometimes has bruises on her arms and bugs in her hair and a dirty neck. The girl who seems happy to beat up anyone. And who steals money from her sick mother’s purse. Like I did myself. So I’m really not much better than she is.

  That night, in bed beside Yvette, I hear the train pass, a lonely distant whistle blast and the clickety-clack of the wheels on the tracks. It helps me fall asleep most nights. But tonight, I can’t stop thinking about Jeanine sleeping at her house on the other side of those tracks, with her Maman in a bed in the living room and her father who’s a drunk, like people say. And all her grubby brothers and sisters. Jeanine Bonenfant, who is always mad at everyone, it seems.

  At least we own our house. Papa built it himself years and years ago when Arthur and I were very small, before Bernard and Yvette were born. It’s strong and sturdy, made from fieldstones that he collected, Maman has told us, by taking his horse and wagon out and picking every single one himself, down by the river and over in Tunney’s Pasture. Jeanine lives in a messy, dirty house, I’ve heard tell. I have never been to her house, and I never want to go there, either. She’ll never be my friend and I don’t care, because I have Lucille, and Thérèse too, with her garage and car. And Georgette, who always has nice shoes and clothes to wear and a telephone in her house. And probably hot water too, whenever they turn on the tap. We have to heat our water in a tank beside the stove before our b
aths. The rest of the time it comes out cold. Georgette’s father has a job delivering fruit and vegetables to grocery stores, so they always have money too. And we don’t.

  I like my house, even though we can only use half of it now and tenants will be living in the other half soon. I like my bed, even though it’s in the living room now. I wish we weren’t poor, though. I wish Papa didn’t scowl so much. I wish we had bright shiny new things like some others do. I wish for a lot of things that I know will never come true. Especially the one for an “English” nose.

  For the rest of the week, I stay far away from Jeanine. I don’t look at her, and I don’t talk about her, and I don’t tell a soul what she did to me. Sometimes when I peek, though, I catch her staring at me. And she has a funny look on her face, like she’s daring me to try something like that again. Because next time will be even worse than the last two times.

  The best part of every day is recess because it has snowed so much. We build ice slides out in the schoolyard and glide back and forth. Some girls build bonhommes de neige, snowmen, and others have snowball fights in the far corner of the schoolyard. Jeanine Bonenfant plays in that corner, with some of the other big, tough girls. Big, tough, dumb girls who should be in Grade 8 or 9, but are only in Grade 6 or 7 because they hardly ever come to school and always fail. I try to stay far away from those girls. Instead, I fool around in the snow with Georgette and Lucille and Thérèse, who has the same name as my favorite saint, who saw the Virgin Mary smile, who was small and perfect and called “The Little Flower.” I don’t think there’s a Sainte Adéline, and there probably never will be. And I’m not small and perfect at all.