Childhood

by André Alexis

  – I’ll be up in a minute, my mother had said.

  But I waited an eternity, convinced they knew everything, desperately trying to decide if I had time to put the change purse back. When I heard my mother coming up the stairs, I was ready to confess all or, as seemed wiser, to say: Mother, I think this fell out of your handbag. I kept it safe for you.

  As it happened, she spoke first.

  – Sorry I took so long.

  She sat beside me on the bed.

  – Thomas, she began, Henry and I have been talking.

  I was convinced she knew about the purse.

  – We’ve been thinking…maybe you haven’t been reading the right things.

  – Reading? I asked.

  – If it were up to Henry, you could read anything at all.

  Now this was entirely unexpected. I felt relieved, confused, exhilarated, and, once I realized what she was talking about, slightly indignant. What about my reading? Had Henry told her about Les Bijoux indiscrets? The book was unusual, but, after all, it was the first book to spark my interest in Latin and…I had learned something…and…

  No, it wasn’t Diderot who upset her. It was Henri Serres.

  – You’re too young to understand what you’re reading.

  – But…

  – Just listen to me, please.

  We had never spoken of sex. She was uncomfortable. Not that sex was a bad thing, no, no, but it was not straightforward. I would soon encounter sensations that were perfectly normal, but they both felt it would be better if I had a guide to them, and it would be best if the guide shared my plumbing.

  – My plumbing?

  – Yes, dear.

  Which is why Henry was going to help me with the facts of life. He’d persuaded her it would be wrong to curb my curiosity, but, at least until Henry and I had spoken, she thought I should read something other than books for adults.

  Despite the relief I felt at having my theft undiscovered, I was irritated by their injustice. I mean, as far as I could tell, Les ébats was not at all risqué. Hadn’t she listened to my reading? Or was the title alone enough to set off parental alarms?

  – But…

  – Never mind, Thomas. We’ll talk about this later.

  And that was the end of it. Seeing Les ébats on the night table beside me, she took it away, until such time as…

  * * *

  —

  Henry’s task was far from easy.

  How does one explain the mysteries of human sexuality to an eleven-year-old? I had learned the theory behind intercourse and conception and, thanks to the magazines I’d read in Petrolia, I had a pretty good idea how the first part of the process would look.

  This wasn’t supposed to be a lecture on mechanics, though. Once one has said “penis” and “vagina” and remarked on their suitedness, one for the other, the physical mysteries are more or less resolved.

  No, Henry’s talk was to be about the complications that arise from conjunction.

  It might have been easier for him, and better for me, if my mother had allowed the two of us to deal with this alone. Instead, she insisted on participating as an “interested observer.”

  A week or so after I’d stolen her change purse, my mother put some cookies on a saucer, filled a glass with milk, and shepherded me to the library, where Henry waited.

  – Why don’t you sit here? he said, his hand on the back of an armchair.

  My mother sat on a chair he’d brought for her, and when she had settled on the edge of it, Henry began.

  – The world is a biological entity, Tom, as you know…or do you?

  – Yes, I know.

  – Wonderful. So you know we’re not so different from beetles and toads?

  – I guess so.

  – Good. There’s not much else to say, really.

  – What do you mean there’s nothing else? my mother asked.

  – I mean, regeneration is the key, in a manner of speaking.

  – Don’t use vague words.

  – I apologize, my love. Do you understand regeneration, Tom?

  – I guess so.

  – Don’t guess, Thomas. What Henry means is that all creatures reproduce and so do we.

  – I know that, I answered.

  – Good. Go on, Henry.

  – Well, Tom, the chief difference between animals and ourselves is that although the reproductive act is physically uncomplicated for both, it is psychologically complex for human beings…

  – And emotionally complex, my mother added.

  – Yes, emotionally as well…

  – And why is it emotionally complex? my mother prompted.

  – Because it is a matter of custom, ritual, and group conduct…

  – No, my mother said.

  Henry paused to consider where he might have gone off course.

  – It generally requires more than a single participant, he said.

  – No, my mother repeated. It’s complex because it’s a matter of trust.

  – Yes, I see, said Henry, waiting for her to go on.

  And when she didn’t

  – It’s a matter of trust, Tom, and trust is complex. Let’s say you were a farmer in Hornpayne, where the ground is generally stony and it’s difficult to make things grow. But your fields are rich and you could grow whatever you wanted: cherries, wheat, lemons…

  To this day I sometimes remember Henry like this: looking down at me, unruffled by the situation, convinced that such mysteries as could be resolved were trivial; those that could not, essential. It wasn’t in his nature to dispel mystery, but he could lead me to it.

  –…wheat, lemons, grapefruit…anything you wanted, but you need the help of another person. You understand?

  – Yes, I answered.

  – Wouldn’t you want someone with whom you could work?

  – I guess so.

  – What does this have to do with passion, Henry?

  – Well, Kata, I was about to suggest that, in Hornpayne, the only way to find someone who will help with the land is to offer her half the property.

  – Why? my mother asked.

  (I couldn’t have answered that question if my life depended on it.)

  – Let us say that that is the way people are in Hornpayne…

  – But you could hire someone, my mother suggested.

  – Not in this Hornpayne, Kata. In this Hornpayne, you have to choose your partner wisely. It wouldn’t do to give half one’s land to just anyone. And remember, it’s a condition of life in Hornpayne that one must surrender half one’s property to attract a partner and to have one’s fields flourish…

  They bickered, gently, on the course Henry had chosen. Though my mother appreciated the subtlety of his model, she was convinced it was lost on me. Besides, she thought Henry’s approach overly mercantile, a cavil he answered by reminding her that the messenger of the gods (Hermes) was also the god of merchants, a bit of information that reassured her, though it plunged me even further into confusion.

  By the time Henry returned to his parable and elaborated on fertility and responsibility, I was more interested in incidentals than message: my mother’s attitude, Henry’s voice, her face, his hands, the waning light, the taste of oatmeal cookies, my fingers wet from the glass of milk I held.

  After a long while, Henry asked

  – Do you see?

  – Oh, yes, I answered.

  And, rising from her chair, my mother said

  – Thank you, Henry.

  She put out her hand, palm up. From the shelf behind him Henry took down Les ébats. He gave her the book.

  – Here you are, Thomas, she said.

  If they had asked me to prove I understood Henry’s lecture, I’d have failed miserably. I was even more confused about the mysteri
es of sexuality, though now I understood there was something to understand. Perhaps that was the point.

  Or, it may be that Henry’s words were meant for my mother as much as they were for me. My mother understood and appreciated them better than I did, or seemed to, and she was satisfied. Little enough reason to allow an eleven-year-old the run of Henry’s library, but the effect wasn’t all bad. The further association of sex and books made an even more avid reader of me.

  – Thank you, Mother, I said.

  * * *

  —

  Despite Hornpayne, or despite the trust they showed me, I went on stealing. What’s worse, I felt a growing addiction to the activity itself.

  Some time after taking my mother’s angora sweater, I even stopped worrying about excuses. I had successfully taken so many things by then, it seemed useless to think up lies I wouldn’t use. Not once did either of them show any sign they suspected me of theft.

  It was wonderful to sneak about, listening for their voices, for the sound of footsteps, for the creak of the staircase, and wonderful to answer

  – No, I haven’t seen your dress

  or

  – No, I haven’t seen your stickpin

  when they asked me about their missing things.

  Very few acts have given me as much pleasure. It was exciting to discover how easily Henry and my mother were deceived. Their vulnerability was exciting, and perhaps, in the end, I continued to steal for the sake of those brief but fantastic moments when I watched one or the other looking helplessly for some lost object.

  And yet, I was not a good thief.

  If it took them months to discover the connection between me and their vanishing things, it was, to begin with, because I took things it made no sense for me to take. Over the space of some five months, I took

  change purse, shoe, necklace, ring, magazine, socks, money, blanket, shirt, handbag, rose water, dress, orchid, cuff links, orrery, monocle, earrings, abacus, gloves, angora sweater, identity card, nail polish, gold chain, bookmark, ink, stickpin, pants, undershirt, tambourine, talcum, nail file, handkerchief, hat.

  In my neatest hand, I wrote each item on the back pages of Treasure Island. Beside each I noted the day and the date it was taken. (I still have the book. It is open before me now. I had a tendency to take things on Tuesdays and Thursdays.)

  I allowed just enough time to pass between excursions, enough time for my mother or Henry to forget previous losses. My mother asked after her ring, her sweater, her dress, and her identity card, but nothing else. Henry seemed unaware that his abacus, his monocle, or his cuff links were missing.

  This timing was a matter of timidity rather than design. I didn’t choose my moments as a real thief would.

  And, finally, my choice of hiding places was inept. On several occasions, when I returned to see if a thing were safe, I couldn’t find it. Henry’s miniature orrery, for instance, I’d hidden behind a box in the attic. Some time after hiding it, I went up to admire the planets, but I couldn’t find the orrery at all. I pushed the boxes about, feeling around in them – crammed with books, all of them, barely space enough for my small hands.

  Thinking Henry had found me out, I panicked.

  And yet, the next time I saw him, perhaps moments after sneaking down from the attic, Henry gave no sign that he knew anything. Had my mother discovered it, then? Perhaps she’d seen me squirrelling the planets up to the attic? Not a sign from her, either.

  I was rattled enough to stop taking things for a while, but then I stole Henry’s monocle (and broke it), my mother’s faux ruby earrings, Henry’s abacus, my mother’s leather gloves, her angora sweater…all as if the orrery’s disappearance were a fluke.

  * * *

  —

  The orrery was, of all the things I stole, the only one I actually coveted. In my memory, it is exquisite: a glass square in which there was a model of the solar system (minus Pluto). Eight concentric wire ellipses moved out like ripples from the sun, a glass bead on each. The planets were coloured marbles; the sun canary yellow and translucent.

  The mechanism that drove the planets in their course was wound by a brass mouse-ear key that is the only part of the orrery I still have.

  I’m almost certain Henry recovered the orrery from the attic. There was no one else to miss it. Still, as I haven’t seen it since 1969, I suspect it was well and truly stolen by one of the men he later hired to keep house. In which case, I’m glad I kept the key. It would be difficult to replace, with its heptagonal eye, and one of the chief pleasures of this orrery was the music it made as the marbles moved in their orbits.

  * * *

  —

  It was carelessness that put an end to this episode of my childhood.

  I’d have been found out eventually, of course, but my sneaking around, the book in which I noted what I’d stolen, even the sheer number of things I stole…none of these were responsible for my downfall.

  I’d begun to treat the whole thing casually. I walked into any room I found open, taking whatever caught my eye, no longer listening for footsteps, for creaking staircases, for soft voices.

  By the time I stole my mother’s hat, I’d begun to find my own behaviour tiresome, without, for all that, being able to stop myself. After taking some thirty-odd things, it was as if I could go on stealing indefinitely, with ever diminishing returns.

  But…

  One night, I took to arranging my mother’s clothes under the mattress of my bed. It had occurred to me that I’d taken enough of her things to make a version of her, dress first, sweater over dress, gloves where hands should be, handbag on one of the gloves, necklace on sweater, hat (beret) above the necklace, and earrings where her ears should be.

  Though the mattress was heavy, I let it rest on my shoulder and did my best to smooth everything out on the box spring: dress, sweater, gloves, hat. The game was so amusing, I lost track of time. It was especially difficult to keep the sweater unrumpled, to smooth its arms out to their full length.

  I was standing there with the mattress on my shoulder when I heard someone coming up the stairs. I let the mattress fall, pushed it into place with my hip, and dove under the covers.

  – Time for bed, Thomas.

  It was my mother.

  – All right, I said.

  Smiling, she sat down beside me.

  – And how was your day?

  – It was okay.

  – Tell me, she said.

  I couldn’t think of anything to say. My heart was racing; my mind was on alert, fabricating reasons for the clothes under my mattress.

  – Are we going to stay with Henry, now?

  The same question I’d been asking for months.

  – For a while, she answered.

  – What did you do today? I asked.

  She was looking down at the floor. I shook her arm.

  – What did you do?

  – What’s this?

  She bent down to pull at the sleeve of her sweater.

  – What’s this doing here?

  She sounded pleased to find it.

  – Oh, I said. I was cold.

  She stood up.

  – I only borrowed it.

  As she pulled the sweater free, the sleeve of her dress and the handle of her purse came with it.

  – Get up, Thomas.

  –Why?

  – Get out of the bed, please. What’s all this?

  Now she wasn’t pleased. She was perplexed as she pulled everything out from under my mattress. Her son had hidden various pieces from her wardrobe in his room. What must she have thought?

  The strangeness of my own behaviour suddenly struck me. I’d had no particular motive for taking things. As far as I could tell, I’d stolen without plan, without intention. Yet I felt humiliated, aware of something unnameable but not quite un
familiar.

  I’m not sure it occurred to her that my sin was only theft.

  – Did you take all this?

  – Yes, I answered.

  –Why?

  I would normally have been too embarrassed to face her, but, in a moment of inspiration, or damnation, I looked up and, with a sincerity I’ve rarely summoned, even when telling the truth, I said

  – Henry told me to.

  – Henry? Why would Henry tell you to take my clothes?

  And again, with sincerity

  – He wanted to buy you others…he never liked your clothes.

  – That’s ridiculous.

  And now, on the verge of tears

  – I’m sorry, Mother…I know I shouldn’t have…

  I don’t think she believed me, but the idea that Henry was trying to manipulate her must have struck a chord. Besides, given the things she’d discovered (shoes, necklace, dress, etc.), my lie would have been a relief. I mean, if you rule out motiveless theft and sexual deviance, very few explanations could reasonably encompass my behaviour.

  – Why wouldn’t he ask me himself?

  – I know I shouldn’t have, I repeated.

  I lowered my head, repentant.

  – We’ll talk about this tomorrow, she said.

  She didn’t hurry out, but she left the room, distracted: door open, lights on. I stood for a long time waiting for her return, trying to decide if I should close the door myself.

  * * *

  —

  Now, what were the chances of a story like that holding up?

  I don’t mean to diminish my guilt, but, to my knowledge, there is no world in which Henry could have behaved as I said he had. He had only to say, “I think cloth in general unworthy of you, Kata, but I’d have taken your clothes myself if I were going to take them,” and there was an end to my lie.

  So, when my mother called me into the sitting room the next evening, I expected the worst.

  On, or draped about, the sofa were the things she’d found under my mattress. My mother stood by the fireplace, and I stood near the sofa, until, after a while, Henry entered, bringing with him a tray laden with cups, milk, cookies, and a teapot. He smiled as he offered them to me, but it was painful to look him in the face.