by Jane Smiley
All the time he was imagining, Paras’s legs were moving, her ribs were shifting from side to side, her ears were flicking this way and that, she was pausing to gaze at something, pausing to eat a bite, pausing to scratch an itch. She breathed in, she blew out the air, she snorted, she tossed her head, she yawned, she nosed the sweet dog as if to investigate where she had been.
Frida was in and out under the shrubbery. The entrance she’d dug for herself was quite a tunnel now, smooth and rather large. Frida and Étienne, Étienne felt, were friends, even though he couldn’t lure her into the house. Frida came to him, her head down, her stump of a tail wagging fast, and he stroked her silky ears or tickled her chest. She brought him her ball, but as yet she had not given it to him, and he had not taken it—they both knew it was hers. She had, indeed, shown him where the purse was, and he had seen the money and counted it. He had no way of knowing how much had originally been in there, but now there were a thousand euros. He had looked, in good conscience, for some sort of identification, but there was only a tag that said, in English, “Lucky Brand,” which might be a name, but he guessed it wasn’t. Since the bag had a magnetic flap, not a zipper, like his great-grandmama’s bag, all sorts of things might have fallen out. And it was a terrible muddy mess. Money, he saw, was quite durable even when wet. But it was Frida’s money. He left it in the bag.
How comfortable he was, astride his horse! At first, she had seemed slippery and wiggly, always moving out from under him. It had made him tense, and he had nearly fallen off three times, but then, one day, when he was tired from a long night listening to that rat in the walls (and it did sound as if there was more than one), he got on her anyway, and that was the first time he stopped paying attention and sort of thought about other things (the rat, for one), and as he did so, his body seemed to relax and settle like a bag of flour, and he came to the realization that if he didn’t tense up, but just moved with her as a jelly might jiggle on a table, she would not leave him behind. When he tensed, he got taller, more like a stick. When he relaxed, he felt her all up his spine, deciding where she was going to go before she even turned her head.
Of course, they had not trotted, much less tried a little gallop—the courtyard was not big enough for that. Knowing this drew his imagination into the Champ de Mars. He still opened the gate before he went to bed. He still knew, partly from looking out his window in the night, that she left and came back, but he didn’t think about it much, except at those times when he pictured himself going along for the ride. He planned, this very night, to follow her, for at least a little way, just to see what she did. As he thought this, she stopped, pricked her ears, snorted, then shook her head, as if, perhaps, to say, “No, this is my business, stay home.” But then she walked on. All the books (well, both of the books—one called Cours d’équitation, which was much older than his great-grandmama, and another called Le Cheval, by a man whose name started with an “X”) prescribed saddles and bridles and martingales and all sorts of things that Étienne did not have, and so he skipped those pages. Actually, he skipped most of the pages and looked at whatever drawings there were, and sometimes let a sentence about how a horse should be obedient and limber sink in. As far as he could tell, Paras was both obedient and limber. After a while, Paras went to the steps and eased her shoulder and hip toward them, and waited. Étienne knew how to take a hint—he slid off onto the sixth step. She walked away. Through the window, Étienne could see that his great-grandmama was out of her bed—out of her room, perhaps, though he couldn’t see much through the leaded panes. It was such a warm day, he thought. Time to start leaving some windows open.
* * *
KURT WAS in the old lady’s room, lying on his back in a spot of sunlight, waiting for something to happen. He had been waiting for something to happen for a very long time, but nothing had happened—or, rather, since he had gone out into the world, everything that had happened subsequently seemed like nothing at all, because that thing that he wanted to happen, meeting his doe, hadn’t happened. Two times he had waited near the door for Paras to go out, so that he might follow her, but he wasn’t fast enough on his own to get his whole body plus tail through the closing door, especially since he didn’t want the boy to see him. When he had proposed to Paras that she take him with her, she had refused—she had a ways to travel, she wanted to gallop, it wasn’t safe, what would she say to Conrad?
“You don’t know Conrad.”
“I’ve seen Conrad.”
“You’ve never spoken to him.”
“I don’t want my first words to him to be about how I carried you outside and you were taken off by an owl.”
“What is an owl?”
“For your purposes, a flying cat.”
“Get Frida to take me.”
“When Frida talks about the last time, she trembles all over.”
“I can ride you. The boy rides you.” She’d had no answer for this, so he still hoped that she might eventually be persuaded. “Just let me sit on your head again.” She’d let him sit on her head again. Then she lay out full on the carpet, and he ran along her side and up and down her belly. She liked that a great deal.
Now Madame de Mornay was making her way through the grand salon. Kurt rolled over, yawned, and followed her. She called out for Étienne twice, but not very loudly. He must be upstairs in the library, forwarding his schooling. There was sunshine everywhere—she could feel it. Every time Madame paused to enjoy the warmth, Kurt paused to enjoy the warmth. Every time she pushed open a window, he took a whiff. He wasn’t terribly hungry—provisions around here didn’t allow for that. He knew he would be better off if his and Conrad’s estate were a little leaner and more populated—but that part he wanted to fix, he really did. In the cuisine, he sat quietly under the table while Madame groped her way about, making a pot of tea. He was just grooming his whiskers when the back door opened unexpectedly and there was the boy, who looked first at the old lady and then at Kurt. Then again at Kurt. Kurt’s whiskers twitched involuntarily. Although the boy had scratched his belly that time, it had been in the bedroom. They both had been able to pretend that Kurt’s full figure was not due to a lifetime’s expropriation of Mornay family wealth. Now, right here, they found themselves at the scene of the crime. Conrad said, over and over, that the last place a human wanted to find a rat was in the cuisine.
The boy went to the old lady and took her hand. She smiled, said, “Hello, my dear.” He kissed her on the cheek, and moved the tea kettle to the burner that was actually flaming, then opened three different cans of tea and held them under her nose one by one. She chose the second one. As a rat, Kurt could count to six. Conrad maintained that cats could only count to five.
Madame pulled out a chair, felt her way around the table, sat down. Kurt moved toward her. Really, there was no smell at all now, so she was closer than ever to nonexistence—he and Conrad sometimes marveled at her ability to hold on. He was not touching her, but he was near enough so that any attempt by the boy to swat him would result in her being swatted, too. He eyed the entrance to the network of tunnels, but the boy was standing in front of it, and, anyway, he sensed no rage from the boy, not even any dominance. He remained still, semi-crouched on his hind legs, one forepaw on the floor and one lifted, ready to run. The old lady said a few things, and the boy said a few things, something was put on the table above him, and then something else. He waited. He didn’t mind. He enjoyed feeling brave. There was, he saw, a dead cockroach in the shadow of the pantry. How had he missed it? It was dry and flat, no odor. He and Conrad were failing at their job.
Madame shifted her feet, and her toe touched him, but lightly. He moved over one step. More chitchat from above. Madame always spoke softly; Kurt found it soothing. Now another chair moved, and, moments later, the boy sat down. Kurt was surrounded by feet. The boy had taken off his boots at the door—Kurt could see them and smell them from where he was; they
were the most exciting things in the room, fragrant with dirt and flowers and horse dung and a dozen other things that Kurt should be able to recognize but could not, because of his housebound lifestyle. The socks were fragrant, too, and a little grimy. Kurt crept over and peeked into the cuff of the boy’s trousers. There was the bud of a flower there, tiny. Kurt extracted it with a flick of his paw and tasted it. Bitter. He spat it out. Above him, more chitchat. He got bolder. He went back to Madame. There was fluff on the toe of her slipper—nothing to eat, but he flicked it away, then scratched at her slipper to see if it might give off an odor. It did not. He was getting very bold! Now the chairs pushed back, the humans stood up, and Kurt could see by the arrangement of their feet that the boy was helping the old lady out of the cuisine. He waited, then skittered to the doorway. She was going to her chair in the grand salon. She sat down, still talking, and picked up her knitting. It was the only thing Kurt ever saw her do in the house besides eat and sleep.
She kept talking, but the boy turned and came back toward the cuisine. Step by step down the corridor. Kurt didn’t move. The boy got closer. His gaze was on Kurt, right on him, and Kurt did not look away, but he did start to tremble, he did start to feel the tunnel entrance drawing him, he did start to wonder where Conrad was, and to long for that safe darkness. He squeaked, and then squeaked again. The boy squatted down in front of him and stretched out his hands, palms upward. Even a rat knew what palms upward meant—it meant “give me something.”
All was quiet, except for the comforting mumble of Madame counting her stitches. Kurt swallowed.
The boy smiled.
Rats do not smile, but they do open their eyes wide and make a little “o” with their mouths when they mean to be friendly.
The hands were still extended. Kurt crept forward. It was possible, Kurt thought, that the boy was the one who was essential to all of his hopes and dreams. He was right at the hands now. He touched one of them with his nose, and then flicked his whiskers across it. He put his paw on the hand. And then he went up into the hands, which were slightly cupped but did not curve around him, did not grasp him. After a moment, he coiled himself, and then the boy stood.
That time before, when the boy had tickled his belly and then his back, Kurt hadn’t been brave enough to look the boy in the eye. He had looked at the ceiling of the bedroom, where the light coming through the window seemed to be a part of that piercing noise that he now knew was a whinny that came and went and came and went and then was gone. The boy had been polite, Kurt had been polite, but then he had left, and that, it seemed, had been that. Now he uncurled himself, and sat up, looked at the boy, eye to eye, a difficult thing for a rat. His whiskers fluttered. He stopped them. He tried to be dignified but friendly-looking. The boy said, “I forgot how silky your fur is. Indeed, you are handsome.”
Kurt smoothed his whiskers with his paw. No one had ever called him handsome before. Perhaps that boded well for his reproductive aspirations.
Kurt didn’t know what he wanted from Étienne. Certainly not food. Perhaps this was enough—acceptance. When your own father went on and on about the injustice of rats’ being outcasts all over the world, about how every rat had a story of escaping the trap, or the broom, or the dropping shoe, a story of being greeted by screaming, by barking, by hissing, by a fog of ill-smelling and sickening gas, then acceptance was the oddest thing of all. He no longer had to look at the horse and ask himself, “Why do humans like horses, but not rats?” When he told Conrad about the dog saving him, Conrad had snorted in disbelief, said, “Must not have been hungry, then.” Here was something he would not do—tell Conrad about sitting in the boy’s hands. The boy bent down and set Kurt on the floor, then tickled his back for a few moments. Kurt walked in a leisurely manner, but, he felt, with a certain grace, to the entrance of his tunnel. It was broad day now, time for a nap. But he would return.
* * *
JÉRÔME CONSIDERED himself taciturn. He loved vegetables, he loved his neighborhood, he kept his eyes open, he knew it was not his job to gossip about his customers. Now that the dog always accompanied the boy and the old old lady to the shop, he felt that his original instinct, that the dog had been ferrying provisions to that household all along, was proved correct (as were most of his instincts). In this neighborhood, he had seen plenty over the years, and a man walking down the street on Monday with his arm around the waist of a pretty blonde and then walking down the street on Tuesday, laughing convivially with an elegant brunette, was the least of it. A shopkeeper in the Seventh Arrondissement was wise to keep his opinions to himself, and Jérôme always did so. But, nevertheless, there he had been, on a Saturday morning, talking about the boy and the dog and the old lady to Hélène, from the meat market next door, his hands under his apron, Hélène having a smoke, out on the street as if they lived in some village in the country, and, yes, Jérôme had been aware of someone in the shop behind him, but he’d thought she was squeezing oranges or selecting potatoes.
On Monday, late in the afternoon, this woman came to him with someone else, a man. It turned out that they were from the elementary school up the street. They came into the shop and more or less pinned Jérôme to the wall behind the cash register. It was true that Jérôme himself had not had a happy school experience—he had been a little wild, had hated studying, and excelled only in cultivating the school vegetable garden, which had been fine with his father, who had owned this shop before Jérôme did. They were polite enough, but that air of strictness that all teachers had would come out. Who was this boy? Jérôme had called him “Étienne” and had said that he appeared to be eight or nine. There was no boy at the school named “Étienne” other than a boy in the first grade. Jérôme had been talking about a boy he saw in the neighborhood with some frequency. Did he live in the neighborhood? How long had he been coming to the shop? What was this about a very old lady, maybe a hundred years old?
Jérôme said he knew nothing about the boy or where he lived or went to school. Strictly speaking, this was true, he knew nothing if you did not count the boy’s gustatorial preferences. Jérôme put the officials off. Let them look for the boy, let them spy on his shop and follow the boy home—that was their business, not Jérôme’s. But he did wonder how to warn that boy that something was in the wind.
Which was the reason that, the next time Étienne came home from Jérôme’s shop, he found, folded up among the dried figs he had bought as a treat (for himself and for Kurt and Paras), a note letting him know that some people from the school were nosing around for information about him. Jérôme’s handwriting was neat; even so, Étienne read the note three times before he comprehended what it meant. It meant that he had to come up with a plan before those people found him, before they found his great-grandmama. Before they found the horse. He made himself put the vegetables away, but he saw that his hands were trembling as he did so.
The school may have not noticed Étienne until now, but Étienne had noticed the school, and it looked to him, as it looked to his great-grandmama, like a noisy trap. The riot of the children (he thought of them as “the children” rather than “the other children”) was bad enough, but the noise of the adults was worse—stiff, raised voices, clapping hands, commands. Étienne had never in his life received a command. Even when his great-grandmama told him to do something, she phrased it affectionately, as something that would be done to please her if he cared to do it. And, therefore, he always did it. Nor had he ever issued a command. Whom would he command? The horse? The dog? They seemed to read his mind—or not. He could go to the sixth step in the courtyard and stand there. He could know that Paras knew he wanted a ride, but that she wasn’t ready at the moment to give him one. If he commanded her to do so, was she likely to agree? Not at all. She was likely to move away. As for the dog, the dog watched his every move and was ready at every minute to follow him, to go ahead of him, to present herself to his great-grandmama for support, to carry so
mething, to wait for him. She would not give him that silly ball; a command would not cause her to do so. It was her ball.
There were plenty of books about school in the library. No one in any of those books had ever liked school; every author remembered school with horror. Beatings and deprivations were the least of it. According to every single author, the attempt to have a thought of one’s own was the gravest sin. Étienne’s whole life was made up of having thoughts of his own, exploring them, enjoying them, comparing them to the thoughts he found in books or overheard on the street.
And then there was the question of, if he went to school—which looked like an all-day affair, except for Wednesday, when the school was quiet—who would watch over his great-grandmama? And even if there was someone, would that person try to command the old lady? Try to order her and organize her? This did not seem to Étienne like a project that could turn out well. As for the dog and the horse and now the rat and maybe the raven, well, he didn’t want to think about that. He stared at the note, then wadded it up and tossed it into the bin. Perhaps, he thought, he could write notes himself, to Jérôme, detailing what he and his great-grandmama needed to buy. The dog could do the delivery. Just the day before, he’d taught her to put her head through the handle of the trolley and push it. She’d only pushed it a meter, if that, but maybe it was possible that she could push it to Jérôme’s shop. Étienne finished putting away their purchases, peeked at Madame, who was now knitting a purple square; the evening before, the square had been green. Then he went upstairs and looked out each window for a rather long time. He made note of every human he could see that seemed to pause or look up at the house, especially the gendarme. He had seen the gendarme plenty of times—you couldn’t do anything about a gendarme—a gendarme walked the streets and made your business his business—but he had never felt that he or his great-grandmama had attracted the attention of the gendarme in any special way. Now, as he watched, he did not sense that the gendarme was curious about them, at least for now. But if the school authorities happened to consult the gendarme, perhaps the gendarme would have a thought or two. After watching for a while, he went downstairs and found the old lady dozing, her knitting in her lap. He touched it with his fingertip. It was a lace pattern. It reminded him of pictures of snowflakes.
