by Jane Smiley
“Which one?” said Kurt. “You talk about that all the time.”
“Do I?” said Conrad. “I don’t mean to repeat myself.”
“If we got out a little more, I think we might have more to talk about,” said Kurt.
After a long moment, Conrad said, “Son, you are right. You are exactly right. And the fact is, everything is different now.” Kurt’s head spun toward him, and he nodded. Then he said, “Every rat has a different theory about human power and mortality, but we all agree on one thing, and that is that when a human vanishes a rat’s world turns upside down.”
In the meantime, Étienne slept on, and the house grew so quiet that when the gendarme passed it on his morning round, he looked at it twice, so still and cold did it seem, right here, today, in the brilliant warmth of the green spring.
* * *
IT WAS FRIDA who woke Étienne up, barking like mad in the courtyard. Paras lifted her head and said, “Why are you making that awful noise?”
Frida paused and said, “I don’t know,” and resumed barking.
Paras hoisted herself to her feet, walked over to Frida, and stood over her. She pinned her ears, narrowed her eyes, and switched her tail in a threatening manner, but it was evident that Frida didn’t know horse body language, because she just kept barking. At last, and with some misgivings, Paras bumped Frida with her knees and knocked her over. There was silence.
Paras said, “What is going on?”
“Everyone needs to know.”
“To know what?”
“I don’t know. Something. Something important. Whatever it is, it is making my skin tingle and my hair curl.”
“Your hair isn’t curling.”
“That’s what it feels like.” She rolled energetically in the grass, twisting her body this way and that; then she rolled onto her stomach and put her paws over her ears. At last, she said, “I felt this before, but I didn’t know what it was. Now maybe I do. It was when my human vanished.”
Paras looked up at the window. There was Étienne, staring at her. She said, “The boy is fine.”
Frida blew out a long breath.
Thanks to the barking, Étienne was wide awake, but a little disoriented. Why was he sleeping in the grand salon? What time was it? Where was his great-grandmama? What was for breakfast? He staggered a little as he went toward the cuisine, thinking that the answers might be there, and the staggering reminded him of his nighttime adventure, cantering around the Champ de Mars in a dream. This had the effect of making him feel more rather than less disoriented. It wasn’t until he had scarfed down a piece of bread, some cheese, and a large glass of water that he felt like himself. At that point, he yawned and cleaned up the cuisine as best he could—just the day before, his great-grandmama had run her hand along the top of the table and made a sad face. Not a scowl—she was not angry—but it was clear that, distracted as he was by the horse, he was doing a poor job of maintaining the house. Kurt could have told him that his own distraction had resulted in his complementary failure in waste management, but Étienne had never known how great a contribution to his efforts Kurt had made.
Only after wiping the table, rinsing the sink, sweeping the floor, and closing all of the drawers and cabinet doors did Étienne bring his attention fully to the old lady. He thought that she had to be somewhere—perhaps, given her energy when they went to the shops again just the day before, she had gotten dressed and left the house! And so he hurried out of the cuisine, through the grand salon, across the hallway. He knocked, even though she would not be able to hear him, and then put his hand on the door to her chamber, eased it open. The room was quiet. Like Conrad, he at first didn’t see her—she had gone out! But no—her hat with the feather was in its customary spot. Then he did see her. Her covers, including the great coverlet she’d been knitting, were drawn up over her chin, with her pillow hiding her forehead. He stared at her for a long time, and then he crept toward the bed. After a moment, he slipped his own hand under the covers and found hers. He squeezed it. It was small and cool and stiff. The day had come, Étienne thought, the day when he no longer knew what to do, down to the least little thing.
Jérôme, at the market, also felt uneasy for some reason. He found himself stepping out into the street without meaning to, looking left, looking right, making himself go back into the shop, only to step out into the street moments later.
Anaïs, in her apartment, was brewing herself a cup of tea. She poured the boiling water right onto her hand, cried out, put her hand under the cold tap, and started to weep. Anaïs hadn’t wept in years, she thought; as for burning herself, she did that all the time, but this time was different, somehow.
Pierre, who still had his earplugs in from his morning operating the leaf blower, stepped out of the equipment shed and saw dark clouds to the north—unexpected, because the forecast had been for days of sunshine. He went back into the shed, felt a chilling breeze, found a jacket. When he’d finished hanging up his tools and making the signs he had to redo every year to remind his crew where to put things, he went back outside. Brilliant sunshine. Unaccountable, really.
The gendarme made up his mind to consult his superior officer about that house. There was something funny about the place, and the gendarmerie needed to look into it. He knocked on the office door, then knocked again. Another officer went by, told him that the boss was in Nanterre for the afternoon. Whatever it was would have to wait until tomorrow, but tomorrow was his day off. Okay, he could wait two days.
Frida was not barking anymore. She was lying quietly in her dip, silent, not even mumbling, almost invisible under the vegetation.
Paras continued to sample the grass and weeds. She knew that Frida thought she was insensitive or indifferent. She wasn’t. She was preparing herself.
Raoul knew exactly what was going on. He stood on the sill of the old lady’s window, tapping. He could see that she had passed, and he knew that it was the animals who had to save the boy.
Delphine felt nothing special, apart from the anxiety she always experienced before a big race. Since she trained horses for both jump races and flat races, her worries were different for each. When she put a horse in a race over the hurdles or the jumps, she imagined the horse falling more than anything else. Now she stood, leaning on Whiskey Shot’s stall door, watching him gobble down his hay. He was a flat racer, less likely to fall, especially since the ground was dry and firm. But was he too fat? Was he too tall for his age? Would the jockey be able to control him? He liked to come from behind, always a hazardous strategy. If they bunched in front of him, would he try to barrel through the pack, putting himself and everyone else at risk? Delphine wiped the sweat off her forehead with the sleeve of her shirt.
* * *
BECAUSE ÉTIENNE DIDN’T KNOW what to do, he did what he knew he should have done before this, which was to clean, clean, clean, first the cuisine, then the grand salon, then the library. He put away, he threw away, he wiped down, he swept, he straightened. In his great-grandmama’s chamber, it soothed him to walk around her, picking up this and that, placing her cherished possessions exactly as she would wish them to be if she were, indeed, a ghost (she had never said anything about ghosts, but there were ghosts in books, just as there were horses in books—a horse had shown up, so perhaps a ghost would also show up). Several times, he went to her and kissed her on the forehead. He made very little noise, because he did not have a vacuum cleaner, and so the gendarme, who altered his route in order to peek through the fence with all of its vegetation and to listen for telltale noises, could make out nothing. Yes, a raven was tapping on a windowpane, up on the first floor—that was unusual, but it was not against the law, or even a matter for Animal Control. He had other things to do until his shift ended, but he thought he might come back, even though tomorrow was his day off. He could explore a little more aggressively—not in his uniform, but as an interested pr
ivate citizen.
As Étienne made order in his great-grandmama’s chamber, he got more comfortable with what most books would have called the cadavre or the restes humains. He did not know what he should call it, but both of these terms seemed too final. He glanced out the window. Paras, Frida, and the raven were standing together, as if they were conversing.
Étienne couldn’t hear them, but Frida said, “Where can we possibly take him? We’ll be captured!”
Raoul said, “My relative Liam Corvus Cor—” But then he tossed his head and shut up.
Paras said, “I have an idea.”
* * *
PERHAPS, Étienne thought, he should go to the church and find the curé, but Étienne knew that as soon as he let the curé, and whoever else, into the house, they would take him and his great-grandmama out of it. He needed one last night with her, one last night in his own room, in his own library, in his own cuisine. Having made up his mind, he went down into the cellar and began sorting through the vegetables and other things stored there. At suppertime, he came back up with a bowl of some very nice beets and carrots, some oats, and the last of the apples, now wrinkled, but fragrant and firm. For himself, he put some cheese and dried fruits on the table, and in honor of his great-grandmama, he set a bowl of walnuts and a peeled orange in front of her chair. His great-grandmama had always been very fond of walnuts. He ate properly, as if she were with him, thinking of how good she had been, but also how interesting she had been. Then he went to the front door and opened it. The animals were still standing together.
The sun had gone down, and the only lamp Étienne turned on was a single wan bulb in the grand salon. Because of his great-grandmama’s poor eyesight, he was in the habit of turning on only the lights he needed for reading or thinking or helping her go about the place (not that, after so many years, she needed much help). But now, sitting beside the table, holding his book on his lap, and looking around, he began to cry for the first time. That was when he knew that she was dead, that, underneath all of the silence, there was no longer the even “sshh” of her breaths. From where he was sitting, he could see the shadowy emptiness of her yarn basket, like a hole in the ground, a drain to nowhere. Now fear began to infuse his sadness. He wondered whether elsewhere in Paris there were eight-year-olds sitting quietly by themselves, with no one anywhere nearby. Yes, her corpus was in her room—and what would he do with that?—but, truly, she was gone, alive only in his memory of her care and her good humor. He could hear himself sniffling, feel the tears running. He put his face in his hands.
First to appear, but not from outside, was Kurt, his nose twitching in the rush of evening air. He emerged from his hole (Étienne could hear him better than he could see him), zipped across the carpet, and crouched beside Étienne’s right foot. Étienne took his hands away from his face and looked down. He leaned forward, cupped his hands. Kurt stepped into them. Étienne straightened up, placed the rat on his knee. The next to appear was the raven, who came in the usual door, cawing. His cawing sounded very specific, but only Kurt knew that he was saying, “Well, at last! In circumstances like these, and believe me, Aves understand the ins and outs and ups and downs of death perhaps better than any other class of Chordata…” He fell silent. And here came Paras, not through her usual door, but through the big door, the door that required her to mount ten steps to the great portico. She whinnied a few things to Raoul, and then came to where Étienne was sitting, snuffled his hair, and put her chin gently on his shoulder. Her warmth spread out around him. He put his hand in the silky spot under her mane.
And now, at last, after so many months, here came Frida in through the small door, her tail down, her ears down, half slinking, a sad but determined look on her face. She looked exactly the way Étienne felt. She came all the way to him, and stood, trembling slightly, as Étienne petted her on her silky head. She mumbled a few things, the raven cawed, the rat squeaked, and Paras nickered gently. Étienne knew that they were talking to him, though not in his language, and he felt comforted. One by one, they settled in—the raven in his great-grandmama’s empty yarn basket, Kurt in the corner of the sofa, Paras in her usual spot in front of the windows, and Frida right there, right at his feet, her lovely head resting on her paws. Very soon, there was quite a bit of snoring, which Étienne found so soothing that he, too, put his head back and fell asleep.
Sometime later, Paras woke up, levered herself to her feet, and went into the cuisine, where she turned on the spigot and had a drink of water, then finished the last of the supper. It was that time of night, the deepest deepest dark, when she customarily went out into the Champ de Mars. The doors were open, and she could come and go as she pleased, but when she came back into the grand salon, she went over to the boy and poked him with her nose. He woke up at once. Frida woke up. Raoul flew up and perched on Paras’s croup, and Kurt scrambled to the back of the sofa. Étienne understood that they had a plan.
Étienne now remembered his outing of the night before, the pleasure of it. If the horse wanted to do that one last time, Étienne was all for it, and, indeed, he suddenly felt that he had to get out of this house. Paras placed herself next to the sofa and put her head down. The rat pulled himself up her mane and settled just behind her ears. Étienne followed them out the smaller door. Frida was at his heels. Paras waited while he opened the gate, and then they walked around to the staircase, and he climbed to the sixth step. She positioned herself. He put his leg over her back and hopped on, entwining his hands in her mane. The rat hadn’t gone with them the previous night, but he looked eager. Frida was mumbling. The raven continued to sit on Paras’s haunches until they were out of the gate, and then he rose gently on the breeze and stayed a few meters in front of them, only lifting and lowering his wings a little bit, swaying from side to side.
The horse walked down the allée, loosening up, relaxing, and then she eased into that canter again, and there they were, swaying and leaping, almost airborne, the trees passing them on the left, ping-ping-ping. At the pond, Paras slowed to a walk. The farther they went, the more Étienne wanted to keep going, the more it felt like escape rather than pleasure. Now they were in front of the Tour, just outside its circle of light. Paras’s walk was energetic. Frida trotted beside her. The rat made little squeaking noises, but he was sitting up straight, his tiny ears pricked, as if he was as interested in where they were going as Étienne was.
Paras paused. The raven landed on the fence. They waited. A large truck went by, and then it was so quiet that Étienne could hear the river bubbling and lapping against the embankment, and after that they were walking across the Pont d’Iéna. They passed the carousel, turned left, and headed up the dark path beside the great building, and every single step was into somewhere that Étienne, native Parisian, had never been before.
* * *
PARAS WAS NOT normally of a philosophical turn of mind, but she was surprised at how natural this was, how easy, really. This was nothing compared to a workout around the dirt track at Maisons-Laffitte. So far, this was a sprint, hardly enough to cause a stayer like Paras to breathe hard. Why had she waited so long? That was the price of indecision, wasn’t it? And yet it was also the price of freedom. Although she now felt herself responsible for Étienne, as well as drawn back to Delphine and that former life of fitness and purpose, she understood that her days of doing what she pleased when she was pleased to do it were behind her. As she climbed the path, she drew in many deep breaths, not because she was winded, but because she loved the air, the smell of spring, of grass, of plants and flowers and dirt, so different from the smell of oncoming winter and dead leaves from the last time she was here. She could feel the boy swaying as she walked, his legs relaxed, his body never moving out of plumb. He was, as Delphine would have said, a natural. And he was her responsibility now. Well, she didn’t mind that. She was four years old, a mare—mares took responsibility for almost everything groups of horses might do.
Ahead of her, Raoul flew from tree to tree. He seemed to have nothing to say. Just for a moment, Paras regretted not having paused to say goodbye to Sid and Nancy. They would have been sleeping, but saying some last word was the friendly thing to do. She continued to climb, the dark bulk of the huge building warm and protective. And now there was the gate, the gate Frida had opened all those months ago. She halted. Frida stepped forward, got up on her hind legs, and opened the gate again. They went through. It was still darkest dark, and the Place du Trocadéro was empty. All the shops were lightless, the huge buildings were solid black, and that strange horse still stood up there in the sky, unmoving. Paras looked around. She could smell the forest, but how to get there was a bit confusing.
Raoul did not mean to be preoccupied with his own petty concerns—he had re-entered his former territory, and there was cawing, some of it on the order of “Oh, heavens, I thought you were dead!,” some of it on the order of “You need to watch your step!” He did not think there would be a mobbing, but you never knew. At least, it was less likely in the dark like this, in the spring, with nestlings everywhere. Even so, he perched not far from the horse, not far from Frida.
