“Oh my God!” cried Auriel and crumpled.
Lisa likewise crumpled. “Ricky Froelich!” They burst into giggles, joined hands and ran toward the playground, turning to shriek, “Madeleine, hurry up!”
As Madeleine caught up, Auriel grabbed her hand, and the three of them ran in a line like cut-out dolls in time to see Ricky Froelich, on his red motor scooter, zoom off behind the school with a little kid on the back. Madeleine could also see that Mike had already barged to the front of the crowd with Roy Noonan. Music was coming from somewhere—someone must have a transistor radio. Auriel seized Madeleine’s arm. “There’s Marsha Woodley.”
“She babysits us,” hissed Lisa urgently.
“Us too,” Auriel hastily put in.
Marsha Woodley. Over by the swings, remote and serene, the CO’s daughter. Flanked by two girlfriends. Twin-sets, penny loafers and ponytails. Marsha wears her cardigan draped around her shoulders, buttoned at the top, a pleated skirt and ankle socks. These girls don’t attend J. A. D. McCurdy, they go on the bus to high school. High atop Mount Olympus. The transistor is in Marsha’s hand—Dion’s irresistibly swaggering voice—“‘Well I’m the type o’ guy who will never settle down….’”
The motor scooter zooms back and deposits the little kid, and the crowd closes in. “Ricky! I’m next, take me, Ricky!”
He dismounts. A tall boy in faded jeans and a red cowboy shirt. Dreamboat. Colleen’s brother—and Elizabeth’s. Holy mackerel.
Auriel shoves Madeleine forward. “Ask him for a ride!”
“You ask him, you love him.”
“I do not!” squeals Auriel and swats Madeleine.
Madeleine watches as Ricky lets Mike sit on the scooter by himself and twist the throttle. Auriel murmurs, “He doesn’t even know I’m alive.” Ricky trots alongside the scooter, holding Mike steady.
Lisa says, “Your brother’s cute.”
“Yuck!” cries Madeleine, shocked.
“Oh Mikey,” swoons Auriel, and begins kissing her own arm.
Lisa succumbs to her raspy laugh and likewise smooches her arm: “Oh Ricky, oh Rock!”
Auriel erupts in giggles, barely able to speak. “Oh Cary Grant! Oh Gina Lollobrigida!” The two of them fall down.
Madeleine looks at her friends. They have lost their minds. Dion floats on the air, carefree and insinuating—as she watches Mike take off on his own around the schoolyard, his face red—he is trying not to smile. “‘They call me the wanderer, yeah I’m the wanderer, I roam around ’n’ round, ’n’ round, ’n’ round….’”
Madeleine says, “Do you dare me to ask for a ride?”
Auriel and Lisa sober up immediately.
As Mike comes to a stop, Madeleine walks through the crowd and straight up to Ricky Froelich. “Can I have a try?”
“Not by herself,” says Mike in his deepest voice, “she’s too little.”
“Mike, I am not!”
“She’s my sister.”
Ricky climbs back onto the scooter and turns to Madeleine. He has shiny black hair and dark brown eyes, his shirt is open at the collar. His Adam’s apple moves as he says to her, “Hop on, pal.”
Madeleine gets on the back and grasps the bar behind her. He twists the throttle and she feels herself jerked back as they accelerate across the pavement, then onto the field—it’s exactly the way she imagines surfing must feel, the rubber wheels riding waves of grass, the soft seat vibrating beneath her. “Hang onto me,” he calls over his shoulder, and speeds up. She slips her hands around his waist and threads her fingers across his stomach, warm and firm beneath his soft shirt. Her hands feel small. Panels of muscle stiffen as he leans into a turn, the feel of them reminds Madeleine of how boys look in their bathing suits—smooth chests, arc of ribcage just visible, and that line down the middle of their stomachs….
“You okay back there?”
“Yeah,” she calls.
She cannot stop smiling, her forehead against his billowing shirt, glad he cannot see her. Her hair lifts in the breeze, she leans her cheek against his shoulder blade and smells baby powder, Brylcreem; sees the sinews of his tanned forearm shift with each movement of his wrist, turning the throttle, squeezing the brake.
They speed from the grass onto asphalt and around the swings, while far away it seems the crowd of kids watches and the transistor plays. Is this what it’s like to be in a movie? To feel so private, yet with a huge audience watching?
She leans with him as they round the school, hangs on a little tighter, feels the pearly snaps of his shirt beneath her fingers; there is no time, there is only now, the sound of a motor, the breeze on her arms, the warmth of the soaked-up sun radiating from his back, the ease of his voice singing along. They come out from around the school into the full tilt of the evening sun and the ride is done.
Madeleine climbs off, her legs trembling, a stranger to gravity. She doesn’t think to thank him. She is deaf to the admiration of Auriel and Lisa. She rejoins the crowd and watches with her friends, but she feels like an emptied glass—that crestfallen feeling of walking out from a movie theatre in the middle of the day, out from the intimate matinée darkness and the smell of popcorn, which is the smell of heightened colour and sound and story, into the borderless bright of day. Bereft.
He gives a ride to every kid who wants one. Auriel, beaming and beetred; Lisa, mute with pleasure. He even gives Marjorie Nolan a ride—she has no qualms about screaming and throwing her arms around him on the pretext of being afraid of falling off. And she hangs onto his hand after her ride is done, sticking to him, trying to drag him off his bike.
Through it all, Marsha Woodley watches, exchanging murmurs with her girlfriends, who squeal every time he buzzes the swings. Marsha doesn’t squeal. She smiles and looks off to the side. Tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. Licks the corner of her mouth. Pale pink lipstick.
Finally, Ricky wheels the scooter up to Marsha. He dismounts and holds it steady for her as she gets on, and this time he gets on behind her so she won’t have to straddle the seat in her skirt. He reaches his arms around her to grasp the handlebars, he tweaks the throttle, and they take off. Out of the schoolyard and up Algonquin Drive into the golden light of eight o’clock in summer.
Madeleine feels an ache. In a place she didn’t know was part of her body. Starting around the wishbone in her chest and spreading out. A plunging sadness, to do with the scent of hay and motor oil, his billowing shirt and the sight of Marsha Woodley’s skirt lapping at her knees. The crowd of kids disperses, and the three girls start for home across the green.
“I’m dying for a fag,” says Auriel, and Lisa Ridelle pulls out a pack of Popeye candy cigarettes. The three of them light up and inhale gratefully.
“Sankyou, dahling.”
“You’re velcome, dahling.”
“I’d vok a mile for a Camel.”
They walk, the toes of their runners darkening with dew, sucking their candy tubes to a point. Walking parallel some distance away is Marjorie Nolan, shadowing them. Madeleine wonders why she doesn’t just come over if she wants to walk with them. “Do you guys know that kid?” she asks.
Auriel looks across at Marjorie. “Not really, she just moved in.” Which is surprising, considering that Marjorie was such a know-it-all today.
“Do you know her?” asks Lisa.
“Sorta.”
“She looks weird.”
“What’s her name?” asks Auriel.
“Marjorie,” says Madeleine, and then, “Margarine.”
Auriel and Lisa laugh and Madeleine feels a twinge. She looks across at Marjorie, who is still not looking. Fine, don’t look, I was going to invite you to walk with us.
“Margarine!” laughs Lisa, and Madeleine says, “Shhh.”
“Yeah, Ridelle,” says Auriel, “don’t be so mean,” then whispers, “Margarine,” to fresh gales.
Madeleine laughs along politely. It’s okay, Auriel and Lisa aren’t the type to call Marjorie that to her face. Stil
l, it’s sad to have your name turned into margarine.
Mimi finishes washing the dishes. Jack dries. “That wasn’t so bad,” he says.
She doesn’t look at him but smiles, dries her hands and reaches for a squirt of Jergens.
Mike comes in and opens the fridge. Mimi puts her hands on his head, kisses his crown and says, “T’as faim? Assis-toi, là.” He sits at the table and, as Mimi pulls leftovers from the fridge, takes a tiny green army tank from his pocket and proceeds to repair the treads.
“Mike,” says Jack, and shakes his head. No toys at the table.
“But Dad, it’s not supper or anything.”
“It’s still your mother’s food.”
Mike pockets the tank. Jack returns to his Time magazine. Mimi places a heaping plate in front of her son. “Et voilà, mon p’tit capitaine.”
“Merci, maman.”
She lights a cigarette, leans against the counter and watches her son eat. This will be his last year in children’s sizes. He has his father’s head, his father’s way of eating steadily, neatly, the working of the jaw, the set of the shoulders and something about the eyes—though her son’s are brown—the same long lashes, and that open quality, the focused unawareness that is masculine innocence. She can almost see the face of the man emerging from that of the boy. Her gaze is a thing of substance. Between a mother’s eyes and her son’s face, there is not air. There is something invisible and invincible. Even though—or because—he will go out into the world, she will never lose her passion to protect him. Girls are different. They know more. And they don’t leave you.
From upstairs, Madeleine’s voice, “I’m ready!”
Mimi moves toward the stairs but Jack gets up. “That’s okay, I’ll tuck her in.”
“‘And the children disappeared into the mountain, never to be seen again. All except for one child who was lame and could not keep up.’”
Jack closes the book. Madeleine gazes at the illustration—the yellow and red diamonds on the Piper’s cloak, his pointed hat, his solemn beautiful face. He doesn’t look cruel. He looks sad, as though at the prospect of performing a painful duty.
“What was inside the mountain?” She always asks this when he has finished, and he always considers for a moment, before replying, “Well no one can say for sure. But I think maybe it was like a … whole other world.”
“Was there a sky?”
“I think there might have been, yeah. And lakes and trees.”
“And they never grow up.”
“You’re probably right. They run around and play, happy as clams.”
Meanwhile, in the outside world, their whole family gets old and dies, thinks Madeleine. She doesn’t say this, however, because she does not wish to ruin the story for her father. It’s the first time since Germany that she has asked him to read to her. She is getting a bit old for it, but it makes her new room feel cozier. And no one has to know.
“You almost ready to fall asleep?”
She hugs him around the neck. “Dad?”
“Yeah, old buddy?”
“Was Elizabeth born retarded?”
“She’s not retarded, sweetie.”
It’s been bothering her. How can Ricky have a retarded sister as well as a delinquent one and yet be perfect?
“What’s wrong with her?”
“She has cerebral palsy.”
“What’s that?”
“She can’t control her muscles, but there’s nothing wrong with her mind.”
Madeleine blinks. Inside Elizabeth’s head, she is perfectly normal. What must it be like to watch your hands try to pick something up? To hear your mouth slurring words when you know perfectly well how to say them? Like living in a very small room with a very big window.
“Can you catch it?” she asks.
“No, no, you’re born with it.”
“Oh.”
“It doesn’t mean you can’t have a good life,” he says. “She’s a pretty happy gal, don’t you think?”
“… Yeah.”
Grown-ups are never frightened by things like that—horrible things that people are born with. Whereas, when you are going on nine, it’s as though things from before you were born could still reach out and grab you by the ankle. You can feel the whoosh of how they just missed you.
“Have a good sleep, old buddy.” He kisses her forehead.
“Kiss Bugs,” she says, and he does.
She does not ask him if Mr. Froelich is a Nazi. It’s a rude question to ask so late at night, after such a nice day. And she knows what he’ll say: “No-o-o, what gave you that idea?” And she will have to answer, “Mike did,” and Mike will get in trouble. Still, she would like to hear it from her own father that there is not a Nazi living across the street. “Hitler’s still alive, you know,” said Mike. And he told her how Goebbels killed his children with poisoned cocoa. Goebbels. It’s what turkeys say. “Mr. Froelich could be a Nazi hiding out here,” he said. “You can tell if he’s SS, ’cause they have tattoos.” But you can’t see any tattoos on Mr. Froelich because of his long sleeves.
Dad switches off the light. “Sweet dreams.”
“Dad, is Hitler dead?”
“Dead as a doornail.”
She slides down under her blanket, savouring the smell of grass stains on her knees and elbows. A summer holiday night; she rode on a red motor scooter with a real live teenager, Hitler is dead, Elizabeth Froelich is not retarded, and school starts next week.
ONCE UPON A TIME, in a country that no longer exists, there was a mountain cave. And inside the cave was a treasure. Slaves worked to mount up more and more and more treasure. They worked day and night in the bowels of the earth, and fashioned the things of the earth into something celestial. They used the products of the earth: animals that had died billions of years ago were exhumed and refined; chemicals that had hidden in earth and air were caught, distilled and carefully recombined—these became its fuel. Minerals that had been harvested from the earth were purified by fire until they were strong and stainless, then forged into many shapes—this became its skin, its brain, its vital organs.
Everything has come from Mother Earth in this way. Cars, ploughs, televisions, clothes, electricity. Ourselves. Gathered, processed, moulded, ignited. If all this had happened in a flash, we would call it magic—lions freeing themselves from the clay, soldiers springing up from serpents’ teeth, lightning snaking from the tip of a wand, language from our mouths.
But it did not happen in a flash. It happened over time. The age of the earth was necessary to create it all, and the minds and bodies of many people, and so it is called science. Humans can only work the magic in reverse. Returning it all to the earth and atmosphere in one great flash.
STORYBOOK GARDENS
Teacher: “It’s harder teaching kids the alphabet these days.” Second Teacher: “That’s right. They all think V comes after T.”
“Your Morning Smile,” The Globe and Mail, 1962
THE LITTLE ORANGE TENT in the Bouchers’ backyard casts a magic glow in the afternoon. It’s almost like being in a movie. The canvas smell, the close-up sound, full of promise, the frisson of truth-or-dare. Strewn with Archie Comics and Classics like Water Babies, and the jewel of Auriel’s collection: the stack of True Romance comics which she inherited from her babysitter at their last posting, worn but intact, with their lavish drawings of blondes, brunettes and men with brutal jaws and sleek automobiles. The illustrated women cry gushy white tears. “It looks like Jergens,” says Madeleine.
The opportunities for scorn are as endless and absorbing as the comics are seductive. The pup tent begins to feel like a den of iniquity. Madeleine is frozen, fascinated and appalled when Lisa closes her eyes, crosses her arms over her chest and says, “Oh Ricky, I’m dying, please kiss me.” And Auriel does, right on the lips. Then Auriel dies, and Lisa is Ricky kissing her. Madeleine says, “Pretend I’m a spy and you’re torturing me, okay? And I kill you and escape and Auriel is waiting with a stolen N
azi uniform….” Mrs. Boucher always calls them after about half an hour. “Come and get some fresh air now, girls.”
It is not wholesome to spend the entire afternoon in a pup tent.
These are the dying days of summer. This time next week, we’ll be writing compositions entitled, “What I Did on My Summer Vacation.” Our mosquito bites will still be itchy, still chalky pink with calamine lotion, but we’ll be wearing shoes and socks, packaged into our new clothes, inserted at our desks in a row in a grade four classroom. Grade four. The bewildered days of kindergarten are so far behind. We are losing sight of the retreating shoreline of early childhood. It felt like the whole world; it was merely a speck. On the horizon is a land mass called adolescence. And between here and there, an archipelago of middle childhood. Swim from island to island, find the edible fruit, luxuriate in lagoons of imagination but don’t get caught in a riptide close to shore, do not yield to a warm current; you’ll be swept away with the sea turtles, who live so long and swim so far and don’t know how to drown. When you are eight going on nine, you get stronger every day. You wake up more and more into the real world and yet it’s as though, around your head, there still float remnants of fairy tales, tattered articles of faith in talking animals and animated teacups. A rag-halo of dreams.
Madeleine was kneeling next to her father on the couch, rubbing his head while he read Time magazine. She asked, “Dad, what’s a dyke?”
“You know what that is, you saw them in Holland—”
“No,” and she reads over his shoulder from the cinema listings. “‘When a rake and a dyke fall in love with the same girl, almost anything can happen—’”
“Oh, that’s a—that’s a—a type of garden tool.”
Unconvinced but reluctant to hurt his feelings, she asked her mother while she was helping to set the table.