by Colin Meloy
“I know what that means,” Charlie said, interrupting. “Going to the school. And you can take me there.”
“The School of Seven Bells is in South America, Charlie. You study geography with your tutor, don’t you? Other side of the globe.”
“I don’t care if it’s at the North Pole. I’ve got to get that envelope back.”
“And what if you do manage to get there, how are you going to get this envelope? Ask nicely?”
Charlie paused. “I haven’t figured that part out yet.”
“This is stupid, Charlie. This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. In a very, very long line of stupid things I have heard in my life. You never met the Headmaster. He don’t take kindly to . . . Well, he don’t take kindly to just about anything. I’ve seen him stick a kid in a windowless dungeon for two weeks, no food, for less. Much, much less. So much less that this is not even a fair comparison!”
Charlie was unmoved; he stared at Amir defiantly.
“What you’re suggesting, Charlie,” said Amir, rubbing his temples as he did so, “because I want to get this perfectly clear. What you’re suggesting is that we find a way to Colombia, South America—by our own wits, I imagine, since your poor pa isn’t likely to spring for plane tickets—and then somehow make our way to the school, which is a fortress, Charlie, in a secret location on top of a mountain in the middle of a jungle, and you want me to take you there, to this fortress, even though I would likely get strung up just for telling you that it’s on a mountain in the middle of the jungle, Charlie, never mind actually taking you there, Charlie, and then you want to somehow confront this master thief, this master thief who turns out other master thieves, Charlie, and you expect him to just give you this thing, this piece of paper that he has sent out his most crack Whiz Mob to get for him, Charlie, this thing that he plans to do who-knows-what with, just because you ask him nicely, and you will expect to go back, unharmed, to Marseille, to return this piece of paper to your father. Is this what you are suggesting? Charlie?”
“Yes,” said Charlie.
“And I am expected to do this because I am your friend and this is what friends do for other friends, yeah?”
“Yes,” said Charlie.
“Okay,” said Amir placidly.
Charlie was taken aback. “Okay?” he asked.
“NO, NOT OKAY,” shouted Amir. He abruptly stood up, his chair sliding backward across the tile floor. He began pacing a very small circuit, like a windup toy in a shoe box. His voice was tense as he spoke. “I like you, Charlie. I like you a lot. But this is just too far. Too far.” He then began speaking inwardly, as if he were addressing himself. “Come be on the whiz, they said. Enroll at the School of Seven Bells, they said. Learn a valuable trade. Travel. See the world. Reap great financial rewards.” He slammed his palms down on the table, giving Charlie a jolt. “I did not sign up for this sort of thing.”
Charlie did not reply.
“Do you know what they do to a cannon who throws their mob? Do you? It’s not pretty. And you’re talking about me throwing the whole freaking school, Charlie. I can’t, like, even imagine what the punishment would be. My brain won’t get that dark.”
“They’d never have to know,” said Charlie.
“What do you mean, they’d never have to know?”
“Just lead me to the place. And leave me. I’ll figure it out from there.”
Amir studied his friend closely. “I took you for a smart kid, Charlie. A kid with a lot going on up here. Private tutor. Wealthy family. Oh, how I thought that looked grand.”
“Just help me get there, Amir. That’s all I ask.”
“And what about you? What do you think is going to happen to you when you waltz up to the gates of the school, saying, ‘Hey there, can I have my daddy’s envelope back? Pretty please?’ You don’t know what these people are capable of.”
Charlie swallowed, hard. “That’s for me to worry about.”
“Oh, Charlie,” said Amir. “You’re crazy.”
“Help me, Amir,” said Charlie. “You owe me that much, at least.”
Defeated, Amir slumped back down in his chair and, crossing his arms on the tabletop, proceeded to lay his head down on the backs of his wrists, like a kid playing Seven Up.
“Come on, Amir.”
“I’m not talking to you,” came the reply.
“You . . . ,” began Charlie.
“Shhh!” shot back Amir. “I’m pretending you don’t exist.”
Charlie paused, scratched his cheek. He leaned forward. “You said you want a boat?”
“Mmmmm,” was all that could be heard from the cocoon of Amir’s arms. It sounded like the muffled cry of a dying badger.
“There’ll no doubt be some kind of reward,” said Charlie.
“Mmmm.”
“Probably a big reward.”
“Mmmm-hmm.”
“Probably enough to buy a pretty nice little boat. Cozy sleeping berth. Little cookstove.”
Amir’s head emerged from its dugout. “AM/FM radio?”
“Every channel on the frequency,” said Charlie, leaning even closer. The two boys’ heads were separated by mere inches.
“Eighteen-footer? Nice wooden mast?”
“The finest Canadian pine.”
Charlie was now imitating Amir’s position and was cradling his chin against his knuckles. The two boys’ eyes were locked together. They didn’t speak for several moments. Finally, Amir said, “You’re not going to let this one go, are you?”
“Not on your life,” said Charlie.
Chapter
NINETEEN
And so Amir and Charlie were out on the street, walking away from the Abdel Wahab restaurant, Amir’s ever-so-temporary place of employment. There had been a discussion between Amir and his employers before they’d left, but Charlie had been unable to decipher it. Amir’s side of the conversation had been long and impassioned and, undoubtedly, touched a little on the nature of friendship and the kind of loyalties it engenders. It must’ve been persuasive, because by the time Charlie and Amir were walking out the front door, the husband-and-wife proprietors of Abdel Wahab were in the doorway to the kitchen, waving dishrags in a fond farewell. Fittingly, the couple were to receive their first Michelin star the following week. The restaurant is still there, now under the ownership of the two children we saw playing with cars in the kitchen. You should visit sometime. The mujaddara is delicious.
Outside, Charlie took in the scene. The boats in the port. The seagulls wheeling.
Perhaps it was because he’d slept on the streets for the first time in his life. Perhaps it was because of a sudden and overwhelming feeling of devotion to his father and to his family, or perhaps it was because of a powerful desire for revenge. Perhaps Charlie had experienced a sudden flood of civic pride and was now determined to set right what he had initially set so wrong—for whatever reason, he was transformed. Where the night before, his development as a pickpocket had only caused him pain and humiliation, he now chose to channel that self-sufficiency into a banner score of his own, to return the Rosenberg Cipher to its rightful owner. His was a noble quest. A quest for his family, his nation.
“So,” said Charlie.
“So,” said Amir.
“How do we get there?” asked Charlie.
Amir planted his palm against his face.
“You’ve been doing that a lot this morning,” said Charlie.
“How do we get there?” parroted Amir.
“It’s an innocent question,” said Charlie.
“How much money do you have?”
Charlie plumbed the depths of his pockets. His hands surfaced with fifteen franc coins, a twenty-franc note, and some candy wrappers. “Not much. You?”
“What I’m carrying don’t figure,” said Amir. “You haven’t really thought this through, have you?”
“I guess I came up with the idea on the spot.”
“If you’re going to folder this, Charlie, you n
eed to put a proper bee on it. So how we are getting to South America? We are in France.”
“Airport?”
“Bam. There’s the Charlie I knew.”
Charlie bristled. “No need to patronize.”
“First off, lose the tuxedo jacket. You look like some kind of casino grifter after a bad night. That’s better. And the tie.” Amir scrutinized Charlie’s new look. “This is never going to work.”
“We don’t have time,” said Charlie.
Amir nodded, apparently satisfying himself. “It’ll have to do.”
They climbed the stairs to the Corniche; the wind whipped over the edge of the cliff side. There, in front of the great stone arch of the Monument aux Morts de l’Armée d’Orient, a wedding party was being photographed. The guests’ emptied cars were lined up along the Corniche like a great procession. Charlie didn’t have to be prompted.
“Can you drive?” he asked Amir.
Amir shot Charlie a disappointed look. “What do you think?”
As it turned out, Amir could only sort of drive. He was barely tall enough to reach the pedals, even with the seat of the convertible MG pushed all the way forward. The basic rule of French traffic law seemed to be elusive to the young driver, and the two of them inspired a stream of protests from their fellow motorists as they sped along the Corniche, northward toward the Marseille Provence Airport. They’d “borrowed” the car from one of the wedding guests who had been so careless as to leave its keys in the ignition. Charlie had insisted on leaving a note weighted down by a rock in the car’s former parking spot, declaring: Nat’l global emergency; had to take auto. Retrieve at Mrsl/Prv Airport. C & A. Speaking as they drove, they were forced to shout over the howl of the wind in the open-top automobile.
“I CAN GET YOU CLOSE TO THE SCHOOL,” said Amir, “BUT IT’S NOT LIKE I CAN WALK YOU UP TO THE GATES. IT AIN’T SAFE FOR ME.”
“HOW MUCH TIME DO WE HAVE?” asked Charlie. “DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE HEADMASTER WILL DO WITH THE CIPHER?”
“I DON’T KNOW,” replied Amir. “WE WERE JUST INSTRUCTED TO GET IT, BRING IT BACK, YEAH? I THINK MAYBE HE WILL SELL IT.”
“SELL IT?”
“SELL IT. SAY, YOU HAVE YOUR PASSPORT, RIGHT?”
Charlie looked at Amir blankly.
Amir slammed on the brakes.
Forty five minutes later, after a dizzying drive through the interior avenues of Marseille, a stealthy breach of the Fisher security perimeter and the retrieval of Charlie’s worn passport book from his bedroom underwear drawer, the two boys were able to resume their half-yelled conversation.
“OR HE’S GOT SOME OTHER USE FOR IT,” Amir continued. “DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT IS, EVEN?”
“WHAT, THE CIPHER?”
“YEAH.”
“I DON’T REALLY,” said Charlie.
“WHATEVER IT IS, IT MUST BE IMPORTANT. IF YOUR PA HAD IT AND THE HEADMASTER WANTED IT, IT’S GOT TO BE BIG. WHAT HE WANTS TO DO WITH IT, THERE’S NO REAL TELLING.”
“I’M NOT YELLING,” said Charlie.
“WHAT?”
“YOU SAID, NO NEED YELLING. I’M JUST TRYING TO TALK OVER THE WIND.”
“I SAID NO REAL TELLING.”
“WHAT?”
Amir ignored him. “EITHER WAY, WE DO HAVE TO MOVE FAST. I THINK THE WHIZ MOB WILL JUST BE GETTING BACK TO THE SCHOOL. IF WE MOVE QUICK, YOU’LL GET TO HIM BEFORE HE’S DONE ANYTHING WITH IT.”
“WATCH OUT!” shouted Charlie, even though he was already shouting. Amir had let the car drift from their lane and had encroached dangerously on the space of a neighboring Renault. He yanked hard on the steering wheel and the convertible lurched back into the right lane. The Renault let out a petulant honk as it sped by. When Amir and Charlie did finally arrive, some thirty minutes later, at the front curb of the Marseille Provence Airport, Charlie nearly tumbled out of the car to kiss the pavement, as if he’d survived a trip into the stratosphere.
“Look natural,” was Amir’s suggestion as they fell together and began walking swiftly toward the concourse.
Now, in our day and age we’ve become accustomed to the impenetrable gauntlet that is the modern airport security apparatus. Long lines, grumpy travelers, and grumpier airport personnel. In the spring of 1961, it was an altogether different environment. To some people’s minds, this was the golden age of commercial air travel: to fly was convenient; it was comfortable and very efficient. Moreover, it was downright fashionable. A person had no more trouble boarding an airplane to some far-flung city than they would hopping on a Greyhound bus, and it was a great deal more fabulous. Since the Marseille Provence Airport served as the major hub for most all of the finer destinations in the south of France, the scene that greeted Amir and Charlie as they abandoned their borrowed sports car and walked through the glass doors into the airport was not unlike some kind of Rich, Beautiful People convention. To that point: the expense of air travel in 1961 was perhaps the only resemblance to its modern-day form, and Charlie, scanning the midmorning rush, saw a decidedly moneyed crowd, one that would not miss a few one-way tickets to Colombia.
“Paris,” whispered Amir, steering the tip. “We’ll need to get to Paris first. There is no Colombia flight from Marseille.”
“Right,” said Charlie.
Together they wandered up to a small congregation of travelers who were studying a clacking timetable. There, in black-and-white tiles, were the times and gates for departures to various cities. Paris was clearly a prime destination, as there were several listings for Paris-bound flights. Charlie stood elbow to elbow with Amir, waiting for his signal. Looking over at Amir, he saw the boy was not watching the timetable, but was instead intent on the eyes of the watchers. One of the travelers, a middle-aged man in a fine blue sports coat, turned away from the board and began walking to his gate. Amir began walking in the opposite direction.
“Wait,” hissed Charlie. “Where are you going?”
“I’ve got my ticket,” said Amir.
“How did you get one?” But he knew the answer; undoubtedly the man in the blue sports coat would be arriving at his gate empty-handed. “Well, I don’t.”
“Well, you better get one, yeah? My flight leaves in . . .” He pulled a rectangular piece of paper from his pocket and looked at it. “Thirty minutes.”
Charlie flashed a glare at Amir before returning to the departure board. He, like Amir, began illicitly watching the darting eyes of the board’s captivated audience as the timetable whirred and clicked, presenting the latest times and gates. He heard one woman ask a neighbor if they knew when the next flight for Paris was; Charlie began to steer the woman but then decided that if her name was on the ticket, the likelihood of his getting caught would be greater. He needed a ticket from a man. Three fedora-wearing businessmen wielding briefcases had arrived at the board, and Charlie moved toward them. They seemed to be commuters, preparing for some sort of work trip. Since Charlie deduced that activity would likely be taking them to the commercial capital of France, he began to quietly fan them. And while their suits sported an array of potential pockets, Charlie knew just the one to reef: the coat jerve—or, in sucker’s parlance, the ticket pocket.
He fanned a coat jerve on a middle-aged man. It was fastened against the fabric of the jacket by a button, and he was forced to carefully unslough the flap before he could hook his fingers into the pit. There, he quickly found gold: the feel of fresh cardstock. He stepped in, toward the man, as if he were trying to get closer to the board, which caused the man to step away. With a word of apology, Charlie allowed the motion of the man to pull the boarding pass from the man’s pit, and he was away with the piece of paper. Once he’d traveled a safe distance from the scrum, he scrutinized his score.
His fanning had proved true: it was a ticket to Paris, leaving in thirty minutes.
“Nice work,” said Amir.
They moved quickly toward the gate, cutting through the current of travelers like two canoes running upstream. They arrived just as the attendants began
sweeping the passengers onto the plane; Charlie, upon reaching his seat, immediately asked for his seat to be changed (citing fear of air travel) in order to avoid running into any of the original ticket holder’s business associates. A few more seat switches later, Charlie and Amir were sitting next to each other. When the door finally closed and the plane pushed away from the gate, they each breathed a sigh of relief. Charlie promptly fell asleep; the two hours of travel quickly passed and they were soon on the tarmac in Paris.
“Wake up,” said Amir. “The tip’s still on.”
The Aéroport de Paris Nord resembled the Marseille Provence only in that it, too, was an airport—and that was where the similarities ended. Where a relative trickle of passengers chartered their course through the Marseille airport, a flood descended upon the Paris concourses. Amir and Charlie fell into the current and let it carry them along. While they walked, Amir gave a hushed instructional on their next moves—it was apparent that while Charlie had been sleeping, Amir had been foldering the next big bing: Paris to Bogotá.
“It ain’t as simple as banging a ticket off some bates, yeah? Them commuter flight tickets are all generic. They don’t put names on ’em. Not so for transatlantic flights. We got to make our own way.”
“How do we do that?”
“Come on,” said Amir, as they reached an intersection in the concourse. The front doors of the terminal could be seen from where they stood; a line of passengers queued, waiting to be ticketed for flights. Amir led Charlie to a desk, behind which a sign proudly displaying the logo for AIR FRANCE had been hung. Between the desk and the logo, a smug-looking attendant in an Air France uniform sat.
“There’s our chump,” said Amir quietly.
“He’s not likely to have a Paris-Bogotá ticket on him,” said Charlie.
Amir fixed Charlie with a glare. “Sure, but he’s holding the boarding passes.”
“Ah,” said Charlie. “I see what you’re getting at.”
They briefly conferred, there in the terminal lobby, before deciding on their tack. Once they’d agreed, Charlie approached the desk.