Angels in the Morning

by Sasha Troyan

  Granny cuts a few roses.

  “It was just like that for me with the skin of milk,” Granny says.

  “You liked it?”

  “Well, it didn’t bother me and then I couldn’t stand it. I remember Ethel used to tease me and eat hers slowly in front of me and I’d beg her not to because just seeing her eat it made me feel ill.”

  The tops of the trees are turning gold. A sliver of sun appears. The river runs in and out of bands of mist.

  “Granny, do you think Daddy will come back?”

  “I don’t know,” she says.

  “He might,” I say.

  “It’s possible,” she says.

  She raises her hand and her bracelets jingle but I move before her hand touches my head.

  I do one cartwheel after the next along the white fence. Granny claps her hands when I’m finished.

  “Why did you clap?” I ask. “They weren’t any good.”

  “Yes, they were. Good enough for me.”

  I race back to the house without looking over my shoulder.

  Mummy stands in the entrance hall in front of the mirror arranging a vase of the roses Granny and I cut this morning. She pulls one from the back and tucks it in front. She pulls out another, then stands holding the flower as if she’s forgotten what she meant to do with it. Her face takes on a dreamy look. “He recites so beautifully,” she says. “Ainsi toujours poussés vers de nouveaux rivages, Dans la nuit éternelle emportés sans retour, Ne pourrons-nous jamais sur l’océan des ages jeter l’ancre un seul jour?”

  She stops when she sees my reflection in the mirror.

  “How are you, darling. Isn’t it a beautiful day?”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Guess what?” she says.

  “What?”

  “Xavier’s invited us over for dinner.”

  “Great,” I say.

  “Don’t you like him?” she asks.

  “He’s okay.”

  “He’s really a very sweet man. He adores children. You’ll see, when you get to know him—”

  “Do I have to go?” I ask.

  “I’d be very disappointed if you didn’t,” she says.

  I run out into the garden over the wood bridges, past the silver willows. I see Al.

  “Hey, what are you doing in my tree?”

  “I’ve got all these things,” she says. “Come see.”

  “Mummy says we have to have dinner with the doctor tonight.”

  “I know. He’s going to make pommes frites.”

  Pommes frites are Al’s favorite dish.

  “They’re going to celebrate their three-week anniversary since they met,” she says.

  I climb up into my tree. There’s a rug and an old crocheted blanket across the bunk bed. Pots and pans hang from branches. We’re saving special teacups for when the queen of England comes to visit. They’re white with a purple border and they look like they’re made of mother of pearl. We lower a red bucket into the river, then pull it back up. We fill our cups with water and pretend to drink tea.

  “Let’s play the pretend game,” I say. “You be the doctor and I’ll be Mummy and Daddy.”

  “That’s not fair,” Al says. “You can’t be Mummy and Daddy. I want to be them.”

  “Well, you can’t because I chose first,” I say.

  “I won’t play,” she says.

  “Spoilsport,” I say.

  “You’re a spoilsport,” she says.

  “All right, you can be Daddy and the doctor and I’ll be Mummy. I’ve got long hair so I should play Mummy.”

  “Then can we exchange?”

  “Okay.” I sit down on the bunkbed and put my two dolls beside me. “Once upon a time,” I say.

  “I’m hungry. Can we eat?” I have one doll say.

  “No darling,” I say. “We have to wait for Daddy.”

  “Is he coming soon?” I have the other doll say.

  “I don’t know, darling. I hope so.”

  “I’m getting tired,” Al says. “You’re doing all the talking.”

  “Well, you can’t come yet. The father comes late.”

  “I want to come now. I’m sick of waiting. Hello, darling,” Al says, leaning over and pulling up imaginary pants. “Load of shit work at the office.”

  “That’s not what he says. He says he had a shit load of work at the office,” I say.

  “Okay. Okay. A shit load of work,” she says.

  “I’m afraid the roast beef is completely overcooked,” I say.

  “I’ll just wash my hands,” Al says and turns. I kick her in the bum and she gets mad and turns round and says, “That’s not fair. That’s not part of the game.”

  “It is,” I say. “Mummy did that to Daddy.”

  “She did not,” Al says.

  “Who says it has to be exactly the same?” I tickle her and she almost falls out of the tree. She climbs down and I run after her and we roll through the grass until we’re out of breath.

  Then we climb back up the tree and we smoke ivy and we both choke because it’s damp from the rain but it’s fun.

  I hear a noise and tell Al to be quiet. The steps are coming closer and closer. Suddenly, I see someone wearing a blue shirt that looks just like my father’s and a brown felt hat. But his walk is completely different. He does not swing his head from side to side like the pendulum of a clock. With each step it looks like he’s sinking into the ground. As he passes directly beneath us, I see that his hat is torn. I can see part of his bald head. He walks on but then circles back. Al makes a noise and he looks straight up at us. He spits onto the grass. One of his eyes is made of glass. It’s blue and bulges out. I recognize him as the tramp we saw the first day.

  As soon as he leaves, Al and I race back to the house. We don’t tell anyone about the man. Mum would get upset if we told her. She probably wouldn’t believe us. She’d think we had imagined the whole thing. Juliet would tell us off and say it was our fault for going so far away. Same for Ethel. And Granny would just worry. “Cross your heart and hope to die,” I say to Al.

  Mummy bought us new dresses. Mine is black velvet while Al’s is red. The collars and the cuffs are trimmed with satin. Mummy let me use her lipstick and Granny lent me a pair of stockings. I feel very grown up.

  We’ve never been inside the doctor’s house. It’s very bare except for his bookcases which cover almost every wall. It’s filled with things he’s made. Like a wood lamp with a shade. He even makes boats he puts into glass bottles. He has a whole wall of boats in bottles. He shows us photographs of his boys. They don’t look like him. They have dark brown hair and brown eyes and they’re very handsome. He says to make ourselves comfortable in the living room, but his couch is very hard. It feels more like a bench.

  Mummy tries to entertain us by telling us stories about the doctor. She says that the doctor is just like her because he loves children. In the night when his children were babies and cried, he got up. He used to drive his oldest son round and round for hours to get him to fall asleep, then he would tiptoe up the stairs and just as he was about to put him down in the crib his son would wake up.

  We can hear all sorts of pans clattering in the kitchen.

  “Are you all right in there?” Mummy asks.

  “Fine,” he answers.

  “Are you sure you don’t need help?” Mummy says.

  “No,” he says. “Dinner’s ready.”

  We eat in the kitchen. The doctor places an enormous dish of pommes frites on the square wood table, and two chickens that are so cooked they fall apart on the dish. Mummy gets to serve herself first, then Al does. She piles more and more pommes frites onto her plate even though I kick her under the table. There are hardly any left for the doctor or me. When Mummy notices, she makes Al put some back. “I’m terribly sorry,” she says to the doctor.

  Then Al says that the doctor has a nose like an elephant. The doctor laughs but Mummy goes bright red. “Really, Al. The things you say.”


  The doctor doesn’t close his mouth when he chews his food. I saw some of his pommes frites mashed up. He slurps his wine.

  “We saw a tramp today,” Al says.

  “You promised,” I lipsing to her. “No we didn’t,” I say.

  “Yes, we did,” she says.

  “What did he look like?” The doctor asks.

  “He had a glass eye,” Al says.

  “I think I know who you mean. For some reason everyone calls him Gauguin. Who knows why?” the doctor says. “He’s been walking around the neighborhood for years.”

  Mum asks the doctor whether he has ever played Beethoven’s Hammerklavier and he says he hasn’t for many years. “I’m thinking of trying to play it,” she says. “I remember playing it as a young girl in boarding school.” They discuss the different movements and how they should be played. “Not too fast,” the doctor adds.

  “Don’t worry,” Mummy says. “My technique is so rusty.” I didn’t know that the doctor knew music as well as poetry. We’ve never heard him play. Al and I lipsing boring, boring, until Mum says we can be excused from the table.

  While Mummy is in the kitchen helping the doctor clean up, Al and I open drawers and flip through books. We find a bound copy of Anna Karenina by the doctor’s bedside table. Inside I read the inscription, “To my only love, Claire.” At first I think it must be another Claire, but then I realize it’s got to be Mummy.

  Al and I are having a midnight feast in the kitchen. We’re sitting at the round white table having our favorite: baguette and butter and chocolate Nesquick. It’s completely dark except for the flashlight I’m holding, directed towards my face so that Al can see what I’m saying. Then I hear footsteps. They’re very heavy. They sound like Juliet’s but they’re different. I place my finger over my lips, then turn off the flashlight. I stay as still as I can.

  I can just make out Juliet’s outline in the doorway. She takes a few steps and bumps into my chair but doesn’t notice me. She continues over to the fridge. She opens the door. She’s wearing flip-flops I’ve never seen before. She reaches inside the fridge.

  Thirteen

  Mummy is sitting in the doctor’s lap in the piano room. She is stroking the top of his head. “Doudou,” she says.

  “Doudou,” he says. I watch them kiss.

  “I’m enjoying Ivanov so much,” Mummy says. “It seems as if he is writing about today.”

  “Uncle Vanya is a much better play,” the doctor says. “Checkhov is my favorite. I like him better than Tolstoy even.”

  “Surely not more than Anna Karenina,” Mummy says.

  “Even Anna Karenina,” he says.

  I read Anna Karenina to impress Mum and Dad. I found it very boring, but it was better than Middlemarch. Dad forced me to read Middlemarch last summer because he says I must stop reading romance novels.

  Max is resting his head on the doctor’s feet.

  As I run out of the house, Juliet sticks her head out of her window. Al’s up in her tree, but she doesn’t see me. I just sit and poke a scab on my knee with a stick. I watch it bleed. Some pus comes out.

  “Let’s play,” Al says, noticing me.

  “I don’t feel like it,” I say.

  “Let’s play jumping into the river from the highest branch,” she says.

  “No,” I say. “I don’t feel like it.”

  I wait until she’s not looking my way, then I pull out an atlas from a hole in the tree. The page is stained with blackberry juice, water, and grass. It doesn’t matter because I know it by heart. Even the smallest river. They taught us to learn maps at school.

  Mummy and the doctor are running along the bank of silver willows. I hurry to hide my book and the teacups. I throw sticks at Al and she hides the pots and pans under the blankets. Soon Mummy and the doctor stand beneath our trees. I peer down at them. Mummy laughs, holding her sides. She doesn’t seem to see us.

  “I beat you,” she says.

  “It’s not entirely fair,” the doctor says. “You had a—”

  “I was just teasing,” she says. She turns and kisses the doctor on the lips. Al leans further out of the tree. She almost falls out and they look up.

  “Ooh, Al, you gave me a fright,” Mummy says.

  “I think we all deserve a treat,” the doctor says. “Let’s go into Malsherbes.”

  “What a lovely idea,” Mummy says.

  “I don’t feel like it,” I say.

  “Come on, Gabriel,” Mummy says. “We’ll buy you some of those marzipan animals that you love so much.”

  “They’re for babies,” I say.

  “Come on, sweetheart,” Mummy says, holding out her hand. But I won’t come. I stare at the water instead, at the leaves churning round and round.

  I watch Al walk between them along the bank of silver willows. She holds their hands. Once she turns back and I think I can hear her hearing aid squeak but it’s my tree. My tree is almost hollow inside and the ivy is so thick it hardly lets in any light.

  The wind blows and the branches bend. Some of the trees are bent one way, while others are bent another. I pull out my atlas again and tear out the page. I let it drop onto the water. It floats a few feet, then it’s sucked under just like the leaves.

  Granny and Aunt Ethel are sitting in the blue foldout chairs beneath the willow tree outside Ethel’s room. They do not see me run into the house. I wander from room to room. I walk into Granny’s and open one drawer. I touch her pale pink, petticoats. They’re made of silk. I open her jewelry box and pull out her necklaces. She’s let me play with her jewelry ever since I was a baby. Then I see her handbag sitting on the pink armchair. The clasp makes a loud clicking noise each time I open or close it. Ethel’s voice drifts through the open door. “It’s your life,” she says. The curtains lift in the breeze and I catch a glimpse of Granny and Ethel’s skirts and legs. I press myself against the wall. They do not turn and continue to knit.

  “Can you believe it?” Ethel asks. “We’ve been here almost a month and a half.”

  “Really?” Granny says. “It seems more like a few days and at the same time like a year.”

  “Exactly a month and nine days,” Ethel says.

  Inside Granny’s handbag, I find a silver cigarette lighter, a handkerchief, and a large pink wallet. I open her wallet and thumb through the bills. She’s very rich. She has hundreds and hundreds of francs. The money smells of Granny. I take a one-hundred bill, then another and another. I slip the money into my pocket, replace her wallet, and close the bag.

  Granny calls me after her nap. She asks me to help her make her bed; then we sit on the water lily couch. She’s just wearing her petticoat. I keep putting my hand in my shorts and feeling the money.

  “It’s so exciting that you have your whole life ahead of you,” she says. “I wonder what you will be.”

  “I don’t know. I’d like to be a ballet dancer, but I think I’m going to be too big.”

  “I think there are some tall ballet dancers.”

  “But I might be very very tall like Daddy.”

  “That would be nice,” Granny says. “I’ve always thought it would be nice to be tall. Anyway, you have plenty of time to decide.”

  I help Granny change into her mauve crocheted dress with long sleeves. She asks me to look through her jewelry box, a green satin box she bought in China. I choose a purple cross on a gold chain.

  “What about this one?” I ask. “I’ve never seen you wear it.”

  She lifts the chain into the light so that the sun turns the stones purple.

  “It’s just garnets. My very first boyfriend gave this to me,” Granny says. “I’d like you to have it, Gabriel.”

  She places the necklace in my palm. It’s very light. I wonder if it was her first fiancé who gave it to her, the one Mum told us never to ask Granny about. Granny got married, but her parents had her marriage annulled. I wish I hadn’t taken the money.

  “It’s quite warm today,” Granny says, sitting down, wav
ing her mauve hat in front of her face like a fan. I ask her if I can do it for her and she says, yes.

  “What happened to the flowers on your hat?” I ask.

  “I didn’t notice,” Granny says.

  “They’re all gone.”

  “What a shame,” Granny says. “Well, it doesn’t really matter. I only wear it to protect my face from the sun.”

  Gradually, the walls turn pink. The gold door knob gleams. From time to time, Granny closes her eyes, but when I ask her if she’s sleeping she says she’s just resting.

  I’m lying on my bed, staring up at the ceiling when I hear grownups whispering outside my door.

  “We must,” Juliet says.

  “I think it would be—” Granny says.

  “Then she will think it’s perfectly all right,” Ethel says. “I can’t believe you weren’t going to say anything.”

  The door opens. Juliet, Ethel, Mummy, and Granny crowd through the doorway. Juliet holds my shorts.

  “Young lady,” Juliet advances towards my bed. I move back, thinking she’s going to hit me, but she doesn’t probably because the other grownups are here.

  I look down at the crocheted blanket. It’s got red and black and yellow and blue mixed in.

  “Darling,” Mummy says. “I don’t understand why you would do such a thing.”

  “Stealing is a sin,” Ethel says.

  I thread my fingers through the holes in the crocheted squares. I can’t bear to look at Granny.

  “And to Granny of all people,” Mummy says.

  Granny holds my hand. She squeezes it tight. I can feel her rings dig into my hand.

  “Never mind,” Granny says.

  “Never mind?” Ethel says. “What do you mean never mind?”

  “She must be punished,” Juliet says.

  “Yes,” Ethel says.

  “I don’t know,” Mummy says.

  “Perhaps it was a—” Granny says.

  “Absolutely,” Juliet says.

  “Okay,” I say, pulling the sheet with the crocheted blanket over my head.

  Fourteen

  The restaurant is dark and filled with smoke. It’s called Le Lievre et le Faisan. The Hare and the Pheasant. On the walls hang paintings of hunting scenes. It even has glass ashtrays with a hareand a pheasant and a gun drawn in red. Al and I are the only children. We’re wearing our red dresses with the green stems down the front and white petals for collars. This is the last time I’ll be able to wear this dress. Juliet had to leave the top button undone. Mummy didn’t understand why we wanted to wear them. She wanted us to wear the new ones.