Letters From the Sky
Page 2
Jeanne shaded in the hair on her sketch, quietly waiting for the class to calm. Even when they did, she did not look up. It didn’t matter much anyway.
Milovskaya spoke. “If you get out your books and turn to the story you were to read last night, I want to discuss something you might not be familiar with. It’s an eastern motif, the red string of fate. One supposes lovers who are destined to be together are connected by an invisible red string.” Ms. Milovskaya had an unfocused look on her face.
Paris, from her seat just in front of Jeanne, threw her hand up. “If it’s invisible, how can it be red, too?”
“It’s only a story,” Ms. Milovskaya responded gently. “A romantic idea about connection. It’s an insight into another culture—”
“I think it’s wonderful,” gushed Monique, staring at the boy she had been squealing to Paris about before.
Jeanne raised her hand. “What if…” Her voice caught. She cleared it and spoke again. “What if the person you loved lived very far away?”
Ms. Milovskaya cocked her head, contemplating. “Well, dear, I think that’s the point. No matter how far away they are, you are connected to them. I suppose the string would stretch, wouldn’t it? It’s magical, after all,” the young woman said with a smile. “I don’t think the laws of reality quite apply.”
“But what if they were very far away,” Jeanne persisted, “where you couldn’t ever reach them?”
“Then how would you know you loved them?”
“You’d know,” Jeanne replied in that same soft voice.
Ms. Milovskaya stopped for a moment, putting a hand over her chest, in the exact center where the rib bones met.
“Well, then…I’m sure it would work out.”
“No matter what?”
“I…believe so.”
“So you do believe in this?” Paris asked stridently.
Ms. Milovskaya blushed. “It’s only a story,” she repeated.
“I like it,” Jeanne said decisively. No one but the boy next to her heard. Ms. Milovskaya, still blushing slightly, continued with her lesson.
And so life went on.
She moved on to math, soon, then history. Jeanne turned a page in her notebook and began to draw two hands, one small and pale and the other larger and longer and shaded grey, their wrists tied together with a thick red ribbon. She was just drawing in the shadows when the bell for lunch sounded. Jeanne put her things back into her desk, patting the desktop gently as students moved in a rush out of the room, only the stragglers left behind. Paris flounced over, unfastening her tight bun of hair and letting it curl around her shoulders. Her hair was mostly straight and generically pretty, just like Paris herself.
Jeanne smiled at her in a bemused manner. “Your mother would be appalled.”
“Mama isn’t here,” Paris retorted.
“I’ll help you put it back up after school.” Jeanne offered.
Paris smiled gratefully. “Thanks. Shall we go pick up Jedrick?”
“Pick up who now?” A familiar voice drawled. The tow-headed boy leaned nonchalantly in the doorway, never mind he almost missed the jamb and stumbled a bit.
Paris ran over to him. “You fool! I don’t care how proud and crazy you are, let one of us come find you,” she scolded.
Jedrick scowled. Jeanne laughed. She sidestepped over to Ms. Milovskaya’s desk, through which the young teacher rifled, presumably for her lunch.
“I think it’s wonderful to believe in love like that,” Jeanne said.
Ms. Milovskaya looked up, confusion and vague panic stamped on her features. “Like what?”
“The string.”
The woman deflated. “Oh, yes. Yes, it’s a wonderful story. I take it you enjoyed it?”
“Very much. Do you think it works even if the person you love doesn’t really exist?”
Ms. Milovskaya smiled wanly. “You seem very interested in this. Everyone has someone, Jeanne. Even if it’s not quite how you planned it…” She trailed off, then seemed to focus again. “What do you mean ‘doesn’t really exist’?”
Jeanne flushed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t actually mean it like that—”
“Jennie! Come on, or lunch will be over!” complained Paris.
“Are you saying strange things to people again?” asked Jedrick, only half-teasing.
Jeanne nodded happily. “Yes. Let’s go, I’m hungry.” She took one of Jedrick’s arms, Paris took the other, and they were off down the hall.
The school had cafetorium of sorts, an empty room used sometimes for sports and performances, dark wood like the rest of the school. Along one wall a few tables were set up like a counter, with huge tureens of soup from the kitchens and baskets of soft rolls. The three friends pulled out their red-paper lunch slips, showing them to one of the lunch workers and receiving food in exchange. Like always, they slipped out of the room when no one was looking, tiptoed down the halls, and made their way to the school steps.
Paris leaned on Jedrick’s shoulder and began to whine.
“It’s so cold out!” she exclaimed. “Barely into September, and I’m freezing.”
Jedrick sipped his soup, unconcerned. “There are only a few warm weeks left. We should go down to the river this weekend.”
Paris nodded. “We can squeeze two or three more trips in before it turns frigid, right?” She shivered. “Just not today!”
Excited, Jeanne watched free strands of hair whip around Paris’s face. “This weekend,” she affirmed. “Supplies come in this Saturday too, so we can stop by Cello’s bakery and he should have baked a lot by then.”
“Sweet-bread!” yelped Paris happily. “Oh good, it’s a plan!”
Not long after, there was the sound of a hand bell being rung by Mrs. Bonnefoy, the middle-aged office secretary, the signal for the end of lunch and a warning before the late bell. The three gathered up their things and took them back to the cafetorium. At the exit, a young man who appeared to be barely out of university ran up to them.
“Jedrick, come on, I’ve been looking all over for you,” he said with a sigh.
Paris waved happily to him. “Salut, Armand!”
He rolled his eyes at the girl. “Don’t ‘salut’ me, young lady. I know for a fact you and the little one are the reason why Jedrick sneaks off at lunch time.”
Jedrick frowned. “I’m not going to sit and eat lunch with Beau and Lisle. I’m not developmentally challenged, Armand. I don’t need help.”
Armand sighed. “I know. I really do. But suppose you get hurt—it would be my fault for not keeping you close. Your parents are reluctant to keep you in the vichy as it is. They think studying with me will be enough for you.”
“It is,” retorted Jedrick. “You know for a fact I’m miles ahead of your other students. I’m not handicapped.” He fairly growled the words, and Paris and Jeanne winced. They’d been witnesses to this particular argument on numerous occasions, and Jedrick tended to get caustic by the end of it.
Armand had been anticipating the response as well. He supplanted it by simply putting one hand over Jedrick’s mouth, the other around his shoulder, and dragging him away.
“You ladies are not out of trouble, either!” the teacher called behind him.
Paris stuck her tongue out. Jeanne waved. Neither was acknowledged. They jumped when the bell rang, slipping down the hallway and skidding into the classroom.
Ms. Milovskaya, predictably, wasn’t inside.
Paris laughed and shook her head. “We really shouldn’t be so concerned about lateness, huh?”
Jeanne smiled back at her. “Probably not.”
A breathy sort of sound threaded through the classroom door, followed by a hushed complaint of “Marianne, please, I have to go” before the homeroom teacher whirled into the room, shutting the door on the person out in the hallway. She frowned, her face dusted with a reddish rose flush.
“The bell rang. Everyone should be in their seats!” she ordered.
With a chorus of r
eluctant “Yes, madame’s,” the students did as they were told.
Ms. Milovskaya retrieved a stack of blank white paper and a few photos from a pile on her desk, and began to pass them out. “For our art period today, I’d like you to work on landscape drawing. I have some pictures and prints of the school and the town; just do your best to copy what you see. It’s going to be difficult at first, but in the next few weeks, we’ll learn about perspective…”
The photo Jeanne received was face-down when it was placed on her desk. She flipped it over and her eyes widened.
At first it was only rubble, the burned-out shell of some sleeping giant of a building, and the destruction was crippling because it was her school, where she sat at this very moment, but it didn’t exist anymore, it was just a pile of refuse—then faces under the rubble began to fall into focus, twisted bodies, burnt and curved, with grimaces of pain and fear pasted onto their faces…
Jeanne blinked. The picture was of the athletic fields outside the school building. She blinked again. Still fields, complete and trimmed and free of humanity altogether, and she shivered, her hands shaking, but it never changed back into the image she had first seen. She wondered if she had seen it at all.
The rest of the day was spent waiting patiently for the bell to ring. Once it did, Jeanne gathered her books and placed them in her desk, retrieved her math primer, and waited for Paris to slip over to her desk and tell her, “Come on, let’s go get Jedrick.” Weathering glares from Armand, who was too busy trying to get Beau to stop crying—Beau might have been a boy their age in body, but he was much younger in mind—they retrieved the last member of their crew and, linked as always, walked out into the darkening day.
It was only when the air hit her Jeanne began to grow restless.
“Jennie, if you don’t stop twitching, I’m going to hurt you,” Jedrick joked pleasantly.
She ducked her head. “Sorry. I don’t—I’m not—”
“The air smells foul,” muttered Paris. “Doesn’t it? It smells like something burning.”
Together, they sniffed at the wind. Jeanne smelled rain.
“I—I’d better get home; I have to watch Suzette for Maman,” she sputtered. She didn’t wait for answer, running off down the street. Paris and Jedrick watched her go.
* * * *
There was no one in the living room when she rushed in, and Jeanne was grateful. No one to stop her as she skidded to the corner of the entry way, up the stairs to the attic, and over to her bed. Beneath the pillow was the note she had written so carefully this morning. She reread it, then added a line to the end.
Love has no limit. We’ll be connected wherever we are, won’t we?
She foldedit i it in half again, then curved and creased the corners twice so they touched the center line before spreading them out again. A paper plane. Smiling and giving it a kiss, she ran to the window, throwing the frame and pane up, and crawling out so she was straddling the sill. She wasn’t afraid of falling; the roof sloped gently below her, and she could even step out onto the shingles if she wanted.
She didn’t—just leaned out and let the wind swirl around her, aa as she threw the folded letter as hard as she could. It caught, floated for a pendulous moment, then spiraled off. It flew, far away, above the blind houses and the streets, over the valley and the beehives and the sunflower fields, and then she couldn’t see it anymore. It could have reached heaven. She hoped it had.
She watched the empty horizon for a while longer before she heard Maman on the stairs.
“I thought I heard you come home—get off the windowsill, you’ll fall,” she said, flapping her apron at Jeanne. Jeanne nodded and complied. Maman kissed her cheek. “Come down and do your homework in the kitchen; Gramaman found some salt in the back cabinet and she’s making lima beans.”
Jeanne smiled widely. “Will she let me try them first?”
Maman smiled. “I’m sure that’s why she wanted you to come down. Go ahead. I’ll dust up here.”
Jeanne bobbed her head and skittered down the narrow stairs, hopping the last three.
Gramaman heard her coming, as Jeanne knew she would. “Sit down, chère, tell me about your day.”
Jeanne set her math book on the table, sat, and swung her feet as Gramaman put a kettle on the stove. “It was fine,” she replied. “We drew landscapes.”
Gramaman nodded. “Very nice…sit tight, chère, and you can try the beans when they’re done.”
“Where did you get the recipe this time?” Jeanne asked the old woman.
She winked. “Made it up myself, using a few odds and ends. Can’t trust anyone else, yes?”
Jeanne smiled. “Yes. I bet you’ll find the perfect recipe on your own!”
It had been a game for years, Gramaman’s search for the perfect recipe for lima beans—Jeanne knew it all started because of her own continued reluctance to eat the vegetables, but she couldn’t help but be excited. Perhaps today was the day she would learn to like them. She was confident Gramaman would get it eventually.
The woman poured coffee grounds into a cloth, twisting it into a knot and dropping it into the kettle.
“Your little sister was a right terror today,” Gramaman complained conversationally.
Jeanne was working with algebra. The X’s clicked into place as Gramaman talked about how baby Suzette had cried all day until she was sure the little girl would tire out, but just before Jeanne got home, she had fallen asleep, and wasn’t Jeanne just so lucky she didn’t have to listen to that? By the time the anecdote was finished, the beans were ready, and a few were on a small plate in front of Jeanne. Her maths were finished, and she was working on her sketch of the red ribbon. Quirking an eyebrow at Gramaman, she reached out with her bare fingers and picked up a bean, popping it in her mouth. She smiled as she did, knowing Gramaman—who was feigning ambivalence—was actually watching closely…
“…ew.” She made a face and pushed the plate away. “Sorry,” she mumbled.
Gramaman sighed, but she was smiling. “Better than before, at least?”
Jeanne nodded. “But I liked the soup you made the best.”
“Because all you could taste was potatoes,” Gramaman teased. “Well, you’ll have to suffer through these for dinner, but next time I’ll do it the way you like.”
Jeanne clapped her hands and smiled. “Okay!”
It was already late in the afternoon, and the sky was a darkening pinky-gloom. Maman, who had been fussing with Suzette in the small living area, came into the room after getting the child to quiet down.
“Jeanne, your father’s bus will be here soon. Go meet him, and pick up some cheese and a few ounces of coffee beans. We’re almost out,” she ordered, handing over a few coins.
“Yes, Maman,” Jeanne agreed, springing to her feet.
“And take your coat and hat!” she called after the girl.
Jeanne grabbed the objects from the closet near the front door, shoving the beret onto her head as she left.
Her trip to the deli was quick, and she trotted away with a small sack of coffee beans and a wrapped paper packet of cheese. She liked these times best, the still dissolution of the day and a transition from activity to domesticity. She took the long way out of town, down side avenues bustling gently with humanity, until the businesses thinned to smaller cottages and the cobblestones thinned to dirt and she could clearly see the school and athletic fields, and, farther out, the cultivated wildness of the valley and the hills beyond.
The wheezing, rusty little bus had already sighed to a stop when Jeanne trotted up, and a few tin cutouts of men filed off, fresh from business in the city. Papa was one of them. Jeanne hugged him, taking his briefcase in both hands, along with the bag of groceries.
“Salut, Papa. How was your day?”
The man was growing more and more transparent, she thought. He patted her head with a distracted air. “Fine, fine. What’s for dinner?”
Jeanne made a face. “Lima beans.”
They walked home as the day drew to a close.
The night was dreamless. Nothing at all disturbed her sleep, neither that night nor the following nights, until the end of the week.
Chapter 2
Three friends lay on the riverbank Saturday, legs tangled and heads propped on limbs and chests with breaths mingling. The weather had warmed that week, to the point the girls could wade in the river with bare legs and summer skirts, their blouses tucked up under brassieres. Jedrick had shucked his shirt and didn’t let on he could see much more of their skin than they assumed. It would be kept a secret.
Paris and Jeanne had untied their braids and buns and fanned their hair so it would dry in the sun. Their clothes were so waterlogged they would be hard to wring dry.
“Cotillion starts next Monday,” grumbled Paris, running a lazy hand through her tresses. She caught some of Jeanne’s, too, and the girl winced at the tug.
“My parents are making me do it as well,” Jedrick replied. “It’s only a few weeks; I’m sure you will survive.”
“I think Louis is going,” Paris said. There was a sort of half-sigh at the end of her sentence.
Jeanne raised an eyebrow. “I thought Monique was stepping out with him.”
“She doesn’t own the boy,” Paris sniffed. “Until he kisses someone, he’s fair game.”
“What is he, quarry?” asked Jedrick, eyes closed and forearms behind his head.
Paris smiled like a hungry cat. “Yes.”
Jedrick let out a snort and Jeanne, whose head was on his chest, felt him jump. What a strange feeling, having what was supposed to be solid ground shaking beneath her. Like the dream that had crept into her consciousness, slipping into her last night…
Tall, grey mountains with sharp crags and tawdry shawls of tattered greenery stood sentinel over a quiet, white shore. A clear night shone above it all, no moon, but a million scattered stars.