A Cage Without Bars

by Anne Dublin

  “I don’t want Protestants to live here,” Yvette says, beginning to cry. Arthur grins at that. “Protestants aren’t like us. They’re bad. And sometimes they throw snowballs at us on the way home from school.”

  “So do the Bonenfants, and they’re good Catholics like you,” Arthur reminds her with a smirk. “You don’t have to be a Protestant to act stupid, you know.”

  Maman shakes her head. “They’re not bad, les Protestants,” she explains. “They have a different church and say their Mass in a different way, that’s all. And their priests can get married, not like ours. And Carolyn will go to the English school, not to your school. Okay?”

  “Uh-oh. Will they bring the Blitz here with them?” Bernard asks, his eyes wide.

  We all know what the Blitz is as it happened just last year. A lot of people in Britain died and a lot of their buildings and houses were destroyed by bombs. But when Arthur just shakes his head, rolls his eyes, and groans, that means Bernard said something silly. I’m glad because I was almost worried about the same thing as my younger brother.

  “Of course not, Bernard.” Papa heaves a huge sigh and grumbles. “Enough questions for now. Just wait and see, les enfants, wait and see,” he tells us. “Not long until they arrive at the beginning of December, and we have lots to do before then to get our house ready. And you will all help out with that. Correct?”

  We all nod. We know there is no other choice.

  “Bon,” he says, with a half-smile. “Almost time for prayers. Finish your supper, and when Maman has cleaned up the kitchen, we will gather around the table once more.”

  We nod again. We say our prayers together every night. I’m not sure Maman is that fond of it. Her face always looks tight when we do it, and during the rosary she says her Hail Marys very fast, like she wants the prayers to be over soon. Sometimes I’m pretty sure she wishes she could be doing something else. Busy Maman always has something to do, no matter what time of day. But Papa won’t allow her to knit or darn socks or sew while we’re praying.

  Tonight, I’m praying that the Coleman family from England really will be a very nice family, like Maman said. Très gentille. And that they won’t feel sorry for us because of everything that we don’t have, which is why we need to rent rooms to them in the first place. I almost feel silly to be praying for something so foolish instead of devoting my prayers to asking God if he will please bring a quick end to the horrible war that has the whole world living in terror. But I don’t know very much about the war. What I do know is that in a few weeks our lives here on Hinchey Street in the Burg will change in a very big way.

  “Wait and see, children,” Papa has told us. That won’t be easy. I always find it very hard waiting. For anything.

  4

  Just One Dime

  That night, I dream of hungry babies, crying and reaching out their tiny hands. Everyone in my class is there with me and has money to give them. Even Jeanine. But I don’t have a single coin to give them because I have no money. I never have any money. Maman keeps it in her purse, high on a shelf in the cupboard. She uses her money to pay the bread man and the milkman, and to go to the market.

  It was a bad dream, but in the morning I have a good idea that might really work. Papa is outside already, and Maman is somewhere else in the house. Yvette is still in bed, and Arthur is in the bathroom. What about the bathroom? I wonder suddenly, sitting there at the table with Bernard, who pretends to eat his porridge. Will we have to share ours with the Colemans?

  No time to worry about that now, though. I have a plan, and I have to hurry. It’s almost easy to ignore my guardian angel, who whispers warnings into my ear about what I’m doing wrong this time. What difference will one penny make to our family when Sister has told us that it will help to put food on another family’s table? And maybe someday I’ll find the courage to tell Maman what I did, and maybe she’ll understand.

  I push a sturdy kitchen chair over to the counter. Bernard frowns when I climb up, so I touch my finger to my lips.

  “Shhh, Bernard,” I tell him. “Ne dis rien. Don’t say a word. I’m getting a penny to take to Sister for the church charity box. It’s a good thing to do. We have to try to help the poor and hungry families.” Bernard nods solemnly. “You stand by the window and tell me if Papa is coming, okay?” He nods again and hurries to the window.

  I stand on the counter and pull Maman’s purse out of the cupboard where she keeps it hidden. My quick fingers twist open the little brass balls on the change purse and dig through the coins. I know I have to hurry when I hear Maman’s footsteps on the stairs. I can’t even look inside the purse. I just snatch one small coin, snap the little purse shut, and put it back. I move the chair and sit down at the table to finish my porridge, just in time. But Bernard stands there with wide eyes and mouth too.

  “Quoi?” Maman asks. “What’s wrong here?”

  “Rien,” I tell her. “Nothing, Maman. Sit down and finish your porridge, Bernard,” I tell my brother in a helpful older-sister way. He stares at me as he sits down, and Maman watches both of us. Then she shrugs her shoulders and carries on with her housework, disappearing down the steps into the cold cellar, where she stores her tins and jars of pickles and fruits.

  “Tu vois,” I whisper, holding out one small coin for my brother to see, then realizing it’s not a penny at all. Now even more families will be fed and clothed. “It’s just one little dime. Ten cents. Maman won’t mind.” I hope I’m right. And I put my finger against my lips again.

  The dime is clutched tightly in my hand. It will stay there until I can march up the aisle like all the other girls have done already, drop it into Sister’s charity box, and finally hear it go clink with all the other coins. Finally, I can help support some poor people!

  0

  All the way to school, the dime stays in my hand. It’s there inside my blue woolen mitten that Maman knit for me. Yes, she knits our mittens, but she buys our hats! Yvette has come to school today too, even though she’s still coughing. But I have that coin, solid and warm in my hand, for the starving babies that I dreamed about, so nothing else matters. I can’t wait to drop the ten cents into Sister’s charity box.

  But when I get there, when I hang all my things in the cloakroom and hurry to the front of the classroom where Sister is sitting at her desk—oh no, oh no! The charity box is gone!

  “Quoi, Aline?” Sister asks in her impatient voice as hard lines form on her face. “Can I help you with something?” It will not be a good day for the students if Sister starts the day off mad because of me. Jeanine Bonenfant is bad enough, and she hasn’t even arrived yet. On most days, she can make Sister Madeleine angry before she even gets to school.

  “La boite,” I finally manage to say. “The charity box for the poor. Where is it?” I hold out the coin in my damp hand.

  “It’s gone already, Aline,” she tells me in a too-loud voice that I’m afraid everyone will hear. “It’s been picked up. You’re too late. Take your money home.”

  Some snickers come from behind me, but they stop the instant Sister raises a scary black eyebrow. I don’t even want to turn around to see the faces of the girls who might be laughing at me for being too late, for missing my chance to help. Instead, I lower my eyes and shuffle to my desk. I wish I could crawl inside of it to hide.

  Then the door slams open at the back of the classroom. It’s Jeanine Bonenfant, late again. All heads turn, including mine, and Sister starts to yell, tells Jeanine to stay in the cloakroom instead of going to her desk. Nobody cares about me anymore.

  I feel like thanking Jeanine when I see her furious face peering from underneath the cloakroom door, sticking her tongue out at the world. Because today, she saved me.

  0

  The dime stays in my left hand all day: through prayers and lessons and sums; when I look, secretly, while Sister writes on the blackboard, there is a small circle
in my skin, I’ve held on to the dime so tightly. It stays there all the way home for lunch as the church bells ring out the Angelus, which reminds me to say a little prayer in my heart; all through eating my pea soup and bread; and all the way back to school again, it’s still there. I don’t know what to do with the dime. I’m afraid to put it back in case Maman or Papa or even Arthur catches me. All the icy boldness that I found this morning has melted away. Now I’m just a wet puddle.

  By the time the last bell rings and I meet my cousin Lucille in the schoolyard, I know exactly what I have to do next. I link arms with her as we leave, and I make her walk fast so that Yvette won’t catch up. My sister always walks so slowly, and I don’t want her to know about the money.

  When we’re far enough away, I take my mitten off and open my hand.

  “Look,” I tell Lucille. She stares at the coin with her pink mouth and chestnut-colored eyes wide open. Her red felt hat is tied up under her chin, and her dark bangs hang in her eyes. There’s a small drip on the end of her nose that looks pretty even though it’s snot. Lucille always looks pretty. I never do.

  Even though our fathers are brothers, they don’t really look alike. How can two brothers have completely different noses? And why can’t my nose be nice and round like Lucille’s and Uncle Pierre’s? And why can’t Papa be more like my uncle?

  I sometimes wish that Lucille’s father was my father instead because whenever I see him, he’s smiling. But I always say a prayer to Sainte-Thérèse after having such bad thoughts. Papa says his brother isn’t worth talking to and neither is anyone else in his family. Mon oncle can’t be that bad, though, if he’s always smiling. Sometimes I hear my aunt yelling through the open windows in summer, and Lucille says her parents have fights now and then. I’d like a smiling father, but I wouldn’t like a fighting one.

  “Where did you get that?” Lucille asks, and I explain about the poor families and Maman’s change purse in the cupboard.

  “I wanted to help them,” I tell her when her face gets serious. “But Maman said no. So I took the money anyway. Don’t tell anybody.”

  “You’ll have to tell that at confession. Stealing is a sin,” Lucille reminds me.

  As if I didn’t think of that already myself. “Is it a sin even if it’s to help somebody poorer than you, though?” I wonder out loud.

  “Maybe not, but it is if you keep it for yourself, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know,” I tell her. Neither of us are sure about sins, the big mortal ones or the smaller venial ones. Sometimes it seems that everything is a sin, everything we secretly think or do. Sometimes I think that the devil is sitting on my shoulder telling me to do bad things and that my guardian angel isn’t doing her job very well.

  “Maman gave me a penny for the box a couple of times,” Lucille tells me. “Never that much, though.” She touches the coin in my hand.

  “Is it a lot?” I ask her. I know about money, but I have no idea how much this one can buy. It’s a dime, with a picture of the king on one side and a boat on the other.

  “Ten cents? I think so,” Lucille tells me. “Maybe you should just give it back.”

  “But if Papa finds out…” I stop right there because I don’t even dare to imagine what might happen. “I know what! Let’s go to the store instead and buy some candy!”

  Lucille’s eyes get wide and bright.

  “Really! You mean it, Aline?”

  Neither of us ever has money to go to the store, unless it’s to buy something for our mothers, like rice or peas or bread. How can she say no? And she doesn’t. She just stands there smiling and nodding. We both forget about sins for now and make a beeline for the five-and-dime.

  5

  Ten Cents’ Worth

  And what can I do for you today, little girls?” asks the fat man with the red face who is leaning over the counter.

  Lucille and I can’t even speak. We just press our faces to the glass for a closer look at everything we never get to have. Frosty gumdrops, square brown caramels, long licorice whips, taffy, peppermints, humbugs, and lollipops. And chocolates.

  “Noses and fingers off the glass,” the man grumbles. “Do you know how often I have to wipe those glass windows because of all the grubby little fingers and noses touching them?”

  Lucille steps back. I hope she doesn’t start to cry like she sometimes does. I step forward and put the dime on the counter.

  “Could we have some candy, please?” I ask in my politest voice.

  Now he’s smiling. “Of course you can. What would you like?”

  My heart is beating hard, and I wonder if my guardian angel is frowning beside me. She can’t be very happy about this black mark that is sure to appear on my soul. I start to feel a bit sick inside my heart, but I sweep the feelings away like Maman does with crumbs on the floor.

  “Anything,” I tell him.

  “Ten cents’ worth?” he asks, and I just nod dumbly as he starts to fill a paper bag.

  When the bag is half full I start to feel even sicker. “You can stop now,” I tell him.

  “A few more to go, for a dime’s worth,” he tells me and drops even more in with some long spoons that are stuck together on one end. When I look to my side, Lucille’s not there. When I look over my shoulder, I see her moving slowly backward to the doorway as if we’re stealing this candy and not buying it. Are we? Because I took the coin from Maman’s purse?

  “Here you go,” the fat man says and hands me the bag.

  I run out the door into the snowy day as if I really did steal the candy. Lucille is out there looking very scared now. But she looks interested too. She wants me to open that bag just as much as I want me to open it. We slip down a laneway and stare at each other.

  “It’s so full,” I whisper. “I wonder if he made a mistake.” I uncrumple the top of the bag and open it so we can both see inside. We both sniff the sweetness. It even smells delicious.

  “You go first,” I tell her, holding out the bag.

  My cousin reaches inside and pulls out three gumdrops: a red, a green, and a yellow. She quickly shoves them into her mouth, then looks all around in case someone is watching. She starts to chew and closes her eyes and smiles.

  I reach in and pull out a caramel. In my mouth, it’s sweet and chewy and creamy, and sticks to my teeth. Before it’s gone, I shove in a piece of chocolate. Chocolate and caramel mixed together is heavenly. I can’t stop smiling.

  “Your teeth are brown,” Lucille tells me, and we both start giggling like mad.

  Then we start to stuff our faces, but before I know it, Lucille is bent over and crying.

  “My tummy hurts,” she whines. “I don’t want any more.”

  I feel the same way. And there’s still more than half a bag of candy left. I don’t want to keep it, but I don’t want to throw it away, either. Maman says it’s a waste to throw things away. She uses every single scrap. It’s almost like magic. The quilts on our beds are made of clothes from when we were little. She turns too-small sweaters into socks and bread crusts into bread pudding. Vegetable scraps go into the soup pot. Old shoes come back to life with new soles. Sometimes even the too-small bits of leftover pie dough get rolled up with brown sugar and butter, and baked into des pets de sœurs—nun’s farts—and they are so delicious!

  But how do I dare take this candy home knowing that I’ve committed a sin?

  “Here, you have it.” I push the paper bag toward Lucille’s hands, but her face looks funny now, and she pushes it back. She folds over even more, making a funny gagging noise. Suddenly, she throws up all over her boots. All the candy she just finished chewing. And then she begins to cry, of course.

  “T’es méchante, Aline,” she sobs, wiping her mouth on her sleeve. “You’re bad. You made me eat all that candy that you bought with money you stole from your maman.”

  “Maudit, maudit, m
audit,” I mutter, and my cousin gasps because I’ve said damn out loud. Three times! And now I will surely wind up in limbo for eternity with all the pagans instead of heaven. I know that’s exactly what she’s thinking—the same as me.

  I hear Jeanine say it all the time, though, and worse things too, and she doesn’t seem to worry about eternity. And it almost feels good to say those words out loud because I’m so mad right now. It pops my madness like a soap bubble and helps me feel better. But I’d never tell anyone that. I shove the bag of leftover candy into the bottom of my schoolbag.

  “Dis rien à ta mère,” I warn Lucille. “Don’t tell your mother what happened, okay?”

  She nods like crazy, then I help her clean the rainbow of sick off her boots with some handfuls of snow. As we walk slowly the rest of the way home, I ask God and my guardian angel to forgive me for being such a bad, bad girl today.

  “And anyway,” I say to Lucille when we’re almost there and she doesn’t look so ill anymore, “Jeanine Bonenfant steals from her sick mother’s purse, like I told you before. And even from her father’s pockets. She always has candy, and money for the charity box.”

  “And that means she’ll go to hell,” Lucille murmurs. “Forever and ever.”

  “Because she does it every day,” I add, not even certain that what I’m saying is true. “And I only ever did it one time. And I’m never doing it again.” I know that much is true.

  “Will you tell the priest what you did at confession?” Lucille asks, her eyes wider now.

  I smile and nod at my cousin. But that nod might be a lie. Another sin now for my poor broken soul. And there’s still the candy at the bottom of my schoolbag. I can’t throw it away because that would be a sin too. I have to find a place to hide it that nobody will think of.

  I think I know just the place. Only God and my guardian angel will see me put it there. And I hope they won’t be too unhappy with me.

  0

  On Saturday morning when I kneel down in the confessional and wait for our priest, Father Louis, to slide open the little door, I can feel myself shaking. I’m holding on to a sin, and I know I have to confess what I did sooner or later. The bag of candy is in my secret hiding place inside my house. Yvette was allowed to come to church with me because it’s not so cold out as usual today. She’s already been to confession and waits, praying, in a pew. What sins could Yvette have committed? I can’t help but wonder. She’s been sick and housebound for so long now. Her soul must still be sin-free from the last time she went to Father Louis for forgiveness.