A Cage Without Bars

by Anne Dublin

  “That’s terrible.” So terrible that my throat has tightened up.

  She nods at me. “I know. It scares me,” she says. “And sometimes when he does that, Maman pulls his hair and throws forks and spoons and even cups and plates at him, but never knives. That scares me too. Maybe you should go now, Aline.”

  “But I’m afraid to leave. I don’t want to go past him in the kitchen,” I tell her.

  My winter clothes and boots and schoolbag are at the back door, where we came in and sat down to eat store-bought cookies and drink milk at the table. I couldn’t believe that she was allowed to climb up in the cupboard and take the cookies without asking. We can never do that in our house, but I know where Maman hides the raisins and dates in her dining room armoire. I also know how to make it look as if none are missing. Right now, though, I just want to get out of this house fast, in case Madame Blondin throws something else at Monsieur Blondin.

  “Don’t worry, Aline. Wait by the front door. I’ll get your things and bring them to you.”

  We creep down the stairway, and as Georgette hurries along the hall to the kitchen, I take a quick peek over my shoulder. I can see her papa sitting at the table. He has a whole chicken on a plate in front of him, and he’s tearing a chicken leg with his greasy hands. Georgette’s maman sits in a chair at the table, smoking a cigarette. Neither one is talking. I see her blow a puff of smoke right into her husband’s face, and he doesn’t even look up from his food. I can’t begin to imagine being rich enough to eat a whole chicken by yourself!

  After I get dressed quickly, I thank Georgette for the cookies and milk, and for letting me play with her dolls. Then I run all the way home in the almost dark. I can see people through their windows, in yellow lamplight that spills onto the snow, walking around in their houses or eating their supper at the table. I can’t wait to get home, where my papa isn’t a drunk and shares supper with all of us each and every day.

  0

  Christmas is getting closer. We know when we discover that Maman has strung up the red accordion bells across the kitchen by the time we get home one day after school later that week. And in a corner against the wall, on a table that once was in the living room, Bernard has begun to set up the manger scene of Bethlehem and the crèche where the Baby Jesus was born. He always starts in December when Advent begins, and it takes him a few days. First, he lays down a cloth painted in shades of brown and gray, which is the ground. Then he sets up a complete town of Bethlehem that he built himself. Next, he arranges all the clay figurines—the Holy Family, the shepherds and kings, the angels, and all the animals—that he bought at the five-and-dime and painted all by himself. He won’t let anyone help him. He’s even made palm trees somehow, with wood shavings as fronds. One year, Father Louis came over from the church and blessed it for us, so it’s very special. I like to sit and stare at the scene because it looks so alive. And it means Christmas.

  We never have a Christmas tree like everyone else does. But we do have a Christmas fruit bowl, for the oranges that we get to have once a year, and that bowl means Christmas too. It’s the color of ivory, made of bone china, Maman tells us every year, and it once belonged to her grand-maman. It’s “Hand-painted,” it says on the back in English, with bright red and green sprigs of holly and a thin gold line around the rim. And it’s “Made in England.” Just like Carolyn Coleman, I can’t help but think.

  At the start of December each year, Maman steps onto the footstool and lifts the bowl carefully from a high shelf in the cupboard. She places it right in the middle of the kitchen table, on a lace doily. Then, like a miracle, the week before Christmas six oranges appear, one for each of us. But we have to wait until Christmas to eat them. That doesn’t stop us from staring at them, though, and touching them and smelling them and looking forward to that sweet burst of juiciness in our mouths.

  “Christmas is coming, Maman. Is it almost time to bring the fruit bowl out for the oranges?” I ask her after supper that night as I sit there admiring the red bells.

  “Soon,” Maman tells me, then quickly looks away. “You’ll just have to wait a little bit longer, Aline,” she adds with her back turned.

  I stare at the sturdy back of her. She’s wearing her blue housedress, and she’s busy at the kitchen counter like she always is. Maman seems to be very patient all the time, with cooking, with doing laundry, with caring for her four young children, and even her barn cats. With having English tenants sleeping in her upstairs rooms. And with waiting for what will happen next in the war and trying not to worry about it too much.

  She’s always good at waiting. But I don’t like waiting a little bit longer for anything. I don’t like it one little bit.

  9

  Maroon Crape

  First thing on Thursday morning, Sister Madeleine says she has an important announcement to make to the class. She tells us this in a very solemn voice, so I know it must be very important. She takes a deep breath and looks at all of us with sad eyes.

  “Something terrible has happened,” she says, and my heart twists in my chest. “Jeanine Bonenfant’s mother has died. Just yesterday. That’s why Jeanine hasn’t been at school this week. Let’s all say some prayers for Madame Bonenfant’s soul, that Our Lord will meet her in heaven, and for Jeanine, her papa, and her brothers and sisters.”

  We all bow our heads. Together we recite three Hail Marys and the Our Father. I feel sick inside. What must it be like for your mother to die? I wonder. Why did God have to let her mother die? Is it maybe because Jeanine did bad things, like steal from her mother’s purse and beat me up? Will my mother die because I stole money from her purse and never told? Does God punish you for sinning? Now I feel sicker and silently ask my guardian angel for help: Angel of God, my guardian dear, to whom God’s love entrusts me here, ever this day be at my side, to light and guard, to rule and guide. Amen.

  Will that help me at all? Now I’m not so sure anymore.

  Sister Madeleine tells us that we should go to Jeanine’s house to pay our respects to her family. Her mother will be there, in a casket in the living room for two days, and we can go any time because her family will sit up with Madame Bonenfant the whole time. And then we begin our lessons, but it’s impossible for me to think today when I know that Jeanine’s mother is lying dead in her living room.

  There will be a maroon crape on their front door. That’s how we know that there is someone dead inside a house. Once, on the way home from school, we passed a house with a crape on the door. My friend Thérèse told me and Lucille that she was going inside because she knew the person who died, the mother of a family whose children she looked after now and then. She said we could come along, but we were afraid, so we waited outside. Soon Thérèse came out wiping tears from her eyes, but she had a raisin bun in her hand and let us each have a bite.

  After school that day, I sit quietly at the kitchen table. Maman sets a pet de sœur in front of me, knowing how much I love the little pastries filled with brown sugar and butter. I sit there just staring at it, though, not even hungry enough to take a bite. Maman wipes her hands on a tea towel and pulls a chair up beside me.

  “What’s wrong, Aline?” she asks, touching my arm. Her bright green eyes stare into mine from behind her glasses. Maman always knows when something is wrong.

  “Madame Bonenfant died. She’s the mother of Jeanine, a girl in my class who lives in Mechanicsville,” I murmur.

  “Oui, ma belle, Monsieur Nadeau told me today when he delivered the bread.”

  Already! And I’m sure he must have told everyone in the neighborhood that we have English Protestant tenants living in our house now and that they’re buying bread and desserts from him. Maman never buys our desserts!

  “I know of the Bonenfant family. I used to see Madame at the market and rummage sales before she got sick,” Maman continues. “They have a lot of children, don’t they? Poor woman. She was sick for
a long time. Would you like to go and visit Jeanine?”

  “Sister Madeleine said that we should,” I tell my mother. Then I look down at the table. “Are you going to die soon too, Maman? Why did God let Jeanine’s mother die when she had all those children to care for? And who will care for them now?”

  Maman has a small smile on her face when I look up.

  “First of all, Aline, we are all going to die someday. And second, I have no plans to die anytime soon. I have too much to do here on earth right now. I’m not nearly ready to go up and fly around with the angels in heaven.” Now she’s really smiling, and it makes me smile too. “Jeanine has an older sister, doesn’t she? I’m sure her sister will be able to help out at home now that their maman has gone to heaven.”

  “But what if you get sick?” I ask her.

  Maman shrugs. “Maybe I will. But then I’ll get better. I told you, Aline. I’m too busy to get sick.” She makes small, gentle circles on my back. “Tomorrow, after school, we will go to Jeanine’s house and say a prayer for her mother, and we will tell her family that we’re sorry, okay?”

  I nod even though I’d rather be shaking my head. Then I bite into the warm pastry.

  0

  On Friday, though, Maman can’t come with me after all. Yvette is still sick and has a fever. She hasn’t gone to school for most of the week, and she coughs most of the night, which makes it hard for us all to sleep in the living room. One night Arthur even threw his pillow at her and told her to cover her face when she coughs or we’ll all get sick.

  “But how can I go there alone?” I beg my mother for an answer. “I don’t want to go there alone, Maman. I’m afraid to. Can’t you come with me, please?”

  “Yvette is too sick,” Maman explains. When we hear Yvette coughing from the living room, our heads turn toward the painful sound. “The doctor came today and told me that she must have her tonsils taken out as soon as she feels a bit better. Don’t tell her yet, though. I don’t want her to be upset.”

  I heave a huge sigh. “Why did God have to create us with silly things like tonsils that we don’t even need, anyway?”

  “Maybe God is more like his people on earth than we know,” Maman tells me. “Maybe even He can make mistakes sometimes.”

  My eyes fly wide open with alarm, and I gasp. How can my mother dare to say such things? “But Sister says Jesus was perfect,” I argue. “And he’s the Son of God.”

  Maman’s eyes grow narrow. “Can someone who is human be perfect? I wonder,” she says. “And even though Christ was human and divine, maybe He made some mistakes too. We don’t know everything that happened to Him while He was on earth, do we?”

  I gasp again. Surely she doesn’t believe what she just said. She turns around and starts wiping the counter in big, fast circles.

  “Now get ready to go, Aline,” she tells me in a tight voice. “You’ll be fine. And there will be other classmates there, I’m sure, if Sister told you to go. Pretend you’re brave like our friend Ti-Jean, ma belle.”

  I don’t think I can ever be that brave, but I’ll try my best. Before I pull on all my winter clothes, though, I slip into the living room, where Yvette and I keep our dolls and furniture in the corner beside our bed. I peek at Yvette, lying there with her hair all matted and her face all red. Poor Yvette. I’m glad it’s her and not me who is sick, though.

  I quietly slide open the bottom drawer of the doll dresser. There’s a space under that drawer where I’ve hidden the leftover candy from the money I stole. I still feel awful when I think about it, but not as much as before. I take out two peppermints, white with red stripes. I’ll suck on one of them for courage while I walk across the railroad tracks to Mechanicsville and Jeanine’s house. I’ll suck on the other one while I walk home, to cheer me up after all the sadness.

  In the kitchen, I pull on my boots, coat, hat, and mittens, then slip out the back door without even saying good-bye to Maman. When I pass the kitchen window, though, I can see her watching me.

  0

  As soon as I’ve crossed Scott Street and get near the end of Hinchey Avenue, I know I’m getting close. That’s when I start walking more slowly.

  Already the darkness is settling in as the sun gets lower, and my long blue shadow walks beside me like a giant on the snowy road. It’s grown colder, so my nostrils stick together and the snow scrunches under my boots. But I’m still sucking on my peppermint, and it’s getting smaller and smaller. I tell myself that I won’t step through Jeanine’s door until it’s all melted away by itself. I will not crunch it with my teeth, which means I have to slow down a lot because I’m almost there. And I don’t want to be almost there yet.

  When I turn the next corner, though, I feel a sudden burst of courage. Ahead of me, I spot my school friend Thérèse in her red coat and with her, two taller figures dark against the snow. Two Sisters, who walk so slowly it seems they’re floating along the road. I know where they’re going. To Jeanine’s house. And I also know that it must be Sister Madeleine, my teacher, and Sister Marie, the principal, walking with Thérèse, so I hurry to catch up.

  There are more people coming from the other direction now too, which fills me with even more courage. They’re going to Jeanine Bonenfant’s house for a look at her dead mother lying in the living room in a casket. I wonder if, like me, hardly anyone ever talked to her when she was alive, or even knew what she looked like. But everyone talked about her because she had so many children who brought bugs to school in their hair and sometimes had bruises and wore dirty, smelly clothes. And she had a mean drunk for a husband. And she never got out of bed for the past year. And I said bad things about Madame Bonenfant to Jeanine, and it makes me feel bad in my heart.

  And now we’re going to pray for her because she’s dead.

  10

  Peppermint Candy

  I reach the front of the Bonenfant house just as the last of the peppermint candy is gone, and my mouth still tingles from the sweet, minty taste. On the front door is a maroon crape. Nobody says a word as we climb the crooked front steps. The whole house seems crooked, and the paint is peeling on the wood like when I get a sunburn on my nose. Some of the window panes are cracked, and there is junk piled up on the porch. It looks dirty and messy like Jeanine, who always has dirty fingernails and dark streaks on her neck and hair that’s never brushed.

  Inside it’s even worse, and it smells bad too. All the children are gathered around on chairs in the living room, and the room is dim because the curtains are almost shut and it’s getting darker outside. Some of the older children cry, while younger ones poke one another and make faces. And Jeanine’s older sister, Jacqueline, is holding a crying, squirming baby.

  There is only one lamp, not very bright, in a corner. The couch is old, with rips and some springs popping out. The floor is dirty and wet from people’s boots. Some visitors in the small, stuffy room have rosaries in their hands and mutter to themselves, eyes closed. And up against the wall is the casket, with a kneeler in front of it, like in church. And in it is something that is supposed to be Jeanine Bonenfant’s mother but looks like a big waxy doll.

  In a chair beside the casket sits Monsieur Bonenfant. His face is like stone, and he’s staring straight ahead. I wonder why he isn’t crying when his wife is dead. I’ve never seen my own papa cry. But I know he would if our maman died. I catch sight of Jeanine standing in a corner. She’s wearing her school uniform still, like I am. Even though she wasn’t at school today. It makes me wonder if she has any other “decent” clothes. Maman makes sure that we always have some decent clothes, even if they come from The Neighbourhood store.

  Someone nudges me from behind, and I look up into Sister Madeleine’s kind face.

  “Go over to the casket now, girls, then kneel down and say a prayer,” she whispers to Thérèse and me.

  We walk a few slow steps to the kneeler, where a man and woman kneel wi
th their heads bowed, praying. When they stand and step aside, Thérèse and I kneel in their places and the nuns stand behind us. Beside me, I hear a soft cough from Thérèse and when I take a quick sideways look, her face is screwed up, then she buries her nose in her hand.

  It feels as if there is a giant lump in my throat, and I can’t even swallow. My face is less than two feet away from Madame Bonenfant’s face, and it’s a terribly awful sight. There is pink powder on her pale cheeks, her lips seem stretched to the side, and her brown hair looks like doll hair. Her stiff hands are folded and hold a rosary. They don’t look real, either, more like candle wax. Nothing looks real, maybe because she isn’t anymore.

  Madame’s Bonenfant’s soul has gone to heaven to be with Our Lord, and only her rigid, hard body is left behind. Once I find the courage to look, I can’t tear my eyes away, and it’s so terrible and awful that I haven’t even said a prayer yet. Instead, I stare at Jeanine’s mother’s eyes to see if they’re moving under the closed lids. Oh, and I’m so afraid that maybe they’ll fly open and stare back and make me scream. Then I feel something poke into my back and I jump.

  When I look up, Sister Marie is staring down at me. When I stand up, she hooks her arm through mine and leads me away, and I realize that Thérèse isn’t even beside me anymore. When I reach the front doorway again, Jeanine is standing there. There is no trace of her usual half-smirk, her narrow threatening eyes, or her blabbering rubbery mouth that likes to stick its tongue out at everyone in the world. For the first time ever, her face looks completely blank and harmless. She reaches out a hand and shakes mine, Thérèse’s, and the nuns’.

  “Merci,” she says. “Thank you for coming.”