A Cage Without Bars

by Anne Dublin

  And that they won’t be too mad at me for getting the whole class in trouble today.

  Just to be sure, I linger after school, wiping off the blackboard for Sister until everyone else has gone home. She doesn’t have much to say, just sits at her desk with her head bowed over her work. But now and then when I look over, she’s watching me, and I offer her a weak smile, which she always returns. When I leave, she thanks me for helping her today.

  Just around the corner from my house, it happens. I get a snowball in the back of the head again. It stings so much that I let out a shriek. Icy slush starts melting down my neck, so cold that it almost hurts. When I spin around, I see Jeanine Bonenfant grinning at me from the other side of a fence. Has she been following me, planning this attack? Just when I’m almost certain that something might be changing between us?

  “Jeanine!” When I call her name, she ducks down. “Why did you do that, Jeanine?” I call out again, and she pops back up. “I thought maybe we were friends now. And why haven’t you been coming to school?”

  Her mouth becomes an ugly hole as she screws up her face, then spits in the snow.

  “I’m not your friend,” she yells back. “I’m nobody’s friend!”

  I’m jolted by a shudder of dread. I try to resist the temptation to run even though my guardian angel is pushing me hard. Only because Jeanine told Sister that I was her friend.

  “Jeanine, would you like to come to my house some time? Maybe at Christmastime, for some cookies and a piece of pie?” I ask her, and her face becomes a dark cloud.

  “Your house? Why would I ever want to come to your house, A-de-line Sau-ri-ol?” she barks at me. “Why would I ever want to do that?”

  “Well, because I’ve been to your house, you know, and I thought that maybe…”

  “Tais-toi!” she shrieks. “Shut up! I never ever want to go to your house!” Her shrill voice bounces off the walls of all the houses, echoes across the still winter afternoon.

  I take a step back. But I won’t give up. “But why not, Jeanine?”

  Jeanine steps out from behind the fence. She’s wearing her tattered too-tight coat, torn stockings and too-big boots, only one mitten, and no hat today. She walks straight toward me, and I try my best not to move even though my wobbly legs are wishing they could run.

  “Because, stupide,” she screams right into my face. “I have nothing! And you, Sauriol, you have so much. You have everything!”

  Then she spins around and runs off, disappearing around the corner into the gray winter dusk. I stand there for a moment watching her run and wondering what she meant by that. I know for sure that I don’t have everything. But I don’t have nothing, either. And maybe there’s a difference. When she’s out of sight, I shuffle through the snowy street toward home, thankful that for once Jeanine didn’t beat me up, even if she says she doesn’t want to be my friend.

  When I get there, a man is sitting on the steps of our front porch. I know who he is. A tramp, looking for some food. Maman always gives food to hungry tramps. They knock on the front door and sit and wait for her to answer and offer them a scrap of food. But today, I don’t think she’s answered. She must still be at the hospital with Yvette. My brothers never come home until much later these days; Bernard plays hockey with his friends, and Arthur sits and reads in the Carnegie Library. Papa isn’t home yet, either.

  I slip through the back gate and into my yard. There’s half a cheese sandwich in my schoolbag since I was too worried about everything to finish my lunch today. And often Maman gives the tramps a small glass of milk too, which I plan on doing myself right now. But I stop and gasp when I run up to my back stoop. Carolyn is standing there, and she’s crying.

  “Aline, there’s a scary man out front,” she says. And I understand right away. When she came home from school a few minutes ago, the tramp was on the front porch, and she must have been too frightened to go inside so she ran around back.

  “Viens. Come,” I tell her, opening the back door.

  “But what if there’s another one inside your house?” she whispers.

  “Non,” I say laughing. “Viens voir. Come see.”

  I lead her into the kitchen, kick off my boots, and take the sandwich, wrapped in brown paper, out of my bag. It’s a bit stiff and cold, but it’s still good. I take the bottle of milk off the windowsill where it stays cool, and I pour a small glass. Then I gesture to Carolyn to follow me to the front door. Her eyes are wide, and she looks scared.

  “Open de door,” I tell her in my broken English, and she does.

  The tramp is still sitting there. He looks up at us with hope in his eyes and offers a whiskery, toothless smile when I hand him the sandwich and the glass.

  “Merci, mademoiselle,” he murmurs. He will leave the glass there on the front porch when he finishes. They always do.

  “De rien, monsieur. A votre santé,” I say, wishing him good health before I close the door.

  Carolyn is still staring, wide-eyed. “You mean that scary man was hungry?” she says, and when I nod, she smiles.

  Then she runs up the steps to the top floor of our house as music drifts from the radio in the room where her mother is waiting.

  Maman has left a pot of pea soup on the stove for our supper. I sit at the long table to do my homework while I wait for everyone else to come home as the light fades from the kitchen windows. And only realize that I’ve fallen asleep with my head on my arms when the sound of the back door jolts me awake. It’s Papa, and he’s beaten my brothers home tonight. He’s much earlier than usual.

  “Is Maman here?” he asks, looking hopeful. When I shake my head, his face sags.

  Papa hangs up his winter clothes, sits in the rocker by the stove, and begins to rock. The chair creaks. It’s the only sound. The radio isn’t playing upstairs anymore. Papa and I are here in the kitchen alone. That never happens. And I have something important to ask him, but I don’t even know where to begin. So instead I pour him a cup of tea from the teapot on the stove, then set a plate with a piece of bread and a slab of pork in front of him. He grunts his thanks.

  “Papa, we haven’t heard many Ti-Jean stories lately,” I tell him as I pull my chair up to the table again.

  Papa shakes his head as he chews. “That’s true, ma fille,” he says with a sigh. “I haven’t been in the mood. Too tired, too worried.” His voice fades away as he speaks, and he shrugs, looking sad.

  “Can I tell you one?” I ask, and he looks surprised.

  “Oui, Aline,” he says, nodding and almost smiling. “You have a Ti-Jean story too?”

  “I made one up myself, Papa,” I say. “Only her name is Ti-Jeanne.”

  “It’s about a girl?” Papa says and smirks when I nod. “Bon, let’s hear it then.”

  And so I start my story, not really sure where I’m going with it but taking a chance just the same. It’s the only way I can think of to talk about something that is never allowed.

  15

  Ti-Jeanne

  Once there was a girl named Ti-Jeanne who lived with her family in a big fieldstone house that her papa built all by himself. She had a maman too, and a sister and two brothers.”

  “Comme nous,” Papa says grinning. Like us.

  I nod again. “There were horses and chickens in the backyard, and a skating rink that Papa built for his children too. He liked to call them ‘little chickens,’ those four children of his.” When Papa smiles even wider, it gives me the courage to continue. “Ti-Jeanne knew her Papa was happy most of the time. But he didn’t smile very much, and she didn’t know why.”

  Now Papa frowns, just a little, then realizes it and tries to force a smile as he nods at me.

  “He had enough food to eat every day, a warm, cozy house to live in, and a nice rocking chair by the stove that he sat in every night.” Papa closes his eyes to listen as I continue.

&nb
sp; “Across the road was another house, not as nice as Ti-Jeanne’s, made of wood, not stone.” Papa stops rocking. His eyes fly open and he watches me, his eyebrows a thick black line. I can feel my heart beat harder as I start talking faster and faster. “In that house lived another family, with three children of their own. But the children in those two families never spoke to one another. They didn’t even look at one another because they weren’t allowed, even though all the children in those two houses were cousins and their Papas were brothers.”

  Papa’s jaw stiffens, and I look away. “Aline,” he warns me, his voice like a storm.

  “And the little girl who lived in that house was the best of friends with Ti-Jeanne. But their papas didn’t know it because they never ever spoke to each other. They never even looked at each other. They always seemed to be mad at each other. So the two cousins could never let them find out about their friendship, all because of something that happened a long, long time ago.”

  Papa’s hand slams the table hard, and I jump. “Adéline!” he growls. “Arrête-toi!”

  But I don’t stop talking. “Papa,” I whisper. “What really happened a long time ago?” And then I actually say it. “Is…is Uncle Pierre not really your brother?”

  Papa’s face turns dark red, and he seems to be quaking with anger as he rises slowly to his feet. He reminds me of one of the bad giants that he tells us about in his own Ti-Jean stories. But Papa has never ever hit me, or anyone else in our family. He would never pull trees out of the ground and throw them. He’s not that kind of papa.

  “I don’t know where you could ever have heard such nonsense, Aline. But don’t you ever, ever ask me that question again,” he says in a quaking voice.

  Then he shuffles through the hallway into the dining room, where his bed is now, and I hear the springs squeak when he lies down.

  And then, just a few minutes later, the wonderful sound of boots stomping on the back porch and a blast of cold air when the door bursts open, and the boys and Maman tramp into the kitchen. I run into her arms to hug her, and she rubs her icy, red cheek against my warm one.

  “Yvette? Where is she?” I ask, almost afraid to hear the answer.

  “Still there, ma belle,” Maman says as she shrugs off her coat. “But much better.”

  “It’s good news,” Arthur says, grinning as he warms his hands by the stove. “Yvette will be coming home tomorrow.”

  “We walked over to the hospital after school to wait for Maman and come home with her,” Bernard adds.

  “They’re nice boys, your brothers,” Maman adds, then suddenly looks concerned. “But where’s Papa?”

  “Ici,” says a voice. “Right here, Maman.” Papa stands in the kitchen doorway watching us all. And he almost seems to be smiling.

  0

  Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Yvette will be home tomorrow.

  Those words soothe me to sleep like the lullabies Maman used to sing for us so long ago. Maman doesn’t sing much anymore.

  The next day is Saturday, and I walk over to the Carnegie Library after breakfast with Lucille. On Saturdays, we always meet around the corner at ten in the morning. to go to our favorite place in the world. I even love the way the library smells, and the shelves and shelves of books, each one of them hiding a brand-new story, mostly in English, which I can’t read very well yet, but maybe someday.

  The whole time that Lucille and I are in the library choosing our books, I can barely hold on to the story of what I asked Papa yesterday about mon oncle Pierre. It flutters like a butterfly inside me, trying to get free. Finally, I can’t keep it in any longer. As we stand side by side between the bookshelves scanning all the colorful spines, I move a little closer and give Lucille a nudge.

  “Guess what, Lucille,” I whisper. “I asked Papa yesterday about what happened a long time ago between our fathers.”

  Lucille gasps. “Vraiment?” Really? she practically shouts.

  “Silence, les filles.” When we look over, the librarian is glaring at us from behind her desk, finger to her lips.

  “Oui. I made up a little story about it. He got really mad at me,” I admit to her in a quiet voice. “His face turned all red, and he was even shaking.”

  “Oh, Aline, you’re the bravest girl I know,” my wide-eyed cousin tells me. “I would never take a chance like that with my papa. Why did you do it?”

  I frown for a moment. Then I smile.

  “Because if we don’t ask questions, then how will we ever know the truth?” I tell her.

  A few hours later, I run all the way home with Lucille trying her best to keep up, and sure enough, Yvette is there. Home safe in her bed.

  Papa went over to the hospital in the sled with Maman this morning. They took plenty of wool blankets and a hot-water bottle to keep Yvette warm on the ride home. I open the front door and wave my scarf in the air. That’s my signal to tell the good news to Lucille, who is waiting across the street on her front porch to find out. Then I run back inside to fetch the lollipop from under my pillow.

  Yvette is pale. She still can’t speak outside of a whisper. She won’t be able to go back to school until after Christmas. But at least she’s home with us now.

  “Yvette,” I say. “Hold out your hand.”

  Her eyebrows become question marks, but she does what I ask and holds out one small hand. And that’s where I put the lollipop. And that’s when her eyes light up and she smiles. I haven’t seen my sister smile like that for the longest time.

  “Oh, Aline, merci,” she whispers and puts it right into her mouth. Even though it’s a little matted with wool from my mitten, she doesn’t care. Then she takes it out for a moment. “But where did you get it?” she asks.

  “That’s a big secret,” I tell her, and she smiles again. “Hide it from Maman, okay, and give me the stick when you’re done.”

  She just nods and licks and nods and licks.

  0

  Christmas is coming fast. Yvette’s throat continues to heal, and every day she can eat a little more of everything—not just custards and eggs and tapioca. Soon she can eat finely chopped meat and boiled potatoes, and she is almost back to normal again. She’s still pale, though, and still not in class, but she’s doing the schoolwork that I bring home for her each day.

  At school, all the girls in the schoolyard talk about what they’ll be receiving from le père Noël. I have very little to say about it, though, and stand at the edge of the circle of girls, thinking about other things. They didn’t stay mad at me very long after I pushed Thérèse down that day and let her have it. Even she didn’t stay mad and has never said another word about it, though she doesn’t talk much to me anymore and I don’t really care. Everyone seems to be acting a little nicer, a little kinder. Trying not to be mean to one another. Maybe because it’s Christmastime.

  Or maybe they really listened to Sister after all.

  My mind is still full of questions that I can’t answer, like what’s become of Jeanine? After that day when she popped up from behind the fence, threw snow at me, and spit, I haven’t seen her. After more than a week, I’ve given up. I guess we’re really not friends after all. But I can’t stop worrying about her and her family, and what a sad Christmas they’re going to have. You have everything and I have nothing, she yelled at me the last time I saw her. And now I think I’m beginning to understand even more what she meant by that.

  I’m getting used to living with tenants in the upstairs, to sneaking quickly up the steps to the bathroom like a timid mouse in my own house. Whenever I’m up there, I steal a peek into the rooms if their doors are open and admire all the Colemans’ bright and shiny things that I can see on the sideboard—our sideboard—and on the dining room table, which is also ours. It looks cozy in their rooms and smells heavenly, like perfume and furniture polish, and roasting meat, and even the cigarette smoke that drifts out now and then, all so
mysterious and strange. And there’s the wonderful radio music too. I wish I could take a better look inside those rooms where the Coleman family lives.

  Now that I don’t have to worry so much about Yvette anymore, I’ve been thinking about the missing fruit bowl. Poor Maman. She must feel so sorry about breaking it. We’re still waiting for one of the other children to ask about it, and that hasn’t happened yet, so they don’t even know that Maman had to throw all the pieces in the garbage.

  And Papa hasn’t ever mentioned my Ti-Jeanne story since I told it that day. Sometimes I catch him looking at me funny, and I smile at him, and he raises his eyebrows. I wonder what he’s thinking and if he’s curious about why I asked him that question about my uncle. But I won’t mention it, because I don’t want his face to turn all red like a giant again!

  But now I have my biggest worry to face. It’s the Saturday before Christmas, and I have to go to confession once and for all, to confess to Father what I did when I stole that dime from Maman’s purse. The sin has been floating above me like benediction smoke in church, and I want to be rid of it so I can free my mind again and enjoy Christmastime.

  Which is why I kneel quietly in a church pew on Saturday morning, thinking about all these other things while I avoid getting into the line for confession. There’s a big lineup today. I recognize so many girls from school, some of them with their parents. I suppose we all want to be sin-free for Christmas. I often wonder what sort of sins parents have to confess and why they even have to go to confession. They’re grown-up, so they must know better by now. Finally, I force myself to leave the pew and get in line behind everyone else. Usually I’m very impatient about waiting in line, about waiting for anything. But today, I wish the lineup was even longer because I don’t want my turn to come.

  But it does. I kneel down behind the curtain in the confessional, and when Father slides open the little door, I begin my prayer and my confession. I start with all the usual sins, the easy ones that Father hears all the time, the ones that won’t surprise him. I disobeyed my parents. I had a fight with my brothers. I called my sister names. I talked back. Sometimes it’s hard to come up with sins. Sometimes I even make them up. Father must get tired of hearing the same sins over and over again from me. But today will be different, that’s for sure.