He puts his satchel on the bed. He crosses the room. He pours himself a glass of milk but spits it out at once: it's sour. He climbs up on a stool to pull back the curtains, a blood-red scrim that hides the sky. In vain, he searches for the sun. He turns his back on the window and sits cross-legged at the table. There are his toes, in a wooden box under the bed, but he doesn't feel like planing. Maman will be home soon. They'll eat together: ham and Floraline, like always. Maman puts his books in the cupboard-the big one, whose doors are blocked by the bed. He knows how to push the bed aside and open it. He's done it before. Once he even took down the ragged little book that holds all the secrets. It's a yellow book, with no pictures. He turned it over in his hands for a long time, before regretfully putting it back. But today he knows how to read it. He repeats the incredible words to himself: Today I know how to read! So the day does come when eyes are opened and secrets revealed, when order comes to chaos… Fox nods. How many such dawnings does a life hold? Can you die without having your fair share, without fathoming the marvelous truth? Fox is beside himself. What if he's about to die, right here and now, struck down before the very first veil is even rent? He scrambles from the table and races for the cupboard. The sound of steps in the hall, the rattle of keys in the lock; he stands petrified in the middle of the room.
"Maman?"
"Did you make it home all right? You know how worried I get…"
Bures, Dec. 1981-Feb. 1982
The Gulf of the Years
n the train, the passengers spoke in hushed voices about the hard times. A young woman with a yellow star sewn to her breast briefly lifted her gaze from the dressmaker's pattern she was studying. The boy across from her pulled the latest issue of Signal from a worn satchel and unfolded it right in front of her face. She lowered her eyes.
Through the window, Manoir watched the few cars, quaint and yet almost new, on the road beside the tracks. He started at the sight of a military convoy. He checked his watch, then settled back. It was still early. The bombing wouldn't start till later that morning. Far away, young men were waking in their barracks… or were they on their feet already, assembled in flight suits before a blackboard with their wing commander? Early rising schoolboys of fire and death. They were twenty, in fur-lined boots and leather helmets, blue wool and sheepskin. They drank tea and smoked gauloises blondes. Manoir's best wishes went with them. And yet, in a few hours, one of them would kill his mother.
Manoir got off at S. He walked up the Avenue de la Gare, turned left at the town hall, and passed the post office, then the elementary school. He hesitated, but not over which way to go. As a child, he'd pretended he was blind in these streets. He'd try and make his way to school from home with his eyes closed. Sometimes he walked right into a lamppost, or someone's legs. He cheated, of course: from time to time he opened his eyelids just a bit, long enough to see where he was. But one night he'd managed to make it only cheating three times.
He checked his watch again. In five minutes, a little boy would emerge from his house a few streets away. On the front steps, his maman would kiss him as she did every morning. Satchel in hand, he would cross the small yard. With one last wave, he'd head through the gate and be on his unhurried way to school.
It was seven-fifty. School opened its doors at eight. Would it take him ten minutes to get there, or just five? If he missed him-God, what if he missed him? Manoir spotted a boy in a cape, then two more, an older one leading a younger one by the hand, and two more after that… they were coming out of the woodwork now. Still sleepy, eyes unfocused for the most part, pale and huddled against the cold morning, children were converging on the school. Manoir panicked. They were coming toward him down both sides of the street at once, the bigger ones sometimes hiding the littler ones from view. All he could see of some-hooded, wrapped up in scarves or balaclavaswas their eyes and a bit of nose poking out from the wool. He recalled a yellowish coat, maybe even a beret? Yes, he was sure of the coat. But two out of every three boys were wearing berets.
The crowd of children grew, overflowing the sidewalk for a moment. Manoir almost wept with frustration. None of these children were the one he was looking for! The flood slowed; most of the flock had passed. He'd missed him; he'd let him slip by beneath a brown coat or a black cape. All was lost. His heart broke. The street emptied. He ran into a few breathless latecomers… and over there, that shape! He dashed forward. An ugly yellow coat. A beret pulled halfway down his forehead. A loose-knit gray scarf. And that odd, almost moony walk, that dawdling step! He should've known. He slowed his pace, trying to still his beating heart. The boy was only fifteen yards away, now. Their paths were about to cross. The boy looked up at the man. Something-a familial air-had awoken his curiosity. Manoir stopped right in front of him.
"Jean-Jacques?"
The boy took a step back. "How come y'know my name? I don't 11 know yours.
"You're Jean-Jacques Manoir, aren't you? Right? You don't know me, but I know all about you. You're eight years old, in third grade, and your teacher's name is Mr. Crepon. He's got a tiny mustache and is very strict. See-I know all about you!"
At once intrigued by the stranger's omniscience yet worried about being late, Jean-Jacques hopped from foot to foot. "OK, but I'm going to be late. Mr. Crepon's going to make me do lines!"
Mr. Crepon didn't make him do lines as often as he might have. His customarily iron rule softened for the three fatherless boys in his class.
"C'mon, Mr. Crepon's not as bad as all that. If he punished you every time you were late or busy daydreaming instead of working-
So the stranger knew that, too! The boy gulped. "Wh-who are you?"
"I'm your cousin. Your father's cousin. Don't you think I look like him?"
"Yes, you do," the child replied after looking him over. "But I still don't know you. And my dad's dead."
Manoir nodded. "He died in the war. He was a hero. He got medals: a round one, with a green and yellow ribbon, and another with a green and red ribbon and little swords. Isn't that right?"
"Yes!"
"C'mon, I'll show you something that'll prove I'm his cousin. You know the ring your dad always wore?"
"A ring? I dunno…" Jean-Jacques blushed. Through the fabric of his pocket and the handkerchief he'd wrapped it in, the signet ring he'd brought in secret to show his friends seemed to be burning.
The cousin's eyes gleamed with irony. "You must have seen it. A gold ring, with a little chateau on it, like your name-a manor"
Jean-Jacques gave in. "Yeah, I've seen it before"
"I've got the same one! Look!" The man took his hand from his pocket, fingers spread, and held it out to the boy. A signet ring, exactly like the one the boy had stolen from his father's desk but moments ago, gleamed in the gray day. "See, there's my proof."
"Why Jean-Jacques! Jean-Jacques, you're really going to be late today!"
A woman stood before them: a neighbor, the same one who would come fetch the boy after school, after the tragedy. She was speaking to the boy, but looking the man up and down. She did her best to help the young widow: here a pot of broth, there some wool from an old, unraveling sweater. She'd believed the mother and child alone in the world. But who was this man who looked so much like poor Mr. Manoir?
"I'm a friend of the boy's mother;" she said. "And you are…?"
"Manoir, " the stranger mumbled. "Jean-Pierre Manoir. Enchanter"
"He's daddy's cousin;" Jean-Jacques announced. "I didn't know him, but he knew all about me."