“If I were you,” the grandmother said without looking up from her cards, “I’d go and see the doctor.”
“It’s just old age,” Stella protested. “Besides, creaking carts last longest, so they say.”
The grandmother looked doubtful.
“I’ve never known anyone die of good health. You never know what it could be a sign of.”
She slapped a two of clubs on the table.
“Small aches great pains, I always say.”
CHAPTER 7
THE LAST DAY OF TERM TURNED OUT UNSEASONABLY chilly. Perhaps that was why Miss Veegaete had decided to wear her new dress to school. It looked as if it had been cut from the wings of a rare butterfly. The shade hovered between blue and purple, and lit up in streaks on the skirt and sleeves every time she moved. It was as though the grandmother had taken strips of rainbow and worked them into the fabric.
Miss Veegaete was all dolled up. Her hair was drawn into a flat fold rather like an apple turnover on the back of her head. Framing her face were two locks of hair hanging unfettered from temples to chin in rustic curves. A string of pearls from Thailand gleamed beneath the bolster of flesh at her throat.
The school hummed with bittersweet anticipation. Outside, under the gallery, the breeze rattled the fronds of the potted palms and lifted the yellow crêpe paper skirt around the platform on which the chairs for the notables were lined up.
“Well now boys,” said Miss Veegaete, “the Reverend Father will be here any minute to give us his blessing for the holidays.”
She stood with her back to the blackboard on which she had written “June: neat and tidy to the end of term” in red chalk. That was four weeks ago, and the letters were smudgy. She had written “time” instead of “term” by mistake, but had quickly rubbed it out.
“What do we say when our visitor arrives?” Miss Veegaete cupped her hands behind her ears demonstratively.
“Good afternoon Reverend Father,” the class droned in staggered chorus.
This was not good enough. “Try again! All together now.”
After the third attempt she was satisfied. She sat down at her desk, tugged her skirt down over her knees and crossed her arms.
“And now for the animal kingdom,” she said, “I wonder what you’ve brought along to show me.”
In fact Miss Veegaete had already shuddered at the sight of some of the boys’ contributions. One of them had brought a live hamster, which had been removed cage and all to a windowsill all the way at the back of the room, far away from Miss Veegaete. The rodent pedalled frantically round and round a plastic wheel above the shredded-paper floor of its prison.
Also the stuffed weasel, which was even now waiting on a desk somewhere behind my back, had sent a perceptible shiver of disgust through her limbs. The creature struck a grotesque pose of arrested movement while climbing a branch. It had probably been languishing in some garret for untold years while its rag-wool innards leaked from the gash in its belly.
Another boy had wanted to bring a live stone owl, but the bird had escaped in the night. Miss Veegaete did not seem to mind too much.
Someone else waved a few tatty peacock feathers, possibly stolen from some mother’s Sunday hat.
“In nature it’s usually the males that go in for display,” Miss Veegaete said in her teaching voice. “With humans it’s the other way round.”
There was also someone who had brought a photograph of a crown pigeon, a very silly-looking bird with an absurd fluffy pom-pom on its head, but Miss Veegaete was enchanted. “Animals in faraway countries are so much prettier than they are here, I always think. In this part of the world it’s dreary old raincoats all year round for man and beast alike.”
The vibrant blue of her dress made her stand out from her surroundings. Keenly aware that the end was near, I had eyes for none but her. The Day of Judgement was upon us. The sheep would be separated from the goats. We had yet to hear which of us would go home laden with prizes and which would be given homework for the holidays. A few hours from now summer would yawn like a chasm, in the depths of which Master Norbert would be waiting in his grey dustcoat, grinning and reciting multiplication tables.
The bird on the cover of Marcel’s letter lay right under Miss Veegaete’s nose, on the corner of my desk. One of its wing tips overlapped the postage stamp. I had raised and lowered a corner of the envelope several times with my finger, I had tapped it gently and had even rubbed it with my cuff — in vain I knew — to wipe away the particles of ancient dust that had settled in the creases.
Miss Veegaete ignored me — deliberately, I was sure. From the pheasant she turned to the guinea pig, from the guinea pig to the partridge. I stared at her knees, where a fluttering hand appeared at regular intervals to adjust the hem of her skirt, as if she knew how mesmerised I was by her secrets.
“And what have you got there?” she inquired at long last.
I didn’t hear what she said at first, and she had to repeat her question.
I was startled.
“A bird, Miss. The eagle.” I picked the envelope up gratefully and laid it in her extended hand.
She gave no sign of surprise. Aside from the faintly knitted brow her expression was blank.
“It’s not very clear, I know. It’s the postmark. And the envelope’s been wet.”
“The eagle …” she echoed, feigning enthusiasm. She looked straight past me at the class. “When we see a bird with huge claws and a curved beak, what does that tell us? What kind of bird is it?”
“A bird of prey!” shrieked a trio of voices.
“Precisely. A predator …”
“It’s carrying something in its claws,” I said. “See? It looks like an alarm clock with four hands, they look like they’re broken …”
“I hardly think it’s an alarm clock,” Miss Veegaete said. “Eagles are rapacious creatures, but they don’t fancy alarm clocks. Sometimes they pounce on babies in their cradles. Not where we live, there aren’t any eagles here, but in the mountains there are plenty and everybody knows they snatch babies.”
“Perhaps it’s a spider, Miss, a fat spider.”
Miss Veegaete laid the envelope on her desk.
“It isn’t a spider, my boy.”
She lowered her eyes, and then, in an oddly quiet voice, she said “It’s a swastika.”
I had never heard of an animal called swastika. Perhaps they lived in the mountains. Better a swastika than a newborn babe, surely. I was wondering whether I should ask her to tell me more when there was a loud knock on the door. In came the shepherd of souls.
The boys sat up straight. Miss Veegaete drew herself up. She waited for the priest to shut the door behind him and then, just as he swung round to face the classroom, she snapped her fingers.
“Good afternoon Reverend Father,” the boys droned.
He motioned with both hands for us to sit down. His cassock stopped just short of his ankles. He wore thick knitted socks and black high-cut shoes with chunky heels, in which he managed to walk without making a sound. He planted his feet firmly one after the other on the green-and-brown speckled floor, zigzagged among the desks, laid a hand on a head here, on a shoulder there, veered round and headed towards the blackboard, where Miss Veegaete awaited him. She dropped a little curtsy, and took his hand in hers.
The priest posted himself in front of my desk.
“Now boys, you must bide your time just a little longer,” he croaked in a voice that seemed to come from a rusty cogwheel in his throat. “Have patience, the summer holiday is nigh.”
He rested one hand on my desk and gestured with the other half behind his back for Miss Veegaete to sit down. She obeyed.
“But during holidays, as at all times,” the Reverend Father instructed, “we must all behave …” he shuffled his feet, “like good, kind …” he took off his skullcap and laid it on my desk, “Christians.”