“Good, then,” said Greta. “And I hope you watched carefully and listened to the lesson because I will ask someone to cut hair very soon, and it best be done the right way.”
No one moved.
“Joseph,” said Greta.
Joseph glanced over his shoulder. “Yes?”
“You may go back to the circle.”
Greta stood and shook the remaining hair from her lap. As soon as she was gone down to her family for lunch or for piano lessons or for whatever else she did when she was not in the attic with her friends, Anna and the others would scoop up every strand and throw them from the open attic window. Listening was a lesson they had learned well, and so was cleanliness. Not so much cleanliness of themselves; Greta did not see much use in giving soap and water to the friends in the attic. Greta believed as her father had taught her; children such as these were used to being dirty. They liked being dirty.
“Now,” said Greta. She walked to the open window, fanned herself with delicate motions of her hand, and then moved back to the chair. “I’d like to hear a story. William, you tell the class a story. A story about a day at the beach because it’s so hot in here. A cool day by the lake where the children go swimming and the parents sit under umbrellas and talk about their work and their duties in the world.”
William, who had been a pudgy little boy when Erik Brummer had first selected and gathered the friends together for his daughter, rubbed his face frantically. The palm of William’s hand bore a shiny burn scar. William had a nervous tic in his right cheek.
Anna looked at William, then at Greta. If it took long for William to tell the story, Greta might get angry. William, Anna feared, had never been to a beach, had never seen a lake, because William’s family had been poor.
“William,” said Greta. Anna felt her shoulders pinch. Her lungs hurt in the heat and hurt in anticipation of what might happen if William could not think of a story. She grit her teeth. Panic swirled in her gut, and she fought it down. In a gentle motion, Margarette leaned over and squeezed William’s hand.
“There was a lake,” said Margarette.
“There was a lake,” said William, and Anna’s lungs heaved a burst of air in relief. She hoped Greta did not hear it.
“A big lake and with a lot of water,” said William. “And a lot of fish.” He rubbed his face again. It was stretched and scarred with so much rubbing. His eyes were rheumy with torment. “There was a family, a big family with lots of children, very pretty children in nice clothes. Pink dresses and blue trousers. They all went to the lake on a hot afternoon and sat down and took off their shoes.”
Anna looked at Greta seated on her low chair. The girl’s lips were pursed, but she didn’t seem dissatisfied with the story. If William told a good story, and a long story, Greta would be happy and would go back downstairs to her family and leave the friends alone. If William did not tell a good story and made Greta angry, she would teach a new lesson to the class. It was the angry lessons that had, just days before, made Joseph climb into the tiny open window where the flies and the gnats and the smoke and the mockingbird song came in and try to squeeze himself through to fall to the dog-guarded yard four stories below. Only Margarette could talk him back inside by promising him silly but lovely things when the bad days were over and they could go home again.
“The children went swimming and they swam for a long time,” said William. And then he stopped. It was obvious he couldn’t think of what to say next. He did not know the beach of the lake and could not even imagine it well. William rubbed his face and looked around the circle at the friends. Susanne looked at the empty bookcase. Joseph licked his lips and folded his hands. Anna looked at William for a moment before looking away. She knew about lakes but was afraid to speak up and help William with his story. William’s burned hand was the result of a music lesson Greta had given one morning. William had no rhythm, and Greta had insisted on all the friends clapping to her song. Try as he did, William could not keep the rhythm. When Greta had come back with the friends’ daily meal, she had also brought one of Erik Brummer’s cigars. William still could not clap in rhythm, but now he bore the rightful sign of the failed lesson.
“And what then?” asked Greta.
William’s eyes squeezed into red slits.
Margarette’s hand went up. Greta turned to her, the smile gone. “Now what, little girl?”
“Please, I’d like to tell some of the story, too.” Greta crossed her ankles like her mother must have done. Her eyebrows strummed a rhythm of irritation across her brow, but then she said, “All right.”
“They liked to go fishing, these children,” said Margarette. “They caught many colors of fish, red and blue and green and gold. Some they caught with nets and some with hooks.”
Greta said, “Did they eat the fish?”
“Oh, some of them they did. Some they cooked and ate on the beach. They made a fire and cooked them, and the smoke went up as high as the clouds. Everyone sang songs. There was a girl named Greta, and she could sing better than any of the other children.”
And the story went on. It wound around the bitter air of the hot attic, in Margarette’s lilting, little-girl voice, laced with distant bits of Margarette’s memory, embellished with daydreams.
After some time, Greta held up her hand to halt the tale, and she left the attic. She promised, in reward for the story, to come earlier with the daily meal. The dust and soot swirled where her footsteps had been. The door closed with a click. No one spoke. Margarette closed her eyes, and shivered.
Then Joseph said, “Thank you.”
All the friends looked at Margarette and whispered, “Thank you.”
Anna said, “I’ll give you half my meal,” although she knew Margarette would refuse, and she knew that was part of the reason she offered.
The friends stayed in the circle for a while longer. Then, slowly, they fell apart, moving to their own spots on the attic floor where they rested between lessons and dreamed their own dreams and fought their own nightmares. Anna curled up beneath the tiny window and looked at the crude beams of the ceiling. Outside, the mockingbird sang the tunes of the robin, the jay, the chickadee, the sparrow.
After a few minutes of silence, Joseph said, “The children sang as they sat on the beach. They sang as they sat with their parents in the boats and fished. They sang the same song as their parents, and there was no harmony, just melody. The melody was flat and ugly.”
William grunted as he turned to face Joseph.
“The fish were not different colors,” Joseph continued. “They were all the same, silver and blue, like shining gems. But some were big and some were small. Some had twisted fins, and some were blind. The parents drew the fish in on the lines and put them into buckets. When they got to shore, they put the buckets on the muddy bank.”
Anna turned her head slightly, her nostrils blowing the soot on the floor beside her, listening.
Joseph’s voice was tight, and it trembled. He said, “The parents only fished for sport, to see the creatures struggle out of the water. The big fish with no flaws were sorted into one bucket. The fish that were not perfect went into another. The baby fish were taken from the parent fish and given to the children as pets.”
Margarette said, “Joseph, I liked my story better.”
Joseph said, “This is a good story. So listen. The fish with flaws were tormented then set afire. The fish with no flaws were kept longer, but were set afire as well. The smoke did not rise to the clouds, it was so thick it hung low and made the sky stink with soot and death. The little fish were tormented by the children, and flopped in the buckets, trying to find the air they needed.”
Susanne, by the empty bookshelf, whispered, “Margarette’s story was about fish, Joseph. Don’t do this to us.”