Caroline hung around in the big house that she had lived in with
her mother since she was three. It was too quiet for her. When people
talked to her about her father, she pretended that she could not
remember him. However, hidden under her mattress was the only photo
she had of him. She recalled the day he died; since that day she
had felt as if a trapdoor had tipped her into a life where the features
were all just shades of black and white. Things that had once brightened
up the walls had disappeared, leaving rectangular patches here and
there on the yellowing paper. You could only guess at the objects
that lay beneath the dusty layers. The floor was the only thing that
occasionally benefited from the quick lick of a floor cloth.
Caroline’s mother,
who used to take such care about her appearance, had wandered about in
a daze for weeks with the same crumpled black
dress with sweaty patches under the arms. Lifeless blond hair framed
her expressionless face and indifference had nested in the heart
of the young widow.
More
than ever, Caroline felt that her mother was attached to her by an
umbilical cord, she pulled
on as if it were a dog lead as soon
as her little one tried to break away. The young girl was being stifled
in her cocoon of red bricks in Youngman Street, near the busy Sablon
district of Brussels, where you were not even allowed to play in
the street due to the “risk of accident from passing cars”.
No children lived in the street, just a pair of old ladies who lived
between two empty houses. It was a place where nothing ever happened
probably because nobody even stopped there. It resembled one of those
rundown streets imbued with a sense of a place and a past history
which you felt could be revived by brushing against the walls.
One day an unexpected
event wound Caroline up completely: one of the empty houses was about to
be lived in again! From her bedroom
window which looked out onto the street, the young girl could see
everything and she wasn’t the only one. Hidden behind their
lace curtains, the old women were in a festive mood, gazing out
hungrily whilst their tongues were wagging.
When
Caroline returned from school, she saw a light on in the new neighbour’s
house. As there were no streetlights, she was easily able to station
herself on the
pavement opposite without
anyone seeing
her. She stood there for a moment, but not too long to make her
mother worry, just enough to see that the couple had a small boy
of about
twelve. Caroline was overwhelmed with the idea of having a friend
to play with. Certainly she had friends at school, but that was
not the same. School was somewhere you had to work and even break
times
were but dreary interludes. Caroline detested school but she studied
hard so that she could move on as quickly as possible.
The first Sunday after they had moved in, Caroline knocked on the
door hoping to meet the boy. A tall woman wrapped up snugly in a
red cardigan opened the door.
“Hello Miss, I
live in the house on the corner and I saw that you have a child and so …
“That’s right” interrupted the woman. “but
he’s resting at the moment”
“ I will come back later then!”
“
That’s it, another day, sweetheart, another day …”
And with that she shut the door.
Disappointed, Caroline went home. She did not feel like eating much
that night.
The next day she tried
to see the boy again, but the woman said he was busy. The girl was not
easily discouraged and every day
she persisted in going and knocking at the door. However, even though
the excuses varied, the end result was the same. Caroline wondered
why this woman did not want her to meet her son. Wasn’t she
good enough to play with him? Even though her mother neglected
the house, Caroline knew that she always ensured that she had clean,
ironed clothes. No, there must be some other reason, but what?
One evening, when the ground floor rooms were lit up and it looked
as if they were in, Caroline knocked as usual but nobody came to
answer her. She waited a moment then climbed over the fence and jumped
into the courtyard that ran along the right-hand side of the house.
The young girl had to stand on her toes to make herself tall enough
to reach the lit window, and protected by the darkness outside, she
was able to quietly observe what was going on in the living room,
which was full of all sorts of objects. Almost opposite the window
the young boy sat dressed in navy blue, watching the TV. No matter
how much she gesticulated, she was unable to attract his attention;
he was so engrossed in the film. His father was reading by the fireside
and the mother had fallen asleep in the armchair. On the table, which
was not even covered with a tablecloth, there were three empty dirty
plates. He has odd eyes, she thought, eyes which both fascinate and
scare you.
That night she returned
home determined to do whatever it took to attract the attention of her
young neighbour. The next day, she spent
the whole time working out how she could contrive to meet him. He
must go to school somewhere, but where? She had never seen him leave
the house. It was then that the idea came to her to visit the old
ladies that evening. Conscientious watchmen between their knitting
and their tea drinking, they must surely know everything about the
new neighbours. Being smart, the young girl took them flowers on
the pretext that she was simply visiting them to say hello. The two
women seemed delighted at this unexpected visit. Caroline hardly
had time to sit down when they put a large plate of butter biscuits
in front of her and a glass of lemonade. In spite of looking tempting,
the biscuits were soft and a bit off. The old women pressed her: “Eat
up, child, eat up.”
“ No thank you, ladies.”
“
Don’t be shy, go on!”
So as not to upset them, she ate some more. Are they really being
kind or do they want me to eat up their manky food? she wondered.
But Caroline was careful not to let them see her reluctance in case
she could not find answers to the questions she was burning to ask.
“
It’s less quiet in the street than it was before,” she
remarked nonchalantly.
“
Yes, we have seen you standing outside the new neighbour’s
house. Have you spoken to the woman? What did she tell you? Have
you managed to get into the house yet? And have you met the young
boy?”
The questions tumbled out. “Tell us what is it like there?
The father seems a bit odd, don’t you think?”
They did not give her
any time to reply and she felt that they had turned the tables on her.
The old women did not tell her much except
that they had seen the child on the day they’d moved in and
he seemed a little strange.
“
It seemed like he couldn’t walk because his father had to carry
him in,” the older one pointed out.
“
He might have fallen asleep,” suggested the other.
“ No, I am sure that he had his eyes open.”
“
And I am sure that he didn’t.”
Caroline left them arguing.
She didn’t go home immediately,
and as she did most evenings, went to her “observation post” in
the inner courtyard. The father was sitting in the same place, reading,
the mother was dozing, but the young boy wasn’t there any more.
Given the time, he must have gone up to bed. Caroline circles round
the house and found a half-open window. She slipped through it into
a room filled with toys and lit only by the moon. The girl immediately
tried to wake the boy who was lying in his bed, and even though she
shook him, he did not respond.
“ Hey, she murmured, shaking him a little more roughly.
The child remained motionless. Intrigued, Caroline felt for the light
switch and then pulled the sheet off. She uncovered the boy with
his back towards her and he was fully dressed in his old fashioned
navy blue outfit. He still had his shoes on! She tried to move him
gently towards her and let out a small cry; his eye were open, two
staring fixed orbits, dead just like a dolls. Carline felt his cold
hand and stroked his waxy cheeks before turning to leave. But before
she could reach the window, the bedroom door opened.
“What are you doing here?” asked
the father.
“
I …, I just wanted to know why he’s never allowed to
play with me.”
“
Let me explain… Our son died when he was eight and I had
him embalmed. It was the only way to stop my wife from going crazy,
you
understand?”
Yes, she understood completely.
So the next day she knocked at her neighbour’s door and said; “Hello
Miss, please can I play with your son?”
Authors note:
This is based on a true story. A few years ago the embalmed body
of a child of 8 was found in an old house in Normandy, sitting
by the fireplace.
