Cat in Glass (3 page)

“We’ve got to help him,” I said. Bravely, and I now think
rather stupidly, I walked out into the field and flicked a stone at the bull’s broad flank.

The bull looked around, distracted but unconvinced, and Harry yelped, “Don’t, Cathy! He’ll come after us.”

“Nonsense,” I said, hoping the handsome aviator could hear me. “The bull knows us. See?” And I clapped my hands and cried, “Shoo!” as loudly as I could.

Sometimes I think that God must station an angel on the shoulder of every little boy and girl and that only through that device does any child grow to adulthood. My angel must have been hard at work that day, for the bull turned and humped away as if it had been bitten by a fly.

“Shoo!” I said again, and it lumbered off even further.

Luminous with triumph, I turned to Harry. “Stand right here. Keep yelling ‘shoo’ and don’t stop until I tell you to.”

“But, Cathy …” he whimpered.

“Do it, or I’ll twist your ear off.” Poor Harry. I knew all of his weaknesses, even in those days.

So Harry crouched, all the little blue veins in his neck standing out, and screamed, “Shoo!” while I ran to the aid of the dashing young balloonist.

“Can you stand up?” I asked, breathless with a combination of excitements.

“
Oui
, mademoiselle, I think so,” he replied. Oh, my knees nearly turned to butter.

I helped him up. But he winced and jerked when he tried to put weight on his leg, so I told him to lean on me. Lean on me he did, heavily and deliriously, as we hurried
toward the gate in the hedge. He smelled wonderful, like cold air and lightning and peppermint.

When we stood safely on the other side of the gate, I called, “Run, Harry! Run!”

Screaming like a wounded pigeon, Harry tore through after us, even though the bull did not follow him, its attention having apparently wandered from stranded hero to succulent grass. That is how Harry and I at last made the acquaintance of Clotaire, the ace balloonist.

Later that very afternoon, as Clotaire sat before our fire soaking his foot and ankle in an Epsom salts bath, he said a thing which eventually changed our lives. He said, “I owe you a great debt. If there is ever any way in which I can repay it, you must tell me.”

The peculiar look in his sky-blue eyes frosted the bones of everyone in the room, even Aunt Henrietta. Her twitchy eyebrows betrayed the nervousness that lay beneath her facade of haughty disapproval. It seemed as if a cold, sharp wind swept past the fire, for the flames, wavered ever so slightly, though the day was still and mild.

An hour or so later, Father got out our touring car, which he showed off at every opportunity, and drove Clotaire to town. The moment they left the drive, Aunt Henrietta turned to us, her face ratlike in the dim light of the parlor, and said, “You’re not to have anything more to do with that disreputable vagabond. Is that clear?”

I knew, of course, that Clotaire was a disreputable vagabond. It was the very reason I liked him so much. I
already loathed Aunt Henrietta’s imperious commands with such passion that any word from her had the power to make me do just the opposite.

I leapt to my feet and cried, “You’re not our mother! You can’t make us stop seeing him. I hate you. I hate you!”

For which I got my mouth washed out with laundry soap, while Harry stood by, unable to contain a quiet snicker or two. When the ordeal was over, I stumbled teary-eyed up the stairs, sneaked into Mother’s room, and lay down beside her on the bed where she slept. I had a dream, which I remember even now. In it, Mother was well again, and we lived in the copper-roofed house that overlooked the park.

I made up my mind that I would do everything in my power to see Clotaire again, as a means of antagonizing Aunt Henrietta, if nothing else. Harry and I commenced spending virtually every waking hour out of doors, playing games of make-believe, always keeping a sharp eye out for Clotaire’s mighty balloon.

We actually saw him three more times in the course of the next several months. The first two times, he drifted past above the treetops, waving to us. We leapt in the air and waved back to him. But we could not tell whether he called our names or not, for on both occasions he was ascending, and the balloon’s burner roared and gushed flames like a dragon from a fairy tale.

The third time, however, the burner was silent, and Clotaire called down, “I will land in the field!” I was, of course, immediately transported to heights of perfect ecstasy.

I suppose I should tell you that many years later, when I was a full-grown woman, I had a suitor who owned a hot air balloon. I had it on excellent authority that this fellow was an adept balloonist and that his balloon, though it bore an unfortunate resemblance to a large Easter egg, was of the finest make. Yet I never saw him land where he really wanted to, and I never saw him attempt to take off or touch down without at least two strong men on the ground to help him. Whenever I recall Clotaire and that silver ship of his, I am astounded at the amount of control he seemed to have over it. Barring unexpected winds, and even then sometimes, he seemed perfectly capable of piloting his unwieldy craft without any aid whatsoever. That is precisely what he was doing on the occasion I now describe.

Harry and I had already reconnoitered the field once on this particular day, and we knew that the bull was nowhere to be seen. When Clotaire called down to us, we tumbled over one another like a couple of young rabbits as we dashed through the hole in the hedge to meet him. Quite clear of the chestnut tree, the balloon’s varnished wicker basket thudded to the ground. Just as it began to rise again, Clotaire jumped out, carrying one of the anchor lines. In the blink of an eye, he pounded a long brass peg into the ground and tied the line to it. That was that, and nothing could have looked easier.

Clotaire said not a word as he stood gazing at us. His smile felt like a candle flame in the darkness, edged somehow with cold wind and thin air. It made me shiver, frightened me and delighted me all at once.

“Oh please, Mr. Clotaire,” said Harry, clasping his hands before him, enthralled. “Please take us for a ride!”

I nudged him. “Don’t be rude, Harry.”

Clotaire rested one hand on his narrow hips and twisted the end of his golden mustache with the other.

“You might not like it. It’s a strange world from those heights,” he said. How chilly and wonderful those eyes of his were.

I remember my exact reply. Though I didn’t know it then, I could not possibly have chosen more fitting words. “Oh, we’d like it fine, wouldn’t we, Harry? We like strange worlds.”

“Well, we shall see,” said Clotaire, and he smiled again, as mysteriously as an Akkadian statue.

Clotaire lifted us over the rim of the basket as easily as he might have lifted two bags of thistledown and climbed in after us. He gave the anchor rope a surprisingly gentle tug; the brass peg pulled out, and we rose skyward.

For many years I have contemplated the rarities of that voyage. Some might be inclined to doubt their childhood memories of such events. But I can tell you this: I was born with a keen sense of what is real and what is not, and you may take my word for it. What Harry and I saw while peering over the edge of that basket was real.

Clotaire fired the burner, and we rose past the treetops, up into the cold blue cup of the sky. Not even the slightest breeze stirred the afternoon air, and when we stopped climbing we hung almost motionless, as if suspended on a string. Below us, we could see our house, the field, and the woods, and further off, the town.

Folding his arms across his chest, Clotaire said, “You do not yet understand about the worlds. Perhaps you never will, but I shall show you anyway.”

He stretched out his hand and motioned toward the scene below. “This is one world.” Then he snapped his fingers.

Harry and I sucked air as a shadow passed across the sun and a cold draft cut into our bones. I looked up, but I could see no clouds, no hawks or ravens, to account for the shadow. In a moment it was gone.

“And this is another world,” said Clotaire.

Twenty-five or thirty cows had suddenly appeared in the field with the chestnut tree. Some of them had gotten through the gate and were grazing on our lawn, which looked unkempt and weedy. The house needed paint. “In this world, you never moved to the country,” said Clotaire.

Snap. Shadows fluttered across the sun, and we spied a middle-aged woman and two children speeding down the drive in Father’s motorcar. The noise of the engine floated up to us with eerie clarity. “A world in, which your aunt became an avid traveler and learned tolerance from a Katmandese monk.”

Snap. “A world in which the rules of civility are not quite the same.” Two children looking very much like Harry and me came running across the field. We stared down at them, fascinated. Both of them wore fierce grimaces that revealed sharp yellowish teeth like those of wild rodents. The girl threw rocks at us with her powerful arms, and the boy carried a bundle of pointed sticks.

“Cannibal spears!” cried Harry. “
Real
cannibal spears!”

“I want to meet them,” I found myself saying.

“Meet them?” The sky rang like a crystal bowl with Clotaire’s clear laughter. “They would set upon you and kill you at once.” He paused, then added, “Besides, there is something else. They are your counterparts. Touch them, and you cease to exist.”

The boy threw a spear at us. It fell miserably short, but the inhuman rage on his face made me shudder. A great claw of terror tightened around me then, as if I stood alone in a dark hallway at night. “Take me home! Please, please take me home!” I cried.

Clotaire looked at me, his eyes blue suns, flaming and freezing. He smiled the Akkadian smile, snapped his fingers once more, and the old world lay spread below us again like a familiar quilt.

We descended. Clotaire jumped out, anchored the balloon as before, and lifted us from the basket. No one spoke at first. I watched the rise and fall of his broad shoulders as he breathed, in and out, in and out, the smells of peppermint and lightning.

It was Harry who broke the spell of silence. “Cathy! It’s Aunt Henrietta! She’s headed this way!”

The magic evaporated like kerosene on a hot sidewalk. Clotaire saluted us and said, “Adieu. I must be going, but we shall meet again.”

Blood warmed my cold cheeks as I watched him vault back into the basket in a single liquid motion. Already, I heard Aunt Henrietta calling us, her voice as coarse and furious as a crow’s. “Horrid children! No supper for you.”

Harry tugged anxiously at my sleeve.

“Clotaire!” I cried. “Be careful. Don’t let any counterparts touch you.”

Clotaire waved and pulled out the anchor peg. His words drifted down to us above the roar of the burner as the great silver balloon took to the air. “I have no counterparts.”

For many nights after that, I lay in bed and tried to puzzle out a reasonable explanation for what I had seen on that peculiar ride. I never reached any very satisfactory conclusion. At any rate, all things, even my magical memories of Clotaire, grew unimportant in the weeks that followed, as the doctor, a man as large and plump as a thunderhead, came more and more often to our house. Sometimes he stayed the night. He and Father would emerge from Mother’s room in the morning, faces gray and shoulders sagging. Aunt Henrietta would sit in the parlor with them while they drank strong tea or coffee (Father often added brandy to his) and spoke in whispers.

One afternoon well into autumn, the doctor arrived in a great flurry, his round face gleaming with sweat and his thin, white hair plastered to his forehead. When Aunt Henrietta opened the door, he said, “I got here as quickly as I could.” Aunt Henrietta simply nodded and inclined her head in the direction of Mother’s room, whereupon the doctor rushed up the stairs two at a time, huffing like a steam engine.

Harry and I raced after him, and would have followed him into Mother’s room, only Aunt Henrietta grasped us by our collars and said, “You’ll only be in his way.” So we waited—I don’t know how long, a few minutes perhaps—outside that
door, which seemed larger and darker than it ever had before.

When the door opened at last, it was Father who stood there, a faceless silhouette in the afternoon sun that streamed through Mother’s casement. He didn’t say anything. He looked like a very old man, hunched and weary.

At once I felt as if I had swallowed a great chunk of emptiness. I whispered, “Mother!” and made for the space between Father and the doorframe, thinking to dart through and satisfy myself that my fears were unfounded. But he stopped me, of course. He took me firmly by the arm and closed the door behind him. He stood only a moment in the dark hallway. He never even looked at Harry and me. He simply turned his back and walked down the stairs.

On the day of Mother’s funeral, I at first refused to wear the black dress that Aunt Henrietta purchased for me. Standing in my undershirt and bloomers, I tensed every muscle in my face and neck until my whole head shook and my eyes felt as if they would pop from my skull. “I won’t! I want the red one with the flowers! Mother wants it that way!”

At first, Aunt Henrietta tried to reason with me. “Your mother had a good sense of what was proper. She’d have wanted you to show your sorrow.”

“She hates black. You can’t make me wear it!”

Henrietta had a gift for the deep stab and twist. She narrowed her eyes and said, “You had better come to terms with this, child. Your mother doesn’t want anything. Neither
does she hate anything. She is dead and beyond caring about you or anybody else.”

At which point I threw myself on the floor and kicked and screamed until Aunt Henrietta finally got a shoehorn and raised welts on my bare backside with it. No one had ever actually beaten me before, and the whole experience left me so frightened and bewildered that I climbed into the black dress without another word. I tried to tell Father about it, but he had commenced drinking heavily on the day of Mother’s death and didn’t seem very concerned about my problems.

That night, after we had been put to bed, Harry crept into my room. I lay on the wide casement bench, unable to sit without great discomfort, and Harry huddled beside me. The moon was a bright crescent. Its faint light frosted the hills and whispered through the window onto our hands and faces.