The collected stories (10 page)

At night, Mr Rameau led the girls upstairs and waited in the hall with his candle until they were in bed. Then he said sharply, 'Prayers!' - commanding Ann Marie, reproaching Delia - and carried his light haltingly downstairs. He held the candle in his knife grip, as if cowering from the dark.

One week, two weeks. From the first, Delia had counted the days and it was only for the briefest moments - swimming, following Maurice the breadboy, playing the records - that time passed without her sensing the weight of each second.

After breakfast Mr Rameau always said, 'I must go. No vacation for me!' And yet Delia knew, without knowing how she knew, that the man was enjoying himself - perhaps the only person in the cottage who was. One Sunday he swam. He was rough in the water, thrashing his arms, gasping, spouting water from his mouth. Pelts of hair grew on his back and, more sparsely but no less oddly, on his shoulders. He wrestled in the waves with Tony and when he had finished Madame Rameau met him at the water's edge with a dry towel. Delia had never known anyone she disliked more than this man. Her thoughts were kind toward her own father who had written twice to say how much he missed her. She could not imagine Mr Rameau saying that to Ann Marie.

At lunch one day Tony shoved some food in his mouth and gagged. He turned aside and slowly puked on the carpet. Delia put

AFTER THE WAR

her fork down and shut her eyes and tasted nausea in her own throat, and when she looked up again she saw that Mr Rameau had not moved. Damp lips, dry face: he was smiling.

'You are shocked by this little accident/ he said. 'But I can tell you the war was much worse than this. This is nothing. You have no idea.'

Only Tony had left the room. He moaned in the parlor. And they finished their meal while Madame Rameau slopped at the vomit with a yellow rag.

'If you behave today,' said Mr Rameau on the Friday of her third week - when had they not behaved? - 'I may have a surprise for you tomorrow.' He raised a long crooked finger in warning and added, 'But it is not a certainty.'

Delia cared so little for the man that she immediately forgot what he had said. Nor did Ann Marie mention it. Delia only remembered his promise when, after lunch on Saturday, he took an envelope from his wallet and showed four red tickets.

'For the circus,' he said.

Delia looked at Ann Marie, who swallowed in appreciation. Little Tony shouted. Madame Rameau regarded Tony closely and with noticeable effort brought her floating hands together.

Delia felt a nervous thrill, the foretaste of panic from the words she had already begun to practice in her mind. She was aware she would not be asked to say them. She would have to find an opportunity.

She drew a breath and said, 'Excuse me.'

'A German circus,' Mr Rameau was saying. 'I am told they have performed for the President, and they are at this moment in Nice. They have just come from Arabia where the entire circus was flown to perform for a sheik. They will only be in Nice for four days. We will go tomorrow. Of course, if there is any bad behavior between now and tomorrow you'll stay home.'

'Excuse me,' said Delia again. To steady her hand she clutched her empty glass.

Pouring Delia a glass of water, Mr Rameau continued, 'I am told there is no circus like it anywhere in the world. It is lavish in all ways. Elephants, tigers, lions-'

'I won't go to the circus,' said Delia. She was at once terrified and ashamed by what she had said. She had intended to be graceful.

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She had been rude. For the first time this vacation her French had failed her.

Mr Rameau was staring at her.

'I cannot go to the circus,' she said.

He pushed at his mustache and said, 'Well!'

Delia saw that Madame Rameau was rubbing at her mouth with her napkin, as if she wished to remove that part of her face.

Mr Rameau had also seized his napkin. Stiff with fury he snapped the cloth at the crumbs of bread on his shirtfront. 'So,' he said, 'you intend to misbehave?'

'I don't understand.' She knew each word, but they made no pattern of logic. By not going - was that misbehaving?

He faced her. 'I said that if there was any bad behavior between now and tomorrow you'd stay home.'

'Oh, no!' said Delia, and choked. Something pinched her throat, like a spider drawing a web through her windpipe. She gasped and drank some water. She spoke a strangled word, an old woman's croak, and tears came to her eyes from the effort of it.

At his clean portion of table, Mr Rameau watched her struggle to begin.

'I don't go-' The words came slowly; her throat was clearing, but still the spider clung.

'Perhaps you would rather discuss this some other time?'

'I don't want to discuss it at all,' she managed. 'I don't go to circuses.'

'There are no circuses in England?'

'Yes,' she said. The word was perfect: her throat was open. 'There are circuses in England. But I haven't gone since I was very young.'

Mr Rameau said to his wife, 'She has not gone since she was very young.' And to Delia, 'Have you a reason?'

'I don't enjoy circuses.'

'Ah, but you said that you once went! When you were young.' He smiled, believing he had trapped her. 'You enjoyed them then?'

'But I was very young,' she said, insisting on the importance of the word he had mocked. 'I did not know anything about them.'

'The English,' said Mr Rameau, and again he turned to his wife. 'Such seriousness of purpose, such dedication. What is there to know about a circus? It exists purely for enjoyment - there is

AFTER THE WAR

nothing to understand. It is laughter and animals, a little exotic and out of the ordinary. You see how she makes it a problem?'

Mrs Rameau, who had mistaken Delia's gasping for terror, said, 'She does not want to go. Why don't we leave it at that?'

'Why? Because she has not given a reason.'

The words she had practiced formed in her mind, her whole coherent reason. But it was phrased too pompously for something so simple, and as the man would have no reply for it she knew it would give offense. But she was glad for this chance to challenge him and only wished that her French was better, for each time he replied he seemed to correct by repeating it the pronunciation of what she said.

'I don't believe she has a reason, unless being English is the reason. Being English is the reason for so much.'

'Being French' - she was safe merely repeating what he had said: his manner had shown her the rules - 'being French is the reason for so much.'

'We enjoy circuses. This is a great circus. They have performed for kings and presidents. You might say we are childish, but' - he passed a finger across his mustache - 'what of those kings?' He spoke to his wife. 'What of those kings, eh?'

Ann Marie took a deep breath, but she said nothing. Tony made pellets of bread. Madame Rameau, Delia could see, wanted her husband to stop this.

Delia said, 'The animals do tricks. People think they are clever tricks. A tiger jumps through a hoop. An elephant dances. The dogs walk on their back legs -'

'We are familiar with the tricks,' said Mr Rameau testily. 'We have been to circuses.'

'The circus people are cruel to the animals.'

'This is totally untrue!' His hands flew up and Delia thought for a moment that he was about to slap her face.

The violence in his motioning hands spurred her on. 'They are cruel to them in the way they teach the animals to do tricks.'

'She knows so much for someone who never goes to circuses,' said Mr Rameau, and brought his hands down to the table.

'They use electric shocks. They starve them. They beat them.' She looked up. Mr Rameau showed no emotion, and now his hands were beneath the table. 'They bind their legs with wire. They inflict pain on the animals. The animals are so hurt and afraid they do

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these tricks. They seem clever, but it is fear. They obey because they are afraid.'

Delia thought this would move him, but he had begun again to smile.

'You are fifteen. You were born in nineteen sixty-two, the same year as Ann Marie.'

'Yes.'

'So you don't know.'

'I have been told this about the circus by people who do know.'

'Now I am not speaking about the circus. I am speaking about the war. You are very concerned about the animals-'

She hated this man's face.

'- but have you any idea what the Germans did to us in the war? Perhaps you are right - the animals are mistreated from time to time. But they are not killed. Surely it is worse to be killed or tortured?'

'Some animals are tortured. It is what I said.'

But he was still speaking. 'Of course, one hears how bad it was for the Jews, but listen - I was your age in nineteen forty-two. I remember the Germans. The Jews tell one story - everyone knows this story. Yes, perhaps it was as bad for them as they say. I don't speak for other people - I speak for myself. And I can tell you that we starved. We were beaten. Our legs were tied. And sometimes for days we were left in the dark of our houses, never knowing whether we would live to see the light. It made some people do things they would not normally do, but I learned to respect my parents. I understood how terrible it must have been for them. I obeyed them. They knew more than I did and later I realized how dreadful it was. It was not a circus. It was war.'

He made it an oration, using his hands to help his phrases through the air, and yet Delia felt that for all the anonymity of his blustering he was expressing private thoughts and a particular pain.

Madame Rameau said, 'Please be calm, Jean. You are being very hard on the girl.'

'I am giving this young girl the benefit of my experience.'

Still the woman seemed ashamed, and she winced when he began again.

l I have seen people grovel to German army officers, simply to get a crust of bread. It did not horrify me. It taught me respect, and respect is something you do not know a great deal about, from

AFTER THE WAR

what you have said. The Jews tell another story, but remember -it was very bad for us. After the war, many people forgot, but I suffered, so I do not forget.'

'It might be better if we did not go to the circus/ said Madame Rameau.

'I don't want to go to the circus,' said Ann Marie.

Tony had already begun to protest. 'I do! I am going!'

'Yes,' said Mr Rameau and struck his son affectionately on the shoulder. 'We will all go to the circus. The tickets are paid for.'

Delia had resolved to say nothing more.

Madame Rameau said, 'The girl does not have to go, if she would rather stay home with me.'

'If she wishes to stay at home she may stay. So we have an extra ticket. You will come to the circus with us, my dear.'

'I am not sure I want to go.'

'You will go,' he said promptly. 'We will all go. It is what our English guest insists upon.'

Madame Rameau reached for Delia but stopped short of touching her. She said, 'I will leave some soup for you. And a cutlet.'

'No need for the cutlet,' said Mr Rameau. 'She never eats much of what we give her. She will only leave it on her plate.'

'You won't be afraid to be here alone?' Madame Rameau was close to tears.

Mr Rameau answered for Delia. 'It is the animals who are afraid! You heard what she said. She will not be afraid while we are away. She might be very happy.'

His white face was a hard dull slab when in the flower-scented twilight, and just before taking his family away to the circus, he stood in the doorway and said, 'No matches. No candles. My advice to you is to eat now while there is some light, and then go to bed. We will not be late. Eight o'clock, nine o'clock. And tomorrow we will tell you what you missed.'

He sounded almost kindly, his warning a gentle consolation. He ended softly, but just as she thought he was going to lean forward to touch her or kiss her he abruptly turned away, making Delia flinch. He drove the car fast to the road.

Delia ate in the mottled half-dark of the back kitchen. She had no appetite in the dim room, and the dimness which rapidly soaked into night made her alert. The church bell in the village signaled

WORLD S END

eight; the Rameaus did not come back. At nine she grew restive. It was less dark outside with stars and the moon in ragged clouds like a watch crystal. The windows were open, the sound of distant cars moved through the hedges, the trees in the garden - it was a trick of the dark - rattled dry leaves in her room.

She wondered if she were afraid. She started to sing and frightened herself with her clear off-key cry. She toyed with the thought of running away, leaving a vague note behind for Mr Rameau -and she laughed at the thought of his panic: the phone calls, the police, his helplessness. But she was not young enough or old enough to run. She was satisfied with the stand she had taken against him, but what sustained her was her hatred for him. It was not the circus anymore, not those poor animals, but the man himself who was in his wickedness more important than the animals' suffering. She had not given in. He was the enemy and he was punishing her for challenging him. Those last coy words of his were meant to punish her. She went to the doorway to hear the church bell better.

At midnight she anxiously counted and she was afraid - that their car had been wrecked and the whole family killed; afraid of her hatred for him that had made her forget the circus. It was too late to remain in the doorway, and when Delia withdrew into the house she knew by the darkness and the time how he had calculated his punishment. She saw that his punishment was his own fear. The coward he was would be afraid of the thickened dark of this room. It took her fear away.

So she did not hear the car. She heard their feet on the path, some whispers, the scrape of the heavy door. He was in front; Madame Rameau hurried past him, struck a match to a candle and held the flame up. He was carrying his son.

'Still awake?' he said. His exaggerated kindness was mockery. 'Look, she is waiting for us.'

The candle flame trembled in the woman's trembling hand.