The Painting (23 page)

Said to get started right away, says the other one, whose cheek bulges with a wad of chewing tobacco.

Jorgen grumbles and walks over to the stack of new wood. He leans over the piece of wood, measures it, and marks the cut lines in pencil. Here, he says, thrusting the marked wood into their hands. He tells them to saw the wood two meters by two meters. For chickens, you need a minimum of a half square meter per bird or they go crazy from being cramped up. For pigeons, probably more.

All morning, they measure and cut and pound nails. The boys follow his lead, and after a while, Jorgen’s mind unhooks from its fury and latches on to work, the grip of a hammer between his ice-cold hands, and the smell of fresh cedar. Late morning, a dull drumming showers the air. They halt their hammering. Coming down the main road, the National Guard, fifty or more, carries a procession of coffins, a kepi of a soldier on top of each one. A drummer beats out a funeral march on a black palled drum. A small crowd of civilians, with heads bowed, follows, and at the end of the gathering a group of soldiers play the recorder. The music roars over the backyard, and the three of them stand frozen, watching. Blood rushes to his temples and Jorgen feels dizzy, his stomach knots up. One of the clerks takes off his hat and puts it on his chest, bowing his head. Jorgen stares at a black coffin. If she doesn’t come by at lunch, he’ll go by her room during a lull. He’ll find her.

By noon, three lofts are nearly done. Jorgen affixes a thin dowel rod as a perch. For a nesting area, he nails a platform raised up from the floor. When Jorgen looks up again, Svensk is standing on the porch.

How about lunch, says Svensk, waving a satchel in the air.

Jorgen sets down his hammer. You brought me lunch?

Svensk smiles sweetly and bats his eyes. Would I do such a thing?

Jorgen walks over to the porch.

Natalia dropped it off.

She was here? asks Jorgen. When was she here?

Svensk reaches into the satchel, pulls out a sandwich, and begins eating.

When was she here?

Svensk looks at him curiously. Not too long ago. I don’t know.

Is she still here?

No. She went to her brother’s funeral, says Svensk.

Alone?

Svensk stops chewing and studies Jorgen. Pierre said he was too busy. She dropped off this bag of food and Pierre handed it to me. Said we could have it because we’d be working all day and night to make these cages. He just hired me to help you. Lousy pay. The bastard.

They sit and eat and Jorgen thinks about the coffins that went by earlier; perhaps one was Edmond’s. He chews his sandwich, not tasting anything.

Pierre teased her about joining the army, says Svensk.

Jorgen stares at his sandwich. What did she do?

She smiled and walked out the front door. Svensk puts down his sandwich and looks at Jorgen closely. I thought you fell for the real pretty ones.

It’s not that, he says, feeling his face turn crimson. He has time, he thinks, and most likely, she won’t go. Doing domestic things like making sandwiches, hardly the mindset of someone heading to war. She’ll stumble onto someone in need and suddenly that will be her new mission. His face brightens a little, and he watches the birds slice the air, listening to the whoosh of their wings. And now that his worry eases, he thinks of the book he found in the office, an old copy of Irving’s
Rip Van Winkle
with an author’s preface. Struck by the words—they seemed to be written with him in mind—he memorized them:
So the traveller that stragleth from his own country is in a short time transformed into so monstrous a shape, that he is faine to alter his mansion with his manners, and to live where he can, not where he would
.

Do you remember that scam we did with that old man? asks Svensk.

Jorgen stiffens. He knows exactly what Svensk is talking about.

We took that idiot man for his entire paycheck, says Svensk.

Let’s skip it, says Jorgen.

It was great.

Drop it.

You don’t feel bad about that, do you? asks Svensk.

The man had sloped shoulders and a large, idiot forehead, his fingers thick and broad, as if they’d all been smashed in a door. Jorgen came up with the idea. They told the man if he bought their raffle tickets, he might win a year’s worth of salary. When the man hesitated, they told him they had the special tickets, the ones more likely to win. Other people were selling gold tickets, but they had blue ones. Blue was better.

Well, I don’t feel bad, says Svensk. That guy was stupid.

Jorgen smashes his sandwich wrapping. He wasn’t right in the head.

All winter that man asked about the winning ticket. Did he win? When would he win? By spring, the man finally forgot about it and stopped asking.

Svensk finishes his lunch. You were the one who came up with the idea. I was thinking about it because of the stuff you took from Pierre.

Jorgen grabs his arm. Don’t mention that again.

Jesus, I won’t, says Svensk, his eyes narrowing. It just seems like we are doing the same thing, but it’s even better, isn’t it? We can make more money from Daniel and his friends. I wish I thought of it. Svensk rises and stomps his boots on the wooden porch. The first raindrops fall. Svensk holds out his hand. A drop splatters. Shit, says Svensk. The back door swings open and closed, and Jorgen glances over, but no one is there. She’ll come again, he thinks. At least she hasn’t left yet.

O
UR
F
ATHER
. N
ATALIA MURMURS
the words, trying to make sense of them. People are dressed in black and the women are crying. A funeral for so many young dead men. The trees are stripped of leaves and limbs. Soon, winter’s harsh grip. Heads bow under black umbrellas. This is our horrible fate, she thinks. Off to the side, behind the widows and the children who have lost their fathers, Natalia stands motionless, her hair getting soaked in the hard rain. Edmond, Edmond, can you hear me?

Our Father. How could, why would a father allow such a thing? A good father would not, a caring father, a father of love, a divine father. And if there is no father of love? She feels her heart wringing itself into a tight knot. Have we fallen so far from grace that He’s turned His back?

A little girl hugs her mother’s legs. I did that to Edmond when I was a girl, she thinks. A wave of grief clutches, she breathes it in, her lungs tightening. The wind rattles bare branches. Edmond, his name written on the wood in red paint, now smearing with the rain. The red, white, and blue of the French flag weep over the wood. Where are you going, my brother? There are the church bells and the trumpet. The women weep and the children grab their mothers’ knees.

You will forget, children, this day and live as if forever holds you, but they
will bury your body underneath the waking world. How can I say Our Father, with head bowed, not shouting Our Father, how could you? The clumps of dirt are now falling; Edmond, who loved me. Children, you will look around at the faces and clenched hands, listen to the blood racing, the heart beating, Our Father, and you will cry out as I do, as Job did, against God, We are innocent. Edmond, sweet Edmond, was pure innocence.

S
HE DOESN’T COME BY
that night, but the birds begin to arrive, cages and cages of pigeons, a formidable wall of metal wiring, great towers of birds looming in the yard, fortifications of silvery black and purple and light mossy green wings. The backyard sounds like the din of women chatting. In rain-soaked pants, Jorgen sits on the porch and stares at them. Mingled with the breeze comes the strong stench of bird droppings. Something frightens them, and they toss themselves up and crash into the wire walls, a new round of shrieks cleaves the night. He wants to open their cages and be rid of them.

One of Pierre’s clerks has almost completed a tall fence around the backyard so the hungry will not steal the birds.

Don’t just sit there, yells Pierre from the back door. Start unloading.

With the tip of his crutch, Jorgen nudges Svensk, who is lying on the porch, half snoozing. As they approach, the pigeons jump around on the bottom of the cage. Svensk reaches into the cage and grabs a bird. It pecks him hard on his thumb.

Fucking bird, he shouts and tosses the bird into the loft.

Be careful, says Jorgen. Any of them die, Pierre said he’d dock us.

Pierre can go to hell. The damn thing bit me.

Jorgen steps inside, finds some old gloves, and hands a pair to Svensk. Jorgen carefully wraps his hands around a bird. Through the gloves, he can feel the small body’s warmth, its heartbeat, a rapid pulse firing. He’s never held a live bird before. Its pulpy vitality startles him.

Just grab it and throw it in, says Svensk.

With his weight balanced on his crutch, Jorgen gently lowers the bird into the loft.

What a stinking job! says Svensk, wringing his hand. This fucking one bit me, too.

In their cages, they are scrambling side to side, screaming.

You’d think we’re slaughtering them, says Jorgen.

Maybe we should.

An hour or so later, they finish and stand on the porch in the dark. Svensk hands Jorgen a bottle of wine.

Look at them, says Svensk.

Jorgen drinks and passes the bottle to Svensk.

This job is all yours, says Svensk. Going to be a lot of work.

He hadn’t thought of this until Svensk said it, he’d been so focused on building the lofts. A hot panic ripples through him. He’ll have to trudge out here each day, three times a day, maybe more, to feed them and give them water, and who knows what else they’ll want? And what if he forgets? If he chooses not to? If he sleeps in or would rather spend the day at the café? What then? He feels his life narrow into a sliver, and he grabs the bottle from Svensk and drinks.

You want this job? asks Jorgen, feeling the wine warm his tired limbs.

Svensk laughs with amusement and slaps Jorgen on the back. It’s all yours. You’re the nanny, not me.

Jesus, says Jorgen.

Svensk laughs louder. It won’t be so bad. They walk over to the lofts and look inside. Svensk says he’s read about these birds. They fly up to eight hundred kilometers in a day at about eighty-four kilometers per hour. They can fly home, from wherever they are, and no one knows how they do it.

I don’t give a damn, says Jorgen.

Svensk laughs again.

Jorgen puckers up his face and turns back to the porch. Svensk gathers his things, says he’ll be back tomorrow. Jorgen shuffles to his room and collapses on his cot. He is not hungry, not anymore, the wine, the exhaustion, and as the night closes down on him, he remembers he needs to feed them. He can hear them squawking from here.

Outside, they hear him coming and begin fluttering and cooing. He walks
to the first cage. The birds turn their heads; orange flat eyes stare at him. Jorgen flinches and steps back. He’s shot mallards and geese, watched them fall from the funnel of sky. Then on the ground, stared into their unseeing dead eyes. There was never a moment of latching on to each other, not like now, falling into the deep hole of an alert eye. Startled at the intensity of the gaze, he looks down at their feet and is amazed by the color vermilion.

Look, he whispers.

He gathers handfuls of seeds, fills their feed bins, and the birds settle down. A stiff outer feather floats to the ground. He picks it up. The white shaft feels as sturdy as a tree branch. He runs his finger along the perfect edge and watches each fine strand find its place again. He climbs the stairs again and feels exhaustion dig deeper. On the night table, he grabs a notebook and writes,
Vermilion feet on the metal wire, and an eye unblinking. Show her this and this and the painting, too
.

I
CAN’T BELIEVE MY
sister is a soldier, says Pierre. What happened to love and marriage and babies?

They are sitting around the table. Natalia smiles thinly at Pierre and taps her fingernails to the red handkerchief cinched around her head.

The candlelight flickers and sways. Jorgen watches her slowly raise her glass to her lips. The glass hits her front tooth, and wine dribbles down her chin. She is deadly still, he thinks, unnervingly so. He waits for her to wipe off the red drops of wine. When she doesn’t, he gestures to her, then hands her his napkin.

How was the funeral? asks Jorgen.

Nice, she says, wiping the wine away, then staring down at her place setting. She tells them countless soldiers were buried and the band played the French national anthem five times along with a seventeen-gun salute. Her voice is monotone, filling up the dead air of the room. She doesn’t tell them it feels as if the veil of politeness has been torn away, and she sees what she’s always sensed. Emptiness. A vacuum of nothingness; everything done from a stiff pose of habit. The evening will be over almost as quickly as it began. Another day. And tomorrow. Soon, she will be gone. There is nothing to love, she thinks, nothing to hate. The only truth: We hover at the cliff of death.

The servant brings out one dish after another: champagne soup, followed by roasted rabbit in mustard sauce, salade verte et fromage blanc, grilled potatoes with rosemary, bread, and bottles of red and white wine.

Look at all this food, says Svensk.

Extravagant, murmurs Natalia.

Yes.
My
extravagance, says Pierre. Even when I throw you a party, you have to complain, don’t you? Perhaps mingling with the lower types in the army will teach you something about humility. My dear sister, let me celebrate in my own way. Pierre deliberately pours himself another glass. How about this? Anything you don’t eat, I’ll give to the beggars outside. That’ll make you happy, won’t it?

She looks at him blankly. I just don’t think—

Stop right there, says Pierre.

I’ll eat the leftovers, says Svensk, slurping his soup.

But you were always different, weren’t you? Pierre says, his sharp nose twitching. The army, he shakes his head, clicking his tongue. Who would have thought? The army. I’ve done my part for France, providing the Parisians with food. And Edmond. He did his part. And now you must go to join the army. Have you heard voices calling you to fight for France? Saint Michael or Saint Catherine or Saint Margaret?