The Water Mirror (3 page)

“But I can't see, Merle! I've been nothing but a
millstone around people's necks all my life.”

“Did they make you think that at the home?” Merle gave Junipa
a searching look. Then she took her narrow white hand. “Anyhow, I'm glad
you're here.”

Junipa smiled in embarrassment. “My parents abandoned me when I was
just a year old. They left a note in my clothes. They said that they didn't want
to raise a cripple.”

“That's horrible.”

“How did you land in the home?”

Merle sighed. “An attendant in the orphanage once
told me that they found me in a wicker basket floating on the Grand Canal.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Sounds like a fairy tale, huh?”

“A sad one.”

“I was only a few days old.”

“Who would throw a child into the canal?”

“And who would abandon one because it couldn't see?”

They smiled at each other. Even though Junipa's blank eyes looked
right through her, Merle still had the feeling that her glances were more than an empty
gesture. Through hearing and touching Junipa probably perceived more than most other
people.

“Your parents didn't want you to drown,” Junipa
declared. “Otherwise they wouldn't have taken the trouble to lay you in a
wicker basket.”

Merle looked at the floor. “They put something else in the basket.
Would you like to—” She stopped.

“—see it?” Grinning, Junipa finished the sentence.

“I'm sorry.”

“You don't have to be. I can still touch it. Do you have it
with you?”

“Always, no matter where I go. Once, in the orphanage, a girl tried
to steal it. I pulled all her hair out almost.” She laughed a little shamefacedly.
“Oh, well, I was only eight then.”

Junipa laughed too. “Then I'd better put mine up in a knot for
the night.”

Merle touched Junipa's hair gently. It was thick
and as light as a snow queen's.

“Well, so?” Junipa asked. “What else was in your wicker
basket?”

Merle stood up, opened her bundle, and pulled out her most prized
possession—to be precise, it was her only one, besides her sweater and the simple
patched dress she had for a change of clothes.

It was a hand mirror, about as large as her face, oval and with a short
handle. The frame was made of a dark metal alloy, which so many in the orphanage had
greedily eyed as tarnished gold. In truth, however, it was not gold and also not any
other metal anyone had ever heard of, for it was as hard as diamond.

But the most unusual thing about this mirror was its reflective surface.
It wasn't made of glass, but of water. You could reach into it and make little
waves, yet never a drop fell out, even when you turned the mirror.

Merle placed the handle in Junipa's open hand and carefully closed
the blind girl's fingers around it. Instead of feeling the object, she first put
it to her ear.

“It's whispering,” she said softly.

Merle was surprised. “Whispering? I've never heard
anything.”

“You aren't blind, either.” A small, vertical furrow had
appeared in Junipa's forehead. She was concentrating. “There are several
voices. I can't understand the words,
there are too many
voices, and they're too far away. But they're whispering with each
other.” Junipa lowered the mirror and ran the fingers of her left hand around the
oval frame. “Is it a picture?” she asked.

“A mirror,” Merle replied. “But—don't be
scared—it's made of water.”

Junipa betrayed no sign of astonishment, as if this were something
entirely ordinary. Only, when she stretched out a fingertip and touched the water
surface, she flinched. “It's cold,” she said.

Merle shook her head. “No, not at all. The water in the mirror is
always warm. And you can put something in it, but when you pull it out again, it's
dry.”

Junipa touched the water once more. “To me it feels
ice-cold.”

Merle took the mirror out of her hand and stuck her index and middle
fingers in. “Warm,” she said again, now almost a little defiantly.
“It's never been cold, as long as I can remember.”

“Has anyone else ever touched it? I mean, except you.”

“Nobody so far. Just once, I gave permission to a nun who came to
visit us in the orphanage, but she was terribly afraid of it and said it was a work of
the Devil.”

Junipa pondered. “Maybe the water feels cold to anyone else except
the owner.”

Merle frowned. “That could be.” She looked at the
surface, which was always slightly in motion. Distorted and
quivering, her reflection looked back.

“Are you planning to show it to Arcimboldo?” Junipa asked.
“After all, he knows all about magic mirrors.”

“I don't think so. At least not right away. Maybe later
sometime.”

“You're afraid he might take it away from you.”

“Wouldn't you be?” Merle sighed. “It's the
only thing that I have left of my parents.”

“
You
are a part of your parents,
don't forget.”

Merle was quiet for a moment. She considered whether she could trust
Junipa, whether she should tell the blind girl the whole truth. Finally, after a
cautious glance toward the door, she whispered, “The water isn't
everything.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can stick my whole arm into the mirror and it doesn't come
out on the other side.” In fact, the back side of the oval was of the same hard
metal as the frame.

“Will you do it now?” asked Junipa in astonishment. “I
mean, right now this minute?”

“If you want.” First Merle let her fingers slide into the
interior of the water mirror, then her hand, finally her entire arm. It was as if it had
vanished completely from this world.

Junipa reached out her hand and felt from Merle's shoulder to the
rim of the mirror. “How does it feel?”

“Very warm,” Merle reported. “Comfortable, but not
hot.” She lowered her voice. “And sometimes I feel
something else.”

“What?”

“A hand.”

“A . . . hand?”

“Yes. It grasps mine, very gently, and holds it.”

“It holds you fast?”

“Not
fast
. Just . . . oh,
well, it just holds my hand. The way friends do. Or—”

“Or parents?” Junipa was looking at her intently. “Do
you believe that your father or your mother is in there holding your hand?”

It was uncomfortable for Merle to speak about it. Nevertheless, she felt
that she could trust Junipa. After a brief hesitation, she overcame her shyness.
“It could be possible, couldn't it? After all, they were the ones who put
the mirror in the basket with me. Maybe they did it to stay in contact with me, so that
I'd know that they are still . . . somewhere.”

Junipa nodded slowly, but she didn't appear to be completely
convinced. Rather, understanding. A little sadly she said, “For a long time I
imagined that my father was a gondolier. I know that the gondoliers are the handsomest
men in Venice. I mean, everyone knows that . . . even if I can't
see them.”

“They aren't
all
handsome,”
Merle objected.

Junipa's voice sounded dreamy. “And I imagined for
myself that my mother was a water carrier from the
mainland.”

People said that the water carrier women who sold drinking water on the
streets from huge pitchers were the most attractive women far and wide. And as in the
case of the gondoliers, this story did possess a kernel of truth.

Junipa went on, “So I used to imagine that my parents were both
these two very beautiful people, as if that would say something about me. About my true
self. I even tried to excuse them. Two such perfect creatures, I said to myself,
couldn't see themselves with a sick child. I talked myself into thinking it was
their right to abandon me.” Suddenly she shook her head so hard that her pale
blond hair flew wildly around her. “Today I know that's all nonsense.
Perhaps my parents are good looking or perhaps they're ugly. Perhaps they
aren't even alive anymore. But that has nothing to do with me, you understand?
I'm me, that's the only thing that counts. And my parents did wrong because
they simply threw a helpless child out onto the streets.”

Merle had listened, perplexed. She knew what Junipa meant, even if she
didn't understand what that had to do with her and the hand in her mirror.

“You mustn't fool yourself, Merle,” said the blind girl,
and she sounded much wiser than her years. “Your parents didn't want you.
Therefore they put you in that wicker basket. And so if someone is reaching out a hand
to you in your mirror, it doesn't necessarily have to be
your father or your mother. That thing you are feeling is magic, Merle. And with magic
you have to be careful.”

For a moment Merle felt anger rising in her. Wounded, she told herself
that Junipa had no right to say such a thing, to rob her of her hopes, all the dreams
she had when the other person in the mirror held her hand. But then she understood that
Junipa was only being honest and that honesty is the most beautiful gift that a person
can give to another at the beginning of a friendship.

Merle shoved the mirror under her pillow. She knew that it wouldn't
break and that she could press the pillow as hard as she wanted onto the surface of the
water without it becoming wet or sucking up the liquid. Then she sat back down next to
Junipa and put her arm around her. The blind girl returned the hug and so they held each
other like sisters, like two people who have no secrets from each other. It was such an
overpowering feeling of closeness and mutual understanding that for a while it even
surpassed the warmth of the hand in the mirror and its calm and strength, with which it
had won Merle's trust.

When the girls released each other, Merle said, “You can try it
sometime, if you want.”

“The mirror?” Junipa shook her head. “It's yours.
If it wanted me to put my hand in, the water would have been warm for me.”

Merle felt that Junipa was right. Whether it was the
hand of one of her parents that touched hers inside there or the fingers of
something entirely different, it was clear that they accepted only Merle. It might even
be dangerous if another person pushed so deeply into the space behind the mirror.

The girls were sitting there together on the bed when the door opened and
Eft came in. She was bearing the evening meal on a wooden tray, substantial soup with
vegetables and basil, along with some white bread and a pitcher of water from the well
in the courtyard.

“Go to sleep when you've unpacked,” lisped the woman
behind the mask as she left the room. “You'll have all the time in the world
to talk with each other.”

Had Eft been eavesdropping? Did she know of the mirror under Merle's
pillow? But, Merle told herself, she had no reason to mistrust the housekeeper. Eft had
so far been very friendly and welcoming. The mere fact that she hid the lower part of
her face behind a mask didn't make her an evil person.

She was thinking again about Eft's mask as she began to fall asleep,
and half-asleep she wondered whether everyone didn't wear a mask sometimes.

A mask of joy, a mask of sorrow, a mask of indifference.

A mask of you-can't-see-me.

I
N
A DREAM
M
ERLE MET THE
F
LOWING
Q
UEEN
.

It seemed as if she were riding through the waters of the lagoon on a
being of soft glass. Green and blue phantoms beat against them, millions of drops, as
warm as the water inside her mirror. They caressed her cheeks, her neck, the palms of
her open hands as she held them against the current. She felt that she was one with the
Flowing Queen, a creature as unfathomable as the sunrise, as the power of thunder and
lightning and the storm, as incomprehensible as life and death. They dove down under the
surface, but Merle had no trouble breathing, for the
Queen was in
her and kept her alive, as if they were two parts of one body.

Swarms of shimmering fish traveled along beside them, accompanying them on
their journey, whose destination became less and less important to Merle. It was the
journey alone that mattered, the oneness with the Flowing Queen, the feeling of
comprehending the lagoon and sharing in its beauty.

And although nothing else happened, other than her gliding along with the
Flowing Queen, it was a dream more marvelous than any Merle had dreamed for months, for
years. In the orphanage her nights had consisted of cold, the bite of the fleas, and the
fear of theft. But here, in the house of Arcimboldo, she was finally safe.