The Vanishing Act (5 page)

‘Who pays you to be a priest?’ I asked.

‘My parents had lots of money,’ he said. ‘They died and left it all to me.’ He pulled out a piece of origami paper from his apron and started folding it. ‘They weren’t nice people; they didn’t believe in God.’

I thought of Papa who didn’t believe in God either, but was kind and had invited Mama for tea when she was just a stranger with tangled hair.

‘Maybe they believed in something else,’ I suggested, thinking they might have searched for truth without expectation just like Papa.

‘Pigs,’ he said, ‘they believed in pigs. They had a barn with hundreds and hundreds of them.’

‘Pigs are lovely,’ I said politely. ‘They have soft ears.’

Priest didn’t look like he cared for soft ears. ‘They slept in the barn. Under a big tartan blanket.’

‘The pigs?’

‘No, my parents.’ Priest looked unhappy.

‘But where did you sleep?’

‘In the house, Minou. But talking about this brings up bad memories. It was so quiet at night, not a sound, and it was always dark. Pigs don’t like light, you see. Not even when it comes from across the yard.’ He looked at me. ‘Promise me, Minou, that you will never get a pig.’

‘I don’t think I will,’ I said. ‘I really want a horse.’

‘Horses are nice,’ said Priest.

I still hadn’t convinced Papa that I needed a horse. Every time I asked he said, ‘You have two feet and can run very fast. Probably faster, Minou, than a horse.’

I picked up the dead boy’s shoe from the floor of the blue room. I didn’t tell him my secret. Instead I wondered what had happened to him. The shoe was cold and greasy with salt. I looked down at my own boots. They were getting too small, squeezing against my toes when I ran. Mama had ordered them from the boatmen, but first she made me stand on a piece of paper in the kitchen so she could trace
the shape of my feet. Before handing the sheet to the boatmen she decorated her drawing of my feet with palm trees, roses and a pelican busy swallowing a large and frightened fish.

We called for Papa to come and see her drawing. After studying it intently he told Mama that he liked it very much, especially the fish.

Mama laughed. ‘But why the fish? It’s getting eaten.’

‘I know,’ said Papa. ‘But it has such lovely symmetry and its scales are all equal in size.’

And Mama put her arms around him and kissed him on the mouth for a long time. Papa blushed, but looked happy and patted me on the head a little too hard as he walked back to his study.

After he left, Mama grew serious. She studied the drawing. ‘Your feet will take you many places, Minou,’ she said, adding another line to the pelican. ‘No one is destined to stay on one island alone. We all need to see at least three of the seven seas in our life time, little one.’

I couldn’t imagine my feet taking me anywhere else but around the island, but I didn’t tell her that.

By now it was getting light. The pine trees outside
got their colour back, and the dead boy’s ear looked more blue than grey. I noted in my book:

I looked through my notes and drawings. I already had quite a few, but I was convinced that Mama would want to hear more. Papa had searched the dead boy’s pockets, and hadn’t found anything that could tell us who he was or where he was going. I looked at his gold button, thinking hard. Then I got the idea. I could write a story for Mama. About the dead boy. And I could give it to her when she came back.

I found a blank page in my notebook and began to write, with the shoe still in my lap.

I paused, and read it out loud. The dead boy looked as if he liked the story, and when I glanced at Mama on the wall I felt certain that she would like it too. I sat for a moment pondering what Boxman might tell Mama if he knew about the dead boy. He was good at making up stories. Much better than me.

In the kitchen Papa’s bucket rang hard against the floor. He was home. The raven, flapping wildly, left the windowsill and took refuge in the nearest pine tree, only to return a moment later.

I closed the notebook. I would read the boy his story when it was finished.

‘T
here you are, my girl,’ Papa said cheerfully, and winked at me in a way that made his face look all scrunched up and funny. He was busy hanging up the nets and in the middle of the floor sat the bucket, full of shiny black fish.

‘Why are you back so early, Papa?’

‘There is too much work to do.’ Papa finished the nets, and stood back, inspecting them. Then he pulled off his boots. ‘I didn’t go on my philosopher’s walk. Have you been sitting with the dead boy?’

‘Yes, Papa.’

‘Did you tell him about Descartes, Minou?’ Papa put his boots next to the rack where Mama’s shoes still sat in neat rows. ‘I have covered quite a
lot of it myself, but it never hurts to repeat the good bits. Although,’ Papa said, ‘I think there is a distinct possibility that he already knows about Descartes. He looks wise, doesn’t he?’

‘Maybe I can tell him about Uncle and how we are all related,’ I suggested.

‘Yes,’ Papa agreed, ‘sadly that’s something most people don’t know. There is nothing quite as melancholy as when historical facts are not acknowledged, don’t you think, Minou?’ Then he added, almost as an afterthought, ‘He is in excellent condition, isn’t he, my girl? Nice and frozen.’

No Name barked at the door and when Papa let him in he ran straight to the ice-cold oven and sniffed it with a whimper.

I picked him up and held him close to my chest. ‘She is not here, No Name,’ I whispered. ‘But she is coming back.’

‘Have you told Boxman about the dead boy?’ Papa went to the fireplace and added more wood to the fire.

‘Not yet, Papa.’

‘Then you better go and see him now, my girl. The boatmen are coming the day after tomorrow. I don’t think we will be able to straighten his knee.
Boxman might have to make a special box for him.’

Papa and Boxman hadn’t spoken much since the shoe funeral. Boxman no longer came for coffee on the morning of the delivery boat, and Papa no longer waited on the beach with the rest of us, but instead collected his deliveries after Boxman had left. When I asked Papa why, he said, ‘We just have different ways of doing things, my girl. There is nothing to worry about.’

Papa held the door for No Name and me as we left the house. ‘Remember to tell Boxman about the dead boy,’ Papa reminded me, as No Name and I left the house. ‘Don’t just play and forget about it.’

The morning was bright and white. No Name tumbled ahead of me as we went along the forest path. The pines stood tall and wide, their branches heavy with snow. Two rabbits crossed the path, but No Name didn’t have time for them. He kept getting up on his hind legs, waving his front paws at the falling snow.

No Name was good at tricks—so good that Boxman was sure that he had performed before coming to the island. Boxman had written a letter to his old circus in Berlin, asking if they knew a dog with brown eyes and marvellous circus skills.

‘It’s very far to Berlin,’ I said sceptically.

‘Crazier things have happened,’ said Boxman. ‘No Name is a really special dog.’

Boxman asked me to do a drawing of No Name to accompany his letter and I drew him, daringly jumping through a burning hoop. It was the best picture I had ever done, and I wrote my name in the corner with a note politely asking the circus to return it.

No Name liked a lot of things. But he was especially fond of church on Sundays. He would bark when I brought him back, as if he were telling Boxman about all the exciting things that Priest had said.

Sometimes I wanted to tell Boxman about Priest’s sermon too. Boxman liked everything to do with space. He had to keep up with all the new information, he said, in case Cosmina decided to come back from the Himalayas.

‘When you love someone,’ he said, ‘it’s important to be able to talk to her.’

One day, while Boxman was preparing tea in the corner, I read him the notes I had taken during the sermon, ‘God made two good lights. The great light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the
night. He also made the stars.’

Boxman liked that, and wanted to know if Priest had said anything else about the stars. I shook my head and asked instead why he never came to church. Boxman answered that Priest’s origami reminded him of Cosmina, and that sitting in church made him sad. She too had fidgety hands, he explained, and was always pulling apart pieces of paper.

‘Bits and pieces would whirl around the house,’ he said. ‘Like snow and hail and rain. Later we would find paper in our tea, in the paint and in the honey.’

No Name took off when we got closer to the barn. He sprinted down the path and by the time I arrived he was already sitting next to Boxman, greeting me with a happy bark, as if he was surprised and delighted that I had come to visit.

Boxman was sandpapering the lid of a dark blue box, and the barn smelled deliciously of sawdust and paint. On the table sat the open box. A naked woman with large breasts was painted along the side. She had a whip in her mouth and smiled in a sort of uncomfortable way. ‘La Luna’ was written in large curly letters just above her breasts.

‘Is that La Luna?’ I asked, feeling the dry paint with my fingertips.

Boxman nodded, drawing his cape tighter against the cold.

‘She looks brave.’

Boxman stepped back and looked at La Luna. ‘She is not afraid of anything,’ he said. ‘You could take her to the darkest room at the end of the world and she still wouldn’t be scared.’

Then Boxman asked me if I wanted to star in a trick. I nodded, but then felt nervous. I wasn’t brave like La Luna.

‘Take off your shoes,’ he said. ‘And lie still.’

I climbed into La Luna’s box, notebook in hand.

‘Sawing a woman in half is no funny business.’ He paused at the lid. ‘Do you need the notebook?’ he asked.

I nodded.

‘Right,’ he said, ‘let’s get started.’ Boxman took a deep breath, then called out in his circus voice, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen! You are about to see a trick never before accomplished quite like this. Be prepared, be warned, watch every step, this is real, this is frightening, this is,’ he declared, ‘Minou, the Fearless!’

Boxman closed the lid with a flourish and I
could no longer hear his voice. Darkness took over and I thought of God creating the world and the thin layer covering the deep. I held my breath and tried to act like Minou the Fearless, but felt instead that I was sinking deeper and deeper into a dark ocean, with Mother’s hair, tentacles of red, reaching for me.

‘Boxman,’ I knocked on the lid. ‘Let me out.’

When Boxman’s face and the dusty ceiling appeared above me, I searched my mind for something to tell him that didn’t involve La Luna.

‘Do you think,’ I asked, still lying down, with the notebook in my arms, ‘that No Name knows how far it is to the church, just by looking at the bell tower?’

I had thought about this for quite some time and had saved it for one of our conversations. Even though Boxman wasn’t a philosopher, he did know a lot about space.

Boxman lit a cigarette as I climbed out of the box. He had nice hands. They were always dotted with paint and he wore a gold ring on the right hand, set with a dark red stone.

I thought that he really shouldn’t be smoking in the barn with all that hay lying around, and
then wondered if he was disappointed in my circus performance.

‘I don’t know what he sees,’ said Boxman, ‘but I know what he hears. When the church bell rings, even if it’s in the middle of the night, he waits for you at the door.’

It was true. No Name was always ready when I came to pick him up. He liked everything about church. Not just the sermons and Priest’s origami, but also the church paintings that covered the walls and arched ceilings. He would stare at them enchanted throughout the service.

One morning when it was raining and Priest was doing his gymnastics inside, he told Mama and me that they were called frescoes.

‘Frescoes tell stories,’ he said, swinging his arms around in big circles. ‘Stories about God.’

The largest, Mama’s favourite, was of John the Baptist, painted in faded blues and reds. John was knee-deep in a river baptising a man amongst reeds and fish.

Priest stopped swinging his arms, pointed to John the Baptist, and said with conviction, ‘God is in that painting, Minou. He is right there asking me to give him everything I have.’

‘What do you mean, Priest?’ I said. ‘What does he ask for?’

‘My life, Minou.’ Priest smiled. ‘My pretzels, my light bulbs, my origami, everything.’

‘But where is he?’ I asked, staring at the fresco.

‘He is nowhere,’ Mama said quite loudly, next to me. ‘That painting, little one, is made up of magenta red and cobalt blue, and a great deal of artistic ability.’

Priest continued to talk as if he hadn’t heard Mama. ‘Look closely, Minou,’ he said and began to walk on the spot, lifting his knees high. ‘God is there,’ he puffed. ‘He is in the river, in the fish and in the man being baptised.’

I looked at the fresco, while listening to Priest, who exclaimed a loud ‘wahh wahh uhh’ on every knee-lift. The baptised man, head above water, looked surprised, as if he had seen the overweight octopus and the sunken city all at once. But, no matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t see God and I wondered if No Name, sitting next to me, head sideways, squinting at the fresco, might be seeing what I couldn’t.

Just above the entrance to the church was a fresco of a large black dog, teeth glinting in a dangerous smile. He was dancing in a row of angels.

‘That’s the devil in disguise,’ said Priest.

I thought it was silly of the devil to dress up as a black dog. But the angels seemed too busy dancing in their long flowing dresses to notice that they were holding hands with a dog. No Name, as if he knew perfectly well that the black dog wasn’t who he pretended to be, would look suspiciously at the fresco every time we left the church.

A stained-glass window at the end of the church showed Theodora and her beloved goat next to the Apostle Paul. Theodora’s hands were large. She held a brick in one and a paddle in the other, and looked big and strong next to Paul.

Priest often looked at Theodora with admiration. ‘You wouldn’t want to mess with her,’ he said.

‘Was she a real queen?’ I asked.

‘In a way she was,’ he said. ‘She wanted to be a queen so much that she bought the whole island and had her portrait painted.’ Priest went into a deep back-bend, folding his hands awkwardly behind him, and added with a laboured voice, ‘And she always wore a crown.’

Mama had found some of Priest’s origami paper in the pulpit and was enthusiastically folding away. ‘What a sad, lonely life. Sitting on a tiny island
reading philosophy in the middle of nowhere.’ Mama sent a crane that didn’t seem to have any wings crashing to the floor. She looked out over the pews. ‘This is like being at the wheel of a great big ship, isn’t it?’ she said.

‘God’s boat?’ said Priest and added a ‘wahh wahh uhh,’ before laughing. ‘I like that. It provides steady sailing through a stormy sea.’

‘Did you learn that exercise when you were in Japan?’ I asked.

‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘From Hoshami. I met him at the International Pretzel Competition in Tokyo. We shared second place. Hoshami could climb trees like a cat. I tried climbing the apple tree once, but I just ended up scaring the rabbits. And myself.’

Priest had read Theodora’s journal, and knew everything there was to know about her.

‘There are many things to be learnt from Theodora’s experiences,’ he said. ‘She lived alone, yet she managed to build the church and the houses and stay warm in winter. And she read three whole chapters of philosophy every day without fail. She even wrote sermons and tried them out on her goat.’

I looked at the stained glass window. ‘Why is she holding a paddle?’

‘She canoed down the Thames in a hailstorm,’ said Priest. ‘She also climbed the highest mountain in Norway. She was a remarkable woman.’

Theodora and her goat were buried in the same grave. No one knew the exact circumstances of how they died, except that they had died together.

Boxman thought that Theodora had attempted a magic trick and that it had gone terribly wrong. But Mama disagreed.

‘That woman had no imagination,’ she protested. ‘Just take a look at her. She was all reason and purpose.’

‘But what kind of trick?’ I asked.

Boxman looked at me. ‘Some tricks are so dangerous, Minou, they are best not spoken about.’

Papa thought that it was impossible to know what had happened to Theodora and her goat and therefore silly to speculate.

But Priest told me in a matter-of-fact voice that Theodora’s goat had climbed the stairs to the unfinished church tower, leapt over the edge, and landed on Theodora, who was digging a well right next to the tower.

They were buried at the very same spot when the delivery ship arrived a week later, pulling deep with
four hundred and thirty-six bricks for the unfinished wall.

‘Did the goat think it could fly?’ I asked Priest.

‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘or maybe it just stumbled.’

Theodora had noticed a change in her goat before the disaster. As she was not one to use big sentimental words, it was noteworthy, said Priest, that in her last journal entry she described her goat as staring out towards sea with a ‘peculiar otherworldly longing’.

The boatmen wrote a note on the final page of her diary saying that Theodora still wore her crown when they found her and that they had taken payment for the bricks out of her money tin.

I imagined the goat looking at the world from the church tower; at the ocean, the horizon and maybe the sunrise. I imagined how it might have thought
today is the day
and leapt, waving its little hooves around.

I helped finish the lid to La Luna’s box. Boxman had taught me how to paint, and I liked the way it swished when I painted in straight soft strokes. Boxman decide to add gold stars around La Luna’s name. His hand moved steadily along the box,
frequently dipping the tiny brush in the jar. After a while he stretched, and went to the apothecary’s desk to make some honey sandwiches. I sat down with No Name on a bale of hay, scratched his ears and in a whisper told him of the story I was making up about the dead boy, and how I thought that Mama would like it. And No Name looked at me as if he agreed.