The Vanishing Act Read online

  ‘It’s there to remind me.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Two friends that survived the unspeakable.’ Mama turned around and walked towards the house.

  ‘What happened in the war, Mama?’ I ran after her. ‘With you and Peacock?’

  ‘Don’t ask me that again, Minou.’ Mama stopped at the doorstep to pin up a strand of her hair. ‘You know I can’t talk about it.’ Then she opened the door and went inside.

  It was very late when I finished the scarf. Boxman had stopped playing and the lights in his barn were out. I folded the scarf, buried myself in the blankets and closed my eyes. I fell asleep listening to Papa’s voice and thinking about the ravens. How surprised they must have been all those years ago, when they flew out towards Mama’s rowboat, like twirling, tumbling hats, and saw Peacock sitting in the golden bowl.

  Papa was rummaging through a drawer when

  Papa was rummaging through a drawer when I came downstairs the next morning. A gust of snow followed me through the front door into the warm kitchen. Papa was wearing an old fur hat, and gave me a rare smile as I stamped my boots free of snow on the mat.

  ‘It’s extraordinary, Minou,’ he said, pulling a knife from the drawer as if he had just found a wonderful treasure. ‘I feel young and invigorated.’

  ‘Why, Papa?’ I sat down at the kitchen table, noticing that Papa did in fact look different.

  ‘I am close to finding the beginning, Minou. The first truth.’ Papa poured me a coffee and began to slice the bread vigorously. ‘Ah, if only your mama were here. There are so many things I would like to tell her, Minou.’

  ‘What would you say to her, Papa?’ I asked eagerly.

  ‘Oh, it’s very exciting.’ Papa put two pieces of bread on my plate, and pushed the butter and jam closer to me. ‘First, of course, I would tell her that with a constant temperature of six degrees below zero the dead boy is keeping remarkably fresh.’ Papa fumbled in his pocket and withdrew a crumpled note. ‘I measured the temperature at precise intervals last night, Minou.’ He waved the note in front of me. ‘But there is something else. In the middle of the night, as I was speaking to the dead boy, I saw his face in the shadows. His jaw, his hair, and I realised—’ Papa paused for effect, ‘—that he looks distinctly like a young Descartes.’ He took a gulp of coffee. ‘How strange we didn’t notice that yesterday, Minou.’

  I buttered my bread and watched Papa retrieve his bucket from the cupboard. He seemed to have forgotten what Mama liked. He seemed to have forgotten that she believed in the imagination, and not in Descartes or measurements at precise intervals. Once Mama closed her eyes and let her hand run through No Name’s fur. ‘Try, Minou,’ she said, ‘tell me what he feels like.’

  No Name looked slightly confused, scarf askew, but I closed my eyes and felt his fur.

  ‘Like a pinecone?’ I said, then blushed, feeling I had spoken without thinking.

  ‘A pinecone?’ said Mama, and nodded as if I had just done something special.

  Mama said she could feel snow, little cold shapes in her body, two days before it arrived.

  Most times she was right. But Papa said that, if you say something often enough, you are sure to be right once in a while, and it did snow a lot on the island. And besides, Mama’s predictions often seemed to change with the way she was feeling.

  ‘Did you know, Minou,’ she said one day, ‘that seafarers and explorers of all kinds have visited this island? She looked out at the horizon. ‘I can see them arrive!’

  ‘Who, Mama?’

  ‘A pirate and his men, Minou, on a huge black ship. There is surf spraying from the bow and there, right there,’ Mama pointed, ‘is a silverfin tuna. It’s jumping alongside their ship.’

  ‘Were there silverfin tuna then too, Mama?’

  ‘Oh yes, Minou, there have always been silverfin tuna. This is a wonderful place. We are surrounded by history, little one.’

  I stared in the same direction as Mama, but saw nothing apart from the endless sea, not even the faintest outline of a pirate.

  But on another day Mama said, ‘This is a terrible, terrible place, Minou,’ shaking her head in despair. ‘No one can live on this island and stay sane. Not even Theodora, with her big hands and her “Reason conquers all”.’

  ‘But she did live here,’ I said.

  ‘She died.’

  ‘That was an accident,’ I protested.

  ‘That,’ said Mama, ‘is what everyone wants us to believe, little one.’

  ‘What do you mean, Mama?’

  ‘I mean that reason doesn’t help much when you are stranded on a barren island.’

  A few days before I was born Mama found a black fish. It was beating its tail in the shallow water of a rock pool. Sea salt glittered like small stars on its scaly body, the way, she later told me, that things become bright and visible when something extraordinary is about to happen. Mama had wrapped her scarf around the fish and was going to cook it for dinner. But halfway home, just before the gates, the fish cried out. It was a terrible cry, and as she unwrapped it, it looked straight at her, still crying out, its mouth wide open. It cried out like a cat, a baby, a siren, a rusty pipe, and all of them at once.

  After that Mama wanted nothing to do with the fish, but Papa examined it and declared it to be a fine, healthy specimen and fried it for dinner. For the next two days he was sick in bed. Fever coursed through his body, and he couldn’t stop thinking about the root cellar. The war, he said, was in his blood again.

  I was born three days later, and Mama was certain things would have gone very differently if she had listened to Papa and eaten the fish.

  Everyone knew the story of my birth. Priest said, ‘Your mama was bigger than the church bell, Minou. Every night when I got to bed, I would look at the bell and pray for a safe delivery.’

  Even Boxman, who had come to the island years later, would say, ‘That fish was scary, Minou. Your mama trembled like an actress before the final curtain call.’

  I asked Mama to tell the story of my birth again and again. And she never said no.

  ‘I was walking on the beach, right near the spot where I found the dead fish, when I suddenly felt an odd pain in my finger.’ Mama would hold up her left index finger and look at it curiously. ‘And the pain didn’t stop. It got worse. I sat down on a rock near the fishing spot and noticed that the ocean was unnaturally quiet. It was blank, like a sheet of drawing paper. And then the pain in my finger shot straight into my stomach. It wasn’t just pain, Minou, it felt like the waves had moved from the sea and into me. Soon I didn’t know whether it was me yelling, or if it was the cry of the fish still hanging in the air. When Priest found me I was lying on the sand and you were almost there.’

  ‘Did Priest get scared, Mama?’

  ‘No,’ Mama shook her head. ‘No, he was the finest helper. He put his jacket under me and he held my hand and I remember his eyes, Minou. He looked at me in the kindest way. I kept telling him that the fish was a bad omen and that I could still hear it crying out. But Priest kept saying, “I have it on good authority that it will be a girl and that she will be a blessing to us all.”’ Mama looked at me. ‘I remember everything he said. He talked about pretzels and God, it was good to hear his voice.’

  ‘What happened then, Mama?’

  ‘You were born on Priest’s coat right at the water’s edge. And just as you arrived, your Papa came running down the path. He sat down in the water at my feet and took you in his arms. You were tiny, Minou, with the darkest hair.’

  ‘What did Papa say?’

  ‘He didn’t say much, little one. He was just so happy to see you. He kissed you and held you as if he had always had a little girl to look after. And then the ocean started moving again, one wave after another and you, little one, you stared into the sea like you knew it well. Then you looked at us in turn, at your Papa, at Priest and at me. And your Papa was sure that it was your way of saying hello to all of us.’

  Papa was g
lad that Mama didn’t eat any of the fish. But even though she was right about the fish, he insisted that in general there is only one way to the truth and that is Descartes’ way.

  I put jam on my bread and watched Papa as he buttoned up his coat, and got his nets and bucket ready. I needed to remind him what kind of things Mama liked. But it was difficult. Papa never wanted to talk about her. Like everyone else on the island, he was convinced she was dead.

  I thought she was dead, too, right at the beginning. I even told No Name that she had been swallowed by a great big whale beneath Theodora’s Plateau, one dark eye peering from below the surface of the water.

  No Name looked as if he didn’t quite believe me, but I reminded him of the story of Jonah, and that Mama, with her long red hair and black umbrella, would have caught any whale’s eye, and that she always, always, walked too close to the edge.

  Mama disappeared the morning after the circus performance.

  We had rehearsed for weeks, Mama, Boxman and I. Mama had put a big cross in the calendar for the day of the circus, and Papa and Priest had each received an invitation that she had expertly composed, sitting on a bale of hay in Boxman’s barn with an old black typewriter on her lap.

  Come to the circus!

  Time: 6pm Saturday

  Place: Boxman’s Barn

  Dress: marvellously

  Prepare to be surprised

  A storm reached the island some hours after the circus performance. I had watched from the tower as wind moved sand and pebbles from one end of the beach to the other. Lightning lit up the sky and Priest had rung the church bell until it was all over.

  By morning the storm had passed and the rain was falling softly.

  Papa had stayed in bed and left the fish to their own devices, and Turtle, who was blind and lived under the doorstep, appeared in the kitchen next to the stove. Turtle didn’t venture inside very often, and Mama almost stepped on him while making breakfast. His shell was wet and he looked like a different turtle.

  ‘He is so shiny,’ I said. ‘He is the same colour as the curtain last night, Mama. At the circus.’

  Mama didn’t reply. Instead she paused behind me to smooth the collar of my dress. I had to wear a dress every day and didn’t like it. I preferred wearing pants and a big green jumper with deep pockets, useful for storing things found on the beach. But every morning Mama would say, ‘Something special might happen today, Minou. And then you would want to be dressed for the occasion.’

  The morning Mama disappeared she sat down on the edge of a kitchen chair and looked at me from across the table.

  ‘You should put your hair up, little one,’ she said, leaning over crumbs and coffee cups to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear.

  Her eyes were a darker grey than normal. She looked tired. The door to the blue room was open when I got up. There was a blanket at the end of the bed. And I wondered if Mama had slept there instead of with Papa.

  I shook my head. ‘I am going to visit Priest.’

  Mama got back up and started to wipe the kitchen bench.

  ‘It falls down when I run,’ I explained.

  Turtle headed towards the living room, almost hitting the door.

  ‘Will he be able to find his way out?’ I asked, feeling sorry for him.

  Mama didn’t answer. She took off her apron and placed it on the chair. Then she picked out her purple shoes from the rack—her actress shoes she called them—with heels and a flower sewn on the side, and put them on.

  I could see the ocean through the open kitchen door. A paint tin that must have belonged to Boxman floated on the quiet sea. I thought of how Priest had rung the bell, and how frightened he must have been by the storm.

  ‘Poor Priest,’ I said.

  It was what Mama usually said when we saw the church lit up like a ship on a stormy night.

  ‘Yes.’ She stroked my cheek and smiled a sad kind of smile. ‘Poor Priest.’ Then she picked up Turtle and a black umbrella and walked out into the rain. I could see her walk down the path with the umbrella held high, stepping around the gates, then, swaying slightly in her heels, reaching the beach.

  Papa appeared, standing in an old singlet, looking at the open door and then at Mama’s coffee cup on the table, still full.

  ‘Why is the door open, Minou?’

  ‘Mama has gone for a walk.’

  Papa poured himself a coffee. He looked tired. ‘Is she all right?’

  ‘Yes, Papa.’

  I kept looking at Mama in the distance, mesmerised by her silhouette, partly obscured by the black umbrella. But afterwards I couldn’t remember the last moment I saw her or where she was on the beach. It was like the vanishing act Mama had performed with Boxman the night before. One moment she was there, the next she wasn’t. All I remembered was the swaying of her umbrella.

  Later that afternoon we searched for Mama. We searched the beach and Theodora’s Plateau. Boxman turned his barn upside down; he looked behind the apothecary’s desk and inside every box. And we searched the church. Papa climbed the stairs to the tower, but found nothing apart from Priest’s bed and the large silent bell. I looked in the shed next to the church, but I already knew there wasn’t room for anything else but the rusty machine. Priest even opened the door to his industrial oven.

  The rain turned to snow then back to rain and late afternoon we went back to our house, all terribly wet and cold.

  That night we waited up, sitting around the kitchen table. No Name slept next to the oven, and Priest, who was fond of origami, folded an enormous number of paper cranes.

  ‘Cranes are such graceful animals, don’t you think, Minou? They remind me of your mama,’ he said, his hands working incessantly.

  Papa didn’t say much. He made coffee over and over, and seemed to forget his manners when Boxman started crying and told us that Mama was by far the best circus artist he had ever worked with, better even than Cosmina.

  Boxman turned to Priest, ‘Remember last night? The way she sang?’

  Priest nodded. ‘She was spectacular.’

  Boxman blew his nose on a serviette, ‘A real circus princess. The flower in her …’

  Papa banged the coffeepot down onto the table so hard that the coffee spilled over and burnt his hand. ‘There will be no mention of the circus tonight.’

  ‘But Papa,’ I said.

  ‘Not even from you, Minou.’

  Boxman went home early, but left No Name for me to look after. Priest stayed and told Papa about Moses. But I don’t think Papa listened. He just sat listlessly, staring into an empty cup as Priest recounted Moses’ extraordinary strength in the face of trying circumstances.

  I woke on the floor at dawn, certain that a boat horn had droned somewhere far away. I lay listening, waiting for the horn to sound again, but it didn’t. No Name was sleeping, warm against me. At some stage during the night Papa must have covered us with a blanket. Priest was asleep at the table, and over the chair next to him hung Mama’s apron. Papa moved around the kitchen, clearing the table and making a new batch of coffee.

  That morning I expected Mama to walk through the front door, put on her apron and say, ‘I am home, little one.’ But she didn’t. It was only later that day that I realised Turtle had disappeared as well.

  Papa thought that a wind, unusually strong, had swept like a rope around Mama’s legs and dragged her over the edge of Theodora’s Plateau.

  ‘There are times,’ he explained, his voice low and sad, ‘when the wind blows, fast and high, travelling much faster than you and I can run. When that happens not even an umbrella can temper the fall. There is nothing you can do but to spread your arms and let yourself be carried out.’

  A few days after Mama disappeared I went to visit Boxman. I was almost at his yard when I heard crying. I looked between the trees, and saw Boxman hunched over on a bale of hay. Priest was sitting next to him, patting him on the back.

  ‘She has walked into the ocean, I know it.’ Boxman wiped his eyes with a squ
are of green silk lining from one of his boxes.

  ‘Now, now. I don’t think so,’ said Priest. ‘It was an accident. She loved everyone too much to do such a thing.’

  ‘But you don’t understand. The vanishing act changes people. I kept saying it to her.’

  ‘One circus trick more or less wouldn’t make any difference, dear Boxman. It was all just light-hearted fun.’

  But Boxman didn’t seem to hear Priest. ‘She promised me that she wasn’t going to change. But remember, Priest, I have seen it all before.’ Boxman started sobbing again.

  I don’t think No Name liked hearing Boxman cry. He sat in the middle of the yard, scratching himself, looking mournful. And when I turned around and walked back along the forest path he came running after me.

  We went to the beach. The sky was full of rain and almost as dark as the sea. The horizon was blurred. No Name bounced ahead of me, running through the wet sand. We reached Theodora’s Plateau and went to the edge and looked into the dark, crashing waves below. As we stood there, gazing into the sea, No Name started howling. He howled and howled, his body shaking. And I stood next to him, about to cry. ‘Don’t, No Name,’ I whispered. ‘Please don’t.’ But No Name didn’t listen. He kept howling, staring shakily into the waves below. Then I couldn’t stand it any longer. I picked him up harder than I wanted to and carried him back to Boxman.

  Two months later Priest found one of Mama’s shoes on the beach. Papa was standing on a box in the study looking for Spinoza’s Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione on top of the bookshelf, when we heard shouting from the beach in what sounded like another language. Papa ran out the door without even stopping to put on shoes. Halfway down the path, he turned and called out to me that I was under no circumstances to follow him.

  ‘What language did you speak?’ I later asked Priest.

  ‘I can’t remember,’ he said. ‘It was as if the whole world was in my throat. It could have been any language, Minou, any language at all.’

  I soon realised that everyone was being dramatic, and that I had been both silly and childish to think that a whale could have swallowed Mama. I sat No Name down once more, made sure he was listening and told him that whales on the whole are innocent creatures and that I didn’t know what had come over me. I told him that, because I was the only one on the island thinking in a rational manner, it was up to me to prove that Mama was still alive and to find her. I wrote in my notebook: