Free The Chemistry of Tears by Peter Carey Page B

mentioned Christmas. I had been too whimsical. But I could not say to him: your True Friend’s heart is bursting. I did not know the terms wherein I might be permitted to return.
    “Goodbye, silly Papa,” he had said.
    I thought, who told you that? I kissed him twice. I could not be certain I would see him in this world again.
    In Furtwangen my allotted room was filled with the roar of water, endless torrent, the drowned squealing of a silly turning wheel.
    Hour after horrid hour I thought of the nights when his mother and I were first married, till death us do part, I never doubted it, round and round, and how she shuddered beneath my human weight. Hard heavy man, she called me recklessly, round and round.
    I was a god for really quite a while. Only at the end did she say that cruel thing about my breasts. I had been foolish enough to thinkaloud, wondering could it be that wet nurse who sickened first our girl and then our little boy.
    “So you blame me,” she hissed. “How dare you.”
    “No,” I cried, “a thousand times no.”
    I was the one with the breasts, she told me. I should have been the mother, which I clearly wished to be. My breasts were disgusting and hairy like a dog. How could I continue to be alive? she wished to know.
    Only in the heat of battle did I blame her for her famous breasts, those false promises which would never touch her Percy’s hungry mouth.
    In Furtwangen I slept while imagining myself awake. I woke inside a realm of gold, first light, floor, an effect of light. In truth, the dawn in Furtwangen was so much less a wonder than my True Friend’s own white room in Low Hall where the plain and decent Irish nurse would presently arrive with a cup of beef tea. Then they would sit together and wait for dear George Binns to bring the mail in through the garden gate.
    Oh dear, I was hungry as a tank of acid, but Percy must know exactly where I was. I found my pencil and wrote my letter in the form of directions to my present home. If he followed these instructions he would find Furtwangen on a map and then he would know exactly where the duck was being made, for him alone. No other child in England would own such a thing, no child in all the world. I promised I would describe the manufacture in its fullest detail so he would imagine he was at my side, or perched up in the rafters like a clever bird, looking down on the miracles performed.
    Then, I addressed the envelope to dear old Binns. With no innkeeper to entrust my letter to, I must now discover how the Germans sent their mail.
    My first day in Furtwangen began.
    No chamber pot, so it was Adam’s Duty, after which I washed in the stream and was observed by a surly sawmill worker. I might have tipped a peasant to post my letter but no, not him.
    There was nothing for breakfast but some small bitter strawberries which made the hunger worse. No life was evident except the Huguenot writing by a window.
    I asked him when was breakfast served.
    “Sir,” said he, “one becomes accustomed to it.”
    He continued with his scribbling.
    “You wonder what I am doing?” he said.
    I had not.
    “I am a fairytale collector,” he said.
    How extraordinary, I thought, I have met a fairytale collector. Whatever will happen next?
    I set off to find the village of Furtwangen where I was intent on posting my letter. Awful morning. No need to describe my humiliations. Foreigners not liked, obviously. A boy threw a stone at me. Not even the priest would understand what I needed with my urgent envelope and by the time I had been forced to stand aside to permit the locals right of way, had tramped along a rutted road and then a highway, I was completely lost. It took me all afternoon to find the sawmill by which time I was suffering the most painful bilious hunger. My stomach was tight as a drum, filled with sloshing river water.
    It was late afternoon, nothing but a boiling kettle on the stove. I would not steal food. I would endure, but what of Percy?