Free Confession by S. G. Klein

couldn’t make sense of what she had said, I could not see it and yet for something to be true does it always need to be visible?
    Three days later on 28 th March Madame gave birth to her fourth child, a boy named Prospère Èdouard Augustin. Mademoiselle Blanche made the announcement over breakfast although I was not present on that occasion because I had left the Pensionnat earlier that morning in order to pay a visit to Mrs Jenkins whom we had been informed was ill and in need of companionship.
    On arrival at the Jenkins’s house, I was ushered in to see the patient who, given that she was supposedly on her deathbed, looked in remarkably good spirits. She greeted me heartily and asked that I sit down on a stool next to the bed whilst she took her medicines and talked about the Revd Jenkins’s plans for a trip back to England that summer.
    ‘Do you and Emily have a leaving date yet?’ she enquired between sips of a syrupy-looking brown liquid. I told her nothing had been decided upon but that we were hoping to stay on until the Autumn.
    As soon as I could I made my excuses and left, but not before Mrs Jenkins insisted I be accompanied back to the Pensionnat by her son John.
    We walked awkwardly together. John Jenkins had little to say save for the occasional comment about the buildings we passed or how pleasant he found it being outside in the sunshine. At one point I recall he put his hand out to stop me from walking into the road just as a carriage was rattling past. I turned to thank him and he smiled down at me – only then did I catch sight of Monsieur Heger standing on the far side of the street. He was talking to an elderly gentleman but he was watching us and I knew he had seen John Jenkins touching my arm and smiling at me, that much was certain.
    Monsieur’s eyes settled on me as if I were an errant child caught mid crime.
    I did not like it one bit, this unwarranted accusation yet what could I do? Nothing and so Icontinued to walk back to the Pensionnat in silence, Monsieur Heger’s disapprobation a more powerful presence than that of John Jenkins.
    Three days later Emily and I were seated in Monsieur’s study being taken to task over our devoirs.
    ‘Why is it,’ Monsieur had written in the margin of my work, ‘that your compositions are always better than your translations? I do not understand how this can be, surely translation is the easier of the two exercises?’
    ‘Monsieur,’ I said pointing to what he had written. ‘You forbade us to use a dictionary. I
had
to use some English words because I had no idea what the equivalent words are in French.’
    ‘
Had to?
What you mean to say is that you were too lazy to think of the correct words. That is what you mean, is it not? Too lazy or too busy with other more important matters – ’
    Tears sprang to my eyes. I had wanted, in a private moment, perhaps at the end of our lesson, to congratulate Monsieur on the birth of his new son and also to thank him for the poems he had given me, but now all I could think was that my teacher regretted his decision to give his pupil so generous a gift.
    When his back was turned Emily put her arm around my shoulder while I tried to wipe my eyes without causing a fuss, but to no avail.
    ‘What is this?’ Monsieur Heger asked when he turned around. He looked genuinely puzzled. ‘Not tears I hope?’
    I apologized but emotion chocked my voice.
    ‘There is no need to cry, ’ he said drawing a handkerchief out of his top pocket and handing it me. ‘My shouting is in direct proportion to the esteem in which I hold you…in which I hold both of you. The louder I shout, the higher the esteem.’
    ‘Do you ever whisper?’
    A smile broke out over Monsieur’s face.
    ‘Frequently,’ he said.
    I wiped my eyes wondering as I did so whether he whispered or shouted at Madame. Naturally they were close, they had been married for a great many years and she had just given birth to their fourth child, but it did not