Free The Vanishing Act by Mette Jakobsen Page B

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.
    ‘Where is your Papa today, Minou?’ said Boxman, placing a plate with two sandwiches next to me. ‘I didn’t see him cross the forest on his morning walk.
    ‘He is busy,’ I said. ‘He is looking for the truth.’
    ‘Ah, the truth,’ said Boxman and looked at the ceiling. ‘I wonder where it is?’
    I stared at the ceiling with him. ‘He says he is very close to finding the beginning.’
    Boxman nodded and took a big bite out of his sandwich. ‘That box, Minou,’ he said, chewing enthusiastically, ‘it reminds me of your mama, she liked the dark blue ones.’
    ‘What else does Mama like?’ I asked the question as if it didn’t really matter.
    ‘Oh, that’s easy,’ he said, and smiled in a melancholy kind of way. ‘She liked flying carpets. I think she liked them more than anything else in the world.’
    I hadn’t known that.
    I watched Boxman eating his sandwich and wondered why it was that he always seemed to know what Mama liked.
    One night during Uncle’s visit I overheard Papa and him talking in the kitchen. They talked about Mama. I was drawing in the study and their voices travelled through the house. I could hear glasses being put on the table, and a match being lit, and I could smell Uncle’s pipe tobacco.
    Papa cleared his throat. ‘One morning she liked toast, the next she wanted eggs. And, if there were no eggs, she got sad. It was the same with everything.’ Papa cleared his throat. ‘Maybe I should get a chicken. Should I get a chicken?’
    ‘Chickens are useful,’ said Uncle.
    ‘I never understood what she wanted and why she had to change all the time.’
    ‘Some things are hard to explain,’ said Uncle. ‘I see that every day in my work.’
    ‘She would say, “We could build a boat, you and I, and sail to the moon and back.” And then she would look at me, waiting for me to do something. But what she said wasn’t real. We couldn’t build a boat just like that.’
    Listening in the study I knew straight away what Mama had wanted from Papa. She wanted him to say what Boxman did with ease. ‘Let’s go then,’ he would declare, offering her his arm. ‘What will we do on the moon, lovely lady?’
    ‘We will sing,’ she would say and smile.
    ‘Well then, let me escort you to the boat. It’s here, are you ready?’
    It was late when I left Boxman. It was still snowing as I walked along the forest path. We had finished the lid, and I had paint on my fingers and a bit of honey in my hair. Boxman tried to get the honey out, but by rubbing it he made it worse. He ended up declaring that getting messy is the necessary plight of an artist.
    I could see our house through the trees in the growing darkness. Smoke rose like a fishbone ladder from our chimney and the windows shone with warmth. Then I noticed the ravens. Undeterred by the falling snow they had settled on our rooftop. Thirty-three of them, sitting in a row. It was strange. The ravens mostly spent their time in the church tower and didn’t usually come near our house.
    As I reached the front door I realised that I stillhadn’t told Boxman about the dead boy. I seemed to keep forgetting. I wasn’t quite sure why.
    Papa was frying fish at the stove, and the scent of oranges mixed pleasantly with that of fish and onion. ‘It’s wonderful,’ he said, before I had time to close the door behind me, ‘when someone listens to you, Minou. There are so few people who care about philosophy.’
    ‘Have you found the beginning yet, Papa?’ I pulled off one of my scarves and put it on the table.
    ‘Not quite yet, my girl. It feels as if the boy wants to hear everything I know about Descartes first. There is so much to tell him, Minou. But I have plenty of time. He will be here for another whole day.’

Everything was different the following morning. The
    E verything was different the following morning. The