Free Marcel by Erwin Mortier Page B

across thecorridor as the night took its course. First it cast a long sliver of light on the floor, then receded slowly, blurring the space.
    Miss Veegaete’s dress dangling against the wardrobe door would be all silvery by now, but I did not dare sneak inside to take a look. The attic had come alive. The rafters creaked from one end of the house to the other. I told myself it was the pigeons.
    Outside, the neighbours’ dog barked at the stars and rattled its bowl. It was a bad-tempered, ugly creature, but I was grateful for the noise.
    The night wore on. The cold rose up from the ground, penetrating the walls. The atmosphere was rife with little ticks and sighs; the kitchen utensils seemed to be vying for space, clicking and rattling like so many blackbirds singing to claim their territory. The moon was setting, and in the attic an inky blackness started pouring from all the cupboards and chests, cascading down the stairs. I couldn’t see a thing. All around me the dark pressed up against the walls, rustling behind cupboards and nibbling at the woodwork. Rats or mice behind the skirting boards. Perhaps.
    I considered my options: count up to ten thousand, say, or do some more praying, or pretend that fairies really existed and I could make any wish I pleased. What if it worked? What if all the stuff that fell off the table were to band together? A strip of suede. A tuft of fur. What if all the snippets of serge joined forces with a couple of buttons? They could enlist the tangle of basting threads on the floor, and bribe a dozen thimbles while they were at it. They could invade the table drawer and conspire with the lame zippers. Murder inreverse. A new perspective. A more bearable tomb. So he would stop roaming the house in his stockinged feet, all the way from attic to basement, pausing at my door, deathly quiet, jealous of me – Marcel to a tee but for the eyes which I got from my mother. Until finally I was numbed by sleep and my head dropped like the lid on the travelling trunk.

CHAPTER 6
    THE GRANDMOTHER AND I TOOK THE BACK LANE TO the village, walking in the shade of the poplar trees. June was drawing to a close. The languid foliage presaged the monotony of the long school holidays. Miss Veegaete’s new dress had been carefully folded and wrapped by the grandmother.
    The whole morning had been taken up with last-minute preparations. This had nothing to do with the dress, which was ready – it was the grandmother who had to prepare herself. Stella put curlers in her mistress’s hair, row upon row of them until she looked like an old-fashioned judge with a sausage wig. The grandmother sat unmoved on her chair by the window throughout, taking no notice of the bustle while she looked through the post and read the paper.
    Stella covered the grandmother’s head with an elasticated cap made of white nylon; at the top it was joined to a flaccid tube that was connected with the vacuum cleaner.
    The grandmother raised her hands briefly to feel whether the cap was properly in place and gave a little nod. Stella swaggered over to the vacuum cleaner and pressed the switch with a flourish, as if it were a new type of rocket she was launching.
    The machine let out a roar. The nylon tube stiffened. The cap ballooned.
    “Warm enough?” Stella shouted over the din. “Not too hot?”
    The grandmother said no. She was like a cave painting, a prehistoric fertility goddess with a ceremonial headdress.
    The vacuum cleaner roared non-stop for the next quarter of an hour. The grandmother’s head emerged from the dryer steaming like a freshly baked cake. Stella pulled out the rollers, dragged a hairbrush through the stiff curls, and misted the sculpted tresses in enough hairspray to glue the flies to the ceiling.
    “Remember, now,” the grandmother admonished, “you must mind your manners. No more than two biscuits – if we are offered any, that is. Or just one piece of cake. And don’t go butting in when the grown-ups are