"Just a moment."
"I can wait. It is no trouble. Yes I think perhaps I ought to know more of what is taking place while I am away. Why don't you go to your room, Balthazar."
Miss Hortense opening her door. The pale profile of her face.
"It is just to ask, my dear, that I should like to chat with you tomorrow morning. About nine thirty. Sharp, please. I think we may have some things to discuss."
"Very well madam."
His mother turning. Her eyes of cold blue steel. Her back stiff and straight. And legs long and elegant. Click click click like a soldier she walks away.
"Bella please don't worry."
"Balthazar please goodnight get your clothes and go to bed."
To fall down through white tumbling sheets in a night of dreaming. And wake wide eyed to remember last morning Sunday, as Bella sat with breakfast tray and read the black headlines across the newspapers and said o Balthazar I think there is going to be war. It comes like that with photographs of men in high white collars with briefcases stepping from grand trains. They sit at great tables with glasses of water. Never any trust with treaties and someone will wield the sword. And that awful war there was before. My father said the rats roamed and ate the bodies of the dead and the whole sky smelled for miles. Like a yellow suffocating dust. And those horrid men with their black ties, smiling with their pens signing papers. Dearest Balthazar if ever guns spit red and smoke and fire please be far away. Tears in Bella's eyes as she poured our coffee in our white cups and the sheet dropped down from her breasts. She clutched it up and let it drop again and smiled. Her bosoms so strange and big when she leaned that way and nipples bright and hard. And then so tall and slender like a reed in the candle light. I chased her and her breasts bounced up and down. I caught her round the waist. She laughed to push down my arms. Her thighs so long and strong and so much bigger than mine. Just to know and know I could touch them and feel a long straight muscle hardening there. And not be pushed away. Bully you without clothes she said and tickle. Everything's unfair in this game. Now Balthazar stand still. I want to see you. Like a little statue so white and thin. You are a fountain and water should come out of here. And now, o now, I turn it on. With her open palm to reach and touch me, stay still, so stiff, you tremble. Fingers touching so lightly there. All along this funny little line underneath. Balthazar my beauty. Your splendid flower, its pink rose tip. And white blue veined stem. And all its tiny blond new leaves of hair. Bella am I brave to stand still. Yes. And beautiful. And I closed my eyes. O Bella it's coming out of me. Let it. And see where it lies. Like white melted pearls in my hand. And you are. A little fountain. And this is my gift in our unfair game. And yes I can pick you up and carry you. O gosh Balthazar, you know. What I shall do.
What I wish perhaps. To marry a white haired man with so much money with whom I would not sleep and do the things I do with you and he should die within the year. And I would come and be your mistress. All dressed in black. And maybe just a light blue ribbon in my hair. Would you treat me well and take me on boats up and down the Rhine. I would say you were my son. You would keep your head down and walk around on your knees and squeak out when people asked, that you were Master Hortense and this was your big great old mother. We would sneak around the watering places. Sipping up the minerals. And go as you said from Bucharest to St. Petersburgh through all the towns and places you showed me on the map. Along green valleys and around white mountains. To Budapest and Prague, and whoops, I nearly missed Vienna. Then east to Warsaw across Poland all flat and lonely. No one would ever know us if we went wading in the Baltic Sea. We would be lost together and hold hands on an ice floe on the Gulf of Finland. And somewhere it's always black in sleep at night. And Bella faded away from shore. She stood in a long white lacy gown and waved back to the little boy. Further and further she floated. Out on the grey icy sea. Licked by salty cold waves. Then I was the little boy. Running back through my life asking dark shadows the way to go. And they stood and looked down at me with jelly fish eyes and said we don't know. On I ran. Towards the arms of God. When first a country summer I was an altar boy. And carried a candle high. And in the rose garden stood the holiest Slouch. I shouted don't devour me you bloodthirsty priest. He was looking rather awkward in long winter underwear. Muttering that he was delegated to cast out the indecent apparelled. And put to shame all those suddenly found nose deep in smut. And the bicycle seat sniffers' band paraded by. As Masterdon swaggered across the cricket pitch saying in his loud boasting voice that he had quite fairly rogered his father's gardener's daughter right down between the green house tomato plants. And two footed gavotting Slouch said as he waved his tennis racket on high, I know that my redeemer liveth you damn devious boys, I know that he liveth and delivereth us from fleshy tomfoolery. Here spoken, my villainish boys, from verse nine of erotica. And Masterdon was waving his small penis in saucy applause and Beefy sat in a nearby tree eating an apple, and singing O For The Wings Of A Dove. And awake. Dark and the ticking clock. Bella. Don't leave me and are you gone. Run to you out of my bed now. Clutch you. Bury my face in your soft welcoming breasts. Hold me away from all that darkness. Like the narrow Rue Allent. The notice up on the wall. Urinators Will Be Prosecuted. And that day we went to the church of St. Louis where I was baptised. Nearly thirteen years ago from this morning of dismay.
Miss Hortense came in with breakfast. Her eyes red and cheeks blotched. And put the tray on my bed. Opened my window and lowered the awning on a rising sun. In her white frilly blouse, grey skirt and black shoes. A locket round her neck. I reach to kiss her. And she pulls my arms from around her neck. And holds my face between her hands and let me please cut a strand of your hair. It curled round her finger.
And she tied it tight with a long strand of her own brown 98 hair. And put it in the locket on top of my picture when I was six years old and standing by the sea.
"Bella what does it mean.'
"Balthazar listen to me. Listen. I am going to have to go away. Just as I always knew I would. This evening on the train. I am packed. No listen to me. I must. I love you. A war is coming. And I somehow know it is when they say it isn't.
You'll be gone to your new school."
"Will you visit me."
"I will try."
"O Bella say you will."
"I will."
"And write to me."
"Yes."
"I don't want you to go. Or ever leave me. I love you so dearly."
"Then you would do one thing for me wouldn't you."
"Yes, what is it."
"Let me speak to your mother alone. There are things I would like to say. That I would not like you to hear. And you mustn't mind too much when I go. We've had some awfully happy times. True love is always sure disaster."
"O please Bella, don't say such a harsh thing."
"I must go."
At nine thirty the salon doors closed. And Balthazar tip toes there. He waved away the cook who lurked in the pantry hall. She wiped her hands in her apron and scurried when Balthazar said shoo. And on the silk soft carpet he stood in his bare feet and robe and peeked through the keyhole.
His mother sat on a golden legged chair. In a white linen suit. String of pearls at her tan neck and her blond hair brushed back from her temples. A great diamond pin stuck from the bun gently golden at the back of her head. And she tapped a small silver pencil on her engagement book.
To see only Bella's legs and hands folded in her lap. And wish that my penis would not go hard and stiff. When anyone can look at you and say you are a naughty boy.
"Miss Hortense. I am a woman. It will be less painful if I do not beat around the bush. I will say what I have to say. I am, perhaps, not a good mother. I have no wish to make anyone unhappy. But I could not do otherwise than what I am doing now. I must give you your notice. That is understood."