Clara Bottom was a talker, and conversation was her favourite activity. Sofia was now the only person around for her to share her ideas with. And so, for the first time in their lives, they found themselves engaged in discussions all day long. Sofia realized that her tongue was loosened during the war.
Children and old people were suddenly listened to. When Sofia spoke, adults paid heed attentively. It could very well be a six-year-old who knew an arrest had happened in their building the night before.
It was in a basement—a small one, beneath a pharmacy—that Sofia first heard talk about an uprising. She was seated on a wobbly chair against a musty wall in the corner. Nobody was concerned she was listening. While she was with her mother, people ceased to treat her as though she was a child. There was a sense that there was no room for childhood now. Is there such a thing as childhood anyway? There were six people in the basement. But it seemed as though it were an army.
The Capital was not the same as the rest of the country. The people who lived there were not going to let themselves be defeated the way the rest of the country had. Perhaps the country had accepted occupation and annihilation, but the Capital had always been different from the rest of the country. People there were wilder and more nationalistic. They would refuse to be under anyone’s thumb. They needed to be free. The Uprising might mean a quick death, but the alternative was a slow one.
They had drawn a map on a chalkboard that was nailed to the wall. This way, if they were raided, all they needed to do was to throw a glass of water at it, and the evidence would be washed away.
They believed the noise created by the Uprising would signal to the rest of the world how unhappy and miserable they were with the Occupation. It might also convey to the West that they were not taking the Occupation lying down. They were actively resisting and fighting.
The messengers of other resistance cells would bring information to the pharmacist, and he passed it along to their group. Clara agreed she would, on their cell’s behalf, go deliver their plans to a certain baker the next afternoon.
The soldiers would do random checks of apartments. They were looking for hidden artists. But Clara said it was more of a pretext to leave the apartments with arms filled with valuable objects they loaded into a truck.
They had come earlier that week and looked through their home. Clara followed them around, acting as though she had nothing to hide, as though she were not the most contraband object in the apartment. Sofia kept staring at her mother, who she knew was acting in an odd, solicitous manner, and praying she would not break and give herself away. There was some discussion of the paintings on the wall before the soldiers began removing them one by one. They were very good at locating objects of great value, which surprised Sofia since the one unequivocal thing she had heard about the Enemy was that they had no taste or cultural sensibility. But they knew which paintings, in all their avant-garde splendour, were worth money. There was a soldier who climbed up and took down the chandelier in the living room. There was one who removed a particularly beautiful chair that had been put in the apartment by her grandfather. They took all the utensils, and they rolled up the rug from the living room floor.
There were some serious discussions about the piano in the living room, but in the end, they left it be.
Sofia had gone to sit on the balcony and noticed it was not only their apartment but all those on the block that were being raided. She knew immediately because of the books. Any book the Enemy found was tossed out the window. The books burst into flight as soon as they hit the air. It was like watching birds in motion. Sofia found it quite beautiful. It was a testament to how many books the inhabitants on that block read. They had been warned to destroy their books. But they hadn’t taken it seriously, and now the sky was filled with birds.
Books weren’t the only things tossed out of windows. It began raining clothes. It was windy, and the dresses tossed out the windows opened up like they were parachutes. They were like ephemeral ballet dancers who twisted this way and that. They were like the husks of insects that had been shed upon their metamorphosis.
They were dresses that were used to dancing. One filled with air like a pregnant woman. It was as though the Titanic had capsized and all the girls in their fancy dresses were floating around in the water. Drowning.
She remembered once seeing a tank of jellyfish in a travelling exhibit. That was what the dresses reminded her of. She held her hand out as though to catch one. She held her hand out to a scarf that was floating high in the air, as though it were a butterfly she wanted to land on her finger.
One morning when Sofia and her mother were getting ready to go to the bakery, there was a heavy knock at the door. What could be more terrifying than a knock at your door during wartime? It was more disruptive than the sound of a bomb. It was as though the war itself were knocking at your door. Wanting to enter your home, which, until that moment, you had still seen as your own, which you had regarded as a safe space.
She could still feel the effect of the knock in her body. She had felt the knock as though it were up against her chest. And it made it feel as though her heart were hollow. Her mother stiffened, and her eyes looked frightened.
Her mother then reanimated and went to open the door. Sofia followed behind her at a distance in the hall. There was a solitary soldier standing in the entranceway. He said something in the Enemy language and stepped over the threshold. The soldier said the word “piano.” They both knew what he meant. He walked into the living room with her mother following behind.
Clara Bottom owned a famous piano. Or it had been played by a well-known pianist. Her father had purchased it for her. Clara did not play. She had perhaps had lessons when she was little. But clearly had had no desire whatsoever to run her fingers across the keys since.
It was played often, nonetheless, by guests at dinner parties. It was surprising to Sofia which of the visitors were able to play piano. If a guest was a musician, certainly it was normal for that person to play. There were pianists who asked to play almost as soon as they entered. They had come expressly to play the piano, and would sit at it and play all night. There was a playwright whose face was preternaturally wrinkled. He sat down and played a short, pretty tune on the high keys. Then stood up and walked away from the piano as though it had never happened. Once an accountant had sat down, and an explosion of notes came out of the piano, which surprised Sofia, as she did not know accountants could be touched by the mad mathematics of music.
When the soldier walked in, Sofia did not understand. How did he think he was going to remove the piano by himself? Perhaps he was going to take out his machine gun and fire at it, enabling them to then throw the piano in pieces out the window. Instead, he sat down and began to play with obvious proficiency. The tune was odd and different from any Sofia had ever heard. He didn’t even acknowledge anyone in the apartment once he began. He acted as though he were somewhere far away playing the piano.
Her mother went over to Sofia and lowered her head. “You must go to the pharmacy for me. Here is the prescription.” She shoved a piece of paper into Sofia’s palm.
Sofia saw a skinny black dog hurry across the street and disappear into the alley. As though it were on a clandestine resistance mission just like her. There were more stray cats and dogs than before the war. When people disappeared, it was as though the only creatures prepared to speak out about their being missing were their pets.
The dogs acted ashamed. They had guilty consciences. They wondered over and over again what they had done to find themselves in this predicament. And how, in this context, they could be good boys.
The cats had no integrity. They meowed and wailed. They were like women at the death of a child. They were deeply in mourning. Not for their owners but for themselves. They were indignant, abused. They demanded their former status. The cats didn’t care if they were shot at this point. They even seemed to be offering an ultimatum. They demanded they be returned to their previous life of luxury. Or be murdered right there on the street.
Children were supposed to be wary of drawing attention to themselves now. They couldn’t do things like skip rope in the street.
As Sofia made her way to the pharmacy, she saw there were children on all the balconies. It was like being in a prison where all the cells were filled with children. They whistled down at Sofia. They were doing it to catch her attention. They wanted her to look up and acknowledge they were flesh-and-blood human beings and not just angels haunting their previous lives.
But she looked down on them all. They were pitiful. They were pathetic. They were in their parents’ way. They were a burden, and they made their mothers sick with worry. She, on the other hand, had the freedoms of an adult. She was so proud to have been given this responsibility of delivering a message for the resistance.
On the way back from the pharmacy, after delivering her mother’s note, Sofia heard her name called. She wasn’t sure who had called her name. Then she realized the voice was coming from the building next to her. It was a tall, white stone building with a flight of stairs up the front. She saw some girls sitting underneath the stairs.
She looked between the slats and saw two twins from her class there. They were popular because they were the only twins in school. One was slightly more popular than the other. They were easy to tell apart because the favoured girl had a unibrow, while the other one didn’t.
If it hadn’t been wartime, Sofia would never have stopped to greet them. And they would never have acknowledged her. They did not have the hierarchy of school anymore. The distinctions between being popular and unpopular no longer existed. But they were curious about one another. They were people they knew from before the war. They came from a time that was worry-free. Sofia went around to the side of the stairs and went underneath to see the twins.
The stripes of light cast them in an odd way. One twin’s face was bathed in light, while the other’s was in shadow. As though they were a two-headed demon that represented good and evil.
One of the twins raised her hand as she was speaking to Sofia. It was bright and lit up—as though her hand had been turned on like a light. It looked like a dove had suddenly been let loose.
“We are being sent to the country in a week. We are going to live with our grand-uncle.”
“We went to stay with him two summers ago.”
“It was so much fun. He has a house on a lake. We went around in a speedboat.”
“He lets us do whatever we want.”
“We ate ice cream for breakfast once. The boys are so good-looking in that town too.”
“They are so much better-looking than they are here.”
“It’s hard for some children who are being sent away. But not us.”
“For us, it will just be like we get to go on summer vacation so early.”
Sofia knew there was a train called the Children’s Train. It would be taking children out of the Capital. They would be safer in the country. Everyone expected the allies to come soon to liberate the Capital. And who could say what further retributions would be meted out on the city. It was best to send the children away.
“I can’t leave the Capital. I have too much work to do. My mother needs me here.”
“What for?”
“She will miss you too much?”
“My mother and I are witnessing everything that is going on in the city. So that she can write about it all. She needs me to witness things too. And remember them. There are things I see that she missed out on. When I tell them to her, she is always so impressed. I am like a journalist.”
She knew she was provoking them. They were staring directly at her and were very quiet. They were getting angry. Sofia knew exactly why they were upset. She was telling them that her mother needed her and loved her more than their mother loved them. Their mother cared for them only out of duty, because they were loved unconditionally. But her mother valued her. She liked her objectively. Her mother loved her as an equal.
Sofia reached into her inner pocket and pulled out a notebook. She took out a pen from between the pages.
“What are you writing?”
“That two young girls are going to be sent away from their homes. Away from their mother. Where they might not ever see her again.”
“That’s not what we said.”
“Don’t write that about us!”
At that, Sofia closed her notebook, stuck it back into the inside pocket of her coat, turned on her heel, and walked off with her chin in the air. When she was far enough from the girls, she began skipping with delight. She had bested the girls. They had always made her feel inferior. But she had turned the tables on them. The war had turned everything on its head.
Those girls were going to be sent into hiding. But she was a member of the resistance. Sofia lollygagged happily, observing her city, on her way back to the apartment.
She was surprised to see her mother standing outside their building. She ran up to Sofia. She grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her inside. As soon as they were at the top of the stairs, her mother slapped her hard across the face.
Her mother had never been physical with her before. She had watched mothers in the parks and on the sidewalks losing their patience with their children. She had watched a mother chase her son around a baby carriage, lunging at him with a baguette as though it were a sword. She had found it so strange. She was almost envious of the violence.
The slap changed everything in her body. She did not feel like the same person. It was a gift her mother had given her. It was a taste of pain. It was so real. The blood coursing through all her veins was black. The slap made her know she was wicked. The slap made her know she could survive anything. The slap made her know she was a person who was designed to survive a war. She hadn’t known who she was beforehand.
She was grotesque; she was pathetic. She had pathetic motives and ill intent. She liked losing the war. She wanted to see her classmates lined up against a fence and shot. Did she have any right to feel this way? The slap told her that she did. The world was a violent and treacherous place.
Her mother dragged her to the apartment. She opened the door with one hand and pushed Sofia in aggressively with the other. As soon as the door slammed shut behind her, Clara fell down on her knees and wrapped her arms around Sofia and began to weep.
“I didn’t know where you were. I thought the soldiers had apprehended you.”
“But I would never have given you up!”
Clara laughed. She wiped her tears from her eyes. “You ridiculous child!” she said.