2. The Spring Garden

The very next day after Cora Babineau agreed to teach the boy to read, she took him by the hand and led him straight to the ‘Spring Garden,’ directly across from the Cactus Garden.

“Grandmother had Roman-era marble sculptures and columns brought in to decorate this place. She planted so many flowers and trees that it stays cool even in summer.”

“……”

“They say hundreds of rare spring flowers from all over the world make for a spectacular sight, which is how it got the name ‘Spring Garden,’ but I haven’t seen it yet. This is my first time in Cappera too. Perhaps we’ll be able to see it next spring?”

“……”

“But honestly, I think this alone is more than enough.”

She looked around at the various fruit trees heavy with unripe fruit and spoke calmly. Below them, where the rare spring blossoms had fallen, dense clusters of marigolds pushed up their layered yellow and vermillion petals.

“The waterfall in this garden is quite loud, so we can read aloud without anyone hearing us. The pavilion is open on all sides, so the breeze passes through and it’s cool, and there’s a tea table set up, so it’s perfect for studying, don’t you think?”

“……”

“I thought about bringing you to the villa’s library, but I thought that might make you uncomfortable. If people see you getting close to me, they might treat you even worse.”

“……”

“It’s a good thing there’s a siesta. It gives us time like this. There’s no culture of napping after lunch in Lutes. People would look down on you for it.”

“……”

“Giving the servants and maids such generous rest time shows what a kind person our grandmother was. The servants at Maison Babineau are always rushed off their feet.”

“……”

Cora chattered on as she approached the domed pavilion with four ivory marble columns.

The boy thought of the pig-faced kitchen hand Georges who had been bullying him. The moment the siesta bell rang, he had been told to take seven sacks of carrots from the food storage and move them to the kitchen.

To begin with, only those who worked in the kitchen were supposed to have access to the food supplies. But as always, Georges had dumped his work on him and gone off to sleep. Who knows. He might be buried in the folds of Alicia’s skirt, working his dark tongue around with wet, smacking sounds.

The boy wiped the carrot sacks from his mind. If he waited until after the lesson and parted ways with the girl, it would be too late to start. He knew that, and still he had come to the garden instead of the storage room. What did it matter. Getting hit in the same place again would only leave bruises and tear the skin. Unlucky, he might break something, but bones mend on their own.

It was others, Georges and the rest, who beat the boy, but if he were to put it into words, it was no different from a process of self-harm. He had invited the violence that came crashing down on him, endured it, and eventually became one with it. He had lived his days throwing himself into hell and suffering through it.

“We’re here!”

Cora arrived at the pavilion and gave a little shrug. True to her word, a sea breeze carrying the scent of greenery passed through the open structure, and the air inside was quite cool. Flecks of mud from the soles of the boy’s shoes scattered across the clean floor of the pavilion, which called to mind an ancient temple. He felt like a beast trespassing freely on a pure and sacred ground.

The boy came to a stop before a small cast-iron tea table painted white. The tabletop was barely fifty centimeters across. Two dainty chairs sat neatly tucked beneath it.

Before he could even bend to pull one out, Cora drew out a chair and placed it beside the other. Then she settled lightly into the right-hand chair and tapped the back of the remaining one with her left hand.

“Come sit here.”

She likely hadn’t meant anything particular by it. But if he sat there, their arms would touch, their knees would knock together, and every shallow breath between their lips would carry across. The boy pulled the chair closer to his side of the table, putting distance between them.

Cora looked briefly puzzled. Then, seeming to understand his intent, she gave a small nod.

“Oh, now that I think about it, sitting too close might get in the way when writing or turning pages.”

Truly, no guard at all.

Sunlight slipped in through the gaps between the pavilion’s columns and fell on the soft down covering Cora Babineau’s rounded chin and slender neck. The boy looked down at the girl, guileless to the point of absurdity, and steadied the surge of feeling that rose like a current inside him.

He had no patience for small and fragile things. He disliked creatures that were helplessly good. He also disliked the kind of foolishness that pressed its face forward without thinking, rubbing cheeks and baring its throat, asking to be stroked, all while having no idea where sharp claws might come curling around it at any moment.

And yet.

The sea has no rules. It cannot be predicted. The girl was the same.

The waves crept in softly to tickle his ankles, then without warning swelled and drenched him. He would feel at ease looking into water so clear he could see straight through it, and then in an instant it would cloud over and fill him with unease. Was that the fault of the waves, or his own fault for standing there and taking them head-on?

“This is read as ‘ah.'”

Cora opened the notebook. Afraid the boy sitting at a distance might not hear her, she leaned her upper body forward and began the lesson. Her voice trembled faintly, as though she were nervous. A hand holding a freshly sharpened pencil slid across the paper.

Échappé, third position. Both legs extended outward from a crossed stance, weight momentarily supported on the tips of the toes, the body drawn up taut like a ladder. Cora Babineau’s ‘A’ resembled the refined, restrained gestures of ballet.

“That grip will make your hand ache later.”

“……”

“You have to build good habits from the start. Once it becomes a habit, it’s hard to correct.”

Cora glanced at the boy’s hand gripping the pencil however he pleased and spoke up. She unfolded his fingers one by one and corrected his hold. She rested the pencil on his middle finger and wrapped his thumb and index finger around it, then smiled with satisfaction.

“Try tracing over the ‘A’ I wrote.”

The boy’s hand moved slowly. Even though the letters weren’t small, precisely tracing the lines Cora Babineau had drawn was not easy. The muscles in his right shoulder and arm tensed and rose. The pencil, held correctly at first, curled back into his fist.

Snap. The pencil tip broke.

Cora stared blankly at the torn paper beneath the broken lead, then burst out laughing. It felt exactly like being laughed at, and the boy’s brow furrowed. His earlobes burned hot while his spine went cold. The sensation of two opposite feelings brushing across his skin at once was strange.

The boy was someone who knew nothing of shame. A person with no desire to be seen well by others does not feel shame. A person who gives no thought to others’ goodwill has no need to feel shame. So this must have been the first shame he had ever felt. It was likely the first time he had ever awakened to the desire to be seen well by someone.

“I’ll show you some words that start with ‘ah.’ Memorize them by tomorrow.”

Cora laid her hand over the back of his and wrote ‘A’ several times. From start to finish, it was a dance she led. The boy watched, feeling somewhat helpless, as the dark steps flowed from his fingertips.

“‘Ami,’ friend.”

“……”

“It’s a word that starts with ‘ah.’ You are my friend, and I am yours.”

“……”

“And, let me think…… ‘Ange,’ angel. Do you see the stone statue of the winged child over there?”

The girl tilted her chin toward something behind him. The boy’s gaze moved to the chubby little boy with a bow and quiver strapped to his back.

The sight of the mischievous-looking child floating in midair with tiny wings was rather funny. He looked nothing like a sacred angel, but the boy had no eye for art, so he let it pass.

“And, ‘azur,’ sky-blue. I heard that the stretch of coastline near Cappera is called ‘Azure.’ Reading about it in a book, I couldn’t quite picture it, but coming here and seeing it in person, I can’t imagine it being called anything else.”

“……”

“‘Ami,’ ‘ange,’ and ‘azur.’ Three in total. Easy, right? I chose them specially, lovely words that all start with ‘ah.'”

“……”

He had no immunity to ‘lovely.’ The boy rolled the pencil around with a show of indifference. Even so, Cora Babineau couldn’t hide her private delight as she turned the page.

“This is ‘beh.'”

Cora wrote ‘B’ at twice the size of ‘A.’ It was a letter shaped like two plump balloons pressed together, one on top of the other. ‘Ballon.’ A movement that springs lightly into the air like a bouncing balloon and lands with a feather-soft touch. The ‘B’ she drew was buoyant.

“‘Bonbon,’ candy. ‘Bonheur,’ happiness. ‘Belle,’ beautiful.”

Cora folded her fingers down one by one as she listed several words beginning with ‘beh.’ They were words that made something flutter pleasantly in the stomach just from hearing them. They were also words that had never once passed through the boy’s stiff lips.