Tags:
Fiction,
Literary,
General,
Psychological fiction,
Self-Help,
Personal Growth,
Memory Improvement,
Terrorists,
Mnemonics,
Psychological Games,
Sanatoriums
here, said Grieve, we think about naming a little differently than you do. As you understand it, people have names; things have names. But the weather . . . if it is sunny you call it a clear day , and if it rains you complain of a storm . But it's the weather; it's one thing. Around here we have names for people, and for Mephisto, for instance, that, like the names for the weather, change along with the object's behavior. When Mephisto is being bad, or at the very least, daring, acting without compunction in preposterous affairs like the one in which we are now involved, he is called Mephisto . When he is good, sitting quietly in the sun in a window seat or sill, he is called Xerxes . When he is terrified of someone new, hiding under chairs, scurrying in shadow, then he is Benvolio .
—But he was never scared of me, said James.
—No, said Grieve, not in the least. But that's because he could tell that I liked you so much. It's really all that matters to him.
—How did he break his leg?
—It was terrible, said Grieve. He was my one real friend when I was a girl. Back then he used to talk to me. You wouldn't believe the things he'd say.
—I daresay not, said James.
Mephisto jumped then out of Grieve's arms and made his way in a half trot, half drag across the shingled roof.
—One day, said Grieve, Mephisto went into the egg room by mistake. My father was furious. No one is to go there, no one at all.
James said nothing about the egg room.
—So, he took Mephisto in his arms, at that time we called Mephisto Cavendish, and held Cavendish's paw up. Cavendish, said my father. Never in the egg room, Cavendish. And he broke the cat's leg by bending it back and forth quickly. During all this Cavendish neither cried out nor tried to escape, but sat watching my father with a still sort of patience. When he had broken the cat's arm to his satisfaction, he dropped him to the ground and the cat ran off, dragging its broken leg. He is no longer Cavendish, said my father. Now he is Benvolio. And from then on, Benvolio would not speak to me or tell me things. He stayed out of the egg room, though, and was mostly close by my side as before.
She kicked at the shingles of the roof.
—It seems that talking was a part of Cavendish, not a part of Benvolio or Mephisto or Xerxes. As soon as Cavendish went away, the cat became dumb. I felt I had to speak for him.
She smiled, a delicate smile like a bookish otter.
—You know, he used to say the most ingenious things. Anyway, I felt that if he was no longer going to be saying them, then someone should. So I began. I talk for both of us. I got so used to making things up for Gone-Away-Cavendish to say that I have never been able to change the habit. Besides, I don't see why I should.
—That is not, said James, why you really lie.
—No, she agreed. That's not why at all.
They walked along the roof to a place where the next roof began. Up it they went to another roof, and another after that. Slowly they ascended the house until they reached a sort of gazebo set at the highest point. There was a fine wooden rail about it, a lovely cupola above, and benches within. Yes, benches and a table.
—Is this the only way up here? James asked.
—Yes, everyone who comes up comes out that bathroom window.
—It's nice, said James, to discover this upper world, a place complete in itself. Yet the window to the bathroom has been left open and there, our little foothold in the old world is preserved. The door to the bathroom is locked. Someone might even now be standing there waiting. They think we are in there, and we are! It's as though all of this, everything that takes place up here, all these roofs, all these vantages, are all shuttered together in that tiny bathroom. We'll go back inside, unlock the door, and present ourselves to the person just beyond. My, we'll say, how the time passes.
—But if that's true, said Grieve, then when a fellow sneaks out his
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