Read Online Wolfsangel by Liza Perrat - Free Book Online Page B

distracted nod. As always when he was painting, he seemed to vanish into his coloured dabs and smears. Or perhaps it was the fear of his daughter’s questions that stopped him meeting her trusting eyes.
    I peered over his shoulder at the beginnings of a sketch of the Monts du Lyonnais, and the Vionne River pleating the hills.
    I stared at the patches of grey, where the river should be. ‘I’ve never seen a painting made from the start. That’s strange, why isn’t the river green?’
    ‘Look,’ Max said. ‘Look at the river.’
    Through the window, I caught my mother’s glare, her arms planted on her hips. I waved at her and mouthed, ‘Coming.’
    ‘Is the river green?’ Max said.
    ‘Yes, it’s green.’
    ‘Look again, what colours do you really see, Céleste?’
    I squinted. ‘Oh yes, I can see grey, and brown and yellow and a darkish rust. I’ve never seen the Vionne that way before.’
    ‘Nothing is how it looks to the naked eye,’ Max said. ‘You have to concentrate, look closer, to see how things truly are.’
    Max gave me a satisfied art-teacher smile, but only his lips moved, the anguish trapped as ever in the dark eyes behind the spectacles. Beneath her joyous facade, Sabine hid her fear well from Talia and Jacob, but I was certain the children had begun to sense their father’s desperation.
    I thought back to our conversation around the Dutrottier’s radio. We were hearing more and more stories of deportations, of families separated, of windowless trains and barbed-wire camps; vague, frightening whispers that raked the air like a foul wind.
    ‘Look, Céleste,’ Talia said. ‘I did a painting too. It’s our house.’
    A great sun shone over the home the Wolfs had been forced to flee. Talia’s garden was a shower of bright flowers, with enormous birds perched on tree branches. A fluffy grey cat sat at the foot of the trunk, eyeing the birds.
    ‘When the war is over,’ I said, ‘you’ll be able to show me your lovely home, and Cendres.’
    Max shot his wife a glance, removed his glasses, and rubbed the lenses with his shirttail. ‘Let’s pray that day comes soon.’
    ***
    ‘About time,’ my mother said, as we all assembled in the orchard. ‘I wondered whatever you were all up to.’
    She nodded at Talia and Jacob. ‘For a start, this is no place for those children.’ She flicked a wrist at the swarm of wasps that had wedged themselves into the crevices in the fruit. ‘They’ll only get stung and cry. Take them into the kitchen, Célestine. Tell them not to touch anything until I get there, then they can help me store the fruit.’
    I was disappointed she still wouldn’t address the Wolfs directly, but pleased, and slightly embarrassed, at that first modest attempt at empathy.
    Maman distributed thick gloves and the wooden tongs she used for plucking boiled garments from the tub, and we began gathering the half-rotten fruit, flinging it into her large jam-making saucepans.
    ‘I can’t be near wasps, Céleste,’ Sabine whispered. She let out feeble whimpers, and looked fearfully at my mother, who was waving her tongs about, commanding the operation like a fierce general.
    ‘Do you think the fruit will gather itself?’ Maman said who wasn’t afraid of any insect; of anything at all really. She heaved her shoulders. ‘Oh, never mind. Go inside and supervise your children until I get there. Then you can help with the jam.’
    Sabine’s eyes glistened as she scurried away from the humming black mass.
    ‘My wife’s allergic to wasp stings,’ Max said. ‘She loses her breath and gets wheezy.’
    ‘It’s all right,’ I said, pitying him his frustration –– a man powerless to help, or even defend, his wife. ‘We’ll finish off.’
    If my mother had the slightest notion of friendliness or kindness, I might have kept trying to break down those battle lines between us. But it was becoming more and more difficult to tolerate –– let alone love –– that insensitive,