The Lonely Hearts Hotel(7)

When she caught Rose with her arms around the bear again one evening, Elo?se decided she had had enough.

Ordinarily, Elo?se’s thoughts were like pieces of well-crafted china delicately placed on the shelf of a locked glass display case. When Rose came into the room, each of her words was like a mortar shell, and the shelves began to shake and the ideas began to fall off and smash to the ground. Elo?se’s anger was irrational, and it was also impossible to stand.

“What are you doing?”

“I don’t want the little ones to be afraid of the dark. I want them to know that the creatures of night are sweet.”

“There’s nothing in the darkness. They just have to trust in God and everything will be all right. God is all around them in the dark.”

“But sometimes we like to imagine talking bears. I am inviting them to come out and to sit with us and have a cup of tea.”

“You’re summoning the devil.”

“No I’m not. It’s only a game.”

“How dare you talk back to me?”

Rose found herself sitting in the cupboard for the better part of three days. When she was finally released, Pierrot noticed her in the corridor, squinting because the light was blinding, her arms stretched out in front of her.

At the orphanage, those caught masturbating had their hands whipped with a ruler fifty times. And then they would stand on a chair in the common room wearing red gloves so everyone would know what they had done. There was a different little boy standing up on the chair every few weeks. And then one day there was the lovely Rose. Nobody could believe it. But perhaps most shocking was the look on her face. She stood with her chin up in the air, a look close to pride on her face.

Pierrot sometimes told people that was the moment he fell in love with Rose.





6


    PORTRAIT OF BOY WITH UMBRELLA



Pierrot had his eyes scrunched up as he masturbated one night when he was eleven. His lips were screwed over to the left, and his toes poked out from under the blanket and were stretched out wide. He opened his eyes and was startled to see Sister Elo?se standing at the foot of his bed. He was horrified. His penis was making the blanket stand up like a tent.

He was certain he was going to be severely punished. Instead she gently took his hand while putting her finger up to her puckered mouth, indicating that he should be quiet. Making it seem as though she were somehow complicit in his crime. She tiptoed prettily in front of him and he followed. She took him into the bathroom with her. He thought that she was perhaps taking him away so that she might beat him without waking up the other children. She was probably going to make him climb into a bathtub filled with cold water, a not uncommon punishment at the orphanage.

At the sight of the bathtub filled with water, Pierrot began to tremble and shake. Children in Montreal had an absolute terror of the cold. You might assume they had built up a resistance to it, given the long winters, but the opposite was true. The cold had persecuted and tormented them to such an extent that they were more wary and frightened of it than children anywhere else. In the same way that children who are bitten by dogs are horrified by the creatures their whole lives.

“Take off your clothes and get into the bath,” she said.

Pierrot’s teeth chattered as he pulled his nightgown up over his head. His whole body trembled as though a train were passing by the window. Sister Elo?se looked down at his penis. Although it had lost its erection, it was still larger than the penises of other boys his age. When he noticed her looking, he put his hands over it, embarrassed once again. He stepped into the bath, forgetting the cold for a moment, as if it could hide him.

The minute his foot plunged into the water, he was shocked by its warmth. It was startling and felt so good. It was as if he had been expecting a smack but had received a wondrous, delicious kiss. He hurried into the bathtub and sank into its great warmth. He had never taken such a warm bath before. The baths the children took once a month were always tepid and filthy.

He didn’t bother with why or how he was allowed to have such a treat. There was no time for logic right now. He just loved the feeling. He was at one with the warm water. The faucet looked like an elephant with its ears flared out. Elo?se screwed its ears and more warm water spurted out of its nose and Pierrot closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, he saw that Sister Elo?se had taken off her habit. She was wearing a thin slip. It was odd to see her hair. Even though it had been cut short, he could still see that it was soft and fair. It was like something one might discover in a milkweed pod. She shook her head, as though she had long luxurious locks.

“I’ll wash you,” she said.

Pierrot stood up and Elo?se began to vigorously move a bar of soap this way and that all over his skinny body. Her slip got splashed with water as she scrubbed and rubbed him. He could make out the shapes of her large round breasts under it as it became soaked. He couldn’t say why but he felt frightened.

The bottom of the tub was slippery under his feet and felt as insubstantial as a thin layer of ice. As though he might crash through it any minute and descend a hundred feet down into the cold waters that lurked just beneath him.

“Do you want to feel something strange but also really nice?” Elo?se asked.

Pierrot shrugged. Like any child, he was always up for experiencing new and possibly delightful things. Now, however, he hesitated. Although something prevented him from saying yes, he did not say no. In the future, he would always remember that he didn’t tell her no.