Alva and Irva - Edward Carey [37]
And then I began to bleed. Mother gave me a cotton bag and a purse (to keep with me throughout the day) in which were kept various feminine items which she instructed me in the use of. Irva was jealous, her whole body stiffened with resentment. She could barely move she was in such discomfort, terrified of being left behind. But only a few days later, she was also the happy recipient of an identical cotton bag and purse.
Now, for the first time, I thought it might be good if Irva and I began to spend some moments of each day apart. I began my first attempt to train her away. She could never understand why, she was appalled at this new independence in me, she couldn’t conquer it. To begin with it was only for a few isolated minutes that we were separated, then I demanded quarter hours and even half hours. I’d watch her walk away, turning back every few steps to implore me, but I had to be firm, no matter how much I worried, and I did worry then, for both of us—‘It’s just for half an hour,’ I said, ‘only half an hour.’ How she crumbled in those half hours when we were apart, bits seemed to fall off her; each time we were reunited there seemed less of her than before. And though I cried honest tears when we were together again, I began to somehow enjoy it all. Whole half hours of terrifying and wonderful loneliness! Such Irvaless moments! Such daring!
THERE WAS a boy in our class called Piter Soffit whose principal characteristic was that he longed to be liked. More than anything he wanted to be liked. The more people liked him the happier he felt. When he felt he was liked he positively jerked with happiness. I began to single him out, with Irva dragging behind me, ‘Hello Piter, hello Piter.’ And he would coyly respond, ‘Hullo, hullo Alva and hullo Irva.’ ‘Would you like to come to our home?,’ I asked him one afternoon. ‘Really?,’ he said, ‘Yes, I would. Really, really?’ Irva didn’t want Piter in our home, she begged me not to let him come, so I invited him the next day. ‘Very well,’ said Irva, ‘let him come, but don’t show him the city, he doesn’t need to see the city, please don’t let him see it.’ We walked him home in between us (with Mother following behind). I asked him as soon as we were home, ‘Would you like to see our city, our own city which we made ourselves?’ ‘Really?,’ said Piter, ‘Would you show me, really?’ I took him up to the attic. I showed him the city, with Irva pushing him back every now and then, stopping him from getting too close. ‘It’s beautiful,’ he said, ‘and to think you made it all yourselves! But where’s it of?’ he asked. ‘It’s our city,’ said Irva, ‘where Alva and I live, we made it just for us.’ ‘Oh, I see,’ said Piter, ‘it’s not a real place, it doesn’t actually exist.’ I stood next to Piter so that we were touching, after a while I began stroking his hair. Piter didn’t say anything. ‘Do you want to touch me?,’ I asked, ‘Or would you rather touch Irva?’ Piter didn’t say anything. ‘Go on, if you want,’ I said, ‘we don’t mind, you can touch us. He can touch us, can’t he Irva?’ Piter stayed quiet and didn’t move. Nor did Irva. ‘Are you shy?,’ I asked, ‘Don’t be shy.’ And then I stroked him a bit more, and I could hear Piter’s faster and faster breathing. And then Piter suddenly started crying. He said through his tears, ‘Leave me alone, please, please leave me alone.’
SO THEN I forgot about Piter Soffit and began to concentrate my mind elsewhere. ‘We live in Veber Street. We weren’t born there, we were born in Saint Mirgarita of Antioch Street, in the hospital that’s there. Our father’s dead. He died on Napoleon Street. Where do you live?’
That was what I said to the fair-haired boy in the library with the maps and guidebooks, with Irva, anxious Irva, trembling Irva, less and less Irva every day, at my side. The boy looked up at us, very seriously for a few moments, and I began to wonder if he too would demand to be left alone, but then his mouth