Alva and Irva - Edward Carey [63]
Sometimes now, looking down on the plasticine city, to encourage Irva with thoughts of outside, I would read to her from the local newspapers. Together we would see, for example, where the robberies or murders had been happening, and if a robbery or murder had not occurred in the old town or in that part of Inner Entralla on the tables in the attic, I’d fetch the box holding the unfortunate street and we would stare suspiciously at the buildings, trying to seek out clues. But when I asked her to come out with me, just for a little while, just up Veber Street, as far as the bakery and back, she refused, she retreated into herself, wouldn’t speak again for hours, and when she did, she yelled at me, ‘You promised, you promised, you promised not until the city was finished. Don’t break that promise now. Not after all this work. So stupid! I’m not ready yet. I’m not ready. I will be, I’m sure I will, I feel closer everyday, but not yet, it’s not time yet, the city’s not finished, is it? Is it? So don’t be cruel. I’ll smash it, I’ll crush it, see if I don’t. We made a promise!’ And so I wouldn’t ask Irva outside again for several weeks. And yet every day she travelled in amongst the deep grooves of Entralla, her thoughts wandering through those many streets. She would set out on long walks, moving from box to box, studying from above the canals of streets, her confidence returning. She’d stroll round and around Entralla for hours every day and when she traced her thoughts back to Veber Street, when she closed the lid on the box of our street, it seemed to me she was a little out of breath.
THERE WAS another reason, besides our forced exclusion, for Mother’s growing independence. Jonas Lutt. All this time Jonas Lutt continued to call on 27 Veber Street. He had long ago stopped bringing plasticine with him and he began instead to come with wine and flowers. If he ever happened to see either of us while he was at home, he always asked, ‘How’s the plasticine?,’ and Mother would say, ‘Oh, they just love their plasticine those two, they couldn’t live without it, they just love it, go on then, you two, back to your work, Jonas and I would like some peace.’ And wordless and appalled we would build on. And then one day Mother knocked on the attic hatch, she told us to come down, that she had something to show us. We almost yawned in anticipation but what she showed us surprised and shocked us. Mother had a passport! Soon Mother was going to go with Jonas Lutt in his Scania lorry all the way to Germany. Jonas had asked her, Mother told us with a smile, and she didn’t feel it would be polite to decline.
WE HEARD a great honking noise, we looked out of the window to discover Jonas Lutt there and his evil, stinking Scania lorry, and then Mother came out holding a suitcase, and she climbed into the lorry and Mother, for the first time ever, was going abroad. Mother was leaving us, in that monster of locomotion, disappearing up Veber Street, out into Pilias Street and away, away. And I was running after her until she was out of sight.
WHEN MOTHER was gone Grandfather came to visit us again. We hadn’t seen him for many months. When he saw Irva he said, ‘This has got to stop, this has to stop. Neglect, that’s what it is. Pure and simple neglect.’ He tried to come close to her, I stood in his way. ‘When did you last go outside, Irva? How long is it since you were last out? You can’t stay locked up in here, it isn’t right. It’s not right.’ We didn’t answer of course. ‘You’re coming out now, you’re coming out this minute.’ He pushed past me and took Irva’s hand, he was going to force her out. ‘Don’t touch her!’ I warned, ‘Don’t touch her!’ But Grandfather wouldn’t listen, so I had to bite