—
THOSE WHO REMEMBER that I said an unpleasant event was accompanied by a pleasant event might be thinking that the pleasant event had some sort of symbiotic link to the unpleasant event and that this is why it’s worth entertaining foolish hopes even in the midst of having a bad experience that then gets retold to you as a good one. There are several fine verses concerning Hope, including two that tend to come to mind whenever I hear the word. Both are the work of poets named Emily who were alive around the same time, so you can’t even say that one was channeling an Age of Pessimism. In one poem, hope is a wild, stubborn thing with feathers that darts into the lyric to be caressed on the understanding that nobody will try to tame it. In the other poem, hope is clammy and clinging and plays toxic mind games: Like a false guard, false watch keeping Still, in strife, she whispered peace She would sing while I was weeping / If I listened, she would cease. When you endure some poison in the hope that it’ll give rise to its own antidote, on what terms does that hope come to you . . . ?
Anyway, in this particular case, the unpleasant event and the pleasant event had hardly anything to do with each other, so the jury’s out. Harriet got the wrong idea at first too. She was summoned to Clio’s office later on the very evening of the pinching incident, and, thinking that she was about to be banished, she only went downstairs after she’d stuffed all her pay packets into the pockets of the quaint patchwork coat that was part of a Gingerbread Girl’s outdoor uniform. She remembered to knock, and Clio called, “Come in.” The proprietor of the Gingerbread House was shrugging herself into her own coat—a fur one.
So you’re Harriet? I mean—that’s your name?
Yes.
I should’ve known. Well, let’s go.
Go where?
Home with me, to dinner. Gretel said she wouldn’t leave me alone if I forgot this time.
* * *
—
SO HARRIET SAW some sights after all, albeit through the rose-tinted windows of Clio’s limousine. She saw the gates of the zoo and the gates of the science museum, the gates of the presidential palace, the gates of the national opera house, and the gates of the national art gallery and sculpture park. She saw all the notable church, mosque, temple, and synagogue gates too. Gates and gates and treetops rising out of the courtyards within. The traffic jams gave her ample time to take it all in. There was a riverside walk famed for its breathtaking beauty that had a gateway too, with mosaics depicting the path in each season. Druhástranian gates reward close inspection. Their designs are usually so intricate that they serve as sparkling microcosms of what you’d see if you went in, which most people didn’t because they had shopping to do and also there are too many uncontrollable variables at play when engaging with cultural artifacts. Casual walkers were far outnumbered by the maintenance teams who cleaned every inch of pavement and glass in sight and made sure the gates looked their best.
And there was Gretel, walking out of one of these gates and along the pavement with six friends, all in school uniform. Two of the friends were aristocratic-looking boys. One was chubby and debonair, the only schoolboy Harriet saw who wore a cravat in place of a school tie, and the other was svelte, with a steely glint in his eyes that might make you think twice about challenging him to a duel. So these were the types of boys Gretel had something to say to. The farmstead boys hadn’t got a peep out of her, though she had smiled at the ten-year-olds a couple of times. The girls Gretel was with had tracksuit bottoms on under their skirts and sported a variation on that trendy city hairstyle—two puffs on the tops of their heads rather than one. Those whose hair didn’t have natural puff must have been using some sort of filler. The limousine idled along at about the same pace as the group was walking. Clio and Harriet watched quietly—they watched and waited—when would she notice them? It took some time—she was engrossed in conversation, after all, one hand tucked into the blazer pocket of a bespectacled girl who looked as if she was named Enid. Gretel’s other hand was tucked into her young dandy’s coat pocket until she bent to pick up a huge sycamore leaf that was so freshly fallen it hadn’t yet been cleared away. This was then presented to the svelte boy as a gift. He accepted it but threw it over the next gate they came to, and nobody was more amused than he was when the leaf flew back and plastered itself across his forehead. Harriet shrank down in her seat in case she could be seen from the outside. In this lot’s presence her already somewhat timid claim to Gretel’s friendship would vanish altogether. Her money was tearing the lining of her coat pockets; that’s how heavy the rolls of notes were. But they couldn’t even begin to buy her the charisma she’d need to face Gretel’s companions. She felt Clio’s deeply comparative gaze on her and braced herself for unfavorable remarks. But Clio only said: She’s spotted us, and there was Gretel on the street corner, waving goodbye to her friends and flagging down her mother’s limousine as if it was a taxi. She climbed in beside Harriet and placed half a lottery ticket in her hand. Since it’ll be Thursday tomorrow, she said.
Clio, Marcus, and Gretel Kercheval’s home was an inversion of the garishness to be found over at the gingerbread house. There was hardly any furniture, no pictures on display, and no lamps overhead. Strings of tiny lights ran along the bare floors and down the gray walls, and fado played from camouflaged speakers. This was all because of Marcus. It wasn’t just that he preferred open, low-lit spaces; he and Clio were funneling all their spare money into various ventures of his and inventions he was developing prototypes for. He was extremely good-looking, but the real factor that allowed him to boss Clio about was being in his early forties while Clio was in her early fifties. He made dinner, interrupting his chopping and stirring to argue on the telephone about dates and deadlines and fines, and even then he still found time to ask Harriet all about herself and compose a droll little jingle with the key words she and Gretel told him. He played the chords on his guitar, and when he sang along, he made Harriet sound like . . . a really good idea that was more likely to fall through than it was to succeed, but nothing ventured nothing gained, so on to the next one . . . ?
Harriet just put her head down and ate. Marcus’s cooking was so much tastier than seven months of gruel that she couldn’t talk about or evaluate anything else while the food was in front of her. Clio didn’t eat dinner, but she did sit at the table with them, taking pills, sipping bone broth, and reminiscing about delectable foods she’d eaten when she was young and “could afford to eat such things.”
Marcus noticed a new addition to the pill menu and picked up the bottle so as to have a closer look at the ingredients. I hope you don’t think any of this is going to turn back time, he said.
No, these ones are more or less preservative. Haven’t you seen the ads? An after-school detention concept, with a grizzled headmistress type shouting: NOOOOO WHINGING—YOU’VE HAD YOUR FUN AND THIS IS WHAT YOU DESERVE NOW THAT YOU’RE OLD!
That does ring a bell. But how can I be in love with someone who’s susceptible to that kind of advertising?
Oh, that’s easily answered. Self-sabotage, Marcus, self-sabotage . . .
Harriet and Gretel cleared the table, and Gretel nudged her and said, “Go ahead,” then went and made sure neither Marcus nor Clio came into the kitchen before Harriet had finished licking her plate.
Well—what now?
I’ve been thinking, Gretel, it’d be great to just grow up all of a sudden. I mean, wake up tomorrow and just be grown up.
Why? Gretel looked as if she thought growing up would be an utter fiasco.
Well, I’ve got a favorite author.