Pierrot didn’t tell any of the other children what was happening. It was as if the things that occurred between him and Elo?se were just dreams. It was rare that any of the children spoke of their dreams. What use was it to bring up a two-headed horse that had poked its head into the dormitory? At night the monsters under the beds begged him to come make love to them.
Sister Elo?se made Pierrot swear that he wouldn’t confess to the priest about what they had done. She said that what they had done was a secret, but it wasn’t a sin. And that being able to keep a secret was a sign of being in love. But the feeling of wrongness was there. Was that feeling proof of something? That there is a distinction between good and evil? But Pierrot didn’t dare tell the priest. And so, on top of everything else, Pierrot felt that he was going to hell.
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OTHERS NOTICED a certain change in Pierrot. Whereas before he had always seemed to be an almost unfailingly happy child, he now was taken by great bouts of sadness. He would tell the others to leave him be, that he was afraid of death and needed to weep. He seemed to perform sadness.
He curled up into a little ball as though he were literally a ball of despair. And he rocked back and forth, until finally he rolled right around into a somersault. He would always act shocked when he rolled over, then he would stick out his limbs in all directions, startled. All the other children laughed.
He ran, threw himself up against the wall, smacked against it like a bird against glass and then slid right down again.
He was standing outside in the garden. He had taken the Mother Superior’s umbrella and was holding it over his head. The children asked what he was doing and he said he was waiting for it to rain.
The children ran up to Pierrot when he got into one of these moods. For some reason, his sadness made their own go away. Their unhappiness was something that could be very easily mastered. It made their bad moods seem like something silly. Sadness was nothing to be afraid of. You could laugh at it. It was as absurd as a sneeze. It lasted as long as the pain from the sting of a bee.
Pierrot just stood there, all alone under his umbrella. A hen walked by with its chest way forward, like a toddler learning to walk. All the children got tired of watching Pierrot and went off to have fun. Except for Rose. She was left staring at him. She tiptoed over, bowed her head and went under the umbrella with him. She held his hand and Pierrot felt better almost immediately, as though Rose were a solution to all great philosophical conundrums.
“I’m a terrible person,” Pierrot said to her.
“I’m quite wicked too,” Rose said, and she smiled at him.
Pierrot knew that Rose was punished every time she spoke to him. All her words were contraband, treasured items from the black market. A sentence from her was like a pot of jam during wartime.
“Does it bother you?” Pierrot asked her.
“No. We won’t be here forever. When we go, we can do as we please.”
What an idea! There was the possibility for escape? Pierrot had never considered that. He had been a child for his whole life, so it seemed reasonable to expect that he would continue to be one for the rest of it. But there was the possibility of being free.
Rose pointed across the field in front of the orphanage. You could see the city being built every day. There was a different cityscape every time you looked. There would be new turrets and garrets and roofs and windows and crosses. They were approaching the orphanage, a fleet of warships getting closer and closer to the shore.
Three nuns came out with sticks above their heads to separate the boy and girl. Rose dropped Pierrot’s hand and ran across the yard.
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LATER THAT NIGHT Pierrot whispered the words “I’m quite wicked too” under his breath. He liked that. He liked to have her words in his mouth. He wanted to open his mouth and hear her laugh. He had a strange longing that he couldn’t put into words or logically understand: he wanted to be one with her.
? ? ?
ROSE WAS LET OUT of the cupboard and went back to her dormitory later that night. She was glad it was nighttime because the bright lights would give her a headache. She supposed she was lucky. She had been inside for only five hours this time, not days.
She had spent the whole time in the cupboard wiggling her back molar. It had come loose when she was struck on the side of the face for talking to Pierrot. She had it now, in her pocket.
Sister Elo?se had told her that she was a slut and that she had been trying to tempt him. Maybe the sister was right. She did have an urge to be near Pierrot. It always got her in trouble. She risked everything for him.