They performed their more experimental numbers for the other orphans, different from the ones they put on in the living rooms of the elite. They were both able to pretend to weep. They wept so hard that it began to appear ludicrous. The children all began to laugh. Rose held up a rag to her face to absorb her tears. Then she held it out in front of her and wrung it, to hear water splash all over the floor.
One afternoon in the common room, Rose and Pierrot placed their chairs next to each other’s. They shook up and down as though they were trembling on some train tracks. It was such a simple pantomime and yet it was so delightful that all the children found themselves laughing and laughing. They were surprised that something so simple could be so humorous. They kept rumbling on their little train seats for about half an hour.
Rose imagined that she saw, out the window of the train, places she had seen in books. She imagined that she was in Paris. She had seen a drawing of it in a children’s book. The hero of the book, a goose that carried a suitcase in his hand, declared that it was the most beautiful city in the world. She passed crowds of people, all wearing berets and striped shirts, with baguettes under their arms and cigarettes between their lips.
Pierrot wasn’t even imagining what was going on outside the train. He was imagining the suitcases all stacked on top of their heads and the stewards coming and going with little trays of sandwiches. He was imagining that he and Rose were rich and they were able to afford the sandwiches.
Finally a nun came in and swore she would beat the two of them if they didn’t knock it off. What would she have to do in life to be on one of those trains and to see those amazing things? Rose wondered as she marched off to bed.
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DURING THIS TIME, Pierrot began to feel more conflicted than ever about Sister Elo?se. What perhaps disturbed Pierrot the most was that he couldn’t stop thinking about their sexual acts. He would relive what they had done together the night before. The image in his head was bestowed with such a mixture of shame and pleasure that it made his penis grow hard. He began to think about dirty things all the time. He was horrified by his thoughts. They were completely mad. They were like the people at the foot of Mount Sinai engaged in an orgy.
He imagined all the girls lined up on their knees as though they were waiting for Communion, waiting to give him blow jobs. He was somehow absolutely horrified by the knowledge that he wanted to fuck all the girls at the orphanage. He thought that Sister Elo?se must have seen it in him and that was why she had brought him to the bathtub.
He tried not to think dirty thoughts about Rose. Because he spent so much time with her, he thought she would find out. But he thought about her more and more. Rose hardly had to do anything in the fantasy to bring him to a climax. He imagined her chewing on a lock of her hair. He pictured her dropping a book and then bending over to pick it up. And once he had a fantasy where she took the tip of her finger and spelled out the word prick in the air.
Perhaps sensing that Rose was beginning to dominate his inner life, Elo?se wanted more and more from Pierrot. She didn’t want to be a virgin anymore. She wanted to have sex with Pierrot. Then they would be husband and wife, in her mind. Then they would have something that he and Rose did not have. Then she would be his first love and he could never abandon her. Everything would be as it should in the universe. The problem was not that Elo?se did not have a sense of right and wrong—she most certainly did. Perhaps the most dangerous people in the world are the ones who believe in right and wrong but what they ascribe to as “right” and “wrong” is completely insane. They are bad with the conviction that they are good. That idea is the impetus behind evil.
So one night Elo?se brought Pierrot into a small coatroom beside the chapel. There was a pile of hymnals on top of a radiator that was covered in a pattern of roses. It was where plumbers and doctors hung their coats when they visited. There was an old couch for them to sit on and tie up their boots. Although it had been destroyed by a cat, you could still see the pattern of a medieval princess frowning and pointing at a dragon like it was a naughty dog. Elo?se lay down on the couch and told Pierrot to go inside her. Pierrot at first couldn’t figure out how to do it. They fumbled with his penis together. Once he was inside her, a strange feeling of guilt seized hold of him. The sordid reality of what was happening struck him. Elo?se’s big tits had rolled off to either side of her body. He could see the blue veins in them, as though she were made of marble. Her blond pubic hair seemed to cover half her torso. He wanted to get out of her but couldn’t figure out how other than to come. He was afraid that he would lose his erection.