They knew they worked well together. The melted snow dripped down from Rose’s hat and fell on her nose, warm like holy water.
“If you have a good show, then you get to travel the whole world. Can you imagine that?” Rose said. “Packing all our gear into trains and boats and heading out to the world’s most wonderful places.”
“I never did. That’s a marvelous thought.”
Pierrot sat there for a moment, letting his head grow and expand so he could fill it with all this new information. He considered her dreams to be downright miraculous.
“It’ll be a lot of work, though,” Pierrot said. “I personally consider myself a very lazy person.”
“Well, my darling, you can be lazy when you’re lying in your coffin.”
The trolley came to their stop and they descended the steps onto the sidewalk and back onto the road. The snow fell all around them. They began to cross the field to the orphanage. The top layer of snow had hardened and now cracked under their feet like the surface of crème br?lée, something they’d never had the privilege of tasting.
“I like it when you call me darling,” Pierrot said.
“You do?”
“Yes. It’s surprising just how much I like it.”
“Why don’t you try saying something like that back to me?”
“Okay . . . well . . . how are you today . . . sweetheart?”
They both started to giggle.
“Well, and so, how did that make you feel?”
“Really, really good.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Sweetheart.”
“Darling.”
“Sweetheart.”
“Darling.”
They paused, just staring at each other. The snowflakes fell down, landing on their noses, landing on their lips, melting and turning them redder.
“Sweetheart.”
“Darling.”
And their lips shone and grew darker and became more and more enticing to each other. This was how they made a marriage vow at thirteen years old.
? ? ?
THEY CONTINUED TO TOUR AROUND the city into the spring. Colors began appearing everywhere on what had previously been a white page. The blossoms were like underwear blown off the laundry lines. The orchids hung over the cast-iron gates like girls in just their petticoats yelling at the postman for a letter. And they continued to tour into the fall, when all the leaves were like colorful candy wrappers, leftover from the very sweet days of summer.
Rose and Pierrot performed in all the big houses in Montreal. They were perfectly bilingual so they were able to perform in both French and English households. The city was the most magnificent in the world. It wanted to tell the two orphans its stories. What city doesn’t like to brag about itself? The gargoyle fauns leaned off the front of the buildings, whispering about their sex lives. The fat catfish in the greenhouse swore they had stock market tips. The horses on the carousel reared their heads, ready for a battle against the mermaid statues in the pond. An electric train rode around and around a tiny mountain in the toy-shop window, while its Lilliputian passengers dreamed in tiny berths. Rose and Pierrot’s feelings for each other during this time grew deeper and deeper.
Two years passed in this way. In 1929 they were both fifteen years old, and so what happened next was probably inevitable.
When they were inside the orphanage, they were often separated, as all the girls and boys were. Rose was coming out of Confession when she saw Pierrot. He was sitting on a bench by the wall outside the visitors’ coatroom, with a big, stupid smile on his face.
“What are you thinking about?” Rose asked him.
“I don’t want to tell you because I think I might upset you and make you really rather angry.”
“Oh, just tell me what you were thinking about and stop playing this ridiculous game.”
“Can I tell it to you in your ear? I don’t want anybody who is passing by to hear what I am saying.”
“Nobody can hear us.”
“I would be mortified if anyone else knew what I was thinking.”
Rose turned her head forward so he could get up close. She could feel his lips against her ear. His breath entered into her ear before his words did. Her impulse was to both pull away to stop this unpleasant thing from happening and to pull his head closer to her. The duality of this sensation made it so intense.
“I want to take off your stockings, and I want to look at each and every one of your toes. I want to put each of your toes in my mouth.”
The words were just shocking. The reason they were shocking was because she did not quite believe them. She had heard rumors of such words, naturally. But she hadn’t quite accepted them as being absolutely true. It was as though he were holding up a jar with a mermaid in it. Or walking down the street holding a unicorn attached to a leash.
She opened her mouth to respond, but she found that her mouth was dry and her throat seemed to be empty, with no words at all. It was like opening an icebox and expecting to find bottles of milk but finding nothing.
“And then I want you to touch my penis. Just take it in your fist and squeeze it really hard.”