Wolfweir (8 page)

Alphonse went to his father's study and found a blue train schedule. He brought it back and unfolded it and placed it before Lucia. She bent over it, her lips pursed.

"Ah," she said.
"
C'est
la."

Putting her index finger on a line in the schedule.

Alphonse, standing on his puppet toes to peer over Lucia's shoulder, read: Milan Express, departing from the
Gare
du Nord, twelve o'clock. Overnight.
Wagon
lits
.

There were a number of stops scheduled. The train would cross the Alps and arrive in Milan late the following night. Yet they, puppet Alphonse and golden
Lucia,
wouldn't go as far as Milan. They'd jump the train someplace in the mountains, likely enough before sunrise.

An adventure.
Climbing.
Sneaking about.
Dangerous stuff.
All to the good.
Like the breathless plotting of a serial novel. Maybe it would take some of the black, clinging despair out of Alphonse's puppet heart.

(Once, Alphonse rode on this train with his parents -- it happened when he was very small. He remembers the smells of steam, smoke, rain, and pipe tobacco, and the jolting night landscape, and the sudden beaming arc lights of the remote stations, the train slowing and stopping for only a few minutes before lurching into that chugging rickety movement again. As his mother and father slept in the next compartment, Alphonse had glued his forehead to the cold window to try to behold anything he could, down to the smallest sheep grazing in a mountain pasture, lightning-
ed
by the passing windows of the train. To a child every sensation shines new, like a Christmas toy.)

Alphonse folds the blue schedule and sticks it into his vest. He goes to a jar by the stove and withdraws from it a thick wad of francs and stuffs this currency into his vest with the schedule.

"Ah, but however on earth shall we disguise you?" Lucia asks.

Alphonse hangs his head to concentrate on this question. Then he snaps his wooden fingers, goes to a tall wardrobe in the hallway, and withdraws a ship's plaid blanket.

He pulls a beret down from a peg by the wardrobe. Wraps the blanket about his shoulders,
then
plants the beret on his puppet crown and picks up his sword cane, leaning forward on it.
Shuffling forward a few steps.

Lucia claps.

"You look like an old man.
Excellente
! E
io
. My disguise shall be what?"

Alphonse tosses Lucia a black
tophat
. It's an old one of his father's, lined with green leather. Then he tosses her a splashy black opera cape.

"Ah! I see! You want me to look like an actor! I will put my hair up like this
-- "

Lucia twists her hair up and places the
tophat
on her head. She throws the silk lined cape over her bony shoulders.

"Ta
ta
!"

Alphonse claps, his wooden palms clacking like castanets.

**

They exit the apartment carrying three suitcases stuffed with old clothing and some hard sausages Alphonse found in the cupboard. He's carrying the Toledo sword cane. On the way out, he picks up the twin dueling pistols from the hall table and stuffs them into his belt. He slips the bag of powder and shot into a trouser pocket.

(One may prefer to work up close with sharpened steel, but one just never knows when one might require the barking assistance of a firearm.)

With the blanket wrapped about him and his head down, his pine eyes shadowed by that blue Basque beret, his silver-tipped sword cane tapping the stairs, puppet Alphonse looks like an infirm gentleman attended by his actor friend going out for a walk under the blossoming chestnut trees on this fine April morning in Paris, the city of lights and dreams and good food.

Even the sharp eyed concierge is fooled, thinking this sad figure wrapped in a ship's blanket is perhaps the somewhat germ-phobic Mr.
Pierrot
from the sixth floor. She takes the boy in the silk opera cape to be an eccentric nephew.

"Poor ancient thing," she says to her drowsing cat. "It's good he has the boy to help him walk. He's soon to be in Pere Lachaise, no doubt of that. I can hear his bones rattle from all the way over here!"

The
Gare
du Nord

At the end of the Avenue
Dupin
, Alphonse raised his cane to hail a clip-clopping horse cab.

They rode under the black canopy to the
Gare
du Nord and disembarked, dragging those overstuffed suitcases into the vast, echoing station under the great brass clock and the arced steel-and-glass skylights.

Lucia bought two tickets on the Milan Express. She and Alphonse slumped together on a hard bench to await departure at twelve noon sharp.

Alphonse was starting to drowse on Lucia's bony shoulder when she shook him so his teeth clicked.

"Attend! Look," she whispered.

Two men in long green dusters and derby hats were walking slowly together almost in step through the vast station concourse, shoving aside anyone who happened to get in their way.

They looked dangerous, vicious, and professional. They were turning their heads from side to side in unison to sweep the station with steely eyed gazes.

Clearly these deadly men were searching for someone.

A shiver went through Alphonse.

He grasped Lucia's wrist.

"Yes," she said." I know. We have to run. Oh no. No. Wait. They saw us. Oh Alphonse! They are coming!"

As the derby-men approached the two children, almost sauntering in their vicious glee -- taking their sweet time, both smiling the thinnest and cruelest of twin smiles -- Alphonse picked up his sword-cane.

"Careful. They have pistols," Lucia whispered.

Then Alphonse saw it too, the grip of a black pistol stuck in one derby-man's belt.

He crouched down, lowering his head, his shoulders shaking as if wracked by a cough.

"Ah, we are no doubt finished for good this time," said Lucia, a sad tremor in her voice.

**

The clicking steps approached. Both men wore shiny black shoes. When Alphonse saw the points of their shoes, he straightened up in a flash, hurling his blanket into their faces.

He ripped the sword free of its cane. The naked steel glittered. Alphonse lunged. He stabbed twice, three, four times at the writhing men through the ship's blanket. He heard howls.

A gun clattered to the floor. Lucia kicked it so it spun away.

She grabbed Alphonse's arm shouting:

"Come, Alphonse! We must abandon this place!"

They fled, shoving through the crowd, overturning carts and scattering luggage.

Alphonse sheathed his sword as they ran. He used it to swat aside a swarthy gendarme who stood in their path, red-faced, puffing on a tin whistle.

Lucia's
tophat
was gone, and her hair flew.

Many people simply stepped aside from their path, dumfounded at the sight of a puppet boy (sans strings) running pell-mell beside a golden haired girl in a billowing opera cape.

**

They dashed through the chaotic shouting crowd, crashing aside wooden barriers, onto the concrete boarding platform where the sleek blue trains, chugging and humming softly, were already loading passengers and luggage in puffing clouds of steam under those great brilliant skylights.

Lucia was gasping for breath. She tore off her opera cape and draped it on Alphonse, to hide his stick-like puppet body from prying or astonished eyes.

Then she turned her head anxiously from side to side, searching for the Milan train.

Meantime, Alphonse was watching behind them for the sudden appearance of
more rough
derby men armed with pistols, or club-waving gendarmes. He had one hand on the grip of a dueling pistol.

"Ah!" Lucia hopped up and down, jerking on Alphonse's sleeve.

There it was, the long dark blue train shuddering like something alive even as suitcase-laden passengers popped into view through the steam-misted windows.

"
C'est
la
. "

As she seized Alphonse's wrist and began to run for it, Alphonse tugged her to a stop. He pointed to the open door of a car full of boxes, crates, and luggage at the rear of the train, just in front of the glassed-in observation car.

"Ah,
si
.
Si!"
Lucia cried.

They made haste into the baggage car, crawling over suitcases and crates to the darkest corner, where a big green steamer trunk sat. Padlocked, its lid was
stencilled
with red letters: MAIL. Alphonse glanced around, then unsheathed his rapier and struck again and again at the chain holding the padlock, sparks flying, until it snapped.

He threw open the green lid and waved Lucia forward. She crawled inside, on a pile of letters. Alphonse jumped in after her and shut the lid with a heavy clunk.

Had anyone heard Alphonse hacking at the chain? It was eerily silent in the baggage car. They could hear bells ringing, a conductor's distant shout.

Then door to the baggage car slid shut with a bang. A lock
thunked
into place. In the dark, Alphonse smiled. He stroked the panting Lucia's hair with his wooden fingers.

The engine let out a whistle blast the two children could hear even in the depths of the mail trunk, and the Paris-Milan express jolted into movement -- streaming out of the
Gare
du Nord toward Germany, the Italian-Swiss Alps, and
Wolfweir
.

Baggage

Once the train was well underway, Alphonse pushed open the trunk lid and climbed out.

Then he put out his wooden hand and helped Lucia clamber out of the trunk. She held onto his shoulders and lowered her feet to the floor.