Jardin Caprice (1933)

[Authors’ note: Although this is a stand-alone story, there is a story before this that you may want to read, Sisters in Silence.]

We love to ride in the Model A, the “sedan” as Papa likes to call it, but we’re so rarely allowed. Gabriella and I can barely contain ourselves.

It’s so exciting to move so fast and see the other automobiles racing forward as if to collide as we drive through Highland Park. We will see many things today that we have never seen, as our trip takes us through several towns between us, here where we live, and the new Union Train Station in the Big City, Chicago.

Already there is so much sound…, and the noise of the tires on the road…and the chill wind that whistles through the windows is so exciting. We feel like we’re flying, low along the winding road, under a ceaseless fleeting sky.

If we could have screamed, we would have done so loudly, and Papa would have reached back to strike us in the back seat. Like Mama, he doesn’t like noise. We try not to let him even hear us breathe, just to be extra careful. Papa took time off from running his factory to be able to drive us to the train today, but he seems happy. Happy for Papa, which is not really very happy at all. But we’re happy.

Gabriella and I are eager to get there because we will see our cousins for the first time. Cassandra is 8 like me, Simone 13, my sister is 6, and they are coming with their nanny on the train all the way from St. Louis.

Imagine, so far to come to us! To stay for four weeks!

We can’t wait to hear about the train, how fast it goes and if it’s scary and loud.

It takes us nearly an hour, driving along Lake Michigan all the way from Highland Park and through the smaller towns. It gets more crowded as we get close to the Big City, and Papa says bad things in french when there are too many automobiles close to him on the road. There are too many people on the street and the sidewalks, especially through Wriggleyville. We shake silently, laughing about the name and trying to not emit our airy giggles. I sign to Gabriella, it must be wrong… a town couldn’t be named after wriggling. She just shrugs and smiles, still giggling.

We are scared to see so many people though, and their strange faces. A lot of them have signs asking for food. Papa rolls up his windows , and he “ooogahs!!” his horn sometimes, especially as we pass the downtown park. He doesn’t like to see the mess and the “grifters” in the Whoovilles or Whoovervilles, (Papa calls them that, muttering and murmuring to himself in french), where it seems an entire city of people are living in shacks made of bricks, and wood, and tin and cardboard.

Gabriella asks me frantically, signing with her hands, if they’re really all very hungry and if we can give them any food. I see she is about to cry, so I lie that people are bringing them food, that people are very nice here and take good care of each other.

I so wish it was all true.

We turn away from the lake on Randolph Street (it says on the sign), and it is only a few more streets. Papa is very angry at the number of automobiles about, and mutters “merde merde, merde,” as he looks for a place to stop. He needs to go around the station a couple times, looking, looking, looking.

Papa eventually stops the sedan next to the station, which is huge and scary looking. stopping it against the bump that raises the sidewalk above the street, a kurb, I think, where I suspect we are not supposed to stop an automobile. Papa explains to me quietly that I will go in to find them and bring them here, while he and Gabriella will protect the sedan. He gives me a paper that says “Corbeau” and another piece of paper that says Track 5.

He tells me to be fast.

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I am terrified to go inside The Union Station.

But I dare not tell Papa.

I dare not cry.

Gabriella looks at me with tears in her eyes, signing with her slow and reluctant fingers, Please be careful, Genevieve. I love you. I hug her and kiss her on the cheek in the back seat before getting out. I love you, too, I sign.

It is a little chilly outside the sedan, and I wrap around myself my new wool coat, buttoning it up to my chin. It is so lovely and the brightest of blues. We both have them now, Gabriella and I, to replace the thin coats we used to wear, the ones that were already small on us and didn’t keep out the cold.

Maybe Mama and Papa want to impress our visitors, who have “deep pockets” according to Papa. My new pockets are deep, and I like them, so I guess that’s good.

I walk to the Union Station slowly, but purposefully, like Papa told me, to not look like I’m “ill-bred”, but it just makes me more frightened to be so slow, so deliberate. I’ve never seen a building so big and so many people coming and going, all looking so serious and moving fast. Most are dressed really nicely, in shiny Papa suits and long coats (and the women in nice Mama dresses) with long pretty overcoats. There are some people here who ask everyone for food or work, but the Policemen push them away and make them leave.

I wish we could give them food or have them work for Papa.

Once inside, I am in a forest of legs, so I try to stay near the walls where it is less crowded, where I can see a little better. I am overwhelmed by the signs and schedules there, low and high, and I stop, just staring at everything, trying to make sense of it all.

A nice woman stops to talk to me, asking if I’m lost, if I need help. I shake my head, then shrug, and hold up 5 fingers. “Track 5?” she asks, and I nod happily. She takes my hand and starts walking with me in tow.

“I can take you to Track 5. Are you taking the train,” she asks me. “You cannot be alone, are you, darling?”

I shake my head, show her my paper with Corbeau on it.

“Oh, you’re meeting somebody. I’ll help you.”

I touch my chin to say thank you, and she looks at me, surprised, concerned.

The train is arriving at Track 5 as we get there and navigate through the many, many people standing on the platform. The nice woman takes my sign and holds it high. She puts her other hand on my shoulder to hold me close in the growing crowd of people now walking past us. I am so happy because she is being nice to me, and I don’t need to be frightened.

It takes some time before they come, the old nanny with beautiful little Cassandra and Simone. I glimpse them through the crowd. They all look so pretty and so confident, dressed smartly in long wool coats and walking surely among the crowd, carrying their travel bags. They see the woman holding my sign, and they come right to us.

So easy. “Duck soup”, as Papa says.

Cassandra smiles at me, putting her bag on the ground.

She says, “Bonjour, Genevieve,” while signing quickly, Hello.

Simone waves to me and winks.

I smile brightly to Cassandra, and I sign, I am happy you can sign, because it means you’ll know what I say. I was so worried, but now I’m not. My cousins hug me warmly.

Simone hasn’t learned much yet, signs Cassandra.

“Agathe?” asks the nanny, addressing the helpful woman.

“Oh, no, I just found this little girl who seemed to need help. I guess she got separated from her parents.” The woman looks relieved to have been of help.

I get Cassandra’s attention and I point to the woman. Cassandra understands immediately and says, “This is Genevieve, and she would like to thank you for helping her.”

“Oh, dear, you can’t speak?” She bends down and kisses me on the cheek. “You are a lovely little girl, Genevieve. I’m happy to have helped you.” I smile at her, touch my chin again in thanks. I am so happy. People are not so bad as Mama and Papa say, it seems.

I watch her walk away, back into the station. I will miss her, I know.

Their nanny, Celestine, smiles warmly at me. She is plump and huggable with such a kind face that I know Gabriella and I will love her dearly. She bends low to hug me, and I hold on tightly, maybe for too long. I don’t know why tears come, but I stop them abruptly as I always must do for Mama and Papa.

“You can call me Celestine,” she says, “but you will need to teach me the sign for this, so I know.” I nod.

I smile to Cassandra. Papa is in the sedan, I sign, and she translates for Celestine and Simone.

“OK, let’s shake a leg,” says Celestine, cheerfully. I look at my legs, and Simone laughs. “She means let’s go.”

I smile and point the way to go back to Papa’s sedan and little Gabriella.

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Papa is all smiles and warmth when we arrive, jumping out of the sedan to give our guests a hug and to help Celestine into the front seat. He puts the three bags in the back seat with us, and we push them to the far side of the seat so we can sit close to each other and hold hands. Gabriella needs to sit on Simone’s lap or there is no room.

Gabriella and I cover our mouths completely with both our hands to prevent the breathy sounds of our irrepressible silent giggles. I don’t like to sound like our dogs, the way they bark without vocal cords. But Cassandra and Simone laugh loudly at everything, everything.

So wonderful.

Papa doesn’t notice the noise, and we’re very relieved. He’s too busy talking to Celestine in the front.

I hear that Celestine asks him why I was alone in the train station, but he smiles and gives a long clever answer, pretending he had sent somebody in with me.

I tell Gabriella all about what it was like in the station, signing quickly, until I realize that Cassandra is not so experienced in signs, and she also needs to translate for Simone. I slow down and talk about the scary crowd in there and the nice, sweet lady who helped me. Mostly, I tell them, I was invisible to almost everybody.

Gabriella has so very many questions about everything that Cassandra stops me after a while and kisses my hands because she thinks they must be so tired. I think only my sister has kissed me before.

Cassandra and Simone talk to us of St. Louis and all the things they see there where they live, tell us about their Mama and Papa, and going to school and singing in the choir. We don’t go to school, because Mama used to be a teacher and teaches us at home. Since we cannot speak, we would be put with the kids with problems.

Cassandra tells us she has been learning sign language for several weeks to prepare for coming here, and we tell her that, at the same time, we’ve been preparing beautiful beds and a cabinet for them in our room.

It seems in moments we are home, the tires of our sedan crunching on the gravel at the end of our long carriageway. Our home is large, with some rooms we never even use. There are three gabled dormers on our steep roof and a large porch across the front where we stay most of the time during the day, with the dogs. We are far from anyone, surrounded by acres of woods. The upper window, on the left, is our room together.

“On peut aller sur le toit? Oups…. sorry… can we go on the roof?” Simone asks. I have no answer. Simone always seems so dreamy.

It seems impossible, such a thing, so I do not answer.

The dogs, great bull mastiffs, named Jupiter and Victor, run out to us, coughing their quiet barks and jumping on us happily. Simone and Cassandra are a little frightened by them and how strange they sound. Mama and Papa had the dogs’ vocal cords cut as puppies.

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Mama has a lunch prepared for us in the kitchen, but I ask if we four girls can take ours as a picnic into the forest. We know a nice grassy and sunny spot there.

Mama has no patience for reading my sign language right now, she tells me, but I write it down in the book of blank pages that she carries for this. She reads.

Mama smiles broadly, which terrifies me. Mama does not like surprises, and I just surprised her.

“Of course, you darlings,” she says, agreeing with my idea, packing our lunch of bread and meats and fruits and cheeses, in a large basket with a large canteen of water. I take two of our old blankets we use for outside, so we don’t have to dirty our dresses on the grass and dirt. “Just be back an hour before dinner.”

Cassandra and Simone are excited to go in the forest, since there are not many large tree-full areas at home in Lafayette Square, just small yards of grass and trees. We, too, don’t often venture every day in the woods, because of Mama’s rules, but we know some nice places for either shade or sun. I take them past the bunnies we have in our hutches outside, Bella and Bonnie. Just for a quick minute so they can see how sweet and quiet they are, with their fur so soft like baby hair. I feel badly for them, because normally we would be playing with them right now.

We walk across the soft grass in the back yard, toward the path into the woods, sending the rambunctious dogs home.

This time is just for girls.

The trail is made with rounded pebbles and some large flat paving stones, so it is easy to walk and never muddy, but today we walk beyond the path until it turns to packed earth, sparse grass. It is a beautiful woodsy trail with soft light dappling the trail, and it is a joy to feel it getting warmer. We may not need our coats.

Simone and Cassandra laugh and sing, and we dance to their music and act like we sing with them. Gabriella and I practice moving our lips and tongues to simulate speech, in quiet breathy whispers, but it is so much more fun to pretend to sing than talk.

Quickly we reach the old stone structure that we think was a cottage a long time ago. It has high walls, and holes for windows, and a door, but there is no roof and burned debris inside is only piled in one corner. It is full of tall wild strawberry plants, and a large black maple grows inside by the north wall, full of birds.

See, I sign, see how beautiful? There is so much sound and life, and we don’t need to be quiet here.

Gabriella dances around with the two blankets and then lays them on the ground. Simone helps her to spread them out to give plenty of room for us to sit.

“This is wonderful,” Cassandra says, plucking a strawberry. “Can I eat this?”

Yes, they are very sweet, I sign, and Cassandra takes several more, eating them all.

We open the basket and put the food out, laughing and eating and talking about how to make our little home here even more beautiful. We decide she is a girl, and we call her Caprice, Jardin Caprice.

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The evening is nearly as quiet as it always is, and Gabriella and I are a little scared, but Celestine has explained to Simone and Cassandra that Mama has a nervous condition and needs it to be quiet. Quiet talking will be allowed, but not during the Lone Ranger radio show that we will listen to after dinner.

We are all in our “Sunday best” dresses after having been allowed a hot bath, a long process for four girls. I bathed with Gabriella, as I usually do, to make things quicker. My cousins were allowed to take their time, and Celestine bathed earlier while we were outside.

Gabriella grabs me and jumps up and down, noiselessly, because she loves to listen to the radio show, and Simone and Cassandra smile at us. Simone is holding Cassandra’s book of sign language, Humboldt, so I think she is studying now.

Is it always this … odd … here? Cassandra signs.

It is, I say, but I nearly cry because I don’t want her to think too much about how weird it is here. I just want her to like being with me and Gabriella.

Mama taps on the kitchen wall with the great big wooden spoon, so Gabriella and I run frantically to go to her to perform our chores.

We carefully, silently, set the table in our formal dining room, with a clean tablecloth first, then the candles and napkins, in rings, the plates and soup bowls and silver, the little plates, the cups, the glasses, the water jar, the single bottle of red wine.

I look over the settings, looking for spots on the glasses, asymmetries in our arrangement. It is hard because there are 7 of us today, so it is impossible to be symmetric. If Mama doesn’t like it all, she will make Papa hit us with the great big wooden spoon while she closes her eyes.

We all go to the table, and Mama and Celestine serve the vegetable soup and fried biscuits and place the platters of food in the center of the table, near the candles. Dinner is a barbeque of meat with fried onion, potatoes and celery, and I can smell the mustard and lemon and vinegar and Worcestershire sauce. There is a salad of mixed greens and carrots and raisons. It all looks so pretty, but Mama is looking at us. We all bow our heads while Papa says the evening prayer, opening our eyes to the feast as we mouth, “Amen” when he is done.

“A special treat tonight, mes filles,” Mama says quietly. “Lapin aux oignons et pommes de terre.”

“Yummmmm,” says Simone, “we haven’t had rabbit in a long time.”

Gabriella and I sit quietly, clamping our jaws shut, trying hard not to cry. Maybe our Mama cooked Bella and Bonnie. Maybe she was mad at us for having a picnic. It takes us a few moments, but we both manage to put pretend smiles back on our faces.

We are used to broken hearts.

We eat only the soup, salad, and biscuits, and Mama and Papa say nothing.

What’s the matter? signs Cassandra, down in her lap, so I can just barely see.

Nothing, I answer.

Dinner is peaceful, though. Celestine talks quietly to Mama and Papa, but only when they ask her questions, while we talk among ourselves with our hands. I show Simone that I can talk in breathy whispers right into her ear, and she is very surprised, but she suppresses her giggles when the air tickles.

After dinner, we’re allowed to go outside for a little while before the radio show, and Gabriella and I race to see Bella and Bonnie. We are so relieved that the bunnies are there that we cry uncontrollably. Simone and Cassandra hug us until our gasping sobs become only silent tears.

I start to explain, and Cassandra stops me. “We understand, Genevieve. We would have been upset, too, if we had thought such a thing possible.”

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Celestine comes with us to our secret place, Jardin Caprice, in the morning, and Papa allows us to bring the wheelbarrow and shovels and hoes and big garden shears. “Only dig inside the walls, though,” he tells us. He seems nervous.

We wear our old clothes, and there are some for our guests to wear, too. We also take a wonderful picnic lunch that we put in the shade of the black maple, with our big container of water, while we prepare our nice little garden home. I even bring lots of flower seeds, perennials, to plant around the corners. Grass seed, too. We spend days gathering small stones for the center part of the floor, leaving a nice large grassy area by the south wall. I take care of the strawberries that grow everywhere, and I dig up many of them to move them closer to the walls. I teach Celestine some sign language as she helps me. She laughs so easily at everything. I love her.

We see men pass through the woods at a distance, and sometimes I see a figure in the woods, a man I think, watching from near a clearing that is close by. I think I see him in the doorway of our garden, but it seems I’m the only one. I am not afraid of ghosts, though. There are ghosts in our home, too.

When a boy comes, watching us from behind the trees, Cassandra and Gabriella want him to leave. “Just for girls,” Cassandra says, and she laughs. But he smiles and offers to help, and he looks strong.

Simone whispers to me, “He can lift the heavy things, non?”

“What’s your name?” she calls out to him.

“Elio. Elio Dufour.” He steps out of the trees.

“Do you like to eat, Elio Dufour?” Simone smiles at him, but he watches me, it seems. He is maybe 9 or 10 years old.

“Thank you. If you don’t mind.” Elio steps closer coming to the door of our garden. “I didn’t mean to spy on you, but I walk through these woods a lot. I’ve seen you all here sometimes, and I didn’t want to disturb you.”

Gabriella gives him a quick hug, and then she runs behind Celestine to hide.

“Welcome, Elio. I met your father just yesterday,” Celestine says, taking his hand and bringing him to our picnic.

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We spend the next two weeks, almost every day that it doesn’t rain, in our Jardin Caprice, making her beautiful and comfortable for us. Celestine prefers to let us work on it by ourselves, but she comes out periodically to check on us or to bring us our lunch. She is always so sweet with us and brings funny stories to make us laugh. Her reading of sign language is getting better.

Elio helps us a lot and even surprises us by putting a swing that hangs from a large branch of the tall black maple. We are all so surprised that he had gone there so early in the morning to do this, leaving it waiting for us with a nice note, For my dearest friends, the Corbeau Girls. Elio.

We hug him so much that day that he becomes embarrassed, though happy.

Simone adores Elio, even though he is 2 years younger than her. She spends a lot of time singing to him in the dreamy Simone way that she sings. I am a little jealous, watching her sing to sweet Elio. I could never tell him how much he makes me happy to be around, with my inability to speak. And I cannot sing. How could he like me the way I like him? How could I, or would I, compete with beautiful Simone?

We make a nice sitting area with some large rocks we place for seats, with the top of a very large tree trunk that Elio spends 4 days sawing to use as a table. Our sitting area is becoming perfect, and the grass in the bare areas is also growing already. The flowers, too, are starting to sprout. We walk there carefully to let it get stronger, staying mostly in the middle where the little rocks areas are spread around.

I spend more time by myself wandering the nearby forest, just to be alone and look for pretty stones. I know I am silly, just eight years old and always thinking about a boy, but I can’t help it. The ghost keeps me company, though, from a polite distance.

I wander a little too far one day, past the stream that we all promised not to cross. I am not thinking, and I see an area with lots of small stones. When I see the man, it is already too late to hide. My ghost seems to have already hidden.

“Hi girl,” he says to me, a big smile on his face.

I shake my head, turning to move away.

“Not even a word, girl? Stay,” he says, stepping close. He grabs my arm, jerking me close to him, and I open my mouth in a soundless scream.

“Ah, one of the feeble-minded mute ones. I heard about you.” He tries to pick me up, and I kick him and bite his arm. He releases me and backhands me across the face, knocking me to the ground.

I awake to feel him removing my clothes, but I can hardly move, and my vision is blurry, seeing two of everything. I’m not sure what I see after that. A shadow draws his attention (or is it two?) and there is a scuffle, a man screaming, and a loud metallic clang.

Elio carries me back to the garden. I notice I’m wearing my clothes again, and I wake up enough to throw my arms around his neck and weep silently. The ghost walks with us, just behind the near tree line.

I rest and cry with Gabriella in the Jardin Caprice, while Elio, Cassandra, and Simone go back to where the man is. In an hour or so, they return, dragging the man by his feet with the shovel and a hunting rifle stuffed into his shirt. I don’t know if they see the ghost, but he walks in front of them, guiding them past me to a clearing in the nearby woods. I follow them, leaving Gabriella in the garden.

Elio looks at the ghost, takes off his shirt and starts digging in a clear spot in the forest undergrowth, a place only covered by wild grass and ferns, the perfect size of a grave. Elio doesn’t seem to be surprised to find bones there, and pieces of clothing, shoes, a belt, a hat. He sets the bones and clothing aside as he digs deeper and deeper, to a much greater depth than the original grave.

He and the girls roll the man’s body into the grave. I can see, as he falls in, that his head is bloodied by a blow from the shovel. They throw his hunting rifle and a backpack on top of him.

Cassandra and Simone take the shovel from Elio, who cries quietly while they take turns filling in the grave with the soil Elio removed. I sit by Elio, and I put my arm around him. I whisper “Thank you” into his ear, hoping he can understand my breathy words. I kiss him softly on the cheek.

“Walker brought me to you just in time,” Elio whispers back to me. “The ghost. Walker. “

Elio will not say more of what happened with the man who attacked me. He tells me, though, that the ghost’s… Walker’s… bones were in the grave that he dug up. We re-bury Walker’s bones in Jardin Caprice, under the great black maple, and that seems to make him happy. This place seems to be special to him in some way.

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We tell Mama and Papa and Celestine that I fell and bruised my face to explain my condition. We resolve to not talk about what happened or anything about seeing a man in the woods. We have only a week left with our cousins, and we don’t want anything to interfere with our last days together.

There is no work left to do in Jardin Caprice, not for now, as we wait for everything to grow. But here we can enjoy the peaceful sounds of the forest. It is not long before we can enjoy the sounds of our own laughter again, as well. For fun, we bring the bunnies, and we block the entrance to keep them safe inside.

Celestine comes out with us more often, worried that another of us will be hurt, as I was, so it is difficult for us to discuss what happened… and the mystery of Walker. We feel no guilt for the bad man, whose name was Babbage, we hear. Not a good man, a murderer and a thief from Canada, apparently. And Walker… we’re all grateful that he is our protector… or was… nobody sees him now. I don’t tell them that I still do.

I dream every night of Walker, of his love affair with Mama, his beloved Agathe. There is so much I don’t understand, flashes, images, things I don’t want to see. Jardin Caprice was where they would come when it was still a small cottage, where they could meet secretly. He had a wife and child, and a baby with Agathe was concealed, a baby lost, and guilt… so much guilt… until Agathe went mad. I think maybe she killed Louis Walker. Later the cottage was burned down.

Papa comes out to see our garden, and his face becomes pale when he sees the disturbed ground in the nearby clearing. He sends us back to the house with no explanation, and we later see a fire coming from the woods. In the morning, nothing is said, but the grave is empty and a large fire pit is by the river.

Thankfully, Jardin Caprice is fine, and we continue to go there for our last two days together. Our goodbye is tearful on our last day, but we are like sisters… and a brother, Elio… now. We hug each other most of the day, trying not to cry too much, trying to laugh again as much as possible. Forever, I think we will be in each other’s hearts.

Father does not wish Gabriella and I to go with them back to Chicago to take Cassandra, Simone, and Celestine to the train. Gabriella and I sit at home in my room after they leave in the sedan, and we imagine we’re traveling with them to The Union Station. We make up conversations and giggling jokes, and we wink at each other wisely over the mysteries we have discovered. For some moments I pretend to be Simone, and Gabriella pretends to be Cassandra, just so we can have that last drive together.

Originally published at https://vocal.media.

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