Eleven by Patricia Highsmith Read Free Book Online Page B

the living-room window. On his way back, he saw Frank walking along the sidewalk, bouncing a ball. Now Victor went right up to him.
    “Hey,” Victor said. “I’ve got a terrapin upstairs.”
    “A what?” Frank caught the ball and stopped.
    “A terrapin. You know, like a turtle. I’ll bring him down tomorrow morning and show you, if you’re around. He’s pretty big.”
    “Yeah?—Why don’t you bring him down now?”
    “Because we’re gonna eat now,” said Victor. “See you.” He went into his building. He felt he had achieved something. Frank had looked really interested. Victor wished he could bring the terrapin down now, but his mother never liked him to go out after dark, and it was practically dark now.
    When Victor got upstairs, his mother was still in the kitchen. Eggs were boiling and she had put a big pot of water on a back burner. “You took him out again!” Victor said, seeing the terrapin’s box on the counter.
    “Yes, I prepare the stew tonight,” said his mother. “That is why I need the cream.”
    Victor looked at her. “You’re going to—You have to kill it tonight?”
    “Yes, my little one. Tonight.” She jiggled the pot of eggs.
    “Mama, can I take him downstairs to show Frank?” Victor asked quickly. “Just for five minutes, Mama. Frank’s down there now.”
    “Who is Frank?”
    “He’s that fellow you asked me about today. The blond fellow we always see. Please, Mama.”
    His mother’s black eyebrows frowned. “Take the terrapène downstairs? Certainly not. Don’t be absurd, my baby! The terrapène is not a toy!”
    Victor tried to think of some other lever of persuasion. He had not removed his coat. “You wanted me to get acquainted with Frank—”
    “Yes. What has that got to do with a terrapin?”
    The water on the back burner began to boil.
    “You see, I promised him I’d—” Victor watched his mother lift the terrapin from the box, and as she dropped it into the boiling water, his mouth fell open. “ Mama! ”
    “What is this? What is this noise?”
    Victor, open-mouthed, stared at the terrapin whose legs were now racing against the steep sides of the pot. The terrapin’s mouth opened, its eyes looked directly at Victor for an instant, its head arched back in torture, the open mouth sank beneath the seething water—and that was the end. Victor blinked. It was dead. He came closer, saw the four legs and the tail stretched out in the water, its head. He looked at his mother.
    She was drying her hands on a towel. She glanced at him, then said, “Ugh!” She smelled of her hands, then hung the towel back.
    “Did you have to kill him like that?”
    “How else? The same way you kill a lobster. Don’t you know that? It doesn’t hurt them.”
    He stared at her. When she started to touch him, he stepped back. He thought of the terrapin’s wide open mouth, and his eyes suddenly flooded with tears. Maybe the terrapin had been screaming and it hadn’t been heard over the bubbling of the water. The terrapin had looked at him, wanting him to pull him out, and he hadn’t moved to help him. His mother had tricked him, done it so fast, he couldn’t save him. He stepped back again. “No, don’t touch me!”
    His mother slapped his face, hard and quickly.
    Victor set his jaw. Then he about-faced and went to the closet and threw his jacket onto a hanger and hung it up. He went into the living-room and fell down on the sofa. He was not crying now,but his mouth opened against the sofa pillow. Then he remembered the terrapin’s mouth and he closed his lips. The terrapin had suffered, otherwise it would not have moved its legs so terribly fast to get out. Then he wept, soundlessly as the terrapin, his mouth open. He put both hands over his face, so as not to wet the sofa. After a long while, he got up. In the kitchen, his mother was humming, and every few minutes he heard her quick, firm steps as she went about her work. Victor had set his teeth again. He walked