The Eleventh Year by Monique Raphel High Read Free Book Online

didn’t love. Then, maybe, after all, there was a small reserve of affection somewhere in her heart. The key to producing it seemed to be to take care of her. He would make sure to do that. He would make sure to honor her, to guard her, as God had told him in his sacred commandment. For he believed that God was watching him at every point and was recording his doings in a neat ledger. He would do good things, so that God would reward him with one of Charlotte’s kisses.
    When he was six, a good thing happened, although for years to come he was not able to remember why. His father had been away on a hunting expedition and the governess had been ill with influenza, in a separate wing of the house. A sudden storm had broken out, and Alex was rudely awakened. Paul was still sleeping, impervious to the thunder and lightning, as he always was to any great noise. But Alex felt tremors passing through his small body, and even though big boys who had started school were not supposed to cry, the tears sprang to his eyes, and he jumped out of bed, his heart pounding.
    No one was there. He began to panic and to sob. In his bare feet he padded out of the nursery. Mademoiselle—the current one—was ill, he remembered. He rushed out into the corridor and was even more scared by the lighted oil paintings of his forefathers. All at once he stopped, hearing laughter. The low, gentle laughter of a woman. His mother? But Mama never laughed, not with him and Paul, and around her friends her laugh was a brittle laugh, as she hid half her face behind an antique fan. This laughter was so attractive, so charming, that Alex wanted to be part of it, wanted to see who was laughing so generously, so merrily. He walked on tiptoe to a closed door and stopped. The laughter came from behind that door.
    Dare he enter? Suppose his mother found out? Yet he was only six, and the mystery was too appealing to be left alone. He tried to turn the knob, but it resisted. Silence replaced the laughter, and now the old fear took possession of the small boy. A voice that was hard and shrill, his mother’s voice, said: “Who’s there? What is it?”
    â€œIt’s me, Alexandre,” he replied, starting again to sob. He was bewildered. The laughter and his mother were together in that room. Yet the one could not possibly belong to the other. And now he would be caught, and punished. The door swung open, and the child fell back, stunned. An elegant gentleman was leaning out, peering at him. Alexandre didn’t think he’d ever seen him before.
    The man, unlike his father, was tall and smart, with shining brown hair and a fine face with twinkling eyes. “Well, young one,” he declared, “what seems to be the problem?”
    The gentleman was wearing a silk kimono open around his chest. Behind him Alex could see his mother, in her nightgown, pink satin trimmed with lace. The gentleman was holding a brandy snifter in one hand and the door with the other. He was smiling. Yet Alex was terrified.
    â€œI—I was scared,” he stammered. “The storm woke me up—”
    â€œSend him back, for God’s sake, Bertrand,” Charlotte was
    saying with annoyance. “Can’t you see the little fool’s a coward?”
    But the man’s eyes were gentle on Alex, who was shrinking away from his mother’s voice. He said, looking only at the child: “I myself used to be afraid of lightning when I was small. And nobody has ever dared to call me a coward. Come in, young man.”
    â€œAre you out of your mind, Bertrand?” Charlotte screamed, rising in a fury.
    The gentleman placed a protective hand over Alex’s head and looked directly into Charlotte’s angry blue eyes. He said: “I’m sorry, darling, but I don’t like the thought of frightened children. He can come to bed with us for a while, until the worst of the storm is over.”
    Alexandre was flabbergasted. This was