Work Text:
It gleamed.
Even as a young boy, Montparnasse always had an eye for beauty. He admired the thing from some ways away, keeping a distance between himself and the shop front so as to avoid being accused of thievery and chased away into the streets. The plump, ruddy man who owned the toy store had a sharp eye for shabbily dressed gamins and other potential shoplifters—thieving little gutter rats, he would sneer, before swatting at them with the dirty broom he kept behind the counter.
Its two mahogany circles, fixed together at the center and slightly tapered at the edges, were no bigger than Montparnasse’s fist, and yet its craftsmanship was exquisite. The body of it was inlaid with bits gold foil along its finely grooved edges and embedded with tiny shards of colored glass. Carved on one side with deep, dramatic cuts was the design of a rose; on the other, two crossed daggers. Montparnasse’s eyes followed the smooth, decisive curve of each cut, marveling at the detail. A colorful braid of string was coiled tightly around the center where the two halves were connected, and a rich, glossy finish gave the whole thing an extra feel of luxury.
A joujou de Normandie, it was called sometimes, or a bandalore.
Montparnasse had only heard of such a thing in passing. It was rumored that the King himself gave them to his grandnephews to play with. It was the envy of every child passing by the toymaker’s boutique, and even a poor urchin like Montparnasse could see that it was something special.
He decided that he wanted it.
Montparnasse ran all the way back home, taking the shortcuts through unshoveled snow and nearly freezing his small feet in the process. His home, or rather the apartment he and his family currently inhabited, was more or less a shack: narrow, two stories tall, and nearly falling apart. The gaps in the thin, poorly insulated wall let in the cold. A single candle shone behind a dirty, cracked windowpane—the only thing that might signified to passersby that this haphazardly arranged mess of planks and nails could possibly be called someone’s home.
The boy found his mother in the kitchen, hunched over a rusty oven. She stirred a small portion of unidentifiable porridge. He came up behind her, out of breath and chilled stiff from being outdoors the whole afternoon. His shabby, old coat and threadbare trousers had not protected him much from the cold.
“Maman,” he said excitedly in between gasps. “You’ll never guess what I saw today.”
The mother turned. A pale, gaunt, serious woman in her early thirties, she looked to be twenty years older. Her knobby, callused hands and sad, wrinkled eyes betrayed tiredness and a lifetime enslaved to the necessity of hard labor. She seemed to droop with the heavy burden of enduring injustice. Her fine hair and pallid skin might even have looked pretty, in another life; her angular features, graceful. However, the harshness of poverty had rendered her instead gray and sickly; everything about her seemed to be somewhat withering. She was so thin, in fact, that she looked almost like a ghost—as if, if you were to look away from her for only a second, you would look back to find that she had evaporated, or that you could see right through her. She was a mother of four in a perpetual state of exhaustion— though too stubborn to let it interfere with her sternness.
“You should not stay out so late,” she said in a low, slightly hoarse voice. “It’s almost suppertime.”
“I know," said the child. “I made sure to come back in time.”
She sighed in annoyance. “You know I get very busy around Christmastime. Where were you when I needed you to run some errands earlier today? What were you doing all day?”
Montparnasse pouted. “Things,” he said. “I was just doing some sightseeing. There are a lot of interesting things to see this time of year, you know.”
“Don’t tell me you were out at the town square again,” she said in an accusing tone. “You’re always running out that door, all eager to window-shop and lollygag around—it is a foolish waste of your time. You know we can't afford that.”
Montparnasse lowered his head.
“I’m sorry, Maman.”
“You should be lucky I don’t have the energy to reprimand you,” she said, turning back to her pot.
Little Montparnasse’s hands fidgeted nervously behind his back. He squeezed his fists a few times, as if trying to muster up the courage to say something. He sucked in his breath.
“I saw the most charming toy today,” he blurted finally, in a voice that was a little too loud. “In the window of the toy boutique. It’s new, I think—I’d never seen it before.” He stammered a bit, his words tumbling from his little mouth in lightning speed. “A beautiful little thing that you wind and unwind on a piece of string. It looks like jolly good fun. Everyone’s talking about it.”
The mother stopped stirring. The wooden spoon made a dull clunk against the side of the pot. “So?”
He hesitated. “So—it’s just that—I thought perhaps Père Noël might bring it to me,” he mumbled in explanation. “Since he hasn’t come the last few years.” He rocked a bit while looking up at her with large, desperate eyes that said please.
The mother looked at the boy in silence. She knew that, once again, she had not saved enough money to fill her children’s shoes this year. She had wanted to finally surprise the children with small trinkets this year—a few sweets, a shiny coin or two, perhaps even a new toy. Despite her best efforts, however, she could hardly manage to scrounge up enough food to feed five hungry mouths. She had not been the best mother, she knew, though she had tried so hard, working extra shifts and taking odd jobs. The landlords had been vicious, the boys had gotten ill, food costs have gone up. She would have to wait yet another year before having a chance to make it up to them. Alas, she had nothing for them this Christmas. But how does one break such news to a young child of only eight years? How heartless must a mother be to deny her children this simple pleasure, year after year after year? How wretched could she be to allow poverty to sink her so low? She simply could not bear to tell him the truth. She was too proud.
“Père Noël,” the mother said finally, turning away to conceal her tears, “only comes to children who have been good.”
Montparnasse felt as though he might shatter.
“But Maman—“
“Now go fetch your brothers,” she snapped, trying not to show her weakness. “Supper’s ready.”
Montparnasse retreated quietly to his shared bedroom, his pale, delicately freckled cheeks red with shame.
The words stung more than that poor mother ever realized.
Montparnasse couldn’t sleep that night. It may have been intended as a harmless fib, but an idea can be nurture or poison to the young, impressionable mind of a child. The seed of doubt had been planted—this notion that he was bad—and the child would come to absorb that notion into his vocabulary, into his very identity, hating himself all the time. Yes, he was a bad child, Montparnasse reasoned. He had stayed out too late. He had neglected his poor, struggling mother. He was an idler and a daydreamer. He had been lazy and indolent and engaged in foolish habits.
What could the child do, then, but give up his desire to be good?
Montparnasse sat up. He heard his mother snore softly in a small cot next to him. He looked at her face for the last time. On one hand, he hated her. But on the other, he couldn’t disagree; he was bad.
...And if he is so bad, what good would he do her in staying?
He kissed her cheek gently and whispered a brief apology, though in his heart he believed he was doing the right thing. He was, in a way, punishing himself, after all; it’s what he deserved. She would benefit as much to rid him as much as he would benefit from leaving. He stood up cautiously, making sure not to wake his three siblings sprawled out in various positions over the lumpy mattress they all shared. He tiptoed down the stairs in the darkness, avoiding the spots most prone to creak. The candle was long put out; he followed the pale moonlight leaking through the dirty windowpane.
All was still. Mother would not wake for at least another few hours, probably. Montparnasse shivered. He contemplated taking a blanket for warmth, but decided that his family would miss it if it were to disappear. He would make do with what he had, or find a warmer coat in the streets.
He opened the door. The wind howled. The vast whiteness of the snow greeted him—still untouched, mostly, save a few footsteps and a narrow path cleared neatly away to the main road.
This time, he thinks, as the tiny white specks come rushing in with the wind, I won’t come back.