3 THE BALLOON-ARTIST
It was the balloon-artist, standing on the
front stoop with a sheaf of papers tucked under one arm. Christian hesitated,
embarrassed at the circumstances of their earlier run-in, but he opened the
door just enough to peer outside.
“Can I help you?” he asked. The other man
held out the papers.
“Brought these for you, lad.”
He had managed to rescue a stack of
accounting forms. Christian took them and said, “Thank you.”
“Figured they might be important. And I
thought you might like a balloon, too. What’s your favorite animal, lad?”
“Er,” said Christian, unaccustomed (as you'd expect) to being offered balloon-animals at his age. “Well, I like
turtles.”
The balloon-artist procured a green
balloon from his waistcoat, and faster than a blink he had twisted it into a
turtle. He drew a face on it with a marker and added some scales. When it was
finished, he handed it to Christian.
“How’s that?”
“Incredible,” said Christian, opening the
door a little wider. He’d never seen a turtle made out of fewer than two
balloons.
The balloon-artist gave a deep bow,
grinning.
“Why, thank you.” He handed the balloon-turtle
to the accountant and said, “Go on, lad. Take a good look.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Christian,
opening the door all the way to take the turtle, “but why do you keep saying
that?”
The dark brow wrinkled in puzzlement.
“Saying what, lad?”
“That. Lad, I mean. I mean—I’m not
complaining, but I am thirty-seven today and—”
“A youngster,” the balloon-artist said.
“I’m sixty-two.”
Christian blinked, for he would’ve pegged
the other man closer to his own age, as unlined as his face and black as his
beard were. Before he could say anything, however, the balloon-artist
continued, “Thirty-seven today? Do
you mean to tell me it’s your birthday?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Oh, no, lad, not sir,” the balloon-artist said, holding out a hand. “Conrad. Conrad
Smithson.”
Christian shook the proffered hand.
Forgetting he had introduced himself earlier, he said, “Christian Abernathy. Won’t
you come in? That is—I mean to say—”
He could feel his ears burning; he rarely
spoke to strangers, and he never invited them into his home. But the lonely
silence of the house—somewhat mitigated by the music issuing from the record
player in the study and the cat now sleeping on his desk—had retreated further
before the laughter and easy speech of this particular stranger. Thus he was
crestfallen when Conrad Smithson shook his head and said, “Told the other half
I’d meet her for dinner. Another time, perhaps.”
“Oh,” said Christian. “Alright. Thank you
for the turtle.”
He began to close the door, redder than
ever at the rejection, but the balloon-artist put a hand on the doorframe to
stop him.
“Why don’t you come along? Unless, of
course, you’ve got any big birthday plans. We’re going to the Aquarium.”
Christian opened the door again.
“I wouldn’t want to impose,” he said
hopefully. Conrad grinned as if he knew what the accountant was thinking.
“No imposition at all. Come on, lad. The
night is young and I’m certainly not one to let my fellow man spend his
birthday alone.”
Christian was delighted. The two men took the bus across town to the
Aquarium to meet Conrad’s wife for dinner. She, it turned out, worked as an
accountant for the same company he did, which was no doubt what had attracted
her to her husband in the first place: the balloon-artist’s profession must
seem enchanting to two accountants who spent all day poring over columns of
numbers.
4 THE PARK ACROSS THE WAY
It was Conrad who told him Celadon Park
was magical.
It was a Saturday in June, and Christian
fumbled with a red balloon, trying to turn it into a ladybird. Conrad insisted
on tutoring him in the art of balloon-animals on Saturdays, not because the
accountant showed any talent for the craft (he didn’t), but because it got him
out-of-doors and interacting (however marginally) with the public.
Conrad watched his friend struggle with
the balloon for a while and offered him a new one when it popped, turning away
only when he had customers. Already an abundance of colorful, shredded rubber
littered the top of the cart, but at last Christian straightened and held out a
clumsy ladybird for scrutiny.
“Not done yet, lad,” the balloon-artist
said, tossing him a marker. “It’s not a ladybird without some spots.”
“Not all ladybirds have spots,” Christian
replied, but he fell silent as he concentrated on drawing circles onto the
balloon-animal, another field in which he was sadly lacking.
“And where’d you read that?”
“Insects
of Britain and Northern Europe, third edition. Some species have stripes or
no markings at all.”
The accountant finished drawing the
ladybird’s spots and handed the balloon to Conrad. The balloon-artist turned it
over and over in his hands, examining it as if it were a Van Gogh.
“You’re getting better,” he said. “You
might be ready for butterflies soon.”
“I don’t know about that,” Christian said,
pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose as he looked at his handiwork.
“It still feels awkward.”
“I don’t see why. The fingers you got, you
should be a pianist.”
“My father tried giving me lessons once.”
Conrad grinned. “And how’d that go?”
Christian took his ladybird back and said,
“I think I’ll stick to balloon-animals.”
The day wore on into the lazy heat of
mid-afternoon, when park-goers gathered in the shade and passersby were few.
The two men plopped themselves down on the sidewalk with their backs against
the stone wall of the park. From their seat they could see a sliver of greenery
just inside the gate. Christian peered at it, craning his neck for a better
view.
“You ever been inside?” Conrad asked.
“Inside the park?”
“Yeah.”
Christian considered. He had not, though
from his reading-chair it had always looked mysterious and exciting, with its
ivy-draped walls and ancient trees.
The balloon-artist watched him and said,
“I know—you haven’t. Too many people for you, I’m guessing.”
“I like my books,” Christian said.
“I know it, lad. But let me tell you
something. That park there? It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen. Like something
out of your books.”
“What do you mean?”
Conrad leaned closer to him and said in a
low voice, “It’s magic.”
There was silence for a moment, the
silence of a summer afternoon, broken only by the whine of a bush-cricket. Then
the accountant asked, “What do you mean, magic?”
His friend winked. “That, I won’t say.
Know why?”
Christian shook his head. The
balloon-artist pointed to the menagerie they’d made that morning.
“Because it’s part of my scheme to get you
out of your house more often, like this is. Get you away from those books for a
little while.”
Christian said nothing.
“Now you’re mad at me, that’s certain,”
the balloon-artist said. “But look, lad. I love books too, you know that.
There’s nothing wrong with a healthy appetite for reading—I wish more people
had one. But there’s a point when a man has to stop reading about life and
start living it.”
Christian’s ears turned red.
“I have to go,” he said.
Conrad nodded and settled back against the
wall. The accountant was already halfway across the street when the
balloon-artist called, “You have to go at night.”
Christian went into the Book House without waving
goodbye.
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