Chapter 6.
The Visitors.
One night, several lonely weeks later, a weary Sarah reached the top of the attic stairs.
She was surprised to see a flicker of candlelight coming from under her door.
She opened the door to find Ermengarde, dressed in her nightgown and wrapped in a red shawl, sitting on the crooked footstool.
When Ermengarde looked up, Sarah could see that her eyes and nose were pink from crying.
Ermengarde, cried Sarah, you shouldn't be here.
You will get into trouble.
I know, Ermengarde said, but I don't care.
She squeezed her eyes shut and two big fat tears rolled out down her pink cheeks.
Oh, Sarah, please tell me, she begged, why don't you like me anymore?
A lump rose in Sarah's throat.
But I do like you, she answered.
I thought it was you that didn't like me anymore.
The two girls rushed into each other's arms.
For the first time ever, Ermengarde let go first.
Only then did Sarah realize how lonely she had been without her best friend.
I couldn't stand it anymore, Ermengarde said.
I had to come up here and beg you to be friends again.
You are nicer than I am, Sarah said.
I missed you too, but I was too proud to say anything.
She frowned.
You see, now that my luck has run out, I've discovered that I am not so nice after all.
Ermengarde glanced around the attic room with both fear and curiosity.
How can you bear living up here? she asked.
Sarah looked around as well.
She found that she was actually getting used to it.
I just tried to pretend that I am someplace else, she said.
For a while I couldn't pretend at all or tell stories, not even to myself.
She nodded in her serious way.
But it's all coming back to me now, slowly but surely.
Sarah told Ermengarde about how she and Becky and Emily were prisoners in the Bastille prison.
Ermengarde was instantly drawn in.
She had sorely missed Sarah's storytelling.
Will you tell me more about the Bastille, she asked.
May I sneak up here at night sometimes, when it's safe, and visit you?
Sarah told her she could if she was careful.
Suddenly, however, both girls saw the doorknob to the attic room turning.
Who could it be?
They wondered in suspense.
Miss Mention?
Miss Amelia?
Or one of the older girls like Lavinia who would surely tell on them?
When the door opened, however, it was none other than little Lottie.
Today, it seemed, was to be chock full of visitors.
Although flustered, Sarah was not entirely surprised to see her little adopted daughter.
Lottie, who was still only seven, was quite confused about the sudden change in her make-believe mother.
She had tried to get Sarah to tell her where she had been taken and why.
Sarah had refused to tell her, but Lottie was one stubborn little girl.
She had listened in on the older girl's gossip about Sarah.
This evening, she started on her voyage of discovery.
She climbed stairs.
She never knew existed so many stairs that she thought her little legs would fall off, until she reached the attic and saw the light under Sarah's door.
At first she was overjoyed to have found Sarah, but when she saw the bare and ugly room, her face fell.
"'Oh, Mama Sarah!' she cried in horror.
She seemed as if she might start wailing and flailing again, something she had not done in a long time.
"'Surely you don't live here?'
Please Lottie Sarah, begged don't make too much noise, or I will be yelled at, for sure, and I have been yelled at all day.
She forced a smile.
Besides, she offered, it isn't such a bad room.
It isn't, Lottie asked, glancing around once more, looking uncertain.
Why not?
Quite right, Ermengarde added, looking as confused as Lottie.
She had forgotten all about the storybook romance of the Bastille prison.
Well, Sarah began, for starters, I am lucky to live in an attic that has windows.
Not all attics, do you know and you can see all sorts of things out these windows that you can't see from downstairs.
What sorts of things?
Lottie asked.
Why, enchanting roofs and railings covered in soot, Sarah began, and chimneys with smoke curling up out of them, in wonderful designs and friendly sparrows chirping for crumbs, and the rain's big fat drops falling from the sky and going pitter-patter upon the slate roof like gumdrops, and Such splendid sunsets, dazzling bright red and gold ones, or little fleecy floating clouds hurrying across the blue sky, riding the waves of the wind, and other attic windows, like that one just across the way.
Sarah pointed.
Lottie and Ermengarde looked out at the building next door.
Where?
Other heads might peek out at any minute.
Sarah paused, also staring out at the attic window across the way.
It was so close, separated only by a stretch of roof.
Someone with good balance might easily walk across it, but as hard as she had wished, nobody had ever walked across to keep her company.
My room is so little and high above everything she continued trying to get back on a cheery note that it is like a wonderful nest in a tree, and when I lie in bed and look out the windows, I feel as if I could surely touch the clouds and the stars.
Ermengarde had no doubt that Sarah could.
What else?
Lottie whispered.
Well, Sarah said, just look at that rusty fireplace.
If it were polished and there was a fire in it, just think how lovely it would be.
She sighed and closed her eyes.
Just imagine a soft, thick blue Indian rug on the floor and a cozy couch in that corner with cushions to curl up on.
Picture a bookshelf just over the couch, full of wonderful storybooks and a fur rug before the fire and lamps and drawings on the wall and warm, delicious food spread out like a picnic.
And on the bed Sarah finished, for she was getting quite tired there would be a soft and warm silk coverlet.
I would lie down on it and have such wonderful dreams.
Their flight of fancy was interrupted by a loud scratching coming from the walls.
What's that?
Both Ermengarde and Lottie exclaimed at once.
Sarah smiled.
Oh, that, she said, that's just Melchizedek, my pet rat.
Your imaginary pet?
Rat, Ermengarde asked, nervously clutching her red shawl more tightly around her.
No, Sarah said.
She then explained how, during the past weeks, when she was sure she had no friends left in the world, she had made friends with a rat.
She had named him Melchizedek.
He was, she had realized, quite shy and sweet, and as afraid of her as she had been of him.
All it had taken was a few spare crumbs saved from the kitchen to win him over.
"'It's just like a story,' Lottie whispered.
"'Why, of course it is,' Sarah replied.
"'Everything is a story.'
As fascinated as they were by Melchizedek the rat, no one realized that just a few minutes earlier another head had indeed appeared in the attic window across the way.
At long last,
It was the white-turbaned, dark-faced head of a native Indian manservant.
Alaskar, Sarah would have called him had she seen him.
Since both attic windows were open, the Alaskar could hear everything that was being said.
But lest he forget even one tiny detail, he was bent over a notepad, scribbling carefully.
Although heartened by their visit with Sarah, Ermengarde and Lottie could not risk staying longer.
Hugging their friend goodbye, they slipped back down the stairs.
"'Everything is a story,' Sarah repeated to herself.
However, looking around the attic once more, the magic of her stories told for the other girls' sakes had, for the most part, died away.
Everything became hard and bare again.
Emily was only a doll again.
Not even Melchizedek comfort her.
Oh, it's a lonely place, she sighed.
It's the loneliest place in the world.
The last car, still listening from across the way, didn't need to write down this saying.
He would never forget how sad and lonely this little girl was.
In fact, she reminded him of his employer, the Indian gentleman downstairs who was searching for a little girl about Sarah's age.
They had many things in common, he thought.
Perhaps, he thought next, something could be done to help both of them.
Before going to bed, Sarah gently knocked three times on the wall in a code she had created with Becky.
It meant, Prisoner, are you there?
After a minute, three knocks could be heard from the other side.
They meant, Yes, I am here, and all is well.
This was never quite true, but the girls always said it anyway.
Sarah knocked just one more time, a fourth.
This meant, then, fellow sufferer, we will sleep in peace.
Good night.
The next morning Sarah was looking out the window hoping to catch a glimpse of the sunrise, when there came a funny squeaking sound from across the way.
It sounded like a giant Melchizedek somewhere up on the roof.
But when Sarah looked out she saw it was not a Melchizedek but a monkey popping up in the open window like a jack-in-the-box.
Behind the monkey, there suddenly appeared another surprise the delightful, smiling face of Alaskar, wrapped in a white turban.
"'A monkey!
And Alaskar!'
Sarah wondered.
"'Could I be dreaming?
Have I died and gone back to the heaven that was India?'
Before she could answer her own questions, both she and the Lascar watched as the playful monkey scurried across the rooftop and opened Sarah's window.
Jumping in, the monkey started to scamper crazily all over her attic room.
But Sarah wasn't scared.
She had been around many monkeys in India, and this lively little baby only made her laugh.
She also knew that the monkey must return to his master.
She turned in the Laskar's direction, glad that she still remembered some of the Hindu dialect she had learned while in India with her father.
"'Will he let me catch him?' she asked him in Hindi.
She thought she had never seen more surprise and delight than she did at that moment in the Laskar's space.
Probably not, the lascar replied in beautifully accented English.
He introduced himself to her, making a polite and elegant bow.
My name is Ramdas, he said.
The monkey is sweet, he added, as unruly as a small child and hard to catch.
May I come across the roof and stand at the edge of your window and call to him?
He will probably leap straight into my arms.
Sarah looked over her shoulder at the little monkey who was darting across the room as though frightened.
Please do, she said, afraid that the monkey would hurt himself.
Ram Dass was right.
As soon as the monkey caught sight of his master's handsome white turbaned head, he hopped first onto Sarah's shoulder and then back out through the window.
Before he vanished, he turned to give Sarah a little thank-you scream.
"'Glad to be a service,' Sarah replied with a laugh.
But Ram Dass was not amused.
Through the window.
His quick eyes had taken in at one glance all of the bare drabness of Sarah's room.
It was no laughing matter that a little girl should be allowed to live this way.'
However, he did not reveal his true feelings.
When he spoke to her, he might as well have been speaking to the daughter of an Indian Raja.
He apologized for any trouble the monkey may have caused her.
My employer is quite ill, he explained, and this little mischief-maker gives him much pleasure.
At that, he raised his hand in a greeting of peace and smiled.
Then he recrossed the slate roof to his own window as sure-footedly as the monkey himself.
