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He took a seat on the sofa across from me. His feet couldn’t even reach the floor. How could such a little fellow be such a big pain in my ass?
“The old governess is gone,” I said. “She won’t be coming back.”
“Okay,” he said.
“What made her leave?” I said. She’d been threatening to leave since she first got there.
Cleb swung his legs back and forth.
“I said I didn’t believe in God,” he said.
I was surprised by this as I’d seen him pray most nights before bed.
“Don’t you?” I said.
He shrugged.
“I haven’t made up my mind yet,” he said.
“Then why did you say you didn’t believe in Him?”
“Because she kept saying she did and that he was real and all around us. And I kept asking her questions, like if he watched us when we were in the bathroom. Or when we take a shower.”
“I don’t see how that would make her react the way she did,” I said.
“It didn’t. It was when I asked if he sees her when she drinks from that little bottle she has tucked in her secret pocket. Then she went crazy.”
“Drinks from a bottle?” I said. “What bottle?”
“The one that smells bad.”
“Smells bad how?” I said. “Maybe it’s medicine.”
“It smelled like those bottles,” he said, pointing at the liquor cabinet.
I just stared at him. Governess Puem-Gleb was the most devout person I’d ever met. To think she was a secret drinker… Maybe it really was medicine, I thought. She was getting on in years and probably needed a little pick me up now and then.
But how many medicines smelled like single-malt liquor?
I shook my head and focused on what I’d brought Cleb there to discuss.
“I need you to start behaving yourself,” I said. “I’m going to hire another governess and I need you to do what she says.”
“Okay,” he said, but it had the strong ring of noncommittal to it.
“I really mean it this time,” I said, feeling like I was talking to an empty audience.
“I know,” he said, his legs still swinging back and forth. It was beginning to make me dizzy.
“Is there… anything you want to talk with me about?” I said.
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
This was the way it always went when we tried to sit down and have a conversation. Me asking questions and him nodding his head politely and giving me one-word answers unless more was necessary.
