Another Faust

by Daniel Nayeri

  As he was getting up from an evening nap on the steps of the Sacré Coeur cathedral, something grabbed Valentin’s attention. In front of the massive church, in the crowd of tourists and worshippers, sat his own mother. What’s Maman doing there? thought Valentin. She’s supposed to be meeting with her publisher. It didn’t make sense. But that was definitely his mother, and the man with her was definitely not the priggish Monsieur Brottiere. This young man was wearing paint-covered jeans, with bits of paint in his wavy hair. Valentin’s first instinct was to approach them. But then he thought of his father, sitting alone, drinking himself into a stupor. He’d lost all hope in anything but the fact that his brilliant wife was going to “turn the brutish head of the world with the delicate yoke of her pen.” He was an awful poet but never stopped being proud of his wife.

  Valentin crept a bit closer to listen. The pair began to walk. Valentin followed them. He crept among the crowds, close behind, all the way to a neighborhood in a wealthy district of Paris. He noticed the way his mother laughed; it was different from any laugh Valentin had ever heard from her.

  “Have a good afternoon?” the man asked her.

  “Boring. Nothing ever happens. I got no work done.”

  “Well, everyone has dry spells,” he said, glancing at his paint-stained shoes. “Do you want to come up?” They were standing in front of a doorway. Valentin had ducked into an alcove just a few feet away.

  “All right,” said Valentin’s mother with a smile. “Do I get first pick of your new paintings?”

  “Only if you dedicate your next poem to me,” said the man playfully. He was childish, thought Valentin, not like a grown man.

  “Don’t be silly! Everyone would know,” said his mother.

  They went inside. Valentin ran dizzily into the street and waited for a light to turn on in one of the windows of the apartment building. From the dark street, he could see the walls inside. They were covered with beautiful landscape paintings of the French countryside. Valentin noticed that they were exactly like the ones his mother had given him and his father for Christmas. Night was falling over the city. Street lamps burst to life. Valentin stood there too long, watching their backlit silhouettes. Finally he picked up a rock from the gutter and sent it flying through the glass. He heard his mother scream from inside as shards fell to the ground. By the time the man’s naked torso appeared at the broken window to see who’d done it, Valentin was already down the street.

  At home, he found his father asleep at the table. I would teach her a lesson, thought Valentin angrily, instead of cowering at the kitchen table, hugging a bottle.

  That night, when Valentin got into his bath, there was an unfamiliar spot on his chest. He tried to rub it off. But as his wet hand touched the small black dot, it only grew bigger. He lowered himself farther into the bath to wash it off. As the mark entered the water, it grew even darker and more pronounced. What’s this? Valentin thought. What’s happening to me? The mark was ugly, a black spot over his heart — as if his heart had exploded and spewed a black bile onto his skin. And no matter how hard he rubbed, it wouldn’t go away.

  Victoria, Christian, Belle, and Valentin live far from each other and have never met. In fact, they are as different as four children can be . . . except for one thing.

  Panic. Wherever they were, they all sat up in their beds. It was the middle of the night. What was that? Their nightclothes clung to their backs. When they moved, the cold sweat made their spines shake. Just a tree branch outside. But it didn’t look like a tree branch. It looked like hair — wild, snaky hair slithering in the wind. It could be hair. It could be hallucinations. Or it could be shadows from the clouds. It could be suffering fingers, scaling the walls of their unhappy homes. It could just be the storm . . . or it could be someone outside.

  No, it would seem that these children have nothing in common. But by the next morning, they all had disappeared.

  A country house somewhere in Europe

  From the outside, the house was a picture of serenity, like something out of a painting. It looked like the kind of hideaway that some pretty young family would use as a refuge from the day-to-day rush of modern life. It was tucked away in the middle of a wooded patch far from the nearest town. Surrounding the wood sat acres and acres of green meadows and rolling hills. Within the wood, there was a clearing, with patches of fragrant flowers, a few tree stumps where the little forest had been cleared, and the lonely country house.

  Beyond the big wooden door, however, there were no scenes of a happy family vacation. The carefree charm of the exterior was only an illusion, because the inside of the house was shadowy, covered by patches of dark. Sometimes voices echoed, and it seemed that there were many hallways protruding this way and that. But then, after a while, the room would fill with silence once more. In a corner, partially hidden by a shadow, sat a lady. She was blond and covered from head to toe in a flowing black overcoat, as if she were afraid that a single drop of sunlight would enter the house and burn her up. She sat in the corner, reading, rocking, keeping an eye on something.

  “Bicé, Bicé, wake up! Wake up right now!” Belle tried to scream in a whisper. “What’s wrong with you?” But Bicé didn’t move. She just lay there in the dark, breathing softly.

  Belle ran out of the room, feeling her way around, to find the lady. “What did you do to my sister?” she said when she found her. Belle’s voice cracked as she spoke, and she did not dare get too close. Under the gaze of the lady’s mesmerizing eyes, Belle shivered and shrank away. Shrouded in the loveliness of the rest of her face, the lady’s strange left eye might at first go unnoticed. Who would take the time to stare at just one eye? As subtle as a freckle or a gap in a starlet’s teeth, it sat demurely on her face. The serpentine beauty of that eye was at once inviting and challenging. It pierced the shadows, an eye in league with darkness. It crept undetected into whoever dared look closely — lightless, loveless, like a kind of venom. For if you happened to catch the gaze of that eye, you might notice that unlike its quite ordinary partner, it was split into four barely distinguishable pieces, each a different shade of heaven’s blue. It was as though a tiny crucifix had burned and branded it, preserving its own image while shattering the eye forever. The eye flickered, daring Belle to look.

  Without a glance at Bicé’s fallen form, the lady said, “She’s fine, my dear. She’ll be much happier now.”

  “What are you talking about? She’s practically dead. You hurt my sister, and you promised —”

  “She’s not dead, dear. She just needs to rest. When she wakes up, she’ll be happy, and she’ll love you again, because she won’t remember.”

  Belle ran a nervous hand through her thick black hair. “Do you promise? You promise she’ll be totally normal and won’t remember anything?”

  “Well, dear . . . I didn’t say ‘totally normal.’ Neither one of you was ‘totally normal’ when we met.”

  “Bicé was.”

  There was a moment of silence, while Belle tried to get a better look at the lady. Since the day they had met, outside her church back in Italy, Belle had found her ravishing — the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. More beautiful than her own mother. It was so easy to forget about the eye.

  “You have a pretty face,” Belle said, squinting to get a better look.

  “You certainly do spend a lot of time thinking about pretty faces.”

  Belle smiled. “I’m going back to my sister.” She turned to leave, but then she stopped and turned back to the lady. “I don’t like the other kids very much.”

  “You’ll grow to like them, and tonight you’ll meet someone new.”

  “Is that where you’re going?” asked Belle. “I thought it was just the four of us.”

  “No, dear. There’s one more I need to pick up.”

  Belle felt a surge of excitement, and then she caught the lady’s eye and felt a twinge of fear. She glanced down and ran out of the room. After fumbling around for a while, Belle manage
d to find the room where her sister had been sleeping. She went over to the bed and noticed that at last Bicé was stirring, and that her eyes were open.

  “Good morning,” Bicé said sweetly. For the first time since their last hour in Rome, she was calm, and for the first time, she was nice to Belle. Belle smiled back at her twin sister. Even in the thick darkness of this room, she could somehow see her sister’s face, a perfect reflection of her own. She wondered what Bicé was thinking.

  Belle waited, but Bicé didn’t speak. After a while, Belle sighed. “I miss Mom,” she said.

  To Belle’s surprise, Bicé laughed. “What are you talking about?”

  Belle didn’t say anything. She just waited.

  “You say the weirdest things sometimes, Belle.”

  “Why is it so weird to miss Mom?”

  “Uh, maybe because we haven’t seen our natural mother since we were babies!”

  Belle’s heart jumped into her throat. “Riiiight.” Belle couldn’t believe it, but it was true. Just as the lady had said, Bicé had forgotten. She had forgotten everything. She thought they were adopted. She thought they had always been here, living with the lady since they were babies. And most important, she loved Belle again.

  “Don’t be scared, Bicé. At least we’re together,” said Belle, putting her head on her sister’s shoulder. But Bicé just laughed. “Silly,” she said, stroking Belle’s raven hair the way she used to.

  That night, the girls hid in the dark room and waited for the beautiful lady to come back. Belle watched her sister, who seemed to have returned to her happy, energetic self — despite a head full of the wrong memories — and decided that she would tell her nothing, not even later, not even when they were grown up. She would keep all of her secrets hidden. And she would wait for it all to pay off.

  After a few hours of waiting, Belle and Bicé fell asleep. It was hard to tell the time, since everything was so dark and they weren’t allowed to go outside. A few times, Belle was woken by Bicé mumbling in her sleep. She would moan and shout things like “I’m not supposed to be here” and “Belle, help me!” The lady had said it would be like this for a while. Belle was still groggy when she heard a long, slow creak, and two sets of footsteps growing louder. She could hear someone taking quick, shallow breaths. She ran out of the room to see for herself.

  “Meet your new family, Christian,” said the lady to the redheaded boy who was with her. He looked around nervously, squinting to see better. Just then, another pair of feet shuffled past Belle, who was hovering in the hall. It was that horrible girl, Victoria, whom Belle had just met and whom Bicé assumed she had known since they were babies.

  “What is this, an orphanage?” the boy asked the lady.

  “No, dear, you’re not orphans. I’m your mother now.”

  “I’m Victoria. I got here first.”

  Belle took a few steps toward Christian. He was wearing a pair of torn jeans and a tattered shirt that said Celtic 31. “Why are you so dirty?” she asked.

  Christian mumbled some excuse about playing football outside and a broken tub.

  “In my house, Christian, you’ll have anything in the world,” said the lady in a cold, soothing tone. That was when Christian noticed someone moaning in another room, begging for help.

  “I . . . I don’t think I belong here,” he said as he looked around.

  “Of course you do, darling. You all do.”

  Just then, Bicé screamed again and Christian jumped. “Who was that?”

  “Oh, that’s nothing, dear.”

  “I . . . I don’t know who you are, or what this is. But I don’t want to be here.”

  “But you do, Christian.”

  “No, I don’t. I’m sorry I ever took up with you.” Christian was panting loudly and began to slowly back away.

  “It’s a pity,” said the lady.

  “No, it’s not! Now let me go! I want to leave —”

  Belle looked away for only a moment. In the next instant, a cold wind blew through the house, causing the lady’s black robes to flutter all around her. The lady stepped out of her corner, into the speck of light coming through the window. From the constant dark of the room, Belle thought she saw a horrible look pass over the lady’s face, like a gargoyle or a gorgon. Is she some kind of monster? Belle asked herself.

  With a beastly surge, the lady overtook Christian, her robes floating hungrily over them both, stifling the terrified yelp Belle thought she heard. Then Christian was lying motionless on the floor, an anguished look frozen on his face. The lady stepped away from the speck of light and withdrew to her corner, like a satisfied predator. She sank back into her chair, smiling again, lovely as ever.

  For a few seconds, Belle was too stunned to move. Then she crept closer to the lady, to the chair in the corner where the light didn’t dare go. Even now, Belle couldn’t help but think about this strange woman’s incredible beauty. She spotted a letter on a decrepit side table, discarded next to the lady, who was sitting in her chair, her back turned to Belle. She was running her long, elegant fingers over the yellowing paper like a toy. Carelessly she picked at the edges with her manicured fingers. Belle didn’t want to get any closer, but she didn’t have to in order to read the letter. It was written in a big childish hand.

  To: Phineas the Fence, Celtic 31

  From: Christian W.

  Dear Mr. The Fence,

  You were dead brilliant in yesterday’s match! How do you do that spin kick where the ball goes off to one side like that? Did you always have those wicked uniforms? What d’you do with the ones you outgrow?

  Just writing because I’m needing to work out some important grown-up bussiness. I got responsibleties now, and I’m bigger, so I got a serious sort of question for ye, which is how do I get brilliant enough to be a salary player and where do I sign up? You can tell me because I’m not just a kid. I’ve got someone to care for now and all that. He’s gone a bit mental, and he needs me. So I’m gonna handle things. For the sake of him and me.

  So what’s the worst thing you’ve ever done? What’s the worst thing you’d do? If someone offered, and considering you probably have people to watch over too? I reckon I’d do just about anything.

  Your mate,

  Christian

  P.S. If you’re tossing your old uniforms, maybe I could have one?

  Belle felt her face flush. She ran back toward the red-haired boy in the Celtic shirt.

  “What’d you do to him?” she demanded of the lady as she knelt by the boy and felt his cold face. She put her cheek against his and held his hand as Victoria poked him with her foot. Belle pushed Victoria away and looked up at the lady for an answer.

  The lady didn’t turn around. She just sat there, stroking the stolen letter.

  “Girls, it seems that, like Bicé, Christian won’t be joining our little game.”

  By the light of burning beeswax and the flicker of several enflamed bees madly flying about her chamber, she read the Book of Human History and wondered if they (humans, not bees) were entirely made of Pride and Fear. She would study this further in the next millennium. The shadows of the room fled from her, shaking like terrified prisoners. She turned the pages; they crackled at the edges like dead skin. Caesars, warlords, queens, and generals, politicians, popes, and celebrities — she smiled. A few bees gave up and sputtered to the floor. Human history is full of great men, great women, individuals with the will for power — all of them with governesses like her. Chambermaids, midwives, wet nurses, babysitters, stepmothers, different faces throughout the ages, to mask an ugliness dark and deep. She turned to the last page; the book groaned. A charred black hive screeched above her, fell like a ruined city. She laughed at the thought of her children. She would surpass all of the others, the most celebrated of angels, because none of them had ever had five.

  New York

  Where would you find five lost children after so many years gone by? In that little country house in the wooded patch? On a street in Cope
nhagen? An orphanage in Madrid? Some far-flung part of the world? Perhaps each of them would have found their own way in some corner of society, getting by on whatever wits or talents they managed to develop. Did Victoria still rage? Did Bicé still study? Had Christian grown into a thief? No one knew, and in any case, no one looked for them; no one ever shed a tear. In an instant, their teachers, friends — even their parents — had forgotten that the children ever existed. They never even felt the void. And so the world went on as it should, with no mention of strange disappearances or midnight kidnappings. Mothers didn’t clutch their children tighter in the streets. Governesses didn’t watch their kids any closer. Except, of course, for one.

  Nicola Vileroy called herself a governess, though she looked anything but. She was tall and beautiful, with a hive of blond hair tied neatly into a bun, a face as radiant as a morning star, and a figure as smooth and willowy as a champagne flute. She was French, with a thick captivating accent, and the face and manner of a fifty-year-old woman who was used to good things. If you believed she was a governess, you would think she governed a prince.

  On Christmas Eve, Madame Vileroy stood, looking very satisfied, in a big luxurious ballroom in New York City. This was the moment she, and her children, would step into the Upper East Side scene and would become its focus. Now that her children were well prepared, now that she had taught them enough, she could finally give them everything she had promised, everything that they had bargained for — here in this city where life is lived in the present, where today’s moguls are yesterday’s nobodies, and where no one cares to delve too far into the past — a city that asks no questions.