“Strange to be in a theater of all places, isn’t it? Given what Gabrielle has seen.”
Jules waved his hand. “I don’t know. I get the impression she’s uncertain or that her ability isn’t all that precise. Or helpful.”
“She doesn’t like doing it. It’s probably that. And lack of confidence.” Despite being hasty to criticize Gabrielle herself, she felt oddly compelled to defend her. Because any flaw in Gabrielle’s power might admit to a weakening of her own, somehow.
“That could be. Either way, it is … an unusually unusual place to be right now. You’re right.” He looked over his shoulder before ascending the staircase. Their seats were on the second balcony. “Let’s not think about that. We’ll have a splendid evening; I’m sure of it.”
He touched the small of her back and escorted her to the second balcony. Before entering their row, he stopped. “All that time downstairs and I forgot to check my coat.” He eyed the row and sighed. “I’ll run down to the cloakroom.”
He squeezed her hand with affection before leaving. She made her way to the seat, but no sooner had she begun to read the program than she realized she’d left her shawl on a column in the lobby. It was still there, she hoped. She’d taken it off to adjust the bottom of her bodice (subtly) and neglected to put it back on.
She turned to see if Jules was still in earshot, but he’d already disappeared from sight.
With a series of “Pardonnez-moi” apologies to the very same patrons she’d crossed moments ago, Nathalie exited the row. She trotted down the sweeping, polished wood staircase and over to the ledge, grateful to see her shawl where she’d left it. Just as she turned to go back up the stairs, her eyes fell on Jules.
Walking out the door.
With his coat on.
Nathalie followed, of course.
The doors were always open at the theater, owing to the gas fixtures for lighting and the need for air to circulate. She made herself as narrow as possible as she slipped through people shuffling in the other direction.
When at last she went outside, she stood in the shadow of a column and looked out. Jules had on a nondescript brown coat like most other men and boys on the boulevard, and the fading sun wasn’t enough to illuminate faces. Her eyes trained on the vespasienne across the way, its modesty screens surrounded by hedges, as Jules walked under the gaslamp in front of it.
Why wouldn’t he use the water closet in the theater?
He didn’t use the vespasienne, either.
Jules went to a bush beside it, inspected the greenery, and reached his hand into it. He pulled something out. A slip of paper small enough to fit in his palm. He read it and shoved the paper into his coat pocket.
Turning on his heel, he crossed the boulevard again toward the theater.
Nathalie slipped back inside and hoped he didn’t see her.
What was that?
She hurried back upstairs, glancing once to make sure he wasn’t directly behind her. He was not.
Nathalie inundated her fellow theatergoers with another round of apologies and returned to her seat, mildly short of breath, and opened up the program. Her eyes moved across the text, but she read the same opening sentence again and again. Her mind was too full of questions about what she’d witnessed to absorb any of the words.
That discovery wasn’t random. Jules had arranged something that she was not to be privy to, for some reason. The why was so pervasive it rang in her ears like a railway bell.
“Is the Passepartout understudy performing tonight?” Jules said, taking the seat to her left. She hadn’t even heard him approach. “I thought I overheard someone say that.”
“Huh? Oh, uh … I don’t know. Let me look.” Nathalie turned the program over. Was he going to mention that he’d taken a note out of a bush just now?
Or why he still had on his coat?
She gave him a moment, to see if an excuse or explanation was pending.
Instead, he grinned. “I’m delighted that we’re here. I really am. I’ve longed to see this for a year already. Thank you, ma colombe.” He punctuated the sentiment with a kiss on her cheek.
Her smile in return was weak, but Jules didn’t notice. His eyes were traveling the walls and the ceiling, taking in the ornate reds and golds.
“You decided against the cloakroom?”
Jules’s face turned as crimson as the drapery. “Yes, the, uh, queue was rather long and the attendant looked harried. I didn’t want to wait.”
Nathalie shifted in the seat, pinching the program as if it were alive and trying to escape. “Oh.”
He faced her, a brow lifted. “Why? Was I gone long?” he asked, sounding as though he was trying to keep his tone light.
She clutched her shawl and forced a smile. “Perhaps I’m just impatient for the show to begin.”
“What about that understudy?”
“Oh, no. Not that I could see,” said Nathalie, though she couldn’t be sure what she had and hadn’t read in the last several minutes.
Jules was about to continue when the lights dimmed. After a brief pulse of darkness, the plush red curtain, reminding Nathalie so much of the black one at the morgue, lifted.
She couldn’t concentrate. All she could think about was that slip of paper in Jules’s pocket, the curiosity burning a hole through her like a flame through papyrus.
That mysterious slip of paper was in Jules’s right pocket.
Just centimeters from her left hand.
If only she could grab it, read it, and return it without him knowing.
As soon as the thought hit her, she flushed. What’s wrong with me? Jules was entitled to his private business. He needn’t tell her everything. Maybe he saw a slip of paper in the bushes and grabbed it because he wondered what it was. Maybe he didn’t mention it because it was nothing worth mentioning. For all she knew, he’d already discarded the paper.
That was where her mind rested, more or less, until intermission. She enjoyed the show (it was not, in fact, the understudy playing Passepartout), taking in the colorful set and ambitious staging, with its hot air balloon, trains, and ships. The performances were confident and the script closely followed the novel.
When the lights came up for intermission, Jules took his coat off and stood to stretch.
Before she could think twice about it, as if her hand had decided all its own, Nathalie reached into his right pocket. She took the paper out, then let it fall on the floor. In the next moment she herself stood to stretch and dropped her program. She stooped to pick it up, nimbly sliding the paper underneath and picking up both.
She took her seat again. Jules stood next to her, hands on hips and looking more like a fussy professor than a boy of eighteen. She placed the paper inside the folded program. Discreetly, she opened it just enough to read.
Continue. Proper path has been set.
Fifty francs, to be delivered as before.
What was he involved in?
Something unseemly. Almost certainly so.
She closed the program and cast her gaze on the bracelet he’d gifted her with last month. A family heirloom that had belonged to his mother’s aunt. Now it felt as if it were wrapped around her wrist like a serpent, constricting more and more. Surely her hand would turn blue.
Nathalie put her finger between her wrist and the bracelet.
“You look perturbed,” Jules said, peering over his shoulder. “Are you feeling unwell? I hope it wasn’t the terrine.”
“No, dinner was excellent. I—” She struggled for an excuse. They’d spent a lot of time at the restaurant talking about the Dr. Delacroix visit; pretending that was still on her mind or troubling her somehow wouldn’t be convincing. As they left, they’d passed M. Soucy sitting with friends outside a tavern, giddy and slightly drunk on wine. That was entertaining, not upsetting. And the rest of the evening had been normal and enjoyable, other than the occasional frustration that came with crowds. Nothing else from tonight would suffice.
So, she
reached for something she hadn’t shared, and wouldn’t (couldn’t) except vaguely, that genuinely did bother her. “My aunt has been on my mind a lot. I had a conversation with her yesterday that’s still nibbling at me.”
Jules leaned in close. “I’m sorry to hear that. Is there anything you’d like to discuss?”
Nathalie shook her head, eyes on the stage. She didn’t even want to look at him right now.
“You’ve been through a lot and so has she in the past few weeks,” said Jules in a low voice. “You’re so very good to her.”
He kissed her on the cheek and sat back.
The kiss of Judas.
Nathalie wished she could throw up. She wasn’t actually nauseated, didn’t actually have the feeling that she could or might. But she wanted to. Wanted to purge this feeling and everything else inside her, spew until there was nothing left inside of her and she was an empty vessel, waiting to be filled up again with a feeling that was anything other than … this.
29
Nathalie wanted to tear the paper to shreds. And she wanted to keep it. Let him think a pickpocket took it.
No. That wasn’t the approach to take.
She waited for the lights to go down and dropped the paper on the floor beside Jules’s coat.
The disquiet she’d felt over coming to the theater tonight had been nearly irrational. Of all the wild, dramatic, and mostly improbable scenarios she had envisioned (watching a man abduct someone, having the curtain go up and a severed head be on center stage, coming across some overwhelming evidence pointing to the killer’s identity in this show), she never guessed a scrap of paper would be of concern.
When the show was over, they stood to applaud. As they turned to exit the row, Nathalie pointed to the note.
“Did you drop something?”
She hoped Jules didn’t notice how shaky her voice was for that simple question.
His eyes searched the floor, freezing on the paper. “Oh, this.” The utterance came out with effort. A recitation, nearly.
He stooped slowly to pick up the note, much to the agitation of the gentleman behind him who was eager to get out.
Nathalie moved in beside him to see. Surely he’d understand her inquisitive spirit, given that it matched his own?
“This is for Faux Papa,” Jules said, looking her in the eye.
Oh.
The gentleman behind Jules tapped him on the shoulder. “Could you continue moving, s’il vous plait?”
Nathalie proceeded out of the row. She turned around. “Well?”
“Not here. Let’s wait until we get outside.”
They continued along with the crowd until it poured onto the boulevard like stones from a burst bag. Nathalie couldn’t get out of the fray quickly enough and moved to the doorstep of a dress shop.
Jules came up behind her. “Faux Papa’s doing … something to pay for his gambling debts. Some series of ‘favors’ for someone connected to his job at the railroad.” He looked down at his scuffed-up shoes. “I don’t know what, but I doubt it’s honest and in keeping with the law.”
She hadn’t thought of that. Faux Papa was the one with the unsavory character. Not Jules.
Even so. “If it’s for him, then why are you picking up the note?”
Jules kept his eyes downward and put his hands in his pockets. “They don’t want to be seen together. Faux Papa made me the messenger. I pass the communications and collect the money, sometimes at a designated place and sometimes at the hat shop. I’m disgusted by it.”
Nathalie studied him. He suddenly seemed very boyish. And embarrassed. She felt guilty for having thought he was involved in something—much more than being a messenger—and for forcing him to confess. If she hadn’t been so suspicious, Jules could have quietly done his wretched duties without having to explain himself.
She wanted to apologize, but to do so would mean telling him what she’d witnessed. That she’d hidden behind a column, that she’d taken the note from his pocket, and that she’d deliberately put it on the floor so as to ask him about it. She opted for an apology that didn’t require admitting any of that.
“I’m sorry you’re in the middle of it,” she said, imbuing far more meaning into that “sorry” than he knew. “You’re trapped in a web of other people’s bad choices. I hope it’s over soon.”
“Me too.”
She put out her elbow for him, and he took it. Together they walked down the boulevard. After a brief silence, they talked about the play. Nathalie still watched every man who passed with a skeptical eye.
None of them looked as if they could be Le Rasoir, yet all of them did.
* * *
Nathalie didn’t get much sleep that night. Her thoughts bounced between Jules, whose life at home was more troubling than she knew, and Christophe, who would be saying goodbye tomorrow for the longest three weeks she’d had in some time.
After a while she went up to the Rooftop Salon with Stanley. It was a clear night despite the humidity, and she fell asleep watching the stars.
A paw pad on her lips awakened her. Stanley ogled her, then meowed. Azure streaked across the sky into orange, with the sun winking from the horizon. She lay there a moment, listening as the faintest sounds of horse clops and rickety wheels heralded deliveries and early morning workers streets away.
Another meow from Stanley roused her from the momentary peace. She went downstairs to feed him and get ready for the day. Because she dawdled too long as she scrutinized her wardrobe, finally selecting a yellow-and-white linen dress with a floral pattern, she ended up having to rush.
Maman was up as well and gave her some blueberries and cheese when she went into the living room to gather her things.
“Nathalie,” Maman said, handing her a cloth napkin, “could we speak for a moment?”
“I’m supposed to be at the morgue at eight o’clock, Maman. Can it wait?”
The pleading in her mother’s eyes said no. Maman glanced back at the closed bedroom door behind which Papa was sleeping. “Now would be better.”
Nathalie’s shoulders slumped. A delay now, of all times?
Maman took a step toward her. “Before your father wakes up.”
Nathalie flopped onto the sofa with a sigh. Christophe would wait for her, right?
Maman sat next to her, putting her hand on Nathalie’s knee. “This requires a lot of discussion so I’ll get to it straight away.”
Whatever could Maman want to address with such gravity? Nathalie stretched the napkin, loosened it, and stretched it again. “Is something wrong?”
Maman met Nathalie’s eyes then looked away. “I—I know what happened with Tante.”
“What?”
“I know what you saw.” Maman removed her hand and rested it on her own knee. “I understand why you had an … especially significant episode.”
Nathalie’s lungs shriveled. “She told you?”
“No,” Maman said, gazing at a dress bust in the corner as she spoke. “I read your journal. Not all of it. Just the most recent entries, after your collapse. Enough to see what happened.”
Nathalie wrapped the napkin around her hand. She didn’t want to disclose anything—to admit too much without knowing for sure what Maman knew, or thought she knew. It was possible this was a bluff. Her mother was good, too good, at gathering information subtly at times. What does she know?
“Which was what?”
Maman hesitated. She rearranged a small pile of fabric on the table before continuing. “That Tante took her roommate’s life. With a pillow.”
Nathalie actually felt her eyes widen as she focused on Maman. “So you did read my journal.”
“Why wouldn’t I? My daughter, who suffers from devastating memory loss, collapsed with a display of the same symptoms.”
Both too many words and none at all came to Nathalie’s mind. She studied her mother and, after a lengthy pause, spoke. “I understand, Maman. I’d have done the same. Not only do I understand, but I’m gratefu
l.” Then she gave voice to the very concern she’d shared with Simone. “I was perplexed as to why no one had thought to read my journal.”
“Someone had,” said Maman. “I told your father and everyone else there was nothing there. Who doubts a mother? Everyone took my word for it.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“For the same reason you haven’t, I assume.”
Often Nathalie thought about how much she was like Papa. Clearly she had plenty of Maman in her, too. “To protect Aunt Brigitte.”
Maman gestured toward the bedroom. “And your father.”
Nathalie contemplated the weight of all this; she had a hundred other things to share, to ask. She began with the question that was simultaneously the simplest and the most complicated. “What should we do?”
Maman didn’t answer. Nathalie was about to repeat the question, though it was impossible her mother didn’t hear. Before she could, Maman said one word.
“Nothing.”
What? Nathalie tossed the napkin to the side. “How can we do nothing?”
“It would damage Brigitte and your father. We’ve all suffered enough as Insightfuls, and your father worries enough about his sister. Besides…” She traced her scars from the Opéra Comique fire two years ago, the same scars that led to Nathalie’s job at Le Petit Journal. Papa had healed the pain in Maman’s hands and helped them move nimbly again, but he could not remove scars, on Maman or anyone else. “I think Papa knows anyway. Or guessed. He didn’t seem to find the explanation surrounding your incapacitation entirely plausible.”
Nathalie couldn’t believe what her mother had just uttered. Maman, who attended vespers and made clothes for the poor every Christmas and had a beautiful soul … she would cover this up?
When it came to Aunt Brigitte, the rules were different. The very question she thought of yesterday after speaking to Simone echoed here in another way.
Somehow Maman, and possibly Papa as well, found it acceptable to cover up a murder.
She was nonplussed at her mother’s willingness to do this. Then again, not really. They had kept Aunt Brigitte’s power and the whole Insightful family history from her for many years, after all. Her loving, caring parents could keep secrets when they thought they needed to do so.
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