The Queen of the Night

by Alexander Chee

  I nodded. It seemed to me it might protect me if he believed it. To think somewhere in the palace another, more powerful man waited for me. But I did not want to speak to him if I could avoid it; to do so seemed like breaking another promise—to the girl whose place I’d taken, or to God, my mother—I did not know. An affront somehow to my renewed mission.

  Well, the pleasure at our reunion is entirely mine then, he said.

  I smiled, turning my chin in toward my shoulder, still afraid.

  Perhaps it would amuse you, he said, if you came to see our dress rehearsal.

  He went behind me and pulled the dress taut, his hands on my waist and back. He settled my hair, his fingers brushing the skin of my shoulders. I felt a shock at the familiar touch.

  Like this, he said. You are a maiden; she is a matron. It should fit like this.

  I nodded.

  He reached out expertly to a hat pin near us on the vanity. He took it and slid it through the thick fold of silk at my back, and I nearly fainted as it passed through.

  Well, he said. You’ve still barely a figure. I’m sure Her Majesty keeps slim, but you are a knife.

  I stood still, held in place as much by all of this as by his hands, and allowed him to continue to pin the gown in place.

  You’re no guest here, he then said. I know this, for I am one. I’ve not seen you once at dinner. How is it you are here? Or does someone keep you in their chambers for their own pleasure? Is it the Duke? The Prince Napoléon? Who is it?

  I made to run and he grabbed at my wrists. This time the pain brought tears to my eyes. Ah, he said. You will not cry out. You are afraid of being caught. With that he let go.

  I must leave for now. But I will find out your secret, he said. We will see what happens then.

  §

  I undressed quickly, put the gown back into the trunk, and was fitting myself back into my grisette’s uniform when the girl the tenor had been looking for appeared in the doorway.

  She didn’t ask me the question I could see in her eyes, as to whether her tenor had been here and if I was to blame for her not finding him. I took a breath and set the lid of the trunk down.

  She’s back, she said to me, instead; and I followed her out.

  The hunt had left the Empress in a thoughtful mood. She seemed distracted as her hunting costume was removed and we settled her tea gown into place. I imagined she was thinking of the composer, perhaps plotting an assignation or worrying that he was in love with someone else, or both.

  The tea gown was pure rose pink crepe and tulle, almost too girlish. She asked for white and pink diamonds for her rings and necklace, and the Regent again. She seemed to wear it a great deal, perhaps for the way it insisted on her position. Her color was good from being outdoors, and when she was dressed, she was transformed and was lighthearted and then made to leave.

  She paused in the door and turned.

  Do you like it, she asked me. Does it suit? I was taken aback and blinked rapidly before nodding.

  Oh, you’re the mute, she said. You poor thing.

  She came close to me, walking slowly, as if I might startle. I made myself still, though inside my heart beat at a run. She reached out and ran the back of her fingers against my cheek. It was strangely humiliating and affectionate at the same time. Only as she paused and held the fabric of the sleeve against my cheek did I understand what the gesture intended.

  Yes, it suits you. This will be yours, she said. It should be yours. She glowed deeply, full of pleasure at the thought of giving it to me. I cannot remember your name right now, but to be sure, it is to be held for you. She turned to the other girl. You are the witness if any should challenge this, she said to her, at which the other girl gave a brief curtsy, and murmured, It is done, Your Highness.

  And with that, she left us, smiling.

  The other girl folded the hunting costume over her arm and left me alone in the antechamber as she returned to the apartment.

  Alone, I approached the mirror, full of shame at having thought to steal something she would give so easily. But I could never wear the dress; there was no place to wear it, no one to invite me. If I was very smart, I could sell it. I’d never had any of this sort of attention before from her, and it both pleased me as a novelty—imagining myself as being so favored by the Empress—and it also frightened me.

  For I longed to vanish again, even as I became, with each day, more visible, and the chance to belong to oblivion again became more remote—the chance I could belong to it and the chance I would even want it, both. In its place was something new. I became briefly unsure of what had happened to me earlier that day, as if I had fallen asleep there in the chair in the antechamber while the hunt emptied the woods of game, dreaming this all the while the tenor was still making love to his grisette, the one I knew he meant to find.

  But then I remembered what he’d said to me—I will find out your secret. And with that, my partner in dressing the Empress appeared in the door, fierce, and walked calmly over to me, her eyes darkening.

  I watched her as she approached, understood what she would do, and still I didn’t move, but instead waited. I even met her eyes as she struck me.

  Salope, she said, very quietly, as her blow, quick and stinging, rang across my right cheek.

  I remained silent and didn’t break her gaze. After she pulled back her hand, she left quickly and with purpose, shaking the feeling back into her hand.

  I sat for some time afterward, savoring the blow as if it were a badge. Then I withdrew the silver and black silk-satin-and-tulle gown for that evening from the trunk and held it aloft. The gown unspooled to the floor, as if it were alive.

  §

  I had been so proud previously, had disdained Pepa so thoroughly, and yet with the gift of one gown my covetous heart awoke.

  Six

  THE NEXT MORNING, when I took my dress to the empty apartment, my new pride held me erect the entire way. I opened the trunk to find the dress from the day before. Clearly visible were the little black crescents across its back, invisible to me in my haste, partly because of the black lace. This from the tenor, as he pinned the dress—the evidence that brought on the attack from my fellow grisette, I was sure. I scraped at the marks with a fingernail and found they flaked off, so I sat there and cleaned the dress with my fingers this way, and then put it away again.

  This time, I chose an empty trunk and set it off to the side and placed my new dress on top to cover it.

  I’d noticed the dresses were being sent less often to favorites. Perhaps there were fewer favorites or perhaps the favorites had tired of the seconds. What good is a dress to a court favorite if it cannot be worn in front of the Empress? Still, most of these were too grand to give to servants, though, of course, there was Pepa, and the apartment’s bounty seemed almost in danger when I thought of her.

  Pepa was the greediest of those who received Eugénie’s castoffs. For her to wear them took so much corseting and tailoring that she appeared like a caricature of the Empress, a clown empress. The more she tried to be like her beloved Eugénie, the more she showed how unlike she was, and the more I’d resolved to never be like her—yet here I was.

  I chose a trunk for my own to fill with the dresses I was now sure would be given to me; I would include a few others. I lacked for an address to send them to, as I had seen them sent to others, but once I had one, I could do it then in secret and collect them. And then they would be entirely mine. I was sure no one would know. I smiled as I imagined printing Tante Castiglione on the side and sending it to her.

  I remembered then that I was to have sent a card to her by now. A card I had not yet prepared. I had entirely forgotten. I had two missions, the one I had sworn to myself and the one I had promised to her, but my mysterious pianist and the tenor’s reappearance had destroyed my sense of them both. Yes, it was silly, this thing the Comtesse wanted—this mission was the exercise of her vanity, no matter what she said. But she would be impatient, even angry, i
f I delayed further, and I needed the money she’d promised—it didn’t matter if she was mad if she paid.

  I shut the trunk, off to discover just how a grisette might post a letter to her aunt.

  Seven

  THE HUNT WAS out once more the next day. There were two hunts in the week, I knew: chasse à tir and chasse à courre—in the first the animals were beaten from the woods into a cordon and shot while helpless to escape, and in the second the animals were beaten from the woods and then shot as they ran, no matter the kind, in every direction. I couldn’t remember which one this was. It didn’t matter. I went alone to the apartment, sure of being undisturbed, and worked at making a fair list of the week’s events, laying out the Empress’s gowns in order.

  I had made some good progress when cannon fire and gunshots began to fill the air until it seemed like a war had begun here, an attack on the palace while the Emperor and Empress were at play. When I heard the first cannon, I thought it a salute of some kind, but then the next and the next came, and then I heard gunshots and the shouts of men.

  I imagined the Empress dead in the forest beside her horse, the entire party slain, the woods burning, filled with enemy soldiers. They would advance on the palace, setting fire to it next, I was sure.

  The single way out I knew of was the road out of the palace into the town, but this would be full if there was an invasion or so it seemed to me. Or was it better to hide in the palace and wait? It seemed strange to me that there was no one to tell me what was happening or what to do if this was an attack until I remembered no one knew where I was.

  I decided on changing into the dress the Empress gave me. I could leave disguised as a guest. I took off the palace uniform, and as I did, the door opened.

  I leapt behind the dressing screen, afraid to think of who had entered.

  Through a crack in the screen, I saw the tenor. He searched the room with his eyes before entering quietly, and I next saw a woman following behind, fair-haired, carefully dressed, a rich man’s wife, with a florid complexion on an intelligent face. Or she was blushing from what she was up to, I couldn’t say. She wore her tea gown already, clearly having abandoned the hunt, but there was no urgency, or not the urgency I would have expected, in either of them.

  She looked askance at the room, as if reconsidering their joint aim.

  I wondered for a moment if they could not hear the noise of the battle until the battle noise was rejoined.

  How much longer? he asked.

  I mean, who can say how long the ambush of a cottage can take? she said, indifferently, and crossed to the window before turning back to him with a smile.

  The tenor chuckled at this, but he could see her hesitation. An expression crossed his face I did not recognize. He was softening, I saw, to her. Was it pity? Here was how he was with a woman he had not paid for. He reached for her.

  With the French, he said, such an attack could last a week.

  They laughed, rueful.

  She said something I could not hear.

  Well, you could say you have not recovered, he said. There’s no reason anyone should protest.

  The tension of the battle seemed to thicken the air around them, slowing whatever passion there was, and then there was only quiet.

  It’s over, and now they’ll be back, she said. Richard will be at my room in half an hour. I . . . we will try again, she said. Tomorrow the Empress seems likely to be at her councils again through tea. Perhaps then. I’m sure whatever indisposed me this afternoon will not leave me so quickly, she added, and leaned in to kiss him before slipping through the door expertly.

  It was some game then, the cannons. A game of war. My own mistress would be back, then, as well. I waited for the tenor to leave, but he did not, sitting down instead and then reaching to where I had stowed my uniform. He pulled it out slowly and held it to his face.

  I had never seen this before. The hunger he had for me.

  You’re here, he said flatly. Show yourself.

  He would try to force himself on me, it seemed to me then. Was it better to go to him or to be pulled from here?

  I went to stand in front of the vanity. My body was pale in the late afternoon light, the gold of the sun covering my skin. I still had something of a girl’s body except across my hips, but a faint fullness to my breasts had appeared, which was new. A sense of what remained of my own beauty returned to me then. A sense of it and the powers it perhaps endowed. He had loved me best naked, I recalled. I could use this to my advantage.

  You saw nothing, he said. He said this without having turned to see who it was, he was so sure of me. He held out my uniform and mastered his face back into the angry confidence of a moment earlier as I stopped before him.

  You see? I told you I would have your secret.

  He walked closer and circled me, examining me.

  This is lucky, he said. Very lucky. So you are hers, then, yes?

  He meant the Empress, of course. I still had not spoken and did not want to speak. My eyes averted themselves as he put his hand under my chin and lifted my face so that I was looking at him.

  Understand me. You still belong to me. And when I leave, you leave with me. I may sell you; I may have you imprisoned; I will decide. Part of how I will decide will depend on if I am well pleased.

  He took his finger from my chin and ran it down my front before handing me my uniform.

  Dress then and return to your lady. But meet me here tomorrow, for I have something for you to do. Much depends on if you please me then.

  He said this with such confidence, as if it were on the week’s schedule like the dinner that evening, the ball after; it chilled me as I made my way through the back passages, which comforted me now. I walked back to the Empress’s chambers and sat shivering on the bench.

  How had he found me? I asked myself. How? But, of course, a single answer floated before me in the dark.

  The tenor was sent here to remind me of what waited if I failed in my tasks. If the Comtesse was Providence, the tenor was a warning from God.

  §

  The following afternoon, when the Empress left again for her afternoon council, I returned to the apartment, seating myself on a sofa there.

  The door opened and the tenor walked in.

  He took in the scene I made as I waited, the picture of a palace grisette.

  Where does your mistress think you are? he asked.

  I shrugged.

  Speak to me, he said. I asked a question. Or has the sight of me struck you dumb?

  I closed my eyes, hoped for divine forgiveness, and cleared my throat.

  She’s at council, I said. She thinks of me not at all. She thinks I am looking after her gowns.

  This thundered inside of me and around me as I said it, speaking to him in French in our old way.

  Are you? he asked.

  I am, I said, and held my arms out to indicate the trunks around us.

  Take off your uniform, he said. And put that on.

  He made me dress in the gown I’d just brought up and then took me in it, brutally. And then continued, for he was not satisfied.

  He took real pleasure in it and knew me enough to try to reach me in my pleasure also, and so these discomforts mixed to create a new one. This was no blunt cruelty, but something intimate. Here then came over me the old trick of the body, the way I could pull back from the surface of my skin as someone might leave a room.

  The instrument took over and saved me.

  Afterward, I ached and was wet, as if from a fever, and full of shame. As if we had fought on the floor. I felt the need to clean myself and stood. He, by contrast, seemed asleep, at rest. Childlike.

  A long golden beam of light traced the skin across his stomach up to his left eye, and as if it pressed there, he blinked and opened his eyes.

  Leaving, he said. Does your mistress need you so very much?

  She does, I said.

  He laughed. Who are you really? he said. Are you the ghost of the one I lo
ved, here to torment me? Will you vanish now like mist?

  I sat down on the chaise and tried not to let him see my own anguish.

  No, he said. You’re not. You’re like a girl from the fairy tales of the Comtesse d’Aulnoy. And you’re back from the dead to kill me. You’ll be the death of me, I think.

  I let myself smile a very little bit as I looked down at his naked body and the unexpected, even extraordinary beauty of it.

  Why was I not used to it? But, of course, each time I saw it, I sought to forget it, and so each time it was new.

  He noticed my examination and laughed again slowly and slapped his naked belly. He sat up. And then I will come back from the dead for you, he said. Perhaps it will never end.

  He leaned in to kiss me, and his mouth against mine, unexpectedly soft, made me feel suddenly grave. The kiss was long and quiet, and had an insistent tenderness, unlike what had gone before.

  I pulled back my head and nodded my assent. If anything was going to prevent him from exposing me, it was this, his tenderness for me.

  This, which I abhorred most of all, this could save me.

  What is this council you speak of that your lady is attending? he asked.

  A war council, I said. Her ladies-in-waiting are up in arms over it, for it means no one has tea with her. I must go, I said. I paused a moment, aware that he was in no particular costume. Is there no performance tonight? I asked.

  A recital, he said. In the music room. This young new composer. I like him. He’ll accompany me.

  I must go, I said again.

  He shrugged. As you said. Off with you then, he said. Return to your lady. But be sure to come here again tomorrow when next she meets in council.

  He laughed again, and it followed me as I ran the passageways back to the Empress’s quarters.

  §

  Speaking had confused me; my silence had been a mask, and so it were as if a mask had slipped. I no longer felt like myself—I could feel how I even walked differently. I summoned a vision of myself as I had been even a few days ago. Like this, I told myself, and like this, slowing, as if finding the pace at which I’d once walked would return me to my disguise, remembering to be someone who could not speak and answer.