Spectacle

by Jodie Lynn Zdrok

Simone had her independence, but her new life was far from lavish.

  “You won’t believe it. Read for yourself,” said Nathalie as soon as Simone opened the door. She pulled Le Petit Journal from her bag and shoved it into Simone’s hands while crossing the threshold.

  “I overslept. I didn’t even splash on rose water yet.” Simone yawned and closed the door. “And my mind isn’t ready to read anything.”

  Nathalie took the paper back from her, rolling her eyes. “I’ll read it to you, then.”

  They sat on the sofa, Simone stretched out like Stanley after a nap and Nathalie bunched up, legs folded under. A tiger ready to pounce.

  Nathalie read the article aloud, and by the end of it, Simone was off the sofa and pacing the room.

  “I can’t believe that monster was there while you were there,” said Simone. Her wide-set eyes seemed to grow even wider. “I wish you didn’t have to go alone.”

  Nathalie ran her fingers through her hair. “Me, too. Unfortunately there’s no other way, practically speaking.”

  Simone stopped pacing. “I know, it’s just…”

  She didn’t have to finish. Nathalie understood. Her stomach gurgled again just thinking about it. Did the killer witness her having that first vision? Did he notice when she was summoned by M. Gagnon? He must have been there, staring at her like everyone else, because her vision happened as soon as the little girl’s cry startled her. When did he leave? Did he follow her after M. Gagnon sent her off with a warning about the streets of Paris? She hugged herself tighter with each question.

  “I hope they catch him,” Simone said, “because I want to be there when he meets Madame la Guillotine.”

  “Front of the crowd,” Nathalie added. She imagined herself first watching the blade fall on the killer’s neck, then rushing up to the platform. She’d grab the head afterward and slap his cheek, like that man had done to the assassin Charlotte Corday, then …

  Simone tapped her. “Did you hear what I said?”

  Nathalie shook her head.

  “I said,” Simone began in an exasperated tone, “the letter was sent when only one victim was in the morgue. By the time it was published, the second victim was on display. ‘Until the next one, I remain.’ Who’s the ‘next one’ … the second victim?”

  “Could be. I’m sure it’s ambiguous on purpose.” Nathalie tucked in her elbows. “He’s probably sitting in his armchair right now, laughing to himself because he knows all of Paris is talking about it over dinner tonight.”

  Simone flopped down on the sofa, kicking up a small amount of dust as she did so. Her eyes filled with excitement. “If he does kill a third time, maybe you can help the police.”

  “But how? I don’t have any clues. It’s not like that.”

  Simone squeezed Nathalie’s elbow. “Just tell them what you see.”

  Nathalie thought about M. Gagnon, sitting tall in his liaison office chair, and what he would say if she went to him. In the course of a few seconds, she pictured scenes ranging from him scratching his jaw and jotting down notes to polite-but-firm instructions to place her arms in the straitjacket if she wouldn’t mind.

  “Do you really think anyone would believe me?” Nathalie asked.

  Simone relaxed her grip.

  “And what am I seeing, anyway?” Nathalie’s shoulders dropped. “A murder scene in reverse … but we don’t know if it’s real or if it exists outside of my own mind.”

  “Assume it’s real. Why not? It’s real to you.”

  “You’re the one who told me, ever since I made old Madame Mercier think Stanley was a ghost cat haunting the stairwell, what a good imagination I have.” Nathalie smiled at the memory, even if it was a little bit mean, because Mme. Mercier had been, too. And Stanley, being white, did make a good ghost cat.

  “Stranger things have happened,” said Simone. “Remember those stories about the fraud doctor—what was his name? Henard?—and the blood transfusions that gave people temporary magical powers?”

  “That was just some craze. And required a medical procedure.”

  Simone spread her arms out wide. “Yes, but what I’m saying is … you wouldn’t be the first person to have some kind of extraordinary ability. If he could make it in a laboratory, who’s to say you don’t just have it?” She leaned forward. “Maybe you stop rejecting the idea that this isn’t real and embrace the possibility that it might be. Stop fighting it.”

  “The police would think I’m unhinged. Wouldn’t they?”

  Simone dropped her voice to a whisper. “They don’t have to know it’s you.”

  “How would—” Nathalie stopped, interrupting her own question. How would that be possible? Of course. Follow the killer’s own cues. “A letter to the paper.”

  “Or to the police directly.”

  Nathalie chewed her lip. How involved did she want to get? Perhaps she was too quick to consider it “exciting.” Writing factual observations for Le Petit Journal was one thing; sending anonymous letters about what she saw was another. This would move her from on-the-scene interpreter to actor, a background figure on the stage. It was the difference between reviewing a theater piece and belonging to the show. Was she prepared to be part of the performance?

  Then she asked herself if she was willing merely to stand on the other side of the viewing pane, like every other morgue visitor, despite having seen so much more.

  So much to consider. So many unknowns.

  “Even if what I’m seeing is real, that doesn’t mean it’s accurate,” Nathalie said, twisting her fingers around one another. “What if my mind is stepping in with a paintbrush and changing the scene around?”

  “Or maybe your mind is a canvas for truth. Have you thought of that? Visions. Not hallucinations or fever dreams.” Simone tugged her braid. “The police will sort it out. I’ll bet they hear plenty of nonsense. You can’t be any more wrong than the people who purposely make up stories.”

  “True,” said Nathalie. She still wished she had proof, and she didn’t have many details to offer. However, it was unlikely she could make anything worse by telling the police what she saw. Right?

  “Oh, I almost forgot,” said Simone. She leapt up from the sofa and went over to her nightstand. She returned with a smile and a deck of cards.

  Tarot cards.

  Nathalie’s shoulders fell into a slump, which made Simone tilt her head like a puppy. (Simone was good at that.) “It’s almost half past eight. I told Maman I’d be home by nine.”

  “Louis will be dropping off a book about astrology any minute now, so this will be fast, I promise,” Simone said, sitting next to Nathalie on the sofa. “You know I need the practice.”

  Yes, Nathalie knew. Simone’s acquaintance with tarot card readings stemmed, like so much else, from her new life at Le Chat Noir and from Louis. One of the other showgirls did it on the side to entertain customers. Simone, having had a reading once from her, learned from the girl how to do readings of her own for her “favorites” at the club, as she called them.

  Nathalie, hiding her reluctance, agreed. Simone giggled through a thank-you before growing serious. “Now. Single question or open reading?”

  Simone had explained what this meant once before. Until the episodes at the morgue, Nathalie would have opted for a general reading. Not anymore. “Single question. What do these ‘visions’ mean?”

  After shuffling the cards a few times, Simone asked Nathalie to cut and laid out three cards face down. “There are a few ways to do this, but I want to start with the simple version until I have more experience. This card is the past, this one is the present, and this represents the future. Ready?”

  After a nod from Nathalie, Simone flipped over the card representing the past.

  On it was a man in the center with two horses on each side.

  “This is the Chariot,” she said. Her tone was thoughtful, focused. “It means that you’ve overcome adversity and that you display perseverance.”

  “Starting off wi
th compliments. Those tarot cards know how to flatter a girl, don’t they?”

  Simone looked Nathalie in the eye, grinning. “See? That one was sensible enough. It could be referring to your mother’s accident and getting a job at the newspaper.”

  “Could be,” Nathalie said, returning the smile. She didn’t want to say it, but in her view, that card could be interpreted to explain most anything. “Although it doesn’t seem connected to the question.”

  “No, it does! Your job at the newspaper is the reason you go to the morgue every day, so it’s what led you to the visions.”

  Nathalie couldn’t argue with that.

  “Open your mind,” Simone said. Her demeanor was so charming that Nathalie had no doubt she’d impress her “favorites” with this game. “Now for the next card, the present.”

  Simone flipped over a card with a moon on it. “The Moon means … confusion.”

  Nathalie felt Simone’s gaze, but her own eyes didn’t lift from the card.

  “If I wasn’t confused, I wouldn’t have a question to ask,” Nathalie said, sitting up straighter. “So I think this one is true for anyone who poses a question.”

  “That could be. But the Moon also means dreams.”

  Dreams while sleeping … or awake?

  Much too strange.

  Nathalie couldn’t dismiss that one quite as easily. “We needn’t do the third card.”

  “Too late,” Simone said, turning over the card that addressed the future.

  The card depicted a man hanging upside-down. His feet were crossed and hands were behind his back.

  Simone grimaced. “The Hanged Man.”

  “Hanged?” Nathalie said. “I guess it could be worse. It could be a guillotine.”

  “It’s not what you think. It has to do with self-sacrifice, I think.” She bit her lip. “Yes, that’s it. And it involves changing how you think.”

  Nathalie thumbed the sofa fabric. “In summary, then, I had perseverance, I’m confused, and I’ll have to sacrifice something at some point. Or I already did, if missing out on a summer on the coast counts. It sounds like most everyone’s life at one time or another.”

  Her voice was much shakier than she’d intended it to be.

  Simone got up and came over to Nathalie, giving her shoulders a squeeze. “It’s just a game,” she said. Nathalie knew Simone was just trying to make her feel better.

  She appreciated it all the same. With a peck on the cheek she left Simone and trotted down the stairwell. The outside door opened as she reached the landing, and an auburn-haired young man with a paisley frockcoat entered carrying a book. A generous waft of his lavender cologne filled the space between them.

  His green eyes sparkled with recognition when he saw her. “I suspect by Simone’s eloquent description that you are Mademoiselle Nathalie Baudin,” he said, with a regal bearing. He held his hand to his cheek, as if taking her into his confidence. “And if you aren’t … my apologies.”

  She laughed. “I am indeed.”

  He extended his hand and she met it with her own. “Enchanté,” he said, raising her hand to his lips and brushing it with a kiss. “Louis Carre.”

  Nathalie blushed. No one had ever kissed her hand before, except for men Papa’s age striving to be overly proper, and they didn’t count.

  Louis turned her hand over and inspected her palm. “Ah, an Air Hand. Restless if that mind of yours isn’t kept active, eh? Simone has a Water Hand, full of passion about life.”

  “Both are true,” she said as he let go of her hand.

  “My mother is, among other things, a palm reader,” he said with pride. “She learned it from her mother and passed it on to me.”

  She smiled. “My mother is a seamstress, and she tried passing it on to me, but I’m not very good.” They chuckled.

  “Don’t think me rude for asking, but I have an appreciation for fashion: Did she happen to make the skirt you have on? Magnificent craftsmanship.”

  Nathalie glanced at her beige-and-white skirt with intricate lacing. An old skirt but well-preserved and one of her favorites. “Yes, in fact, she did.”

  “Your mother knows her way around a sewing needle. I admire such skill.”

  Nathalie thanked him. Such compliments delighted her, not out of vanity but pride in her mother’s talent. A talent that had been halted by severe burns.

  Louis bid her farewell and told her to be safe.

  “Interesting you should say that,” she responded. “You’re not the only one to tell me that in recent days. These murders have everyone on edge.”

  “You know what I think?” he whispered, again with that conspiratorial gesture. “Devil worshippers.”

  Her stomach wriggled like a serpent. “What?”

  “Simone told me the two of you were talking through the possibilities. I think there’s a Satanic cult behind the killings. The police don’t think like that.” He tapped his temple. “You have to explore even the most dimly lit paths.”

  Nathalie had never thought of anything along those lines, either. Louis had a most interesting way of thinking. That’s what poets do, she supposed. See things differently than everyone else. “Anything is possible.”

  “Isn’t it, though?” Louis bowed. “Enjoy your evening, Mademoiselle Baudin.”

  She left the building, particularly mindful of her surroundings as she walked to the steam tram stop. The tram arrived after a brief wait; she boarded and then got off at the Place de la République, as always.

  Almost immediately she had the unmistakable sense that she was being followed.

  9

  Nathalie got off the steam tram, passed a man on a bench reading Le Petit Journal, and stopped to tie her shoe.

  The man, who wore a British-style bowler hat, stood up when she bent over. He put his hands in his pockets and turned his back to her. When she resumed walking, she noticed—just barely, out of the corner of her eye—that he followed her.

  He’d hesitated. Almost as if he were waiting for her to finish tying her laces.

  She shook her head. There were other people on the sidewalk. Although it was smart to be alert, she could make herself crazy wondering if everyone whose path matched hers was a threat.

  But at first he’d faced the opposite direction. Hadn’t he?

  She wheeled around to see the man face-to-face. He wasn’t there. Two other men passed her, and the sidewalk was otherwise empty. She glanced across the street and saw the hat. The man, wiry and on the shorter side, was leaning against a gas lamppost beside the Place de la République monument. His clothes were dark, nondescript. All she saw was the back of him, again.

  Nathalie put her hand in her pocket, squeezed her catacomb talisman, and continued on her way. At the next block she took a right, then looked both ways to cross the street.

  That’s when she noticed him again. He turned when she turned, and he crossed when she crossed, staying about a block behind.

  This wasn’t a coincidental stroll. No one would take this route unless they were headed to the same cluster of apartment buildings.

  And if they were, they wouldn’t have crossed the road to lean against a lamppost first.

  Why would someone follow me?

  She tried to push aside the next question, but it pushed back.

  What if it’s the murderer?

  Goosebumps erupted across her skin. Run home and he’ll know where I live. Run to a public place and I might lose him.

  The latter made more sense; the Canal Saint-Martin was nearby, lined with gaslights, and often sprinkled with lovers and tourists.

  She went from a walk to a run.

  Her heart thundered in her ears, drowning out every other sound, even her own footsteps. She glanced over her shoulder. The man was still in sight, taking swift, agile strides.

  Within a minute she was on the Quai de Valmy with people strolling along both sides of the canal. She slowed to a walk, peeking to see if the man followed. She couldn’t see him in the crowd.
Had he left? Was he hiding?

  She spotted a carriage across the bridge. A couple seemed to be making their way over to it. She hurried to get there first, careful not to spook the horse.

  “Monsieur,” she said to the driver, “I need to get home. Immediately.”

  The driver cocked his brow, then looked past her at the approaching couple. “Samuel here has put in a long day of work,” he said, patting the horse on the neck. “My rates are higher at night.”

  Nathalie scowled. Thankfully she’d gotten paid that day. She pulled some money out of her dress pocket and waved it at him. “That’s fine.”

  With a shrug, the driver extended a hand and helped her up. He asked her, as she knew he would, why she was wandering along the canal alone so late. “I got lost,” she lied, searching the crowd for the man until they were on quiet side streets. She made nervous conversation to keep the driver from asking questions, eyes darting the entire time. She asked about Samuel, spotted gray with a black mane, and told the driver a story: When she was four, Papa had lifted her up to pet a carriage horse on the nose. The creature snorted at her, with a good deal of noise and moisture, giving her a fear of horses she’d outgrown years ago. By the time she was done with her story, the carriage was pulling up to her apartment building.

  After a visual sweep from one end of the street to the other, she stepped out of the carriage. She paid and thanked the driver, then entered her apartment building, not sure her heartbeat would ever slow down.

  * * *

  Nathalie paused at the top of the stairwell, drumming her fingertips on the bannister. How to explain her tardiness to Maman? The apartment door opened before she could give it much thought.

  “I heard a carriage. That was you? Spending money on a carriage?” Maman retreated back into the apartment. She placed an empty candelabra on a small table with five white candles resting on it.

  “I had to,” said Nathalie, following her inside. She closed the door and locked it, then checked to make sure it took. “I didn’t—I didn’t feel safe walking.”

  Maman caressed her scars. Her mother used to intertwine her fingers when she was anxious, something which she could no longer do. Touching her scars took the place of that. “I don’t want you to be out alone after dark, or even close to dark.” Her agitated tone shifted into concern. “Not until all of this goes away.”