Spectacle

by Jodie Lynn Zdrok

  Strolling freely across the floor of Le Petit Journal in costume, that part was amusing. She enjoyed playing a joke on dozens of people day in and day out. Not to mention, she was curious as to whether any of them guessed, or at least pondered, if that gangly “errand boy” was actually a girl. Writing a column that around a million people read made her proud. If dressing like a young man was what it took, then it was worth it.

  Yet she hated obscuring her identity for no good reason. Dressing as a boy to earn respect, or to avoid disrespect, was not a good reason. It was an unfortunate reason.

  Someday she would march through the doors of Le Petit Journal, head held high, in whatever feminine attire she wanted to wear. Maybe she’d walk into an important meeting wearing a long, flowing silk brocade skirt that Maman would praise, hair piled elegantly on her head, wearing ornate, graceful shoes with heels like she saw at Le Bon Marché. With the heels she’d tower over most of her fellow journalists and be eye-to-eye with the rest.

  But today she was sixteen, in trousers and a cap, and walking quickly with her head down. M. Patenaude wasn’t in his office, so she left her article with Arianne, who handed over some mail. The first few days Nathalie worked at the paper, she’d been excited to get mail, until she realized it was nothing more than advertisements, the occasional donation request, and internal memos that had nothing to do with her. She tossed the mail in her bag and left.

  Finally she could go to Simone’s. They’d devised a strategy: If there was a third victim, she’d get Simone and go back to the morgue. That way Simone could listen to whatever it was she mumbled during the vision and try to make sense of it.

  Nathalie jogged up the stairs to Simone’s apartment. She tapped on the door like a woodpecker, which Simone never found as amusing as Nathalie did.

  Simone opened the door, pursing her lips before she spoke. “Normal people knock, you know.”

  “That’s why I don’t,” Nathalie said, poking Simone’s shoulder. She entered the apartment. “I hope I didn’t wake you. Did I?”

  Simone waved her hand. “The neighbors upstairs had a door-slamming fight about twenty minutes ago. That woke me. I was going to get up soon anyway.” Studying Nathalie’s anxious face, her eyes widened. “Are you here for the reason I think you’re here?”

  Nathalie nodded and spoke in a solemn whisper. “Another victim. With her skull bashed.” She put her fingertips on Simone’s left temple. “Here.”

  Simone mouthed a drawn-out “oh my,” and less than fifteen minutes later they were on a steam tram heading back to the morgue. As they stood in the queue, Nathalie told Simone about her visit to Aunt Brigitte.

  “Sometimes I wonder if those visions, the things my aunt claims she saw, were … I don’t know. Real.” Nathalie was relieved to share this thought, at last, with another person.

  “You’ve told me stories about your visits,” said Simone, a note of skepticism in her voice. “The woman who said she was painting a mural but she’d stabbed herself and smeared the blood across the wall. And that time a lady ran around shouting that the devil was chasing her and wanted to make her his bride. And a hundred other examples, not to mention your aunt’s behavior.”

  This was true. Before her morgue visions, Nathalie was dismissive of the things Tante said and did. The ramblings of a crazy woman.

  She reddened, ashamed of the reminder. “Lately I’ve been thinking it might be different with my aunt.”

  “Why? Because of your own visions?”

  Nathalie adjusted the brim of her cap. “I don’t know. I’m trying to figure that out.”

  “As sad as it is, remember that your aunt and those other people, they’re locked up for a reason.” Simone’s tone was kinder than her words, which made them easier to take. “Most of them end up on the street or in the asylum because they can’t tell the difference between imagination and reality.”

  Nathalie frowned.

  What makes you so sure?

  Simone had never met Aunt Brigitte. She only “knew” her through whatever Nathalie shared. Nathalie turned away. “How do you know I don’t belong in there myself?”

  “Because you’re you,” Simone said, taking Nathalie gently by the chin. “Practical, smart, and, whether you like it or not, perfectly sane. A little weird and silly at times, but sane.”

  She answered with a bittersweet smile. Simone didn’t know she’d stumbled on an uncomfortable truth. Nathalie knew from Papa’s stories, and even her earlier memories, that Tante hadn’t always been this way.

  When did that moment happen, the shift from sanity to madness? Where was that final step, and did Aunt Brigitte know it was coming?

  Would I?

  The guard waved them inside, interrupting her thoughts. Simone patted her on the back as they crossed the threshold.

  She was keen to touch the viewing pane, but Simone took more time to study the corpses than expected. Nathalie had to remind herself that what had become normal for her was still a spectacle for Simone.

  Still a spectacle.

  “These poor girls. Each one suffers more than the last.” Simone stroked the viewing pane as if it were Céleste’s cheek.

  For a moment, Nathalie envied her for being able to touch the glass that way. No choice, no consequence. Just touching glass because it was there, a barrier between life and death.

  Simone faced her. “I’m ready when you are.”

  Nathalie hesitated, fidgeting with the waist of her trousers. The scenes were in reverse, so would she speak backward? Demons spoke backward. That’s what she’d read somewhere, anyway.

  Louis had guessed that devil worshippers might be involved. Until they knew the Dark Artist’s motives, nothing could be ruled out.

  Then a thought chilled her. This isn’t some kind of possession, is it?

  She shook off the unwelcome thoughts and extended her hand, watching her fingertips meet the viewing pane. One breath later she was in the vision, looking down at two blood-spattered, white-gloved hands that were too big and powerful to be hers. And yet somehow they were.

  The backward scene went from bloody to bloodless as the killer chiseled the victim’s face. Steady, powerful strokes. This time Nathalie did more than see it. She felt the blade rip.

  Everything continued in reverse. The knife disappeared. The girl’s head bounced up like a ball into the killer’s hands, then he tilted her to the side to inspect a deep wound on her temple. He pushed her toward the corner of a decorative wooden table and lifted her head in a swift, violent motion. The victim’s eyes, full of tears, met his the moment before her death.

  Then Nathalie was once again in the viewing room of the morgue.

  Simone took her hand. “What happened?”

  “I—he threw her down into the corner of a table,” said Nathalie, her voice hoarse. “That’s what killed her, so the slashes came after she was dead. And he was wearing white gloves.”

  “Knifing her after she was dead,” said Simone, shaking her head. “How barbaric.”

  Nathalie took her hand out of Simone’s. “I can’t believe I didn’t realize this all along. I’m not just watching like an outside observer. I’m not looking over the shoulder of the murderer. I’m seeing it through the eyes of the killer himself. And—and now I’m feeling it.”

  Nathalie shuddered. She’d rather have a thousand spiders on her body than have that feeling again.

  Simone exhaled the way people do before delivering bad news. “Now it makes sense. The way you spoke, as if you were him. Inside him, almost.”

  Nathalie’s stomach tightened. Somehow she was closer to the vision, more aligned with the murderer, than ever before.

  “You said something that only could have come from the killer: ‘My pretty, pretty Mirabelle.’”

  Nathalie wrapped her arms around herself and gazed at the body on the slab. Mirabelle. Saying the name out loud … Was that why Odette’s name had felt familiar when she learned of it? It must have been.

  A man
appeared beside them like an apparition, his spicy cologne filling the humid air around them. “Pardonnez-moi! Might I ask, what just happened?” His voice was honey dripping off a spoon into hot tea. Rotund and elegantly dressed, he tapped his white-gloved fingertips together with a grin.

  When Nathalie turned to look at him, she had to stifle a scream.

  White gloves.

  Her heart became a rock inside her chest. Inanimate. She gasped for air and the rock became a heart again, beating faster than ever.

  She’d seen him before. In line at the morgue. He was a detail, a face in the background. The day she had her first vision. The day the killer was in the same room.

  And now, for no obvious reason, she’d had a vision that was stronger than ever. Closer than ever to the Dark Artist.

  A shiver glided down her back.

  No.

  It couldn’t possibly be.

  14

  Nathalie straightened up. “Who—who are you?”

  The man, whose white mustache matched his gloves, cocked his head. Simone seized her elbow and yanked her toward the exit.

  “Are you him?” Nathalie didn’t care who heard. “Did you do this?”

  The guard stepped between the gloved man and the girls. “Mademoiselle—”

  “Let’s go,” said Simone, tugging some more. “You need some air.”

  “No, I don’t. That’s him, Simone. I know it is.”

  “He might not—”

  “What are the odds?” Nathalie hissed. She glared at the man, who was now talking to the guard. “I’ve seen him here before and now I have this vision and then he comes up to us and—”

  “It probably is a coincidence, Nathalie.” Simone pulled her out the door. “You’re being irrational. He’s just a man wearing gloves.”

  “I remember him,” Nathalie said. They walked toward a bridge, Simone still holding her arm. “He was there the day of my first vision, just like the murderer. I’ll show you!”

  They stopped at the edge of the bridge. Nathalie took out her journal and flipped to the page that described her first vision. “Look. Right there. I describe the crowd while I was waiting to get inside. Then I had the memory gap.”

  Simone stood beside her and read. “… ‘A man wearing white gloves.’ Yes, he was in the room, right, but—”

  “You’re the one who said to trust my visions. Today I was nearer than ever to the killer. And that man was standing right behind us. The gloves again, on a hot summer day? We should tell Gagnon,” Nathalie said, pointing to the morgue.

  Simone stepped back. “And what would we tell him, that the man was eavesdropping? Or about your visions?”

  “No, I’d say—” Nathalie left the sentence in mid-air. Simone was right. “Well, we can’t just walk away.”

  Now it was Simone who couldn’t argue the point.

  Nathalie tapped the side of her nose. “J’ai du nez,” she said. Her idea was both thrilling and ridiculous. “We’ll follow him.”

  Simone looked over her shoulder. A couple with a puppy stood on the bridge, too absorbed in each other to notice anything. She lowered her voice anyway. “First, we can’t be chasing every man in Paris wearing white gloves. Second, we’re going to follow someone who, if your instinct is correct, is a killer? Only if we can go recline on the railroad tracks later, too, right when a train comes in.”

  “It won’t be dangerous. What could possibly happen during the day with crowds everywhere?” Nathalie gestured to the streets, the shops, the cafés. People, people, and more people. With hurried steps she crossed the bridge and the street, Simone close behind, and pressed her back against a cobbler shop window. “And not every man in the city. Just him. We’ll keep our distance. I just want to see if there’s anything … unusual about him.”

  But there was something else. She knew all too well what it was like to be followed. Or feel like you were being followed. Something inside her hungered at the chance to reverse that feeling. To embolden herself against the memory of it.

  Simone picked a thread off her blue polka dot dress and twisted it in her fingers. “I suppose it could be interesting to see where he goes from here.”

  “You know you’re curious.”

  “I know you’re curious,” said Simone, placing the thread on Nathalie’s cap as if it belonged there. “I also think you’re mistaken. I’ll go along with this so you can get whatever proof you need that he isn’t our man. How’s that?”

  Nathalie sulked. “You’re quick to assume I’m wrong. Just wait.”

  A minute or so later the gloved man exited the morgue. They fell silent as he meandered across the bridge to the curb across from them, waited for a two-horse carriage to pass, and crossed the street.

  Nathalie was about to retreat into the cobbler shop when the man, whistling away, took a right down the sidewalk. They peered around the corner. He passed a tobacco shop, a watch repair shop, and a butcher shop. Then he paused, inspected his pocket watch, and entered a confectioner’s shop.

  “Good choice, Monsieur Gloves,” said Simone, who had a knack for assigning nicknames. “Pick us out a pair of bon bons.”

  Affecting a casual air, they strolled to the confectioner’s shop. Sweetness floated under the awning, teasing passersby with notes of chocolate and caramel. Nathalie peeked through the window. M. Gloves inspected the candies in earnest delight and tapped his fingertips together.

  “Is that how he views bodies at the morgue, too?” Nathalie muttered.

  Simone either didn’t hear her or acted like she didn’t. Why was she so reluctant to consider him?

  M. Gloves bought two large chocolates and popped one in his mouth. Simone and Nathalie wandered to the butcher shop window, pretending to read the price list on the door, until he left the confectioner’s shop, still whistling. They watched him turn left and head down the sidewalk away from them.

  “I suppose since we’re here,” said Simone, walking back toward the confectioner’s shop, “we might as well get something. He’s not in a hurry, and it’s only right to be a patron of the shop at this point. My treat.”

  “Merci,” said Nathalie, distracted. She didn’t want to take her eyes off M. Gloves, lest he fade into the crowd. “I’ll stay out here.”

  As Simone entered the shop, Nathalie watched the man settle onto a bench at a steam tram stop. Still whistling. He had the second chocolate in one hand, opened his jacket with the other, and—

  Oh my.

  There was a creature of some sort in his pocket, and he fed the chocolate to it. Nathalie moved closer to get a better view.

  “Some partner you are.” Simone nudged her from behind. “I come out with a chocolate-covered strawberry for you, and you’re gone.”

  Nathalie took the strawberry from her without turning. “A rat. See? He’s got a rat in his pocket, and he’s feeding it.”

  Simone followed Nathalie’s gaze. “I didn’t know rats ate chocolate.”

  “I didn’t know people kept them in pockets.”

  A steam tram pulled up before they could say anything else. M. Gloves tucked his rat away and headed for the open door.

  “Let’s go!” Nathalie hurried toward the steam tram, Simone at her heels mumbling something about tomfoolery. They hopped on and took a seat four rows behind M. Gloves on the upper level. He’d finally stopped whistling.

  There they sat, stop after stop after stop for over an hour, with everyone getting on and off the tram except M. Gloves. They’d circled the route twice already.

  “Maybe he knows we’re following him and isn’t getting off,” said Nathalie.

  “Or maybe he’s just a strange man fond of gloves who has nothing to do but tour Paris via public transportation all day.” Simone shook her head. “I’m sorry, Nathalie. I know you were hoping to discover something, but this was futile. I have to go to rehearsal. If I get off at the next stop and walk home, I’ll just about make it.”

  Nathalie glanced at M. Gloves and back at Simone. “I ca
n follow him myself.”

  “You’re still not convinced?”

  Nathalie didn’t respond.

  “I’m not getting off this tram unless you come with me,” said Simone. Her mouth was twisted with exasperation. “I mean it.”

  Nathalie pressed her back into the seat. “I thought you considered him harmless.”

  “He is. But I still don’t think it’s wise to traipse around Paris all day. You’re not thinking clearly, Nathalie. We’re getting off the tram.”

  Nathalie knew that determined, big-sisterly look in Simone’s eyes. This wasn’t a bluff.

  They were quiet as the tram took another corner and slowed to a stop.

  “Well?” said Simone.

  Nathalie pouted. She had no choice; she couldn’t make Simone late for work going on an adventure that hadn’t proven anything. Other than that the man kept a rat in his pocket and liked chocolate.

  “The tram is going to move on if we don’t get off now.” Simone pleaded with her eyes.

  Nathalie stood up with a slouch, taller than Simone and yet feeling much smaller. They stepped off the tram in silence.

  “Please stop fixating on this man. It won’t do you any good.” Simone hugged Nathalie. “Also, the day after next is my day off. Céleste is sick again, and my mother asked me to look after her for a few hours so she can work at the market. Maybe after that we can go to the wax museum.”

  “I’d like that,” said Nathalie, trying to sound engaged as she watched the tram. “I’ll bring lunch to you and Céleste.”

  Simone crossed the street toward her neighborhood. Nathalie paused at the curb, watching people shuffle into the tram. A man startled her as he brushed by in a hurry to board.

  She could just about see M. Gloves’s head through the tram window. The tram pulled away, and right before it turned the corner, he turned around.

  He met her gaze, staring at her until the tram went out of sight.

  * * *

  Nathalie remained unsettled for the rest of the day. She mostly moved her food around the plate at dinner (and fed some to Stanley under the table), claiming she and Simone had had a big lunch when Maman asked about her lack of appetite.