FOUR KINGS: A Novel

by M. D. Elster

  CHAPTER 24.

  Mr. Duval seems satisfied with the descriptions I give to Mr. Kendrick of my stepfather — I go into detail about our escape from Europe, and leave out the details involving New Orleans, or his nightclub. Despite my recent flood of memories, I don’t breathe a word to him about my complicated friendship with Jules. In a couple of days’ time, we all become a well-oiled machine: Mr. Duval and Mr. Kendrick stopping in regularly to collect the kind of information that might canonize my stepfather, and Dr. Waters pushing me to remember the events leading up to my stepfather’s gruesome shooting. But then, only a few days later, this peace is broken. Broken — unsurprisingly, perhaps — by Colette.

  The day in question begins when, while dressing for the day, I notice a strange scar on my upper right shoulder. I’ve never noticed it before. I rub a finger over the smooth, shiny, pink worm of a scar. It is exactly where Lady Crawford slashed me during our round in the fighting ring, and where I could’ve sworn Sir Lewin stitched me up with a thread and needle.

  It is also the same spot — or so I have been told by Mr. Duval — where my stepfather was shot by his assailant. Did I do this to myself, out of some sort of impulsive desire to acquire sympathy pains? I used to do that sort of thing, out of guilt for leaving my father in the dirt of the Blue Forest, or for leaving my mother in a graveyard in London. But no — this scar is too long healed. I cannot possibly have acquired it very recently, whether self-inflicted or otherwise. Either way, I don’t want to look at it or think about it anymore. I slip a freshly laundered hospital gown over my head and tie up the strings in the back so that not even a tiny triangle of skin is showing.

  I want to cover myself further, so I dig through my limited footlocker to locate my wool cardigan. But when I slip it on and reach into the pockets, I am somewhat startled to feel something tucked away in one of them: Some sort of object made of laminated paper. I extract it, and am surprised to find myself staring at the Jack of Hearts — the card that one of my fellow inmates slipped into my pocket on my first day in the women’s wing. I remember that day, watching the group of them playing some sort of ludicrous, nonsensical card game. The woman who’d slipped me the card — Roberta, I believe she is called — had quickly deposited it into my pocket and given me the shhhh sign as though she was somehow slyly cheating, and I was somehow her accomplice.

  Now I hold the card before my face and study it. Jack is indeed a strange creature, with his skinny, twisted moustache and short, Little Lord Fauntleroy hairdo, his dead fish-eye, his hands idly clutching what look to be a dagger and an axe. And yet, he is meant to be the knave, the knave of hearts… I hardly know what to make of him.

  “Oh, very good, ma chère!” I hear Nurse Baptiste’s voice call out as she enters the room. I tuck the playing card back into my cardigan pocket. “I see you are dressed! Most excellent, my dear.”

  Nurse Kitching comes in, pushing the wheelchair.

  “Have you told her about her visitor today, Marie-Jean? Has she agreed to behave herself?”

  “No,” Nurse Baptiste replies, giving me a cautious glance. “I haven’t had the chance to tell the child yet, but I am sure from now on, Anaïs wants to be polite to any and all visitors who come to see her, n’est-ce pas, ma chèrie?” I read in her eyes that I am required to agree.

  “Yes,” I say. I know one thing: I do not want to provoke Dr. Waters or anyone else in the asylum. “Yes,” I repeat, “I will be polite.”

  “Good,” Nurse Kitching sniffs in reply. “Because as horrible as you were last time to her, Miss Baudin has come to see about your well-being. We expect you to be civil; there will be no outbursts this time, is that clear?”

  “Miss Baudin…” I murmur, then realize: Colette. They mean Colette is coming to see me again. “Oh!” I exclaim, under my breath. “Damnit.”

  “What was that?” Nurse Kitching prods, raising an eyebrow at me.

  “Nothing.”

  “She is a kind woman, Anaïs, obviously very sad about your stepfather and concerned about your welfare. You should be grateful, not to mention gracious.”

  “Of course. I will be,” I promise, and this much, at least, satisfies Nurse Kitching. She gestures to the wheelchair and I obediently sit. Nurse Baptiste and I exchange a look as Nurse Kitching rolls me out of the room. I can tell Nurse Baptiste is skeptical and wondering how I will react to Colette this time around. I believe Nurse Baptiste likes me better than Nurse Kitching does, but she also seems to have a keener instinct for the darker, more feral side of my personality.

  We roll along through the many corridors towards the heart of the hospital’s four wings. This time, Colette is already in the courtyard and waiting as Nurse Kitching rolls me through a door, down a ramp, and over to where Colette sits beside the burbling fountain.

  “Hello, Anaïs,” Colette greets me, standing up as Nurse Kitching rolls the wheelchair over to her and puts on the brake. Her voice is sugary, friendly, but she seems atypically jittery this morning. “Are you feeling any better?”

  “I’ll just let the two of you catch up,” Nurse Kitching says, taking her leave. “But you’ll be safe, Miss Baudin. Those two orderlies will be keeping an eye on you from just over there.” She points to the doorway of the North Wing, where two orderlies stand on either side, expressionless and vacant-eyed, their arms crossed.

  “Thank you, nurse,” Colette nods, and Nurse Kitching shuffles away in her clumsy-looking white shoes. Colette glances again to where the two orderlies stand guard. The nurses must have ordered their presence, on account of what happened during Colette’s last visit.

  “The doctor tells me you are remembering things,” she says.

  “Yes,” I say. “I am remembering… some things.”

  Her glamorous, beautiful face crinkles ever so slightly, revealing a map of anxiousness. “Are you…” she hesitates. A small, nervous cough escapes her throat and she covers her mouth with a delicate, gloved hand. “Are you remembering anything yet from the night of the hurricane?” she asks.

  I purposely wait an extra beat before answering her.

  “No,” I finally reply. I can’t help but notice: Relief floods her face. “I still can’t remember much about that night,” I continue, “…about the hurricane, about the shooting.” I scrutinize her face as I pronounce the word shooting, and think I can just make out a barely perceptible twitch. “I can’t remember those events, except in brief flashes. They are — so far — very confusing,” I admit.

  “Yes,” Colette says. “I imagine you’re very confused. I need to talk to you about that night. It’s important,” she says, then leans closer and drops her voice, “It’s important you remember that night correctly…” She glances around nervously, her eyes resting on the two guards for several seconds.

  “What do you mean ‘correctly’?” I ask in a low, hostile voice.

  “They want to put you on the witness stand,” she says.

  “And you’re worried about what I’ll say?”

  “I only think, if you’re going to testify in front of a judge and all the town… you want to make certain you’re telling the truth.” She pauses and studies my face with her large green eyes. “The right truth,” she adds.

  I remain silent for several seconds, looking her over. She is clearly terrified of whatever it is she thinks I might say. In that moment, I would give anything to be able to remember exactly what took place on the night of the hurricane.

  “You know, lots of other memories have come back to me,” I remark in a casual voice, testing to see if I can ruffle her feathers. “For instance, I remember more about Jules now. Jules Martin — the young man on trial. I remember seeing him at the nightclub from time to time. I remember talking to him backstage.”

  I leave out the part about remembering the kiss Jules and I exchanged. Colette does not need to be reminded of that; she does not need to know I remember it, and remember it vividly. In any case, the mere mention of his name
seems to have renewed her attention.

  “Anaïs, I need to know… what things do you remember about Jules?”

  I don’t answer her.

  “I’ve also managed to remember some things about you,” I say in a cheerful voice, as though I am changing the subject.

  “Oh?” she says. “What do you remember about me?”

  She is calling my bluff.

  “I remember hearing you sing, of course,” I say. I smile back at her. “I remember the day you auditioned… I remember you made quite an impression on my stepfather.”

  At this, Colette relaxes somewhat, and her faux smile begins to metamorphose, taking on a more genuine tint.

  “I also remember seeing you backstage,” I continue in the same doggedly cheerful voice. The cheer in my voice is deliberate, but I am hoping what I say next will hit its mark and surprise her; with my memory still piecemeal, it is the only trump card I have at my disposal. “In particular, I remember seeing you backstage, whispering with Jules Martin when you didn’t think anybody was watching. Whispering to each other backstage, looking quite… cozy. It looked an awful lot like you were planning something together — though I can’t imagine what.”

  It works; her smile vanishes entirely. For a fleeting moment, Colette’s mouth opens and shuts wordlessly, moving like a freshly caught fish gasping in the air. Finally her mouth snaps shut and her eyelids flutter as she takes in my insinuation. I can plainly see it written all over her face: She knows something about that night… she knows more than she is letting on.

  “Anaïs,” she says in a low, warning voice. “I don’t know what you’re implying, but you’ve got the wrong idea.”

  “You seem very nervous today,” I say. “I wonder why.”

  Colette doesn’t speak right away. She holds me in her gaze, as though considering the possibilities. As I watch her, her atypical aura of nervousness slowly fades away. Finally, she sits up and composes herself again, touching a hand to her hair and smiling a tight smile.

  “I came here today, Anaïs, because I wanted to tell you in person… I’ve spoken with Dr. Waters, and authorized him to administer electroshock therapy.”

  Now it’s my turn to sit staring with my mouth open.

  “You wouldn’t,” I say.

  “I’m sorry,” she replies, shaking her head. “I did. You need to remember things, and you need to remember them correctly.”

  I glare at her. I feel my eyes filling with tears of hate. I’ll be damned if I let her see me cry.

  “I want to go back inside,” I say finally. “I want to rest.”

  She looks at me as though she’s still not quite satisfied by our exchange, but she concedes.

  One of the orderlies pushes my wheelchair back inside, to the common room in the South Wing, where I sit in a chair and stare at the television for hours, not really watching it so much as letting its bright electric flickering wash over me.

  CHAPTER 25.

  “I know where you go at night,” Lucy says to me in a belligerent tone, as we get ready for bed later that evening.

  “Huh?”

  “I said, I know where you go at night,” she repeats, but I’m barely listening. I’ve been preoccupied with my betrayal by Colette earlier this afternoon. Dr. Waters has already scheduled me for electroshock; I’m to have my first session, first thing tomorrow. I keep feeling a sort of phantom sensation: The cold metal electrodes pressing against my temples.

  Lucy continues on with her prattle in spite of my indifference.

  “If you’re not careful, Anaïs, he’ll lock you on the other side of the door and never let you return… and we all know what happens to young girls in the Land of the Four Kings…”

  At this, I snap to attention. “The Land of the Four Kings? Lucy! Have you been there, too?”

  She just shakes her head and looks away. “No one’s safe with him around, you should know that much by now.”

  “Who, Lucy? The Snake King?”

  “SHHHHH!” Lucy suddenly says with vehemence. She slaps her hands over her ears and begins rocking back and forth where she sits on her cot.

  “Ah! Anaïs, ma chère,” Nurse Baptiste scolds, immediately floating over to us. “You have upset poor Lucy!” She makes me lie down, and begins to buckle my restraints. “We cannot have this — the same thing, every night…” she mutters. It is the first time I’ve seen Nurse Baptiste show signs of her frustration with me.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  She shrugs. “Tomorrow you will have your treatment,” she says, “and maybe the doctor will make you all better. No more of this.”

  I am chilled to be reminded again. Meanwhile, Lucy has shut herself off to me, and I can tell I am going to get no more information out of her. What does she know, I wonder? The Land of the Kings can’t possibly be real… and yet… I feel the need to try to go there again, just to be sure. Lucy’s comments may have had an ominous tone, but a land where creatures want to steal my blood still seems preferable to a land where my guardians conspire to electrocute me.

  After the overhead lights go out, and one of the nurses switches on the red lamp, I spend what feels like over an hour tossing and turning. The nighttime stirrings in the hospital grow quieter and quieter, until at last I have the eerie feeling that I am the only one on the planet left awake. Ordinarily, I would take comfort in such a quiet atmosphere, but tonight it is keeping me awake, and I badly want to sleep. The sooner I doze off, the sooner I might awaken to what seems like — perhaps — some kind of very real witching hour. Finally, my eyelids grow heavy.

  I wake up to find a familiar object lying on my chest. It is cold and metal, and my tactile senses recognize it almost immediately: It is the key.

  I look around to see whether any of my peers are awake. Once again, I am alone. Clutching the key in my sweaty, anxious fist, I spring out of bed, hurry into some warmer clothes, and sneak out of the dormitory, past the nurses’ station and down to the basement. I have no trouble finding my way to the door this time. I put the key in and turn it, then I hurry through the boiler room, down the hidden hallway. I throw my weight against the second wooden door and… all at once, I am outside.

  Every single time, this transition — this moment of leaving the thick, stagnant air of the hospital behind and bracing myself as the flood of chilly, moss-scented air fills my lungs feels extremely good. I know my way now, and run for the tree line on steady, sure legs. I duck into a gap in the underbrush and gallop into the woods, finding my way easily this time to the ravine, to the hollowed out tree, through to the other side, and into the thicket of birch trees.

  But on this third occasion, something is different as I crunch over the fresh autumn leaves, making my way through the birches and down the hillside to where the bonfire should be. For a minute, I am disoriented. Did I get turned around somehow? Have I lost my way? Because one thing I very much expect to see is now missing: There is no bonfire. It is a fair certainty that Mr. Fletcher slipped the key into my pillowcase, and that by doing so he has sent for me… but now as make my way down the hill and scan the sloped horizon, there is no commoners’ meeting to speak of.

  Sure enough, when I come into the clearing and reach the spot I thought the bonfire ought to be, there is a charred pit, but nothing more. I put my hand to the burned wood. It is cold. There is no fire tonight, and there has been no fire in quite some time.

  I am unnerved by this turn of events. Something is eerily awry. I can’t help but worry about what might have happened to Mr. Fletcher in the wake of our visit to the Lion King’s palace.

  Nervously, I make my way from the clearing in the woods to Commoners’ Village in an attempt to retrace my steps to Mr. Fletcher’s cottage. I hear the babble of a small stream and follow it; I seem to recall Mr. Fletcher lived in a stone cottage with a water wheel, beside a stream. I remember this detail, for it was a cottage that put me in mind of my own childhood home in the Belgian forest.


  Eventually, I pick my way along a little donkey-cart path until I finally happen upon a cottage that looks familiar. But just as it was in the deserted clearing, something is amiss. None of the windows glow with candlelight, none of the chimneys belch smoke. There is an unsettling air of abandonment. During my last visit, Mr. Fletcher’s house was cloaked in a cozy twilight, complete with a cloud of charming lightning bugs that steadily encircled the house. Now the cottage is surrounded by the blackest of moonless midnights and laden with a heavy silence that is only — very rarely — broken by the flapping, squealing sounds of the occasional fleeing bat.

  I hesitate a few moments, standing there on the donkey path. I am afraid to proceed. I think about calling out Mr. Fletcher’s name, but don’t. I step off the donkey path and creep quietly towards the cottage, my heart in my throat. The front door is open: A bad sign. Quietly, I step inside — it is so black I can barely see. As I move further into the room, I stumble over something. The loud noise of my own ruckus terrifies me, sending shivers of panic all over my body. Rubbing my ankle, I blink into the dark, trying to make out the object I tripped over. It is an upturned chair. As a matter of fact, Mr. Fletcher’s entire cottage has been rifled and turned upside down. Who has done this? My stomach lurches.

  I close my eyes and try to regain a modicum of calm. My mind is working against me. Involuntary memories of Paris return to me… all those faces that disappeared, faces of people who were taken away in the middle of the night by the Germans, never to be seen again. The baker. The woman with her little bouquiniste stand by the Seine. My stepfather’s business associates, too, being taken away in handcuffs, their offices in complete disarray from yet another one of the Nazis’ terrible searches. Drawers pulled out and thrown to the ground, books lying in heaps, papers and files scattered about everywhere. Broken records, broken glass, broken everything.

  In remembering these things, I have stumbled into a dark part of my mind. I am having trouble breathing. I gasp for air but it feels like my throat is closing up. A sense of dizziness begins to overwhelm me.