“M-Maman? Who is she?”
Victoria’s mouth quavered as tears coated her pale cheeks in harsh streams. An unsteady hand came to her lips, commanding her son’s silence. “Shh … She is sleeping. We mustn’t wake her.”
Aleksender caught the glint of a knife for the first time.
The seductive glint of a knife.
Indeed—a slate of gleaming metal was cradled in his mother’s palm, the blade pulled back into a toothy snarl. Envious and seemingly competing for attention, her wedding ring sparkled against the expanse of black.
“Maman, I’m scared. I wanna go home!”
“Why, there is nothing to fear, love.” Those identical words of only a half-hour ago were equipped with a venomous undercurrent, and they were anything but comforting.
Aleksender felt himself drowning.
Victoria untied the scarf with surprisingly nimble fingers. With a slick twist of her wrist, she drew the material away—moving with a magician’s suaveness. Aleksender had nearly expected her to cry out, “Ta-da!”
It was a rather pretty face that lay beyond the veil. The woman appeared wonderfully peaceful in her sedated state. Worry etched in his brow, Aleksender cocked his head to the side and inched toward her still form. Although her eyes were presently shut, he knew them to be carved from a rich mahogany. He studied every detail of her face, marveling how he possibly recognized her.
Who was she? And why was Maman doing this?
Victoria inclined the knife toward Aleksender with a feral hiss, tears falling hard and strong.
Empty and burning tears.
“Why are you doing this, Maman?” Aleksender’s flesh constricted around his bones. “Why?”
She seemed not to hear nor see him.
“Look away, my son! You must save yourself from earthly temptation before it is too late.” A flash of burning emotion inflamed her stare. “Alas, it is too late for him, too late for my beloved Philippe! ‘When lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin—and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.’”
An acute and stinging terror he hadn’t known to exist pooled deep inside of Aleksender. Drained of their youthful brilliance, the rounded apples of his cheeks turned sallow and pasty. He was paralyzed with disbelief and an aching fear—virtually unable to move or utter a sound—perceiving everything through the filter of a dream world. His mother’s words were remarkably surreal and far away.
The reality of the moment was lost to a boy of ten years.
Astonishingly vulnerable and childish, Victoria sniffled and swiped mucus from her nose. The timbre of her voice softened to its customary whisper. “Life is pain. Love is a pretty lie. Do not love the world or anything in it. The world and its desires pass away. Do you understand me, child? Do you?”
Aleksender nodded as the tears finally came forth.
“And make sure you never forget it. Never forget the truth. Never forget …” Victoria’s breasts heaved in deep pants. The ball of her knuckles whitened as she clasped onto the knife’s hilt with a lethal death grip. “Come closer, Aleksender dear, you mustn’t be afraid. Together, we shall cleanse our family of this unholy temptation.” Aleksender shuffled forward a few meager inches, legs unbearably heavy and tears blurring his vision. Lost in the solitude of her prayers, Victoria’s eyes fell to half-mast as crystal drops clung to each spike of her lashes.
“Maman, no … don’t do this.”
A distorted prayer.
“‘And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire … God had put it into the hearts to carry out his purpose, and those who do the will of God shall live forever.’”
Both hands were held high and proud as she centered the blade above the swell of the woman’s cleavage.
“Please don’t hurt her! Stop scarin’ me!”
“Be not afraid of those who kill the body. Fear him who destroys both body and soul in hell.”
Steel, cold and rusted, plunged into a slate of creamy flesh.
A flash of steel descended in one graceful swoop. The woman would never again wake.
“Amen.”
A crimson ring seeped through the woman’s nightdress—its incalculable circumference widening at a leisurely pace—encircling the hilt like the Red Sea. Only the dying refrains of Aleksender’s scream shattered the silent din.
Then the world split into two as a wailing babe cried out. Victoria brushed a film of sweat from her forehead and hastened to the blubbering sound. Frozen in time, Aleksender set his gaze upon the woman’s fallen face. A ribbon of blood seeped from the corner of her mouth and sensually flowed down the curve of her chin.
Aleksender followed the morbid trail. For the second time, he wondered who she was.
Yes, he had seen this woman on occasion. Marianne Moreau …the mom of his infant brother.
The wrath of a lover scorned.
Richard’s wailing escalated, each cry amplified by his tin prison. Water sloshed out of the basin as Victoria dragged it across the floor in an effort to bring it within arm’s reach of the tub.
Fight or flight instincts took hold. No longer thinking, Aleksender latched onto the knife’s hilt and gave a firm tug. Nothing. It refused to budge. Indeed, it was lodged deeply—too deeply. The blade had been swallowed up by flesh and muscle.
Victoria hovered above the tub, morbidly beautiful, looking every bit like an Angel of Death. She gazed down at the babe’s blotched face and flailing fists with an uneven sigh. The blanket had come unraveled in the midst of Richard’s tantrum, leaving him victim to the elements. Victoria knelt forward, cooed some incoherent nonsense, and blessed him with the sign of the cross. “In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit …”
Aleksender struggled with the hilt in vain. The blade was sheathed within a shell of ivory—encaged between two parallel ribs. They gripped onto the steel like the devil’s own hands. Alas, the knife was the Sword in the Stone and Aleksender was unfit to fulfill its prophecy. With an uttered cry of defeat, he turned away from the woman’s limp form. Each passing moment it became more difficult to breathe, more difficult to think. Tears and bile clogged his throat by turns. His pulse pounded loudly in his ears.
Surely, he was only dreaming. Surely Maman didn’t mean to kill his brother!
“He has your father’s eyes,” Victoria’s monotonous voice cut through his thoughts. Still as death and entirely composed, she stared down at the fussing child who lay beneath her. “There’s nothing of me in him.” She looked over her shoulder and studied Aleksender’s features with a small, sad smile. “You, sweet love, are the both of us.”
“What are you going to do to him?”
“He is a bastard, born of sin and uncleansed, destined for the depths of hell.” Victoria inhaled a shaky sigh and smoothed back her coiffure’s loose coils. “God will make him pay for the sins of his father. Such a thing cannot do.” She nodded her head as if reaching some inward decision. “First we must baptize him.”
“No! Don’t … don’t hurt him! Please.”
“My child,” she assured through her glowing smile, “have you not learned anything I’ve taught you? We are doing nothing of the kind. We are granting him salvation.”
“You’re not well, Maman.” Aleksender’s slender chest rose and sank with erratic breaths. His throat had closed up minutes ago, making the tight chamber strangle each of his words. “You’re sick.”
Victoria knelt before Aleksender. Her touch was tentative and ironically gentle as she wiped away his tears. “My sweet son, it pains me to see you weep.”
“Then stop. Stop d-doin’ this.”
She shook her head. “You must harden your heart. If not, the world shall crush your spirit one day.”
“I will! I will do anything, I swear it! I won’t tell anyone. I promise I won’t. Just take me back home. I wanna go home. I wanna see Father.”
Victoria stra
ightened out, a scowl marring her pretty features. “Father is not here.” She shook her head. “But you want him to be.”
“Yes,” Aleksender said, wishing for his father’s comfort more than anything else.
“Then help me bring him back to us.”
Everything seemed to happen at once.
Water spilled over the basin’s sides, sloshing within, as Victoria struggled to lift it from the ground. Distorted laments poisoned the air. Aleksender pulled at his mother’s skirts, sobbing—drowning in tears. Water was transferred from basin to tub. Richard wailed out as he was slowly submerged, first his tiny bottom, both pudgy legs, flailing arms …
The water level rose and rose … soon inches from completely submerging him.
With every ounce of his strength, Aleksender shoved his mother. A loud crash resounded as the basin slipped from her grasp and drenched the smooth floorboards below her feet. Mother and son instantly lost balance. She spun on her heels and fell to her death, a sickening crack efficiently snapping her neck. In the same breath, the side of Aleksender’s head collided with the tub, rendering him unconscious.
And then the darkness descended.
•
There had never been a carriage accident, spooked mare, or unhinged wheel. Philippe de Lefèvre and his wife had never shared true love. All of the fluffy stories and sparkling fairytales had been carefully woven illusions. And each thread had existed as a sentiment of a father’s affection for his son. Indeed—the fabric of Aleksender’s childhood had been fashioned from pretty lies.
Elizabeth knew she could never offer Aleksender what he truly needed. And she was strangely at peace with the realization.
She met her husband’s eyes with a new compassion and understanding. Everything, all of his tragic flaws and mishaps—his detached and resigned nature, his strange connection with Sofia—suddenly fell into place. The truth had been boiling inside of him, and now, countless years later, it had finally surfaced. As a boy, Aleksender de Lefèvre’s youth had been spirited away. He’d lived through unbelievable trauma and horror. And, whether he was able to remember them or not, the memories had been planted deep within his soul.
Aleksender had been raised on lies that had never quite fit together. Shattered remnants and torn memories had existed inside his heart, creating an emptiness which was not all together empty. On some level, within some plane of consciousness, he’d always known the truth. And now, nearly twenty-six years later, the memories had crashed down with the force of an avalanche.
A landslide.
And what more is a landslide than the accumulated pressure of stress and time?
Aleksender propped a hand against the bookshelf and stabilized his body weight. His face fell forward as he stared down the burgundy wallpapering with an unsettling attentiveness, memorizing every small imperfection, every splintered hairline and every faded patch.
He could not bring himself to face the world. He was afraid to see Elizabeth’s eyes. He was afraid of himself. For the first time in thirty-six years, he would be acquainted with his true character.
And the truth was painful, impossible to stomach … even more so than his emptiness. Perhaps his father had done him a noble service after all. The greater part of his life had been constructed from blissful oblivion, a cocoon of charming lies.
But no—everything had not been a complete lie. His father’s stories had held a passion, a beautiful and delicate adoration, which could not be faked. He’d been deeply in love. Only not with his mother.
“Marianne Moreau.” The name pricked the roof of his mouth and tasted bitter on his tongue. “His mistress. Richard’s mother. My father had loved her, and all of those stories—”
“They had been real.” The heat of Elizabeth’s body whispered against his back as she drew near.
Aleksender shook his face, overcome with a rush of anger, guilt, sorrow and resentment. “He tried to protect me, to make me forget what I had seen, what I had done. And look what he created. I’ve become a monster. An empty monster.”
“Listen to me. He loved you. And he loved Marianne.” She gently draped a hand over his shoulder, her touch tremulous and full of sympathy. “We all do what we must. Sometimes, we hurt the ones we care about most.”
With a strangled sound, Aleksender jerked from her reach. “Don’t. Please. Don’t touch me.”
“I’m sorry. I am so sorry,” she said.
“Just go. I need to be alone.”
Elizabeth collected the volume of fairytales and Philippe’s note from the floor with a sigh. She placed them on top of the writing desk, side by side, and absently traced the book’s cover. “Should you need me, someone to speak with … I shall only be a room away.”
Elizabeth picked up her skirts and moved to the door. But she stopped in her tracks and slowly turned toward Aleksender. She met his eyes with a small, sad smile. “If you don’t come to me, if you must leave … I shall understand.” Aleksender stared at her, mute and motionless. “She needs you more than I do. And you … you need her more than I need you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
May 23, 1871
La Semaine Sanglante, Day Three
Filth and corpses carpeted the walkways, collectively forming the stench of death. For the first time, the full extent of Paris’s suffering came into focus for Aleksender. It was as if he’d been lost to a deep slumber and was just awakening.
He rode through the wreckage in stunned horror. Above head, the mutilated corpse of a Versailles solider hung from one of the gas lamps. Cradled by a delicate breeze, it swayed in a subtle motion and eerily moved from side to side. Aleksender cringed at the makeshift gibbet and everything it represented—ultimate desperation and despair.
Amidst his hibernation, the world had collapsed.
Cannons thundered as the shells of firearms buzzed through the air. The barricades were alive with hollering men and sparks of fire as the red Commune flag glowed in all of its crimson glory. Somewhere off to the side, a pair of gendarmes patrolled in a miserable attempt to retain peace.
Aleksender’s flesh crawled like a living thing and hugged his bones in a deathly embrace. Where were the eagerly awaiting clientele? What had ever happened to the whistling baker? Where was that hollow clapping of hooves, the creaking of carriage wheels?
Where had those sounds of life vanished to?
Nearly all the shops had been abandoned since the massacre, equipping Paris with a haunting appearance of a ghost town. Dozens of dead bodies were piled off to the side in the hopes they might be claimed by loved ones. And the streets were literally stained, the gutters overgrowing with blood.
Aleksender rode alongside the fallen with a heavy ache in his heart. He tugged on Juliet’s reins, demanding her to a halt. She obliged with a mutinous snort and pawed at the cobblestones.
Nearby, a lone gas lamp winked, emitting a faint ring of light. Aleksender lifted the rim of his bowler hat as he gazed down. Down below, he stared into the face of a boy no older than seventeen years. In a quick and decided movement, he dismounted and lowered to his knees. Respectfully Aleksender pulled the hat from his head. His heart stirred. With a sweep of his palm, he urged the boy’s eyes shut.
Christophe Cleef was right; he’d been oblivious to everything but himself.
To have so much potential for power, for change. To throw it all away is unforgivable. Unredeemable …
Aleksender shook away his comrade’s words. He wearily rose to his feet and withdrew the note. Writing had been scrawled on each side of the parchment, its latter reading: Join me for a toast to Paris.
•
Aleksender tethered Juliet to one of Cafe Roux’s wooden columns. Praying she’d not be spirited away by some lecherous horse thief, he whispered a tender farewell before heading to the entrance. A pair of Versailles soldiers strolled by on horseback, their gaits slow and steady. Each man tipped his hat in a ritualistic greeting.
It was Aleksender’s fine clothing that distingu
ished him from members of the Commune and working-class. Playing the role with ease, he returned the nod, more than a bit thankful for the hat that concealed his identity.
The first thought to cross Aleksender’s mind was the deadness of Cafe Roux. The place was empty and eerily still. Streams of moonlight poured through the shattered windows and danced across the countertops. Dust motes fluttered midair like snowfall. Broken glass crunched beneath Aleksender’s boots as he searched the length of the room.
Where in God’s teeth was Christophe?
Easing toward the bar, Aleksender removed both gloves and stuffed them deep inside his satchel. A thick film of dust covered the countertop like a blanket.
And then he saw it.
A note had been placed on top of a stool. Aleksender unfolded the parchment, staring down at that clumsy and familiar cursive:
Do not fear. This is nothing more than a godsend.
If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer great loss. But he himself shall be saved yet so as through fire. — C.C.
Aleksender crumpled the paper in his palm and hung his face. This was no simple note. He understood Christophe’s game. It was a clue. A step closer to whatever fate his comrade was plotting for him.
The hours of fireside ramblings had thoroughly paid off. Christophe knew of Aleksender’s stories, his hopes, his dreams and his greatest fears. And now, damn him, Christophe was leading Aleksender on a journey.
Alas, hand it to his dear friend to send him on a scavenger hunt—and in the midst of a civil war nonetheless.
•
A young whore was stationed outside Bête Noire’s entrance. Face bowed down in shame, an abundance of curls cascaded over her body and hid her features like some secretive curtain. The ill fitted bodice drooped from dangerously slim shoulders in harsh and irregular folds, flaunting her deprivation rather than sensuality. Judging by the gawkish shape of her figure, she was clearly not a day over sixteen. Aleksender felt the compelling desire to sweep away those curls, look into eyes that were undoubtedly filled with sorrow, and reassure her that everything would be all right. Instead, he hustled past the pitiful creature without a second glance.
The Frost of Springtime Page 24
