“He can write whatever he wants now,” I said drawing closer. “The law is no longer on your side.”
“The King will come to regret his decision. Besides that is not why I sought him out all these years.”
“What do you mean?”
“Monsieur Vivant put thoughts into Armande’s head about the importance of her own ideas. If it weren’t for him she wouldn’t have been so selfish as to neglect our little girl.”
His face was a blur. I tried to squint to see him better.
“You never really knew her, never loved her at all.” My words were spilling out of me and into the night air.
“Of course I did.” He tried to raise his voice yet was too wounded. “You don’t understand,” he went on. “The pain of losing a child is too much to bear.”
Where had he hidden her diary? Was it in his coat pocket, the pocket of his bloody waistcoat?
“Women who march in the streets speak of sacred rights and want their demands constituted into a national assembly. Pure folly. It’s fine to dream of a place where women have the same rights as men, to nurse babies and educate peasants in a village far from Versailles. Yet to write about it … expect these words will one day be understood, accepted, implemented as law … nothing less than delusional.”
He closed his eyes. Blood gushed from an opening in his chest when he took his arm away. But I had seen death before.
“A woman did this to me, pair of scissors in the chest.”
He covered his wound as best he could with his bloody waistcoat, tugging the outer coat across his chest. He was trembling from cold and so I took off my cloak and draped it over him.
“Holding meetings at her shop to arrange demonstrations not sanctioned by the King. I returned this evening to warn her.”
Scissors? Could the mantua-maker have stabbed him? She was not a woman to trifle with. From time to time, he looked at me then his eyes would glaze over, and his head slump to one side.
“The Nation has been degraded by these newfangled ideas that incite hatred for the monarchy … peddled by people like Vivant … I have tried to fight….”
A group of men passing by looked on us curiously then kept walking, talking and laughing. Monsieur Phlipon lowered his head, grunting in pain.
“Armande is dead,” I stammered. “She was killed by rioters. They made a fire around her and burned her.” My words, as I said them, cut my throat like knives. I had to tell him even though it was unbearable to do so.
The skin over his brow wrinkled and he let out a whimper. Tears rolled down his cheeks full of cuts and scrapes and he rocked back and forth like a small child. With his head, he motioned for me to open his coat.
“In here,” he said faintly.
Her diary was inside his waistcoat. I grabbed it, tightly clutching the book containing her most precious words. He had discarded the fairy tale cover I put over to conceal and protect it. His eyes closed once more and he let go of his chest. Even if I called the good doctor who was only steps away, he could do nothing for him now.
“We were happy once.” He took a final breath and then his body slumped forward. For Armande, the women of the Cercle des femmes and myself, I lifted his head to spit on his face then said a prayer for his soul to rest. After I tugged my cloak up to cover his neck and shoulders, I made a sign of the cross on his forehead with my thumb.
Afraid his ghost might come after me, and snatch the diary back, I ran as fast as my legs would take me all the way to the river. The stone I skipped along the surface of the water flew and then disappeared into the gaping darkness in front of me. “I gave death my cloak,” I murmured to myself as I skipped another stone. I looked out at what I knew was the river—though I could not see it as it was then too dark, stars and moon now hidden by clouds—and began to cry and laugh until I fell to the ground clutching my body.
Part 4
Father
MONSIEUR VIVANT WORE NO PERIWIG and his long hair, tied at the back, was whiter than I remembered. Though it had not been that long since I saw him last, he looked older and had more lines under his eyes. We embraced and he held me firmly and with much affection, just as a true father holds a long-lost daughter.
The small drawing room was the colour of apricots. Lanterns hung from the ceiling, wine and blue cushions decorated chairs and sofas, and sweeps of heavy cloth covered the windows. In the dim light, the room was like a house in the desert where emperors might live. Armande had told me stories of how these men travelled from place to place with hundreds of wives, servants, baths, long tables, camels and sleeping quarters, all of them in great tents as big as castles. Monsieur Vivant wore black breeches and a blue shirt of fine silk.
I looked to his face for glimmers of Armande; his dancing chestnut eyes, cheeks, and his forehead. He directed me to a chair underneath a painting on cloth of a woman and man in a loving embrace. He then sat in front of me, crossed his legs and rested his hands on his knees.
“You must be wondering how I found you and why I didn’t come myself.”
At first, he showed me only his lively character, yet on closer inspection I saw his eyes were red and he mostly likely had not slept.
“Did you visit her in prison?”
“Yes, Monsieur.”
His eyes took in my body, yet in a way that was friendly, not menacing.
“Not long after I came back to Paris from a voyage to England I heard street gossip that my daughter was in a Paris prison. Of course, I didn’t believe it was true yet went to investigate all the same.”
He took a deep breath and said, “It was the day of the riots, utter mayhem in the streets near the Bastille with men shouting and looting, smoke and people everywhere. I witnessed souls trampled to death.” He gazed at me, his eyes watering. “A small child lay face down, blood streaming from his head. I was about to run for cover when a group of men and women appeared, dragging a body through the streets. The woman’s hair trailed on the ground, her body was limp. I yelled after them to stop, and saw in the same instant that it was my daughter. A man said something about not having any bread, and added that this woman, meaning Armande, dined with the Queen. A woman yanked the gold locket from around Armande’s neck and held it up as if this would somehow prove she was a rival.
“I ran towards her attempting to fend them off, yet anger gave them more strength than I had. Our eyes locked and she reached out to grab my arm. During those few moments I felt her womanly strength, her love for me. Then came a blow with a stick to the back of my head.”
He covered his face with his hands, his wooden shoes clunking on the ground as he wept. I knelt in front of him, placing my hands on his knees. My grief threatened to overcome me, as did the guilt over my failed promise to keep her safe. I fought hard not to give in only because I knew that’s what she would wish.
When I had gained strength to speak once more, I said, “How did you find me?”
“Armande spoke your name before I was knocked unconscious. She told me where you were and that she was on her way to join you there.”
He looked away from me to somewhere distant.
I slipped a hand into my stocking and then showed him the locket. He gazed on it in disbelief, and then told me a story about Armande before I knew her.
“When she was a child, she couldn’t wait to tell me things. Even before French words came out of her mouth, she conversed in a mysterious language, very intricate and rampant with melody. She wanted to read everything, to understand it all, yet I told her to be patient as children need time to run in the fields and gather what is rightfully theirs. I know that I wasn’t a very good father for her these past few years.”
“I’ve been reading her words.” I held out the diary.
A red dot in the corner of the book caught my attention—a stain left by the scoundrel.
Monsieur Vivant’s eyes darted away
from me. His face was full of dread. “Shush. Can you hear?” There was banging and shouting at the front door.
He swept me up, pulling me, and the diary along with him. Then he rested his hand on a wall and the surface moved as if by magic, opening to a little room. The wall shifted back and we were in a cold place as dark as a cave. Men were shouting and knocking things over on the other side where we were only moments before. Monsieur Vivant felt my face, pressing two fingers to my mouth to tell me not to speak. A dull ache started in my bad leg, spreading to the rest of my body. Armande’s diary was close to me, my fingers running over the swirling patterns of the soft red cover. After we sat, waited and listened for a long while, the men finally quit the room.
“They sometimes come to steal books for evidence of my conspiring so I leave out only non-political ones—love stories, church hymns,” Monsieur Vivant explained. “This reassures them that the person living here is a pious romantic.”
“What about the King being rid of censorship?” I heard it with my own ears that he changed the law.
“Oh, yes, yes,” he quipped. “It will take a while for that new law to sink into the dim-witted skulls of the police.”
I wondered if Monsieur Phlipon’s body was still lying in the street. When they found him they would probably accuse a nearby street beggar of the crime. At least that would protect the mantua-maker from suspicion. Monsieur Vivant lit a lamp and a machine magically appeared before my eyes.
“This is the apparatus I use to print pamphlets and books,” he said. “No one can find it tucked away behind this wall. This is the lever.” He moved it up and down to demonstrate. “And these are the frames or coffins that the blocks of type are placed in. The paper is put under here.”
I cautiously ran my fingers over its hard edges. Could that really be how books were made?
He showed me a book he was putting together: a half-sewn object in the throes of becoming. Like a butterfly or snake shedding its old skin. It contained pictures and had a brown and gold binding. I moved my fingers over its body. Not so long ago these objects looked like food to me. All over the pages, I saw black stains, not words. Nor did I know these were even pages. For a short spell, I sensed this again, the not knowing. Then I made use of what Armande taught me and read a few lines. The horseman combed the countryside looking for a place to bury his bride. Her body was limp and cold and her hair smelled of lavender flowers. She was as beautiful dead as she had been when he first set eyes on her.
Later that evening, I went home to a meal of chicken pie and tea, and the good doctor announced he would return to Grenoble.
“Could you stay with Armande’s father?” He sat at the dining table, his hands clasped atop his belly.
Although I nodded my head, in my heart, I did not know if he would let me. After all, he was in hiding and had lived on his own for a little while now since leaving our mountain village. The doctor gave me his wife’s ivory coloured mantelet and a silver pillbox. The lid was ornamented with a basket of flowers. The sides showed a laurel wreath and lute.
“Only a fashionable woman would have such a precious object like a silver pillbox.” He winked at me.
The mantelet was silky on my arms and at my neck. I did feel quite the gentlewoman with it.
“I promise to treasure both of these gifts and to think of her when I use them.” I embraced him as one would a cherished uncle. “Please take this tortoise snuffbox,” I said being generous in my turn. It had belonged to Monsieur Phlipon.
I had kept it thinking I would pawn it for food, yet never did. The doctor graciously accepted.
The next morning, I visited Armande’s father and settled the question of whether I could stay with him for the time being. I sensed he wanted to spend time with me and fill the deep hole that Armande made by dying. I knew that to be true because I saw him in the same light. The day after that, the doctor quit Paris and I moved my few possessions to Monsieur Vivant’s apartment. News was out about Monsieur Phlipon’s death, killed while serving King and Country. They would soon be lining up wretched suspects to pin the murder on. Armande’s father told me so far, no rogues returned since last Sunday when we hid in the little room behind the wall. There were only spiders and mice to fight off in the attic where he set up my bed. He said I was safer up there in case they came looking for him again. The attic was filled with books, statues of elegant women and stately men, a lamp with piles of dust on its glass shade, and a portrait of a woman wearing an old-style gown. Spider webs hung from the ceiling like grape vines. There was no moon that evening just a splash of stars in the sky. I climbed out of my skirts and stockings.
My monthlies had not come for a while. There was constant pain around my navel and down by my curly hairs. That night, I fell asleep with a picture in my head of a wild animal growing inside me—sharp whiskers and lots of fur, a long tail like a snake and grey eyes like mine, sweet but with an air of mischief.
Weeks passed and I knew it was no animal, but a little girl God gave me to take the place of mine that had not lived, and the one of Armande’s that died. Though not quite a baby, I sensed the being inside me wanting to be born, wanting me to be its mother. It would not be like the first time when a tangle of dark blood and lumps came out. My belly was small and roundish as a gentlewoman’s bonnet, yet I knew soon it would overtake me and I would not be able to see my feet.
One morning, Monsieur Vivant was in his little room near the apparatus he called a press with its wooden frames and ink smells. Black ink on his fingertips, he stared proudly at a page he just printed, his bright, yet sad eyes jumping from line to line.
I told him my news, yet not that the father was Monsieur Phlipon.
“I never knew my daughter’s little girl.” The ends of his mouth turned down and he bowed his head. “At the time, I showed little interest in her offspring, and in her desire to be a mother. My own wife suffered so much on her childbed before she died.” He stopped and turned his head away, as men do when they are about to cry. “A few years back I let the authorities believe that I died on a boat sailing the Rhône River in order to protect myself and those close to me,” he said. “That day in Lyon, a man chased and almost killed me and I had to burn my tracks. I couldn’t even tell my own daughter that I was alive. Now, once again in Paris, I thought the police, the censors and others would have forgotten about me. Yet they did no such thing and I am now once again forced into hiding. With bread prices fluctuating, people are terrified of dying of hunger. More riots will continue to break out here and throughout the nation. The Estates-General shall open in May, yet I fear real reform will not come so easily.” He rubbed his eyes, moving fingers through his hair. He then pushed his chair away from his work and took off his wooden shoes.
I too sensed a growing unrest that had become even more palpable than when I first arrived in the city.
“Why would I stay in Paris any longer when I can breathe fresh mountain air and continue to write and print books without the rattle and reek of the city? Besides, I know Armande would want me to go back.”
I nodded thinking of her home, which still held winter in its walls. In the village at nightfall, the mountains would cradle me to sleep as their shadows moved over the houses, trees and churches.
“Monsieur Taranne, my very dearest friend and business associate died only a few days ago while taking one of his daily strolls along the river. Not even he is in Paris anymore.” Sitting crossed-legged, he held onto one of his feet.
“I should like to help you raise her in our mountain home,” he said, his warm eyes meeting mine.
Tears of joy began pouring out of me, yet tears of sadness too, as I knew there would be no more reading by Armande’s side in the drawing room while she suckled. Nor laughter or walks with her in the rose garden at sunset. Before her death I thought to stay in Paris and partake in the revolts foretold by the babies. Strong women were needed to fight an
d claim what was theirs. Like la pucelle, there were few who heard voices telling them the truth of what was coming. Yet without her magical milk, I felt sure the revolts would soon go awry as people lost their way. Their anger at having nothing for so long would overtake any hope of reform. How could a girl feel protected in such a place? Already, their rage had stamped out Armande’s precious life and the motherly liquid that would have done them so much good. How could there be liberty without womanly wisdom? In any case, she was murdered here, and for that I did not care if Paris burned to the ground after we left it.
And so, after spending a week packing up her father’s books and other belongings, we left one early morning, bound for our alpine village—my only true home.
Growing
THREE WEEKS PASSED since we left Paris, and, as the days went on my belly grew. Monsieur Vivant called what was inside me a “she” because I told him that his daughter, the last time I saw her, before her solemn death, said one day I would be mother to a little girl. Her father never asked how I came to be with child or who made me that way. His questions were more about how I was caring for myself and the baby, and what sensations were running through my body.
“What did you eat for lunch today?” he would ask.
To which I might reply, “A piece of bread with butter and a handful of carrots.”
“And what did you feel in your belly?”
“That I would like to eat a little more.”
“Bread is good, but you should eat beans also. Anything else?”
“A clawing in my stomach.”
He told me that infants make themselves known even before coming into the world. They do this, he said, by moving, kicking, and singing. Then he turned in his chair, shuffling his wooden shoes on the ground. He made me laugh, which was good given all the tears shed between the two of us.
Milk Fever Page 28
