The History of Mischief

by Rebecca Higgie

  After a while I stop crying, and we do.

  A. Mischief the Two-Hundredth

  Paris, France 1870

  For weeks we heard them coming. Gunfire and explosions in the distance.

  News finally reached Paris. His armies decimated, Napoleon III abdicated and was exiled to England on Bismarck’s command. We were a republic now, declared the morning paper, the Third Republic of France. Monsieur Martin, the kindly butcher downstairs, boasted that it was the Third and Final Republic, for we’d never go back to monarchical rule. He had given us a room for free, charity to our late father, his friend and apprentice, so I didn’t tell him that ‘final’ seemed like a prophecy coming nearer every day. The Prussians scuttled across our country. Versailles was taken. Bismarck settled himself there, setting up long-range artillery and pointing it right at us. Some said he’d surely never fire on our fair city – but the nights were punctuated by weapons firing, louder each time, announcing their approach.

  They encircled the city. They laid siege. They cut the telegraph lines. All of them. They blew up a few bridges, and barricaded the rest. Even fishermen got turned away, told to make their way back up the Seine. Nothing could leave. Nothing could come in. Not even a letter. Claude was quite pleased to have been picked as a postal runner to get through the blockade.

  ‘An elite group, only twenty-eight of us, handpicked from the whole service. We go tomorrow, just before dawn!’ he boasted to Chloe who, being a sweet girl barely fifteen, was mightily impressed.

  ‘Perhaps there are only twenty-eight of you foolish enough to do it,’ I countered.

  ‘If by foolish you mean brave, then I’d agree with you, sister.’

  Sister. The arrogance. He spoke as if we were already family. I suspect he used this claim of bravery to take my sister’s virginity. When she came home early the next morning, I told her I’d burned her copy of Notre-Dame de Paris in lieu of firewood.

  ‘You just don’t understand love, Lou!’

  Of course, I didn’t. I was sixteen. I knew nothing.

  The Prussians shot Claude. They shot most of them. Bernard, a kind boy who also worked at the postal service, came to our room to deliver the news. Chloe cried and soaked his handkerchief. Not knowing what to do, he pleaded with her.

  ‘Please, he wouldn’t want you to cry. Please, I beg you. I … um … I’m delivering some mail to a balloon! A balloon, do you believe it? Oh, please don’t cry, let me, um, the balloon! It’s magnificent! It’s going to fly right out of Paris. I could sneak a letter in for you. No charge. Or maybe you’d like to see it. A balloon! To sail right over the Prussians’ heads!’

  Claude must’ve told Bernard about Chloe’s fondness for the aeronauts. She cried all the way to Saint-Pierre but we went.

  It was an underwhelming sight. The balloon was an ugly, limp black thing. The line was still connected as we arrived, pumping coal gas into the balloon, which was a collection of fabric patches and glue. The ropes that tied the sickly swaying thing to the basket made unnerving creaking sounds. One of the aeronauts noticed Chloe’s sniffling. Assuming she feared for the flight, he gave her his handkerchief and offered some reassurance.

  ‘It is a noble piece of wreckage, mademoiselle, never fear.’

  As Bernard and the other postal workers hoisted the mailbags, some 125 kilograms of correspondence, into the balloon’s basket, the aeronauts looked less confident in their noble wreckage.

  Now loaded with mail, the men disconnected the gas line and helped one of the aeronauts into the basket.

  ‘That’s Jules Duruof,’ Chloe whispered to me.

  Monsieur Duruof cried out, ‘Lâchez-tout!’ He cut away a sack of sand as large as a mailbag and shot up like a champagne cork. The sleepy crowd was suddenly entranced. They cheered the rickety balloon. Chloe stopped sniffling and gasped. The balloon cleared the buildings, some nine storeys high, that surrounded it. People came out of their homes to see what was going on. Soon Paris was gazing skyward.

  It didn’t entrance me, I confess. Instead, my eyes were turned down to the ballast Monsieur Duruof had cut from his balloon. It had split open, and in the mound of sand that flooded from the bag, out stuck the corner of a book. Why would a book be in a sandbag attached to a balloon? The balloon in the sky, floating out towards the Prussian troops, didn’t seem as strange as a book hidden in a bag of sand.

  Firewood and coal were expensive. We stole all manner of things to burn. Books were the best, for they offered stories first and warmth for the stove and the hearth second. So I took the book while all of Paris looked upwards. It was full of blank pages. I was disappointed but comforted myself that while it had no stories, it would burn.

  The balloon was a success.

  Monsieur Duruof sailed over the Prussians. Not a single bullet grazed the balloon or its cargo. Three balloons went up quickly after that, but this time, the clever fellows took homing pigeons with them. Soon messages were coming back. Pigeons became sacred, a sign of hope. While hunger drove men to eat their dogs and scamper down alleyways for rats, pigeons were spared. The siege lines were broken. The first ever airmail service was established. Monsieur Nadar’s ‘No 1 Compagnie des Aérostiers’ was famous.

  As the weeks went by, more balloons were needed. Empty train stations became balloon factories. The balloons fascinated Chloe. She volunteered us to help sew the great swathes of fabric needed to make them. Well, rather, she volunteered herself, and due to our arrangement, that meant she also volunteered me.

  You see, we looked almost identical. Same face, same height, same long black hair. Only our eyes and cheeks distinguished us, for her eyes were brown, mine blue, and my cheeks marked with freckles.

  When Father died, we were left with nothing. Despite Monsieur Martin not charging us rent, we needed money for food. We offered to help in the butcher, but that was men’s work. We tried dressmaking, laundry, all manner of female things. But no one wanted the help of girls. We realised that being boys was more advantageous. We could only afford a single boy’s outfit. Our arrangement was simple. We took turns. Few people noticed the eyes. Only one or two felt that something wasn’t quite right, but could never figure out what. When we grew, we secured more women’s work, but men’s work paid better and was a deeper well for stories. By the time the siege started, we’d been a butcher’s assistant, a courier, a baker’s apprentice, and a zookeeper who fed the more vicious animals at the Jardin des Plantes.

  On the night before Chloe’s first day at the balloon factory at Gare d’Orléans, we debated who’d take the first shift.

  ‘You’re a better seamstress than me,’ she said.

  ‘But you wanted the job.’

  ‘I know, but could you go for the first few days? We must establish ourselves as reliable.’

  ‘We’d make more money catching rats.’

  ‘Yes, and I’m a better rat catcher than you.’

  She was. The week before, we’d made five francs over the four days she spent chasing them. Rat pâté was in vogue with the wealthier Parisians. Some butchers paid half a franc for three. We were able to save our books and keep hunger away.

  So I relented. I took our warmest dress and the pair of stockings with the fewest holes, and she took the trousers and the big cap that hid her hair. She disappeared into the alleyways, and I into the train station full of balloons.

  Gare d’Orléans was a grand building, with the high ceilings you’d expect of a train station. Countless panels of glass directed sunbeams down like spotlights, and a giant ornate clock, framed with golden spears, kept the time with hands that were longer than a man’s body. Trains were replaced by two balloons, one almost fully inflated, the other on its way. They were far larger than the first balloon we’d seen, taking up two platforms and almost touching the roof, bloated like a beached whale. They were pretty though, made with striped candy-coloured fabric.

  There were at least fifty women working on reams of calico. We were to sew and varnish the fabric in a parti
cular way – it was easy enough – and then a group of men hung the fabric up to dry from the iron beams in the roof. Three layers of varnish were needed, and had to dry for twelve hours between coats. There were three limp balloons drying above the tracks while we worked on sewing three more. Sailors worked beside us, braiding the ropes and halliards needed to attach the balloons to the baskets. There was an urgency to our work, but the atmosphere was jovial. Brave sailors flirted with us before Madame Beaufort, dubbed ‘the Balloon Matriarch’, smacked them with a ruler and shooed them like pesky birds. She made me and the other new seamstress sit with her.

  ‘You’re very good, dear,’ she told me, as kindly as a grandmother. She gave me a ruler too, and instructed me to hit any boy or man who came near me. The woman was an infinite source of pragmatism, caution and, indeed, rulers.

  When I arrived home, I found Chloe curled up in bed, bloodied and beaten. I ran to her side.

  ‘Oh, Lou,’ she sobbed. As she stretched out an arm to embrace me, I noticed the other was bent at an unnatural angle. Her nose was blocked with clotted blood.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘A gang of boys attacked me when they saw how many rats I had,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry, I’d caught at least eleven!’

  ‘I don’t care how many you caught. All I care about is you.’

  Chloe, her face etched more in guilt than pain, still gestured to the floor, where a single rat lay dead. ‘I kept one at least.’

  ‘Oh shush,’ I said, and started cleaning her wounds. I glanced at the twisted arm. ‘It’s alright. We’ll get it fixed.’

  Chloe nodded, but we both knew finding a doctor was impossible. In her eyes, I saw all her fear, of the money we couldn’t earn now, of the break that would stay twisted.

  ‘Trust me,’ I said.

  That night, she shivered as the cold seeped into her wounds. I burned two books and a handful of newspapers. It’s quite a thing, a burning book. The best thing to do is open it up and sit it in the fire, letting the flames climb the paper. The fire eats away at it, red ripples shrivelling the pages. They curl before crumbling to ash. When the flames consume it, they dance out violently above it. Ashy white fragments spiral off, like the stories are trying to escape. A burning book emits pure yellow-white flames, but its heart is black.

  Next morning, I made my way to Gare d’Orléans, ruler in hand and thoughts consumed with the problem of how to get a doctor.

  ‘What’s wrong, dear?’ Madame Beaufort asked as I sat silently sewing beside her. ‘Those ruffians not giving you any trouble, I hope.’

  Her eyes followed some of the men, including one with hair as black as mine, who winked at me as he walked by.

  ‘No, madame,’ I said. ‘My sister’s broken her arm. I don’t have money for a doctor.’

  ‘A doctor?’ the winking sailor said. ‘My pa’s a doctor.’

  ‘No he’s not, you common ship rat, move along!’ Madame Beaufort snapped.

  ‘Honestly, he is! I fell out of favour with him when I … well, medicine’s not me, but he’s a good man. I’m his only son, so Mother –’

  ‘Be gone, you monstrous liar!’ Madame Beaufort shouted, smacking his legs with her ruler.

  He moved along, but kept his eyes on me. There I saw a promise.

  ‘Men will tell you anything, dear,’ Madame Beaufort said.

  I nodded, but when the time came for an inflated balloon to be prepared for launch, I left my sewing sisters for the spectacle outside. The winking sailor was holding one of the many ropes that worked as a tether. I slipped in beside him.

  ‘Hello, monsieur.’

  He nearly let go of his rope. ‘Mademoiselle!’

  ‘My name’s Chloe,’ I said.

  ‘Alexandre Prince,’ he offered. He bowed, inadvertently tugging on the rope and jerking the balloon so violently that the aeronaut who supervised our work, the famous Monsieur Godard, had another sailor retrieve the rope. Together we watched as the balloon was tied down and mail loaded into it. Monsieur Prince was only a decade older than me, I guessed. I noted he didn’t have a ring on his finger.

  ‘Monsieur Prince, what a regal name,’ I said. ‘Sir, I hope you don’t mind me asking about your father’s services. I’m just a poor orphan and we barely have enough for bread. I wouldn’t normally ask but I’m desperate.’

  I started to cry then, soft little gasps, a tactic I found worked on most men.

  ‘Oh, don’t cry!’ he said. ‘I promise, I’ll speak to him tonight.’

  I took the handkerchief he offered and gently touched his arm. ‘God bless you, monsieur!’

  The next day, Monsieur Prince approached the sewing brood and Madame Beaufort chased him away. I found him later, helping Monsieur Godard hoist a basket, sans balloon, onto the iron girders above. I watched on admiringly, trying to show how very impressed I was with their heaving and harring.

  ‘Can I help you, mademoiselle?’ Monsieur Godard asked.

  ‘I wish to speak to Monsieur Prince, sir, but it’s a pleasure to admire your fine basket up on the beams. Is it easier to tie it to the balloon this way?’

  Monsieur Godard laughed. ‘Not quite! This basket shan’t see flight. Our facility here is becoming a training college for fledgling balloonists. I’m sorry to say that all our professionals have already gone. Now we need good men, like these lads here.’

  Once the men finished, I pulled Monsieur Prince aside. He couldn’t meet my eyes.

  ‘My father will offer his services but they’ve inflated in price. I convinced him to halve his fee, but he still asks one hundred francs to treat your sister.’

  I was paid half a franc a day. We had nothing saved. I shed true tears, the hopelessness of my situation overwhelming me. Dear Prince, he was one of those men, like Bernard, who found female tears torturous.

  ‘I can give you ten, and you can pay the rest off slowly. I’ll vouch for you.’

  ‘Truly, sir?’ I asked.

  ‘I give you my word.’

  The word of a sailor was as good as nothing, Madame Beaufort told us. But Alexandre Prince kept his word. His father came two days later, took his son’s ten francs and my paltry two (with the promise of more) and set Chloe’s arm. From that point on, Alexandre and I were friends. Every day at the balloon factory, he found a way to slip me a coin and a wink, even if it meant getting smacked by Madame Beaufort’s formidable ruler.

  Weeks stretched into months. The siege held. During the day, I worked on the balloons. At night I huddled with Chloe, who was healing well but slowly. If I found some wood or paper, we slept by the fire. I wanted to hunt for rats at night, but the street lamps were extinguished early and the whole city was dark.

  Hunger seeped into Paris. The butchers descended into the zoos where only the lions, tigers, and hippopotamuses escaped our dinner plates. Monsieur Martin sold elephant for forty francs a pound. Too many cows were killed for meat, and milk became so scarce that many babies died. I saw the little coffins most days, women’s cries the only sound coming from funeral processions that swayed down boulevards that’d lost all their trees to our fires. It was November by then. Almost all our money went to paying off our debt to the doctor. As I hugged myself on the cold walk to the station, I could feel my ribs.

  That day, Alexandre was in such a joyous mood, he skipped over to us despite Madame Beaufort’s threats.

  ‘Chloe, your debt is paid!’

  ‘Have you completely lost your manners, boy? Calling a young woman by her first name, you improper beast!’ Madame Beaufort objected.

  I pushed my way between her and Alexandre. ‘What?’

  ‘I’m a balloonist now! I fly out on the twenty-eighth. Just a sliver of my wage covers your entire debt. When I get back, when our Republic is freed, I’ll spend the rest on the biggest diamond in all of Paris and fashion it on your finger there!’

  Madame Beaufort smacked him with her ruler. As she beat him back, he retreated to his comrades by the ropes.

  ‘Say
yes?’ he called to me.

  I liked Alexandre enough. For an orphaned girl, enough was the best I could hope for. I shouted back, ‘Yes!’

  The sailors let out a great ‘hooray!’ making enough noise to bring down Monsieur Godard. Madame Beaufort called our behaviour ‘most improper’, but the master aeronaut didn’t agree, saying Alexandre was a fine catch, a hero of Paris in the making. That day, he trained Alexandre in how to use the balloon’s valves and guiding ropes.

  Later, I chose food over warmth. I used the few francs I’d saved on bread. Chloe asked how my day had been, and I told her about our debt being wiped clean. She didn’t need to know about the marriage proposal. Not yet. We ate our bread and two slices of nondescript cured meat Chloe had begged from Monsieur Martin. There was gunfire going off somewhere. A few explosive booms in the north.

  ‘It’s so cold,’ Chloe said, coughing.

  ‘It’s not so bad,’ I said, putting an arm around her as we huddled under all the coats and blankets we owned.

  ‘My bones ache,’ she said.

  Our little fire, burning from newspapers and a few sticks I’d foraged, was dwindling. It was only seven or so, at a guess. Yet, it was already so cold.

  Under the bed, our books. I went for Mother’s volume of Shakespeare. Chloe objected. I came across a stack of magazines, all about balloons.

  ‘Something else, please,’ she begged.

  Finally, the last one: the book with blank pages I’d found in the ballast. Another mystery from this strange book: it’d survived months without going to the fire. How had I burned my copy of Arabian Nights before this?

  I opened the book and set it in the fireplace. A few embers sparked up and bit my hand. I gasped. Then I heard something. Whispers. They were hushed, joined together. The wind, perhaps?

  I settled back down with Chloe as the flames caught on the book … only … they didn’t catch. The flames jumped on the book, but the pages didn’t curl and blacken.