The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home

by Joseph Fink

  “This is delicious,” he said.

  “You’re kind.”

  “I am kind. But also this really is quite good.”

  We sat on the porch and watched the last of the sunlight drift off from the sky as the ocean turned from a deep turbulent blue to the silver of night. The evening was cloudless, and we looked at the stars in silence. I considered what I knew about the stars, which was nothing more than navigational markings upon a black ceiling, and felt a fluttering in the pit of my stomach at my ignorance. Now, all these years later as I tell you this, I know everything about the stars, and the flutter is even worse for my knowledge.

  “It’s been better,” he said, “since you came.”

  I didn’t let him see my tears. “You did fine without me.”

  “Fine is not enough, sometimes.”

  On the night I knew I would leave we had sex twice, once early in the evening, and then again after hours of sleep, when we both found ourselves awake during the long wait for dawn. It was tender, and felt like we were both reaching for something beyond ourselves, something like the stars we had been looking at, something impossible to ever reach, and yet we strained for it together, and the pleasure made me sad, sadder the more intense the pleasure became.

  “What a lucky man I am,” he said into his pillow.

  “What lucky people we are,” I said, folding him under my arm, onto my chest.

  “You’re beautiful.” It was the last time anyone would call me beautiful.

  On the night I knew I would leave, I left. It was as simple and brutal and awful as that. I got up from the bed in the early morning. I went gently so as not to wake Albert. I took only a few possessions, those things that I had come with nearly four years earlier. I had no right to anything else. What I was doing was unforgivable, but it was precisely because I had already done the unforgivable that I needed to do it. Turning to get one last look at Albert, I saw that his eyes were open. He did not sit up from bed.

  “I knew this day would come,” he said.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “True joy never lasts. We are lucky we had it even for a while.”

  “I wish I could explain.”

  “Don’t.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “No,” he said, sitting up. “I mean don’t go.”

  His dark eyes searched mine with the desperation of loss. He was beautiful. I never really appreciated how beautiful until that morning.

  “Whatever it is you think you need to do,” he said, “decide not to do it. There is still time. Stay with me instead.”

  I almost did.

  4

  The years on the sea did not let me down, and it was easy enough to get work on a ship. I cut my hair short, and convinced the crew that I was a merchant from a maritime family to explain my apparent experience. Mostly I tried to keep to myself, which was easy enough as my sorrow was so complete that I had no interest in human company, and anyone looking for companionship could feel that I was not the place to find it. I did not have a specific destination in mind, since I had no idea where Edmond even was, and after my years away, I certainly did not feel prepared to face him. So I moved from port to port until I found myself stepping off the ship in Cagliari, on the southern coast of Sardinia, and for some reason not returning. There was no thought process behind the decision, I just saw the buildings climbing their way up the hill from the water and knew that it was time for me to leave the ship behind. I didn’t speak the local languages, nor did I blend in very well, but since I had no interest in communicating with anyone, that worked out fine.

  The island shone a path, an invisible and incomprehensible path, but one I chose to follow. From the port I quickly moved north, coming to the great wilderness of Barbagia, in the Sardinian mountains. Here I built myself a shelter, living off foraging and setting traps. I stopped paying attention to the passage of time, so I don’t know how long I stayed there. There were a few villages nearby, close knit. Many of the inhabitants were shepherds on the mountain fields. I got the feeling that more than a few of them were also bandits, but no one in those villages would ever talk about it to an outsider. They distrusted me, avoided me. I was a little afraid I’d be branded a witch, but the villagers were too busy dealing with the practicalities of survival to worry about that nonsense, and gradually I was even able to trade with them, picking up bits of their language as I went. I would never be a local, but as the months passed, I got the feeling that I was gradually slipping under their cloak of silence, and that if anyone asked about me, not one of those villagers would talk. This gave me some feeling of safety, even though I was sure that Edmond would have no reason to be looking for me.

  In order to open my arms to Albert, I had let go of Edmond and his many betrayals, but alone once again in the mountains of central Sardinia, I embraced revenge. I practiced the fighting and survival skills I had let lapse, and taught myself new skills. I worked on my strength. I worked on disguise, not only in clothing, but in physical movement and voice. I would take long rides back to Cagliari at times, to listen to any news, and hopefully to steal a book or two from wealthy travelers. I began to study things that I had been too impatient and restless to learn before. But anytime I felt myself grow tired and stopped for even a moment, I thought of Albert, and felt a physical pain shoot through my body, and so I didn’t give myself a minute of free time. My mind had to always be occupied.

  I lived in those mountains for at least as long as I had lived with Albert. Probably a little longer. And then one night, alone in my hut, I heard footsteps outside, slow and stiff. I did not look outside to see who it was, because I knew who it was. It was a shambling man, blood down his shirt, face pale, mouth contorted into a groan. I still did not know who he was or what he meant, but he had returned to my life, and I knew that my time in Sardinia was up. It was time that Edmond paid his debts. I took one last trip to Cagliari, and boarded a ship heading for France.

  Paris was a different world than the one I had last visited, during the height of Napoleon’s reign. There were more people, for one, and the streets swelled from the surge. Modernity had touched our world at last. Gas street lights brightened the night, making darkness a little safer for the people. The flickering of the lights gave an unreality to Paris. It felt like I was telling myself a story about the city rather than walking through it. But then Paris is a city that has always been more story than place. The lights were only installed on the wealthiest streets so far, but those were exactly the streets I was heading toward.

  The house on Rue de la Chaussée-d’Antin looked as tall and impressive as the first time I had seen it. Any signs of the violence from our last visit had long since been repaired and painted over, as distant now as the memory of it. Had we once been so young and stupid, running from soldiers paid by Edmond to impersonate the men of Lady Nora?

  The servant at the door squinted at me to see if he recognized my face, and when he didn’t, his squint settled into a sneer.

  “No visitors today, I’m afraid,” he intoned, and looked past me with the solemn expression of those who are paid to be difficult.

  “André will want to see me.”

  The man’s smirk returned slightly, but still he did not deign to acknowledge my presence. So I kneed him in the balls and walked into the building. I figured I could sort it out with André once I saw him.

  The entrance hall was even more lavish than when I had last visited. André had always had expensive tastes, but in his older age, he had really let himself indulge. He had taken over his family business, and it was thriving better than ever. There were silks from China, depicting landscapes and incredible creatures. I didn’t know enough about the world yet to know if they were fanciful or the actual flora and fauna of the region. There was porcelain from the Dutch. From Luftnarp, there were large granite bowls. That was what Luftnarpian craftsmen made, and no one knew why, or what exactly one was supposed to do with a large granite bowl, but they did make them per
fectly, and so people bought and displayed the useless things. André had eight. From Svitz, there were beautiful figurines of people screaming, which the rest of Europe found unnerving but which Svitizians reportedly found quite cute. And from Franchia, mysterious and vacant land of arches, there were several lovely paintings of dogs and other domestic animals. No one knew who made these paintings, since not a soul lived in the entire country, but occasionally these paintings of undisputedly Franchian origins would show up in the finest shops for exorbitant prices, and the rich and foolish would snap them up. I admired the five that André had acquired.

  “My god,” I heard behind me.

  “A truly stunning collection,” I said, before André had swept me into a hug.

  “I thought you were dead. My god.”

  He had grown older, as had I, and a little heavier, as happens with age, but he was absolutely himself. I started to cry.

  “Now, there, there,” he said, sweeping me back against his shoulder and letting me ruin the expensive material of his jacket.

  The front door banged open, and the man who had finally recovered enough to walk came limping in. “That’s her,” he shouted. “There’s the criminal.”

  “Gérald, we’ve all been criminals at some point in our lives.”

  Gérald took in the affectionate way that André was treating me, and I saw his world crumble before him. “But sir . . .”

  “That’ll be enough. Please shut up and go keep the actual riffraff out.”

  “I . . . Very good, sir.” He moved painfully back outside.

  “I did get him real good. You could have been nicer,” I said.

  “Ah, Gérald has always been a fool.”

  For a few silent seconds, André considered me closely.

  “What?”

  He frowned. “You look a little less like yourself.”

  “We all look different,” I said. “Time is unforgiving.”

  “No.” He stared so long that it made me uncomfortable. “Your face is . . . less so.”

  “It’s less my face?”

  “Yes.” He shook his head as though to wake up from a dream. “Come, let’s have a drink.”

  The living area was as lavish as the entrance. In the years since, André had returned to his family, and despite the tenor of their parting before, he had been accepted back once he had made clear he was no longer working on the left side of the law. Despite their fears, the family had quickly regained their status in the social upheaval following Napoleon’s defeat.

  “I hope you will be staying for some time,” he said, as he poured us glasses of the kind of wine I had not been able to afford since I had spent my last stolen coin.

  “Unfortunately not,” I said. I felt heavy bringing this burden to him, but it was his burden too. “I came because we have committed a terrible act, and now we must make right what can be made right.”

  5

  I will not be caught unawares. I will not be unprepared. I will not fail. And I will take as long as I need in order to make sure that this remains true.

  In Rome, I slip down an unassuming alley just south of the Tibor into the shop of a man who sells daggers and swords, deadly functional items, not intended for ornamental use. He looks at me over the thick lenses of his spectacles “What are you looking for?” he says, in the soft accent of the Romans. “Pain. Unbearable, unspeakable pain,” I say. He smiles and pulls a wooden box from under the counter. “You have come to the right place,” he says, and he shows me the most wicked knives I have ever seen. I buy two.

  I age, and each year I am a little slower, but also a little better prepared. I would rather be older and have accounted for every possibility than once again face Edmond as a young and raw talent, and once again be easily swatted aside. Let my years pass. I gave up a life when I left Albert. Now life has no meaning for me. I am an instrument, as brutal and single-purpose as the weapons I have purchased.

  In Stockholm I meet with a black market trader known as The Shadow of Gamla Stan, who is perhaps more powerful and dangerous than the King that ostensibly reigns from that town. The Shadow’s loyal subjects are invaluable for anyone looking to overwhelm a dangerous enemy. These men are mostly small-time thugs and thieves, but there are hundreds of them, and every one of them is indebted to their leader. He is happy to write off any monetary debts in exchange for a lifetime of loyalty and dedication. I do not wish to owe The Shadow of Gamla Stan anything. I wish for him to owe me.

  The Shadow and I meet in a lavishly appointed home on his name-sake island at the heart of the city. Outside the windows, the harbor glitters in the mid-summer sun. I tell him that I will pay a fair price for the aid of his fighting men. “I do not need money,” he says, indicating the decadent gold lamps and marble floors. “Money is not special. I need something special,” he says. “Bring to me the Murderer’s Mask, rumored to be in the vaults of Drottningholm Palace. It is the very mask worn by the assassin of King Gustav III. If you bring it to me, you will have the promise of my men.” It is not easy. It takes me weeks to plan, and days to execute. It is not dangerous, but tedious. Many heists are in reality the result of hours of boring work rather than a few moments of great adventure. I retrieve the precious item, more out of patience and bribery than skill, offer it to the Shadow, and leave Stockholm with the promise that when I ask for them, a small army will be at my call.

  As I live, Edmond lives. I hear of him occasionally. The Duke’s Own is everywhere in Europe, especially in bars. Drunk men speak loudly, and drunk thieves even louder. I listen, waiting to hear the name of their legendary spymaster. His genius is in how little profile he takes on. Even as his power grows, and it grows massively, his name is rarely heard. He governs by the nudge, by the knife in the back, by the threat from the shadows. Still, I know him well. Even in the darkness he surrounds himself with, I can see him.

  At an inn in Sofia, I find three men who are members of The Duke’s Own. I buy them drinks and ask about the sea, about their ship. They are drunk and forthright. Made unwise by my eagerness for revenge, I press further. I ask about Edmond, his whereabouts, his current dealings. Tell them I am an old friend. They stop speaking and leave. That night as I begin to fall asleep, I hear the familiar clicking of a lockpick. Whoever is attempting to break in is an amateur, and an impatient one at that. I have to scramble out a back window as the front door is kicked in. I believe Edmond still thinks I am dead. But he knows someone is sniffing around, and his protection of his privacy is absolute. I will have to be more careful.

  That night I make my way to Palestine where he won’t think to check and where his reach is unlikely to stretch. I hide out for a year. Jerusalem has no choice but to be a letdown. It is the center of so much myth and legend, and yet it is also a place where people live, and so has all the messy and unglamorous necessities of that life. The disconnect between the mythology and the physical reality of the place is disorienting. During that year, I live a quiet life. I eat, I look up at the hills, and sit in the sun. But it is not like my peaceful oasis with Albert. There is no joy in it. I exist, like moss exists, or the ancient walls of Jerusalem, or the soil that came long before those.

  Between these sojourns, I vanish back into the wilderness of Sardinia, where the locals begin to know me by one of my many names, and are willing to trade me for food and look me in the eye. In this way, I grow older, as the years of preparation pass and pass.

  6

  In the village of Gwoździec, a day’s ride at least into the Lithuanian countryside from any city, there was a rabbi of considerable renown. I had learned of him while in Jerusalem, and knew I must visit him immediately. He led his community wisely, kept up careful relations with the Christian neighbors to keep at bay the constant threat of pogroms and murders, and his command of Talmudic matters was already legendary after only a few years in his position of authority. I went to consult with the rabbi one cold winter’s evening, as the snow drifted in great swells along the roads.

  Th
e synagogue was a tall, graceful wooden structure. I pushed my way in from the biting wind to the warmth spilling out from the brick hearth. It was like stepping through the gates into the Garden itself. The ceiling and walls were painted bright colors depicting plants and animals. It was immersive, and made me feel like I was floating up into the world it had created. It was a lovingly articulated masterpiece, and I still think about it regularly, long after it has been burned along with the community that had built it.

  “What can I do for you?” said a gruff voice, and I looked down from the splendor of the ceiling to see the rabbi approaching, a thin man with a storm cloud of a voice and thick expressive eyebrows.

  He had arrived in town as a traveling scholar and quickly gained respect for his knowledge, while at the same time deflecting envy from the other young men of the village with his humble generosity and kindness. No one was quicker to point out when someone else was correct or faster to concede an argument. In this way, he had become the most well-liked man in the village, and no one thought it unusual when he began courting the rabbi’s daughter. Marrying her had cemented his place in the community, and when the old rabbi had died, it was a natural and easy choice for him to take that place.

  And now here he was, staring at me with his mouth agape. “My G-d,” he said. “I never thought I’d see you again.”

  “You can’t lose me so easily,” I said to Rebekah, and she threw her arms around me. We embraced for a long time, and if any of her community had come in, there might have been some awkwardness in explaining the long embrace of a strange woman, but no one came in and Rebekah led me through the night to her home.

  Her wife stood to greet her husband as we entered, then started upon seeing me.

  “It is okay, Yemima,” Rebekah said. “This is an old friend.”