Faces of the Dead

by Suzanne Weyn

  “Come back, Papa!” I cry out, letting go of any doubt I felt about this. “It’s me, Marie-Thérèse! Come to me.”

  Abruptly, the figure grips my wrist and I scream.

  “No! No!” Mademoiselle says to me. “Be loving. Call to him.”

  Tears now stream down my cheeks. “Come, Papa! Please! Please! Don’t leave me. I’m out here all alone. I’m alone. Don’t leave me!”

  Then I hear Papa’s voice. But it’s not coming from the figure. It’s in the air — a disembodied voice.

  “Marie-Thérèse! Don’t cry, my dear girl.”

  It’s Papa!

  “I can’t stay. I have to move on. They’re calling me now.”

  “Papa!” I shout, desperate. “Stay! Don’t go!”

  “I love you, Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte. Don’t forget me.”

  The hand loosens its grip and falls away from my wrist.

  “Papa!” I cry out.

  Sobs rack my body and I fall onto the floor in a heap.

  I’m consumed with sorrow. I am sorrow. There is nothing left to me.

  Henri kneels beside me, rubbing his hand up and down my heaving spine. “You’re not alone, Marie-Thérèse,” he soothes. “I’m here. You’ll never be alone.”

  In the next months, I’m grateful for all the activity because it takes my mind off worrying about my family. Rose takes me into her confidence and shows me her book collection about the mystic powers of voodoo.

  In these books, which are yellowed and cracked and handwritten, I read about the energies of the universe, and how they can be harnessed.

  It seems like magic to me, but Rose assures me that it isn’t. “The spirit world, like the living world, is composed of energetic forces that work in ways we don’t understand,” she says. “But the more information one has about these elemental forces, the better we are able to control and direct them. These things were once known in Africa, both by the tribal peoples and the ancient Egyptians, but as the old Egyptian culture declined and the Africans were spread across the planet, the knowledge has been lost.”

  “But not lost, because it’s preserved in these books,” I point out.

  Rose opens the book to the inside back cover, and I can see that a chunk of the last pages have been torn out. “Perhaps these papers exist somewhere to this day,” she says, “but they’re not here. That’s why I’ve been trying to approximate the words of the spells and the ingredients of the potions.”

  I nod, thinking of how it seems she almost captured Papa’s spirit within the wax figure Mademoiselle made of him, but then failed.

  “So how does it work? How does the spirit know where to go?”

  “We have to find a way to direct the spirit to the wax figure,” Rose replies, “and then we have to find a vessel for it to live within that can allow it to survive.”

  “Do you mean a real body?”

  Rose nods solemnly. “The body has to be found within hours of its death, before decay sets in.”

  I wonder what it would be like to suddenly find myself in another body. I don’t think I’d like that, though I suppose it would depend on how like my own body the replacement was. A girl my own age might be all right. But what if I landed inside the body of a hairy butcher, or an old woman? I shudder at the idea.

  Would I still be me? Would I be part me and part them?

  * * *

  I’m helping Mademoiselle spread warm wax on the oiled face of Charlotte Corday, who killed the Terror leader Marat, when there’s a thumping at the back door. Mademoiselle Grosholtz sighs with irritation. She doesn’t like being disturbed when she’s creating a mask.

  “See who it is, would you?” she requests of me. “Check at the window before you open the door.”

  Gently, I part the curtain of the back window and see a woman in her twenties. She would be beautiful if her face wasn’t battered, swollen with purple bruises. “Mademoiselle, it’s a woman. She’s hurt,” I reply.

  Mademoiselle leaves her work and is quickly at my side looking out the window. She gasps at the sight, hurrying to let the woman in.

  The woman collapses into her arms. “Brigitte, who did this to you?” Mademoiselle demands to know, outraged.

  Brigitte? She does look familiar, now that I look past the bruises. I’ve seen her before but I can’t remember where.

  “I’ve been accused of spying for the duc d’Orléans,” Brigitte says in a halting, faint voice. “I ran from the guards who came to arrest me, but a crowd formed and chased me.”

  “They did this to you?” Mademoiselle asks.

  Brigitte nods.

  Henri comes in from the other doorway where he’s been listening. He swears softly when he sees the condition Brigitte is in. “How did you get away?” he asks.

  “They thought I was dead and left me in the street,” Brigitte tells us.

  Mademoiselle instructs me to get cool water and a soft cloth. She sends Henri for bandages. Together, Mademoiselle and Henri walk Brigitte to my bed and lay her down gently. “Go to Rose’s apartment and tell her I need some of her herbal remedies,” Mademoiselle says with quiet urgency.

  “I’ve seen that woman somewhere before,” I say to Henri as we head out for Rose’s apartment.

  “Of course you have,” Henri replies. “We were together the last time I saw her. Think, you’ll remember.”

  “The Belle Zulima!” I cry. I recall my shock when her large blue eyes unexpectedly snapped open and then winked at me. Her delicate features are so swollen now, her silken hair soaked in blood.

  “Do you think she’ll live?” I ask Henri.

  “I don’t know,” he admits, and we begin to run toward Rose’s apartment.

  With the help of Mademoiselle’s care and Rose’s remedies, Brigitte does not die. But she’s hardly alive. She lies in my bed drifting in and out of sleep. It becomes my duty to make sure she eats the herb-infused vegetable broth Rose’s maid brings every day. I sit on the edge of my former bed, spooning it into Brigitte’s mouth, wiping the drips with a cloth.

  At night I sleep on a straw-stuffed mattress beside Brigitte and have the same dream of her lying in her glass case. Again and again I relive the moment her eyes opened and she gave me that mischievous wink. In the dream, though, I’m not frightened. This time I understand that the wink means we are partners in something, some plan.

  As Brigitte improves ever so slowly, we sometimes stay awake whispering at night.

  Brigitte tells me how her great, astonishing beauty has been a blessing but also a curse. “Men see only that,” she says. “It’s hard to know if a man loves me for myself or only loves my beauty.”

  “I never thought of that,” I say.

  “How can that be? You’re a beautiful girl.”

  “I don’t have much experience in love,” I admit. “Though there is someone.”

  In the morning, I awake to find that Henri is not in his bed. Dressing quickly, I find him in the workroom already laying out the tools for the day’s work.

  When I enter the room, he looks up at me and smiles. I come beside him and he clasps my hand. “I heard you talking last night,” he says softly.

  “You did?”

  “I want you to know something,” he says. “It’s important.”

  “What?” I ask.

  “I love the beauty that you show on the outside. But it’s your lovely inner person that I adore.”

  Pulling away slightly, I study his face. He’s not making fun or being flippant. He is completely sincere.

  The immensity of my love for Henri overpowers me, and I kiss him hard on the lips. He returns the kiss with full passion. Our love is so strong that I know nothing can ever come between us.

  * * *

  One day in July, Mademoiselle’s mysterious suitor, François Tussaud, appears at the workshop. Mademoiselle is completely transformed, no longer the severe, serious person we are used to but a smiling, radiant woman.

  Monsieur Tussaud seems pleasant, if shy, as he e
mbraces her in the workroom. I’m sanding the rough bumps from Charlotte Corday’s death mask, making her skin lustrous, in the corner of the room while Henri sweeps. Mademoiselle Grosholtz and Monsieur Tussaud talk as though they’ve forgotten we’re here.

  “It’s no longer safe for us in France,” he tells her. “We both have ties to the old regime. The revolutionaries see everything as a sign of loyalty to the monarchy.”

  “But neither of us has aided the royals,” Mademoiselle points out.

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s all madness. No one is safe. Anna Marie, marry me and we’ll go to London.”

  Monsieur Tussaud’s proposal shocks Mademoiselle, I can tell by her expression, and she’s speechless.

  “Come away with me,” Monsieur Tussaud presses softly.

  “I can’t, at least, not right now,” Mademoiselle Grosholtz answers tenderly, reaching out to stroke his hair. “If I leave, the National Assembly will come after Dr. Curtius, maybe even Mother. They might take revenge on them.”

  “But you would come if it were possible?” Monsieur Tussaud wants to be assured.

  “Absolutely,” Mademoiselle says. “I would love to marry you. As soon as this insanity passes, we’ll go.”

  Henri and I exchange worried glances. Mademoiselle Grosholtz has been our benefactor, our protector, our friend. What would our lives be like without her?

  Henri comes alongside me, still sweeping. “We’ll go with her,” he says quietly.

  I suddenly understand how Mademoiselle Grosholtz feels. How can I go with my family still imprisoned? But I hold my tongue. What’s the point? Who knows what the future holds?

  Then Monsieur Tussaud says something that makes my blood run cold.

  “The queen and the dauphin, Louis-Charles, have been separated from the others.”

  “Where have they been taken?” I blurt.

  He pauses for a moment. “The queen has been taken to another prison inside Paris, the Conciergerie, and the young prince has been moved into solitary confinement within the Temple prison,” Monsieur Tussaud reports.

  “But he’s so young!” I cry. “And Mama is all alone, too?”

  Monsieur Tussaud looks sharply at Mademoiselle. “Mama?”

  Slowly, she nods.

  “Anna Marie, how …? It’s not possible!”

  “I know you would never reveal our secret,” Mademoiselle says calmly.

  “Of course not — but this is lunacy! You know that, don’t you? If anyone ever found out … they’d kill you. They’d kill you all!”

  “They won’t find out,” Mademoiselle insists. “There’s a girl in prison who looks just like her.”

  “You mean they’ll kill her, instead?” Monsieur Tussaud says gravely.

  “Perhaps they won’t kill anyone else,” Mademoiselle suggests.

  “Perhaps not,” Monsieur Tussaud agrees, his eyes on me, but I can tell he doesn’t believe it.

  Poor Louis-Charles! What are these monsters doing to him? He’s never been separated from Mama before this. Mama must be sick with worry. And she has no one at all to comfort her.

  But in the back of my mind, the worst worry of all is:

  Would they really kill Ernestine in my place?

  The longer my thoughts race around in my head, the worse I feel until I’m nauseated. “I have to go lie down,” I say, blinking back tears and heading for the bedroom.

  Crying myself to sleep, I once more dream of Brigitte lying in her case as the Belle Zulima. As I peer in at her, Brigitte changes into Mama.

  Mama — lying there with her eyes closed and her face ashen. This time there’s no head turn, no saucy wink.

  Slowly the case fills with a white, foggy vapor that grows ever more dense until her form is almost completely obscured. Then it bursts, shattering glass everywhere.

  Mama hovers in the air above the blasted coffin, radiant with an inner light. She seems confused, but then she spies me gazing up at her.

  “Where must I go now, Marie-Thérèse, my Mousseline Serieuse?” she asks. “My spirit is lost. Where should it go?”

  “Don’t go, Mama!” I say. “Don’t go anywhere. Stay here with me.”

  “All right,” Mama agrees, but as she hovers there her form becomes like smoke and begins drifting around the room, stretching her form until it’s nothing but mist.

  As I reach out — to do what? Gather the light in my arms? — the vapor whirls in one direction, a spinning vortex. As it clears, a form emerges. It’s Brigitte and she’s inhaled all the mist into her body. “I feel quite well again,” she announces with a smile.

  When I awake, Brigitte is sitting up in bed. “Are you all right?” she asks. “You were crying out in your sleep.”

  “I’m not all right,” I admit. “I’m so worried about my mother and brother that I can hardly stand it. And I had the strangest dream. I dreamt you were the Belle Zulima and you inhaled my mother’s dead spirit. It cured you.”

  “That is strange,” Brigitte says. “I don’t think anything can cure me. I feel weaker every day.”

  “Is Rose here?” I ask. Rose is skilled at interpreting the meanings of dreams. “I want to tell her this dream and see what she thinks.”

  “She was in here while you were asleep and we spoke. But don’t bother her now,” Brigitte advises.

  “Why not?”

  “They’ve sentenced Alexandre, her husband, to be guillotined.”

  That summer, my family’s things are all over Paris. The revolutionaries have decided that all the items in Versailles, along with the things in the Petit Trianon, should be auctioned off to raise more money for their cause.

  It’s horrible to see drunken, slovenly women parading the streets wearing Mama’s gowns. People push wheelbarrows through the streets of Paris that are loaded with lamps, chairs, and rugs that I recognize from my girlhood. I nearly weep when I see a man toting a box full of the locks and clocks Papa so enjoyed to tinker with.

  I’m coming back from the market with my purchases when Henri calls from behind and runs to catch up with me. He’s holding something behind his back. “I have something for you. Close your eyes and put out your hands.”

  I do as he requests, and in a minute he’s placed something in my waiting hands. Opening my eyes, I gasp with delight.

  It’s the music box I had as a girl, the one with the shepherdess and her daughter that twirl when the music plays. “Where did you …? How did you …?” I stammer.

  “I stole it,” Henri admits proudly.

  “What?”

  “Well, not really,” he allows. “They stole it from you, so I simply stole it back. It was in a pile of things being auctioned in the square at the Palais-Royal. I just grabbed it and ran.”

  I’m suddenly fearful that someone will see me with this, and I stash it in the sack with the food I just bought.

  “Does it make you sad?” Henri asks. “It didn’t occur to me that it might bring back memories you don’t want. I’m sorry if I —”

  “No, I love it!” I interrupt. “Mama and I would dance to this tune. Those were happy times.” Looping my arm through his, I begin to walk in a circle. He lets me lead him at first but then spins me. Around I go. Once, then twice.

  I smile for the first time in a very long while.

  I’m delighted that he knows this simple country dance I did as a younger girl out in the fields of the country retreat. Closing my eyes, I imagine myself back there.

  We twirl and promenade a few more times, and then I kiss Henri on the cheek. “I love you. Thank you for getting my music box back.”

  “I love you, too, Ernestine Marie-Thérèse,” Henri says as we walk toward the wax exhibit. I squeeze his arm, resting my head on his shoulder.

  “What if you’d been caught?”

  “I’m faster than any of those fat old guards,” he says with a grin. “I had to get it for you so you can play the music and be happy remembering those good times.”

  “I used to think those times wou
ld come again, but I don’t anymore,” I say.

  “We can’t be children anymore, but we can recall how much fun it was.”

  Am I being what Mama used to call me: Mousseline Serieuse, serious muslin? Maybe I am, so I try to be a bit lighter. “You’re right, Henri. We always have our memories, and no one can ever take them from us.”

  “I’ll always remember you and it’ll make me happy,” Henri says.

  I stop walking, turning to face him. “You won’t have to remember me, Henri, because we’ll always be together.”

  “You’re not being realistic,” Henri says, stepping away to face me.

  “I am,” I insist. Yet despite my words, it occurs to me that maybe he’s right. What if I go back to being royal? Suddenly, I don’t want that.

  I’m so divided! I want the Revolution to fail for the sake of my family. I love them so much. If the Revolution fails, I will see them again.

  At the same time, although I despise its brutality, if the Revolution means the people won’t be so poor — I want that, too. Liberty and fraternity. Freedom and brotherhood. Those are the virtues the Revolution espouses, and I believe in those things, as well.

  I want it all! I want my family and Henri.

  “Maybe things will be different someday soon,” Henri says, taking my hand.

  “I see no sign that the Revolution is going to stop,” I say, which is true.

  “I wouldn’t be so certain,” Henri disagrees. “There’s talk of war everywhere. Foreign armies are at our borders. The monarchy has royal friends and even family who might invade at any time. We’ve been at war with Prussia, Hungary, and Bohemia. Just last February, we declared war on England and Holland.”

  “But it all seems so far away,” I say.

  “The fighting could come closer. There’s talk of war with Austria, too,” Henri adds.

  Why haven’t my Austrian uncles come to Mama’s aid? She also has sisters who’ve married the heads of other countries. Why haven’t they helped her?

  Yet this idea that invading armies might free what’s left of my family fills me with hope. No matter what happens, I’ll find a way to stay with Henri. I’ve read of Queen Elizabeth of England who refused to marry. That’s what I’ll do, but secretly we’ll wed.