The Masquers

by Natasha Peters

  “Well, I should say she deserved to be beaten,” Fosca said fiercely. “Imagine—a spy!”

  Raf’s head drooped. “I beat her bloody and threw her out. It broke my aunt’s heart. She was still crying when I left the ghetto. I just don’t understand how she could so such a thing! All right, maybe Salvino had a hold over her. Even so, she could have lied for us. She didn’t have to tell him. She could have kept the secret. She said she loved me. She loved me, but she betrayed me. Why? I don’t understand.”

  Fosca understood. Lia had done it because she was jealous of their love and thought she could destroy it. But she had failed, and driven them even closer together, lovers in exile.

  She felt a surge of triumph. She was glad it happened. Now Raf would belong to her alone.

  “It’s all right, darling,” she murmured. “It’s past. Over. Forget her. You’ll never see her again. And in a way, it’s just as well, isn’t it? No one can come between us now.”

  IX

  BASTILLE day

  Fosca heard a rumble of distant thunder. The china cup and saucer at her elbow rattled musically. Curious, she walked to the windows that overlooked the street and threw them open. The July sky was clear of clouds. But in the street below, men and women were running. Some carried axes and clubs.

  “Where are you going?” she called after them. “What’s going on?”

  No one looked up. She shouted down again, and this time a woman heard her and yelled back breathlessly, “To the Bastille! There’s fighting at the Bastille!”

  Fosca’s heart felt like a frozen core of ice under the ruffled muslin of her bodice. “Fighting?” she repeated, hoping she had misunderstood. “Was anyone hurt?” But the woman was gone, swept along like a leaf in a high wind.

  With a frown, Fosca closed the windows and stepped back into the sitting room. There was always trouble in Paris, it seemed. And where was Raf? He hadn’t come home last night. He hadn’t even sent word. He didn’t care if she worried herself to death. But perhaps he couldn’t send word because he was hurt, or worse—.

  She told herself angrily that she was being ridiculous. Raf knew how to take care of himself. If he were here, she knew just what he would say:

  “You have to understand, Fosca, We’re here for a reason. Paris is my laboratory, and the science I study is revolution.”

  For Fosca, Paris was a bore and a disappointment. Instead of enlightenment, she found turmoil and rioting. Instead of wit, revolutionary harangues and slogans. Instead of fashion, cockades, the tri-colored emblems of liberation.

  They arrived in Paris early in May. The city was in an uproar. The Estates General was meeting in an attempt to solve some of the critical problems that beset the country, and people talking of nothing else. “What is the Third Estate? Nothing. What should it be? Everything!” Merchants and bankers and shopkeepers—everything? And there was talk. Constant, everlasting talk about the Rights of Man, the corruption of the nobility and the clergy, tithes and taxes, the ineffectual King and his influential ministers.

  Raf was in his glory. He felt like he had come to his spiritual home. He immediately sought out the Jacobins whose names Tomasso Dolfin had given him and he joined their radical society, the Brotherhood of Man, where he met with fellow rebels and visionaries, and talked about the coming storm.

  Fosca, however, felt dazed and disoriented. Her elopement was much different than she had pictured it, even after the gentle warnings given her. She couldn’t do anything that would betray their presence in Paris. She had to struggle with a strange language and a new city with peculiar customs. When Raf was away, which was most of the time, she had no one to talk to except their maid, a dull-witted country girl.

  When she went shopping she found the stores nearly empty of goods. She would have liked to stroll through Paris, exploring, but Raf forbade it, saying it was much too dangerous. There were too many soldiers around and a pretty woman, even one accompanied by a maid, was fair game. Raf didn’t have time to go with her; he was too busy learning about Revolution.

  He brought her books that had been forbidden reading in Venice. They had been available to her there, but she hadn’t read them because ideas held no interest for her then. Now she read them out of desperation and boredom. She even took up needlework which she despised, because it helped pass the time. Life was suddenly sapped of all the pleasures she had once enjoyed: parties, gambling, gossip, shopping, visiting with friends, the theater.

  Theaters in Paris were closed, because the people had no bread. This made little sense to Fosca. Why the theaters in times of famine? The theater helped you to forget your troubles, which was all to the good. But Raf told her that it would be wrong for the rich to sit enjoying themselves while the poor starved. The only pleasure that remained to her was lovemaking, and she didn’t get as much of that she she would have liked. Raf was preoccupied with revolution, and spent more time with the Jacobin Brotherhood than he did with her.

  She was resentful, although she tried not to scold. She didn’t want to make him angry. Silences blemished their hours together. Once, in Venice, it seemed that they spent as much time talking as they did loving. But now, away from the deception and the spies and the fear of discovery, they had very little to say to each other. He didn’t discuss revolution because she became hostile at the very mention of the word. She didn’t even try to relate to him the details of her empty day. She was too afraid that her forced conversation would degenerate into complaint.

  She paced the floor worriedly and became increasingly terrified that something horrible had befallen him. He had been gone a whole day and a night and part of the next day as well. There was fighting going on at the Bastille, the ancient fortress which served as a prison. Raf had never avoided a confrontation. He would be there. Perhaps he was wounded. He might even be dead. She had to know.

  She put on a bonnet and a light shawl and hurried out of the apartment. The day was quite warm, but the chill in her heart kept her from feeling anything but sick fear. She didn’t know where the Bastille was, but as she stepped into the street the flow of rushing people guided her along, through narrow alleys, dark even on the brightest days; past shuttered taverns and shops; past sinkholes of poverty the like of which she was sure couldn’t exist in Venice. She skirted piles of filth and refuse, nearly fell over the carcass of a dead dog, was accosted by a drunk and pawed by a crippled beggar. She brushed against screeching women and sweating laborers, and saw something in their faces that lifted the blight of their hunger and despair.

  As she neared the scene of the fighting, the crowd grew thicker. The roar of the guns was almost deafening. Then it stopped abruptly, and an eerie silence fell over the area.

  The age-blackened fortress loomed over her. This was the Bastille, where, according to Raf, Voltaire and Diderot and thousands of others had been held prisoner over the years. Word spread through the crowd that the Governor of the Bastille had surrendered. People began to cheer wildly, to toss their caps into the air, to dance in the streets. The ancient symbol of tyranny and oppression had fallen.

  “Look, there are the prisoners!” someone said.

  Fosca craned her neck. All she saw was a pathetic huddle of seven men dressed in rags. They blinked at the brilliant sunlight and seemed unsure of what to do with this unexpected freedom.

  The crowd pressed closer. Fosca felt overpowered by the high walls, the heat, the noise, the stink of sweat. And by a new smell—blood. She saw bodies lying under the great walls. Dead men. A few wore the uniforms of Swiss soldiers who had guarded the fortress. The rest were ordinary citizens, common people.

  Fosca’s heart contracted. Raf was dead, she was sure of it. She broke free of the crowd that hemmed her in and threw herself down beside the first blood-soaked form she came to. When she turned him over, she saw that he had no face. She closed her eyes and pressed both hands over her mouth, and the rising tide of nausea receded. She told herself sternly that she must not give in to feminine weakness. S
he had to find Raf.

  She picked her way through the bodies. She was not alone. Already other women were searching for their men, as women do in the aftermath of war. Occasionally a heart-rending cry went up as one found the man she had hoped would not be there.

  Once Fosca stopped a wounded man to ask if he had seen a rather large Italian with dark hair and eyes. It was no use. She could barely make herself understood in French, and in Paris almost everyone had dark hair and eyes.

  As the people saw how many of them had been killed by the Swiss, their mood changed from jubilation to anger.

  “Swiss murderers!”

  “Hang Launay!”

  Their cries were frightening, ugly. The mob converged in the center of the Place de la Bastille. Fosca couldn’t see what was happening and went on with her grisly work. Then the cheering started again. The women around her looked up and shrilled their approval.

  A bloody head impaled on a pike swayed above the crowd. As Fosca stared, horrified, it came towards her.

  “To the Hotel de Ville!” the people shouted.

  “Show the bastard’s head to the King!”

  The tongue lolled. The eyes were wide open with surprise. The hair which was long and dark, was caked with blood. Blood still dripped from the severed neck.

  “Rafaello!” Fosca gasped. The roar of the mob sounded like crashing waves in her ears, and the sun went black.

  From his vantage point high in the tower that overlooked the Place, Raf saw the women poking through the bodies under the walls. One wore a gown the color of the first leaves in spring, and her hair gleamed like burnished copper in the sun.

  “Fosca,” he whispered. He arrived in the huge square just in time to see the irate mob clubbing the Governor of the Bastille to death. He was there when they cut off his head and raised it triumphantly for all to see. He couldn’t stop them. No one could, not even the King’s army.

  He pushed his way through the bloodthirsty Parisians and found Fosca slumped over the dead body of a Swiss guard. He spoke her name and her eyes fluttered open. He held her in his arms and she clutched at his shirt with trembling fingers.

  “I thought you were dead,” she said in a choked voice. “The head—the head—looked like you!”

  “Are you crazy, coming out here?” he said almost angrily. “What in God’s name—?” She shuddered and closed her eyes. He lifted her and said more gently, “It’s all right. Let’s get out of here.”

  “You shouldn’t let her come out in her condition,” a crone observed as he shouldered his way past her.

  “There’s no one but a pregnant girl can turn that lovely shade of green!” She cackled unpleasantly.

  He carried her away from the turmoil, away from the noise and the blood. She said, “I’m better now. Please put me down.”

  He did so, and steadied her until her legs could support her. She had lost her shawl as well as her bonnet. Her hair was damp and disheveled, her gown soiled and bloodied and tom at the knee. Raf, too, was tousled and dirty, soaked with sweat and spattered with blood. They looked at each other sorrowfully, wearily, then Raf put his arm around her shoulders and they walked back to their apartment without speaking.

  When they were inside he said gruffly, “I’m sorry you had to see that. You shouldn’t have come.”

  She sank down on the settee opposite the windows.

  “You didn’t come home. I thought something had happened to you.”

  “I’m sorry. I meant to send someone to tell you—things got so crazy yesterday—I’ve been up all night.”

  He poured a glass of water from the carafe on the sideboard and brought it to her.

  Who was he?” she asked. “The man who—?” Her hand trembled. She spilled the water on her lap.

  “The Governor of the Bastille. Named Jordan. Marquis de Launay.”

  “Why?” she wondered. “Why would they do such a thing? They were like animals, howling for blood. She gazed at Raf and blinked. “And you—. Did you help kill him? Did you?”

  “No, Fosca, of course not. I had no idea—”

  “Did you cut off his head?”

  “I did not! Please, Fosca—”

  “You went to fight, to help them. Why? You’re not even French! But I forgot, you’re one of the Brotherhood of Man. No class divisions. No nationalities. All—brothers. Blood brothers.”

  He said firmly, “I’m sorry that lives were lost. I’m sorry about de Launay. But in any struggle there are victims, Fosca. Innocent people.”

  “You’re not sorry,” she said, amazed.

  “You’re as bad as the rest! I suppose you’re proud of yourself, and happy that you were there! You think—it was a good thing!”

  “The people had lost their voice. They—we were in danger of losing everything. Now they’ll have to listen to us. In that way, yes, it was a good thing. The best thing that could have happened.”

  She shook her head slowly. “I don’t know you anymore. I thought you were gentle, and good. A bit of a dreamer—but not a savage. But you—you’re as bad as the rest. An animal!”

  He took a deep breath. “You’re just getting yourself upset over nothing, Fosca.”

  “Nothing? You call the life of a man—of all of those men—nothing!”

  “It shouldn’t have happened,” he said, struggling to be patient. “But mobs are unpredictable. This was their first real show of strength, and their success went to their heads.” He said the pat phrase without thinking.

  She gaped at him. Her lips began to twitch. “Went—to their heads!” she repeated incredulously. She started to laugh.

  “Stop that, Fosca.” He gripped her shoulder. “Stop it!”

  “Oh, my God!” she said weakly. Tears started to spurt from her eyes. In a second she was sobbing brokenly. He tried to hold her but she shrugged him off. His touch revolted her. He sat on the other end of the settee and waited for the storm to pass. She had been through a lot that day.

  He said, “I never should have brought you here. It was a mistake.” But he knew he had neglected her. He had let his exhilaration at being in Paris close his mind to everything else: Fosca’s needs, their love, their future. The change hadn’t been easy for her, he knew. And he hadn’t done anything to make it easier.

  “You hate me!” she sobbed. “Because I’m one of them! You’d like—to cut off my head, too!”

  “That’s nonsense, Fosca,” he said brusquely. “I love you very much. More than ever. I’ve been thoughtless. I’m sorry.”

  “You’re not! Yes, you are—sorry that you’re burdened with me. You don’t love me. You don’t need me. You have a new mistress: Revolution. There’s no room in your life for me now!”

  “I told you how it would be before we left Venice,” he said a little stiffly. “You pretended then that love was enough for you.”

  “It wasn’t pretense!” She lifted her tear-streaked face. “I did love you. I do! But I’m not getting any love from you now, none at all. I’ve lost you—to them!” She waved her arm at the windows. “You wouldn’t come back here at all if you didn’t need some place to sleep. I don’t blame you. It’s horrid, hideous, ugly!” The apartment was really quite charming, bright and expensively furnished, but Fosca was in no mood to be fair.

  “I never see you anymore!” she cried. “You spend all your time with those horrid men, talking the same old rubbish!”

  “I don’t think you realize what happened today,” he said gravely.

  “Oh, I realize that when people gather together to do violence, they forget that they are even human. You think they won’t want more blood, now that they’ve gotten a taste for it? Didn’t you look at their faces? I did. And you want to be a part of this? It’s sickening. Disgusting! Get away from me. Get out! Go to Versailles and kill the King! Cut off a hundred heads, a thousand, I won’t stop you!” She covered her face with her hands.

  “Listen, Fosca, I know this has been hard on you. The strange city. A society in upheaval. I know it
’s difficult for you to understand the things that are important to me. I didn’t like what happened today, any more than you did. But I couldn’t stop them. No one could. They were beyond reason. But sometimes, in order to shake a society loose from its old ways, to make a new world, you have to have violence and strife.”

  “What’s wrong with leaving things as they are?” she demanded. “The people are happy enough. If they want bread, give them bread, but don’t let them take it. They just have to accept that everyone can’t be born noble, any more than everyone can be born beautiful or intelligent. Oh, God, I can’t bear to listen to anymore of your preaching!”

  He slid closer and took her hands gently in his. She pulled them away.

  “Don’t you touch me!” she hissed. “I should have known better than to fall in love with a savage! An infidel! Get away from me! You’re low and common and disgusting! You’re nothing but a—a dirty Jew!”

  She spat out the word with all the hatred and vehemence she could muster. Raf turned pale. Fosca bit her lip but it was too late. She could never take the word back, or repair the harm she had done. He stood up calmly and left the room. With despair, she heard the door to the stairs close with resolute finality.

  She had done it, driven him away. She was a harridan, a bitch, no better than the women she had seen screaming for blood at the Bastille. She wanted blood, too, but she wanted to do her killing like a lady, so that it wouldn’t show. Words, words. She had killed her father with words, too. Her reproaches, as much as anything else, had prompted him to take his life. Words. More cutting than any dagger.

  The noise in the streets below subsided. Only a few isolated voices drifted up to her. Hours passed. She didn’t move from the settee. The burden of her unhappiness was almost tangible, like physical weights on her body. The sun shifted, throwing the room into shadow. She felt cold.

  She wasn’t even aware that he was in the room. The first thing she heard was her name, spoken very softly. She sat up quickly. Raf stood in the doorway. His face wore a sheepish expression. He carried an enormous bundle of red roses under his arm.