Paris Adrift

by EJ Swift

  “The back door! Quick!”

  Millie glances behind her. I see the boy, inert on the floor, a section of his skull inverse to its natural shape. The sight freezes me.

  “Killed,” says Millie hoarsely.

  I tear my gaze away and pull her through the brawl. Behind us, the landlord roars for order. Small fires are starting where candles have been knocked over.

  We slip through the back door. Outside the night is cold and empty, the alley black as pitch. I put a finger over Millie’s lips and lead her deeper into the alley. They are out there somewhere, the man and the dog, and the dog can smell.

  As we move away from the tavern, the sound of the brawl fades and the silence grows more colossal. Every noise causes my heart to clench. Millie’s breathing is laboured. She is struggling not to cry. I squeeze her hand, tug, quicken both our footsteps.

  Is that the skitter of claws on cobbles, the tap of a cane?

  If I die in 1875, no one will ever discover what became of me. I’ll be as anonymous as the Communards piled into their communal coffins. I won’t be remembered.

  Suddenly that matters.

  We reach a stone wall, and I stirrup my fingers and hoist Millie up. Her petticoats rustle when they snag. She steadies herself, and reaches down to give me a hand. On the other side I feel safer. Still we creep, through the lightless night, the air a chill silk against our bare arms and necks, the fear of pursuit at our heels like ghosts or goblins or some other thing without name from below the earth. A dog barks. We start to run, fingers interlocked. We run blind, fleeing through winding streets and narrow alleys, running all the way until we reach the Seine. The river glimmers beneath a waning moon that flows in and out of cloud. We run over a bridge. Murmurs follow us, homeless and night dwellers roused from their slumber. I tug Millie’s hand. Come on. Come on, my Millie. Not far now. Not far. The words, low and urgent, for both of us. Millie stumbles through her tears. They fall unchecked, hot salt splatters down her cheeks.

  I lead us home. Now I can hear nothing behind us, and this frightens me more: what if the man and the dog have gone ahead, travelling swiftly by carriage, and even now they lie in wait? There is no light from the building. I shush Millie, give her a handkerchief to wipe her dripping nose. I motion we should take off our shoes. We tiptoe up the flights of stairs. We can hear moaning from visitors to the brothel next door, but from the occupants in this block, there is nothing. All sleeping. All unaware, nestled in the coils of their dreams.

  Outside Millie’s room we stop, and I run my hands over the door. No signs of a forced entry that I can detect. I put my ear to the wood and listen.

  “Give me the key, Millie.”

  I let us in.

  I hear a scrabble of claws across the floor. Millie screams.

  “Millie, it’s all right. It’s a rat, just a rat.”

  I light a candle. I cannot bear to remain in the dark. Millie throws herself on the bed and lets her sobs flow freely. I hold her. I say something, I don’t know what. Her breathing clogs with mucous and sobs. I hold her. Eventually she is still. I think exhaustion must have lulled her to sleep, but then she says, “I should see who I like.”

  I wait.

  “I should see who I like, shouldn’t I? It’s like you said. My lovers are my concern. I’m not a thing to be owned. But now he’s dead. Luc.”

  “I’m so sorry, Millie.”

  “Maybe it was Valleroy killed the others. The women.”

  “I don’t think it’s him.”

  “Why not? He killed Luc.”

  “Try and get some sleep.”

  The candle gutters. I see again the boy’s head, blood and matter, the shocking intrusion to the skull. I think I will be awake through the night, but I must doze, because the next thing I know, a pale grey light is creeping through the shutters, and birds are calling on the rooftops.

  I lie still. Beside me, Millie’s face is half buried in the pillow, the visible side blotched and crumpled. Something has changed. I think it is the violence of last night, a boy Millie barely knew murdered for a rich man’s whimsy. But it is more than that.

  Then I realise. The anomaly is awake, and it is singing to me.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “YOU CAN’T LEAVE me, you can’t! Valleroy is crazy, you saw what he did to Luc!”

  I hurry towards the boulevard as fast as I can walk in these absurd nineteenth century skirts. Millie runs after me, clinging to my arm.

  “Millie, I’m sorry, but there’s nothing you can say—”

  It’s humming. I can sense it. In the air and through tremors in the earth. Running in rivers beneath my feet. A flare, seismic, a volcano about to erupt.

  “Gabriela, this isn’t fair! I helped you out, now I’m in trouble—”

  “You’re going to be fine. You’re strong, clever... I’m not worried about you. I know you’ll be all right.”

  “Gabriela—”

  “My name’s not Gabriela. You shouldn’t call me that.”

  “I don’t understand—”

  This is it. This is the cornerstone of Clichy. Here is the highway of carts and carriages and pedestrians and servants scuttling with heavy loads, where in a century or so there will be a monument to Marilyn Monroe. Across the road, the tavern: my final obstacle. I am responding to a call, an instinct, something primitive in its simplicity.

  I’m coming.

  Wait for me.

  Millie tries to hold me back as I cross the road. A horse and carriage veer away from us. The driver’s whip snakes out and catches our skirts; he yells, “Imbeciles!”

  In the alleyway by the tavern, a woman is waiting. Narrow, aristocratic face, pointed chin, a flash of green in the lining of her bonnet.

  “You,” I say resignedly.

  The chronometrist twirls her parasol between two gloved hands. Her lips part in a wide smile, displaying her teeth. The expression looks uncomfortable.

  “Good to see you, my dear. I would have warned you—about the flare, but you’ve been avoiding me.”

  “I did what you asked.”

  “You did. You did. And now—it’s time to go.”

  Millie stares at us.

  “Gabriela? Who is this?”

  “Gabriela?” The chronometrist lifts one delicate eyebrow. “That’s what you go by, is it?” She turns to Millie. “I’m deeply sorry—for your loss, my dear. Would you like me to kill the perpetrator?”

  I jump. “What?”

  But Millie at my side is straightening, peering through her tears.

  “Yes,” she whispers.

  “No! What the hell are you saying?”

  “He’s a murderer,” says the chronometrist.

  “Yes.” Millie is nodding. So is she, I want to say, but cannot, because what kind of questions will that raise?

  The chronometrist edges closer. I place myself between her and Millie, but she reaches past me, wipes a tear from Millie’s face. Millie shudders.

  “Just say the word,” says the chronometrist. And to me, “She wants this. You can see that. She wants revenge. Will you deny her?”

  “Enough,” I hiss.

  The chronometrist looks as though she is about to respond, but something stops her. She tips her head to one side, listening.

  “It’s almost here,” she says. “Better hurry.”

  Abruptly, she turns and bustles down the alleyway, her parasol tap-tapping the ground as she goes. I stare after her. My heart is knotted in my chest. But then it returns in force. The anomaly’s song. She’s right. There isn’t much time.

  “Millie—”

  “You can’t go, you can’t,” sobs Millie, but her protests are quieter now.

  I take both of her hands in my own. Millie’s tearstained face before me, her brunette wig knocked askew. I reach to straighten it.

  “My dear Millie. I can’t explain. You’ve got to believe me when I say there is no choice. Something is going to happen now. I’ll walk into that tavern, I’ll go down
into the cellar, and I won’t come out again.”

  “What is it? Is there a tunnel down there?”

  “It’s like a tunnel.”

  “Are you a revolutionary? Are you going back into exile? I’ll protect you. I can protect us both. I can come with you!”

  “That’s not possible. You’ve got your whole life here.”

  “I’ll be on my own.”

  I pull her into a hug.

  “No...”

  I remember something Gabriela said, once upon a time; that houses are full of traces. Like dust motes in sunshine, these traces are only visible at certain angles. They are the shadows of people who lived before us. The fingerprints of visitors who passed by for an afternoon, the material on a favoured chair worn to a shine. Each touch leaves its trail of atoms. And houses harbour, too, the premonitions of things desired and things that are yet to come; the families we may create, the friends we may meet, the lovers whose bodies we may one day embrace. And so, says Gabriela, a house is never really empty, and you are never truly alone.

  Don’t be afraid, I say to Millie. Don’t be afraid of the traces.

  “But—”

  “I should go now. If you want to help me, I’ll need a distraction. And there’s no one better than you at distractions.”

  “True.” Millie swipes a defiant hand across her eyes. “I’m mighty good at that.”

  “I’ll miss you, Millie.”

  “Will I ever see you again?”

  “I don’t know.”

  AS I SNEAK through the tavern, I am aware of Millie covering my tracks: standing on a table bold as brass, shooting wisecracks from her soft-lipped, slightly crooked mouth. Her large, raucous laugh echoed by the men drinking, by Anne-Marie’s indignant wrath.

  Millie is Jessica Rabbit. She is Faye Dunaway in diagonal rain.

  I slip behind the curtain. I climb down a wooden ladder into a cellar that smells of sawdust and apples. I can feel the anomaly closing around me. My head throbs. My vision blurs to red. The flare is due, any minute it’s going to take me, coast me out of 1875 and into—

  I SIT UP. I feel terrible, cold and clammy and racked with tremors. I check the line on the keg, just to be sure. It’s Kronenberg. Definitely a keg, definitely the twenty-first century, and that’s the line I was sent down to change, so I haven’t even been gone—

  “Hallie! Bring a crate of Smirnoff Ice when you’re done in there—and move it!”

  —very long. Very long at all.

  “J’arrive!” I call back to Eloise. I need a minute to recover, more than a minute, but Eloise is not interested in what I say, only in what I do. Shakily, I hoist a crate of Smirnoff Ice up on my hip. On the stairs I pass Kit. He looks me up and down. He winks.

  “What’s that get-up in aid of, Hallie? Rehearsing for Dracula?”

  I glance down. Looped around my waist is the little leather pouch I always carry, with its five juggling balls. I am still wearing petticoats.

  Part Five

  The Moulin Vert

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “THE FACT IS in ten years’ time the only people who can afford to live here will be Russian oligarchs and billionaires who piss oil.”

  “In ten years’ time?” Dušanka scoffs. “You are the optimist, Angel. Already half the city is empty for ninety per cent of the year. The rest of us, we live in broom cupboards like skinny rats hoping for a crumb of cheese.”

  “You should come live in Sweden,” says Bo. “There is plenty of space in Sweden.”

  “Bon oui, but you’re all white there,” says Angel.

  “Actually there is quite a high Middle Eastern population these days, even before the crisis in Syria.”

  “And it is fucking cold.”

  “Cold, yes, though summer on the coast is very pleasant. But think of the sledging!”

  “When the earth’s temperature rises past two degrees and all the snow melts, you will have no economy from your winter sports, and what then?” drawls Dušanka.

  “I will show you a good time in Sweden,” promises Bo, and Mike says, “I bet you will,” which is a foolhardy response given Dušanka’s current levels of antagonism, but it’s Christmas and everyone is very merry, and for this reason Mike escapes unnoticed.

  “I don’t want to talk about Sweden, I want to talk about the fact that this country is going to shit,” says Angel.

  “Oui, oui, c’est vrai.” Victor nods, and drains another glass of Malbec.

  “Can’t be worse than England,” I volunteer.

  “Yes, let us have a competition,” says Dušanka, becoming excited. “Who has the most shit country?”

  Mike groans. “Man, seriously? You call that a competition?”

  “Don’t be too sure of yourself, Mike. Hallie’s country, for example, is currently engaged in the act of economic seppuku. But it is true that the orange pussy-grabber gives you an unfair advantage. We will remove national leaders from the equation. You, Hallie, go.”

  “Me? Okay, um—where do I start? The NHS is being torn apart, austerity is literally killing people, we’ve got a government full of delusional clowns who hate anyone under twenty-five, we refuse to pull our weight in the refugee crisis, and we’re the laughing stock of Europe—in fact I’ve probably got about a year before France kicks me out. How’s that?”

  “Quite shit. Angel. Victor.”

  “Bah, this is hardly a competition. France has Front national at one end, radicalisation at the other—”

  “Refugees camping in tents this very moment and the government it is pretending they do not exist—”

  “Children can’t read or write, though they are probably lazy too—”

  “And fat—”

  “Taxation laws are complètement fou—”

  “Corruption—”

  “Homelessness—”

  “Vineyards failing—”

  “Mon dieu, the vineyards!”

  “Yes, yes, vive la France, that’s enough from you two—”

  “We have more!” shouts Angel, but Dušanka overrules him.

  “Mike. Keep it short, we all know your country’s sins are many and diabolical.”

  “Chicago’s a great city,” Mike protests.

  “Incorrect.”

  “Yeah but, Illinois, it’s like a totally different country to the south.”

  “What a shame you didn’t notice that before you federalized yourselves,” says Dušanka sweetly.

  “Okay, okay. Jesus. If you have to include the south, hell, I got creationists, abortion rights, white supremacists, kids shooting up schools because half the country’s in the pocket of the NRA. I got the surveillance state. I got police with a free pass to murder anyone who looks like me or Angel in case we’re terrorists, though that’s like, everywhere. War, helluva lot of war.”

  “A fuckton of war,” agrees Angel.

  “Man, I miss Obama.”

  “Don’t we all, poulet.”

  “Yogi!”

  “We’ve got crocs and snakes and spiders and shit,” says Yogi enthusiastically.

  “That is not the point, Yogi. You should have said your country is full of racists and has recently deified coal. Bo. Forget your default Sweden-is-the-greatest-democracy setting, we all know you get better paternity leave than anywhere else.”

  “Actually the rise of the right in Sweden is quite frightening. Here it is Front national, at home we have Sweden Democrats. The government’s refugee policy has stirred things up.”

  “Gabriela?”

  Gabriela shakes her head. “My god. You ask about Colombia?”

  “All right, you are excused. However, Russia wins because fundamentally we don’t believe in human rights. Shots!”

  ALL OF THE bartenders who haven’t dispersed for Christmas have congregated at Bo’s. Mike says the air fares are too high to justify a trip to the States, and Gabriela is staying for the same reason. Simone would have preferred Christmas in Clichy, but was sent a Thalys ticket and a financial
ultimatum in the post. Léon is in Montpellier. Eloise has gone back to Amsterdam to gaze upon the face of her beloved canals and decide whether her life has gone terribly wrong or terribly right. At the last minute Dušanka, crackling with anti-festive glee, announced that she too would be remaining in Paris, and who was going to be cooking?

  Bo has been sent a parcel from Sweden. He unwraps the foil package with a flourish, and we all peer at a round lump of meat.

  Dušanka pokes it. “What is this?”

  “Tjälknul.” Bo is triumphant. He rotates the plate, displaying its singular contents. “In English you call it elk.” He looks at Mike. “That’s moose to you. The dish was invented by mistake. The chef put the meat in the oven on low heat to thaw, and forgot about it. The next day he remembered again, and discovered a delicious treat.”

  Angel shudders. “Surely this is inedible?”

  “No! Just tear bits off or eat it with bread.” Bo leads by example, licking his fingers. “Ah, I have missed this.”

  Bo had been in Paris now for a year. One night, between manoeuvres, on his year of military service, cold and bored and raked by the Scandinavian wind, Bo had stared up at the skies and had an epiphany. For too long, he had lived his life in safety. The time had come for wild abandonment. Since then Bo had travelled frenziedly, amassing a considerable carbon footprint that occasionally, but not always, caused him great twinges of guilt. But there were still occasions when he missed Sweden. And elk.

  One by one we sample his offering. Angel refrains from spitting, the rest of us chew with enthusiasm. Then the cooking commences. Gabriela prepares tamales, Dušanka makes kutya. Mike brings unbaked cookie dough and Victor is dispatched with a fistful of euros to the local cave on wine sourcing duties. I bake scones, to be served thick with jam and cream. As I slide them off the baking tray, admiring the perfect golden glaze, created by the exact amount of egg white (pastry, after all, is a science), Dušanka waves a copy of A Brief History of Time in my face.