“Who are the ‘brutes’? The Germans?”
“No, everyone who’d judge your father and your family, the ones who’d make you hide and feel shame. They’ll spit on war heroes, men recognized by the highest in power as noble and courageous. They make men do the work they’re too cowardly to commit, then discard them. You give a pig its slop, and does it thank you?”
Marcy said, “Pigs are killed for us to eat. I wouldn’t feel grateful if I was one, a pig, that is.” She stared at the webbed cloth beneath her silverware and pursed her lips.
Before Jehanne or her father could respond, Marcy startled when a man strode in the corner of her eye. When she looked, she guessed he was a servant because even though his clothes were nice, purple and red and accented with gold, he balanced a large, full moon tray in each flat hand.
Jehanne’s father smiled, which made Marcy’s heart flutter, but not in the same way as when she thought of André or Jehanne.
He said, clearing his throat and rapping his knuckles on the table, “Thank you, darling.”
Marcy forgot all about pigs and did a double take at the servant. He looked like he could be the monsieur’s brother, but the way the monsieur brushed his wrist wasn’t brotherly, not at all. The man stood behind his master like a pampered Dobermann. She couldn’t help but notice the servant was dashing, but his presence put her off. He had purple rings under his eyes like he hadn’t slept in a week, and his pallor reminded her of when she or anyone in her family caught a long-suffering cold.
Marcy’s mouth watered as she peered at the plates of food, the smells filling her nose, the tastes flooding her mouth before she took the first bite.
There was a pastry-wrapped chicken also stuffed with bacon and smelling of what she thought was sage. Studying Papa’s cooking did her well here. Custard tarts with saffron—Marcy didn’t know what saffron was, except maybe a color in some context. In the myth book Maman lent her, one of Persephone’s daughters wore a saffron cloak. Marcy tasted the dark wine—spiced, biting her throat. It made her cough. Papa sometimes let her drink from his cup, small sips, and she hadn’t yet acquired a taste for wine. There was also a pitcher of tea, but when Marcy sipped it, it had a funny, bitter aftertaste.
Despite eating nothing, Jehanne’s father dabbed his lips with a folded cloth napkin, while Marcy set a curled hand to her lips to cover up a belch. She ate as if she hadn’t done so in days. She believed her greediness was likely shameful to those around her, but nobody commented on her behavior if they’d paid attention. By the time Marcy finished, she was the sated kind of full, that type of ended hunger that ached, but only a little.
“Father, why don’t you eat with us? You shouldn’t just not eat.” Jehanne’s tone was light, but the skin around her knuckles tightened when she laid her hands flat on both sides of her plate.
“Ah, my appetite has left me today, pup. I’ll pick at what’s left later. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll retire early. You’ll escort Marcy to her room, won’t you, pup?”
“Of course, Father. Please feel better. And eat.” Jehanne kissed her father’s cheek and said to Marcy, “Your room’s in the same hall as mine.”
“Moreau, come, darling.” The servant, Moreau, followed her father.
Once the monsieur and Moreau left, Jehanne complained a little loudly, “He never eats with me. If he’s self-conscious about people watching him eat, he should just say so.”
Marcy muttered, “Do they sleep in the same room?”
Jehanne didn’t lower her voice. “Yes, why wouldn’t they? Moreau might need to tend to Father in the night.” While Jehanne didn’t seem to catch the innuendo in her voice, she must’ve taken notice of Marcy’s expression because of her next question. “Is it really that odd? Clair does it with me in case I need help.”
Marcy ground her teeth, unsure how to word what she meant. “I don’t want to say odd, just not, not something you really see.” Marcy didn’t know Jehanne’s beliefs about that sort of intimacy or what she believed God would do about it.
It, it. Such a small word for a big weight. How Jehanne stirred Marcy’s stomach in ways similar to André, but deeper. But she couldn’t dwell because if she let herself down that path, she’d end up like Wilde, not even allowed religion and sick in Berneval-le-Grand, except if she had to leave France, where else could she go to die?
So, she stuffed her feelings away like a well-sucked childhood blanket.
“So, is your papa normally so—animated about certain things?” He had captivated her attention, despite her misgivings, and anything that distracted from what happened at home was good.
“No, he doesn’t often joke about—horses. Or rant about pigs. I think it’s good because it means he trusts you. He’s probably like me, excited to meet someone new.”
Marcy yawned and rubbed her eyes. “Is it all right if I go ahead and sleep early too? I’d like to talk to you more, and maybe explore some, if that’s fine, but I’m just so tired.”
Jehanne patted her elbow. “Yeah, you must be tired from what you’ve told me. Follow me.”
By the time Jehanne showed her the bedroom, which was bigger than Marcy’s room at home, André’s room, and the kitchen combined, Marcy yawned and stretched, taking note of the valise sagging in the pawed chair near a horned bookcase. It was opened and, curious and desperate for a bath, she went to the washroom adjacent to her room. By God, the room was big enough for five tubs, but it held only one that winked at her.
Beside the sink lay a nightgown and undergarment taken from Maman’s valise, but that wasn’t the strangest thing. It didn’t bother her that a female servant prepared those.
What scratched at her was the gaping, cream-colored purse squatted next to the linen gown. Marcy peeked inside and frowned. It was littered with white cloth pads.
Her head spun. How did anyone know she had started bleeding today? Was it that obvious? Was she that bloated? Had she stained the back of her dress? The smell couldn’t be that terrible. Her cheeks flooded with prickling heat.
Marcy postured with her back to the mirror and strained her neck. No stain, yet.
Odd. Maybe the pads were just in case, a coincidental act of consideration. She searched for possible ill intent, but she couldn’t find any.
After she took her bath, Marcy dressed herself. She stumbled across the hall to the guest bedroom, which was lined with gold and silver. She had no idea a bed could hold so many pillows. With few thoughts on anything else, she burrowed under the covers and drifted into a deep slumber within a minute. Only a faint creaking and rustling vibrated against her bones before her release.
11
Rosalie
What had she done to her family?
What the hell had she done?
Yesterday, after taking Marcy to her friend’s home, Anatole stepped inside, took off his coat, saw Rosalie on the couch, and said nothing. That night, he retired first, and they slept with their backs to one another. Now, Rosalie sat on the couch with her head in her hands. She wouldn’t cry. That’d do no good. She straightened when the stairs leading to the top floor creaked. Anatole approached her with Jolie following, and he beamed when he saw her, though he grew somber when her attempted smile hurt and broke.
Anatole asked, “What happened? Why was Marcy crying? Why did André leave?”
He had waited this long to ask, and Rosalie still wasn’t prepared. She muttered to herself, “It’s my fault. It’s always my fault, isn’t it?”
“What’s your fault?” Anatole knelt and touched her knee. “Please tell me what’s the matter, just for your own sake. If nobody else, let me in, trust me.” His eyes scorched her—blue, bright, terrifying in their vulnerability.
Abruptly, Rosalie stood without planning where to go. She strode over to a small table set between two bookshelves. She adjusted the curved lampshade.
“Marcy proposed to André,” she answered. “They kissed, and I confronted him. That’s the start of it, I think.” Anatole stared,
hauntingly silent. “You aren’t disturbed?” Do you already know? Is this another thing you thought you’d keep from me?
“I don’t know how to feel. She’s young, and whether she marries André or—”
Rosalie wrapped her arms close to keep her heart inside her. “She won’t. She can’t. I won’t allow it. She’s a child.”
“Of course. I don’t mean now.”
“It’ll never happen, not so long as I’m alive.”
“Why? And what if it’s what she truly wants, what’ll make her happier than anything else?”
“Marcy shouldn’t marry somebody who wants to be an executioner.” She wouldn’t let Marcy be her. If that happened, Rosalie would crumble like a pillar of salt, crumble to dust like the thousands of skeletons already tombed in the earth that Anatole fashioned into a garden of roses and lilies.
“Like your mother? Like you?” Rosalie froze at his tone. When she faced him, his body was stiff, and his eyes shone in a way that was neither warm nor cold. The air between them swelled. “Do you regret marrying me?”
Rosalie stumbled over her words, and she couldn’t look at his face, so she stared at his right shoulder, the white of the fabric. “I love you.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“Isn’t it?” Her voice rose. “We wouldn’t be married if I didn’t love you.”
It hadn’t been only pity that brought them together. At first, yes, she pitied the lonely man who lived in a house of shuttered windows, but when they had their first long conversation at the cycling club, he offered to cook for her, and he did so with a bashful tilt of his head. They raced as equals through both the winter slush and summer blaze.
Anatole stepped forward. “It is my duty. It’s all I know to do to give us a good home.”
He gave her so much, too much.
“I know, and I’m not trying to be ungrateful.”
“I understand. I only want to know if you regret our marriage. If André and Marcy married out of love, if they were like us, if they were like your parents, or my own, why would it be so terrible, so unthinkable? What is it about André doing my work that would be any different from how things are now?”
“I don’t want that life for André and Marcy.”
“‘That life’? Our life?” His mouth stayed open, and Rosalie crossed her arms and looked away and stared at the burgundy lampshade. “I’m content. We’re content, I thought.” She wished he’d leave this be. If he continued pushing, she didn’t know how closed she could continue to be. “Rosie, please speak to me.” She exhaled once. “Have I hurt you? Do you hate what I do?” He choked. “Do you blame me for what happened?”
A shock rippled through Rosalie, and like a child resting a hand on a hot stove, she recoiled. Juliette, Maman, the other unspeakable thing that ruined them both.
Thing, such a bitter word.
Rosalie couldn’t even think it, and Anatole couldn’t say it. It, there she went again. Married for two decades, and this was what they could share with each other.
Reluctantly, Rosalie answered, “It isn’t that; it’s everything else.” So odd, how the least offensive thing about the guillotine was that her husband sheared gentlemen’s heads with it.
“What do you mean?”
Rosalie bore her eyes into the space beyond Anatole’s shoulder. “It’s this whole bloody world. Have you ever thought that a loved one of those condemned would come and take out their grief and hatred on you? A vengeful father, son, mother? They could come to our home, and even if they don’t hurt Marcy or André, they could kill you out of spite. Even when you aren’t the one who prosecuted or sentenced the men. It’s just the same as the looks you’d get, the looks I’d get when we’d go to the circus or theater.” Even before André was born, all the sneers and remarks made Rosalie fear one day someone would be so driven with disgust and loathing that Anatole would die. “And Marcy and André would need to hide even more, because even if they’re isolated now, it’ll be worse for André when he takes your place, and if he marries Marcy, women are often the victims when men want to destroy other men.”
She hadn’t meant for all that to come out, but there it was, strewn out like carrion for the crows.
Anatole lowered his gaze, presumably in thought. “In all the years I’ve worked, you’ve never told me you fear for our lives.”
“Why would I, when this job is all we have because I can’t do anything?”
He snapped his attention back to her. “You do more than enough.”
“I do more harm than good.”
Fidgeting, she tilted her head and bore her attention into the lamp until the burgundy darkened.
Anatole pleaded, “Please look at me.”
She struggled to pierce the quiet, the swelling sore under her ribs. “When we married, you were always alone, and I was alone. And I loved you, and I couldn’t stop. I can’t stop. What you do, it’s not that that’s the issue, not the justice. It’s how everyone else reacts, how we’re shunned. I had hoped—I hoped André and Marcy could escape that loneliness, that blood we have.“
“Haven’t they stayed with us, cut off from the rest of the world?”
“The world is cruel. We’ve both seen that. André—André has been in it.”
“And he’s lived.”
“He’s made terrible decisions that completely changed a woman’s life. And the child, their child, what will she do when she was already born without any marriage or planning?” Anatole took pause, and Rosalie pounced. “Why didn’t you tell me about André’s child the first you heard of it? Why did I need to open a letter from his lover to know?”
Rather than deny his knowledge, Anatole said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to say.”
Rosalie worked to conceal the hurt by shifting her face to the side. “You hide—you hid the truth from me about André. How can you expect me to be forthright when you aren’t?”
“I know,” he said softly. Damn him with the tone that made it difficult to kindle her grudge. “I’m sorry, but he’s lived, despite his mistakes, and that’s the most important thing, I think. We’ll find a way to help the mother and the child, if we can. We always find a way. And I’ll do whatever it takes to earn your trust again.”
“What of Marcy? I thought we could keep her safe, but she’s gone, and she hates me, and I’m not sure it’s unwarranted.”
“She adores you. I’ve told you.”
“She can’t even look at me, can’t even stay in this house. Neither can André. They’re gone. What’s wrong with me, Anatole?”
Gently, he said, “What’s wrong with us, you mean. Why haven’t we spoken about this before?”
“Don’t blame yourself.”
“Haven’t I kept quiet too? Haven’t I suppressed my thoughts and cried alone to keep everyone else comfortable? Just like you have?”
“I suppose, as one might guess, though it’s hard to know what hasn’t been said.” They shared the faintest of smiles. “And about what happened.” Rosalie’s ribs ached with how fast her heart hammered against them. “I—no, it was my fault.”
I had a dove and the sweet dove died; and I have thought it died of grieving. O, what could it grieve for? She raised her clasped hands to her lips. Its feet were tied, with a silken thread of my own hand’s weaving.
“What do you mean?” Anatole inhaled so deeply that when his chest expanded, it looked like it hurt. “Oh, Rosie, love, no. No, it wasn’t.” Of course he’d say that; they were killers, the two of them.
“But it was. I should’ve known somehow the dosage was wrong.”
Anatole’s forehead crumpled, his temple tightening and trembling. “Oh, darling. Don’t tell yourself that. Please don’t. Have you carried this alone all these years?”
As his eyes brightened with wetness, Rosalie tasted blood from how hard her teeth kneaded her tongue. Please don’t cry. If you break, I’ll fall with you.
“I’ve blamed myself, yes, and I did blame you sometimes.�
�� Rosalie bit her lip, rubbed her nose, and exhaled shakily. “I think there were times I hated you, and I hated myself more for those moments.”
Rosalie dared another look and regretted it when the hurt in his eyes threatened to spill over more than before. She shouldn’t have spoken, shouldn’t have hurt him and ruined everything. There were some feelings best left neglected and unspoken, hoarded like a sack of feathers and stones. Anatole hadn’t needed to know her worst thoughts all those years ago.
No blood in the bed, no death in the bed.
Anatole said, “How could either of us have known we’d lose so much that winter? And you lost the most.”
Rosalie swallowed blood and worried loose hair with two fingers. “I don’t want to compare our grief.”
“You know I don’t blame you for any of it, don’t you? I never did.”
“That makes you better than me.”
“Stop, please, no, it doesn’t.”
“It does. I’ve been hateful and angry. Even in secret, it’s still there. I don’t want Marcy to be like me. God, what have I done to this family?” Her demons had needled inside her until they had torn the fabric of the household. At times, she would release them for a second, only to regret what was prickling vulnerability.
“Why do you still blame anyone at all? Darling, why do you always blame yourself? Isn’t this my doing too?”
“Anatole, no. Don’t listen to what I said. I’m sick.”
“How else should you be expected to act after what you lost? Damn the world if they’d judge you.” To be fair, Rosalie thought with bitterness, the world couldn’t possibly hate her as much as she hated herself. So why did she fear it? “Haven’t I been closed up too?”
“Not to the same degree.”
“Does it matter? Haven’t I tried to make us perfectly domestic at the expense of letting things fester? I’d cry alone on walks after I thought I shouldn’t cry anymore. Because what would anyone think of a man who provides for his family, yet can’t stop himself from fits?” His next breath sounded as if it rattled deep. “But damn those expectations.”
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