Lola Montez and the Poisoned Nom de Plume

by Kit Brennan

  “We are, essentially, literary,” came a new voice, a soft one with a German accent.

  “True, true,” said Koreff.

  “Too late now, gentlemen.” The terrible voice. “There’s no going back once you’ve taken the oath.”

  “True, true,” said Koreff again, sounding very uneasy. “Now we are working to a higher purpose, and for a higher goal; this is true.”

  Shuffling, some clearing of throats. I couldn’t comprehend what on earth they were talking about.

  “However,” Koreff resumed, “what I propose tonight, gentlemen… As we can see, our subject is falling deeply into the somnambulistic state, which can result in strange phenomena: a trance without convulsions, in which the patient can be possessed of her senses, yet cease to be an accountable creature.”

  There were murmurs of astonishment and one of disgust.

  “To aid my research, I propose to make an attempt to access some deeper secrets of ‘nightside’ nature. I have waited a long time to find a subject capable of such dynamic magnetism. The understanding between a magnetizing therapist and a magnetized patient can be so intimate as to turn the two individuals into a single, expanded personality.”

  The snarling voice hissed, “What, and you wish us to watch this lewd display? Or take part? Or—no, I have it—you wish to become a female? Like that one?”

  Nervous male laughter rippled around the room. I had to risk it; I had to try to see my enemies. Cautiously, I opened one eye a slit—and nearly cried out in alarm. My field of vision seemed to have expanded exponentially! Despite looking cautiously through my lashes, everything was leaping and hopping into crystal clear focus, and strangely, the colour blue popped out at me as if appearing in pure daylight: a blue vase, a slash of blue on a man’s chest, the dark blue of my bodice. And—shit and double gobshite!—there were eight or ten men standing around, some of them close and some farther away. As I registered the many bodies in the room, I also suddenly became aware of the smells: candle wax, sweat, smoke from the fire, as well as a deeper, potent stench which exploded into my consciousness like a locomotive engine from a dark tunnel: ganga! No, oh, God, no. If only I could think… It meant something—something more than the memory of natives, smoking quietly in the evenings, as I grew up in India… Cannabis sativa… Ganga.

  “Gentlemen,” Koreff urged, as if finishing up a troublesome lecture, “let us adjourn for some minutes to be sure that the subject is deeply under. Port and figs and other delicacies await.” He turned his face towards the corner from which the stench seemed to emanate. “With all due respect, brother, you are difficult to keep in check.” His voice dropped to a whisper again. “An innocent bystander paid the ultimate price. That is not the way of the Seraphin Brethren.”

  “You are no longer the Seraphin Brethren,” the dark voice hissed. “You have sworn yourselves in blood to a higher agency.”

  At this, I almost passed out with fear. The familiarity of the voice was becoming more acute in my desperately addled brain, and only through my strong will was I able to remain mentally present.

  “The one idea you’ve proposed tonight with which I am in agreement,” the voice continued, “is that the hearth cavity sounds like a promising… opening.”

  “Come, gentlemen,” Koreff insisted, now sounding profoundly agitated. “We must rest before proceeding with our investigations.”

  “But, doctor, I cannot see—” came the soft German voice.

  Again Koreff’s: “Let me assure you, and my impatient colleague. If you all will allow me to conduct my experiment, and to witness it, I will accede to the majority vote, whatever it turns out to be.”

  With a few further grunts, bangs, and muted protests, the group was shuffling to the door, opening it and moving into an adjoining room. I chanced another look, a longer one, and willed my head to turn towards them. Millimetre by millimetre, it obeyed. And that is when my poor body and battered mind put all of the ingredients together: first voice, then smell, and now sight. A tall, thin, bald-headed man with two crutches—at the banquet hall… This same man. Wait now, what’s that? I blinked and focused hard: one leg? The other, empty trouser flap was pinned up high: one leg, all the way to the groin. And a clear glimpse—thanks to the increased light from the other room—as the figure turned slightly to close the door behind him.

  Jesus, Mary, and all the flaming saints—it was the skull-like head and face of the Spanish Jesuit, Father Miguel de la Vega, acolyte of the Society of the Exterminating Angel!

  The door closed behind him.

  *

  My soul swooned… I don’t know how else to put it. I have no idea how much time elapsed, but it can’t have been long. Some part of me knew that I had to forget what I had just seen or I would never be able to do what I must do and live.

  I heaved myself upright, swaying dangerously, then swung my legs to the side and stayed like that for a moment, legs dangling from whatever I’d been placed upon: don’t fall, don’t crash! Then onto my feet—somehow, somehow—jerking along, clutching at every wall and surface as I scuttled crab-wise across the room away from the direction in which the men had disappeared. There was a door in the wall in front of me—pray God it’s not locked. I wrestled with the handle, turned it finally, pushed and found a bedroom. I staggered across this to the window, which was covered by long dark curtains. I parted them, slipped through and peeked out. I was on the second floor. Would I break my legs or something even worse, trying to get down? But what choice did I have? Fingers trembling, incapable of dexterity, I finally got the catch open and pushed the right side of the floor-to-ceiling window, stumbling out onto a tiny balcony protruding over the street. The heat of the night air was shocking—I felt as if I’d died a hundred deaths, and it must be at least mid-winter in the next century. But no. How would I get myself over the balcony railing? What would I land on? Never mind, never mind, there’s a demented assassin two rooms away, and it doesn’t matter, as long as you go now!

  I half-tossed my body across the railing, kicked my legs into the air, and felt the pendulum of myself swaying forwards and back, stuck in place. Another little jerk and gravity began to take over; I started to roll and then swiftly to fall. I heard a terrible sound and thought, oh my God, it’s all over, he’s shot me or bayoneted me, and it’s myself that is screaming! But neither of those things had happened, and I didn’t even smash to the pavement—it was unbelievable, but the hem of my dark blue skirt must have caught on one of the pointed bits of ironwork on the railing, and the sound was the beautiful silk fabric ripping, though not tearing swiftly, because it was fortified and ruched with the grosgrain ribbon marching round it in waves. In fact—miraculously!—as the skirt tore and unwound, thanks to the sturdy grosgrain, I just had the wit to raise my arms over my head—upside down!—to break my spinning fall and cushion the impact somewhat with my arms, followed by my falling torso and hips, then legs and feet. I was in the street.

  Once my equilibrium had steadied somewhat, I checked myself as well as I could: bruised but not bleeding, it seemed. The petticoat was still intact, if not the skirt. I looked up at the river of ripped fabric and gave a feeble tug—like Rapunzel’s prince, letting her know he was at the foot of the tower by tugging on her hair—and again, who would believe, the fabric came free of the ironwork above and fell with a soft, slippery thud on top of me. At this, I tottered to my feet, bundled the torn silk into my arms, and staggered away. If they’d heard the tearing sounds, both my skirt and I needed to be out of sight so they wouldn’t know what had caused the commotion.

  But they would know that I was gone. Oh fuckity fuck! Move, Lola—run!

  But how, and where to go? Careening along, body like a stiff, wooden, jointed toy slightly out of alignment, my eyesight was ferociously clear, still with that astonishingly wide field of vision. My ears, too, felt as if they might be on furry stalks, like those of a horse—able to swivel in every direction, so magnified was all sound. I paused in the night shadow
s, then fled in spurts, galumphing chaotically from one building’s doorway to another. Nobody was about, from which I guessed the time to be in the very early hours, maybe two or three o’clock. What in hell had Koreff given me? Some powerful drug—for I couldn’t believe that his fat little fingers alone had been able to stun me into that catatonic state, much as he seemed to wish to believe it. The bitter taste of the flat champagne… I had looked away for a moment, hadn’t I?—oh, boba!—and he’d popped it in. Was he drugging people—women—on a regular basis? Was he killing Merci, slowly and deliberately, and others, too?—is that what I could deduce from what I’d heard? For his sick experiments, with his equally sick brethren, or whatever they were?

  Lurching and stopping, flitting and hiding, I was making my way towards what I hoped was my tiny hotel. But then I froze, paralyzed with fear again. Of course that’s where they would expect me to go. And with no one else about on the streets… I’d be picked up, or picked off, like a summer-stunned fly. One way or another, I’d be dead as a doornail if the Jesuit had anything to do with it—though only after some hideous torment or other had been administered first.

  But how could it be de la Vega, I argued with myself, disbelievingly. You’re drugged, you’re feverish, you’re in the middle of a nightmare. De la Vega is in prison in London for murdering young women. Or… Could they not make that stick? Could he have wriggled out if they couldn’t prove it, if they’d believed his Jesuitical lies? No! He’s in prison, for certain, for assaulting a police officer, that’s a serious offence. But how long are such sentences? It happened more than two years ago. But once again, no! It cannot be him, this man tonight had only one leg! But—which leg was missing? I dithered and maundered, trying to recall. The right trouser leg was the one that was empty. Which leg had I hit, in Spain, leaving a bullet in the fanático’s thigh? I had no idea.

  I stood there, out in the open like a frightened rabbit, trembling, dizzy at the sheer audacity of wickedness in the world… The Society of the Exterminating Angel with its demonic ideas and insane followers… Dr. Koreff and his poisons, safe behind the name of science—what’s another courtesan? Dime a dozen, they are, even the pretty ones. Get under cover, you foolish thing, I gibbered to myself, careening towards the nearest darkened doorway. There I fell and lay in a heap, the potent and deathly drug still moving through my limbs, causing them to twitch and jerk.

  “Fräulein?” I heard, a soft male voice whispering in German. I was about to try to dash up and away when a stout fellow with a fringe of white hair around the ears and back of his head leaned gently towards me. “Please don’t scream or make any noise. You must be terrified, but don’t fear me.” He looked around, seemingly terrified himself, then back at me. “Can you understand me?”

  I nodded and said in my halting German, through my vise-tight jaw, “I have school-girl knowledge. More than that, no.”

  He switched to French. “I must make you safe—he is fatally misguided. Evil has come among us, he has let evil in…” He checked the street again, then back to me. “Our science should only be used for healing, for quiet cures. Not this, not like this… My poor, dear creature…”

  At that moment, a cabriolet came around the corner, the driver allowing the horse to move at its own slow pace and himself seemingly almost asleep, swaying to the rhythm of the cloppety-clop.

  “Ah! Fortune smiles!” the ring-haired German breathed, and he raced across the street to accost the carriage. A few words were exchanged, then they all moved towards me. The stout man helped me up, and then to step inside the empty cab. At first I was terrified again, not believing I should trust him. I heard him say to the driver, “Take this,” and he handed over what seemed to be an enormous wad of bills. In the near distance, both of us could suddenly hear an alarm being raised—male voices calling to each other. Oh dear God, was it them? Were they searching for me?

  The German turned back to the driver, saying something like, “This young woman is in great danger. Take her as far and as fast as you can—to the border at least, or on to Liège if it’s possible. Say nothing to anyone, and do not stop for anything—anything at all, do you hear me?” The driver nodded, astonished; my head spun from trying to understand.

  “One moment, then.” The stout man turned to me and spoke in French, his gentle voice sad. “If I am able to do it, I will go to your hotel and send your belongings on. Where can I send them?”

  I couldn’t think. Then, “Countess Dudevant, Nohant, France.”

  “A safe haven?”

  “I hope so.”

  “Evil deeds in our streets—evil times. Go, dear.” He closed the cab door and gave it a thump. The driver whipped up and we were off like the wind. I craned around to look back at my benefactor, but he was already gone.

  *

  So much about this series of traumatic events I seem to have put together for myself after the fact, and through the fantastic haze of the drug Koreff had slipped in my drink. So—how does that make it true? How could I possibly prove any of these things, even if I somehow managed to produce evidence? Was it all a horrific figment of my imagination?

  The driver and his cab earned the bundle of money he’d been given. We galloped swiftly out of Bonn and onto the moonlit road towards the Belgian border. I thanked the stars when I discovered the little flick knife still safe in its sheath inside my waistband: a small comfort. But two lovely pistols lay in my hotel room, along with clothing, hats, my pack of cards… Forget all that, I told myself, I have my life. At least for the moment.

  By morning, we were resting and the driver agreed to take me to Liège, from whence I could continue on my own way. I talked him into buying me a pack of cards from a coaching house—with this I hoped to earn what I’d need. With some more of my benefactor’s money, he also talked a maid into selling him a skirt she’d outgrown—I didn’t ask how, I was simply grateful. My limbs were incredibly stiff, my face and jaw as well, but other than that and the shuddering within, my brain was clearing enough to escape under my own agency.

  And so, in short, within a number of days I arrived by delivery wagon at George’s mansion in Nohant. She was there for the summer, as I’d hoped she would be, and she took me in immediately, as I’d hoped she might. She could see that something was horribly wrong; she gave me my own little room in a quiet wing, and came to see me often as I lay, recuperating.

  “Stay and hide away until the trial,” she counseled, “which I read will take place in Rouen. Perhaps in March.”

  “But that’s six months!” I protested.

  “Yet it’s coming. Rest, ride in the Forest of Fontainebleau, play billiards with Le Chopinet and me—our latest craze!—and keep me company when I’m not writing. What is so difficult?” Then she gave me a kiss on the forehead. “But that sounds insensitive. I know the real difficulty, believe me, my dear. In love, we recognize our inability to be self-sufficient. You’ve been cleft in twain; your heart is attempting to recover.”

  Thank God for George. I did as she suggested and nothing more, though several things happened whether I liked them or not. First, I read one morning in News in Brief of a recent murder in the city of Bonn. An eminent physician from the Black Forest—a practitioner of magnetism—had been found garroted in the early hours following the last day of the Beethoven Festival. My mystery benefactor, I was sure. Poor, kind man; I mourned for him and for his wife and family.

  Then I was sent, by George, to their family physician, Dr. Gustave Papet, an elderly provincial doctor who had brought George, then named Aurore, into the world. He was to check me over and make sure all was well. I didn’t tell him everything that had happened, just that I was almost positive I had been given a dose of something infinitely bad.

  “Do you have a heart complaint?”

  I thought to myself, yes I do, but not the sort he meant. “No.”

  “Mm. Too many physicians may be counting upon the stimulant effect of miniscule doses of St. Ignatius’ nut—or strychnos nux-v
omica, to give it its Latin name.” He looked like a small grey owl with its head tipped to the side. “Strychnine.”

  “My God.” It was true.

  “It is a heart stimulant which can give an ill patient a warm and hopeful feeling, when strictly administered.”

  I remembered Merci telling me that Koreff’s powders gave her courage.

  “It has, however,” he continued, “a cumulative effect over time that is difficult to control. Or even to prove its existence in the system. The effects stay in the body for months, even after discontinuance. It is easy to abuse, in other words.” The owl cocked its head to the other side. “You’ve been lucky. Little by little, you will recover your strength.” He nodded kindly and tapped a finger on the desk. “The minimum lethal dose is anywhere from fifty to one hundred milligrams for an adult, depending upon the state of health. Can you imagine the minuteness of that dose, mademoiselle?”

  I could, and shuddered.

  “I would never prescribe it.”

  George and Chopin departed for Paris just before Christmas so that Chopin could again begin his season of teaching, leaving composing until the following summer. This was his ritual, and he never altered it. George had told me that their relationship was increasingly under strain and—secretly—that she’d had a very discreet affair the winter before.

  “I’m starting to feel the weight of responsibility and of my age,” she sighed. “I’m no longer a boy having fun. Mind you, the title of countess helps immeasurably. We all need something solid to fall back on, don’t we?”

  I nodded. Not that I had any such thing.

  In the middle of January, George wrote from Paris to say that the final installment of The Count of Monte Cristo was being published on the 15th of January, and would I like to come along with her to Dumas’ enormous celebratory dinner at his newly-completed chateau? I declined, with thanks—but devoured those final chapters with amazement. By the end, his hero’s lifelong pursuit of vengeance had encompassed almost every crime known to man: dishonest murder by duel, many ugly poisonings, conspiracies, false accusations, seductions and rapes, the lot. If I didn’t know better, I would swear that Dumas made it all up out of his own monumental imagination. But I did know better. I knew such wickedness existed, just waiting to strike. Through accident or design, did Dumas’ friends and enemies provide him with his inspiration? Or, worse, did he set them up, so he could watch them tumble like dominoes, or use their misfortunes as building blocks for plot lines? Did he set up Henri, egg him on to fight Beauvallon “as a baptism,” without thinking through the possible outcome? I had no idea. As I finished the final chapter of Monte Cristo, I did know that—through my year and a half with the angry Dantès, and my own tragic experiences—I too had grown to understand the thirst for revenge. It could eat you up, if you let it.