“Strapped for cash?” Madame Vileroy raised an eyebrow.
“Their systems are so stupid. It’s just fun to outsmart them.”
Victoria tossed her unused ticket onto the tracks. A rat scampered out of the way.
“I’m glad that you know how smart you are, Victoria.” Madame Vileroy put her hand on Victoria’s shoulder. Her icy fingertips penetrated Victoria’s clothes and cooled her bones.
“You don’t think I’m being too proud?” Victoria said sarcastically.
“Nothing wrong with self-awareness, my dear.”
“They say pride is one of the seven deadly sins,” Victoria tested.
“The world is full of stupid people, Victoria. That’s why we have rules. But with enough intelligence, a person can be above the rules. She can make the rules.”
Victoria smiled. Sometimes Madame Vileroy made a lot of sense.
Half an hour later, they were in SoHo. Madame Vileroy kept a quick pace, the heels of her boots clicking as she walked. She didn’t seem to notice the pretty cobbled streets, the shops decorated in bright holiday colors, or the yellow glow of café windows, half covered in frost, barely revealing the animated scenes within. She just walked, and Victoria followed, taking big steps and concentrating hard. Madame Vileroy’s words comforted Victoria, but somehow, she always went back to worrying. The governess was the only person in the world that Victoria couldn’t cheat. And so reassurances never lasted long. Victoria kept thinking about the house. What if someone finds out? This was what worried her most about the idea that her successes might be illusions. If they were illusions, what’s to keep them from vanishing in an instant?
“Victoria?”
“Yes?”
“I have a bargain for you.”
Victoria perked up a little. She wished she could take just a little peek into Vileroy’s mind. Still, she was eager to listen, because unlike the others, she loved Madame Vileroy’s bargains. She always felt like she had won.
“I’m listening.”
“I know you’ve been wondering about how things will turn out for you.”
“I guess. . . .”
“You know there have been others, lots of others, over so many years.”
Victoria knew what Madame Vileroy was talking about. But she was stunned into silence. Was Vileroy going to tell her more than she ever had before?
“I can tell you more about them. I can show you the kind of success I’ve had before. And then you can judge for yourself . . .”
“You’re going to tell me who?”
“Yes.”
“What will you want from me?” Victoria tried to mask it with skepticism, but her voice cracked and gave away the fact that she was ready to give almost anything.
“It’s something very small.” Madame Vileroy put a long finger under Victoria’s chin and turned her face from side to side. “You, my dear, are my favorite. You’re the one that will go the furthest. And so, for you, my price is always low.”
Victoria swallowed hard. Her eyes shone with greed.
“I want you to be mine only,” said Madame Vileroy.
“But we already made that deal. . . .”
“No, my dear. I mean, I want you to be entirely in my service. I want you to promise me that you will never help the others — if they ever ask you.”
Victoria’s face grew dark. “They would never ask for my help. They don’t even like me.”
“That’s true. They don’t like you. But they might pretend. And you might be fooled.”
Victoria grew angry. “I’m smarter than they are!”
“Yes, and so you promise?”
“Yes. It’s a deal.”
“Good. And if you’re ever in the position to know something about them . . .”
“You want me to spy for you?”
“Victoria, you don’t know this now, but someday soon, you’re going to be in a position to know so much more than you know now.”
“But I already know how to cheat. I can know anything.”
“There are limits to that. People can feel it. Anyway, just promise me, Victoria. If I give you more powerful tools, you’ll be entirely mine.”
“Yes, I promise.”
Madame Vileroy smiled. They entered a pricey boutique that was open on one of the trendy streets of SoHo. The walls and floors were shiny and black, and the large space was wastefully devoted to only two mannequins and four tables holding a few neatly folded pieces.
“So?” asked Victoria.
“So, what?”
“You’re supposed to tell me how real this is. Who else has done it?”
Madame Vileroy picked up a black blouse from a nearby table and examined it. She played with the stitching, counting one by one like a rosary.
“I’ve been with some of the best. People who are famous, people who’ve gone down in history.”
Victoria stepped closer.
“But you, my dear, are the best one. The one with the most potential.”
Victoria’s eyes shone. “Like who? Who else have you helped?”
“I started with a girl in Egypt. I was with her since birth. She had more ambition than anyone in her time. She wanted to be pharaoh. And she was willing to give anything.”
“What was her name?”
Madame Vileroy ignored Victoria’s question. “There were so many others. There were years when I had several. There were years when I had none. Some years, they were all killed — in inquisitions and witch hunts. And then I lay low. There was a little girl who had a father who didn’t love her.”
Victoria’s heart skipped. Madame Vileroy went on, glancing at Victoria from the side of her eyes. “Her father had her sent away.”
“Where did she live?”
“London.” Madame Vileroy smiled. Victoria was confused. Is she talking about me? But my father didn’t send me away. He doesn’t even know I’m gone.
“This little girl was very talented. She impressed all of her tutors. Everyone thought she was brilliant. But still, her father didn’t care about anyone but her little brother.”
Victoria felt herself overcome with anger and sadness.
“He thought that all the hopes of the family lay with her little brother. So he lavished him with attention and love and presents. Meanwhile, the little girl was shut away, out of sight and mind.”
“Did she wish more than anything to be successful?”
“Not just successful, my dear. She wanted to be queen.”
“Queen?”
“Yes, Victoria. She wanted more than anything to be the most powerful woman of her age. And she was willing to do anything to get it. She hid a deep blackness under the layers of velvet that covered her heart. And all the while, I was there.”
Victoria’s mouth went dry. “I think I know who you’re talking about . . .”
“I was her closest companion — different name, of course. But otherwise the same.”
“I can’t believe it. . . .”
“The greatest queen England ever had. The whole world vying for her attention. Worth the price, wouldn’t you say?”
Victoria nodded.
“There were others. There are others now. Others you would recognize.”
“Really? Who? Where?” Victoria was almost jumping up and down.
“There are many. And I’m not going to tell you about all of them. Just remember that, Victoria. Remember that this is real. And if you ever meet someone for whom life seems too easy, remember that there are others.”
“How can there be so many, if there’s just one of you?”
“There isn’t just one of me. We are many. There are legions of governesses out there,” Madame Vileroy said with a wink.
“Why so many of you?”
Madame Vileroy put down the shirt and leaned closer to Victoria, to whisper in her ear. “Because there are so many whose hearts call for us. And we answer every call. But this is a good time, since they’re not burning children anymore.”
&n
bsp; Victoria’s head was spinning when the pretty young salesgirl approached them. “May I put this in a fitting room for you?” She eyed the shirt that Victoria was unknowingly clutching in her hand.
“Oh, no, actually, I’ll take it,” she said.
“All right. Let me ring that up for you,” the girl said cheerfully — too cheerfully for this boutique; Victoria could tell that she was new. Obviously hired for her beauty, she would develop a cold indifferent eye within a month. As the girl was completing the transaction, anger filled Victoria from head to toe. She wasn’t quite sure why she was so mad, but she was. Maybe it was the memory of her father. Maybe it was the idea that there could be people out there who were better than her. Or the reminder that there were so many before who were more successful. She snatched the shopping bag from the girl and stormed out of the store, with Madame Vileroy calmly strolling behind her. When she was out of the store, she grabbed the shirt from the bag.
“This is ugly,” she said.
“Hm.” Madame Vileroy seemed to agree.
With a swift yank, Victoria ripped one of the sleeves half off. She then marched back into the store, with Madame Vileroy following closely behind.
“This is damaged,” she yelled at the salesgirl.
“Oh . . . I’m sorry. . . . Are you sure?”
“Am I sure? Am I sure? Take a look! The sleeve is practically off.”
“But it wasn’t like that when . . .”
The salesgirl didn’t know what to do. It was her first day, and Victoria scared her.
“Are you calling me a liar?”
“Of course not.”
“I have never seen such terrible customer service! First you sell me a torn shirt. Then you call me a liar. And now you’re just wasting my time!”
“I’m sorry. If you’ll just give me a moment, I can give you a refund.”
“A refund? Well, that’s a given. That hardly makes up for this horrible service.”
“Uh, of course not. Let me just see my manager.”
As the girl ran to the back office, Victoria took a deep breath. This was satisfying. Rejuvenating. A few moments later, the girl returned.
“OK, let me process that refund for you. And as a Christmas gift from us, we’re going to offer you a two-hundred-dollar gift certificate. I hope you’ll come again.”
“Christmas gift?” Victoria snapped. “Let’s be clear that if you’re giving me anything, it’s not a gift. It’s restitution for my wasted time and energy.”
With that, she ripped the gift certificate in two and marched out of the store.
A few moments later, as they walked silently along a street, Victoria gave Madame Vileroy a sidelong glance. “Do you think I was too harsh?” she asked, testing her limits with the governess.
“You have to stand up for your rights, my dear. Remember what I said? The world is filled with stupid people. They have to learn to do their job.”
“Yeah. Those people make me so angry.”
“Anger can be soothing.”
“They say it’s one of the seven deadly sins,” Victoria joked, and Madame Vileroy smiled indulgently.
“You’re such a clever girl, Victoria.” No wonder your father sent you to me. . . .
Sometimes, Bicé would just ride the subway for hours, from one end of the track to the other, from Coney Island to Yankee Stadium, huddled in her seat, listening to all the languages around her. If you saw her, you wouldn’t notice anything abnormal, just a girl on the train, sometimes by herself, sometimes squashed in between commuters. Back and forth, she’d ride the rails, practicing her Russian on the R train to Bayridge, her Greek on the W to Astoria. If she wanted Afghani, there was a group of ladies on the 5 line who would get on in the South Bronx and go down to Atlantic Avenue, where all the Middle Eastern markets were. On the way, under their black coverings, they’d gab about everything from their favorite recipes to how difficult racquetball seemed to be. Bicé would position herself next to them, pretend to read a book, and soak in all the slang they could never teach in a textbook. She would find ways to repay the universe, of course, in her own way. Like the time an old, decrepit man stepped onto the train and seemed completely lost and unable to communicate with anyone. She grabbed his arm and began going through her roster.
“Parlez-vous français?”
“Español?”
“Deutsch?”
The man just smiled and nodded.
“Italiano?”
“Dansk?”
More smiling and nodding.
“Nederlands?”
“Malayalam?”
“Gwong-dong-wa?”
By the time she was down to the West African languages, someone pointed out that he was deaf.
On Christmas Day on the F train, brushing up on her Yiddish, Bicé tried to keep herself from squealing with excitement when she heard a couple speaking Udmurt. An endangered language. A real endangered language, right here in the New York subway.
“Oy!” she said, unable to help herself.
The couple looked at her, then went back to murmuring — about what, Bicé could not quite make out. She looked them up and down. Their clothes were old, patched together, in a rural style. The woman had long hair, and the man’s face was covered with a mustache and beard. They seemed out of place, here in New York, as if they were here to act as subjects in a cultural study or a documentary. She had read a bit about Udmurt before. She had made sure to read something about all the endangered languages. She knew where they came from. She knew why they were endangered (because children no longer spoke them), but she only knew how to speak a few words of this particular dialect. It seemed to function on the Slovak syntactical structures. . . . Bicé leaned in closer. The woman gave her a sidelong glance. Their cadence is eastern, thought Bicé. Then the train lurched, and Bicé went directly into the man’s lap.
“Sorry!” she said, pushing herself away.
Before the couple could reclaim their personal space, Bicé leaned in and stumbled in her own Udmurt, “I am forever apologies, but do you speak of moving picture show?”
The couple could only stare, half startled by the statement, half by the fact that a random girl was semicoherently speaking their semidead language.
Bicé switched to English: “I mean, excuse me, but are you talking about the film festival? Is that what you were talking about? I mean, the subject of what — I wasn’t eavesdropping — I just mean, if that is what you’re talking about, then — I’m sort of practicing Udmurt, you see, and — so, what’re you talking about?”
The woman, wide-eyed, stammered, “Y-yes, we’re speaking about the film festival.”
“Oh, good!” said Bicé, clapping her hands. “Can I join you?”
Before the woman could respond, the train doors opened and the man said, “This is our stop.” As the two of them stepped out of the car, Bicé called after them.
“OK, well, we could maybe talk later? Do you have e-mail? We could do a book club.”
The doors closed on Bicé’s requests. She slowly sat back down and noticed that she was all the way to Jamaica Avenue. It would take an hour to get home, where she could hide herself away in a book. Till then, she sat in her seat, as lonely as you could ever be in a train full of people.
Bicé looked down, a bit embarrassed. When she looked up, she thought she caught a glimpse of Madame Vileroy, sitting in the seat in a far corner. She was wearing her black coat, her blond bun resting neatly on top of her head, casting Bicé a knowing and disapproving smile. Bicé whipped around to get a better look, but Vileroy was gone. Had the governess really been there? Had Bicé imagined it? Was she always watching? The thought sent a shudder down Bicé’s spine, and for a moment Bicé was deaf to all the sounds around her. She felt regret at having accosted that couple.
She didn’t notice the look on the Udmurt woman’s face as she was pulled out of the train. The woman lingered outside for a minute, watching the train take Bicé away. Even though it had all ha
ppened so fast, and even though her husband had pulled her away too quickly, she was in awe of this miracle she had witnessed — their language, the precious tongue that was fated to die with their generation, being spoken by a young girl in New York. For her, the exchange with Bicé wasn’t awkward. It was something hopeful — a moment that changed her perception of this city, a moment that might cause her to speak well of her visit here.
Without knowing it, Bicé left a trail of memories like this, when people came away from her feeling better somehow, cared for — the kind of sensations that were the very opposite of all those little evils that Madame Vileroy left in her wake.
Snaky hair. Shadows from clouds. Suffering fingers. Guilty souls are capable of imagining anything, especially through stormy windows on dark, unforgiving nights. She has stood outside many unhappy homes. Through the glass, she has watched them for centuries — though her hair is far from snaky and her fingers do not suffer.
She watches. Simply watches and waits. There is a moment. Always a single moment.
The instant when they first see the mark.
For that moment, she is always there. Unseen. Unheard. Watching.
She observes one of them now. A man. He is tall and slender, rich yet unsatisfied. He hugs the edge of the bath as if scared of what he might see. He pours the water over himself, keeping in the corner, scraping himself clean, facing the wall, scraping himself too much. When he is finished, he looks around again and makes a swift move toward his robe, turning for a moment to show himself to the unknown presence at the window.
The image swims through the foggy haze. The mark, black as death, covers half the man’s chest. A vile devilish darkness. She smiles. Soon he will call to her, and the light will never see him again.
On the day after yet another Christmas left uncelebrated, the children and Madame Vileroy went to the Marlowe Christmas play, to visit the school and to scope out more families. Valentin, who was keenly aware that Charlotte had written this play to unprecedented accolades, spent the entire ride to the school brooding. Once in a while, Madame Vileroy would whisper in his ear, telling him that, if he wanted, he could be the one at center stage.
Another Faust Page 6