Across Eternity

by O'Roark, Elizabeth

  When the bottle is empty, time seems to become fluid. There are other bars. There’s an alley, where I’m beating the living hell out of a man far less drunk than myself because he said something about Sarah. I can’t even recall what he said, but I heard him. Everyone is saying her name, shouting it at me in the streets, taunting me with it.

  I catch a flash of her hair and run toward it, but it disappears from view just as I get close.

  I find myself in another bar. The room is poorly lit. There are couples half-dressed against doors and on tables. Men boasting loudly and women laughing, their faces barely visible in the haze of smoke. Sarah, one of them says. Sarah is here. I round on him and catch a flash of golden hair off in the corner. Hair that could only be hers.

  I hear her laughter.

  It thrills me.

  It enrages me.

  Sarah…she lied. She came back. But she didn’t come home to me. She’s in the darkest corner of the room, made up like a whore, wearing the red dress that drove me mad at the town dance. And she’s with someone else.

  I can’t help what I do next. I stumble through the room, knocking into a man who’s got a woman bent over in front of him, ricocheting against the bar. Pushing, swimming through the dark and the smoke and the bare limbs to reach her.

  “Sarah,” I gasp, grabbing her shoulder. My grip is too rough but I don’t care. How could she have done this to me? She turns. I can barely see her face in the darkness but I can make out her red-painted lips tipping up into a coquettish smile.

  “Well, hello there, handsome. Care to buy me a drink?”

  She’s been here all along.

  Letting me grieve, go mad waiting for her.

  The middle-aged man she’s with sneers at me. “Go find your own girl,” he says.

  My fist slams into his face, and he falls from the chair. The room is so dark few people notice and those who do merely laugh.

  This rage is a tornado in my chest, in my brain. I wonder if they’ll laugh if I hit her next. I could. I’m angry enough.

  It’s like lava, bubbling, burning me from the inside, roiling in my veins and demanding release. I want to weep with relief, and I want to wound her for what she’s put me through, for the fact that she didn’t even care enough to tell me she’s alive.

  “I could kill you right now,” I hiss.

  “Slow down there, hot stuff,” she says, handing me a glass full of something. “Whatever I’ve done I’m sure I can make you forgive me.”

  I drop to my knees and grab her face, pulling her lips to mine hard. She feels different. Her kiss is different. Because she’s been here, with other men, I think. I kiss her harder, trying to push them away, trying to erase them from her history and get us back to where she was mine and mine alone.

  My face is wet. It takes a moment to realize I’m crying, like a child. “How could you do that to me?” I shout. “Do you have any idea how sick I’ve been? How many times I thought about ending it all? And here you were, drinking in Paris, dressed like a whore.”

  She pulls my mouth back to hers. “Forgive me, baby. I’m sorry. I thought you’d like it. Show me you forgive me.”

  “I don’t,” I slur, holding onto her. “I don’t think I’ll ever forgive you.”

  Her hands go to my belt. “I can make you forget what I did. Please, baby. Don’t you love me? I can feel it in your kiss. Show me again.”

  She’s right. I can’t stay angry. I don’t know why she did it but she’s alive. I can forgive anything she’s done simply because she’s alive.

  I kiss her, and after a moment she is pulling me up the stairs. I follow blindly in the darkness, holding on to her tightly in case she disappears. I stumble again and again, falling against the wall and pulling her with me.

  “Careful, baby,” she says.

  I hate how flippant and careless she sounds. She’s never called me that before, and it makes me feel like I’m one of many. How many men has she been with here? “Don’t call me that,” I slur.

  She pulls me into a room and I grab her hard, trying to stay upright, angry all over again. “How many men?” I demand. “How many men here?”

  She presses against me. “Only you. You’re the first. Kiss me. Show your Sarah you forgive her.”

  My little thief. My little lying thief. I don’t care what she’s done. I don’t care who she’s become. I will love whatever she is now. I bury my face in her hair. “I love you so much. I should never have let you leave.”

  “I’m here now, darling,” she says.

  “I thought you were dead,” I whisper. “I thought you were dead.”

  She rubs my back. “I’m here now.” She pulls up her dress. “Show me how much you’ve missed me.”

  * * *

  I wake in the morning covered in my own vomit, head pounding in a way that makes me long for death, until I remember it. Sarah.

  She came to me last night. Though the light makes me feel as if I’ll throw up once more, I force myself to sit. Was it a dream? I found her bones yesterday, but last night…it seems every bit as real. The room is empty but my pants are folded neatly on a chair. A woman’s brush sits on the chest of drawers beside it.

  Despite my hangover, my heart begins to hammer in my chest. Was she really here all along? Why didn’t she come to me? I’d have let her go, if that’s what she wanted, but how could she have let me believe—

  The door opens. And the disappointment hits me so hard I feel undone by it. The woman who enters is blonde, like Sarah, perhaps shares a passing resemblance to her, but nothing more.

  “Awake at last,” she says with a cheerful smile. “You had quite a night, didn’t you?”

  She’s not Sarah, but she’s also nothing like what I thought last night. She wears no makeup and her dress is modest. She is nothing like the coquettish woman I accused of being a whore. Maybe I dreamed all of it. I hope I did.

  “Why am I here?” I ask. “Who are you?”

  She gives me a shy smile. “I’d hoped to be more memorable than that.”

  I press my face to my hands. I’m going to be sick. “I thought you were someone else,” I reply, wincing through the pounding in my head.

  She perches beside me on the bed. “Your wife? She left you?”

  It hits me hard, the truth. Until yesterday, I could hope Sarah would come back. And now that hope is gone.

  “Something like that,” I reply. I grit my teeth to force the words out.

  The girl takes my hand. “I’m sorry that happened,” she says. “But I’m here for you now.”

  The pain of it all makes me long for death. The pain in my head, the desperate need to vomit, the disappointment of discovering it wasn’t Sarah with me last night. That less than twenty-four hours after discovering she is gone I’ve already been untrue to her memory. I push the hand away, cross the room to my clothes.

  “I’m sorry,” I tell the girl. “I need to get home.”

  12

  SARAH

  The final child, another girl, is born. Which means there isn’t much time.

  I continue to care for the babies. I name them A and B. I’m worried if I give them real names, they’ll become harder to let go of.

  There’s a false sense of safety, sitting in the rocking chair alone with these two tiny infants, but I know that it will all end soon. I walk through the plan, all day long, looking for loopholes. There are many, of course, but I’ve got nothing better, and no more time to waste.

  That night, as Mathilde and I prepare dinner, I broach the topic with my heart hammering loud in my chest. “Do you really think all those staff members just left at the same time?” I ask.

  She looks at me sharply, nostrils flaring. “They were dismissed. What are you trying to say?”

  I meet her eye. “I’m trying to say it’s a dangerous place to work. If they don’t mind killing us, they won’t mind killing you either.”

  “I’ve got no choice,” she replies. “My husband died in the war and I’
ve got four wee ones who’ll starve without this pay.”

  It’s exactly what I hoped she might say. “I might be able to help. For a price.”

  She laughs. “You? The girl who serves food and does the wash? You’ll be in that hole in the ground long before they need to get rid of me.”

  I don’t appreciate her ambivalence about my death, but it hardly matters.

  “It’s possible I have more resources than you’re aware of,” I reply.

  Her eyes narrow. “I can barely get out of here myself, and even then but once a week. I can’t help you.”

  “I don’t want you to help me,” I reply. “I want you to help the babies. I want you to sneak them out.”

  She gasps. “They’d be on to me in five seconds.”

  I take a deep breath. This is the risky part of the plan. I’m giving her information she can turn on me. It wouldn’t serve her, but I’m not sure she realizes that.

  “What if you brought in two dead infants to replace them?” I ask. “Even skeletons would work. Everyone is starving after the war. You must see a child die every day.”

  Her eyes are wide, and then she laughs. “You’ve gone mad, girl. You’ll get caught and then it will be my head on a platter. I won’t help you.”

  “You might, though, for fifty thousand francs.”

  Her head jerks upward and she stands, slack-jawed, staring at me. Hemingway once described living quite well in Paris with his family on five hundred francs a year. If that’s the case, what might ten times that buy? Her loyalty, perhaps.

  “Fifty thousand,” she breathes. “You can’t possibly have that much.”

  “You’re right,” I agree, “but I know someone who does.”

  “But they’ll know they’re the wrong infants. Mademoiselle Iris would know.”

  “Not if I set the whole room on fire, she won’t.”

  She stares at me. “If you start a fire, you’ll die with them.”

  “I’m dying anyway, according to you,” I reply. “Maybe I just want to leave the world a hero.”

  * * *

  The following weekend, Mathilde leaves with her empty bags and a letter, addressed to Henri’s mother.

  And then I wait, with my stomach in knots, wondering if this is going to backfire. Madame Durand, at this moment, is recently widowed and has a newborn and toddler of her own to contend with. If she refuses to help, Mathilde will take my letter straight to the guards and tell them my plans, I’m certain of it.

  I’m not even entirely convinced Mathilde will take her the letter at all. When I told her Madame Durand lives on a farm, she was suspicious.

  “Then how does she have so much money?” she asked.

  I met her eye. “She lives modestly but she is not to be trifled with, I assure you.”

  I’m responsible for cooking dinner on my own that night. I’m just finishing the supper dishes when she returns. Her expression is wary, and there’s extra weight in the bag she carries.

  She did what I asked.

  * * *

  For the rest of the week, we continue on. I take care of the babies, a job I actually enjoy, to my surprise. And it’s a relief to steer clear of Mathilde and Iris and the guards, all of whom are snapping with anxiety. Given that Coron arrives next Saturday, I can’t blame them, but Iris is anxious too, which puzzles me. I wonder if she’s finally starting to suspect she’s not as safe as she’d hoped.

  On Saturday afternoon, Iris unlocks the door, telling me she’s off to take a nap before her big night and reminding me I’ll need to make dinner in Mathilde’s stead. She locks me in, but a short time later, Mathilde unlocks it again and hands me two bags—one with the dead infants, one for the live ones.

  She is pale. “How can you be so calm?” she asks.

  I’m hardly calm right now, but admitting it won’t help. So much can go wrong—the possibilities are endless—and I’d prefer she not realize it.

  “Because this is going to work,” I reply. “You’re about to be wealthy.”

  She gives me a brisk, uncertain nod, and then opens her bag.

  I gently place A and B on top of the dirty laundry, both of them so still it gives me qualms. Dosing them with a bit of the drug was necessary, but I pray to God as I kiss their foreheads that I haven’t given them too much. Together we arrange clothes on top of them so they’re mostly covered but can still breathe.

  “You’re sure she’ll pay?” Mathilde asks.

  The question makes my heart rate increase. She has drugged babies in the bag she carries, their faces covered with dirty laundry, and her worry is the payday. I’m still not convinced she doesn’t have some scheme in mind…take the babies, tell the guards, give Madame Durand some other children.

  “As long as she receives these two babies, she’ll pay,” I caution. “She’ll know if you’ve given her other children, believe me.”

  She looks shocked that I’d even imply she might do anything else. “You really take me for someone who’d steal other babies and leave these two to die?”

  I would like to point out that her character is hardly unimpeachable, given what she’s done, but I refrain. “Of course not,” I say diplomatically.

  She walks out and I listen with my stomach knot-tight, waiting for the sound of some argument, some distress. I hear none, and then there is the creak of the door being opened and the echo as it slams shut. She is out. She’s done most of her part. Now it’s time for mine.

  I open the bag Mathilde left, and remove the tiny skeletons. I don’t want to know where she located two dead infants, but I feel nothing as I swaddle them in blankets and place caps over their heads. Who have I become, that I don’t care that these children are dead? Will I recover who I was if I manage to live? Could Henri possibly still want me if I don’t?

  I place them in their cribs and go to serve dinner. The whole time I wait for a guard to storm in, crying that the babies are gone, but the night is quiet.

  I return to the room and wait for Iris to lock me in for the night. “You don’t appear to be working especially hard,” she says when she opens the door.

  “The children are sleeping,” I reply, jumping to my feet. “Are you ready? It must be hard to impress a man like Mr. Coron. He’s probably used to a different standard of living than we are. Fine clothes and jewelry.”

  Her eyes narrow a bit. “He likes me just fine,” she says, but her eyes hone in on my necklace, just as I predicted. She’s looked at it many times before.

  I follow her gaze, and then I hold it out for her to see. “Would you like to…borrow it? For tonight? The diamonds are real.” I have no idea if this is true, but, obviously, neither does she.

  Her mouth turns up in a slight smirk she immediately restrains. “Yes,” she says with the air of a queen, as if she’s done me a favor. I unclasp it and hand it to her, praying she won’t notice my shaking hands.

  She takes it and begins to clasp it around the back of her neck, walking to the mirror to survey herself. That’s when I reach for the knife I took from the kitchen, lying under a pile of blankets behind me. Aside from childhood skirmishes with my brother, I’ve never even hit someone before, and now I’m about to kill. For a moment, watching her smile at her reflection, I’m not sure I can go through with it. She is a pretty girl, a silly girl, besotted with a powerful man, believing she’s in love and feeling as if a glorious future is just within reach.

  But she is also the one who had those women killed after their children were delivered. She’s the one who instructed Mathilde to increase the amount of poison, who didn’t just allow but orchestrated the rape of Katrin and Luna.

  Rage clogs my throat, giving me the adrenaline I need. She turns and I lunge, shoving the knife into her heart so fast her mouth doesn’t open until my hand is already covering it. Her eyes go wide and she struggles, but she is no match for me.

  With my free hand I hold onto the knife for dear life, and feel the power as it surges through me. Her power. Her spark. Now mine. M
y limbs are gaunt but they sing with life and energy. I’ve never felt stronger than I do now, energy coiling inside me as I hold onto the knife. I remain like that until I’m certain I will explode with the excess adrenaline, and then I spring from the floor like a wild animal, buoyed by her spark.

  That’s when I finally look around the room, seeing it through the eyes of someone else. Perhaps through the eyes of the girl I was when I arrived here. There are skeletons in the cribs and Iris’s body on the floor. We are both covered in blood.

  And it’s all my doing. Does that make me like her? I don’t know. But there’s no time to worry about that now.

  I grab her keys and then I set the curtains and crib ablaze. With one last glance, I run from the room, locking the door behind me.

  I hide in the closet across the hall and wait for the guards to discover the fire. They’re hardly a selfless bunch. They won’t try to put out the fire for long before they unlock the door and run, which is when I will follow.

  It takes them longer than I expected, though. The room I wait in and the hall outside are full of smoke before I hear them shouting in the distance. Footsteps echo, back and forth, but they don’t seem to be leaving.

  Why the hell are they still here?

  The hall is so full of smoke I can barely see. I open my door, and that’s when I finally hear what they’re saying.

  “Find Grenoir!” someone screams. “He’s the only one with the key!”

  “He’s gone,” another coughs. “Fire on the lock instead.”

  The one guard who possesses the key is missing. Maybe he left when Mathilde did. Maybe he’s just fallen asleep for the night. But when the door of the nursery finally explodes and fire races along the hall, I know I can no longer wait to find out.

  I drop to the floor.

  Think, I beg of myself, think.