Spectacle

by Jodie Lynn Zdrok

Nathalie tore her article from the back of the journal and put it on the table as Maman talked about her morning errands at the marketplace, telling a story about a woman who’d tried to steal mushrooms by stuffing them in her cleavage. “May I read your article? Even I’m curious about this one. The whole market was talking about it.”

  “Please do. It was … an especially difficult one to write,” said Nathalie, glad to be able to disappear into her room.

  She rested her vial of catacomb dirt on the shelf where she kept unusual things. A doll with clothes that Maman had sewn, a jade dragon Papa had brought back from China. A partial bird skeleton (Stanley was responsible for that; the remains of the poor creature were on the edge of the roof, and when the wind carried it to a spot under her window, she kept part of it). Silvain, her stuffed rabbit from childhood, worn out from so much cuddling. A mourning brooch with a braided lock of her grandmother’s hair in the center. Some of Nathalie’s baby teeth and claws Stanley had shed, together in a porcelain cup Aunt Brigitte gave her for imaginary tea parties as a child. Tangible little chapters of the book that was her, thus far.

  Nathalie took off her dress and put on a shirt and stockings. She was just stepping into her trousers when Maman called from the kitchen.

  “Ma bichette. The victim, my goodness. But tell me, what did you truly see?”

  5

  See.

  How could Maman know?

  Nathalie stumbled, one foot in and one foot out of her trousers, and sat on the bed to catch her balance. She finished dressing, put her catacomb dirt tube into her pocket, and stepped out of the bedroom. “What—what did I see?”

  “The cuts, the bruising. Are you exaggerating?” Maman lifted her soft hazel eyes from the journal. Her own visits to the morgue were few and far between after seeing the mangled corpse of a train track victim several years ago. Yet she devoured the morgue report each day.

  Nathalie exhaled. Of course that was what see meant.

  Perhaps she should tell Maman everything. What the victim looked like in the display room, the murder scene in the fever dream or vision or whatever name it warranted. Her conversation with M. Gagnon and her impulsive words to Agnès and the possibility of a second victim.

  “Not at all. What I saw was…” She wasn’t sure how to finish the sentence. Could she tell Maman? “Much worse.”

  “I don’t like it,” Maman said, shaking her head. “Your exposure to this every day. I’m not sure this column is a good idea. Writing for the newspaper, yes. Writing the morgue report, no.” She closed her eyes, then opened them. “Monsieur Patenaude is a prince for giving you this job, and I don’t want to sound ungrateful or worse, demanding, but…”

  “You’d like him to assign me another column.”

  “Frankly, yes.”

  That settled it. She couldn’t tell Maman what happened. Her original instinct had been right, but somehow that wasn’t very comforting.

  Her mother’s world was one of simplicity; she only required sewing and domestic life and all that it entailed. She didn’t have a strong desire to experience the world—or even all of Paris, for that matter. Except when it came to fashion. And, Nathalie supposed, her mother would much rather she write about ball gowns than bodies.

  She couldn’t expect Maman to understand the appeal. “I know you don’t like it, Maman, but I find it … enthralling. I don’t want him to reassign me. I want to do what it takes to be a good journalist. Although I hope someday I can do it without wearing this,” she said, presenting her new attire. “I’d rather walk in wearing your dress.”

  Maman stood up, smoothing out the bustle in her dress, a beautiful multicolored silk brocade she’d made from scraps at the tailor shop. She was often overdressed for errands, and she knew it, but it was a source of pride. “While I appreciate that,” she said, trying to hide a smile, “I’m going to worry anyway. You know that.”

  “I do. Otherwise you wouldn’t be Maman,” Nathalie teased, picking up the article and folding it. “Don’t worry. Such things don’t scare me.”

  Is that true, even after today? The question inserted itself into her mind as if wedged by force.

  Maman straightened out a velvet pillow on the sofa. “Too brave for your own good sometimes.”

  “Says who?” Nathalie kissed Maman on the cheek as she put the article into her bag. “Time for Monsieur Patenaude to put his glasses at the end of his nose and nod in approval.”

  * * *

  Nathalie took the two-level omnibus, full of sweating people and drawn by sweating horses. She preferred the steam tram, which was modern, smoother, and quicker. However, the omnibus was cheaper and, since it was slower, allowed for better people watching. More often than not, it depended on what was closest and available, because Nathalie wasn’t keen on waiting at a depot. Or waiting in general.

  She stepped off the omnibus. The building Le Petit Journal called home was a grand structure, a fitting presence for all the stories it held and shared.

  Although she’d only been there two weeks, Nathalie had already gotten used to the hurried pace of the newsroom. The printing press roared almost constantly, men shuffled papers and bounced from desk to desk, and the smell of paper and ink filled every room. She found the hum of frenzied activity intoxicating. As much as she wanted to be a journalist, she’d initially resented having to give up her summer in northern France with Agnès in order to take this position. The plan had been to try to get a job at Le Petit Journal next summer and then again after she finished school in two years. Maman’s accident changed that, and despite wishing she was with Agnès right now, Nathalie adored being a reporter. Her next two years at school were optional, and given that the purpose of school at this stage was to teach girls how to be a good and proper wife (instead of teaching them Latin and Greek, like the boys), she contemplated not going back. It would depend on her experience at the newspaper, the heartbeat of communication that pulsed through Paris.

  M. Patenaude’s office was on the top floor. She nodded a curt hello to anyone who passed by, relieved that most people didn’t seem to notice her and that the clothing ploy worked. After all, everyone was too busy to pay attention to a newsboy who ran errands for the editor-in-chief.

  She knocked on M. Patenaude’s glass door, her knuckles striking the R in Rédacteur en Chef. “It’s … your errand boy.”

  “Come in.”

  She opened the door to see M. Patenaude reading at his desk with a pen in his hand. A half-finished cigarette lay on an ashtray next to his inkwell. Nathalie hated smoking, but the rest of Paris seemed to love it, right down to the stub pickers who strolled the boulevards spearing discarded cigarettes. With all the paper around M. Patenaude’s office, Nathalie didn’t know how the place didn’t go up in flames.

  M. Patenaude beckoned her without looking up and continued reading. He was a fidgety man whose glasses gave the illusion of being thicker on some days than others, depending where on his nose they rested. He also talked more rapidly than anyone she’d ever met, as if the words were in a foot race to get out of his mouth.

  She waited as he made a few notes, letting her eyes wander around the office. His degree from the University of France was on the wall, along with Le Petit Journal clippings about the start of the Franco-Prussian War, something about the Henard experiments, the death of Victor Hugo, and the capture of the murderer Pranzini.

  He took a drag of his cigarette and finally glanced up, smiling politely. “Ah, what do the bodies tell us today? That murder victim would shout it from a Notre-Dame tower if she could, I’m sure.”

  If you only knew. Nathalie laughed uneasily and handed him the draft. As his eyes scurried across the text, she watched him for a reaction. His practiced passivity divulged nothing.

  “This is good,” M. Patenaude said, taking another puff of his cigarette. His fingers were stained with tobacco and ink. “Except for one thing. Sit.”

  He laid the article on his desk and smoothed it out.

 
“Yes?” She took a seat opposite and sat on her hands. Had she made a mistake? Written something poorly? She was shaken up when she wrote it, so it was possible that she—

  “You mention the terror she suffered,” he said, interrupting her thoughts. His voice was even. “‘Her youthful features, sliced into horrible distortion, betrayed no sign of the terror she suffered before her untimely death.’”

  “Indeed.”

  “You don’t know that for certain,” he said. He took one quick drag of the cigarette and extinguished it, spending a bit more time crushing it than Nathalie thought necessary. “Do you?”

  “I—” Nathalie stopped. She did know that for certain, if what she had seen was real. The girl’s cries still echoed in her memory. “I assume she did.”

  “No doubt,” he said, gazing at her. Through her.

  A fly landed on her arm. She flicked it off and stood up, breaking eye contact. “What does this have to do with the article?”

  M. Patenaude rose from his chair, still staring. “No doubt.” He blinked as if just waking up, then gave her a friendly wink. “Add those two words to the article. Unless you were present for the autopsy or committed the murder yourself, you can’t know if she suffered in terror. He could have poisoned her. Put her to sleep and cut her later.”

  “Explain my assumption. That’s all?” Nathalie said, annoyed. The newspaper was well-known for exaggeration, yet he’d made her nervous for nothing. For two words.

  “That’s all.” He handed back the article. “Make the note, then give it to Arianne.”

  Arianne, about a decade older than Nathalie, was the only other woman who worked at the paper. Among other clerical tasks, she collected articles and arranged them for the compositors.

  “Merci.” She stood up straighter. Being the morgue reporter was a privilege. Before Nathalie started the job, Maman had warned her not to be too proud. Nevertheless, it was hard not to feel, well, special. And proud.

  “I heard the queue was especially long—Kirouac!” M. Patenaude looked over her shoulder into the newsroom. “You’ve been talking to Theriot for a quarter of an hour. Do you think your chair even remembers who you are?” He turned to Nathalie again. “I swear, ever since I’ve promoted him he’s become ten times more sociable. Anyway, this victim will get plenty of attention, and so will the other one they pulled out of the river today.” He dropped his voice. “We don’t know for sure yet, but it looks like a second victim.”

  “I knew it!”

  “What?”

  “I mean, I—I had a feeling.” She blushed, sorry she’d spoken up. She couldn’t very well tell him about the interrogation with M. Gagnon. “Just over an hour ago I saw a lot of activity near the door where they bring in the bodies and … I don’t know. Something made me think it could be another body.”

  He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Excellent journalistic instinct! I knew that curiosity would pay off when I hired you.”

  She thanked him and smiled graciously.

  “Between the autopsy and time required for it to chill adequately, the corpse won’t go out until tomorrow, I’m sure. Did you know the morgue often keeps murder victims on display longer than the rest? Sometimes they’ll even hold off on announcing an identification if the mobs are big enough.” He adjusted his glasses again. “The more dramatic the corpse, the greater the attraction, the longer they keep them on the slabs.”

  “Don’t they start to…?” She finished the thought silently.

  A smirk rolled across M. Patenaude’s lips. He paused, seemingly lost in thought. “No one in Europe relishes the morgue like Paris, flocking to see the daily dead.”

  Something nipped at the edges of Nathalie’s mind. A vague, unformed discomfort. For two weeks she’d been meeting with M. Patenaude. Today was different. He was different.

  She thanked him, excused herself, and left. As she descended the stairs, Nathalie thought about their conversation and realized what it was that bothered her.

  It was that stare when he discussed the girl’s terror.

  And the smirk when he discussed the morgue.

  * * *

  Despite what M. Patenaude said, she had to return to the morgue. She couldn’t simply go home without checking. Maybe he was wrong and the body would be out. Maybe they’d put it out so the public could see, then chill it overnight.

  If the victim’s body was out, would she touch the viewing pane again?

  She hadn’t decided yet.

  Although the crowd outside the morgue was much smaller than it had been hours before, the wait was longer. That’s what the nervous energy traveling through Nathalie’s body insisted, unless it was lying. Which it might have been, because what could she trust in herself right now? Already everything that had happened this morning seemed remote and unreal, more dream than experience. Nathalie put her hands in her trouser pockets and clutched her vial of catacomb dirt.

  As she got closer to the entrance, she noticed the elderly woman selling flowers. What was it M. Gagnon had called her? Vallette? Vallery? Valois? Mme. Valois. Nathalie had seen her yesterday and the day before. But not today. Until now. Regardless of the story told by the coins missing from her pocket and the wilted blossoms at home.

  The old woman held a bouquet in each hand—one composed of small white flowers, and the other of deep pink blossoms. Everyone in the queue thus far had dismissed her. Nathalie studied the woman as she got closer.

  No. She hadn’t seen her today.

  Nathalie was certain.

  When the old woman approached, her stare was like a poke. She glanced at the trousers and then back at Nathalie’s face. “More blooms, Mademoiselle?”

  More. Proof that the woman recognized her. Proof that the woman had sold her the flowers this morning.

  Nathalie met the old woman’s unblinking gaze and shook her head. Mme. Valois regarded the brown trousers, narrowed her eyes, and looked up at Nathalie again before proceeding down the line.

  She thought she’d experience relief, even a small amount, if the flower question was undeniably solved. She should have.

  But she didn’t.

  Minutes later she entered the morgue. The man who stood guard inside the viewing room this morning, the one who’d sent her to talk to M. Gagnon in the back office, had been replaced by another.

  M. Patenaude was right. No new corpse. Nothing had changed with the display since this morning.

  Nathalie’s stomach sank when her eyes fell upon the victim. The nameless girl with the bloodstained dress. It didn’t matter that Nathalie had seen her several hours ago. The horror and pity hadn’t dissipated.

  Not so long ago the victim had been a girl. She probably loved Paris much like Nathalie did. She had a family, maybe some brothers and sisters, and friends like Simone and Agnès. She had favorite books and dresses and foods and went to sleep at night on a pillow and wrapped in blankets. She laughed and dreamed and had memories that vanished forever when she took her last painful breath.

  And then Nathalie knew.

  She had to touch the viewing pane again.

  What if she saw something that could help this poor girl? Or could find out her name?

  Nathalie looked at the Medusa door, so foreboding earlier today. It was just a door with a decorative carving. She felt foolish for having been unnerved by it, for thinking she’d heard one of the snakes hiss.

  Whatever had happened earlier, she was prepared to encounter it again.

  Discreetly.

  M. Gagnon stood in the display room, again next to the curtain on the left. Nathalie was on the far right, glad to have so many people obscuring her. She didn’t want to get pulled into the interrogation room again if something happened.

  He crossed over to Nathalie’s side and bent over to pick something off the ground; she retreated into the shadows before he stood up again. When he did, he casually eyed the onlookers.

  Nathalie turned her face away, hoping he didn’t catch a glimpse of her.
After a pause she took a peek; M. Gagnon was back at his post.

  She positioned herself slightly toward the outer wall. The more she could hide, the less likely she’d be to give herself away. If it happened again.

  If if if.

  Her body tingled like the kiss of a breeze on sun-soaked skin. With a slow inhale, she reached forward and pressed her fingertips on the glass.

  Nothing at all.

  She took one step closer to the glass and tried again.

  Nothing.

  Then something occurred to her. Her fingers trembled on the glass as the realization emerged.

  Simone had said maybe Nathalie knew the killer. That could explain why she couldn’t repeat what had happened earlier.

  Perhaps her vision wasn’t really a vision, or a moment of delirium, or her imagination. Until now she hadn’t considered that it might be a memory.

  6

  Sleep, fickle and unsympathetic, abandoned Nathalie that night.

  She lay in the darkness, petting Stanley to remind herself that she was in the here and now. Her imagination, showing off how wicked and shrewd it could be, was devoted to convincing her otherwise. She pictured the killer—faceless, hidden, more like a spirit than a man—whispering in her ear. Telling her she was insane. Teasing her about what she saw, asking if she enjoyed watching the murder.

  Nathalie couldn’t stand it anymore; she needed to get up, to move, to do something else. Tossing off her sweat-dampened sheets, she lit her kerosene lamp and slid out of bed. She grabbed her journal, a pencil, and a small box off her desk. Stanley jumped down from the bed, tail curled into a question mark, ready to follow.

  “Only if you promise to be quiet,” she said. “And not swat at my pencil when I’m writing.”

  She put on her shoes and picked up her kerosene lamp. With careful steps, she made her way to the apartment door and slipped into the hallway, shutting the door delicately after Stanley came through. She shuffled down the oak floor of the hall and up three flights on the winding staircase. The door stood before her, proud and menacing, such that she could almost picture it with arms folded.