by Kat Dunn
The room was silent save for the crackle and pop of the logs in the fireplace. A smattering of rain pattered against the windows. Camille could hear the faint wheeze of her weak lungs.
Briefly, the thought crossed her mind that maybe it would have been better if Olympe had drowned in the river. At least that way no one could use her.
‘What about what she wants?’
Comtois blinked, staring at her with incredulity.
Camille neatly lined up her knife and fork on her plate and laid her napkin across the top.
‘What if she doesn’t want to do any of that? Shouldn’t she get to choose what she does with her life?’
‘If it means the difference between success or destruction for our country? No, she doesn’t.’ He looked at her over the candles. ‘None of us do.’
10
The Bal en Crystal
Ada found Al slumped in a velvet booth, one hand wrapped around a bottle of the new Swiss spirit, absinthe, the other arm slung around Léon’s shoulders. Their booth was close to the stage where a group of dancers, naked and painted to look like the night sky, were twisting and spinning in a fluid, swaying performance. Across the stage was a banner reading Le Corps Plein d’Étoiles. The tabletop was strewn with cards, pots of snuff, sugar cubes, matches and pipes and a tiny slotted spoon. Al had abandoned mixing the absinthe with sugar and water and was knocking it back from the bottle. Léon looked decidedly unimpressed.
It seemed as though half of Paris had fitted themselves into this basement on the edge of reality. Waiters sped between laughing groups, depositing bottles of wine and beer and gin and plates of potatoes from the new world, fried golden and sprinkled with salt. The walls were covered in thousands of tiny fragments of glass and mirror and paste gems and anything that sparkled and glittered, turning the whole place into a kaleidoscopic fever dream.
And the people. If she hadn’t been here before, she would have lost hours just watching the people. Men in dresses, women in britches, people dressed as nothing but themselves, laughing, kissing, singing, wigs lost on the floor and skirts tied up to dance barefoot, couples like her and Camille, like Al and Léon, people with skin darker than Guil and paler than the un-sunkissed insides of Camille’s thighs.
She understood why Al didn’t want to leave here. But there was something in the pure, giddy freedom that made Ada lock up. She wondered if it was jealousy.
At the edge of the booth she paused. Al didn’t look well. Dark smudges marred his eyes, the skin at his temples and across the delicate bones of his wrists was pale and papery thin.
Léon looked up, and jogged Al with an elbow.
‘Time’s up. Nanny’s here for you.’
Al blinked, and glanced at her.
‘Oh. It’s you.’
When no other comment seemed forthcoming, Ada pushed a wine-soaked shirt off the plush bench and sat down.
‘Look,’ said Léon, ignoring her, ‘are you going to stop moping and dance with me?’
Al took a swig of absinthe. ‘No, thanks, I want my toes intact.’
‘I’m bored.’
‘Then go pick up some simpering admirer and keep yourself busy.’
Léon wriggled out from under Al’s arm and shoved him away. ‘Well, sod you.’
Ada waited until Léon had stalked away from the booth before clearing her throat.
‘What do you want?’
‘We were worried about you. I was worried.’ Her voice was softer than she’d been expecting. ‘The deadline is tomorrow, we need to stick together.’
‘How thoughtful of you. Sparing a moment for the dissolute wastrel. Don’t worry, you can leave me to rot here.’
‘I’m not going to do that.’
‘Why?’ he barked, face suddenly twisting into a snarl. ‘Why the hell not? What good am I to you anyway?’
Ada leaned back, shocked. ‘You’re my friend.’
‘Am I? Really?’
‘Yes, Al, of course.’
He dug his thumbnail in around a splinter, gouging it out from the grain. ‘You’re nice, Ada. That’s what you do. Doesn’t mean I’m going to believe you.’
A hot flare of irritation spread under her skin. ‘Oh, I’m nice, am I? That’s all I am?’
‘Doesn’t that about sum it up? What else are you there for? Cam’s the one who runs the show, Guil’s got a soldier’s training so he’s twice as good as us at anything. Cam wants me around as her tame aristocrat with a bulging contacts book. You – well, what’s left? You’re the nice one. That, and cracking dugs for Cam to seek solace in at the end of a tough day being a total bitch to everyone.’
The urge to throw one of the glasses at his head was tremendous. But Ada knew better. She folded her hands on the table in front of her.
‘You’re being nasty to prove some stupid idea you’ve got in your head that you’re a bad person and deserve to be in pain. I’m not interested in playing whatever game you’re trying to set up.’
‘I’m not trying to prove it – I’m already there. Nasty to your nice.’
‘You’re not half as smart as you think you are if you think I’m the nice one.’
‘Why, what are you instead?’
‘I’m clever,’ she said, surprised at the conviction in her own voice. ‘I’m incredibly fast at learning new things, I’m good at solving problems, I’m loyal and, yes – you’re right – I am nice, which isn’t the terrible insult you seem to think it is. So there’s no spot for you to be the nasty one, okay?’
He narrowed his eyes. ‘You think I’m doing this to myself? I don’t need to set up any game to get myself punished – the charming bloody Revolutionary government have decided to do it for me and chop off the heads of everyone remotely related to me. Hadn’t you heard? Highest treason, worst sort, in the bin with the lot of them. I agree, of course, they’re a collection of grade-A monsters.’
‘Oh, Al – I had no idea—’
‘Having children was only an amusement for them and their friends. I suppose if you hand us directly to a nanny or a wet nurse, you don’t really bond very much. Entirely fair, small children are barely better than pets and far less house-trained.’ He took another swig of absinthe and winced. ‘I think my mother's happiest day was when I was packed off to boarding school at Louis-le-Grand. She would drop by with her friends sometimes, to have me recite things in Latin so she could show off. Do you know, I’m not sure she ever told me she liked me? Let alone loved me. But watching her get fed into that damn killing machine is still going to smart.’
He threw back the rest of the bottle, and when it was empty, tossed it onto the dance floor to several yelps and shouts of protest. He flicked a tasteless gesture and slumped against the velvet upholstery.
Ada sat quietly for a few minutes, swallowing her shock. Only, her shock faded fast because she’d been here before. It was happening all over again.
She knew where he’d been disappearing to.
‘Is that where you were when you were late for the theatre job? At their trial?’
He nodded.
‘Why did you keep this from us?’
He shrugged. ‘Deeply-rooted character flaws?’
‘Rescuing people is what we do. We could have done something…’
‘If I’m brutally honest – which as you know is my speciality – I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted them saved, not after what they did to me. I thought I didn’t care.’ He stared into the candlelight, tears catching like the crystals the place was named after. ‘I was wrong. And now it’s too late.’
‘Oh, Al.’ She rested a hand on his arm.
‘What do I do, Ada?’ His voice was hoarse. ‘What am I supposed to do? I hate them, I hate them so much for everything they ever did to me, every time they told me I was disgusting or a disappointment. For throwing me out because I fell in love with the “wrong” person. I hate them for being hypocrites. For doing whatever they wanted, however selfish or corrupt, then turning on me for who I am. I’ve fantasi
sed about justice catching up with them. I’ve dreamed about taking revenge on them and making them hurt. But…’ His voice shook, and he buried his face in his hands for a moment, letting the sob shudder through him. ‘But it’s my mother. My mother is going to die. The woman who made me. Held me with her own vicious little claws when I was born. The only mother I’ve ever had or will ever get. And they’re going to kill her.’
There was nothing she could say. There’d been nothing she could say when Camille had wept on her shoulder about her mother’s execution. There’d be nothing she could say now to help Al.
It hurt. It was supposed to hurt. She remembered how much her heart had ached, how she felt as if she was going to die from the weight of the pain and sorrow and grief, when her own mother had been consumed by fever and never come back. Life was pain.
But at least pain meant you were alive.
11
A House in the Forêt de Saint Germain
Molyneux would not let Camille leave until he’d pressed three glasses of sherry into her hand and several petite iced sweetmeats. She’d been impatient through the rest of the conversation – all the bland niceties about the weather and the American convoy that had managed to dock at Brest, bringing much-needed grain supplies – but she forced herself to stay sharp, mining their words for any fragment of information that could help them. Camille kept watching Comtois, trying to marry the description in the journal of the sensitive trainee showing scraps of kindness to Olympe, with the man Olympe had been willing to throw herself off a building to escape.
Eventually Camille had managed to make her excuses. Molyneux clasped her hand and gave her another meaningful look as he told her he hoped she would make her parents proud. Guilt slithered down her spine as she climbed into the carriage. The whole slow way back to Paris she stewed in her seat, peering impatiently at buildings and people. She felt the desperate urge to act, to do something – anything – to try to stand in the way of a new war ripping her home apart.
At the Pont au Change she had the carriage drop her off, and threaded her way back to Saints-Innocents. The tightness in her chest pulled her up short. Doubling over, she held onto a wall for support and tried to take shallow breaths until she felt the spasm easing. She couldn’t walk as fast as she wanted, or think her way out of this problem, or do anything useful at all. Even Ada had lost faith.
Her head swam and exhaustion weighed her down. That dark, fathomless sea had swallowed her. She was lost. Alone in the face of a threat too huge for her to begin to manage.
Al had been right. This was too big for them. Maybe in trying to help, she was making everything worse.
What would her parents have done? Her father always had an answer to everything. What would he say now?
Would they know when it was time to give up?
She forced herself to start walking, picking her way between the mud and excrement.
In the charnel house, everyone was awake and waiting for her. Guil was propped up on several balled jackets, with James redressing his wounds. Olympe was asleep on a pile of cloaks. Ada arrived back only a few minutes after her with Al, who looked as though he’d been dragged through a hedge backwards, and then thrown up in the hedge. She was too tired to berate them for leaving the safe house at such a dangerous time. At least her battalion were together again. They would need each other, to face everything that was to come.
She woke Olympe briefly to fill them all in on the dinner, itching to go downstairs and change out of the dress she was still wearing. But if she moved as little as possible, her lungs behaved themselves and she could maintain some illusion of control.
Before long, they turned in to sleep, leaving Camille on first watch. They had to be up early to be ready for the Festival of the Supreme Being, and the end of everything.
Before Olympe could go downstairs with the others, Camille caught her sleeve, drawing her back. She wanted to say something clever and comforting like her mother would have said, but the truth was visceral and unforgiving.
For all her miraculous powers, she was still made of flesh and blood. She was vulnerable.
‘I – I’m going to keep my promise. I swear. I won’t let either side get you.’
They were out of time. The fate of the Revolution, of France itself, hung on her decision. She was so far out into that vast sea, she had no idea which way led back to land.
Her father wouldn’t hesitate. So she would make the choice too, even if it meant everyone would hate her.
‘Do you trust me?’
Olympe nodded. ‘I trust you.’
She twisted a loose curl of Olympe’s hair around her finger and pulled it tight.
‘Then we finish this at the festival. Tomorrow.’
PART FIVE
Even Good Swimmers Drown in the End
1
Place de la Révolution
20 Prairial Year II, the deadline
A crisp, chill sky sprawled over the guillotine in the middle of the square. Across the river, the model mountain for the Festival of the Supreme Being rose in carved tiers with real grass and moss spread over its contours, leaving a winding path to the summit exposed. Al stood next to Ada, hands tucked into his sleeves. He was hungover, but he’d moved swiftly that morning, dressing and refusing the coffee in the pot.
A solitary tumbril was being led to the guillotine; a crowd had gathered in anticipation of the later festivities. It was a day of celebration, but Revolutionary execution duties still needed to be carried out. They had crept out early, long before anyone else was awake, and waited in the rawness of the morning for the prisoners to arrive. Four men were already on the dais, one hauling the rope to lift the blade, one ready with a basket to catch heads, and another with a pike to lift them for the crowd to see. A fourth stood by the stairs, watching as the cart rumbled towards them, its standing prisoners huddled close.
There were only a handful due to die today. A tall man with Al’s fair hair and a woman next to him with Al’s pointed chin. Then two more young men, echoes of their parents, and Al beside her. Ada grasped Al’s hand tightly. He didn’t shake her off.
Someone read out the charges, but they were too far away to hear. Al’s father was led up to the guillotine first. He went without protest, chin held high, a sneer curling his lip. He kneeled without being told, but the executioner had to put a hand on his shoulder to manoeuvre his neck into the headlock. The top was lowered and secured. Ada had always thought the position looked uncomfortable. Leaning so far forwards, while trying to keep your weight on your knees and off your throat. She could feel the ache in her lower back just imagining it.
The crowd fell silent as the final moment came close. Al was a tense line of muscle and sinew, fingers twisted tightly into hers. She thought about putting her arms around him as she had for Camille when they’d watched her parents die, but it wouldn’t do much good. There was nothing that could make this moment any better.
The blade dropped with a faint whistle through the air, and Al flinched. His father’s head thumped into the basket and a roar went up around him. The guard held up the head by its fine blond hair. His father’s grey eyes still looked out over the crowd, an expression of confusion in them. Ada could feel Al shaking.
His mother was next, forced to her knees and held in place by the headlock. Another whistle-thunk, and then they were looking at only her head held up by her long honey-coloured locks. The brothers, shirt fronts stained with vomit and groins dark with piss. Ada could tell they were crying as they were bent beneath the blade. A few more lanky, blond people added their heads to the basket, and then the tumbril was empty.
A shudder passed through Al, then he turned on his heel and strode off through the crowd. Ada caught up with him as he bent over the embankment and threw up into the river.
This time she did hold him, taking greater care of cleaning him up than she had hauling him home the night before. She rubbed his back as he folded in on himself, cold and still as stone.
‘That’s why I didn’t,’ said Al, wiping his mouth. ‘You would insist on trying to save them and bother me about my feelings and I couldn’t, okay? I couldn’t risk you all for their sake. It’s not a trade I’m willing to make.’
Ada was silent. He offered her the handkerchief back but she shook her head.
‘Please don’t tell Cam.’
‘I have to,’ said Ada. ‘She would understand, you know.’
‘Exactly. I can’t bear the idea of being pitied.’
He patted his mouth daintily, swaying on the spot.
‘It’s not pity, Al. It’s empathy.’
‘Cam hates me.’
‘No, she doesn’t.’
‘She does a pretty good impression of it.’
Ada sighed. ‘You remind her of herself. She hates that. No one likes looking in a mirror.’
Al snorted. ‘Speak for yourself. Unlike Cam I have cheekbones to die for.’
‘I’m serious, Al. She doesn’t hate you. But you make her feel a lot of complicated feelings she doesn’t know how to deal with.’
‘Lucky me.’
‘Hate isn’t the worst thing someone can feel. The opposite of love isn’t hate. It’s apathy.’
Al didn’t reply.
As the sun rose in the sky, the crowd in the square grew, clustering around the path of the upcoming parade. The bells rang.
‘It’s time.’
He didn’t respond for a moment. Then he turned to her stiffly.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said uselessly.
He took a stumbling step back.
‘No – I’m sorry. Tell Cam – tell everyone – I’m sorry.’
‘What?’
Pulling himself out of her arms, he edged further away.