A Little in Love

by Susan E. Fletcher

  Late May. Paris was hot and crowded. Anger spilled out of bars into alleyways, and the fever that killed Maman was everywhere. The girl I’d been in Montfermeil, who’d longed for a dainty, romantic Paris … Where had she gone? She was all grown up. She was wearing rags and stepping over bodies. Wise Eponine …

  That evening I went back to the tree—I couldn’t help it—and watched them walk in the garden. She said, “I was scared you’d gone, and wouldn’t come back.”

  “I’ll always come back,” he said.

  I cried very quietly, into cupped hands.

  * * *

  He did come back—night after night. And I always kept guard, because for all the talk of love and night-scented flowers I’d not forgotten my vow or Azelma’s words: We’ll plunder it.

  I wouldn’t let it happen. I was ready for them.

  They came on a moonless night. I parted the leaves and saw the dark sky, and I felt uneasy. Papa always said, Pick a moonless night … Don’t let yourself be seen!

  I told myself, There are many dark nights. It might not be tonight.

  But it was.

  * * *

  I heard footsteps in the street below. They were soft and slow, the kind we make when we don’t want anyone to hear us. I shifted and saw them: shadows against the wall. Was there a flash of metal?

  I dropped down from the tree. It made them jump because they’d thought they were all alone but there I was. I landed like a cat—neatly, claws out.

  “What the … ?” It was Papa’s voice. “Is that Eponine?”

  “Papa.” I was cool.

  “Well … !” He relaxed, half laughed. “Why are you here?”

  Another voice came from the shadows. It was Montparnasse. “Well, well. Perhaps she has come to help us, Luc?” Behind him I could make out the shadow of Gueulemer—darker, even, than the night.

  There was no warm greeting from Papa. The last time I’d seen him had been all those months ago in the Gorbeau tenement, as he sent me outside to keep watch by the cemetery. Since then I’d been in prison, and Maman had died. Had he looked for me at all? Wondered how I was?

  He said, “Do you know this house? We’ve heard it’s worth robbing.”

  I could smell Babet beside me—tobacco and ale and unwashed clothes. “Silver candlesticks, we hear,” he murmured. “Hand mirrors, furs, silk underclothes …”

  “Why this house? There are bigger ones.”

  “They had a maid here for a while. Montparnasse knew her, didn’t you?” Babet snickered. “She told him all about it—where they keep their jewels and money …”

  Papa spat, wiped his mouth. “You’ll help us, Eponine. Not as lookout, though—you’ve proved to be useless at that … Azelma is our lookout tonight.”

  “Azelma’s here?”

  “At the top of the road.”

  I looked at Montparnasse. He wasn’t smiling. His hair wasn’t oiled and he wasn’t wearing a flower in his buttonhole. He was staring at me very darkly. I’d run away from him, and I wondered how many girls had ever managed to do that before? Not the maid, anyway.

  Four of them. They carried sticks and rocks and blades.

  “No.”

  Papa flinched. “What?”

  “No, I won’t help you.”

  He blinked, licked his lips, and gave a soft chuckle. “She’s always had humor, my eldest daughter—I’ll give her that!” Then his laughter faded. “You will help us, Eponine.”

  “No, I won’t. I won’t do a single thing to help you—not tonight, not ever.”

  He wanted to hit me, I could tell. He hissed and his eyes flamed, and he said, “How dare you? You’re my daughter! It is your duty!”

  I felt fiery too. “Your daughter? Yes—by birth alone! You made me, that’s true, but have you ever been fatherly in any other way? Loving or caring? Have you ever hugged me or told me a bedtime story or looked after me when I was sick or scared? Ha! You’ve only ever liked me when I’ve had a fistful of coins or a pocket watch for you. You never wanted a daughter: You wanted a helper, a thief, a servant you can give orders to. Well, not anymore! I’ve been in prison, Papa! It’s been many months since you saw me but you’ve not asked how I am or how I’m living or if I’m missing Maman! And as for Gavroche—how could you? What parent leaves a child behind—a tiny child!—and doesn’t care? I’d like to think you had a little kindness in you, Papa, but I’ve never seen it and I know I never will.”

  He was furious but I kept talking.

  “You think I’m still the little girl who used to creep between the legs of drinkers, in the inn? I’ve grown up! I’m old enough to know my own heart and mind, and I will never, ever steal or lie again. Do you know how I feel when I see you? All of you? I feel ashamed. And I feel disgusted—I’m disgusted in how you never care for others, and all you ever do is steal … In Montfermeil we could have lived an honest life! But you gambled and robbed …” I shook my head. “Do you know how I felt when I’d heard that Maman had died? Sad—but I felt relieved too—relief!—because I could start again. Live the kind of life I’ve always wanted. Sometimes Maman could be loving. But you, Papa? I don’t think you have any idea what love feels like—and that makes me pity you.”

  All four of them were staring at me.

  “I’ve two more things to say to you. First, I’m not going to let you rob this house. It won’t happen.”

  It was Montparnasse who spoke. “There are four of us and one of you. You think you can stop us?”

  “Yes, Monsieur. Because you might have knives and stones but I have a voice and if you take one step closer to me, or to these iron gates, I’ll scream so loudly that every soul on the rue Plumet will wake up and the gendarmes will find you. I promise.”

  “And second?” muttered Papa. His eyes were hateful.

  “This is the last time I will ever call you my father. After tonight, you’re just a stranger to me.”

  I was defiant. I was the strong, bold heroine of all Maman’s books, the girl with blowing hair and her hands on her hips, and I felt so bright and strong. No, they wouldn’t pass. Evil wouldn’t win. I’d scream till daybreak, if I had to.

  “Bitch,” Papa said, very quietly. That was his last word to me.

  * * *

  Then they turned and left. They padded up the rue Plumet into the darkness, and I was left alone. I have no family now. It was just me and the night air, but the world seemed to be whispering, Well done, well done, well done!

  * * *

  I stayed awake in my tree, and watched the sky lighten.

  At daybreak, I walked back toward the river. I passed tavern owners and old wives sweeping, and a man picking out the hooves of his horse—and I bid all of them, “Bonjour. C’est un joli matin, non?” They seemed surprised, but said, “Bonjour,” back to me. A baker offered me a bread roll and my merci was grateful and bright.

  On a bridge, I looked down into the river. The reflected girl had dirt on her face as always, but she was smiling. She was eating a bread roll and her hair was blowing about her and I thought, Maybe she’s beautiful? Yes, I thought she was.

  I walked through a sun-dappled Paris.

  Oui. Un très joli matin.

  When I was a little girl I used to think that when it rained, it was the sky crying. If I was crying at the same time, I wondered if the rain was coming down in sympathy, matching my feelings, saying, There, there …

  It was like that in Paris, that day. But it wasn’t raining: Instead, it was the hottest day I’d ever known. I sweated under my arms and my skin turned red. The world is burning, I thought. Like I burned inside, last night.

  It meant the streets smelled more than ever. They stank of sweat and sewage and rotting meat. Dogs panted for water. Tempers were like tinder so that the tiniest thing sparked them and people brawled in the street. Near the Tuileries one man stabbed another; I heard the scream and I saw his blood flowing out.

  “This is dangerous weather,” somebody said.

  The cho
lera was even worse. It had always been there in the shadows but now people were squatting in the gutters or vomiting in corners. Bodies were left outside the morgue. I held my breath as I passed them and thought of Gavroche because some of the bodies were child-sized.

  Please let him be safe—and please let Marius and Cosette and Jean Valjean be safe. And the man who gave me chestnuts.

  And Azelma. I thought of her too. So she had been standing on guard last night, at the end of the rue Plumet? Their new, better lookout. She’d gotten as hard as stone but she was still my sister and so I thought, Keep her safe too.

  I sent small prayers out for everyone I cared for, and for the people that they cared for too. But I forgot about the man called Larmarque. I forgot to whisper, Keep him safe from this fever. Could I have saved him? If I had whispered it?

  On June 1 he died. And if the city had been hot and angry before, it really caught fire with this.

  * * *

  I heard the news in Les Halles. Just as fires snicker from twig to twig and get stronger and louder, so this news moved through the crowd … Lamarque! Dead! The cholera’s got him! What now? What now?

  I thought of Marius and his curly-haired friend in Café Musain who had called Lamarque the man who will save us. The market swarmed and wailed.

  Within days, the gunshots began. I was near the Café Musain when I heard them and dropped to my knees. “What’s that?” I cried out.

  A man helped me up. “Soldiers.”

  “Why are they shooting?”

  “There are riots already. You know Lamarque’s dead? There’s no one to fight for the people now and so the people are having to fight themselves. I’d leave here,” he said. “It’ll only get worse.”

  I thanked him and hurried on. Marius and Cosette were safe, weren’t they? Holding hands in the rue Plumet and not here, on the streets? But I was scared. I ran down the rue de la Chanvrerie and straight into a girl.

  She shouted, “Hey! Watch it!” It was Azelma.

  We stared.

  I hadn’t seen her since we left prison and she looked much older now. There were lines by her eyes, and bruises. Her hands were tightly closed so I knew she’d been stealing—centimes, perhaps. There couldn’t be much left to steal anymore.

  “Azelma! How are you? Are you well? No fever?”

  “Do I look as if I’ve got the fever?” Still sour.

  Perhaps the question was stupid but I didn’t blush. “Where are you living?”

  She didn’t answer. Instead she said, “Papa told me what you said to him, the other night. We disgust you, do we?”

  “Not you, Zel. Papa. The others. Do you think he’s ever really loved us?”

  She hardened her jaw, defiant. “Perhaps he never loved you. But he loves me.”

  “Does he act like he does?”

  She looked a little sad for a moment. “What does love matter anyway? It doesn’t feed or clothe you. That house? In the rue Plumet? The things inside it could have fed us for a month!”

  “But the people who live there are good people! They’ve had their own suffering and don’t deserve more.”

  “Their own suffering? They’re rich! And we’re not! What do I care about their suffering? I could be wearing silk dresses now …”

  “So you’re happy to steal all your life?”

  “It’s a cruel world and we must be cruel to survive it.” I heard our mother’s voice in that.

  “Look at me, Azelma: I’m surviving it! But I haven’t stolen anything since I left Madelonnettes. I beg or I scavenge but I don’t steal, and I haven’t done a single cruel thing—and I’m happier for it! Oh, Zel …”

  Suddenly, she softened. She looked her age, which wasn’t old at all. “Do you think we’re the only ones living like this? Didn’t you hear the gunshots? Worse things are happening in Paris than a stolen sou or two. Stealing’s what I know. It’s what I’m good at and it’s what Papa and Montparnasse want me to do.”

  “Montparnasse?” I frowned. Why would she do what he wanted of her? Then I guessed: She likes him. Perhaps she hadn’t run away from his mouth, as I’d done. Perhaps she actually wanted to feel those hands …

  I loved my little sister then. I wanted to whisk her up in my arms and take her far away from there—from diseases and prisons and the city’s heat. “Do you remember your doll?” I asked.

  “My doll?”

  “We used to play with her … remember?” I reached for Azelma’s hair and stroked it. “Shall we go somewhere? You and me? We could leave Paris and head south, follow the sun … Maybe we can find a little work picking fruit or pressing grapes into wine with our feet, or plucking hens … An honest life. A better life than this.”

  She moved my hand away. “And what of Papa? I won’t leave him. You might think he’s a disgrace but I don’t. I’ll stay with him, and with Montparnasse, and if you really hope for a good, honest life then I’m telling you, Eponine, you will fail. Haven’t you seen? There are riots! A revolution is coming, and no one will care for your high morals! What matters is blood and anger, kings and the rest of us. Everyone hates one another and it’ll be a fine time for stealing—all these gatherings. You’ll miss out,” she said, and stepped back.

  We looked at each other. I remembered how we used to sleep together in Montfermeil, under the same blanket. Her little pops of sleeping breath. Her warm body pressed against my own. I felt sad.

  “Be careful.” In my head I thought, Find love. Fall in love with someone who’s worth it—for it changes everything.

  She sniffed. “I’m going to where the gunshots came from. Newly dead men are easy to rob.”

  Oh, she was our father’s daughter.

  “You know that you’ve angered them? By defending that house? They will steal from it, Eponine—and they’ll hurt everyone inside it too. You can’t defend it forever.”

  With that, she went. She moved through the crowds until she was lost among them, and I wanted to call out, I love you!—because I did. But she moved too quickly.

  I had a strange feeling, at that moment. I felt, in my bones, that my sister was gone now and that I’d never see her again.

  * * *

  Azelma was wrong in a lot of what she said. But one thing stayed with me: You can’t defend it forever.

  I sat in the elm tree that night. Somewhere beneath me, Paris glowed with fires and the flashes of gunshots. Tomorrow they’d bury Lamarque. I couldn’t imagine a quiet funeral procession—nobody could. There’d be trouble, I was sure of it.

  I wanted to warn Cosette and Valjean, to knock on their door and say, Do you remember the people who hurt you, Monsieur? In the Gorbeau? Well, they’re coming back to take everything you have and to hurt you again … But those tall iron gates were always locked. I wanted Cosette to walk back out through the dusk so that I might shout out to her—but she was always inside, these evenings. She was no longer lovesick, sighing in the dark; she had Marius now.

  I rubbed my eyes, tearful. Why did things always have to be so hard?

  But then among the gunshots and dogs barking and distant calls for help, I heard another sound. It was the skittering of paper. Beneath me, a tiny piece of newspaper blew by.

  I’ll write a note! I grabbed the paper and walked until I found a little bit of charcoal and then I wrote: “You’re in danger. The villains from the Gorbeau know you live here and are coming again. Be careful.”

  I dropped it through the iron railings, into the garden. It lay next to the lavender bush so I knew it would be found—my little act of love.

  The following morning I woke and looked down through the elm tree to see if the note was still lying there beside the lavender. It wasn’t. It had been found and read.

  I was glad. I climbed down and stretched. But I stopped, midstretch—because the house looked different. There weren’t any drapes at the windows anymore and there were suitcases and boxes on the path, outside. Then I turned to see a carriage waiting in the street with a gray horse dozing by
it.

  I hurried to the driver. “Excusez-moi? Are you here for this house?”

  “I am.”

  “Who are you taking, please?”

  He frowned. “The gentleman and his daughter.”

  “Where to?”

  He rubbed his mustache. He saw my clothes, and he probably wasn’t sure if he should be speaking to someone like me. “England, as far as I know. I don’t take them all the way there, of course—just to the city wall. Other carriages will take them north from there.”

  “England?!”

  “Can’t blame them. The city’s fighting itself and the harvests have been poor for many years. What’s left?”

  I stumbled back toward the iron gates. They were leaving? Was this my doing? Had my little note made Valjean decide to go away? I thought it might make them lock their doors at night or perhaps push their furniture against those doors. Or tell the police, or hide their jewels.

  I didn’t think they’d leave rue Plumet for good.

  And why England? I knew nothing of England except that they too had a king and that it rained a lot. And it was far away.

  Marius! What of him? Did he know they were going? I was sure he didn’t or he’d be here too. Since Lamarque died, he’d been spending a lot of time at the Café Musain. Was he there last night? If so, he doesn’t know. He’ll come here tonight and find that she’s gone …

  I felt ill. I leaned against the railings and closed my eyes. My vow … To make people happy. Marius’s heart will be broken by this.

  I seized the iron bars. I wished I could climb them or be even thinner so I might slip right through. I wished …

  And suddenly, there she was. She walked out into the morning, dressed in traveling clothes—boots and a red dress with a dark red cape. Red too was the skin near her eyes: she’d been crying. She seemed to be talking to herself.