by Edward Carey
Even I could not escape the wardrobe upheaval, this war of cloth, this famous defeat of new over old. From the widow I received dark dresses, very plain, very workmanlike, three modest sisters, and a new cap. Of good, though not exceptional, material. Still, here I was, part of the family. I thanked her for it, very much. She grimaced.
Even the dummy of Henri Picot was seen shining upon the landing, in a new white lace shirt with mother-of-pearl buttons.
Edmond was robbed of calico, which was his material, and put in silk. What whines from him, of uncharacteristic volume. From his room, from the widow’s, came loud noises of a family in dispute. “Please, Mother, no, I don’t want to.” “I won’t have this, Edmond, I won’t have it!” “It must not happen, I tell you, Mother, a terrible error!” “You tell me? Nonsense! What’s this new boldness? Where’s it from? Put this on now! If I have to strip you myself, you will put this on!”
Edmond in a crisp white silk suit was almost an albino; only his ears were a different color from the rest of him. There’s Edmond, I remember thinking, quick, watch him in that suit of his. Most people did not think much of him, most people did not spend emotion upon him of any sort, and he was left forgotten; I used to think that fitted him well enough and I was very grateful for it. But I saw him in his white suit, exposed as never before; there were blue veins at the sides of his temples. Delicate aquamarine rivers flowing through the Country of Edmond. How to chart such territory? Where could suitable explorers be found? I saw him in that white suit, certainly I saw him, very early one morning, when he would usually be wearing his nightshirt. He came in to me wearing that horrible white suit. He did not say anything. Instead Edmond’s blank face came closer and closer to mine, so very close that my lips touched something that felt like cotton but was in fact the lips of Edmond Picot. And then a deeper kiss than ever before, his mouth opened, there was Edmond beneath the cloth, the within of him. But he stopped so soon.
“Sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“Why are you sorry, Edmond?”
He said, “I find you pretty.”
“Edmond? Edmond? Do you? Do you!”
“I don’t want to go. I’m sorry.”
“Edmond?”
“I’m so sorry.”
But he didn’t say why he was sorry. As I put my fingers to my lips, that white suit went out of sight. The widow had proclaimed the availability of her son. As if she had nailed a bill poster on an external wall of the Monkey House, and the poster had grown very old, had seen every weather, had been doused by rain, which turned to ice, dripped dry, curled and yellowed in the sun, had lost its whiteness and was now almost impossible to read—and yet, incredibly, suddenly, someone had seen it there. Someone read the message carefully, and understood it, and even read the final small words, APPLY WITHIN. And did.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Public notice: the nuptials of Cornélie Ticre.
I have been a little dishonest perhaps. I may have mixed bricks with clothing. I forgot to mention that the clothing was for an event, and that the event was the marriage of Edmond Henri Picot to Cornélie Adrienne Françoise Ticre, of the printworks on the Rue Saint-Louis.
The Ticre printworks was responsible for advertisements all across Paris. They printed not only the bills for the Cabinet of Doctor Curtius, ALL THE BEST AND ALL THE WORST PEOPLE OF PARIS—INSIDE!, but also the sheets for the Comédie-Française, for RACINE’S ANDROMAQUE, and they didn’t stop there. The printworks went on through day and night, and all day Sunday too; they never stopped; they were as hot as all the talking heads of Paris. The presses slammed back and forth, churning out thousands upon thousands of words, until it made your head pound: letters on small metal or wood blocks, positioned in order back to front, rolled with ink, then thumped onto the paper, causing the paper a jolt of agony. Oh, those people, they’d print anything. They’d alert Parisians to the latest book, the latest medicine, the most shocking notices of bankruptcy, the grave importance of elastic stockings, the most advanced varnish for teeth. How many walls in all Paris, I wondered, were covered by the outpourings of the Ticre press alone? All those words revealing all those lives, all those businesses, all those hopes, all those futures, all those little pieces of the human mass. It was the Ticre press that printed out broadsheets for the hangings, for church services and puppet shows, for things missing: a poodle, a turtle, a walking stick, a snuffbox. LOST: A MUFF. LOST: SILVER ASPARAGUS TONGS. LOST: AN ELABORATE CANDLESNUFFER. LOST: A SILK UMBRELLA. LOST: A DOUBLE-FACED TIMEPIECE. LOST: A TOUCAN. LOST: A BELOVED DOG. LOST: A CHILD.
Lost, lost. Lost to Cornélie Adrienne Françoise Ticre. Lost: Edmond Henri Picot, the model for shop dolls. My chance. Lost forever. I sat, lost, in the kitchen. No one ever thought to ask me. No one came to me to wonder if Edmond should be married off. No one thought I cared; no one thought of me in any way connected to him. So they did not see my grief, or even hear me weeping in the night. Even Jacques slouched away. A miserable servant is no massive concern.
The widow had finally found a buyer. When poor Edmond was lost, in his white silk suit, two strong businesses were combined. Several thousand livres came into the Monkey House with that marriage. The pale boy went to live at the Ticre printworks, where he was expected to learn a new and profitable profession and one day to govern it himself. The widow did not trust the Cabinet alone; she was shoring up greater security with a more certain business.
There was more money in printing than in tailoring, even than in wax. The widow went to visit him often, but I never saw him. In my quiet moments, when I was alone, I closed my eyes and cut the widow open—and slit Cornélie from her mouth to her anus—sitting all the while in the kitchen, waiting for no one to come.
I could not sleep in those lonely nights—and so instead I stole from Curtius and the widow. Bent over stolen candles, I stole Edmond from Cornélie, or tried to. I stole wax and clay, I stole paper and pencils and wire for armatures. I made a small wax head of Edmond about the size of a heart or a fist: they are the same size. So hard to recall his face, so hard to bring it back; I’d look at the shop dolls on the Rue Saint-Honoré for help and always start with the ears. It became a habit, the stealing of things, to crouch and squint in the night and make my small heads. Always Edmond; no other head mattered. Even if I could never quite find him, still I thought I might yet, one day, if I kept at it.
{The new Madame Picot, not from life.}
Perhaps it was my eyes, always so red, that finally alerted my master. I am worried, he told me, holding open my lids and looking into my eyes. As if my eyes were the problem! But he thought I might have a disease there. Most people would muddle on with a weakness such as mine, but my master had my small problem instantly attended to. He took me to a man who put glass disks in front of my eyes and proclaimed me “weakling.” What I needed was something to help me see things close to. Things farther away did not matter so much. The medicine I must take, externally, was called double-folding-temple spectacles. The man measured my head and said he would make temple arms of no more than six inches. Steel, he asked, or coin silver? Curtius looked at me. “I want coin silver for her, but for now I fear it must be steel.” My facewear cost twenty livres.
“Blind?” said the widow when we returned. “Blind. Blind!”
“Not blind! Not blind!” I said.
“If she’s blind, Curtius, what use is she? We shall need more help.”
“I’m not blind, sir!”
“What a noise she makes!” said the widow. “And not only in front of us, also crying in the kitchen. The other day I saw her thumping her own head. And such slovenliness. You may say nothing, Curtius, but I have noticed how poor her work has become. And now how she scowls!”
“And, Little,” asked my master, “are you eating?”
Jacques Beauvisage was upset by my spectacles. He thought they signified something wrong with me, as if I
myself were made of glass. He feared I might shatter.
“I am just the same, Jacques, as ever I was. I just see everything much clearer, sharper, and closer. As if I’m seeing you properly for the first time.”
“How you look at me!” he cried. “What do you see now? What is different?”
“Look for yourself. Here they are.”
“No! Shan’t! Won’t! Must not!”
I saw better, saw them all well now, at last. I saw all the holes in human skin, I saw film over eyes, I saw hair on tips of noses. I saw all the little wonderful truths of the human face that before I’d never known. Was it good to see so much? Was it happy-making? Not if I could not see him. I only wanted him to look at, and here was everyone else save him. I could not at first find a use for such sharp eyes. But I could not stop looking. Even children had creases; that I had not known before. Everything was as it had been, only more so.
“Florence Biblot has small teeth marks on her lips,” I observed.
“Has she, Marie, there’s a thing!” said my master.
“The scar on Jacques’ forehead turns slightly blue or green or red depending on his mood.”
“Does it? Ha-ha!”
“The Widow Picot has a small dot on her left nostril.”
“No, no, she doesn’t.”
“She does indeed.”
“No one knows her better than I.”
Even so my master went to look.
“She does! Never had I seen it before. The smallest mole.”
And the fact of it brought him to tears.
Those were the days when the removal of the spectacles from my face left an impression of the spectacles’ clip upon the bridge of my nose. There I was in the shadows, hall-creeper, dish-washer, little lost woman of hair. Before the red sore could grow into a callus, a very different visitor arrived and everything was turned upside down.
CHAPTER THIRTY
I am found out.
So many people of all stations in Parisian life came to the Monkey House. Aristocrats came and fishwives, men who worked on roofs and men who worked in the sewers, men who composed operas and men who composed bricks in the brickyards. And so, in the end, it is not perhaps so extraordinary that a royal person should have called.
The piece of royalty that came, for there was only one, was fourteen years old. A little girl. Paris and even Versailles were still caught up with Voltaire in those days, and this little majesty decided she wanted to learn a little more of this famous philosopher. This crumb of royalty evidently learned that the Boulevard du Temple was home to a hall filled with famous and infamous people, all made of wax, and accounted to be very lifelike—and among them was Monsieur Voltaire, in exact size and shape. Should her minor majesty be interested in getting an impression of the recently deceased, then, this might be the place to visit. And so a little miracle occurred in my life, a wonderful bit of happy luck.
In she came, surrounded by her entourage. She did not arrange a visit, she merely came with her people in the morning, when we were closed. It was a very good thing that she did, for had she warned of her visit, I should not have been in the great hall dusting heads when the dead tailor’s bell called out, I would not have drawn the bolts back, nor would I have been the one informed of who was there.
Madame Elisabeth Philippine Marie Hélène Bourbon, granddaughter of Louis XV, least significant child of the late Dauphin Louis, sister to King Louis XVI, rose no more than four foot eleven inches from the ground. She was a little plump, with delicate gray eyes and a very fair skin, but these details can be skipped over. What was important was that her nose was quite large and bent in the Bourbon tradition. And her chin, her chin was—how could I conceal my delight?—her chin was rather too long and prominent! Need I spill it out? She was not a pretty little girl. Need I spit it out?
I took my spectacles off.
The royal bit looked like me.
I looked like the royal bit.
Yes, I was seventeen. Yes, unshod I was four foot eight inches in length. I am ready to concede that my lantern chin, a good impression I believe of Father’s, was wider and more jutting. I admit my eyes are brown, not so prettily pale gray, yes, yes. But regard the two noses, first the Waltner snout, and now the Bourbon conk!
They are very nearly the same.
As if the world had suddenly doubled itself up.
We recognized each other instantly. What could be done with this strange unsettling intimacy? I wanted to kiss her and shove her simultaneously. To shout and to whisper. To dance and to flee. What a person! Just like me—a clearer version, more expensive certainly, but my likeness without a doubt. Did she see it? Yes, I knew she had. I suspected she knew everything about me already. I wanted to cover myself up and to pull off all my clothing. It was as if I’d known her all my life.
How my heart joyfully, fearfully bounced inside.
Similarity sometimes breaks barriers, sometimes pulls them up.
Standing before her, I curtsied. But I could not keep quiet. I wanted to tell her all. “My father died,” I began. “He was behind a backfiring cannon. My mother died, very suddenly.”
“Her Highness, Madame Elisabeth of France,” announced one of the entourage as the widow came into the hall. The widow went white and bowed.
But the princess had heard me. “My father died,” she replied in her quiet voice. “And my mother. It was tuberculosis that took them away. Would you show me the people in wax?”
“Little,” said the widow, “kitchen.”
But I did not listen. Instead I showed her. First Voltaire, then Doctor Franklin and Doctor Mesmer. It was in front of Mesmer that Madame Elisabeth turned and surprised me: She would like to sculpt, she said. Would I perhaps teach her wax modeling?
“Me?” I asked.
“She only does the hairs, Your Majesty,” said the widow.
“Yes,” I said, “but I know much more.”
“Little,” said the widow, “that’s enough, go to the kitchen. Your Majesty, she is just a serving girl.”
“Would you like to see my work?” I asked.
“There is no work, Little,” said the widow.
“If you please, Your Majesty, this way. May I show you?”
“Jacques,” said the widow, “take her outside.”
“Jacques,” I said, so bold with my new likeness beside me, so bold in my new spectacles, “do not do it.”
And the princess said, “I should very much like to see your work.”
I took her to the kitchen; with the thunder of my heart in my ears, I closed the door on everyone but the princess. I heaved my trunk out. I opened the lid. There were all my Edmond heads.
“I made these,” I said. “Every one.”
“Who are they?”
“A boy. From memory.”
“Who is he?”
“It doesn’t matter now. He’s gone away.”
“You did all this?” the princess asked.
“Only me.”
“They are wonderful!”
“Say it again,” I said.
“Perhaps you would show me how.”
I put the pieces back. When I opened the door everyone was there waiting. I showed her our wonderful murderers then, and here Jacques stepped forward and would not be silenced.
“Victor Joly cut up his brides!”
“Oh dear!” whispered Madame Elisabeth.
“Audrée Veron,” said Jacques, filled with his special enthusiasm, “sifter in the dust yards, killed her sister Jacqueline, over something in the mud, over a broken watch. Slit her sister’s throat with a rusted shard of iron.”
“Poor girl,” whispered the princess to me, “to live with such things!”
“This here,” continued Jacques, who having begun could not now be stopped, despite the widow’s troubled looks, �
��Antoine-François Desrues. In a trunk he—”
“Stop! Stop, please stop!” called a member of the entourage.
“To live every day with such monsters,” the princess said, not looking at our dear murderers but regarding my master, the widow, and Jacques.
She told me how she felt for me, how terrible it must have been for such a girl as me to grow up in such a place, with such murderers for company. She left soon afterward. What a visit it was, what a holiday.
I smiled a huge smile, smiled until the door was closed and the bolts pulled across. But then the smile left because here came the retribution. The door of the kitchen was opened again and so was my trunk.
“What’s this?” asked the widow.
“Heads, madame.”
“They’re wrapped in my muslin!”
“I admit I took some muslin, I freely admit it, and more besides. Why may I not? After all, I have never yet been paid for all my labor.”