cease and desist

by stephen david hurley

  J,

  It says June 28, 1914, it says BLACK HAND…it’s a drawing. No, what looks like a map. What does it mean?

  C,

  It’s the route the motorcade took on the morning Ferdinand was assassinated. The anarchists known as the Black Hand had assembled secretly along the parade route. Gavrilo Princip, the ringleader, hears his co-conspirators have failed and leaves the motorcade route to get a sandwich. The archduke now has a bodyguard standing on the running-board of the car. He continues along the route. But look, there’s a boy in the crowd. It’s Helmut being hoisted onto the shoulders of his father. Ferdinand’s sitting beside his wife, Sophie, who orders the driver to slow to greet the boy and his father. The driver’s confused and takes a wrong turn, only to stop right in front of the delicatessen where Gavrilo has just finished his sandwich. The assassin shoots. Ferdinand is killed. The world is plunged into the First World War. So, does history remember Helmut?

  J,

  I don’t know. But are you telling me that this gift Helmut inherited was used to kill someone? What’s good about that?

  C,

  I don’t know. Only God knows the answer to that. Part of growing up is realizing you can’t figure life out, no matter how hard you try. The world is simply too complex…all those invisible hands moving ropes and levers backstage (you got a glimpse of them in your free-fall from the crane that nearly killed you).

  Turn back the pages to the year 1813; find Annabelle, a girl of fourteen; she’s not paying attention one morning, admiring her yellow shoes through the low tendrils of fog; she turns a corner, bumps into a boy in a red coat who tips his tri-color, and she feels all the passion you felt today with Craig. They get married, have a child, and name him Roderick. Do you see him? He’s your great-grandfather many times over. Had they not met, you wouldn’t be here, Cease. Do you know the reason they met? No. And I don’t want you to find one—that’s what James did. You can’t find God with a map. Do you remember that line from his suicide note? You found it in your script. Your brother went crazy trying to find why. Where he failed, you have a chance to succeed. But you won’t until you see where this gift you got came from.

  J,

  What should I do?

  C,

  Be yourself. Remember what happened on the last night of your brother’s life? Let go of all the drama and focus on what he was trying to get you to see. He showed you something he’d found in the pages of your bloodline.

  Trust your senses, too…those doors and windows you’ve kept locked up to keep from being hurt. Trust that I’m there by your side because I know remembering will be hard to do… Go back to that night with your brother, and maybe you’ll see what you missed.

  J,

  Why did you confess before they killed you? Why did you give an auto-da-fe? All those clerics…all those men were pigs…you were all alone. Why?

  C,

  I wasn’t alone, Cease. I won’t tell you who was by my side, or what it felt like. I think that will only make you angry. You’ve got every reason to hate God for what happened to you and your best friend in this life. Stephanie and Eve will try to kill you tomorrow. No invisible hand will be able to save you. Do you want to go on with it? Why?

  J,

  It is my fate.

  C,

  No. You’ve been duped by fate. The Greeks got fate all wrong, trust me. You’re not Jocasta and you’re not Juliet. You idolized James and you blame yourself for what happened to him, but part of growing up is realizing that the ones we love aren’t gods. He was human. He had his own problems.

  J,

  I hurt him, and not just in some dark, fucked-up way like our mother had done.

  I hurt him with my fists. Is that what you want me to share with ten million people tomorrow?

  C,

  No, Cease. But you need to share some of the things you talked about—what James told you about the kind of love you feel when you lose someone close to you. That’s what your audience really needs to hear. You think James sacrificed himself so you could be here, so you could be famous. That’s why you made all those phony promises over his coffin. That’s a dramatic choice, the kind of choice an actress would make in Hollywood, but it just isn’t true. And it’s not the kind of speech your fans need to hear right now.

  J,

  So why don’t we stop the whole thing right now? If you can’t, I will. I’ll call the

  DA’s office. Tell him that sex scene with Craig was real. I’ll just quit.

  C,

  It wouldn’t matter. You’d have to get the rest of the cast to quit, too. You’d have to get Francis to quit. And even without a director and a cast, with the kind of popularity this hit has generated there’ll just be another Francis waiting in the wings. I won’t lie to you. You’re a lot more important than you realize. In real life—not as me, but as yourself.

  J,

  What do I have to do?

  C,

  They’re here with the rules of the final round. Try to remember what James said about your cousins Avril and Etienne.

  The doorbell rings. A tall man with a clipboard hands me a packet. Beside him is a young production assistant with a hand-held camera. It’s probably a live feed to the audience. But none of it scares me anymore.

  I feel Nina’s eyes on me as I lay the scene out on the coffee table. She feels it too, that Francis is no longer in control. I shrug. She nods as she studies the scene.

  The writers have anticipated every scenario; the speech I give standing over Susan’s dead body; the speech I give begging Great Cate for mercy; the speech I give after Craig fucks me for all the world to see… as I turn the pages I find one entitled Coup de Grace for Jeanne d’Arc. Speech for Cease de Menich if she survives as a runner-up.

  “You think with all the money Francis spends on nailing the historical accuracy of these characters, he could at least find a good translator.” I let out a condescending sigh. “Someone who knows the French language.” I point at the phrase Coup de Grace. Francis thinks Jeanne’s death was some kind of mercy killing. That’s what coup de grace means, as if she’d been beaten down so much they were doing her a favor.” I scoff, wait for Nina to scoff.

  She shakes her head. “Glad to see he finally got something right.”

  “What? But…she…”

  “You read her history, Cease. She was captured in battle, taken to a tower in Rouen and chained to a wall while they tormented her. They starved her. They dragged her family down from the Loire Valley to witness a trumped-up trial for their own child as a witch and a heretic. Jeanne must have been relieved to have it all finally end.” Nina turns to me. “You’re afraid of that line for a reason, my precious. And it’s not because of what they did to Jeanne d’Arc.”

  “No. I’m not.”

  “Mercy killing,” she says slowly, challenging me the way Stephanie would. “As if you just can’t bring yourself to watch someone you love suffer another day.”

  Nina’s looking at me expectantly—no, not just expectantly, accusingly—as I turn back from the window and face her. I feel the shift, not too sudden or dramatic, not the way an actor makes a transition on stage; just a slow revolution that tells me I’m coming around…the right direction…I recognize the battlefield all those girls and boys who wrote me are trapped in…

  The grandfather clock strikes the hour. The sun has left the cloister’s walls. The storm the forecaster predicted has blanketed the cloister in a few inches of snow. The Greenbergs’ daughter down below in the courtyard is playing hide-and-seek with her dachshund.

  “They sent nuns to her cell who took off Jeanne’s clothes and checked to see if she was still a virgin. Do you remember reading that?” Nina asks, her eyes narrowing.

  I nod.

  “They must’ve probed her, maybe used some God-awful instrument. Can you imagine how it must’ve felt to have people you were supposed to love and trust do something like that?”

  “That’s disgusting—” I spit out th
e words.

  “And you think our world is any better?” Nina continues. “Just look at all those pictures they show…all the viewers back home who’ll be waiting for you to take off your top…to pick up a knife or whatever god awful weapon you get…” Nina stops when she sees the hurt on my face. I’m remembering my brother crying on his bed after what the Van der Ebbs did to him.

  “So what’s she like, this Catherine the Great?” she asks, coldly.

  “She’s the whole package. Deerfield. Yale. Broadway.”

  “You’re not exactly a wilting fleur-de-lis.”

  “Yes.” I shrug. “This isn’t about being the last girl standing anymore.”

  “I didn’t think it ever was,” Nina says. We both turn to the prie-dieu. I wonder what really goes on in my Nina’s head when she prays.

  “What happens to Stephanie when things don’t go as planned?” Nina asks.

  “I don’t know. She doesn’t get upset when things break down off-screen. That’s why they call her the ice princess.”

  “She’s got a flaw,” Nina insists. “Find the flaw and you find the character.”

  Nina’s quoting from a lesson I learned at Juilliard. I picture Stephanie, crouched with her crossbow—that look, like a flash of lightning, that flitted across her face after she narrowly missed the bull’s-eye; as if a sudden squall had upset a perfectly calm day.

  I know that look. I’d seen it before; felt it before. It wasn’t anger. It was rage; a cold, nearly irrepressible rage.

  “Nina—she’s got a lot of pride…”

  “You’ve studied the classics, young lady; what does pride mean?” Nina’s suddenly morphed into the role of a demanding teacher. The kindly grand dame has left the building. I welcome the transition. She reads from the rules attached to the final round scenarios: “Contestant must recite lines verbatim. Contestant will forfeit two minutes ad-lib time at the end of each scene if he/she misses cues or fails to recite lines; those two minutes will be turned over to the opposing player.” I raise my finger to my lip, brush the beads of sweat on my upper lip.

  “Pride is hubris,” I reply, “and that’s a tragic flaw that caused mortals to think they were gods.”

  Nina nods. I nod. But I’ve no idea how this is going to help me beat Catherine the Great. I pull out a chair from the dining-room table and we each take a seat.

  “The cameras will be hidden, so be careful, my princess.”

  I fight off the memory of Craig’s embrace—and the flat screen that filmed us.

  James on the bed crying as he forced me to watch the tape Phil had secretly made.

  “What would you say to James if he were standing here, right now?” She levels a steely gaze I’ve never seen before. She points to the center of the Oriental carpet. I feel the eerie calm I felt last night as I tried to understand what kind of speech I could give that would make people really understand why I over all the others was chosen for this role. I rise and slowly walk over to the center of the oriental beneath the chandelier.

  “I’d tell him that I love him. I’d tell him that I’m sorry about what happened.”

  Nina says nothing. I can tell I’ve disappointed her.

  History’s Superheroes will go live in 9 hours. Who will be the first to fall in love? Who will take the podium?

  Who will be the first to have sex for all the world to see? Who will be the first to die? That’s what you’re really asking, isn’t it Francis?

  The countdown clock is posted on every major news and entertainment site that Nina and I search. I don’t feel scared. Nina is another story. She walks oval circles around the oriental as she interrogates me.

  “What kind of deal did Catherine try to strike with you?”

  “She said that if I let her have Craig, she’d let our battle end in a draw. But that was before Francis decided to go live.” Nina pushes her pince-nez up the bridge of her nose. “Stephanie thinks God’s on her side. That’s the nature of pride-filled people.” I wish Nina would stop talking about God, and then I stop and have a Big Adult Thought:

  The reason I feel this way is because I thought God was a mean SOB like Francis…but that’s not God, at least, not the God Jeanne introduced me to.

  My chest tightens and I see my mother’s face just before she turns the wheel. I’ve been trying to decipher the look on her face since that moment I woke up in the hospital.

  “Nina, what can I do? I’m afraid of her.”

  “That’s because she reminds you of someone,” Nina replies. “And until you see that you’ll never be free.”

  I close my eyes, remember that flash of anger that flitted across Stephanie’s face when she missed her mark. It was deeper than anger. I’d seen it on my mother’s face as she turned the wheel into oncoming traffic. Rage, yes. But it was more than that, too. No it isn’t just rage, it’s more focused than rage; lasers shooting out of her eyes, the kind of look a woman gets when she catches a man cheating on her. It isn’t rage. It’s scorn.

  “Nina. I think I know Stephanie’s flaw—her problem is that she’s never had anything really bad happen to her; she’s never been abused, never failed at anything, either—she doesn’t see how dangerous the game can become.” I look up to the chandelier and feel triumphant.

  “I know something she doesn’t know,” I exclaim. But then I remember the speech sitting in my in-box. “Nina. I got one of the speeches Stephanie might get tomorrow. I know it wasn’t by accident. It’s about what I did to James. Francis isn’t even trying to hide it in the storyline.” Nina scoffs, shakes her head. “And the social worker got hold of the coroner’s shots of James,” I add.

  She grips my shoulders, pulls me in. “You can’t control what sick things may be in store. You can’t control what Stephanie or Craig might do. But you can control your character. Jeanne wants you to share your secrets with the world. When you do, all the self-pity you associate with her will fall away and everyone will see how strong you really are. This is the nature of tragedy.” She takes my hand and looks deeply into my eyes. Beneath all the fear and fatigue I can still see her tireless devotion. “Remember when Jeanne was taken prisoner and given a tour of the torture chamber by order of the clergy?”

  “Yes.”

  Nina’s behind me now, her hand gently pressing against my back, as if with just the right combination of words she can unlock the bolt of grief that’s been locked in my chest since the funeral.

  I see the stone steps of the castle, the way I had when I was writing her, asking about her confession. All the wrought-iron instruments of torture—being strapped down on a slab and watching that wheel overhead turn, and my limbs slowly being pulled…

  “I’ve got it, Nina. Now what?”

  “Tell me, Cease. What do you think James was really trying to tell you on the last night?”

  “You mean behind the drama, behind all the crap I thought was the reason I was chosen, the reason I had to win. Wait.” I rush to my room and pick up the volume on top of my bed. I turn to the blue-ribbon bookmark James found and Jeanne reminded me of in her email.

  A family. A normal family—his scribblings in the margin. It makes no sense; like all that crazy unconnected shit James would pick off the ground in his wild sojourns over the city, stuff he’d dump on my bed and then try to arrange as if he were some wizard trying to see the future.

  “Here.” I point to the family in the middle of the page. “The other de Meniches. Dominique, the mother. Avril and Etienne. James kept repeating their names after I put him to bed, after I got the ice pack for his head and put him to bed.”

  Nina slowly takes the book. “You remember what I said about Dominique, my precious?”

  “Avril and Étienne were her kids. Settled in the Dakota,” I recite.

  “I loved Dominique,” Nina continues. “She took care of me when I was a little girl in Paris. But our sister, your mother…” Nina stops, looks carefully at me. “My sister was the youngest in the family and she wanted control over every
thing. At first, I assumed it was just a case of sibling rivalry, but then Nevre started talking all this nonsense about how she was destined by birth to become a famous actress. I didn’t know the secrets of our bloodline then, but before she picked up and went west, she started going over to the Dakota to visit Dominique and her kids, and she always took James, who was only about six years old at the time. Nevre kept saying she wanted him to know his family, but I got a different story from Dominique. She told me Nevre was doing strange things to Avril and Etienne; watching them together, trying to join in the games that they played.” Nina pats her thighs with her knobby hands. “It wasn’t until later that I realized, your mother had become convinced that she’d inherited this strange gift that skips generations.”

  I look out the window to the swirl of fresh snow and see myself back in California, looking out the window of my room beyond the swirl of dust to a picnic table where mother and James were rehearsing; that’s what she called it when I went out and tried to join them. James was wearing a toga and that was about it; he was completely naked under a sheet she’d just pulled off the clothesline out back. I didn’t know what play they were rehearsing, but it sure didn’t have a part for a little girl.

  I shut my eyes in horror.

  “Why did she ever think that?”

  “I don’t know exactly,” Nina says, “but after studying Dominique’s kids she became convinced they didn’t have it.” She doesn’t have to explain what it was. It was the gift that everyone bound for the stage or the screen wished for; that magic I thought was just a game that came from loving a boy who saved me and taught me the secrets to standing up for myself.

  I look back out to the snow and try to banish the memory of our last night together—James on the bed, telling me I’d become famous playing a virgin; me laughing because even at a tender age I knew no one gets famous playing a virgin in this business. I’d just come back from an audition with a strange director named Francis MacDonald for what he called a “reality-drama.”