“Different how?” Masha asked.
“I don’t know, like … quieter? He was reckless before, always getting into scrapes. Now … I don’t know, he seems sort of folded into himself. A great guy, though.”
Masha sat down beside her friend. “I don’t think I’ll ever get the hang of this,” she said.
“Of what?”
“Of being like you. I don’t know how to do it.”
“You’re fine,” said Shelley. “Relax. That’s what’s great about you. You don’t seem like anybody else. I’m all shiny and obvious, but you … you’re a mystery.”
Masha laughed softly, shaking her head.
That morning the three of them went out for breakfast. Masha ordered a cheeseburger. She hadn’t planned to; she just blurted it out. She had never combined meat and dairy before in her life. She tasted the salty meat and cheese on the back of her tongue. It was delicious. I watched proudly as she ate up her guilt, consumed it like a little heart. That was the moment she knew she really wasn’t going home.
31
Early one morning before dawn, I was woken by Le Jumeau’s strident voice echoing in my room. I went to the window and stuck my head out, peering sleepily down into the courtyard. Two harnessed carriages stood on the cobblestones, along with an open cart laden with luggage. Le Jumeau looked up and saw me.
“Hurry up and pack, we’re leaving in half an hour!”
“Where are we going?”
“To Villars, Le Naïf!” He used my new nickname, which had, unfortunately, stuck since the incident with the prostitutes, with exasperation, as if I should have known. Breathlessly, I rubbed my teeth with a scrap of linen, dressed, and packed my few things: aside from the livery I was wearing, I had a set of clothes I had bought secondhand with Solange, at the market in Les Halles. I ran downstairs. Le Jumeau had me climb on top of the tarp covering the luggage, to be sure none of the cases fell off. If it rained, he said in his usual mocking tone, I would get wet.
The cortège set off: inside the first carriage were the count and Le Jumeau. In the second were Solange, Clothilde, and Frechette, a hairdresser who was in charge of the count’s wigs.
I had only been out of Paris once, as a boy, to visit Metz, and I barely remembered it. As we left the gates of the city, horses trotting into the countryside, all was white. Hard frost had sugared the leaves on the ground, the grass, the branches. The pink sky cast a rosy glow on this sparkling confection. Far off, a raft of purple clouds seemed thrice lanced. The brilliant wounds poured three shafts of golden light on the distant hills. A flock of black-faced sheep stared at us through a wash of mist. The wheel of my cart hit a stone with a pop. One sheep started, turned; the flock followed her in perfect sync, scampering off as one. I lay back on a soft leather case, bathing in the cool air. I had never breathed air as pure as this, never seen so much sky. I imagined falling off my luggage cart and careening, untethered, through the clouds.
In the past, reflexively, I would have thanked Hashem for the day. I felt my tongue tense to utter the silent prayer, but I relaxed it. The need had passed. I unwrapped my freedom, marveled at it like a gift.
At noon we stopped at the rim of a great valley. Le Jumeau and I set up a little table and chair on a hillock for the count. Clothilde presented him with a meat pie. I poured him a glass of wine. Solange, meanwhile, set out a cloth on lower ground for the servants to sit on. We sat in a jolly circle as Le Jumeau doled out thick slices of salami. It was the first pork I had ever had. It tasted salty and fat. I completed the sacrilege by chewing on a hunk of cheese forthwith.
“Gebeck!” the count called down. “Sing a song. Something your mother used to sing you.” I shook my head, ashamed, but they all insisted. My cheeks burning, I stood up, sang out a quick Yiddish ditty, then sat down, mortified. The moment I’d finished, as the party was still clapping and hooting their amused approval, Solange stood up and sang out in a harsh, strange language. Strands of her dark hair came loose from her lace bonnet and whipped around her face. When her song was done, she smiled shyly at me, revealing her charmingly narrow, crooked teeth, and said:
“My mother is a Basque.” What a gesture.
Later that afternoon, we passed over a humpbacked bridge into the tiny town of Villars. Barefoot children teemed from every cranny of the village to see the count’s gleaming coat of arms. They had plenty of time to do so; our wide carriages could barely pass through the narrow streets of the town. We inched along like a royal procession. Men stood outside the shops, clutching their hats and bowing their heads in feudal deference to the lord of the village; women curtsied. When we finally reached the town square, the count’s carriage came to a stop. Le Jumeau disembarked, followed by the little count, his habitual scarlet stockings vivid against the wet gray cobblestones. As the hushed townspeople looked on, my master mounted the steps to a bronze statue of Henri IV, faced the crowd, and made a brief, impromptu speech, coating his silly manner in a lordliness so overdone, it would have been perfect in a farce at the Comédie-Italienne. Fluttering his hands till the lace at his wrists shivered, exaggerating his lisp, he said something to the effect of being glad to return to the bosom of his true people. A pretty blond girl in peasant dress walked haltingly up to him and, trembling, laid a bouquet of wildflowers at his feet. Le Jumeau stepped forward, snatched up the bouquet, and handed it to the master, lest the count be seen to stoop and possibly split his pants in the process. At this, the townspeople piped up with a rousing folk song. It was fascinating, but I was uneasy, despite my disguise: a Jew was never safe in towns like these. If anything went wrong—if a child went missing or a rotting animal poisoned a well—these quaint types would lose no time in stringing up the first Hebrew they could find. That’s what I had been told, at any rate.
Built in the fifteenth century, the Château de Villars was a turreted, moat-encircled palace. As we drove up, the staff of the château—over a hundred persons—filed out and stood waiting to greet the master. At the front of the crowd was a barrel-chested man with a proud, ruddy face, wearing a suit of stiff corduroy, his feet encased in a pair of muddy boots. He stood very erect and watched the approaching carriages like a guard dog whose master was returning after a long journey. When the count emerged, the proud man greeted him, then went straight to the next carriage, opening the door for Solange, whom he met with an intimacy I found most disconcerting. Le Jumeau whistled at me to get off my ass. I broke my trance and disembarked, grabbing some luggage. The count was greeting the waiting staff one by one when bodies parted to allow a slender, very beautiful woman to emerge. Flaxen-haired, with a profile so perfect it could have been carved out of ice, she stood looking at the dumpy count with a tense smile. This was the first I knew of the Comtesse de Villars. The count dove at her, kissing her hand. They walked arm in arm toward the château, but, after an exchange of a few words, the couple halted. The comtesse turned, scanning our party. Villars pointed me out. The elegant lady took several steps in my direction, fixing me with a curious, hostile stare. Then she turned, taking up her husband’s arm once more, and they walked toward the castle.
It was my duty to unpack the count’s things and put them away in his room. A high-handed little housemaid directed me in this undertaking. She couldn’t have been older than fifteen, but she treated me as though I were the child, scolding me when I failed to find the glove drawer or installed the count’s beloved ermine muff on the wrong shelf. Her harelip was my only consolation.
I was relieved when Le Jumeau entered, a fur coat over his arm. Small, dark, muscular, his britches inevitably snug, the valet exuded a brutish sexuality that had a universal effect on females. The housemaid giggled the moment he arrived.
“I didn’t know there was a countess,” I said.
“But of course,” said Le Jumeau, handing the pelt to the blushing maid.
“She lives here?” I asked.
“Much of the time,” he said, walking to the door and clicking his tongue at me. Like a dog, I
followed him.
“Are there children?” I whispered as we hurried down the hall.
“No, Le Naïf.” The satyr grinned at me, dark lips curling. His eyes were little black pits of mirth.
The guests began to arrive that afternoon. There were so many of them, I couldn’t keep track of their names. The countess was issuing orders to the servants with imperious calm. I imagined her skin to be cold to the touch. She had a way of raising her chin, cocking her head, and narrowing her eyes as she listened. Yet, surprisingly, she could melt into laughter at some witticism on the part of her guests. This helpless hilarity caused her head to flop over on its stalk, her tense arms to dangle at her sides, the firm flesh of her bosom to be squeezed over the rigid bounds of her corset as she rocked with laughter—until she regained her composure and solidified into marble once more. I found her fascinating and repellent. At one point, to my alarm, she fixed me with her metallic gaze, her eyes the color of pewter.
“Tell the count there will be a game of whist with the Marquis and Marquise de Clermont-Tonnerre in the pink drawing room in half an hour; we would be most pleased if he could join us as a fourth. I believe he is in the library.” I bowed, turned, and walked off blindly, anxious to remove myself. I got lost and increasingly panicked, speeding down a nightmare of hallways, entering door after door, running through rooms that looked familiar yet strange, bursting in on clusters of gleaming aristocrats in the act of playing cards, tinkling clavichords, or stealing kisses, until I wept with frustration. In the end, the count came upon me, in an intimate study adjoining the music room. He had been searching for his snuffbox. He laughed at my distress.
“Gebeck. Are you all right?” he asked. I wiped my eyes.
“I’m sorry, sir,” I said, standing up. “I was lost.”
“Well, now you’ve been found,” he said with gentle mockery, as if to cheer up a child.
“Madame la Comtesse wanted you to know that she invites you to the pink drawing room to play a hand of whist with … with …”
“It doesn’t matter with whom,” said the count, thudding down despondently into a gilded chair and regarding his red stockings, one of which was wrinkling at the ankle. I knelt and straightened it for him, pulling it up tight about his calf.
“I wish I could change places with you, Gebeck, just for this one week.” He sighed.
“You do, sir?” I asked.
“Most emphatically,” he answered.
The next morning at first light, I dressed the sleepy count for his hunting expedition. Woolen undergarments, thick woolen britches, chemise, socks: my master stepped into them all dutifully, like a small boy being outfitted by his nurse.
“You are doing well, Gebeck,” he said, as I did up the buttons on his waistcoat. “I am well pleased.” I looked up from my task. The wide pores of the count’s skin, his fleshy mouth, that hunk of a nose—without being conscious of it, I was constantly lending him other features that seemed to go together better.
“I’m glad, Monsieur le Comte,” I said.
“I would like to give you something,” said the count, his protruding eyes roving around the room. “Ah!” He grabbed the candelabrum at the center of his round table and handed it to me. “Here. It’s quite a valuable piece. Belongs to my wife, but she’ll never notice.” I took the candelabrum in both hands. It was heavy. I examined the intricate porcelain work, the tiny cherubim gamboling on the base, the lifelike flowers winding around the candlesticks.
“Thank you very much,” I said.
“Put it in your room, and then we must be off.”
The party set off after breakfast: ten nobles, dressed in the finest woolens, carrying muskets and little kidskin bags over their shoulders, the servants following close behind. I was one of three valets de chambre to accompany his master. The others were both older men who looked as though the last thing on earth they wanted to be doing at this moment was traipsing through the woods.
The master chatted away to his guests as we walked through the tangle of woodland and into an open field. Solange’s husband, DuBois, walked ahead of us, his back rigid, a clutch of hunting dogs sniffing at his heels. He was giving terse orders to the beaters, bent, stick-wielding men in tweed caps and baggy britches. At a word from DuBois, the beaters thrashed the bushes with their sticks, and a frightened bird blasted itself into the air, only to be shot at by ten muskets simultaneously. When a bird fell, DuBois sent a dog after it. I watched the man for hours as he stalked through the countryside, grimly providing pleasure for the count and his guests.
As the morning progressed, the poor count did not shoot well. His shots were wildly off the mark. All the other guests had at least a brace of partridge each in their hunting pouches. My master had one bird. Eventually his gay chatter petered out and he fell back from the group, dragging his musket dejectedly along the thawed ground. He didn’t even bother to raise his gun when a spray of partridge erupted into the air in front of him. DuBois knew the count wasn’t hitting anything, yet he continued marching along, ordering the beaters and the dogs about, and keeping a careful tally of each guest’s kill in a small notebook. Cruelty nestled in the rectitude of the man’s corduroy; I knew it. Poor Solange. At noon, the party disbanded. The count muttered something about work he needed to do and walked into the gardens, while the others returned to the château to dress for lunch. I followed the count, taking his musket from his limp fingers.
Dejected, he walked some distance without even acknowledging my presence, yet he expected me to follow him. I knew he needed me. He sat on a bench by one of the rectangular ponds, staring into the water listlessly. I stood by his side, watching him. After a long moment my young master’s gaze quickened. He stiffened like a bird dog, staring into the pond, and stood up very quietly, gesturing urgently for me to hand him his gun. Aiming, I soon realized, at one of the large carp that lazed at the bottom of that shallow pool, he blasted it to pieces. Then he handed the gun back to me, saying, “I’ll wear the chestnut silk for lunch.” And off he tromped toward the castle, as the golden corpse of the bleeding fish tumbled up to the surface of the pool.
At lunch, as Le Jumeau and I joined the other servants bustling about bringing in new dishes and pouring wine, I noticed Monsieur Cabanis, the desiccated man I had met on my first morning out of prison, watching me gravely from his seat beside the countess. My service was, by now, impeccable. I was a natural mimic, and acted the part of a servant to perfection. Over the course of the meal the count sent me out for his snuff, and then again for his tobacco. Each time I returned, I felt Cabanis’s eyes on me. The count, taking the requested object from my hands, seemed to be checking on the other man’s reaction to my service. I was relieved when, at last, the guests stood up.
“Gebeck,” said the count, “follow us please.”
I followed the count and the shriveled Cabanis to the count’s study, where they both sat down.
“May I bring you some brandy?” I asked.
“Later,” said the count. “For now I want you to show Monsieur Cabanis some of what I have taught you. I am proud of my achievement.” I looked over at Cabanis. His wig was very dark, and curled along the front, with two pointed braids trailing down his back. He seemed like a vain, serious person. From his inside jacket pocket he produced a sheet of paper, clamping it between the tips of his fore- and middle fingers.
“Please translate into French,” he said, stretching his arm out and handing it to me. It was Latin. I recognized it as the work of the poet Virgil. I sat down and translated as best I could. This took me over half an hour, I believe. In all that time, neither man said a word. The only sound was the scratching of my quill on the paper.
“There are some words I do not recognize,” I said.
Cabanis took the paper from me and read, then looked over at my master, nodding. He then asked me questions about Aristotle. Voltaire. Diderot. I did my best to answer. Then, he turned to my master. “And the habits, the rituals?”
“Go
ne. You have my word.”
Cabanis thought this through for a few seconds. “The final act,” he said. “Nothing until that is accomplished.”
“In time,” said the count. Then, turning to me, he said pleasantly, “Monsieur Cabanis has been kind enough to advise me on your education, stage by stage. He is a man of letters, far better qualified than I to devise a curriculum. But I insist that such a radical reorganization of a person’s mind takes time. Now. Go on. Take the rest of the day for yourself.”
I spent the afternoon in the kitchen, watching Solange add up the week’s purchases in a large ledger, sipping coffee with milk.
“What’s the matter, Johann?” she asked me. “You look so mopey.”
“Is he good to you, your husband?”
“What kind of a question is that?”
“The personal kind,” I said.
She pushed a plate of cakes toward me. “Eat,” she said.
“Why is that your solution to everything?” I asked, piqued.
“It’s not the solution to everything. Only to nosy little boys who say things they shouldn’t.”
“I can’t help it if I care about you,” I said. “I—I love you.”
Solange looked at me, astonished at my clumsy outburst. I had the terrible feeling she might be about to laugh.
“Oh, sweet boy,” she said.
“I am not a boy,” I said. “Not that you care, or have ever asked, but I’m married. Was—married. I am a man.”
“What happened to your wife?” she asked earnestly.
“I have no idea, and I don’t care,” I said. “I only mention her because you all insist on calling me Le Naïf and treating me like a child, when I was once the head of a household!”
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