Betrayed

by Lynn Carthage

  Phoebe’s mum looks pale. I can tell she’s about to leave the tour and resume her walk with Tabby, but another woman on the tour, wearing a black and red chevron-striped dress, asks the guide a question.

  “We’ve heard the legend about the woman whose lover dug her up,” she says. “Can you tell us about that?”

  The nun pauses. “It is possibly apocryphal,” she says. “One of those stories that arises out of the genuine tragedy and seems to illustrate it better than the tragedy itself.”

  “So it’s true?”

  Phoebe and I look at each other, and I snort.

  “We don’t know,” says the nun gently. “But here is the story that has come to us through the years. A manservant who was truly devoted to his mistress tracked the tumbrel of bodies here and took note of where she was buried with the others. He waited until darkness fell, then dug her up.”

  “What about her head?” asks the tourist, an American, judging by her accent.

  “He was able to locate it. As the story goes, he fastened it to her neck and stitched it on.”

  The entire group gives a gasp of shock, but with an underlayer of something gleeful for the morbid value of the tale.

  I’m suddenly immersed in the thought of a woman who lost her life to the guillotine and lay underground for hours with other seeping, chilling bodies, and was somehow later brought back to life. What did it feel like as the servant stitched? Did she feel the pain? Was she numb, then filled with a rush of agonized nerve endings coming awake? As she walked again, upright after the forced, facedown recline on the guillotine, did her hands steal to her neck to feel the limits of that horrible circular gouge?

  I shudder.

  “He must’ve really been in love,” says Phoebe.

  I look at her, a faint dusting of freckles on her nose, and her lips full and inviting. “That’s a pretty intense kind of love,” I comment.

  “And wouldn’t it suck if she didn’t like him?”

  I burst out laughing. “Only you, Phoebe. Only you could come up with that.”

  “And so, after that, she continued to live?” asks the tourist.

  “Impossible,” the nun says firmly. “Only Christ can reanimate the dead.”

  Silence falls.

  “It’s just a legend,” says the tourist.

  “I think that’s what I said to you when you told me about Madame Arnaud,” Phoebe whispers. “And that turned out to be pretty goddamn true.”

  The next day, the family packs up to take the train to Versailles, the former French palace where three kings named Louis once lived. It’s really the point of the whole trip. Phoebe’s house, the Arnaud Manor in England, is based on Versailles and they want to look at the original to help fuel ideas for the manor’s restoration. The Arnaud Manor is a wreck. Only a madman would live there, but her family seems bent on doing it up. If it were me, I’d let it go, but Phoebe’s mum in particular really wants the project—something for her to focus on.

  Of course, I don’t have much to bring, but I hover around and watch the flurry of action required to get a toddler from point A to point B. Eleanor’s in a good mood; she liked seeing the prison where Marie-Antoinette passed her last days. “There were dummies lying on the ground to look like prisoners,” she tells me and Phoebe. “They had to pay for their own straw to lie on, and if they had no money, they lay right on the stones.”

  “France is kind of morbid,” observes Phoebe.

  “The whole continent,” I say. “You spanking-new Americans think the world started in 1776. You forget there has to be an evolution of compassion. The Dark Ages were dark, and the Revolution followed on its heels.”

  “We had a dark period,” says Phoebe. “Ever heard of slavery?”

  “No,” I say. “Could you explain?”

  Phoebe hits me, but Eleanor looks curious. “We never heard about what was happening overseas. I don’t think Madame Arnaud had much of an interest in the colonies.”

  Phoebe’s about to tell Eleanor about the slave times in early America, but the family’s out the door and we rush to catch up. They check out of the hotel and make their way to the Métro. I’m impressed by how easily this family navigates the streets of Paris. Steven has a carnet of tickets that covers everyone, and soon we watch the tree-lined countryside during our hour-long train trip toward the palace where kings lived in such vulgar opulence that after a few centuries the populace rioted. And, as they say, heads rolled.

  During the train ride, Steven pulls yet another book from his messenger bag, but this one isn’t a glossy guidebook of the sites. It’s a black volume, very old, with a leather cover with stamped golden floral designs. It looks like the kind of book that should be called a tome.

  “What is that, Steven?” asks Phoebe’s mother.

  “I pulled it from the library—I mean, our library, the estate library—before we left. It looked interesting, so I thought I’d bring it.”

  “But it’s so old, won’t you damage it carrying it around?”

  “It’s ours. And I’ll be careful.”

  “So what is it?”

  “A book about secret societies,” he says. “I shall rub my hands together with glee as I finally learn what on earth is going on with the Masons.”

  She laughs. “Oh, Steven, you haven’t heard about the Internet? I thought you ran a web-based company!”

  “Touché,” he says. “It didn’t seem fair to just Google it.”

  “All right, well, share any juicy bits with me,” she says, leaning her head back in her seat.

  “Don’t close your eyes yet,” he says. “Let me do the open-book-and-stab thing.”

  He opens the volume at random, and the pages look like they could crumble with a heavy page turn. The letters are small and embossed deeply, and a menagerie of wild-eyed beasts crawls the margins, rudimentary lions showing their teeth, and monkeys, and things I don’t think exist.

  “That’s a creepy book,” says Phoebe.

  “Let me,” says her mum, and she grins as she arbitrarily points her finger to a paragraph on the left-hand page.

  “Oh dear, not too interesting,” Steven says, skimming quickly, his eyes moving back and forth. “This is a society that worshipped a particular boulder in Scotland.”

  “For how long?” she asks. “I would think that would quickly prove unpromising.”

  “It was established in the fourth century, but who knows if they’re still around,” says Steven.

  “I found a pebble once that seemed wise,” I say.

  “Why am I not surprised?” says Phoebe.

  “All right, we’ll try again,” says Steven. He gently closes the book and opens it to another page, his finger pointing to the right-hand side.

  “Aha!” he says after he reads for a few minutes. “This is better. I’m in the middle of a prophecy.”

  “Oh, I love those,” says Phoebe’s mum. “Read it.”

  “But it’s all in Old English. I’ll have to bluff my way through it. ‘On a stronde the king doth slumber, and below the mede the dragon bataille the wicked brike with bisemare from yon damosel—’ ”

  “That one could’ve come true already and we wouldn’t even know it!” says Phoebe’s mum.

  “ ‘—and the goodnesse undonne for she who bitrayseth. But an thee seche they of the ilke lykenes and lygnage, for a long tyme abide thee to come thereby the thre wyghts’—I’m just making it up here pronunciation-wise,” says Steven.

  “I’m good now; you can stop,” says Phoebe’s mum.

  “It might as well be in Russian,” Phoebe says.

  “Is there anything in there about secret societies in Grenshire? That’d be fun,” Phoebe’s mum says.

  He opens the book to the back. “There’s no index.”

  I look over his shoulder. Too bad. That might be very helpful information, beyond helpful, really.

  He continues reading out snippets from the book until even I lose interest and stare out the window. It turns out some
times secrets are only interesting to those who hold them.

  The station is in the small village of Versailles, and we pull in to see lines of tired people waiting to board the train; they must have spent the night after their long day of sightseeing. The village is just another French town. You can’t see the palace from the station. We get off the train and Phoebe’s mum buys a fizzy drink from a vending machine. She drops a single euro coin and it rolls under the machine. Tabby lies flat on the ground before anyone can stop her to extend her little arm underneath to retrieve it.

  “Gross, Tabby!” says Phoebe.

  “Thank you, sweetie,” says her mum, hugging Tabby when she stands, presenting the coin proudly. She wipes invisible public-space germs off both of them afterward as Steven stands there, smiling.

  The family checks into their small boutique hotel, placing their bags on a faux Louis XIV dresser. Phoebe’s mum takes Tabby into the bathroom while Steven and Eleanor look out one window at the unassuming view and Phoebe and I look out the other. It’s a nice day, with the kind of hefty clouds painters love. We see a quiet street with other homes and a couple walking their bikes next to each other so they can chat without the wind taking their words. It’s nowhere near as noisy as Paris was.

  Phoebe’s mum comes out for her purse, brushes her own and Tabby’s hair, and reapplies lip gloss. “Ready to go?” she asks.

  At Tabby’s insistence, we take the rickety, glacially slow elevator down to the lobby although it’s faster to take the stairs. She likes the cagelike effect when the metal grille gets pulled across the door. Then we’re back in the sunshine, making our way on foot to the palace itself, thronged with people from all nations. It takes about ten minutes to start to see a sudden swarm of people and the palace rising up ornately. It seems everyone arrives from the train, and our detour to the hotel means that they all beat us here. The lines to enter are massive, and I hear Phoebe’s mum groan. They snake around, hundreds of people taking photos while they wait.

  The chateau’s exterior is enormous, almost impossible to describe, and I watch Phoebe’s dad try without luck to get its entirety into his camera viewfinder. He takes a picture of his wife and Tabby and about half of the hulking structure. Like the Arnaud Manor, it’s shaped as if one side of a rectangle is missing, stretching long in the main body, with two wings that flank it on either side. It’s luxurious in its large windows and grand architecture. Gold glints, even at the exterior, which is prey to weather. Looking up, I see a row of statues at the roofline, former kings wearing their chain mail and swords, with squat crowns perched on their heads.

  I remember this, the monumental black and gold gates guarding the front cobblestoned courtyard. I can recall my mum’s coo of amazement. I stand for a minute in the memory: my father—who hates crowds—walking with his shoulders up around his ears while Mum twirled around a bit like a princess in a movie to see all sides of the vista presented for her enjoyment.

  “Okay?” asks Phoebe.

  She must see the pain on my face; I’ve never been good at hiding my emotions.

  “I’ll be fine,” I say.

  “What is it?” asks Eleanor. Her good, strong face is instantly concerned for me. Sometimes I worry she has feelings for me; a few times a hug with her has turned a little too intense.

  “I was here before with my parents,” I say simply, and she nods compassionately.

  “I’m so sorry. I do remember you saying that.”

  I look again toward the courtyard and my parents aren’t there: no beloved humping of shoulders from discomfort, no girlish twirling. It’s just hundreds of strangers who trample the courtyard, brought here by the chance to see golden interiors, French finery, velvets and brocades—and the place where one family pushed it too far.

  History marches on. Touring Versailles can be done in one day, but hurriedly. Phoebe’s parents are smart; they’ve decided to tour the grounds today and come back tomorrow for the palace interior.

  At the side yard—if you can use the word yard to describe literal acreage—we tour the Orangerie, where the exotic orange trees were planted in a parterre, a totally artificial garden form. I notice, as I always do, the ghosts. They always seem so caught up in their own repetitious behavior. I’m not sure who else they’re aware of. If they bothered to look around, would they wave at me? Coo at Tabby in her buggy?

  “We could do this, couldn’t we?” asks Phoebe’s mum, pointing to young orange trees in boxes and the swirl of grass cut in floral patterns.

  Steven smiles. “So long as we have a good measuring tape to keep all the lines straight,” he says. He takes a bunch of photographs of the elevated beds in their intricate patterns.

  As we walk around, he regularly reads aloud from the guidebook, which probably would’ve driven me crazy if it were my dad, but somehow it’s okay when someone else’s does it.

  The Grand Canal stretches its wide ribbon of water. In the reign of Louis XIV, Phoebe’s stepdad informs us, naval “battles” were staged here with cannon fire and ships literally sinking as the nobles, heady on wine and bonbons, cheered and laughed.

  The canal is deep and man-made, its edges pristine concrete trimmed to perfection. “I’d love to swim laps here,” says Phoebe. “You’d never have to turn at the end of the lane. The lane just . . . goes on.”

  Along the canal, statues are placed at regular intervals, like the ones in the backyard of the Arnaud Manor. Goddesses planning their next dalliance with humans, young men with muscular legs and laurel wreaths in their hair. They are each different but brought into compliance by standing atop duplicate stone podiums. Everything at Versailles falls into line: there is strict attention to detail here. No plant can flourish unpruned, no tree can simply grow—it has to be adjusted to grow a certain way, to match the other trees.

  “Here’s a good anecdote,” says Phoebe’s stepdad, one finger in the guidebook keeping his place as he reads aloud. “ ‘The king would stroll through, and upon his return an hour later expect a completely different configuration of flora, which servants would work feverishly to make come true, digging out old flowers and hurriedly embedding new ones already in bloom.’ ”

  “Busywork,” says Phoebe’s mum. “Quite the honey-do list.”

  There are outdoor “rooms” off the main walkway, set off by thick hedges. In one of these, Phoebe’s family pauses. We’re surrounded by an arcade of trellised flowers, and in the center of the private area—for once, we have lost the other tourists and have this space to ourselves—is the gigantic statue of a man, or half a man, really, struggling to emerge from the ground.

  It’s shocking, this sculpture: his face is twisted in distress, his beard a sinuous uncoiling mass that shows how much he moves, wrestles, struggles. He is clawing his way out of the earth.

  “It’s the giant Enceladus,” Phoebe’s stepdad informs us, quickly reading. “He was buried by a mountain brought down upon him, and this sculpture shows him struggling to the surface.”

  “Good Lord,” says Eleanor. “Whoever would bring a mountain down upon a giant?”

  “Maybe another giant?” asks Phoebe.

  “Wonder what he did to deserve it,” I say. I look at his face: Was he truly a victim? Or was he the recipient of a blow he deserved? Eleanor lingers to look at the statue, bending down to examine it across the water of its moat until she is almost hidden from view.

  I notice Phoebe’s family has left the grove, so Phoebe and I start to follow them.

  “Eleanor, we’re leaving!” I call. Then something makes me blink.

  The very air seems to change.

  It’s like the light gets brighter . . . or is it dimmer? It’s wavering. The light falters and then stills.

  I see a woman ahead of us in a vintage gown. Her elaborate silver skirts extend straight out from her hips as far as her arms would be able to stretch, before they take the corner to fall to the ground. Her dark hair is in one of those absurd up-sweeps that tower far above her head. She strolls with
a man in equally lavish breeches with golden embroidery and a white shirt with dangling sleeves. They’re clearly historical reenactors roaming the grounds. We can’t see their faces from behind.

  “Etienne, mon chéri,” she says to him, and leans her head back for a long, lingering kiss from him. It lingers so much they stop walking and face each other. It’s then that I get a good look at her profile, as does Phoebe.

  Holy crap.

  It’s Madame Arnaud.

  I thought we killed her.

  Phoebe throws herself into my arms. “Oh my God,” she says. Frantically, I pull her backward, and we huddle near the arcade. There’s no escape route except the one they block. I crane around to look for Eleanor but don’t see her. We can’t do anything except hide and wait for them to leave.

  Phoebe shakes, holding my hand tightly.

  Please don’t let them see us.

  The woman smiles at her lover. She and Etienne nibble at each other with the slowness of lovers who don’t know they’re being watched.

  “But we killed her,” Phoebe says, her voice breathy and terrified.

  I try to understand what I see.

  “I wonder . . .” I whisper, “. . . if it’s her ghost, playing out the happy days of her youth.”

  “But they’re not filmy,” she protests.

  She’s right. They’re solid-looking people, such that I had originally thought them actors. There’s nothing transparent about them at all.

  The woman’s long neck is reminiscent of one I already admire, slender and graceful, and she gives the man kisses I, too, would like to receive. She’s a dead ringer for Phoebe—Phoebe with dark coloring rather than her auburn hair. It’s Madame Arnaud, before she became evil. She’s just a contented woman in a beautiful gown on a sunny day with her lover. No one would ever guess, looking at her now, the horrible acts she was capable of.

  Etienne’s hands span Madame Arnaud’s waist and begin to creep up her bodice. How far will these lovers go, not knowing their display is forever recorded for those who can see them? He walks her backward to the arcade a few feet away from us and tilts his head down for an extended kiss. I can almost see her legs collapse under her, through the voluminous skirts.