by Samira Ahmed
I could be wrong. Perhaps after all these years, the world needs your story. You couldn’t—wouldn’t—share it in your time, but maybe I’m meant to share your words in mine. Isn’t that how history works? Isn’t that how we learn? This is one thing women can do for one another—amplify the voices of our sisters that were silenced because the world told them their stories didn’t matter. Maybe it’s my job to make some space on the shelves for your story, Leila, because you deserve to be the protagonist in your own life. Every girl deserves to be. If you’d lived in a different time, you could have made a different choice because you would have had more fates to choose from, because you would have had a choice at all.
Maybe you never imagined that your life could change the world, but it’s already changed mine. Thank you for the gift of your story.
Love,
Khayyam
I stare at my screen and save the letter in my drafts. Men tried to make Leila’s story their own for her entire life. I won’t let them own her legacy, too. Dammit. I have to go to the Château.
It was almost too easy to get here. It should’ve been an epic journey—a quest where I battled beasts or villains to find a treasure. But it was a train ride. A swipe of an RER ticket. Maybe I didn’t need to fight monsters to get here, I only needed to fight myself to come face-to-face with the tall, wrought-iron gates of the Château de Monte-Cristo.
They’re locked.
A sign reads: fermé lundi. Closed Mondays.
This isn’t dramatic as much as totally absentminded on my part—a lot of French museums are closed on Mondays. Should’ve googled it.
Sigh.
I take out my phone and text Alexandre: I’m outside the gates. He’ll understand. Of course he will. Since he’s a member of the there are no rules, only suggestions school of life, I’m sure he figured out some way to charm or parkour his way into the museum.
A moment later, he’s ambling down the wide gravel path, a white hoodie pulled up over his head, slightly obscuring his expression.
“Did you break in here, too?” I ask, trying to cut the tension with the kind of small talk perfected by dads the world over. Wow. I’m only one step removed from the classic Chicago conversation starters: How ’bout them Cubs (or, Sox, depending on the neighborhood)? Or, can you believe this weather?
“No.” Alexandre tries to muster a smile as he approaches the iron bars. “My family can come and go as we please. It’s in the charter agreement with the Foundation.”
“Of course it is.” I manage a small smile in return.
He steps closer, grasping one of the poles separating us. “I’m sorry for the horrible things I said yesterday. I was only thinking about my family—and this place,” he says, gesturing to the grounds behind him. “I didn’t consider your feelings. Didn’t want to acknowledge that you were right to question what we’re doing.”
I step closer to the gate and wrap my hands on the bars right below his. I’m still on the outside, but I want him to let me in. “I get it. I do feel protective of Leila, but I guess I also feel protective of me. Honestly, I’m not sure how to trust you.”
Alexandre recoils when I say this. I don’t want to hurt him, but I can’t hide the truth anymore, and I can’t pretend his deception didn’t matter. He casts his eyes downward.
I take a quick breath and continue. “It’s hard to know what the right thing to do is. Leila didn’t want her story to be told, but if we find the painting—if it is her—we can’t keep her hidden. Her whole life was about being hurt and used and discarded. I don’t want that to happen to her again.”
Alexandre moves his fingers down so they almost touch mine. “We won’t let that happen,” he says softly. “I know asking you to trust me—to forgive me—might be too much. But I promise I’m not going to lie to you again. If there is a Delacroix that we can sell to save this place, I want to find it. But if the only treasure is Leila’s story, like you say, then I want to find that, too. Her story is enough.”
We stare at each other through the gate, exchanging small, stiff grins like strangers forced to share a small space that each of them wants for themselves. But it’s a start. A modification. A do-over.
I clear my throat and step back. “Are you going to let me in? Or do I have to pole-vault over the gate?”
Alexandre shakes his head. “Sorry. One minute.” He disappears behind the high stone wall that borders the property and reemerges on the street, walking toward me. This way, he gestures. I walk up to him, and we give each other the required, slightly detached bise. We’re silent. Waiting. Anticipating the other. Trying to figure out if there is anything else to say.
We hurry to an olive-green, splintered wooden door carved into the stone wall. Boughs from the small grove inside the wall partially obscure the door from the street; I probably wouldn’t have noticed it if I’d casually passed by. Alexandre pushes it open, and we emerge in a green wood, the fresh smell of moss and dirt infusing the air. We take a narrow path, Alexandre in the lead. I imagine Dumas walking through here. Perhaps with Leila? It’s quiet in Dumas’s park—lush and romantic—and if I wrote love stories, this is exactly where I would want to write them.
Alexandre breaks the silence, the back of his hand brushing against mine. I’m not sure if it’s an accident or on purpose. “Dumas had this built by a pretty famous architect in 1846. It was supposed to be his dream home. He called it the Château de Monte-Cristo, because the money he made from that book paid for this place. He also had a separate smaller place built, beyond the main home. The Château d’If—named for the island fortress Dantès was imprisoned in. It’s actually a real place on a small island off Marseille.”
I know all this information, but I don’t tell him because his voice lifts as he’s talking—as he’s sharing a part of his family’s story.
Instead, I chuckle. “He named his writing studio after a prison? Ouch. That’s a rough metaphor.”
Alexandre turns to me and smiles. I almost reach out to squeeze his hand but stop myself.
From the woods, we arrive onto a verdant, gently sloping lawn. Gobsmacked is the only word that comes to mind. I walk ahead, passing Alexandre until I reach the gravel path finally facing Dumas’s Château de Monte-Cristo. It’s not massive, basically a three-story house with two round-domed turrets. But it is stunning. The honey-colored stone façade is detailed with intricate carvings—flowers, angels, musical instruments, mythical beasts, a crest.
Alexandre appears at my elbow. “Is that Dumas?” I ask, pointing to a large medallion above the door. “Would he have his own face sculpted on his home?” Then I notice the windows in the domes. “And the grill over the windows, those are his initials?”
Alexandre nods. “He also had his personal motto engraved up there by the family crest: I love those who love me. And yes, that’s him in stone in that medallion. But he also has Shakespeare, Dante, Homer, Virgil . . .” He points to each carved face as he says their names.
“Got it. Basically, he loved attention and had no modesty about his talents. And, apparently, you have a family crest?” I side-eye Alexandre. He grins and shrugs. The tension between us slowly starts to drain away. It might be because of our familiarity with each other, but also because we’re both here, searching, hoping to save something or someone, maybe ourselves.
“He was supposed to have had a huge ego, but more power to him,” he says. “He was a biracial man who faced terrible racism but still became one of France’s greatest writers.”
“Seeing this place, I understand why it’s important to you and your family.” I take a hesitant step closer to Alexandre. “Obviously it was pretty significant to Dumas—he literally stamped his identity all over it.”
Alexandre nods and squeezes my elbow. “Everybody thinks of him as wildly successful, but Dumas grew up poor and had to fight for what he had. He faced a ton of discrimination. I think t
hat’s why he built this place and put his name everywhere. It wasn’t ego. It was a way to look his detractors in the eye and say, ‘I did this.’”
“Good for him.” I allow myself a smile; I’m all for giving judges the metaphorical middle finger. “I’m glad you’re here to help keep this place in your family and keep his story alive.”
“That’s why Leila’s story deserves to be told, too. Not because of who she was to Dumas, but because of who she was. Period. I learned that from you,” Alexandre says.
“Glad you were paying attention.” I nudge him in the ribs. My heart lifts at hearing his words, but I’m still nervous about uncovering a secret that has been hidden all those years. A secret that doesn’t belong to me.
Alexandre takes hold of my elbow. “Let’s try to find this cache of Leila’s treasures that my beloved great-grand-père supposedly hid here. I promise if we find anything, we will decide our next steps together.”
I smile. “In that case, let’s find out what your great-grand-père was hiding.”
Alexandre walks around turning on the lights and opening drapes as if he’s entered his family’s summer home for the season. I take a minute to admire the craftsmanship of the Château as the crystal in the chandeliers twinkles in the sunlight that streams into the front parlor. It’s a museum now, but I imagine how alive it must have once been, and as I float from one room to the next, I can hear the echoes of the past whispering to me.
While I’m leaning over a glass case examining some letters and first editions, I see it: Baudelaire’s Paris Spleen, the one Alexandre’s Uncle Gérard said was at Dumas’s bedside when he died, where the note to Leila was found. The book is open to a passage: “There are women who inspire you with the desire to conquer them and to take your pleasure with them; but this one fills you only with the desire to die slowly beneath her gaze.” The last phrase is circled multiple times. It’s hard to see Baudelaire’s writing as anything but sexist and possessive and he was probably not thinking about Leila when he wrote that. But Dumas must’ve imagined Leila when he circled those words; maybe that’s why he slipped that letter to her between these pages. The spirits of the past are all around us. I might not believe in actual ghosts, but sometimes the present feels like a palimpsest, and we’re all just here trying to decipher words we can’t quite make out.
Alexandre grabs the top hat off the head of a mannequin suited in period costume and bows before me, sweeping his arm across his body and doffing the hat.
“Put that back,” I whisper, though there is no one in here but us. “We’ve damaged enough French antiques.”
“It’s a replica,” he says. “A lot of this stuff is. The Foundation managed to save the building—it was in total disrepair when they bought it—but most of the antiques and our family heirlooms were already long gone.”
“Sorry,” I say as my mind wanders back to the porcelain teapot that Zaid accidently broke. It had no real value except that every time I looked at it, I remembered Grand-mère serving me tea with madeleines or almond biscuits. I remembered her laugh, and in that way, the teapot was priceless.
Alexandre shrugs. “This place was almost razed to build apartment buildings a couple decades ago—that’s why I’m desperate to save it now. It’s survived all these years. I refuse to let some greedy American real estate developer turn a French national treasure into a resort.”
“Too bad Dumas wasn’t as good with money as he was with words.”
Alexandre winces. “Story of my family. Dumas had to sell this estate for a fraction of its value only a few years after building it because he squandered all his money on his entourage and parties and building this property. Then he had to flee to Belgium to escape his debtors.”
“That sucks.” I shake my head.
Alexandre gives me a sad smile. “He eventually came back to France—his children and some friends saved him. Dumas was a genius, but not one who thought about the future. It kind of runs in the family.” He shrinks back like saying the words hurts.
The irony is not lost on me. Alexandre doesn’t talk a lot about his dad—another Alexandre Dumas—but it’s clear that he hasn’t exactly been smart about money or salvaging the family legacy. And here’s history repeating itself again—another son of a Dumas stepping in, trying to save his family.
“Looks like Dumas had more hangers-on than actual friends,” I say. “All those people passing through his life, but Leila was the one on his mind when he was dying even though he hadn’t seen her in decades . . .” There are so many empty promises and unhappy endings in this story. I hope I can change that.
Alexandre gives me this wistful look and guides me into the hall. “Follow me. There’s a room I want to show you.”
We tiptoe into an intimate room with brightly colored stained glass. I look up at him, my mouth open in surprise.
“I know,” he says. “They call this le salon mauresque.”
“The Moorish salon? Uh, yeah, no kidding. It’s an Orientalist’s dream.”
The ivory walls are decorated with stucco sculptures and arabesque designs—leaves and vines and geometric patterns—the kinds of motifs you might see in a mosque. The entire ceiling is sculpted in an intricate, intertwining design—rectangular shapes that somehow fan out into a flower. A brass lamp with panels of red, blue, yellow, purple, and green glass bathes the room in a soft glow. Divans covered with tufted ivory-and-red-brocade cushions are tucked into each corner. Even the now-boarded-up fireplace is decorated in gold, replicating the patterns on the walls and ceiling.
“All the work was done by Tunisian artists that Dumas commissioned on his travels and then shipped over. It’s in much better shape than the rest of the château because the King of Morocco paid for the restoration of this room, like, forty years ago.”
“Wow. No wonder this place bankrupted him.” I take a look around the room. “Do you think he made it for her? For Leila?” I gesture to the corners. “Did you notice that each of the little divans has just enough space for two?”
“L’art de la seduction et de l’amour.” Alexandre raises his eyebrows at me.
“Do you need that hushed tone and glint in your eye when you say that? Because those divans probably haven’t seen any action in a hundred years, and that streak is not going to be broken tonight.”
Alexandre laughs, and his shoulders shake a little. It echoes through this empty house, which once was probably full of laughter like his. I imagine the great artists and writers and theater people who must’ve danced through these rooms and what secrets were shared amidst the whispers and wine. I wonder if Leila was one of those guests at the grand housewarming party—we did find an invitation in her box of mementos. How did she feel walking into this room, one perhaps made for her? Did it feel too close to the gilded cage she had escaped? Did it remind her of her beloved dying before her eyes? I wonder if it made her heart ache for home. Too many questions without easy answers. And no real way to find them.
“What are you thinking about?” Alexandre’s voice in my ear catches me by surprise. He’s standing right next to me, and I can feel his breath against my neck. I shiver. “Are you cold?” he whispers.
I turn to face him, looking up into his warm eyes. He brushes a strand of hair away from my cheek. My skin warms at his touch. I suck in my breath. “Um . . . have they updated the plumbing since Dumas lived here?” Wow. Smooth. Who doesn’t bring up indoor plumbing to avoid potentially romantic but anxiety-inducing moments?
Alexandre scrunches up his eyebrows. “Um, yeah. This place was actually a school for a while in the 1950s and ’60s. There’ve been a number of renovations. Do you need to—”
“Oh no. I was checking because I wanted to be mentally prepared in case we were going to have to outhouse it.” God, I’m a dork.
Alexandre laughs. “It is a museum now, and I think you’ll find French plumbing standards have grea
tly improved since the 1800s.”
My neck and face are so warm, I’m probably covered in red splotches right now. I walk toward a divan and pretend I’m intensely interested in the velvet cushions.
“I thought I would find the cache or some clues in here. It seemed an obvious place to start.”
“But?” I ask.
“There’s nothing. At least, not that I could find. There are no drawers or closets.”
I scan the room. Alexandre’s right. There aren’t a lot of hiding places, but we’re here, so might as well take another look. The carvings on the wall are attached, and I don’t think we could look behind any of them without dismantling the place, which obviously we are not doing because, well . . . priceless heritage, cultural preservation, etc.
I gaze at Alexandre, who’s standing with his elbow on the mantle of the small black marble fireplace. I tap my lips, then walk over and crouch down in front of the panel that seals the opening. Alexandre bends down next to me.
Running my hands around the top edge, I feel a draft. “It’s not sealed. Do you think you can lift out this panel? It’s not marble. Seems like wood painted to match the rest of the fireplace.”
Alexandre knocks on it—there’s clearly a hollow behind the wood—then he places his fingers next to mine at the top of the panel. The sides of our hands touch as he tucks his fingers under the edge.
He smiles. “Latches.”
I take a closer look and see that two small metal hooks attach the wood frame to the lip under the opening of the fireplace. Alexandre inches closer to me, our bodies almost touching. My pulse quickens. “Help me,” he says. Yeah, my thoughts exactly.
He carefully unhooks one latch, then the other. I place my hands on the wood panel so it doesn’t fall forward. Alexandre feels around the edges and undoes two more latches. His hands meet mine in the center of the panel, and we ease it down, letting it tilt toward us. A cloud of black dust puffs out at us. We both cough. I close my eyes and wipe my face on my sleeve. When we finally ease the panel to the ground, our sooty faces look like pictures of coal miners from the early twentieth century. We seem to have taken the brunt of the dust, but there are still swirls of gray on the marble tiles around us.