Byron is back, and he brings friends.
Maman has a name for each of them. The small, puffy poet is le Champignon. The woman with him -- not his wife, Maman emphasizes -- is le Chat, for she is quiet and watchful. The other woman -- also no one’s wife, Maman says with an arched eyebrow -- is le Paon, all her noises and plumage meant to attract the eye of Byron, l’Escroc. The Rogue. He will surely make her cry, as he has so many girls in Coligny. Even the sky bawls at his arrival and shows no sign of catching its breath.
But none of these four are the one we watch. This fifth calls himself Polidori, but that isn’t the name he used last time, when he too left a bastard of sorts. He also now calls himself a doctor. I look at Victor beside me, taking his turn to look through the knothole. At the scars that make tracks around his neck and wrists, and I know that this Polidori is no doctor. He is a thief -- un voleur -- and so I call him.
I elbow Victor, point up the attic steps. He grunts, his eye blinking its slow blink in the light of the peephole. I tug at the arm nearest me. Finally he submits, and we pick our way up the quieter edges of the wooden staircase. When Victor is settled on his pallet, rubbing the seams on the stuffed puppy I made him, I creep back down the stairs. When the party leaves the hall, I step from the attic. Lock the door behind me.
In the kitchen, Maman sets me to heating water. Baths for le Chat and le Paon. “As though their sins will wash off,” she scoffs.
I’m glad le Voleur is staying up the hill at Diodati’s. There isn’t enough water in Lac Genève to get his soul clean.
Maman asks after Victor. She thinks he’s a foundling, deserving of charity but too slow-witted for general society. His tongue lies in his mouth like a dead eel, turning his speech into a wet, moaning thing. Maman shuddered when first she heard it and appointed me his keeper. He got the attic, and I got the key, and when guests come to maison Chapuis, we make ourselves scarce.
That evening, after fetching umbrellas for the women and watching them disappear into the gloom, I turn the key and go to sit with Victor. He speaks marbles to his puppy, fingering the toy’s joints. In turn, the puppy sniffs Victor’s seams. As the two explore each other in this way, I wonder what has brought le Voleur back to Coligny.
When last I saw him, on a night like this but streaked with lightning, le Voleur was backing into an alley. His hands, slick before the rain even reached them, fumbled with the latch on the storehouse door. I followed him as he struggled through the rainy streets, slipping on dung and desperation. To my surprise, he turned onto the walk of Chapuis. I slunk around to the kitchen door. My errand completed, I set down my basket and listened at the hall door. Too inclement to catch a coach, claimed le Voleur, before begging a bed for the night. Maman relented.
I helped to ready his room. When Maman needed me no further, I redonned my oilskin and returned to the alley.
What I found inside the latched door -- the copper coils, the blood, the stink -- repelled me bodily. Until I heard the whimper. It drew me across the mess, into a far corner. There, huddled with hands over head, was a boy. A naked boy with thick, black stitching at his ankles, wrists, and neck.
I gasped. The sound brought up his head and the palms of his hands, revealing more stitches that made a big cross on his chest. I crossed myself, too. Then I told him my name, took his hand, and led him home.
In the kitchen, Maman stared in horror and pity. Le Voleur, sitting at the kitchen table, gagged on his porridge.
The next morning, the Thief was gone before Maman knocked on his door.
Later that day came the news: open graves.
I named the boy Victor, for in some unholy way, he had triumphed.
An urgent knock at the stairwell door brings me back to the present. I descend to find my mother agitated.
“Another hot bath,” she mutters. “I thought cats bathed themselves.”
By bedtime, I’m exhausted. I say my prayers, curse English tourists, and sink onto my pallet.
I wake with moonlight nudging my shoulder. The room feels strange, suffocating, until I realize the rain has stopped. I gaze about in the unfamiliar silence. My lantern, dark. By the door, my boots. Hanging from the hook, my dress, the attic key pushing on the pocket.
The door.
I bolt from my bed and down the hall. The attic door stands ajar. A quick trip up the steps confirms my fears: Victor’s blanket is empty. So are the rooms off the lower hall. Upstairs, however, another door gapes into the hallway.
I tiptoe to the doorway and find Victor inside. He stands naked as the night I found him, a sliver of moonbeam lighting his silhouette. He stares at the curtained bed. I hiss him name. Then I creep across the threshold and my heart turns to ice.
Sitting up in the bed, gazing at Victor with wide eyes, is le Chat.
I push Victor into the hall, then turn to the woman in the bed.
She wants an explanation.
I give her one. “Only a dream,” I say. “A bad dream.”
She watches me a moment longer before lying back into the shadow of the bed.
I return Victor to the attic. I turn the key.
I spend the rest of the summer with it tied to my wrist.
Maman has a name for each of them. The small, puffy poet is le Champignon. The woman with him -- not his wife, Maman emphasizes -- is le Chat, for she is quiet and watchful. The other woman -- also no one’s wife, Maman says with an arched eyebrow -- is le Paon, all her noises and plumage meant to attract the eye of Byron, l’Escroc. The Rogue. He will surely make her cry, as he has so many girls in Coligny. Even the sky bawls at his arrival and shows no sign of catching its breath.
But none of these four are the one we watch. This fifth calls himself Polidori, but that isn’t the name he used last time, when he too left a bastard of sorts. He also now calls himself a doctor. I look at Victor beside me, taking his turn to look through the knothole. At the scars that make tracks around his neck and wrists, and I know that this Polidori is no doctor. He is a thief -- un voleur -- and so I call him.
I elbow Victor, point up the attic steps. He grunts, his eye blinking its slow blink in the light of the peephole. I tug at the arm nearest me. Finally he submits, and we pick our way up the quieter edges of the wooden staircase. When Victor is settled on his pallet, rubbing the seams on the stuffed puppy I made him, I creep back down the stairs. When the party leaves the hall, I step from the attic. Lock the door behind me.
In the kitchen, Maman sets me to heating water. Baths for le Chat and le Paon. “As though their sins will wash off,” she scoffs.
I’m glad le Voleur is staying up the hill at Diodati’s. There isn’t enough water in Lac Genève to get his soul clean.
Maman asks after Victor. She thinks he’s a foundling, deserving of charity but too slow-witted for general society. His tongue lies in his mouth like a dead eel, turning his speech into a wet, moaning thing. Maman shuddered when first she heard it and appointed me his keeper. He got the attic, and I got the key, and when guests come to maison Chapuis, we make ourselves scarce.
That evening, after fetching umbrellas for the women and watching them disappear into the gloom, I turn the key and go to sit with Victor. He speaks marbles to his puppy, fingering the toy’s joints. In turn, the puppy sniffs Victor’s seams. As the two explore each other in this way, I wonder what has brought le Voleur back to Coligny.
* * *
When last I saw him, on a night like this but streaked with lightning, le Voleur was backing into an alley. His hands, slick before the rain even reached them, fumbled with the latch on the storehouse door. I followed him as he struggled through the rainy streets, slipping on dung and desperation. To my surprise, he turned onto the walk of Chapuis. I slunk around to the kitchen door. My errand completed, I set down my basket and listened at the hall door. Too inclement to catch a coach, claimed le Voleur, before begging a bed for the night. Maman relented.
I helped to ready his room. When Maman needed me no further, I redonned my oilskin and returned to the alley.
What I found inside the latched door -- the copper coils, the blood, the stink -- repelled me bodily. Until I heard the whimper. It drew me across the mess, into a far corner. There, huddled with hands over head, was a boy. A naked boy with thick, black stitching at his ankles, wrists, and neck.
I gasped. The sound brought up his head and the palms of his hands, revealing more stitches that made a big cross on his chest. I crossed myself, too. Then I told him my name, took his hand, and led him home.
In the kitchen, Maman stared in horror and pity. Le Voleur, sitting at the kitchen table, gagged on his porridge.
The next morning, the Thief was gone before Maman knocked on his door.
Later that day came the news: open graves.
I named the boy Victor, for in some unholy way, he had triumphed.
* * *
An urgent knock at the stairwell door brings me back to the present. I descend to find my mother agitated.
“Another hot bath,” she mutters. “I thought cats bathed themselves.”
By bedtime, I’m exhausted. I say my prayers, curse English tourists, and sink onto my pallet.
I wake with moonlight nudging my shoulder. The room feels strange, suffocating, until I realize the rain has stopped. I gaze about in the unfamiliar silence. My lantern, dark. By the door, my boots. Hanging from the hook, my dress, the attic key pushing on the pocket.
The door.
I bolt from my bed and down the hall. The attic door stands ajar. A quick trip up the steps confirms my fears: Victor’s blanket is empty. So are the rooms off the lower hall. Upstairs, however, another door gapes into the hallway.
I tiptoe to the doorway and find Victor inside. He stands naked as the night I found him, a sliver of moonbeam lighting his silhouette. He stares at the curtained bed. I hiss him name. Then I creep across the threshold and my heart turns to ice.
Sitting up in the bed, gazing at Victor with wide eyes, is le Chat.
I push Victor into the hall, then turn to the woman in the bed.
She wants an explanation.
I give her one. “Only a dream,” I say. “A bad dream.”
She watches me a moment longer before lying back into the shadow of the bed.
I return Victor to the attic. I turn the key.
I spend the rest of the summer with it tied to my wrist.
