Stone's Throe, page 4
I sang regardless, sang while I worked at the leather straps around my wrists, and when they were free, at those around my ankles. Le Monstre was not interested in watching me, so long as I tried to sing; instead, when I stole a glimpse around the edge of my chair, he worked with great intent on the vials and boxes of emotions, distilling them into more bottles topped with atomizers. They were beautiful, shimmering in every hue and shade with more subtlety than the rainbow. Even the darkest emotions shone, blacks with such clarity that I could nearly see through them, and the indigos and violets were translucent.
I was nearly free when finally he thought to look again. I sat back in the chair, leather wrapped around, but not bound to, my ankles and wrists. My eyes crushed closed, honest tears leaking from them; there was no shame in crying now, and le Monstre would find the distillations of my sorrow a triumph.
"Your voice," he said, sounding so sympathetic, so like my lover, that I could not help but open my eyes. He stood above me, beautiful features creased with sadness. "Stop singing, Amélie. Let us not destroy that instrument."
"Let them go." I could hardly speak, my throat an aching ruin. "Let my parents go, Gabriel. I'll stay with you. I'll sing for you, but let them go."
"Can I trust you?" He caressed my cheek as he had done my mother's. "I wish I could."
"For their freedom, you can." In the moment, even I almost believed myself. I turned my face away, though, and said, bitterly, "How can you not trust me, when my obedience is yours to command?"
"Then why would I free them, my Amélie? Oh, the hate. It flows from you, ma chérie. The Essence I distill from your hate will be the strongest I have ever made. I thought as much, the night you first followed me. I chose then to encourage you in hopes of bringing about this very moment."
I ought to have waited, but with that confession I could no longer hold myself still. I did not know where the strength came from: perhaps that too was distilled, and wafting in the air, or perhaps it was inborn. Perhaps it was simply that the pig-iron chair in which I sat was poorly made, with crackling dry wood holding joints together. It did not matter; what mattered was that my grip was strong and the chair weak. I ripped upward and the chair's arm came with me, the bludgeoning weapon I required.
The side of my beloved's face dented with the impact, his cheekbone breaking under the power of my blow. He screamed as I tore free the wires from my head, and he flung his arms up to protect himself as I rained my fists down upon him. I saw nothing but his face, the greenness of his eyes; the world around us was a red and angry blur. Ichor spat across his broken cheek: undistilled emotion that absorbed into his skin and sent him wild with rage.
His strength was suddenly as great as mine. Greater, for his frame was more powerful. But rather than strike back, he ran, a gift of the fear that had so recently been sucked from my soul. I hardly understood how I myself felt anything; surely I had been drained empty of emotion, as my listless mother and still trapped father seemed to be. Gabriel leapt Maman's boneless form as he ran, and chose not the hidden doorway through which he had entered, but the stairway that I myself had come down.
But of course: there were weapons and men above, and a girl who could tear an iron chair apart with her bare hands should be met with both, rather than alone, and yet I could not give chase in the hopes that I might catch le Monstre alone. Cursing, I knelt to gather Maman into my arms, and wept that she did not seem to see me. I stood, still wondering at my own strength, and took in the parts of Gabriel's lair.
The chair in which I had been a captive was on fire. Electric wires spat and sparked, while the undistilled emotion itself seemed to burn of its own volition. Papa's chair was not yet alight, but I feared the fire might spread. Still bearing Maman's weight, I freed him, then in desperation, sought a vial of the soft golden Essence of Obedience. Spraying it into their faces, I whispered, "Escape, Maman. Escape, Papa. Leave this place as quickly as you can, and return home. I will come for you soon. I am so sorry."
Like automatons, they rose and stumbled toward the exit: toward the hidden door, as if they somehow knew the way from there. Perhaps they did; perhaps le Monstre had brought them in through his secret tunnels, rather than through the warehouse. That was to me a relief: they would not be endangered by what would go on above. I waited long enough to close the door behind them, then finally gave chase.
CHAPTER SIX
I had weapons: my pistols, the machine gun, and the righteous need for justice burning in my breast.
Le Monstre had more. Many more: I burst back into the warehouse at a run, only to be faced by a ring of surprised men with guns. I raised my hands, pistols dangling uselessly from my thumbs, and spoke: "My only interest is in le Monstre. Allow me to pass and no harm will come to you."
These words, spoken by a barefoot girl in a wracked and ruined dress, won laughter from most of them; only the man with the crowbar, whom I had faced on my way in, did not find humor in my offering. His gaze locked with mine and his hand lifted, ready to give the signal to fire. He would do so if I did not act, and I could not, from this position, defeat them all. That I believed I could defeat any of them was a wonder, but not one to dwell upon in this moment. I had other weapons at my disposal too, and chose to use them instead.
I dropped my pistols, let tears flow, and staggered in misery to the closest of my enemy. "Non, s'il vous plaît, I've done nothing wrong, please don't hurt me...!"
Startled beyond thought, the man dropped his weapon and embraced me. I let him take my weight, making certain that it pulled him around so he stood between myself and the other men. Crowbar's protest echoed sharply into the high warehouse walls, but it was by then too late: I slipped free of my savior's grasp and ran, using the stacks of pallets and boxes to hide myself between. Commands followed me: Spread out! Search high and low! Don't let her escape or you'll face le Monstre yourself!
Munitions lay ahead of me. I oriented myself by the windows and searched for them, finding other items of use along the way. Matches here, a discarded gun there, straw everywhere; these things and more offered all a woman might need in the fight against evil. More than once I evaded capture only narrowly, but evade it I did, until a quiet scramble up rough crates put me atop the munitions pile with, I regretted to discover, a splinter in my bare sole. Wincing, I withdrew it and tossed it away, then stood with my trophies in hand. "Messieurs!"
Gunshots rang out before wiser heads prevailed; I was not standing on material a clever man would choose to shoot. "Messieurs!" I called again, and this time lifted my prizes.
The matches, yes, of course; dangerous enough, where I stood. The tin of gasoline, though: that was the challenge. I held the matches clearly in my fingers as I twisted open the tin's top, then with careful concentration began to pour the flammable liquid in a circle around myself. The dry crates drank it down greedily, but much fell between slats, staining packing straw and dripping onto the guns, bullets, and bombs that made up the mountain of munitions beneath me. "You may run, messieurs," I said then, "but I will find you, and I will not be gentle when I do. If you wish to survive this evening's bonfire, I suggest that you step outside, arrange yourselves tidily, and await my arrival."
Most ran. I watched with a smile, heady from the fumes of gasoline, and wondered if any of those who fled now would await me outside. Three remained: Crowbar and two of his compatriots, their gazes torn between my apparent madness and their master's imagined ire. Still smiling, I struck a match, and two of them fled, leaving only Crowbar behind. "Do not be a fool, monsieur," I said to him, and even at the distance heard the disbelief in his exhalation.
"Moi? I am not the one preparing a ring of fire to die in, mademoiselle. How do you think you will escape?" He sounded cultured, like my Gabriel. Like le Monstre.
I dropped the match.
Even as I did so, I jumped. I had faith in the strength of my body and faith that unserved justice would not allow me to die tonight.
I also had gauged the distance to the next stack of crates, and—had I not suffered a sting of pain from the splinter damage to my foot—I might have made it.
I knew almost before I took wing that I would not. Too late, in any case, to stop; the flame was falling, the petrol igniting, the straw turning to ash. The power of sudden blooming heat pushed me some small distance farther than I might otherwise have flown, and yet it was not far enough. My palms hit; my arms and belly scraped as I fell; my fingernails turned to blood as I struggled for purchase. Then I was upside-down, bouncing, barely able to protect my head as pallets and crates broke beneath me. The warehouse floor loomed, hard and deadly. My faith in justice had been ill placed: I had no more time than to think that, no more time than that to regret.
Gabriel caught me.
Where he had been, I did not know. Why he did it, I could not understand. But he was there, my lover, and I, safe in his arms. For no more than a heartbeat I looked into his face, into the green depths of his eyes, into the twisted darkness of his soul, and I believed all over again that he had loved me. That he loved me still.
The roaring flames took him and he thrust me away, out of danger, into safety, even as his own flesh screamed and melted in boiling heat. Afraid for my own life, bitterly aware that my vaunted justice had been served, I turned and ran from his visage and the sound of his screams.
* * *
His men waited outside. Not for me, but for le Monstre. When it was I who emerged from the inferno, they, white-faced and shaken, submitted to the demands I had placed before: they lay down together to be bound, just beyond the edge of where the warehouse blaze might harm them.
I took promissory notes and threats for the poor, invoices for the Central Powers—all the written material on their bodies—and with a certain gleeful vengeance, gagged them with them, and left them for the police to find.
Le Monstre's warehouse was not the only thing to burn that night. So too did my innocence, and as it burned, it left behind a wish to protect those who could not save themselves. I was not long for Paris, after that; I was not long for any one place in the world, not when oppression was to be found in all its corners. I burned now with new energy, with the joy of righting wrongs, and with the spirit of justice.
My darling daughter:
It is September of 1934 as I write this; I make note of the date because I write to you in care of the Century Club, whose return address is the only one ever cited on the many letters and postcards you send me from around the world. I have confidence that your extraordinary brethren will make certain this letter finds its way to your hands in a timely fashion.
I must not prevaricate, Amelia. I am an old woman now, and my fears may be no more than an old woman's fears, but there is too much familiar in a story being told in la Ville-Lumière today, and I think it is a story you may wish to hear.
There is a woman here, a woman whom all the world knows: Madame Josephine Baker, whose beauty and boldness are as renowned as her vaudeville acts. Although American by birth, she has long been a Parisian favorite, and although always beloved, of late she has taken on a new voice master, a Sicilian by the stories, and has been, they say, transformed from petite danseuse sauvage to la grande diva magnifique. I have heard her sing, Amelia. Heard her before and after this voice master's attentions, and what they say is true. Before, she was delightful; now, she is tremendous.
I know that it cannot be, and yet I also know that in all my long years I have only perceived one singer undergo such transformation, and only under the tutelage of one man. That singer was myself, and the voice master none other than our terrible Benefactor, le Monstre aux Yeux Verts.
Come to Paris, Amelia. Visit and set an old woman's heart at rest. Come, and discover for me that le Monstre is dead as we have long believed him to be, and that Madame Baker is not entrapped as we once were.
with love,
ta Maman
CHAPTER SEVEN
I knew of Josephine Baker, bien sûr; surely there was almost no one who did not. A great and talented beauty, acknowledged by all but the country of her birth, which could not see beyond the color of her skin—a color which was not so far at all from my own. I had heard records of her voice, which was powerful, and I trusted beyond measure my mother's judgment of its improvement. I trusted, too, her fears, even though I had watched le Monstre stumble into the flames of his burning warehouse and could not fathom how he might have escaped.
Still, there had long since been rumors of his return, the Green-Eyed Monster, and more than once in my world-scouring adventures I had visited Paris in search of those rumors' truth. It had been some years now since I had been home, and to return was more joy than hardship though my palms itched, as they always did, with the hope that I would find and settle le Monstre once and for all. Josephine Baker was to open a new opera, La Reine du Nil, and it was my delight to take a seat in the boxes as the orchestra began to tune.
All of Paris seemed to be there that night. One or two of the dignitaries, artists, and scientists I even knew and was pleased to be greeted by; others cast curious glances at me when I shook hands with le Colonel du Gaulle or laughed with Kandinsky. One woman, all too flatteringly, wondered aloud if I might be Madame Baker's sister, and I spent the next minutes entirely delighted with my choice of gowns for the evening. Cobalt blue and fully sequined, the bodice was fitted but breathable and the skirt gored to allow freedom of movement. I had a wrap of white fur against the autumn's chilly air, but within the theatre I forewent that in favor of showing the gown's sleeveless straps and plunging back. I could not, in truth, hold a candle to Madame Baker, but neither did I do myself any shame, and after the woman's charming comment, more than one eye roved over me in approval. I was therefore happy and ready for the evening's entertainment when finally, to thunderous applause, the curtain rose.
It did not, to my surprise, rise on Madame Baker, but instead on a set scene that, in swift and grand gestures, told the story of Egypt's most famous queen's rise to power, with an aristocratic young girl in the role of the child Cleopatra. Two queens and a king died as she ascended, none by her own hand, and yet the closeness of death—even theatrical death—held the audience in a near frenzy as the girl knelt to be crowned.
Light erupted on the stage as the crown settled on her head, and in the brilliant confusion, Josephine Baker rose center stage as the last Pharaoh of Egypt.
There could be no singing, for even her great voice would never be heard above the tumultuous roar within the theatre. She stood still, arms uplifted, face noble and with a secret smile, and let adulation roll over her. For over one minute she held that pose, allowing us all to take in her glory, and glorious she was: dressed in gold so sheer over her bodice that had it not in places reflected the light I might have thought her nude. It snuggled close into glittering, glimmering gold at her hips until it flared wildly at the knee, creating a skirt that lay across the floor in such quantities that, by its very nature, the costume afforded her more space upon the stage than any other three people might consume. It was masterful in conception.
It was also wholly unnecessary: no other creature upon the stage, upon any stage in life, could draw the eye as did Josephine Baker. Her uplifted arms were ringed with golden bangles, her beautifully extended hands were wreathed in shimmering snakes of gold. Her eyes, so large and dark and known throughout the world, were lined in kohl that made them depthless pools, and upon her head she wore an extraordinary golden headdress, looking like nothing so much as a bowling pin set into a scoop-backed chair; at the brow, two cobras rising as if to strike. I knew it for what it was, of course: a pschent, the double crown of ancient conjoined Egypt.
I had not yet had my fill of gazing on Baker's astonishing presence when finally she lowered her hands and fixed the audience with a look so fierce that it seemed she could see into our souls, each and every one. Silence fell as if she had commanded it, and into that silence, unaccompanied even by the orchestra, she sang.
From that moment on, the world fell away. There was nothing in it, pour moi, save Josephine Baker's beauty and song. Cleopatra's tragedy spilled across the stage and my heart spilled with it. I was transfixed; I, who had met dignitaries and performers, artists and scientists, and had never stood in awe of them, could not breathe past the wonder and joy that Josephine awakened in my breast. I had not known such an intensity of admiration since my indiscreet youth in Paris; not since I had fallen desperately, foolishly, in love with le Monstre aux Yeux Verts.
I found myself obsessed with Baker's eyes as she sang, gazing at them time and time again to assure myself that they were not green. It seemed somehow to me the thing that all my future happiness relied on, though any spark of native wit left to me would have known differently. It was no matter: each time I looked, her eyes remained dark and deep pools of promise, no hint of treacherous green within them.
In her reign as Pharaoh, Baker commanded her people to rise in worship. As one in our devotion, the audience did, hands extended in supplication and adoration. I believe in that moment the great lady nearly forgot herself: her smile became other than the ancient queen's, more mischievous with pleasure. She even spoke, the first ordinary words to pass her lips as she stood upon the stage: "Asseyez-vous, vous imbéciles!"
And sit we did, like the silly fools we were, all of us laughing and sheepish without any hint of true humiliation. Along with the rest of a captivated audience, I watched enraptured. Had I the ability to think clearly, I might have told myself that my enthrallment was only for one whose remarkable vocal skills could lead me to le Monstre, should he still live. Listening to Josephine Baker sing, I believed that he did, and that he had brought forth from her the most talent, the most beauty, that her voice could ever achieve. A Sicilian voice master: no. That tale could only be a disguise, nothing more, for the Green-Eyed Monster who had once haunted my dreams. But it was not the tenuous thread to le Monstre that held me mesmerized, and I could not pretend that it was. It was Baker herself, and I had been struck by Cupid's arrow.
