Stone's Throe, page 7
"Professor Khan," she said with evident unstinting pleasure, "the honor is mine. How wonderful that you're in the world."
Khan could not, to my knowledge, blush, but there was something of that attitude to the rumble of his voice as he stepped back to allow us full access to his office. "No more wonderful than the fact that you are, Madame Baker, and perhaps less so, for your voice brings joy to the world whereas my countenance has been known to inspire fear. But discussion of our various virtues cannot be why you are attending me at this late hour, particularly given Amelia's unusual attire. My dear," he said to me with all due humor and rue, "I should have liked to have seen you before you saw fit to go adventuring in that evening gown. I imagine you were a candle to match Madame Baker."
"Josephine," that worthy said with imperious pleasure. "She was, Professor Khan. The whole of the Paris Opéra had the opportunity to see it tonight. She rescued me from a Nazi attack and did battle across the wings of biplanes in the sky. If only that could be staged, I would draw audiences from every corner of the world." Madame Baker threw off her fur stole, an item which she had acquired sometime between my leaving her on the opera house rooftop and my return, to display a long-waisted day dress of layered sheer fabric bound with burgundy under her bosom; all in all a far more practical item to wear than Cleopatra's gold gown. The stole was flung over the back of a green velvet chair before she sat, regally, in that selfsame chair.
Both Khan and myself were silenced by the dramatic nature of her behavior. It was as if every action she took was meant for the stage, larger than life and drawing all attention. She did not so much diminish the objects around her as made them her own. Khan's office, with its mahogany shelves and vast, paper-covered desk, with its burning electric lamps and the scratchy, musty scent of ancient manuscripts, seemed as though it had been deliberately prepared not for the large gorilla professor, but for the slight American singer. Her chair with its heavy padding, large curved arms, and high back, seemed as though it was meant to be the center of attention. We gazed upon its occupant with all appropriate supplication, until one of her thin painted eyebrows twitched upward in curious amusement.
"Madame Stone," she said to me, her tone prompting, and I replied, "Amelia," rather suddenly.
"Amelia," she repeated obligingly before turning the devastating effect of both lifted eyebrows upon Khan. "And if we're all going to be on a first name basis, Professor...?"
"Khan," my eloquent friend said as abruptly as I had done, before clearing his throat. "Ah, that is to say, I have no other given name, no Jonathan or Charles that I might be known by. I'm afraid Khan is the sum total of my appellations; it is all that I am."
"Oh," said Josephine Baker with a delighted smile, "I doubt that. Amelia," she prompted again, and finally, shaken loose from her spell, I began to unwind the pschent from its golden bindings as I quickly related the adventures of the evening just gone by.
For all the depths of his eyes and the leathery dark wrinkle, despite the protrusion of his muzzle and the slashing incisors, Khan's expressive features were no more difficult to read than any human's. Horror, delight, dismay, admiration: they all shone as I told the story. Madame Baker—Josephine—as fine an audience as she was a performer, laughed and clapped and gasped, fingers pressed against her lovely lips, as my tale and the pschent were unwound.
The entirety of Khan's uttered response to the adventure was thus: "If only your dressmaker had known," but his massive mitts were eager and delicate as I handed over the golden pschent. Fiery interest lit his black eyes as he turned it this way and that, and he spoke to both of us, though he might well have been speaking to the ancient past. "You know, of course, that this is the double crown of Egypt. The Pharaohs who wore such crowns ruled both the Red Nile and the White, the Upper and Lower Kingdoms, and controlled—oh, much more than modern Egypt. The Upper Kingdom stretched much deeper along the Nile—"
"Wouldn't that be the Lower?" demanded Josephine, but Khan waggled a finger with professorial authority.
"To our minds, accustomed to our north-is-up mentality, yes, but remember that the Nile flows backward; its source is deep in the jungles of darkest Africa, and it wends its way not south, but north to the Mediterranean. For ancient Egyptians, the Upper Kingdom was the upper Nile: south, toward the river's unknown source. But as I was saying, the ancient conjoined kingdoms of Egypt controlled access to the Red Sea. That, of course, is irrelevant here; what is important and interesting is this."
With hands that could tear a man apart, he touched the two cobra heads rearing from the crown's front, then with particular delicacy, tapped only one of them. "This, my dear Amelia, my divine Mrs. Baker, is typically a vulture, the symbol of Upper Egypt. Two cobras aren't unheard of, but they are legendary. No one has even seen an artistic representation of this crown, Amelia. Stories are told about the double cobra crown, but not even in the images of Hatshepsut does she wear this."
I was quick to speak: "Hatshepsut?"
"Queen—well, technically, king. All Pharaohs were kings; they had no other word for their divine monarchs. King, then, of all Egypt. Ancient stories suggest she wore a pschent with two cobras, said to lend her compelling powers, even greater than one might expect of a god-on-earth. It was said no one who heard her speak when she wore this crown could defy her, or even want to. In this crown, Hatshepsut was said to have absolute, iron control over all of Egypt—but it was also said that any ordinary mortal who donned it would lose their minds in a swift and terrible way."
Josephine drawled, "Oh really," with such insolence it broke Khan's spell and we all laughed, but a slow chill slid down my spine as I looked from la grand dame to the gold crown.
"Wait. Pardon, Professor, but are you saying this crown itself is mystical in nature?"
"Well, to be wholly scientific about it I should like to run some tests, but frankly, Amelia, we live in a world of wonders, do we not? Myself, if I might be so bold as to say so, included. So I shall look at what evidence we have available, which is as such: firstly, it matches an item of legend. Secondly, it is of evident interest to a fascist regime whose explicit intentions appear to be international domination. Thirdly—"
"Because it grants the wearer Commanding Presence." I heard myself shape the words with importance, though I spoke in no more than a whisper. "He who wears it can sway anyone to anything, non, Professor? Do I understand that correctly?"
"Yes, but—"
Now cold throughout, and not because of the sad state of my attire, I turned my gaze to Madame Baker. I had come to Paris on Maman's suspicions; I had believed immediately when I heard the stunning quality of la grande dame's voice. But belief and evidence were not, as mon ami Khan would rightfully argue, the same. Evidence, though, was nearly at hand; I was sure of it. "Where did you get the pschent, Josephine?"
Eyebrows furrowed in curious confusion, she gave the answer I dreaded: "It was a gift from my voice master, of course, to be worn when I played Cleopatra on the stage."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Had the world itself come down around my ears in the next moments, I would not have heard it, could not have stopped it. Cacophony reigned inside my head, all the certainties and horrors of youth replaying themselves, all the inevitable ramifications crashing down with the sound of cymbals in my ears.
No voice master save le Monstre could care that his protégée should wear a mystical crown of command when playing the role of a queen—the role of perhaps the most famous queen in history. Not only playing her, non, but singing her, in the voice trained by his care and talent. Singing, to waken the greatest height of emotion, of passion, of obedience, in those who listened. Rendering them vulnerable to command, opening them to the machinations of induced emotions, preparing them to generate more emotion for le Monstre to distill and bottle and use. And in this modern era, Baker's vocals would be recorded, extending le Monstre's reach not just to those who attended the Opéra, but around the globe, to anyone who might ever listen to la grande dame's vocals soar and demand.
Had I any doubts, they were settled. Le Monstre was alive and had taken Josephine on as his student. I had failed as a youth, and la Ville-Lumière, perhaps all the world, was endangered again thanks to my failures.
Because worse even than le Monstre's plans for the crown could be the Führer's. If le Monstre had not survived to find Hatshepsut's crown, then it might have remained forever hidden and not an item of interest to a growing fascist regime. This single item could win the Führer unchallenged command over Egypt, over the very land from which Moses had led his people, then everywhere might indeed fall to his reign. Le Monstre then would seem a pittance, a laughingstock against the injustices meted by a madman on the throne of the world. In failing to kill le Monstre half a lifetime ago, I had failed more utterly than I could have comprehended.
"Amelia? Amelia." Distantly, as if I watched someone else and felt what they felt from a remove, I knew Khan's hand fitted itself around my elbow; knew that he guided me to a chair and sat me down, then wrapped something warm and soft around my shoulders. A hint of perfume drifted from it: Josephine's stole. I buried my face in it, eyes closed, as if that soft sweet scent and the wild woman who wore it could somehow save me from the errors I had made long ago.
"Forgive me my enthusiasm and the distress it's caused you," Khan said in clear concern. "It clearly can't be real, Amelia. Circumstantial evidence aside, if it was truly Hatshepsut's crown, Madame Baker would have lost her mind upon donning it. Unless, of course, it requires a certain awareness to trigger its mystical powers—"
"No." My voice and the world came back to me all at once. "I felt it in the theatre. We all did. She sang and we rose up as the Egyptian people might have, had Cleopatra commanded them. The compulsion was overwhelming. I thought it was only the performer, the performance—"
Baker sniffed, elucidating her opinion of it being anything else with that tiny derisive sound. Could I have laughed, I would have, but the magnitude of my mistakes and the task to set them right was too great to allow for humor now. I went on with a bleak conviction lending my words weight. "She is no ordinary mortal, Khan. She is Josephine Baker. She has been extraordinary since her first steps on a stage. She is a performer, larger than life, known around the world. What else might a queen be, than that?"
"But to what end, Amelia? Why give a performer, even a superlative one, the crown of Hatshepsut? Who is this mysterious voice master?"
"C'est le Monstre, Khan. Le Monstre aux Yeux Verts."
The Centurions—my brothers-in-arms, the others also born on the first day of the century and gifted with certain traits to help us defend the changing world from extraordinary threats—had known me long enough that no more explanation was necessary. Khan's comforting hand fell from my shoulder, and I heard him lean heavily into his chair, its joints creaking and complaining with the sudden weight. "Oh. And foolishly, I thought you had come for the race."
"Le Mon—the green-eyed monster? Who is the green-eyed monster? My master is Giuseppe Abatino—"
"Your master is a crime lord," I said as swiftly and harshly as I could. "I know it will seem unlikely to you, but I knew him in my youth. He has always been besotted by music, searching for the most powerful voices in order to work alchemical magics. My father died at his hands and my mother, who was a singer, nearly did as well."
"Oh." Josephine, too, sat back into her chair, and gazed at me as if unseeing for a little while. I could not guess at her thoughts, save to imagine she thought me mad, but in time she spoke again, more subdued than I had become accustomed to. "He teaches from shadow, like le fantôme de l'opéra. Of course I saw the parallels, but it seemed romantic and charming and theatrical, and his skill was indisputable. He moves—" She took a breath, as if steeling herself. "He moves short on one side, as if he can't stretch himself to a full stride or reach. All of his gestures come from the left, where his range of motion is easier. It could be that he's disfigured. I suppose I thought he was. Like the Phantom."
"Did you never wish to rip his mask away?" asked Khan softly.
"And expose myself to the horror of his face? I've seen the film, Professor. I know what happens to the eager ingénue. I am not that young." Josephine examined the backs of her hands momentarily, murmuring, "Perhaps I never was." As if her hands had told her a story she did not wish to hear, she closed them again and lifted her gaze. "I've never seen all of his face, but I've seen the color of his eyes. They are green. How will I help you ensnare him?"
"You will not," I said with unnecessary ferocity. "He is a matter for me to deal with, and I will risk no one, least of all you, Josephine, to his machinations. I shall bring you to my mother—"
"While I would adore to meet the woman who raised a swashbuckling daughter," she said in so dry a tone I could not determine whether she teased me or not, "you will certainly not hide me away from the world while you pursue a madman. I have not worked this hard to disappear in the hour of my crowning glory, and neither you nor your impressive friend will succeed in forcing me to."
Khan cleared his throat and, when we both looked to him, appeared abashed. "My dear Amelia, I must stand with Josephine on this, though I confess my reasons to do so are manifold. First, although I am as loathe as you to lead her into danger, I might point out that she is uniquely suited to draw le Monstre into the light. Surely, if he's taught her, he won't be able to resist seeing her perform at least once? So our goal must first be to keep her safe in daylight hours, a task for which your mother's apartment might indeed be eminently suitable. She, more than anyone, knows the risks of succumbing to him, and would certainly bar her doors against all strangers if required."
Despite having been the one to propose my mother's home as a place of safety, I muttered a sour, "Bars would not stop le Monstre should he suspect where Josephine had gone to ground," and my next thought was interrupted by Josephine's simple suggestion:
"Then perhaps you ought to remain at my side, Amelia. I have never seen anyone so well suited as a bodyguard, except perhaps Chiquita, and the authorities don't care for her being unleashed in public."
I gazed nonplussed at Josephine, unable to decide between delight at the prospect of spending my days in her company and offense at being compared to the world's most famous cheetah. "Madame, the authorities also do not care for me being unleashed in public."
Josephine showed no regret at all over the comparison, though her dark eyes sparkled enough to tell me she had made the jab deliberately, wanting, perhaps, to see if I would unsheathe my claws to scratch at her. She sounded pleased that I had. "After this past evening's performance, I can see why. Come home with me, Amelia. I'll introduce you to Chiquita and we'll see which of you is the more dangerous."
"Ahem." Khan shifted with discomfort as we both looked to him. "The trouble with this plan, Amelia, is that I, er, am in quite dire need of your assistance on the morrow."
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Dawn had not yet begun courtship with the horizon when I revved the engine of my beloved Indian motorcycle and took my place on a starting line crowded with riders and bikes of all shapes and sizes. Even before the race began, I could not keep the grin from stretching my face, and there were those who met my eyes with that selfsame expression of joy, with the readiness of life preparing to be lived at its fullest.
How I had come to la Ville-Lumière and not known of the three-day street race was a mystery beyond my ken, save that I had been somewhat distracted by the task Maman had set to me, and more distracted yet by Josephine Baker. I had the Indian, naturellement; I had not traveled without it since its purchase six years earlier, though it occasionally incurred great expense if speed demanded I fly, rather than sail, between continents.
Not, it seemed, as much expense as mon ami Khan had incurred, though. As engines tore early morning silence and wakened the ire of Parisian residents, I thought back on the predicament he had explained only a few hours earlier—the predicament that had landed me here, eyes on the horizon, waiting for the sun to break through as our signal to ride.
I wore his colors pinned to my leather jacket: black and green, jungle colors, though I would not swear Khan had intended that when he chose them. Those around me wore different colors, and often emblems of racing companies—or rather, the motorcycle aficionados who had developed entire companies to justify their adoration of racing. Yesterday another man had worn Khan's colors; an English boy, no larger than myself, who had placed well in the first day of racing and then, terribly, had fallen beneath the wheels of another racer careening out of control.
Khan was not so hardhearted as to continue a race when his rider clung to life by a thread. He now sat at the boy's bedside, reading to him and, I trusted, even now tuning the radio that they might listen to the illegal broadcast of the unauthorized race.
For unauthorized it was, but the prize was of such magnitude that there were men here willing to risk their entire companies for a chance to win. I had not yet even glimpsed it myself, but Khan's descriptions had left me eager to see it: lighter than light, he had said; faster than fast, and so sleek as to be another machine entirely from motorcycles as we know them. So extraordinary was it that he, who had no interest in motorcycles, had been drawn into its history and development, all by a Signor Ignatius Panterello who had once worked for the Gilera company, whose racing cycles went back a quarter century. But Panterello's secrets were well kept, and only the winner of this race would gain inside knowledge of its design—and win the motorcycle itself. Khan had sunk not only his own savings but, it seemed, a substantial portion of the Century Club's finances, into supporting and developing the English lad's racing kit. I was racing today to assure his investment paid off; but en vérité, I now wanted to see Panterello's creation for myself and intended on winning for my own sake as much as Khan's.
