Goddess (21 page)

‘And if he fires first—’

‘Fire anyway.’

‘That’s right.’ He attempts an encouraging smile.

Footsteps sound in the square, on the stone steps.

‘Don’t be nervous, my darling boy.’

‘Me?’

‘You’re trembling.’

‘It’s the cold,’ he says. ‘But I do fear for you.’

‘Is it cold? That’s funny. I can’t feel it.’

He doesn’t remember ever hearing her sound so ethereal, so defeated. Shadows—men—make their way across mud, flotsam, filth.

‘Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever feel anything at all,’ she says. ‘Again.’

‘How can you say that?’

‘Forgive me.’ She grabs at d’Albert’s arms. ‘Forgive me everything.’

‘Émilie. My friend. There’s nothing to forgive.’

‘I wasn’t talking to you.’

There’s no time to ask her meaning. The others are there: Thévenard looking as if he could kill, Servan scowling, Saint-Rémy unpacking a set of expensive pistols from a leather case.

Julie calls out a greeting. ‘Lovely morning for it.’

Servan’s eyes narrow. ‘Do you continue to mock me, madame?’

‘It seems so.’

‘We’ll see who’s laughing soon.’

Jacob du Saint-Rémy steps forward. ‘Madame de Maupin,’ he says, ‘do you offer an apology?’

‘I do not.’

‘Will you retract your challenge?’

‘No,’ she says. ‘That is impossible.’

‘Very well. Baron de Servan, do you wish to continue with the—’

‘Yes, yes. Hurry. The sun is coming up.’

‘I ask again, do you wish to continue?’

‘Of course. My honour has been sullied.’

The blasted woman laughs at him. ‘This vicious pettiness has nothing to do with honour, nothing to do with me. You fight because you can’t have the woman you covet. Simple.’

Fury writhes across Servan’s face. ‘You have impugned my reputation enough.’

‘It is you who does the damage, sieur. Your every word renders you less of a gentleman.’

He lurches forward. The seconds step between them.

Thévenard shoves Servan along the bank a little. ‘You behave,’ he growls, ‘or I’ll shoot you myself.’

‘Gabriel.’

‘Sorry, Julia. But really.’ He moves to stand close by her.

Julie pats his arm. ‘Get out of the way, dearest.’

Her seconds take their places. D’Albert stands next to Saint-Rémy, with signal arm raised, Thévenard to her left with a spare pistol. She smiles at them—her bearded giant, her golden boy.

‘My two friends. I love you.’

‘Stop acting like this is the Ascension, Julia,’ says Thévenard. ‘Concentrate.’

‘Bless you. You worry so.’

Saint-Rémy clears his throat. ‘You know the rules?’

‘Get on with it,’ says Servan.

‘Very well. Commence pacing.’

They stand back to back and pace away from one another, their seconds counting the steps.

‘Nineteen, twenty.’

Saint-Rémy allows a moment of silence. ‘Now turn to face each other, salute, and when you see Comte d’Albert drop his arm, you may fire.’

They turn.

Servan’s impatient. Feet placed precisely, his gun arm up—a model of perfection.

‘Get ready, Julia,’ says Thévenard. ‘In the name of God.’

‘Oh, I am ready. Believe me.’

Her wrist is languid, the pistol barrel pointing down towards the riverbank.

Some part of Servan knows it’s a ploy—she can’t possibly be so relaxed or so inept. But the greater part—the roaring bluster, the utter certainty—tells him this is a woman, this is a peasant, this is easy. The target is too wide, too open, to resist. He readies his nerves, his legs, his arm. Waits for the signal.

Then he’s on the ground.

His supporters tell him later it was impossibly fast. As if it matters. He’s beaten and she’s gone, striding off along the quay with her arms around her friends, as if nothing has happened, as if he—he!—is nothing, as if—

She leaves him without even the dignity of a flurry, an exchange, that brilliant shot he’d planned—not really a duel at all but an assassination. But he’s not slain. Not even wounded badly enough to attract sufficient sympathy in the salons.

‘She cheated,’ he shouts, blood pouring through his fingers.

‘No, Baron. She’s just very fast.’

‘She fired before the signal.’

‘I’m afraid not,’ says Saint-Rémy, bending over him. ‘I’ll call the surgeon.’

‘Did you see?’ Servan clutches at Saint-Rémy’s cloak. ‘She cheated.’

Saint-Rémy motions to the waiting servants. ‘Fetch the carriage. A rug. Quickly.’

‘She must have. Dear God, I’m dying.’

‘I doubt it,’ says Saint-Rémy. He’s quite calm now this unpleasant duty is finished. ‘La Maupin never duels to kill.’

‘Who says?’

‘Everyone.’

‘Everyone?’

‘She’s famous for it.’

‘What d’you mean, famous?’ Servan’s servants bundle him up in a quilt.

‘I thought you knew,’ says Saint-Rémy. ‘Everyone knows.’

‘Fuck everyone. Get me to a surgeon.’

Later, they tell him he’ll survive the amputation, if not the shame.

In an inn just off rue Saint-Séverin, there’s a woman eating. A great deal. She sits at a long table between two men—one as tall as a mountain, one as pale as winter sun, both laughing and shouting at once.

‘Did you see his face, Émilie?’

‘I didn’t care to look. Pass the bread.’

‘He didn’t know what had hit him.’

‘I would have thought it fairly obvious,’ she says. ‘Are you going to eat that chicken?’

‘A fine shot,’ says d’Albert, ‘for someone who’s never fired a gun.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. My father was a
mousquetaire
. I learned to shoot at six.’

‘But everyone’s been saying—’

‘Everyone else. I said no such thing.’

Thévenard throws his head back and roars. ‘Ha! The fool.’

‘Pompous, festering arsehole.’

‘Joseph, I’ve never heard you talk like that.’ Julie grins at him.

‘What do you expect?’ says d’Albert. ‘It’s true.’

Thévenard thumps d’Albert on the shoulder. ‘First sensible thing you’ve ever said.’

‘Thank you. I think.’

‘You two behave yourselves, please,’ Julie says through a mouthful of roast chicken. ‘There’s been enough nonsense for one day.’

‘You’re right.’ Thévenard slaps the tabletop. ‘We’ll get drunk instead.’

‘Gabriel, it’s only just past dawn.’

‘You see? We’ve missed at least an hour of drinking time already.’

‘Is he always like this?’ asks d’Albert.

‘Only on work days.’

They laugh—the cook’s son, the prince and the singer with the sword—and get so drunk that the gods Minerve and Egée can barely stand upright on stage that evening, and Minerve clutches tight when her machine lurches up into position above the chorus.

The next morning, the goddess of the Opéra wakes with a sick stomach, in a bed scattered with flower petals by every ballet dancer in the corps.

G
OOD MORNING.

Sit down. Hurry up. Time is short, I feel it. My voice, my breath, are wasting away. You should see my legs. Bones. That’s all. I won’t show you. I still have some pride.

I will try to tell you a little more of my story. But I’m fading. I never thought this would happen. Not to me. My forehead burns, and all the potions in Avignon can’t ease this fever. Sometimes it feels as if my eyeballs might melt. Ah, well. You are not my first visitor this day. Christ came to me in the night. He visits me quite often nowadays, Father. He speaks to me—our Lord—stands by my bed, places His hand on my brow.

You doubt me. Well. Does He speak to you? Directly, I mean? Say your name and command you to Him?

No.

I thought as much.

The first time it happened, I told the Abbess. As one should. Doesn’t happen every day, after all—or at least, it never had. Not to me. Did she tell you? She blames the fever. Wild dreams. Hallucinations.

I know what she thinks, what you all think. But if I were a real nun, those dreams would be called visions. You’d rejoice. Write to Rome. In fifty years’ time, widows would pray to me, pilgrims journey on their knees to my grave.

But not me, not this sinner.

That’s what you say to each other in your scrubbed hallways and nasty little offices. It wasn’t a dream. I don’t sleep. Not anymore. I lie here, sweating and thinking and deciding what to tell you and what to keep safe inside.

But He doesn’t care, He who loved another sinner—that Magdalene, whose sins were like mine. He forgave her. He forgives me, even if you will not, you and your Abbess. But His opinion is the only one I care about at this stage. The hour of my agony approaches.

You remember, Father, the parable of the lamp under the jar? I do. Funny, I remember more of the Gospel now although it’s years since I learned it, by heart, reciting it back to Papa every Sunday morning while he nursed his sore head and first bottle of wine. In that story—Luke, isn’t it?—Jesus said, ‘Then pay attention to how you listen; for to those who have, more will be given; and from those who do not have, even what they seem to have will be taken away.’

You’d do well to dwell on those words, next time you feel the need to contradict or interrupt me.

But I wonder—my God, I do nothing but wonder—why would He want such a thing?
From those who do not have, even what they seem to have will be taken away.
I always thought that a little harsh. Coming from the God of love.

I mean, those who are born into a life of grandeur understand that the world is arranged to suit them. Those who make their own wealth assume they can rearrange the world the way they want it. Both are terrifying, close up.

I’m not like that.

I’m a freak. A queer creature.

All I can do is put on a show—all day, every day—and wait for the applause. Or hisses. In a way it doesn’t matter which. It’s the show, the performance, that matters to me. To everyone.

Although two thousand
livres
a year doesn’t hurt.

But I find, to my great surprise, that I am one of those who do not have, and that everything has been taken away. Just like Our Lord predicts. And I hate it. Hate it. There are moments when I hate Him, too, for saying it, for making it so. If indeed He does.

For a brief moment in the span of my life, I was truly happy. For months, even years at a time, I was adored, wealthy—other years, everything vanished. I fought with my friends, I hurt people who did nothing more than irritate me. I soared and then I fell. Are those moments of my life—those memories—as random as they seem now? Or does God really have a plan—for me—for anyone? Some people never leave the ground, and still they fall.

I ask you, O utterly useless spiritual adviser, how can that be right? How can that be just? Why would God allow it to be so?

Don’t give me any of your platitudes. My time is too short to waste listening to you. I will ask Him myself when I see Him. Soon.

But I do understand, in a way. It’s not about money, about riches or carriages or pretty clothes. It’s about our souls, our hearts, isn’t it? About love. About the people around us. And how easy it is for them to be swept away, no matter how you cling, no matter how many tears you shed. Yes, even me.

Look at me. Here. In a building full of people. Alone. Except for you, of course, and you don’t count. But all these women, all these faces. None of them any use to me, none of them the face I want. Love.

When I was younger—then—I didn’t understand the difference between desire and love. How could I? Desire was the only thing I had known, and it felt so strong, so consuming, that I thought, I assumed—especially after a few bottles of wine—that feeling must be the romantic love of the ballads and the stories.

But it wasn’t. I see that now. Don’t get me wrong. Desire can be a fine thing. Desire is enough, sometimes. It will send armies to conquest, inspire the poets—pathetic lot that they are—make friends aim pistols at each other in the Place Royale.

It was enough for me. For years.

What do you say, there? Muttering at me like that. What would you know? Keep your nonsense to yourself. I have no use for it.

I am trying to reconcile myself to my own life here. You can help or hinder. But remember, those who hinder me inevitably find themselves bested.

I’ve had few friends but loyal. I’ve had many romances—are you keeping some kind of tally, Father, in that book of yours? Double it. I can’t be bothered to tell you of the boring fucks and the odd momentary madness.

I’ve had great love. Felt it. Lived it. Lost it. Truly great love, biblical love, a romance worthy of a thousand books, of an opera, of a broken heart.

There is passion in all of it, even in the anger, even in the curses and spitting fights and long nights staring into the embers. Passion isn’t a sin. Passion is godlike. But so human. Passion is the link between all of those things—desire, love, friendship, sin; between all of us.

I have been lucky in my friends. D’Albert, Thévenard—silly bastards, both of them. Fanchon, all the girls. The Comtesse. And Maréchal. Many more. More friends than enemies. That’s something, eh?

Though there have been times, I confess, when it’s been hard to tell the difference between the two. Take Thévenard. There was a time—a few years ago now—it wasn’t my fault, so this is not so much by way of confession as providing you with a few morsels to write down on that growing sheaf of paper—he got a bit full of himself—puffed up, you might say—slightly too intoxicated with his own heady perfume.

Francine promoted him to
primus bassus
—the world wondered at it, with Gabriel still so young and not long with the Académie—but I can admit now that he did deserve it, and since he’s had a few more years to prove his worth, there are few in Paris who’d disagree.

But then—then—he was a pigeon promoted to peacock. He ordered four sets of clothes, a new cane with a silver handle, hats and shoes and Lord knows what else. Hilarious. Had to have his own wig-maker present at each performance to ensure the sanctity of his tresses. Another boy in attendance to apply his makeup, because doing it himself was beneath him. And he never, ever, stopped talking about it. Every sentence began with ‘Now that I am the
primus bassus’
, until I and everyone else was ready to turn him into a
castrato
.

Perhaps he even felt guilty about being so favoured so soon—I don’t know. But he became extremely tedious.

I played a little trick on him—or maybe two—and instead of taking it with his usual good grace, he exploded.

I suppose I exploded right back at him.