CHAPTER FORTY

"Oh, Sylvie, look outside for me-I've had a dreadful dream." I sat up in bed to see that Sylvie had brought my breakfast chocolate and bread bought fresh that morning. She pulled the heavy curtains and looked out into the spring morning. "What do you see out there in the street?" I asked anxiously.

"A big dray cart, Madame, the woman who just sold me the milk for your chocolate...she's dipping some out from her bucket for the woman across the street. There're two cats, a yellow dog...and someone's pig has gotten out."

"No one else? Are you sure?"

"Oh, yes, Madame. There's a boy selling little pastries on a tray. Do you want me to get some?"

"Don't go. Look again-you don't see a...a man without a face, do you?"

"Of course I don't. We live in a nice neighborhood. What on earth is wrong with you?"

"I dreamed he was outside, waiting for me, looking up at the house. It was as real as real-Then I woke up when you came in."

"Madame, it is the opium again. How much cordial did you take before you went to sleep last night?"

"Hardly any, see?" I said, holding up the bottle from my nightstand. "I'm cutting down."

"You've cut down before, and you always go back to it. It's not doing you any good, I can see that."

"Sylvie, you go beyond your place."

"Madame, what do I care? Listen to me-times are hard and places are scarce. It won't do me any good to be working for a corpse."

"It's not the cordial this time-look again." Something in my tone of voice made her look intently at my face, then go again to look. The pale light of early spring poured in through the tall window, making a shining rectangle across the heavy brocade bedspread and dark-patterned carpet. The scent of blooming narcissus from bulbs forced in a pot on a side table filled the room.

"I see the first carriage in the street-your customers are coming. You'd best dress quickly."

"Very well, Sylvie, but-"

"Don't worry, Madame, I won't let in any faceless men." Sylvie's voice was ironic.

The morning was unusually full: I divined the fate of a son at the front and a lover at sea, advised on an engagement, and referred an artillery officer to La Voisin for an ointment to make him impervious to bullet wounds. By late afternoon, business had dropped off. Mustapha had brought a copy of Le Mercure galant, which he began to read aloud for my amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Listen to this, Madame. The fashion is changing again: ribbons are to be removed from the rest of the costume, and the mode for men will be for 'more sumptuous materials, elegance residing in the coiffure, the shoes, and the beauty of the linens and the vest.' Just as well my own costume has timeless elegance, isn't it? The truly fashionable man is above the mode," he announced, inspecting the turned-up toes of his embroidered Turkish slippers.

"One might as well say the same for me." I laughed as Mustapha gave me the paper and glided to the door to admit another client. Only his cough reminded me that I should give up the paper, for the client was waiting, and I looked up to see a demobilized soldier, his back to me, inspecting my furniture. He had on a wide hat and carried a heavy metal-tipped walking stick in one hand. With the other, he stroked the silver vase on the sideboard with a possessive air that I did not like. I sat up straight, tucked away the Mercure galant, and pulled the veils of my mourning headdress back down so my face was again hidden in mystery. All was in order: the round globe of the oracle gla.s.s shining on its stand of entwined silver dragons, the rods, the cabalistic cloth. Mustapha looked uneasy.

"Monsieur," I said, "with what business may I a.s.sist you?"

The man turned and walked across the room with an arrogant air. I could see him staring at the heavy rings on my right hand as it rested on the black velvet that covered the table. He seated himself opposite me without my invitation, laying his walking stick against my table. I drew back with a start. It was not the false nose he wore or the stench of the infection from his cropped nose and ears. It was that I had recognized the faceless man.

"I have come to inquire after a missing relative," the faceless man said. His voice was low, menacing. I could hear the breath hiss in and out of the mangled holes in his face beneath the artificial nose that was tied to his face with a silk cord. Yes, the voice was his, too. The voice of my nightmares. The Chevalier de Saint-Laurent. Uncle.

"I cannot see the past. Only the future. There will be no fee if I cannot obtain a reading on this missing relative." My voice was calm. I am no child now, Uncle; I am strong. And even as I feared it, I craved this moment, when I could confront you and tell you what you are.

"Oh, I think you will succeed in finding her. Lift up that veil, Genevieve Pasquier."

"So, Uncle, we meet again at last. What excess of family devotion has brought you here? Would you like me to read your future?" I lifted the veil and stared directly at his hideous face without flinching. He sucked in his breath. The change that artifice, money, and love had brought to my face could not be mistaken.

"You have changed," he said, regaining his calm. "You're not a bad-looking girl these days."

"Genevieve Pasquier is dead. I do not appreciate your familiarity. State your business or leave."

"Come, come now," he said, leaning across the table in repulsive intimacy, "you should be a little more friendly. Family is family, eh? Consider your duty to your elders." He got up suddenly and paced around the room. "I've done a great deal for you. Look at you! You're rich." He gestured around him at the opulent furnishings of the room. "That desk, inlaid...and the tapestry...a Gobelins, isn't it? And that carpet-it looks Turkish." Turkish-Mustapha had vanished silently to fetch Gilles, as he did whenever a client looked troublesome.

"It was hardly your doing, Uncle. I owe you nothing." His sly, foxy eyes darted sideways at me. He smiled that wide, confident grin that had once so entranced the ladies. It was hideous now. It distorted the scarred face and set the artificial nose off center.

"I think you do," he said.

"I imagined that's what you would think. You've never been more than a parasite. It would not be true to character for you to come for any other reason than money," I answered.

He sprang forward with a growl and put both hands upon my desk. "Be careful of your tongue, you little b.i.t.c.h, or it will cost you everything."

"Everything, Uncle? Didn't you take that from me already? And see what good it did you. Be warned, Uncle, I will never be robbed again." Hard and invulnerable in the iron garments of the Marquise de Morville, I felt exalted by the rising ferocity that came like the smoke of a raging fire deep inside me. I stood. "Beware of what you ask, for I will pay you in exactly the coin you deserve." I felt that if he came even an inch closer, my rage would spill over him and dissolve him like vitriol. And facing me as he did, Uncle could not see Mustapha return with Gilles, silently motioning him to hide behind the screen that hid the kitchen door.

I could see the blood twisting the arteries in Uncle's neck. His breath came hard. "I could wring your neck right here, you smiling, deformed little monster."

"Hardly as deformed as you," I laughed. "Wh.o.r.emonger, betrayer of innocence, poisoner of old women. What do you intend to do? Blackmail me by threatening to inform the police about me? I'll have a good bit to tell them about you, myself." I stepped back from behind my table. He picked up his heavy walking stick from the floor beside the chair.

"You'll stop laughing when I identify you and, as head of the family, put you in a convent and lay claim to everything you possess," he hissed.

"You? The heir of the Pasquiers? Hardly, Uncle. I'm not an ignorant girl anymore. Anything you do will only enrich my brother, who will take everything. How silly of you not to settle for mere blackmail. How much you could have sucked from me under the threat to tell my brother where I was! And how unlikely for you to miss such an obvious source of money. Clearly you, too, are afraid etienne will find you. No, you've been a fool, Uncle. Your threats have lost you everything. You won't get a sou from me."

"You stand there so cool, so arrogant. Who do you think you are? You're nothing! I've had you, you're n.o.body-and I can have you again. And what you have, I'll take, just as I take whatever I want, now." His fierce, wolfish smile showed his curious pointed eyeteeth. Like fangs. They seemed somehow as if they were dripping blood from a recent kill. What had he been doing since the police had last heard of him? He seemed ruthless with some recent evil. Careful, careful, I told myself. Don't set him off by showing fear. Paralyze him with your coldness, as the viper does with his staring, venomous eye. I stood up, smiling, and strolled calmly around the table past him, stroking his arm with my jeweled fingers as casually as I would a cat, until I stood a foot before the screen where Gilles and Mustapha were concealed. He started and swore at my touch, his eyes following my hand. I knew how much he valued jewels.

"'n.o.body,' Uncle? No, I am somebody. It is you who have become a n.o.body. A leech without prospect. It's really quite pitiful, wouldn't you agree? Tell me, which of your besotted lady friends paid to get you out of prison this time? Did she turn away when she saw what her husband had done to you, Monsieur Lover of Women? And have you now added her to your list of female enemies? It strikes me that you hold too many grudges, Uncle."

"I do not keep them long, dear little niece. The woman who scorned me is dead. So is everyone else who stands in my way. What have I to lose? I will take your money, your jewels, to flee the country. I will buy the women I want with the rings on your fingers, when I have sent you to keep your mother company. She tried to hide her money, too, but I knew she had it. She dared to call me a monster-she who outdid every monster living. My stick convinced her. What a fool she was. And all for five gold louis. But I wasn't disappointed, for she led me to you. And now, Niece, I want to know where your cash box is..." He smiled, showing a large number of teeth, and tapped the heavy stick on his open palm. Mother. How on earth had a blind, insane woman led him to me? And what had he done there on the rue des Marmousets?

"You're a clever man, Uncle, to find me here. Surely Mother did not give you the address." He smiled again, temporarily distracted by the contemplation of his own brilliance.

"You were a fool, Niece. You let slip your mask. What fortune-teller gives away money rather than takes it? She said she didn't have anything more for me-Marie-Angelique had visited and had given her hardly anything. But the stable boy had seen the celebrated Marquise de Morville leave by the back way. It would have been clear to a fool. The blind woman knew her daughter's voice. Only it was the wrong daughter." I could hear the breathing behind the screen. Mustapha, silent as a cat, peeped out. I must keep Uncle's eyes only on me.

"What did you do to Mother?" Uncle came closer, his eyes sly and triumphant. Mustapha crossed behind him, his Turkish slippers making not a single sound on the heavy carpet.

"Helped end her misery on earth," answered Uncle, "as I will now...help...you-" His remnant of a face distorted with rage, and the nose fell away, revealing two raw and oozing holes. His teeth were like a wolf's, his eyes insane with evil. I saw the stick lash out and instinctively raised my arm before my face, screaming and falling to the ground as the bone snapped under the heavy blow. In another moment, the breath went out of me as Uncle's body fell on mine. The screen overturned with a crash as my servants rushed to my aid. The ghastly dying thing sprawled across me, suffocating me, its touch filling me with horror.

"Don't pull my arm!" I cried as Gilles rolled the body off me and Sylvie pulled at me, trying to right me. "He's broken it. I swear I heard the bone break."

"Well, he won't be breaking any more, that's for certain," said Gilles with calm distaste, as he turned over the body with his toe. Two sharp little knives were sunk deep into the Chevalier de Saint-Laurent's back, soaking in black blood that was oozing onto my dress, into the carpet, everywhere. "I think the second knife was entirely superfluous, Mustapha. The first seems to have gone to the heart." Gilles looked at the little man with admiration.

"Oh, G.o.d, you've killed him." I was shuddering all over. Uncle's hideous face had touched mine, his filthy blood was staining me. His stink was in my nose, rising to my brain.

"Surely Madame is not sorry for him," said Sylvie with some astonishment.