A Lady in Shadows

  Instead . . . no, I could not bear the thought. I would never drink champagne again, never. That grotesque salute, the blushing young man, the Holy Spirit and the Spirit of Science . . . I still did not understand that reference, but right now it was humiliatingly obvious that Althauser had been intending to show me off to these men as a “candidate” for some form of Pro Patria breeding program that was to save the nation from being overrun by Germans and degenerates. What if that is what he had wanted all along? Perhaps his willingness to instruct female students sprang exclusively from the need to examine the field for “candidates” of a certain intelligence?

  “Maddie, say something!”

  I looked up. My father’s long, ascetic face—Mama used to tease him that he looked like a prophet who had wandered in the desert for forty days—lay half in shadow, but I could still sense his concern. It was extremely rare nowadays that I cried while he could see and hear it.

  “I don’t think I can attend the university any longer,” I said at last.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I was accepted . . . under false assumptions.”

  “What do you mean by that? You were completely honest in your application—I saw it myself.”

  “My assumptions were not false,” I said. “Theirs were. His. He took me on not because he thought I was intelligent, but because . . . he hoped that . . . I could be useful.”

  “Are you referring to all that foolishness about degeneration and motherhood?”

  “Yes. I think so.”

  “The man is clearly deranged. He is not the right person to be in charge of your continuing education.”

  “But, Papa . . . He is the only one. The only one who wanted me.”

  “Nonsense! There must be other and far more worthy educators. And otherwise there is the Sorbonne.” He lifted his chin as if ready for battle. “Madeleine, you are going to get the education that your intellect deserves!”

  Oh, how I loved him in that moment. Until now it had been August more than Papa who had supported me in my ambition to receive a formal education. Papa had not opposed it, certainly, but I think he ultimately imagined that my future lay in my role as my husband’s assistant, just as I had for the past many years been his. He never acknowledged my abilities to strangers and apparently believed it was unnecessary to praise them to me. It was the first time ever that I had heard him use the word “intellect” about me.

  The Sorbonne was an impossible dream. We simply could not afford it, especially not now when August’s livelihood was in doubt, and when we did not know if his family could and would support him economically in his exile. But I loved Papa for having suggested it.

  He would have given almost anything to be able to believe in preformation rather than epigenesis. It was such a beautiful thought that everything was already present in the vigorous little spermatozoa, that they did not require anything but a fruitful medium in which to grow in order to develop from microscopic homunculi to fully developed sons. But he was a scientist. He had to accept the evidence, and the proof of epigenesis was irrefutable. It was therefore all the more catastrophic when the female sex betrayed its role in the reproductive process.

  His rage was affecting all but a few of his internal organs. He felt the acid content of his stomach rise and burn, there was a painful mutter in the region of his liver, his heart and vascular circulation strained to the point where he could hear his pulse pounding in his ears. He ought to have foreseen it, knowing what he did about her and her sex, yet it still took him by surprise—this defeat, this shameful treachery. He had come so close to falling as so many others had fallen before him!

  It had taken almost an hour to convince Delafontaine that Mademoiselle Karno’s peculiar reaction was not a serious hindrance to the completion of the project. It had even been necessary to mention certain information he had obtained about the vice marshall’s unfortunate handling of public funds in connection with the Panama scandal. Delafontaine was an excellent figurehead for Pro Patria and also their only access so far to funding from the Republic, but he was a man sadly lacking in systematic thought, in spite of his military background. A great deal was left half done because this admirably respected man did not possess the ability to pursue a pure thought all the way to its logical realization. It was, therefore, useful not only to rely on carrots but also to have a stick; the danger was that it might break if used too often.

  It had all been extremely uncomfortable, and when he arrived home, he had to ask Madame Arnaud to bring him two slices of dry bread, a glass of water, and the jar of sodium bicarbonate along with his chamomile tea. He dissolved the two teaspoons of bicarbonate in the water and drank it slowly, accompanied by small mouthfuls of white bread. Only then did his agitated innards begin to calm down.

  It had been a couple of upsetting days altogether, and he could not help but feel that the world was against him. He had not believed in God since that awful day when he lost his simple childhood faith and more or less found his path in life, but there were moments when it seemed to him that the universe was sentient and seemed to lurk, waiting to punish his every single, insignificant mistake.

  He suddenly realized that Madame Arnaud was standing in the doorway and had been for a while.

  “What do you want?” he asked unkindly, mostly because he did not like to be observed without knowing it.

  Several seconds passed before she answered. “May I go there now?”

  He looked at the clock. It was past eleven; that ought to be sufficient even for his incompetent photographer. And yet . . .

  “Wait an hour,” he said.

  He returned his attention to the chamomile tea, but the woman remained in the doorway instead of leaving.

  “She misses me,” she said.

  His soured stomach produced another painful half belch. He had originally hired the woman because she was reliable and withdrawn. He was free of any unnecessary talk, and since she had an invalid husband and could not afford to lose her position, she carried out the relative few duties he assigned to her in a timely manner and without objections. Or that was how it had once been.

  “Madame,” he said, mustering all the patience he possessed at the moment, “women are a true wonder. They are able to attach feelings to anything—a lapdog, a book, a view, yes, even a hat. Only when you begin to believe that these feelings are reciprocated is there reason to fear for your compos mentis. Compose yourself. And wait until twelve o’clock.”

  Again long seconds passed—so many that he wondered whether he would need to replace her in spite of all the fuss it would require. Then, thankfully, the silly woman curtseyed, said, “Yes, m’sieur,” and left.

  He rested his head on the armchair’s antimacassar and closed his eyes. Oh, to be a sea anemone. To reproduce by simple gemmation seemed to him nature’s highest ideal. To bud, and pass oneself on, unchanged and undiluted, to the next generation—that was a beautiful form of immortality. But alas, sexual reproduction drew mankind down into filth, disease, senility, and ruin. Where woman was, there was also death.

  September 29–October 1, 1894

  I woke up confused and exhausted and with a nagging headache. My bedroom felt as if it had shrunk during the night, and the air was musty and thick. I was grateful that I did not immediately have to decide, with yesterday’s humiliation still so raw, if I should attend the lecture and confront Althauser or just make it easier for all involved and refrain from showing up. It was Saturday, and my plans were simply to study at home and assist my father in the morgue with the autopsy of an elderly woman whose neighbors suspected her son of having “done away with her for the sake of the money.” The Commissioner had shaken his head at this.

  “She owned a sideboard, a bowl and pitcher set, a mantel clock, twelve fish forks in silver plate, various other items of dubious value, and a cash sum of thirty-two francs, which she had saved from her widow’s pension. I really hope the neighbors are wrong. I would so prefer not to believe that an
y son would cause his mother’s untimely end because of thirty-two francs and a bit of silver.”

  “People have been murdered for less,” said my father.

  “I know. I would just prefer not to believe it . . .”

  To my surprise, the Commissioner himself was already in the salon when I came down. The autopsy was not scheduled to begin until past noon, when my father had completed his rounds at Saint Bernardine.

  “Good morning, Madeleine,” he said. There was a light drizzle outside, and drops of rain sat like pearl buttons on the new tweed cape that had replaced his worn overcoat after Marie had entered the picture. He had taken off neither hat nor gloves. “I am sorry to disturb you so early in the day, but . . . well, Marie sent me. It is regarding a young lady named Fleur.”

  “The one who identified Rosalba Lombardi,” I explained.

  “Apparently my wife had an appointment with her two days ago. They knew each other from . . . well, from before. But the young lady did not show up. This caused Marie sufficient concern that she went to inquire at Fleur’s address. The concierge said she had not been home since Tuesday.”

  Tuesday. That was the day she and I had visited the Institute for Child Care and Nursing.

  “She and I were together on Tuesday,” I confessed. I had not told either my father or the Commissioner about this visit, but had simply made it seem as if I was at the university those afternoons and evenings that I had actually devoted to the investigation of Rosalba’s death.

  “I see. Then Marie is right that you and this Fleur are . . . er, acquainted?”

  Tuesday evening was also the night Fleur had not shown up at Le Crapaud. Certain nerve endings in my stomach and along my spine began to send chilled signals to my brain. I remembered how exhausted she had seemed that day, how guilt ridden and despairing. I would have to tell the Commissioner most of what we had done together, I realized.

  “Fleur showed me some photographs of Rosalba, which . . . well, I understand that you have seen them.” I had no desire whatsoever to go into detail and was not sure how I should continue.

  “Please go on,” said the Commissioner when the pause grew longer. He had not moved a muscle.

  “Fleur was convinced that some of the pictures had a . . . connection to what happened later. She felt that I could perhaps help her to unravel events.”

  “Dear Madeleine, do I really need to tell you that police investigations are best handled by the police?”

  “Fleur does not have a great deal of confidence in men, especially not in policemen. I was merely trying to help!”

  “But you were not with her yesterday or the day before?”

  “No. I have not seen her since Tuesday either.”

  “It worries me that you may have exposed both yourself and the young lady to danger.”

  I shook my head.

  “I don’t think so. The only thing we did together was visit an institute for child care . . .” A couple of disjointed visual memories flittered through my head. Long rows of infants. Pauline’s rebellious face. The judgmental pince-nez gaze of Madame Palantine. I remembered the stuffy, unhealthy smell in Fleur’s bedroom, her bottomless sorrow. Was it strong enough that she might . . . choose to end it?

  Then another and perhaps less dramatic explanation occurred to me.

  “Could she have been arrested?” I asked. Three months . . . for buying a pint of milk in the wrong place, she had said. That sounded like a personal experience.

  The Commissioner shook his head.

  “That was also among the first things Marie asked, but I have investigated the matter. She has not been jailed. In fact, she has never been arrested—remarkable when one considers her . . . means of support.”

  Perhaps it was Rosalba who had bought that pint of milk. Or it might just be a random example, though I did not really think so. It was too specific.

  “The hospitals?” In addition to Saint Bernardine there were two, both smaller and—according to Papa, anyway—less professional.

  “No. And Marie has asked several . . . mutual friends. That is why I am here. We have exhausted the most plausible possibilities, and Marie thought that you might . . .”

  “No. I don’t know anything.”

  “Well, then, I apologize for the inconvenience. I suppose we will just have to wait for her to show up.”

  I felt an uneasy helplessness, mixed with guilt.

  “Is there perhaps some family?”

  The Commissioner shook his head. “Marie says that there isn’t. She seems quite alone in the world, our Fleur.”

  That did not lessen my guilt or my unease.

  We found her at last. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that she found us.

  She was lying on the muddy bank of the River Var, in the shadow of the Arsenal Bridge.

  “At first I think it is a child,” said the young English engineer who had reported it. “But then I could see that she isn’t.” He spoke French in his own manner, fast and with an excellent vocabulary, but with somewhat patchy grammar. “We examine the bridge pilings, and there she is. Tiny. The poor little thing.”

  It was daybreak, more or less, but the fog was so thick that it was difficult to differentiate the faint glow of dawn from the fuzzy symmetrical points of light emanating from the streetlamps along the promenade. Somewhere farther down the river, a pontoon bridge was rubbing against its moorings with a repetitive screeching, as if someone were plucking a live goose.

  Fleur lay on her back, with wide-open eyes. If there had been any truth to that tale, we would have been able to photograph her killer because, unlike Rosalba, she had fought and scratched and had not gone gently and dreamily to her death. Almost all her fingernails were frayed or broken, and she had vivid bruises on her arms and wrists where someone had tried to hold her or pin her down.

  She was sodden. Her clothes, her hair . . . everything was dank and dark from the river. The yellow silt that collected in the bends of the Var daubed the skirts of her dress and clung to her legs, shoulders, and neck. Around her mouth there were traces of foam, as one may often observe in the drowned.

  Aristide Gilbert set up his tripod and camera as well as it was possible in the mud and mumbled apologetically about the quality of the light and hence of the photographs.

  “Too diffuse,” he said. “Not enough contrast.” The absinthe on his breath was overpowering, and his movements so uncertain that the Commissioner raised an eyebrow. If Gilbert did not watch his step, I thought, he could lose his commission from the police even if no one else ever discovered that he had been selling his material to the overzealous Monsieur Christophe.

  “Homicide?” asked the Commissioner.

  “If not, she was definitely in a fight before she drowned,” my father said, and indicated the nails and the blue spots.

  “It’s murder,” I said, and squatted next to the corpse. “Look at her dress.”

  The mud had camouflaged it at first glance, but when you looked more closely there were two tears in the skirt, and I was certain we would find corresponding lacerations when we undressed her.

  “It is less brutal than was the case with the Italian and Eugénie Colombe,” said my father.

  “And made through the skirt. He did not wish to expose her abdomen,” I pointed out.

  Gilbert turned abruptly from the camera and let the cloth fall. Without a word he staggered ten to twelve paces toward the steps leading back up to the quay and began to vomit. Whether it was the effects of the absinthe or the subject he was being forced to photograph was impossible to determine. We all three looked at him—Papa, the Commissioner, and I—and then, as if by mutual agreement, ignored his suffering.

  The Commissioner greeted my announcement with a slow, disbelieving shake of his head.

  “Does this mean we cannot even be sure it is the same assailant?” he said.

  “We cannot tell with certainty,” acknowledged my father. “Madeleine is right. There are similarities but also diffe
rences.”

  “This is madness,” said the Commissioner. “That one man should perpetrate such a horror is bad enough, but—”

  “I don’t think it is madness,” I said, feeling an unfamiliar cold rage collect somewhere in the region of my solar plexus. “I think it is very deliberate and carefully planned.”

  My father glanced at me.

  “First the facts, Maddie,” he said quietly, “then the conclusions. Never the other way around.”

  I nodded curtly. Fleur’s little-girl face was blank and dead. The lively eyes were dark and empty, the energetic body now nothing more than a collection of bones and decomposing tissue. The engineer’s description, the poor little thing, was only too precise. That was all she was now—an object. And perhaps all she had been to the killer while she was still alive.

  I got up, perhaps a little too abruptly. That was why, I assured myself later. That was sufficient explanation.

  A wave of dizziness robbed me of all strength in my legs and the ability to hold myself upright. Neither my father nor the Commissioner had time to react before I collapsed on the riverbank in the mud next to Fleur’s dead body.

  Marie Mercier’s shoulders were shaking, and she cried quietly.

  We had been forced to ask her to formally identify the body, because we had no one else. She bore it with dignity, but there was no doubt she was deeply shocked. Briefly and in a quiet voice, she answered the necessary questions, so cold and factual, and signed the documents with her new married name. The Commissioner placed both hands on the trembling shoulders and kissed her on the hair, and the tenderness that existed between them was unmistakable. A jab of longing went through me, and I had to remind myself that August would be coming home from Heeringen later today.

  “Madeleine,” said the Commissioner, “would you take Marie home? I think she would appreciate your company.”

  “Yes, why don’t you do that, Maddie,” my father seconded him.

  I knew that this did not just concern Marie. It was about getting both of the frail women out of the way. My idiotic fainting fit had left its marks not just on my clothes and in the form of a painful crick in my neck—it had also ruined much of the professional respect I had worked so hard to attain. My father wished to perform Fleur’s autopsy without my assistance. I hated my body’s weakness in that moment, but I could see that it would do no good to protest.