13, Rue Therese - Elena Mauli Shapiro [82]
for an execution.
30. Love is a gypsy child,
It has never, never known law.
31. We march, heads held high, like little soldiers.
32. Oh, my Carmen, my beloved Carmen!
Arrest me, it is I who killed her!
33. Whose handwriting is this? Why does this exist? It cannot be part of the record.
34. An A-sharp. Is this the pitch of the vibration in my body? A melancholy and lovely note.
35. The melody—oh, the melody. I do not know music, but I am quite certain it is this: Help me!
36. “You have something to show me, Trevor?”
37. Your face. As all fades to black and a strange hiss overtakes me, I cannot believe that I am looking at your face. The sweet concern in your eyes—if I could move I would reach my hand to touch your cheek. For an instant, a negative image of your eyes over the darkness then the thrum of my blood through my flickering brain then nothing.
38. Am I certain of this?
39. However, this much is known: that evening, he goes to Louise and finds her bedroom door locked. He knocks on it gently. At first she does not answer. He knocks again. “Yes?” answers her raw, tear-soaked voice. “Open up, please.”
She does, because she is an obedient daughter, but she stands in the open doorway, afraid to so much as let him see her unmade bed, lest it invite him. Her face is swollen from too much weeping. He thinks, The poor child, this is the worst day of her life. “Will you be all right?” he asks.
She nods silently, and she even manages to smile, just a little. How is she doing that? She is so strong. He says quite softly, with all the gentleness of a courteous suggestion, “I think it would be good if you should marry.”
“I can’t imagine to whom.”
“That fellow from my shop, Henri Brunet. He likes you.” Louise casts her eyes down, and he can tell he has said enough. He does not, after all, want to push his daughter. He doesn’t have to. His observation, to her, has the strength of an edict. He says good night, and she shuts the door. At the sound of his retreating footsteps, she recalls the outrage with which he greeted the idea that she might marry her own blood when Camille asked him for her hand, and she could laugh hysterically until her heart completely crumbles, never to be mended again. Fortunately he is dead now. They are all dead.
40. How is this much known? There is nothing in the documentation that so much as insinuates this. I am ridiculous.
41. But this is no help at all! It is a photograph of Louise Brunet at an advanced age. It is dated 1956. She is standing next to her elderly father, who died of a massive heart attack in 1944. He is standing next to her plump mother, who died when she was born. This cannot be! This cannot be in the documentation—don’t fall apart
don’t fall apart
no no don’t fall apart
please.
42. It’s Carmencita.
No, no, it is not her…
43. Love is a wild bird
that none can tame—
44. If witches exist,
this girl is one.
45. Properly captured for the record: the gaze of Xavier Langlais, a man illegible, not in the documentation.
46. 1967, from my perspective an old coin.
47. But if I love you, if I love you, you best beware!
48. Like so: Witness the ghost of the flower evident where Louise’s lover writes, “Your cousin who loves you and thinks of you—Camille.”
Copyright
Copyright © 2011 by Elena Mauli Shapiro
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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First eBook Edition: February 2011
Reagan Arthur Books is an imprint of Little, Brown and Company,