Spectacle(16)
She didn’t want to look at the bodies. Any of them. Obviously she had to, for the sake of her column. Not just look at them but study them.
Nathalie walked to the back of the display room, clutched the catacomb vial in her pocket, and approached the viewing pane again. She stood tall and observed the other corpses, eyes skipping over the victim. The other new bodies on display were an overweight man, probably the other body they’d carried past her in the hall yesterday, and an elderly woman. Their deaths were undignified—no one wants to die anonymously in a public place—yet ordinary. Compared to the two girls, all the other souls appeared to be sleeping.
When Nathalie left the morgue, she headed to the bureau de poste to mail her letter to Agnès. She caught herself clenching her fists, nearly crushing the letter, twice on the way there.
* * *
She didn’t want to sit in the noisy steam tram or on the omnibus as horses plodded along. Nor was she in the mood to be pressed against strangers. A long walk home was inconvenient but preferable. The reaction of the crowd in the morgue both today and yesterday made Nathalie feel like an outcast. Worse yet, she agreed with them.
Taking the route near the Seine, she paused at the water’s edge to stare into the river. The river that served as pall bearer for two young women not much older than herself. Before their identities became Victim #1 and Victim #2, who had they been? Perhaps one had been a shop girl who loved the thrill of a new perfume and the other, a studious girl who read Latin and had just enjoyed her first kiss.
How did the killer dispose of them without being seen?
Finding the bodies must have been horrendous. She couldn’t imagine how the unwitting discoverers had felt upon realizing that the object floating in the water was human and that the human was a young girl and that the young girl was dead.
And the victims. What went through their minds that harrowing moment, when they knew they were going to die? She’d seen it on the second victim’s face, that instant of realization. What did it feel like, that brief intersection of horror between the realms of life and death?
A few blocks from home, she passed a newsboy selling Le Petit Journal. The ink shouted at her from the stack of papers, begging her to come closer.
When she did, the headline overtook her like a thief in the alley.
Girl’s Killer Sends Letter to the Newspaper
While the boy engaged with a talkative customer, Nathalie paused to read more. The letter was quoted in large print beneath the headline:
To Paris,
I’d like to express my gratitude to you for coming to see my work on display. It was a pleasure to see so many, especially the woman in blue and her young girl—who, I must say, carried in the most delightful yellow bloom. The little one’s screams upon seeing my Sleeping Beauty were indeed a welcome surprise.
Until the next one, I remain,
Ever yours,
Me
And there, under a lamppost beside the newsboy and the talkative customer, Nathalie threw up the raspberries and cheese she’d had for breakfast.
8
Throughout dinner that evening, Maman eyed her with suspicion. Not eating pistou soup, one of Nathalie’s favorite summer meals, gave her away. She tried forcing herself to have some but was afraid she’d throw up again.
“What do you think of the soup?” asked Maman, sinking her spoon into it. “You’re not having much. Too much basil?”
“No, it’s delicious.” Nathalie soaked a piece of bread in it. “I’m just … I have an upset stomach.”
“Because it’s empty. All the more reason to eat.” Maman’s skepticism was palpable.
“When I get back from Simone’s,” Nathalie said, eating the soup-soaked bread. “I told her I’d be there at six.”
Nathalie cleared the plates and washed them. Her life was ruled by the hour hand these days. Last summer she’d spent a few hours a day reading or writing in the city’s gardens or people watching at a café with Simone, and her biggest worry had been getting chores done before Maman got home from work.
Now it was corpses. And unexplainable visions. And a murderer.
She should be in northern France with Agnès in a little town where time stood still. A summer where her greatest concern would be how big a slice of tart to take or snakes in the garden or Roger being a nuisance.
With a sigh, she tossed the dishrag on the counter. Maman asked yet again what was the matter.
“Nothing,” said Nathalie. She picked up the dishrag, folded it neatly, and placed it on the counter. “I hope I feel better soon, that’s all.”
Maman folded her hands together, wincing from the effort. Nathalie took her satchel and kissed Maman on the forehead, promising to be home by nine.
* * *
Nathalie got off the steam tram in Pigalle a block from Simone’s place and bought a newspaper at a nearby tobacco store. Dance halls, bawdy can-can shows, and café-concerts spilled into one another in this part of the city, and Simone lived in the center of it all. (Maman considered this section “a heap of decadence,” so Nathalie “moved” Simone’s address to a building in a more respectable area several blocks away.)
Because of her schedule at Le Chat Noir, Simone kept strange hours—“vampire hours,” as she called them. Some nights she performed in a show, and although she only had minor chorus roles, she was overjoyed just to be on stage. Other nights she waited tables at the club. She often spent her nights off there, too, listening to poetry readings or musicians trying out new compositions.