Up above her, strings of laundry were strung up from one building to another, blocking out the sky as though it were an enormous flock of birds. Sadie passed through the market. She saw a man moving some cups around a table while people tried to guess which one the ball was under. The cups moved around like horse hooves doing fancy footwork at a fair.
Sadie stopped in front of a puppet show. There were two characters. One was a rich fat man. The other puppet was a very petite lower-class girl in a simple dress. The fat man tried to convince her to raise her skirts and allow him to violate her. He flirted with her charmingly but emphatically. She refused all his advances in a witty, droll manner. Every now and again the fat man lost patience with this courtship and lunged for the young woman so he could pin her down and rape her. She ran screaming from him. There was a large group of children who had pressed themselves up to the front of the stage. Whenever the fat man lost control and tried to rape the girl, they would all burst out laughing and clap their hands.
Sadie was enthralled by the puppet show. She had been raised to think the arts were created by a group of refined individuals who were masters of their craft. They had learned and perfected it through the aid of great teachers. And the art they produced from the fulcrum was meant to amuse the very wealthy. It was created to reflect themes that would appeal to a wealthy man sitting in a reserved theater box with his wife. It was epic and noble. The wicked were punished. The usurpers realized the error of their ways and either committed suicide or subjected themselves to punishment by the morally pure.
This puppeteer seemed as interested in the tastes of a seven-year-old watching as he was with the grown-ups standing behind them. His play was remarkable and modern. He would never be able to perform this on a large stage. As a result, he had complete artistic freedom away from the morality police. He was unfettered by conservative ideas of theater.
As she watched the puppet who drank to excess and scratched its own ass, Sadie thought, How wonderful to say what you want to say!
Indeed, everyone was shouting their deepest secrets at one another. Their arguments were coming right out the windows. She closed her eyes and absorbed the violence that was spoken from one lover to another. She was delighted she was in a place where she was not the most shocking person. She would still seek to achieve that, but there was much to learn first. What fertile soil this was to plant oneself in as an artist, she thought.
This was now her world.
CHAPTER 20
étude for Hands with Four Fingers
Mary Robespierre’s salary from the factory went to her grandparents. She slept on a cot at the foot of their bed. She could hear them breathing and snoring. She could hear the dry skin between their toes as they moved them against each other. They sounded as though they were eating even when they were sleeping. They made the rooting, grunting noises of pigs. She watched them in their sleep. They were rolled in blankets like cocoons. They looked like well-fed maggots.
* * *
Making cakes at night was a way to escape everything. She had once asked her mother if she could come see the house where she worked, but her mother was emphatic it was out of the question. However, her mother would bring her books from the Antoine household to read. She brought her paints and paper that Marie had been encouraged to draw on but did not. Art was a revelation to Mary. Her world was drab and ugly. But she could create anything she wanted on the page. She might draw herself a white horse or small cottage covered with climbing vines. Whatever it was, when she stared at it, it was perfectly alive. But the loveliest thing Agatha did was to smuggle baking ingredients from the Antoine household in her satchel.
Mary Robespierre found she was very much able to think her own thoughts when she baked. In fact, she was able to think more extravagant and complex thoughts while she was crafting elaborate cakes. She never would have become evil were it not for baking cakes. The cakes made her do it.
She sold the cakes at the street market, and they were always a success. Even in the cold air of the winter, people would stop to buy her cakes. Her grandparents insisted on taking the money she made. They rolled the bills up and tucked them into a tin can, and the roll made the temporary fluttering sounds of a bird being put in a cage. Mary thought this went too far. The cakes were part of her creative self. Her talent was the one thing she had ever felt belonged indisputably to her. Her talent was upset at her because everything it gave to her, she subsequently gave away to her grandparents. Her talent was giving her the tools she needed to survive in the world. Her talent told her she had to get away.
Sometimes being courageous and brave means getting rid of those who are dependent on you. Her grandparents were parasites. The more she obtained for herself, the more they would sponge off her.
Mary began to think about her future and how she might change her present circumstances. Mary had known since she was ten years old that Louis Antoine was her father. Her mother had told her before she died. Single mothers can never keep anything from their children. They have no one to talk to other than them at night. They sleep in the same bed as them and divulge everything, as though they were lovers. She knew ever since she had learned the truth to keep her mouth shut about it. She was a bastard, after all.
But lately Mary had carefully considered how she could use the information about her parentage to her advantage. She went to visit Jeanne-Pauline. The older woman screwed up her face in curiosity when Mary walked into the drugstore. Fine lines appeared all over her face, as though it were an intricate map of a city.
“Ah! You have come to cure yourself of your grandparents!”
“No, no. It’s not for them at all.”
“Ah, for yourself.”
“Yes, I want something that will make me feel absolutely no pain.”
Jeanne-Pauline looked at the girl, realizing she was stranger than the others. Whatever Mary was up to, it was probably wicked. She always liked girls with subversive and dangerous potential.
Mary was very careful about how she dressed the next morning. She scrubbed herself clean. She brushed her hair to get the grease out so the shimmeriness of the blond was noticeable. The blond hair was important because it would make her look young and pretty. She ran to the factory so she would appear flushed and out of breath and just the right amount of sweaty. Then she stopped outside the factory. She slapped her right cheek hard and suddenly with her right hand. Then, just as quickly, her left cheek with her left hand
Then she walked in with her shoulders back. It would happen in the morning. She went to her station and began to sew the sugar bags shut. She finished ten bags and then on the eleventh when she placed the cord to be snipped by the blade, she slipped her pinky finger under and she never knew what it was up to ever again.
Before the blood and the chaos that ensued, she picked up her finger, wrapped it in a kerchief and plopped it into her pocket. She had to be very careful about expressing her wants. If she didn’t get them across quickly, she would end up with a pet turkey on a leash.