When We Lost Our Heads

“There is something so peculiar I wanted to share with you,” Marie said. “I met a woman. She looks like me. She’s completely mad, though. I don’t know what to make of it.”

“Why do you bother with her?”

“She looks exactly like me. Exactly.”

“Let’s go and meet her.”

“I knew you would be curious about this phenomenon.”

“We live in peculiar times. Anything is possible. If you don’t have an open mind, you’ll miss out on the whole adventure. What is reality anymore?”

“She says she is my sister.”

“Well, your father was a notorious philanderer. I’m sure you do have siblings out there. What does it matter? The factory came to you from your mother anyhow. You’d have to worry if she was your mother’s child too.”

Marie was bolstered by Sadie’s nonchalance. They climbed into Marie’s carriage and instructed the driver to deliver them to the Robespierre Bakery. When they entered and the baker stepped out from the back, Sadie was dumbstruck. She wanted to immediately berate Marie for not telling her about the physical resemblance. But then she realized Marie had indeed told her. She kicked herself for interpreting anything as metaphorical. Particularly in this age of invention where metaphors were daily being converted into reality.

Sadie knew immediately the baker was using this uncanny resemblance to her advantage. She was doing it because she could. There was no way anyone of the lower classes could stop themselves from taking a stab at Marie—wanting to hurt Marie in some way. It is in the nature of the weak to torment the strong for no good reason, while the strong exploit the poor for the advancement of the world.

She was curious to see whether there was anything else, other than a general mean-spiritedness, behind this woman’s relationship with Marie.

“Hello, I’m Marie’s friend. Sadie Arnett.”

“Yes, the famous pornographer. I know your work well.”

“You look a lot like Marie. I will immediately concede that point. But although the resemblance is remarkable, I don’t see that you have any other relationship to her.”

“I know your story from the book. I suppose that’s the joy of being a novelist, isn’t it? You write your life. But you do it in a way where you take out all the negative qualities. You and Marie once committed a grave crime together. There’s no mention of that in the book, is there?”

Sadie and Marie were quiet for a moment. They simply looked at Mary. Her baker hat was too large and was over her forehead, like a bag an executioner was about to pull down.

Sadie felt they ought to get the hell out of the shop. She took Marie’s arm and pulled her onto the sidewalk. “We should not in any circumstance have anything to do with that woman again. She is obsessed with you. So what? So she looks like you. It’s gone to her head. Don’t even buy any cakes from her. They don’t necessarily taste better than other cakes. I think she puts cocaine in the icing. They aren’t necessarily good, they are addictive. She’ll bloody well try to poison us.”

“I was hoping you would tell me I had nothing to worry about.”

“I believe it’s worse than you think. What are you going to do about her?”

“I’ve made it my habit to ignore women of the Squalid Mile. They are always slightly hysterical.”

“Not like that.”

“I can’t think properly when it comes to her. She shakes my sense of reality. I suppose I’ll figure out what to do about her soon.”

“Sooner is better than later. How does she know about what we did?”

“Who knows? She’s obsessed with me. She knows everything.”

“You have to deal with her, Marie.”

Marie glanced at the bakery with an uncertain look. There was something about Mary that told her just to get away as fast as she could, and learn nothing else.

“She’s from the Squalid Mile,” Marie said definitively. “She has no power.”



* * *





Mary Robespierre stood in the bakery watching the women through the window climb into Marie’s extravagant carriage. She felt she had to pack all her anger inside herself so as not to explode. If she hurled herself at the women, she would be arrested and she would never have her revenge against them. She would have to bide her time until she found the opportunity to destroy the two of them.

The moment the two women were gone, Mary felt her anger explode like gunpowder. She threw a huge mound of dough on the table. She began to pound it as though it were a punching bag. She smashed it over and over again. Then she stuffed her face into it and screamed.

If Marie and Sadie had witnessed this scene, they might not have been laughing once again in the carriage as though all their problems in the world had been solved.



* * *





Marie stepped out of the carriage and walked arm in arm with Sadie to the door of the brothel. “I used to be so jealous of you,” Marie said. She put her head against her friend’s shoulder. “I always thought you outdid me. No matter how much care I took getting dressed, I preferred whatever outfit you had on to my own. Whatever book you had in your hand seemed more interesting than whatever I was reading. If I was on my way to the zoo and I ran into you, I lost all interest in animals.”

“Even the zebras?”

“Even the zebras.”

Marie opened up the locket on her neck. She never opened it for anyone. And she wore it everywhere. Everyone felt a tinge of sadness and compassion for Marie when they saw that necklace. They supposed it contained a likeness of her mother and the only way she ever had any access to her mother’s face was when she opened that tiny golden oval. When she was slightly out of her element or felt slighted in any way, she would put her hand around the locket. She let it warm up in the palm of her hand. She held it as though it were a gold coin and she was imagining what treat she could purchase with it.

Marie leaned forward so Sadie could see what it was. There were two small girls on either oval of the locket. On one was a blond girl with curly locks and unmistakable apple cheeks. And on the other side was a girl with black eyes and a mound of black hair. And when she closed the locket again, it made the sound of two people kissing.





CHAPTER 38


    Drive a High Heel Through My Heart



George could not bring herself to let Sadie languish in prison for even a few days. She knew Sadie didn’t have a notebook, and she needed to write every day.

She had had a meeting with political men. It had been a humiliating experience for her. When men saw her for the first time, they were always upset. She knew they wanted to shake her and tell her even if she wasn’t ugly, she should at the very least try to look feminine. She did not make any effort to appeal to their gaze. They had refused to listen to her.

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