He took me next to the Gare d’Orléans, where we found the station hung with empty balloon baskets hanging from the girders, laced by riggings that allowed trainers to simulate for student pilots the conditions in the air. They were dusty and abandoned.
By order of the Commune, he said, as he tugged at one of the lines, I restore to service the balloon program of the Commune. Now then. The pay for the job of balloon pilot, he said, is three hundred francs. To be paid in full once you agree to the conditions of the contract. You are to surrender, he said. And you must go in disguise. You cannot wear the uniform of the Commune. To do so will mean certain death, or worse, rape and then death. On landing, you are to pretend to be a private citizen of Paris with no affiliation.
He handed me a vial and something that looked like a thimble with a thorn.
What is it? I asked.
Prussic acid, he said. If you are captured and it appears they will torture you, this means you will die swiftly instead. Or you dose this, and with one prick of your finger, your foe is dead.
I remembered the poster for the Amazons of the Seine, dressed in black, with their poisoned needles, and laughed, which confused and amused him both. I didn’t explain. I put his gift in a pouch I kept at my waist.
I accept, I said. I am proud to reopen this important program for the security of the workers of the Commune of Paris.
He seemed to struggle for what to say. He still wanted to live.
Thank you, I said. You honor me.
It was a love gift, for all his talk, one with no strategic value. The last gesture of a doomed man toward a doomed woman. If he had been a count, it would have been a diamond bracelet, but he was Eugène.
Per my plan as the new and only member of the aerial balloon program of the Commune of Paris, I went to the newspaper’s office after I left him and took out the advertisement as the tenor had asked. Addressed to André Lavertujon, Oui, 2151871 is all it said.
In response, I received a last note.
Comprimaria,
Be sure to leave before nightfall, my Falcon. And be swift.
§
Eugène trained me at the Gare du Nord nearly every day for the next few weeks as we prepared. Afterward, he would make love to me in the training basket suspended from the girders of the abandoned station. A caution against a casual observer, he said each time. He liked to sit underneath me on the balloon basket’s floor, reaching up to trace my neck in the aftermath.
I did love him, such as I could—I loved him because he loved me. I wanted to find a way to betray him in his plan, to force him to live, and for me to find some way to do more than leave. So today I asked him, This impulse to save me and not you. And not your men. Have you given up?
No.
He said this clearly, quickly. The answer ready. I was prepared to lecture him, and he continued, almost amused.
Just because I feel prepared to die here doesn’t mean I’ve given up.
It would be a better world if you lived, I said.
Perhaps, he said. But perhaps it will be an even better world if I may die as I choose.
I had shown him the new note; he said it only confirmed what he believed, that I was observed by the tenor. He then asked why the tenor called me his Falcon. What is this? “My Falcon”? Are you his spy?
It is only a kind of voice for a singer, I told him. A Fach. I explained what it meant.
Falcons are what the Prussians use to kill our pigeons, he said, smiling ruefully. All our hopes of communicating with the world dead in their hungry mouths. But if you are a singer, you must sing for us before you leave.
He described the Commune’s plans for a concert at the Tuileries with fifteen hundred performers. I said I would.
Why do you believe he is still here? I asked.
Eugène pointed above us to where the balloon would be. We have not flown the balloons because they are all shot down, he said. But what’s more, we lack the coal gas to fill them. Not even the Versaillais could launch such a thing. Of the people to fly a balloon from the Commune now, only a Prussian spy would have the gas for this flight. And worse still? Our flag flies from the Opera. He spat after he said this.
He loves you, yes?
Yes, I said.
Is this his ring you wear at your neck?
No, I said.
Good, he said. I will see him die as you leave in his balloon.
Eugène kissed me. I am off to attend a meeting at the H?tel de Ville. We are to discuss food shortages, he said. But do not worry. We have little food, but because there are more desertions, we will not starve. You’re nearly ready, he said. Think on what you will sing for us before you leave.