I wondered if my family would know me.
As I waited in the center of the ring, the chalk on my hands fresh, the lights down low, the arcade was lit partly by the city outside, light coming through the glass windows of the Exposition building. I could make out the figures of the Emperor and the Empress, still see the glow of leather, the flash of gems.
I considered choosing the Emperor to be the one married to me by the clowns.
Tonight I was to launch into the air and sing from a trapeze as the horses ran the edge of the ring below. I heard the crank of the winch above me and reached for the bar of the swing, which I found with ease.
Mesdames et messeurs . . .
The crowd cheered as I rose into the air in my buckskin, the trapeze pulling me up until I could see as I sang the far edges of the city, enough to imagine myself in the train pulling away into this night the color of a wound.
When I returned to the ground, the crowd was unusually still. No one was singing along. An eerie quiet edged the rise and fall of my voice as I wandered, looking for a young man to choose, and the clowns, when I found one at last, watched me with terrified eyes. The crowd still roared at the end, but I stood through it with a thudding heart. The roaring quieted then, and young men in uniform entered the ring, as formal as if they were there to arrest me.
The circus master nodded, however, in a gesture to me to indicate I was not in danger.
I was brought in front of the Emperor and the Empress, the light disguise of their dominoes no disguise at all—these masks were like crowns. I curtsied as best I could. He withdrew from his pocket that rose brooch and, to my surprise, placed it in my hand.
I knew what they were despite never having seen one—So these are rubies, I remember thinking—so much more expensive than anything I’d ever owned in my life.
I looked down, afraid to meet his eyes, whispering only a quick Merci, mon Empereur, and as I backed away, my hand closed over the astonishing gift. The audience laughed at how I had spoken to him—I was not yet his subject. He smiled, seeming not at all angry that I had not used the formalities.
I rubbed the flower in my hand. There was nowhere it would be safe from thieves in the circus, but it was more than enough to sell for my fare. I sprinted back to the ring to continue the show, sure of my departure at last.
§
The next morning, from the edge of our tents, I could see clothes hanging to dry in the distance. One was a red silk satin gown. It whipped in the wind like the flag of some other, better country.
Here, clearly, were the clothes of a grand lady. But more important, here was the dress of Rose Red, the dress she would wear as she refused to marry, the dress I had been singing my way to all that time.
I was sure I’d sung the dress into existence, like the brooch. I was sure this all belonged to me.
It was perfect, I decided, for me to wear to Lucerne.
I rolled up my bedroll and tied my money and brooch inside it. I kissed the circus matron as she slept, threw my parcel over ahead of me, and leapt the fence. I left my costumes there, the pistols in their holsters, with a note, saying, You were right. So long and thanks.
I walked toward the clothes as if in a dream, dressed in just a pinafore and my mother’s old raccoon coat, my stiletto strapped to the outside of my knee. The colored silks, dresses, petticoats, and corsets moved on their lines as if in separate winds. I felt like I had when I was a girl and wore my mother’s coat in her room when she was out in the field. Like this was a game and I was pretending at being a grand lady somewhere far away.
The laundry that day belonged to a courtesan, I’m sure. Her silks and satins were hypnotic even when left out to dry. I ran my hands over the one gown I’d followed all this way, made from red silk satin. I slid it off the line, held it to my waist, and then stepped into it and left for the Gare du Nord.
§
This was where Simonet’s novel began.
The package had arrived the day after my dinner with the Verdis. I opened it to find he had inscribed it.
To Lilliet Berne,
It’s amazing to think of, isn’t it? Where she went after she left. Where did she go? May we conjure it together!
I am yours,
Frédéric Simonet
Act II
The Cave of Queens and Courtesans
One
WHERE DID SHE GO?
Here she is in the Bois, then, in the red dress she stole to go to Lucerne.
She is rubbing her foot. She looks to be a grisette with a stone in her shoe, rubbing her foot. Or she is in her Tuileries uniform, the cheap-looking dark dress, the wooden shoes. She is working at the Tuileries, taking the air. Or the dress is something she bought from a junk dealer, a dead woman’s dress most likely, it is all she has right now. But soon, so many more.