Spectacle(20)

Why would someone follow me?

She tried to push aside the next question, but it pushed back.

What if it’s the murderer?

Goosebumps erupted across her skin. Run home and he’ll know where I live. Run to a public place and I might lose him.

The latter made more sense; the Canal Saint-Martin was nearby, lined with gaslights, and often sprinkled with lovers and tourists.

She went from a walk to a run.

Her heart thundered in her ears, drowning out every other sound, even her own footsteps. She glanced over her shoulder. The man was still in sight, taking swift, agile strides.

Within a minute she was on the Quai de Valmy with people strolling along both sides of the canal. She slowed to a walk, peeking to see if the man followed. She couldn’t see him in the crowd. Had he left? Was he hiding?

She spotted a carriage across the bridge. A couple seemed to be making their way over to it. She hurried to get there first, careful not to spook the horse.

“Monsieur,” she said to the driver, “I need to get home. Immediately.”

The driver cocked his brow, then looked past her at the approaching couple. “Samuel here has put in a long day of work,” he said, patting the horse on the neck. “My rates are higher at night.”

Nathalie scowled. Thankfully she’d gotten paid that day. She pulled some money out of her dress pocket and waved it at him. “That’s fine.”

With a shrug, the driver extended a hand and helped her up. He asked her, as she knew he would, why she was wandering along the canal alone so late. “I got lost,” she lied, searching the crowd for the man until they were on quiet side streets. She made nervous conversation to keep the driver from asking questions, eyes darting the entire time. She asked about Samuel, spotted gray with a black mane, and told the driver a story: When she was four, Papa had lifted her up to pet a carriage horse on the nose. The creature snorted at her, with a good deal of noise and moisture, giving her a fear of horses she’d outgrown years ago. By the time she was done with her story, the carriage was pulling up to her apartment building.

After a visual sweep from one end of the street to the other, she stepped out of the carriage. She paid and thanked the driver, then entered her apartment building, not sure her heartbeat would ever slow down.



* * *



Nathalie paused at the top of the stairwell, drumming her fingertips on the bannister. How to explain her tardiness to Maman? The apartment door opened before she could give it much thought.

“I heard a carriage. That was you? Spending money on a carriage?” Maman retreated back into the apartment. She placed an empty candelabra on a small table with five white candles resting on it.

“I had to,” said Nathalie, following her inside. She closed the door and locked it, then checked to make sure it took. “I didn’t—I didn’t feel safe walking.”

Maman caressed her scars. Her mother used to intertwine her fingers when she was anxious, something which she could no longer do. Touching her scars took the place of that. “I don’t want you to be out alone after dark, or even close to dark.” Her agitated tone shifted into concern. “Not until all of this goes away.”

“I don’t think anyone is ever alone in Paris,” Nathalie said with a tense chuckle. “I—I went to the canal on my way home.”

Maman’s brows creased. She put candles in the candelabra, one by one, each movement rougher than the last. “Why?”

As Nathalie rummaged through her head for an answer, it occurred to her that there were, in fact, two possibilities. Her interpretation of events since getting off the tram may have been correct. Or she may have gotten all of it very wrong.

Maybe the man wasn’t following her.

Maybe it was a too-keen sense of alarm, a hasty conclusion.

Maybe it was the killer.

Maybe it wasn’t.

After all, he’d never gotten close enough for her to get a good look. And when she’d gotten to the canal, she hadn’t seen him.

Nathalie cleared her throat. “Have you ever had a little voice in your head that says ‘Do this, not that’?”

“Many times,” said Maman as she struck a match.

“My little voice said to take a carriage tonight, and that was the closest place to get one.”

It wasn’t the truth, but it wasn’t a lie. It was something in between.

“Sometimes the little voice knows best,” said Maman, lighting the candles. “Even if it did mean spending money on a carriage. What was it that prompted the little voice?”

“Just a … feeling.” Nathalie kissed her mother on the cheek. “I’m sorry for worrying you, Maman. I promise to be home long before nightfall from now on.”

“Thank you, ma bichette.”

Maman took one of her half-finished dresses, a red chiffon one with velvet trim, off the dress form. By candlelight she worked on it—slowly, awkwardly, painfully—a while before bidding Nathalie goodnight. After Maman left the room, Nathalie waited a few minutes before peeking out the windows and checking again to make sure the apartment door was locked. She did it all a second time, too.

Then she settled down on the sofa, Stanley at her side, to write in her journal. In lieu of never seeing the wiry man’s face—hidden under a hat, in shadow, always just too far away to see—she recorded every other aspect of her encounter, even drawing a street map. After finishing, she flipped several pages back to reread the last few entries leading up to tonight.