Spectacle(24)

One roommate with shorn hair was snoring on her bed. The other two weren’t in the room. Aunt Brigitte, Papa’s older sister by five years, was curled up like an infant. Her brown hair was long, stringy, and streaked with gray. Her skin was full of fine lines, like cracked porcelain. She was staring at the window but not, it seemed, out of it. Her lips were moving and she was talking to herself.

They said hello, and Tante rolled onto her back. She gazed at them, face blank for a moment, before grinning. “Caroline! Nathalie! Thank you, thank you for coming to see me. Thank you.”

Tante always thanked them profusely for coming. Nathalie used to think it was amusing, but then she realized, no, it wasn’t. It was heartbreaking. Aunt Brigitte was locked in a horrible place with no human connection besides nurses, doctors, and other patients. Aside from a courtyard where patients could go for an hour a day in good weather, Tante’s world was stark, empty, and devoid of anything meaningful.

“I had a nightmare last night,” said Aunt Brigitte, her voice low, as if she didn’t want her roommate to overhear. “I was a cobra in a basket, and a nun pulled me out. I sank my fangs into her hand.”

Nathalie swallowed hard. Tante’s dreams always evoked horrifying, vivid imagery.

Aunt Brigitte grinned before continuing. “When I bit her she turned into a dove.”

Maman and Nathalie locked eyes for a second, and then Maman cleared her throat. “That’s frightful, Brigitte.”

Aunt Brigitte then ceased to talk, completely, and became as still as a statue with only her lips moving.

That happened often. Tante would go … elsewhere. Nathalie always wondered where: The past? The future? Deep into her imagination? After a few moments, she’d return to the present.

Maman broke the silence. “Nathalie works for the newspaper now.”

Aunt Brigitte didn’t answer, as if she hadn’t heard, for a few beats. Then she looked Nathalie in the eye, with a grave expression, and touched her cheek. Tante spoke in a thin voice. “Trust no one.”

Nathalie flinched.

Why would she say that?

Her mother, ever adept at moving past Tante’s unusual behavior, continued on about what a good writer Nathalie was before mentioning Papa. Maman read his latest letter to Aunt Brigitte while Nathalie pondered why “trust no one” had come to Tante’s mind.

“I miss Augustin,” said Aunt Brigitte, her voice cracking. “He’s a good brother. I wish—I wish.” Tante’s lip began to tremble and her face crumpled into tears.

As Maman hugged her, Aunt Brigitte’s tears turned into sobs. Tante buried her face in Maman’s arms like a child. She said something over and over again; Nathalie couldn’t make it out.

“What’s she saying?”

“‘I wish he could make me better,’” Maman said.

Nathalie frowned, wishing she could help Tante. Papa did have a way of making things better, or trying to, and she understood why Aunt Brigitte would cry for him.

Maman soothed Tante until she calmed down. Moments later she said she was sleepy.

Madness. Peculiar, scary, and unpredictable.

They finished their visit shortly thereafter and found a downpour waiting for them outside. Hurrying to the tram stop, they huddled together, using their respective umbrellas to form one large shield from the rain.

“Tante said something strange to me.” Nathalie leaned in closer. “Did you hear her? ‘Trust no one.’”

“Most everything Tante says is strange.”

Nathalie shook some raindrops off the umbrella. “I know, but that seemed very … specific. Don’t you think?”

“I don’t know.”

That was how it was with Maman. If she didn’t want to talk about something, you might as well converse with one of the gargoyles on the Notre-Dame.

Maman’s dismissive silence only served to embolden Nathalie. “You and Papa never told me,” she began. “How did Tante end up in Saint-Mathurin?”

“It’s complicated, ma bichette.” Maman looked her in the eye. “She thinks she sees things. And she tried to drown a man because of it.”





11


Nathalie lost her grip on the umbrella and almost dropped it. “Things? What—what kind of things did she see?”

Maman glanced at the others waiting at the tram stop: a bespectacled young man reading Marx, a pair of lovers enamored with one another, and a mother holding the hands of her young son and daughter, singing cheerfully in what sounded like Polish. “It happened while she lived at Madame Plouffe’s house,” she said, dropping her voice. “She disappeared one night, and they found her trying to drown a man in the Seine. Fortunately a policeman was nearby and intervened in time.”

Nathalie tried to picture that scene but couldn’t. It didn’t seem possible. Her aunt was bony and frail, and from what she could recall, always had been.

“How could Tante be strong enough to drown a man?”

“She jumped on him from behind, while he was peering over a bridge.” Maman mimicked looking over a bridge. “There was a struggle, and somehow they both ended up in the river. He didn’t know how to swim, and she tried to push his head under.”

This Nathalie could imagine, because even in the asylum, her aunt showed a fierceness. Or the remnants of it, anyway. Aunt Brigitte’s eyes flashed with intense emotion whenever she talked about her dreams.