Spectacle(48)

Told Agnès about the visions.

She couldn’t be hypocritical, pressing Maman for answers while holding on to secrets of her own.

Using her nicest stationery, employed only on special occasions, she wrote the letter.

Dear Agnès,

My friend, I hope you will forgive me. I have kept this from you long enough. I cannot withhold this from you any longer.

I know far more about these murders than you can imagine, because I am experiencing something that is, in every essence of what the word means, unimaginable.



Nathalie wrote slowly at first, choosing her words carefully. Then she let them flow and told her everything: what she’d truly meant in that first postcard, how the memory gap had stolen Nathalie’s recollection of penning a letter, the trip to the hypnotist. She asked if Agnès had heard of Dr. Henard’s experiments, and if so, what she knew about them. She wrote pages and pages. Alleviating the burden of secrecy liberated her.

I promise to explain more and answer any questions when we meet for lunch at Le Canard Curieux the day after your return at 1 o’clock. I know we set this date and time before you left for Bayeux. Does it still hold?

Bisous,

Nata

P.S. I do hope I remain in your good graces. I also hope you understand why it meant so much to me to hear about your summer. Many, many times I have thought about how much I would rather be learning to make tarts or strolling through town or teasing Roger with you or spending the day at the beach. Instead of all this. My apologies again.



By the time Nathalie finished the letter, she was exhausted and fell asleep soon after. She woke up confident and prepared to talk to Maman. At last she might have some answers about Aunt Brigitte. About herself. She braced herself for the truth.

She tucked the newspaper she’d found last night into her journal and brought it into the kitchen, smiling. Maman was finishing breakfast and didn’t pick her head up.

“What were you doing in my room last night?”

Apparently Maman had some questions of her own. Nathalie had been hoping this was one of those times when Maman didn’t follow through on a we’ll-talk-later warning. “I told you. I followed Stanley in there.”

“Don’t lie.” Maman looked up, her eyes brimming with disappointment.

Nathalie blushed. “I was searching for something. Papers that Papa brought home once.”

Maman raised a brow, beckoning her to continue.

“Something Aunt Brigitte wrote a long time ago. When she was in Madame Plouffe’s place, just before she went … away.”

Whatever it was Maman was expecting her to say, it wasn’t that.

Nathalie spoke in a calm voice. “Something made me think of that day, and every detail came back to me. I couldn’t help but search. I was embarrassed about getting caught. I didn’t know what to do when you walked in, and for some reason I was afraid to tell you the truth. There was a newspaper in the drawer, and I took it. The one with your marriage announcement.”

She handed the old newspaper back to Maman.

“You shouldn’t have been poking about,” said Maman, grimacing. “Especially when you could have asked me about those papers.”

Maman had a point. Nathalie could have, should have asked her about those papers. Yet these visions, this curiosity that had turned into a curse, had Nathalie burying deception on top of deception. It had begun with evading M. Gagnon’s questions from that very first life-changing day with Odette. Being evasive with Maman and ever so much more coy to Agnès. Even in the fight with Simone, who knew almost everything, she’d had to refrain from saying anything about the Dark Artist’s threat. And wasn’t disposing of the blood jar another form of lying, if only to herself?

“I’m sorry.” Nathalie met her mother’s gaze and sat down at the table. “Then … what about Aunt Brigitte’s papers?”

Maman looked over her shoulder as if seeing into the past. “Most of what she wrote was illegible. Your father insisted on keeping the papers anyway and brought them home. The next day they were gone.”

Something about the way Maman spoke those words—the cadence, the hollow tone, the bitterness of a swallowed hurt—told Nathalie she’d touched on an unwelcome memory.

“Gone?”

“He said he burned them.”

She chewed the inside of her lip. “I never considered that.”

“Why do you have to consider it at all?” Maman folded her arms. “All these years you just accepted Aunt Brigitte for who she is and where she is. Now all these questions.”

“And I have one more,” Nathalie said, struggling not to let her voice quiver. “Based on something I read.”

She flipped over the newspaper and pointed to the story about Henard. “This.”

Maman’s face hardened. “What about it?”

“I think Aunt Brigitte was one of Dr. Henard’s patients.” Finally. Finally, the words that had nearly burned a hole in her tongue all night came out. “Am I correct? Did she have one of those blood transfusions? Is that why she’s in the asylum?”

Maman still hadn’t taken her eyes off the newspaper. Gradually she lifted her head. She clasped her hands with sluggish fingers and leaned back. “No.”

Nathalie regarded her mother. “I don’t believe you.”