Spectacle(69)

She nodded, because she’d lost the ability to speak. It felt like a sponge was in her throat, swollen with the tears she cried on the inside.

“Oh goodness. I…” He hesitated, trying several times to say something and stopping short each time. Then he cleared his throat. “I’m so very sorry, Nathalie. Shall we talk in my office?”

Again she nodded. The sponge was still too dense with sorrow to let words pass through.

The walk along the corridor differed so much from her first time here, the day of her first vision. Back then she’d been fascinated by the workings of the morgue, intrigued by every sight and smell, devouring every detail of its antiseptic morbidity. Those things were in the periphery, and given all that had since happened, she felt almost guilty for once thinking that way. Now her life was nothing but death.

Nothing but death.

Agnès is dead. “Agnès is dead.”

And that was it. Saying those three words released the tears from the dam.

She didn’t want to cry in front of Christophe, but she couldn’t help it. Everything in her being just poured forth. He helped her to a chair and pulled his own next to it. She took the handkerchief he offered and soaked it with her tears. She cried, with shoulders shaking, as Christophe tentatively patted her hand.

Nathalie composed herself just enough to tell Christophe about Agnès. About their time together the other day, about coming into the morgue today. About her decision to touch the viewing pane and what she saw. “Could I have helped catch the Dark Artist? Could I have saved Agnès?” The questions hung there like mist; she didn’t expect Christophe to answer them. They were impossible to answer. “I will do whatever it takes to help catch him. I want to watch him march to the guillotine.”

The strength in her voice, a voice that had vanished just a short while ago, surprised even her.

“I understand,” he said, and everything from his eyes to his tone to the way he sat in the chair conveyed empathy. “That’s a selfless, meaningful way to honor Agnès’s life. If it becomes too much for you again, that’s fine, too. Whatever you’d like, Nathalie. You can come to me anytime. For help or to—to talk. And of course we’ll be keeping the patrol in place, no matter what.”

She thanked him and fell silent. It wasn’t a comfortable silence. The nagging thoughts she’d kept at bay used the quiet to break through to the forefront of her mind.

Did the Dark Artist kill Agnès because of Nathalie, or perhaps instead of her?

The query sat on Nathalie’s tongue a moment, then rolled back into herself. No. She didn’t want to say it out loud. Christophe knew the question was there; he had it, too. She was certain of it.

She thanked him for being so kind and assured him again that she would continue to help. He escorted her out, urging her to be safe, like he had the day they met. She was about to step away when Christophe put his hand on her shoulder.

Nathalie faced him, startled by the gesture.

“I’m—I’m very sorry about Agnès,” he said. He extended his arms tentatively and embraced her with strong yet tender arms.

The moment was brief, but she held it close like the cherished gift it was. She hoped that whatever was taken from her memory on this harrowing day, this alone would be spared.





31


In the days that followed, a series of emotions stormed through Nathalie like an invading army, row after row. They left behind a pitted landscape, a battle-weary spirit forever altered.

And once they passed through, these waves of sadness and anger and denial and guilt, they disappeared into a void. Alongside the intense feelings was a parallel emptiness.

Everything or nothing. Noise or silence.

The crescendo of this terrible dichotomy peaked at the funeral visitation for Agnès, where Nathalie stepped into and out of herself several times.

The Jalberts’ apartment was a boiling pot of black attire. People filtered in and out, pulling out black lace handkerchiefs and crying and bringing food. The din of whispers cut through the air like the wingbeats of a thousand birds.

Nathalie ignored all of it. She spoke to no one, not even Maman, as they stood in the parlor. Her eyes stayed on Agnès, laid out in a white silk dress trimmed with elaborate lace. Nathalie was relieved to see the death mask, cast in wax at the morgue. No cuts, no bruising, no horrible disfigurement. Agnès had dignity in death and somehow, despite all that had happened to her precious body, beauty.

Those who didn’t know she was ripped to death might have thought she’d passed in her sleep.

A horde of if only thoughts rushed Nathalie. If only Agnès had spent that night with her cousin Marie as planned. If only Marie hadn’t become ill during the music concert they attended and gone back to her apartment; if only Agnès hadn’t chosen to stay and return to her own home that evening instead. If only she had made it here.

Surely the cousin was here, in the room now. Nathalie didn’t want to know which of the morose young women lining the walls was Marie.

Nathalie and her mother approached M. and Mme. Jalbert, swathed in black wool and crêpe, and said all the things you say to those in the depths of indescribable grief. Roger stood beside them with great solemnity, staring at his older sister’s corpse. His black clothes made his white-blond hair and pale complexion seem hollow, almost ghostly.