Alexander Chee - The Queen of the Night

I would think they are, she said. I am so tired of them, though. Are you?

I was about to shrug again and then she said, Yes, I can tell you are also.

It is dreary, this life, she said, and her head hung down for a moment. When she looked up at me, she said, But there are moments it is very bright. Do you love me? she asked.

I nodded.

Yes, I love you, too, she said. She stood and walked over to me. When I watch you in the ring, as you leap through the fire, it’s like you’re the only beautiful thing in all the world.

No one had ever given me this kind of compliment before, and it lit the air around us. I saw myself briefly as she must have seen me. All this time I’d admired her, I did not know she also admired me. I had never thought very much of what I did until then.

All the world, she said again. And then, Did I kill him, do you think? she asked. I think I might have killed him.

I said nothing to this, afraid she might have gone mad. I loved her, it was true. But I barely knew her.

I hope he is stronger than that, I managed. She laughed.

We’ll need a disguise, she said. Come.

I had never seen an apartment like hers — I did not yet know what it was or where I was. The front rooms were decorated like a theater’s lobby, with red velvet and gold braid, as if her bedroom were a theater box. Dark cherrywood furniture and thick rugs. I stopped myself from lying down on the one in her foyer. The door to her bedchamber had been made to resemble a box door exactly, papered in pale pink silk, which matched the fabric of the chairs, the bed, and her tufted vanity seat. All felt vaguely obscene, and yet magical, so different it was from the outside. I wanted to go back out to the foyer and enter again and again, to feel it again.

She went to her closet. They must be very good disguises, she said. For we are now murderesses. She gestured at her bed. Please, she said. Make yourself at home.

Where will we go? I asked.

Oh, she said. Maybe to Biarritz? Do you have any money saved?

I… Yes, I said quickly. I do. I thought of the money I’d saved, still there, for Lucerne.

It’s only for a little while, she said. I’m sure he’s not dead. I’m sure he’s just now with his friends, alive and already on to some café for a digestif .

On the bed, I nodded. She held out a beautiful tweed traveling costume. This, perhaps, she said. It’s so modest, no one will recognize me in this. She smiled at me. Unless they see the shoes.

I wondered how far to go with this. I was expected at the cirque the next day.

Now for you, she said. Have you been to Biarritz?

I struggled to think if I had. It wouldn’t matter, in a sense. So much of my time with the circus, the towns we’d been in, it had never mattered. Perhaps, I said. If I could just smell the air, I would know. How will we get there?

The train, she said. I’ve always longed to go. We will dress and find a café near the Gare de l’Est, and have caffè corretti until we can leave.

What are those? I asked.

Espresso and an Italian spirit called grappa, she said. It’s delightful. Here we are. You will wear black; we’ll say you’re in mourning. We both will! We will be a cancan funeral. We will wear veils. I’ll dress you up like a proper young lady in mourning, and we’ll say you’ve lost your fiancé if anyone is to ask. I’ll pretend to be your lady’s maid.

I did as she asked. She loved me, and I loved her despite our being nearly strangers. What else was there to do? I took off my night’s costume.

Will we really wear the shoes? I asked her. Won’t that give it away?

I suppose you’re right, she said. And yet I cannot bear to leave them.

I couldn’t, either. We left them on. It was as if without them, we might walk anywhere, but most especially, away from each other.

When she was done, I was otherwise entirely disguised. I laughed at the sight of my eyes peering through the veil. How do you walk with this? I asked, and batted at it.

Try to appear lost in sorrow, she said. Someone has, after all, died.

This was meant as a joke, but instead there was then a quiet, as if the ghost of her tormentor had passed through the room.

You are never lost in sorrow, it seems to me, ever. You do know the way. In fact, you don’t think there’s any other. Sorrow seemed to me to be more like a road wound through life, through the days of your life, like the old Roman ruins near the Tuileries or the rue d’Enfer — underneath this life, but never really apart from it.

Here I was standing on it, with her.

We descended the stairs, singing the refrain of our song again, this time softly, she with a single gloved finger on her mouth for us to be quiet, and then laughing, we threw open the door to the street.

The sky was the color of a blue serge, the edge of it by the horizon beginning to glow red.

We began the singing again, swinging our arms as we walked, singing softly, sometimes loudly, making our way to the omnibus, singing as we walked when no bus came, all the way to the little café across from the train station, where we sat and drank those sharp, hot coffees with grappa. The waiter who served us was a beautiful gentleman, and he delivered each round with perfect solemnness, as if he were doing something grave, all while we chirped and gossiped. It was only after his third visit that I understood he might be observing a solemn tone with me because of my veil. When I said as much to Euphrosyne, we became very quiet, and then we laughed the harder until we were crying and shaking. And yet he was the same when we paid and left.

We could not shame him.

Not until we stood in line at the window did I understand she was entirely serious. As she returned with my billet and pressed it into my hand, I asked, What of my show?

She shrugged. Her eyes went dark. I must go, she said. Can you stay? When you go back, they will take you in, they will ask after me. The police will question you; they will want to know about that knife.

You can stay, she said, when I said nothing to this. She kissed my cheek and then turned and left me, walking quickly.

I stood still, as if turned to stone. As I watched her leave, the feeling that the only thing I had in this life was heading down the platform for the train away from me overwhelmed me. I would likely go to jail alone if I stayed. But if I did not show at the cirque, I would be sacked and replaced.

As I shifted and I felt the knife at my thigh, I understood I’d made my choice when I drew the knife.

I ran down the platform after her, and when I pulled even with her, I saw her smile.

What does one do in Biarritz? I asked.

We take the air, she said loftily, even a little sadly. She took my ticket from me and handed them both to the agent, who waved us aboard.

When we found our seats, she leaned her head against the window, watching as the landscape passed outside.

She asked, Will you watch me sleep? And then, when I wake, you can sleep. It is the only safe way.

Of course, I said.

I leaned onto her shoulder. I watched her and the land moving outside her window, the speed like nothing I’d ever seen. Somehow monstrous, as if we were moving faster than we should. The enormity of the night’s events was becoming clear. My trip to my mother’s family was truly abandoned, and yet I was not afraid. With Euphrosyne, a loneliness I had felt even when my own family had been alive was gone. Behind me was the world I’d once lived in and here ahead of me now was something else altogether.

Who would we be? I wondered. Or, rather, Who were we now? For it seemed to me the night had wrought a transformation. I pulled my knife out again and held it up in the dark.