Alexander Chee - The Queen of the Night

I shrugged. It was as if he had said I would never be a butterfly or any other impossible thing. And besides, that name was nothing to me. They would be registering a joke.

Very well, he said. Since it is your wish to be registered, follow this officer, and he will undertake it.

It was such a hard thing, this virtue, it seemed to me. Keeping it was like having to grip the knife by the blade and defend yourself with the hilt. Ever since I’d been old enough to know about virtue in a woman, it had seemed like a bull’s-eye painted on my head in rouge. I was sure, as I was led away, I would be better off without it. It was better to be done with it and be gone.

§

Euphrosyne and I had different cells; we could not see each other but we could hear each other, and sometimes she would sing our song, and I would pick up with it until the other girls yelled for us to be quiet and the guards came to threaten us with beatings, shouting into the hay-strewn cells.

This place, Saint-Lazare, was my real hell, this woman’s prison. I discovered myself with lice; I had food served to me too foul to eat, with maggots at times, the others laughing the first few times I retched. The other girls were uninterested in me except mostly as a figure of fun. A week went by, an eon, and then I heard my name at the door from the guard.

Euphrosyne stood there, dressed again as she had been. A brief hope filled me until I saw the caution in her expression.

La Lune, I guessed, her little boy prince, and said so. She nodded, a hint of a smile. Yes, she said. I had his card; they called for him and, on orders from his father, released me at once.

She set her hand on the bars and touched mine, gripping it.

Sweet, kind Jou-jou! Her beautiful eyes, the fierce eyes, they were weeping. You are next, I swear. No one ever gave me so much as you. I wish I could have kept you from this. I should have warned you more, or better. Now I fear you must stay because you have no house and so there is no one to send for you except me, and I have less than nothing here. I have truly corrupted you.

I will come to visit you and bring you presents, she said. And be sure, be very sure, that nothing happens to your shoes.

I laughed at this, unexpected and sharp, and leaned in to kiss her quickly. And then she left, and the depth of what I had done was finally clear.

THERE WAS NO La Lune to help me. Instead, there was Odile.

First came a basket from her, sent to the prison, with a fine piece of sausage and bread and, to my surprise, a beautiful new dress, complete with stockings, shoes, gloves, a hat. The gloves were stitched with roses. The hat was a bonnet meant to be worn at a rakish tilt. The other girls made a fuss as it was delivered. The note read, Something to keep you alive until you leave, something for you to wear to come see me when you are free. Your friend, Odile.

There was her card also, with the address. This surprised me. The only Odile I remembered was the angry concierge in Euphrosyne’s foyer. The one who had said to her, You aren’t allowed guests like that . The one who had threatened Euphrosyne with a fine. Why had her concierge concerned herself with me?

I did need work, however, and resolved to go to see her, thank her, and repay her, and then ask about a job.

On the last morning of my sentence, I dressed in her gifts. Outside, Odile’s carriage waited for me — a kindness and a luxury. I blinked back tears I hated as I climbed inside and tried to act on the ride as if I took this trip every day.

§

Odile was certainly no concierge. She was a procuress, a former danseuse in the Paris Opera Ballet corps, and had taken on dancers, actresses, and singers who sought to make arrangements of this kind but lacked for either rooms or liaisons, using the spare rooms of a deaf aunt of hers, who owned a simple, clean house near the Opera. A share went to the aunt, of course, whose idea it was, worried about the prospects of her beautiful niece. Odile’s first théâtre du désir, then, as she called them, had a view of her aunt Virginie’s kitchen garden.

She learned quickly that she could charge more if men had a specific fantasy and that they would be loyal if the fantasy could be fulfilled with brio. When one of her admirers told her Baron Haussmann was set to order her aunt’s neighborhood to be condemned for Paris’s renovation, Odile took her aunt in hand, sold the house to the city at a high price, and built the current establishment on roughly the same spot with the help of investors — all clients. A portrait of Virginie presided over the salon, where her girls lingered in talk with their gentlemen; and every so often Odile would solemnly toast or bless her, even leaving a glass of claret for her on the mantel.

Odile’s new establishment was called l’Hôtel des Majeurs-Plaisirs, a pun on the Menus-Plaisirs, the school of the arts. Each of the rooms was the set to a different fantasy. The room I’d gone into with Euphrosyne on the night of our adventure had not been hers — it was for gentlemen who had a fantasy of seducing a woman while at the opera, something Euphrosyne often provided. The clothes she had taken for us were props for the room. Odile had hired the same craftsmen who’d made the Paris Opera’s boxes to make this one.

And despite my role in the trouble Euphrosyne had made for her, and for her unhappy client, once Odile learned of my registration, she had sent her basket right away. There were many men who wanted the attentions of a hippodrome rider. She explained all of this to me once I stood in her office in the clothes she’d sent me. Which she then asked me to remove.

I did so at once. I did not like the dress or the now-visible obligations it represented.

You have the arms of an acrobat, of course. Very strong, if too slim. We will have you eat more for these, she said, and gestured at my smallish breasts. At least they do not sag. Pastries for you. You are no virgin, yes? And at least age sixteen?

I nodded twice.

Virgins fare badly; they know so little. I would have to pay someone to teach you and charge you for it. I may still need to. My doctor will be here shortly to inspect you. She flicked her finger at my arm. So strong, she said. But your face, you look innocent. People think you are good no matter what you do, yes? She walked over to the wall, where an array of cruel instruments hung, whips, crops, paddles. She withdrew a simple crop and handed it to me. I grasped it.

Perhaps we will make use of this. The strong arm and the innocent face. Please, she said, indicating the empty dress. We will discuss your duties.

After I’d dressed again, she took me to a door in her office at the back and unlocked it.

She turned to me, put a finger on her lips to shush me, and led me into a dark passage consisting of a series of viewing stations with peepholes. Today, to begin, you observe, she whispered. She set an hourglass down. When the sand is gone, go to the next one, and the next. Make not a single sound. I will retrieve you when the doctor is here.

At other houses, they throw you to the men, and you are forced to take what wisdom you can. This way, she said of it later, as she brought me to the doctor, you can see even what my girls would forget to tell you.

You will have a week to decide, as will we, Odile said, after I had received my tour. I hope you will make us proud.

At the end of the week I was free to go if, that is, I could repay her. And I could only stay if I pleased her.

When I only smiled weakly at this, she grew sharp. She sat back and raised one perfectly drawn eyebrow.

We entertain some of the world’s most important men here. Do not be mistaken, she said. This is a profession; you are performers. These men, they entrust us with their most secret fantasies, and we, we keep that trust — they rule the day, we rule the night.