Alexander Chee - The Queen of the Night

I made to run and he grabbed at my wrists. This time the pain brought tears to my eyes. Ah, he said. You will not cry out. You are afraid of being caught. With that he let go.

I must leave for now. But I will find out your secret, he said. We will see what happens then.

§

I undressed quickly, put the gown back into the trunk, and was fitting myself back into my grisette ’s uniform when the girl the tenor had been looking for appeared in the doorway.

She didn’t ask me the question I could see in her eyes, as to whether her tenor had been here and if I was to blame for her not finding him. I took a breath and set the lid of the trunk down.

She’s back, she said to me, instead; and I followed her out.

The hunt had left the Empress in a thoughtful mood. She seemed distracted as her hunting costume was removed and we settled her tea gown into place. I imagined she was thinking of the composer, perhaps plotting an assignation or worrying that he was in love with someone else, or both.

The tea gown was pure rose pink crepe and tulle, almost too girlish. She asked for white and pink diamonds for her rings and necklace, and the Regent again. She seemed to wear it a great deal, perhaps for the way it insisted on her position. Her color was good from being outdoors, and when she was dressed, she was transformed and was lighthearted and then made to leave.

She paused in the door and turned.

Do you like it, she asked me. Does it suit? I was taken aback and blinked rapidly before nodding.

Oh, you’re the mute, she said. You poor thing.

She came close to me, walking slowly, as if I might startle. I made myself still, though inside my heart beat at a run. She reached out and ran the back of her fingers against my cheek. It was strangely humiliating and affectionate at the same time. Only as she paused and held the fabric of the sleeve against my cheek did I understand what the gesture intended.

Yes, it suits you. This will be yours, she said. It should be yours. She glowed deeply, full of pleasure at the thought of giving it to me. I cannot remember your name right now, but to be sure, it is to be held for you. She turned to the other girl. You are the witness if any should challenge this, she said to her, at which the other girl gave a brief curtsy, and murmured, It is done, Your Highness.

And with that, she left us, smiling.

The other girl folded the hunting costume over her arm and left me alone in the antechamber as she returned to the apartment.

Alone, I approached the mirror, full of shame at having thought to steal something she would give so easily. But I could never wear the dress; there was no place to wear it, no one to invite me. If I was very smart, I could sell it. I’d never had any of this sort of attention before from her, and it both pleased me as a novelty — imagining myself as being so favored by the Empress — and it also frightened me.

For I longed to vanish again, even as I became, with each day, more visible, and the chance to belong to oblivion again became more remote — the chance I could belong to it and the chance I would even want it, both. In its place was something new. I became briefly unsure of what had happened to me earlier that day, as if I had fallen asleep there in the chair in the antechamber while the hunt emptied the woods of game, dreaming this all the while the tenor was still making love to his grisette, the one I knew he meant to find.

But then I remembered what he’d said to me— I will find out your secret. And with that, my partner in dressing the Empress appeared in the door, fierce, and walked calmly over to me, her eyes darkening.

I watched her as she approached, understood what she would do, and still I didn’t move, but instead waited. I even met her eyes as she struck me.

Salope, she said, very quietly, as her blow, quick and stinging, rang across my right cheek.

I remained silent and didn’t break her gaze. After she pulled back her hand, she left quickly and with purpose, shaking the feeling back into her hand.

I sat for some time afterward, savoring the blow as if it were a badge. Then I withdrew the silver and black silk-satin-and-tulle gown for that evening from the trunk and held it aloft. The gown unspooled to the floor, as if it were alive.

§

I had been so proud previously, had disdained Pepa so thoroughly, and yet with the gift of one gown my covetous heart awoke.

THE NEXT MORNING, when I took my dress to the empty apartment, my new pride held me erect the entire way. I opened the trunk to find the dress from the day before. Clearly visible were the little black crescents across its back, invisible to me in my haste, partly because of the black lace. This from the tenor, as he pinned the dress — the evidence that brought on the attack from my fellow grisette, I was sure. I scraped at the marks with a fingernail and found they flaked off, so I sat there and cleaned the dress with my fingers this way, and then put it away again.

This time, I chose an empty trunk and set it off to the side and placed my new dress on top to cover it.

I’d noticed the dresses were being sent less often to favorites. Perhaps there were fewer favorites or perhaps the favorites had tired of the seconds. What good is a dress to a court favorite if it cannot be worn in front of the Empress? Still, most of these were too grand to give to servants, though, of course, there was Pepa, and the apartment’s bounty seemed almost in danger when I thought of her.

Pepa was the greediest of those who received Eugénie’s castoffs. For her to wear them took so much corseting and tailoring that she appeared like a caricature of the Empress, a clown empress. The more she tried to be like her beloved Eugénie, the more she showed how unlike she was, and the more I’d resolved to never be like her — yet here I was.

I chose a trunk for my own to fill with the dresses I was now sure would be given to me; I would include a few others. I lacked for an address to send them to, as I had seen them sent to others, but once I had one, I could do it then in secret and collect them. And then they would be entirely mine. I was sure no one would know. I smiled as I imagined printing Tante Castiglione on the side and sending it to her.

I remembered then that I was to have sent a card to her by now. A card I had not yet prepared. I had entirely forgotten. I had two missions, the one I had sworn to myself and the one I had promised to her, but my mysterious pianist and the tenor’s reappearance had destroyed my sense of them both. Yes, it was silly, this thing the Comtesse wanted — this mission was the exercise of her vanity, no matter what she said. But she would be impatient, even angry, if I delayed further, and I needed the money she’d promised — it didn’t matter if she was mad if she paid.

I shut the trunk, off to discover just how a grisette might post a letter to her aunt.

THE HUNT WAS out once more the next day. There were two hunts in the week, I knew: chasse à tir and chasse à courre —in the first the animals were beaten from the woods into a cordon and shot while helpless to escape, and in the second the animals were beaten from the woods and then shot as they ran, no matter the kind, in every direction. I couldn’t remember which one this was. It didn’t matter. I went alone to the apartment, sure of being undisturbed, and worked at making a fair list of the week’s events, laying out the Empress’s gowns in order.

I had made some good progress when cannon fire and gunshots began to fill the air until it seemed like a war had begun here, an attack on the palace while the Emperor and Empress were at play. When I heard the first cannon, I thought it a salute of some kind, but then the next and the next came, and then I heard gunshots and the shouts of men.