Birds in a cage, p.17
Birds in a Cage, page 17
“I don’t know what to do,” Maman said, quick, unsteady. “How do I help her? How do I help them both?”
She is so good to you, and look at her. If you weren’t this tired and dim, you’d see her tears.
Marcy did see, however, André reach out and squeeze Maman’s shoulder. He said, “Why don’t we go for groceries later when the sun comes out? I’ll buy whatever you need.”
A wet snort. “I can’t leave. I can’t leave her here.”
“Do you think Georgina would let anything happen to Marcy?”
“Sober? No.”
“I—I really believe Marcy only fell asleep. She can barely stand most of the time. Besides, I think you need to fresh air. Really, it’ll only be a few hours. She might still be asleep.” He paused. “Please. I can’t see you like this.”
They embraced, and Marcy tumbled into complete darkness again.
The damp corner of her mind firmed, so when she woke up for good, the morning sun showing its white teeth, she was ready for her confrontation with a potential demon.
Vampire.
Monster.
I need help, but I can’t in good conscience ask anyone I love to become involved in this. Yet, it wasn’t despair thrumming in her.
Why does anyone fight? Jehanne had asked.
God, I don’t want to die by fading away, thinking of all my regrets and growing tired of life. She thought of poor, poor Henri and her tormented grandpapa. I’m so tired of hating myself. As she stared at the stucco ceiling, she heard the radio in her room crackle to life.
The radio spoke in a feminine voice she couldn’t place, mocking her with a sputter, “So what will it be, Mlle Deibler?” Was it real? Most of her waking dreams were pictures, not voices.
Wasn’t I born to kill?
Marcy couldn’t wait for another woman to die. It wasn’t despair slugging her heart along; it was fury. The stench of years-old sulfur stung her nostrils, her teeth hurting from bottling the fire creeping behind them. She hated the world, even as she tried to save it. It had taken her, so she grieved herself. Even her past was kept from her.
Jehanne, gone.
Papa, gone.
Oscar, gone.
I’m so tired of being broken for love.
God denied her a brother and grandparents. She had been denied her Jewish heritage centuries before she was born, and it was an act of violence that precipitated what was happening now. It made her loathe her own traitorous fate for how it encroached like fire and blackened her heart.
What had God, in any of His names, done for her but give her more misery?
Marcy didn’t know what to do with this newfound rage championing her hopelessness, but she’d take it over the acceptance when she drank from the shadows. Maman, Georgina, André.
Liz, if you hurt them, I’ll kill you.
17
I need to be elsewhere. The hospital, Marcy needed to return and search—where? She’d go to Liz’s office, and then she’d―what, fashion a table leg into a stake and drive it through the good doctor’s heart? She didn’t have Papa’s wood crafting skills.
She was seriously considering this.
With half-formed plans roiling about, Marcy feigned sleep till she heard Maman and André’s voices fade and the door close. The soft creak and murmur of Georgina kneeling and praying on the floor with her palms flat by her head. Marcy opened her eyes and was met with her friend’s profile. Georgina’s forehead, brushing against an off-white, tasseled rug, was beaded with sweat, and her dress was checkered green. Dark curls fell out of her hair pins. A steaming cup sat on the living room table within arm’s reach, likely the honeyed mint tea Georgina loved. Beside it was black coffee. The radio on the other side of the table played a soothing orchestra. Marcy wondered how long Georgina had been in this room.
Georgina muttered in a shaking voice, “ . . . wabi hamdika wata-bara kasmuka wata’ala jad-duka wala ilaha ghyruka. A’uzu bil-lahi minash Shayta-nir-rajeem . . .” Marcy sat up and stared at her hands, not wanting to intrude. Only when Georgina lifted herself up, daintily wiped her cheeks, and smoothed her hair did Marcy speak.
“I’ve never asked what you’re saying when you pray.”
“It’s nothing, just a prayer Ummi taught me.” Georgina looked at Marcy like she was as fragile as the teacup. “Did I wake you?”
“Where did Maman and André go?”
“To buy groceries.” Georgina stood and dusted off her dress. “How are you?”
“Good, just—disoriented.”
“I’m sorry about your bird.”
“I’m sorry Maman caught you. I imagine it’s difficult slipping back to something you quit.”
Georgina’s lips quivered, but she masked it by coughing into her hand. “Your mother’s not having much of me now. Did she speak to you about it? Did she see . . . how did she know?”
“You don’t remember her talking to you?”
Georgina flushed. “I—my memory is spotty when I’m like that.”
Marcy had been obsessed with her mystery to the point of neglecting anyone else’s troubles. “It’s terrible, what you’ve gone through, how your people are drafted to fight for their colonialists.” She wanted to slap herself.
Georgina frowned. “Thank you, but be that as it may, there’s more to us than what we’ve lost. There’s more to me, and you, than what’s been lost.”
It’s been a lonely journey, Georgina had said about her life after her parents’ deaths. What did she say her papa liked to cook, or did she? Marcy was terrible for not remembering. “Maybe one day we can cook something from your home.”
“I haven’t had lamb and apricots in so long.” Georgina’s expression was guarded. “I used to mush it up and feed it to Ummi when she was sicker and had trouble swallowing. It was her favorite.”
Marcy didn’t know what to say, but, standing and moving to her, she gripped Georgina’s wrist.
“Jealous,” said Marcy.
“What?”
“You said you were jealous that I was alone in the room with that doctor.”
Georgina touched her fingernails to her collarbone. “Jealous, me?”
Marcy pressed, “You kissed André, said you still love him, but you’re jealous when I’m in the same room with another woman. It’s unfair.”
Georgina’s mouth dropped open. “I—what? I didn’t . . .”
“You don’t remember that?”
Georgina rubbed her face with her hand and moaned. “I didn’t. Please tell me I didn’t.”
Fidgeting at seeing her friend in distress and scratching the back of her head, Marcy said, “I’m not angry, just . . . confused at what you want us to be.”
Georgina straightened. Not unkindly, she said, “I saw how you and the doctor looked at each other. Do you love her?”
Not anymore. “I haven’t left the house in ages and haven’t spoken much to anyone. How could I, and what would it matter if I did? Is that why you kissed him? To make me—jealous?” Aware of your feelings toward me?
“I—if I did do that, I didn’t do it to manipulate you. I likely didn’t know you’d see it, or that I’d do it.” She didn’t answer the question that burned Marcy the most, but she would find out today.
“André was certainly surprised.”
“It was a stupid decision fueled by too many ideas that came to my mind while I was drunk.” Georgina looked down. “André once told me you mistook wanting to be free with marrying him. You interpreted a new desire with another.”
“Less of a misconception, more of an incredibly poorly conceived plan.”
“The act of using something familiar to understand something new.” Georgina scratched her chin, staring into the distance. “It’s odd being in love—because in Sétif, even with the French there, we’d have matchmakers, or our parents pick who we’d marry. And given my poor choices, I’m starting to think that’s the best way to go about things.”
Marcy shrugged. “I s’pose it feels good to sometimes have someone make hard choices for you, but what if you were to marry somebody you hate?”
“True enough. I think—I’ve only ever known men, and so I’ve been having this desire, and I thought it was for my old life with André, and maybe, to a degree, it is.”
Marcy gave pause. Someone like me doesn’t deserve to have someone to love them when I’ll likely die young—or youngish, or I’ll eventually be institutionalized like I—shut up, stop.
Maddeningly enough, Georgina took the silence as license to change the subject. “Your maman’s worried about you. You look so pale, you hardly eat, and you sleep all day.”
I’m on a quest for justice. “I can’t tell anyone. I can’t burden you. You’ve suffered enough. You sacrifice so much, only for people like André to betray you and for others to hate you. Someone has to care for your feelings.”
First Oscar’s neck, and then . . .
Georgina scoffed. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
Georgina’s shook her head. “You have to be the most stubborn family I’ve met. I offer to set out plates, and it turns into a six-minute debacle. I ask what’s wrong, and I’d be better off trying to pull out a tooth than searching for the answer.”
“It’s for the best.”
With a shrewd eye, Georgina said, “Don’t patronize me.”
“I—in time, maybe, but now . . . I already look like a lunatic.”
“No, you don’t. You look tired. You haven’t been eating like the doctor said.”
Fuck the doctor.
Marcy paused, and Georgina pounced. “What did the doctor say? What did she do to you? Has she hurt you?”
“Enough,” Marcy replied, shifting her head, “how do you think this helps my state of mind?” She swallowed at Georgina’s wounded expression. “Sorry. But about the kiss—”
A man’s voice clipped by the static startled them. “We interrupt this transmission with a very important message.” Marcy half-expected the woman’s voice from last night, but it didn’t come. The following report detailed another death, an unidentified young woman found in the same state as Mlle Bernard and Thomas. “Residents are advised to stay in their homes. Thank you, and we now resume your daily listening.” The static, a fly-stipple of murmurs, punctuated the silence until the violins hesitantly resumed.
Marcy’s fists curled, teeth set. No more. “How much did André tell you about the manor incident?”
Georgina paused, caught off-guard. “He told me the man who hurt him was a demon.”
“Do you believe in demons?”
“I assumed he was being figurative, but I don’t disbelieve in them.”
“And if I told you he was being literal, and that we had a monster under our roof last night?” Georgina stared, keeping Marcy’s intense look. The water watched them from outside the windows, so Marcy said in a low voice, “Do you think I’m crazy?”
“No, never. I—don’t know how to feel. While I’m not sure my mind went to the supernatural, I have faith in your intuition. But what monster are you speaking about?”
“The blood doctor who visited. She—did something to me, spoke and I obeyed without consent.”
Slowly, Georgina asked, “You think she’s involved somehow, helping the killer cover his tracks?”
“I think she’s the killer, or yes, helping. She knows too much.”
“But she’s . . .”
“A woman?”
Georgina held her hands up. “I—would she have the strength? I don’t mean to say she can’t, and she isn’t slight, but I assumed the killer was a man, like a Ripper sort, some sadistic nonce.” A Ripper sort. Vacher wasn’t strong, and yet he killed eleven people before Maman knocked him in the head with pine wood.
Marcy didn’t know what to say that was convincing, and she doubted telling the truth would bring anyone to her side. You’re just a madwoman to them all.
Marcy crossed her arms. “She—in our conversations, something wasn’t right. Like I said, she spoke, and I listened without being able to control my limbs. And this isn’t just because she’s a doctor. She told me to sleep, and I fell on the bed for a brief time, enough time for her to leave and Oscar to die.”
Georgina’s eyes were intense under her thick lashes, her forehead knitting, tongue in her right cheek. “Control? What do you mean?” She broke away from their look and began to pace. “You mean she hypnotized you. But why?” Hypnosis. That was a good word for it. Marcy had thought that was something only radio drama doctors did.
“I―suppose. I thought only stage performers do that.”
Georgina halted, gaze on the vanilla rug. “I read that it’s a new therapy technique in England, but again, why?”
“Because I questioned her about her involvement in the murders, why . . .” Why she’s here after so long. Why she has a book with that symbol on a dead woman’s palm. Why she has no reflection. “Why she was acting so guarded, and yes, she spoke these calm orders, and I lost control of my body and did everything she asked.” Recalling it sent a shiver up her spine.
“It’s not completely implausible.” Georgina’s snapped her eyes up and leaned in Marcy’s direction. “God, and that must’ve been horrifying for you. Do you still . . . feel anything from the hypnosis?”
Marcy stepped toward her. “I don’t think so. It only lasted for a short time, and I was in this dark place, like I’d been a child locked in a closet.” Or dropped in a lightless labyrinth. “What do you think?”
“If you feel something is off with the doctor, I trust you and want to help.” Georgina squeezed Marcy’s shoulders. “And listen, I love this house, and I love your mother, but I’ll go balmy if I spend another day here.”
“It really has been awhile, hasn’t it?” Marcy hid away by choice, though she was uncertain if her family’s past would render her and Maman scrutiny; nonetheless, she hadn’t been in the mood to travel out, but Georgina had suffered isolation more than she had.
“Yes, it has. You and I are going to the hospital together, so we can ask questions.”
Marcy’s eyes widened, “How do you know I want to go to the hospital?”
“She’s a doctor, isn’t she? Let’s go to her office and see what we can find out. Maybe she’ll spill her darkest, most depraved secrets, who knows?” Georgina’s grin was wily. “I’ll lose my mind cooped up here another day.”
“But Maman . . .”
“We aren’t mandated to stay here. I’ll write a note saying we went to the park, or for a day on the town.”
Marcy stated, “She’s furious with you.”
Georgina laughed, tilting her head back. The softness but fullness of it, the way her curls laid on her shoulder—dear God. “A pinch.”
“She’ll be angrier if we put ourselves in harm’s way and meet soldiers in the road. And you—you can’t go out.”
Georgina half-smiled. “Don’t give me that safety nonsense. It’s not safe for anyone anymore, and I’m tired of letting the Krauts keep me inside.”
You sound like André. Marcy was mixed about the insults because of her own German blood, but she couldn’t wave off Georgina’s frustrations, could never forgive herself if Georgina went out on her mission, only to be interned by the Nazis Lord-knows-where and never seen again. Der Führer, while stating those with darker skin were naturally inferior, didn’t prune them from the streets as much as the Jews and Romani, asserting they were dull-minded and less threatening than other thieving and cunning races. If it wasn’t for sly Jews, Der Führer had argued, black men wouldn’t have infested the Rhineland and forced their alien seed into unwilling women to contaminate the white blood of Europe. And in Southern France, Marcy had also heard President Laval had surrendered thousands of Jewish people to the Nazis for “rehabilitation,” insisting all the deports were foreign criminals, though he went further on the agreement with the Nazis to hand over adult Jews and also handed over Jewish children.
Bastards.
Georgina was less in danger than other groups, less sought after for imprisonment, but she’d be met with disdain, and who knew when the Germans would press harder on other sorts of people? As Maman would say, they could escalate any day. When will they stop? Will they ever? Can they be stopped? Georgina was already visible to the French law because of her skin color, and the Nazis encouraged sterilization because it was irresponsible for different races to mix. They insisted they only forced the removal of sex organs on the “particularly bad Negroes,” but the parameters of “bad” were unclear, from an attempted mixed marriage to any activity interpreted as disrupting the peace. Georgina’s skin, to the Nazis, was a stamp, a birthmark, proof of the cardinal sin of miscegenation.
“I feel like I should go alone,” said Marcy.
Georgina took her hand and said flatly, “You realize that’s, frankly, the worst plan in existence, don’t you? Especially in your condition.”
