Another Faust (11 page)
Authors: Daniel Nayeri
Through the backstage area where the teenage actors were rushing to get ready for act 3, out the service entrance, across the outdoor pathway connecting the theater to the main building of Marlowe School, walked Victoria, by herself, brushing her fingers along the lockers lining the walls of the dark hallway. She was bored of them all already, bored of the little kids they called her peers. Victoria couldn’t wait for the semester to start: hour after hour of answering every question, finishing all her quizzes first. It was as easy as hearing her teacher’s thoughts. She couldn’t wait to see all her classmates’ faces. As she walked down the stately hall of the prestigious school, she knew this would be the staging ground for her own unveiling.
After five years of living in the crimson house, Victoria wasn’t afraid of the dark. Her heels clicked and echoed through the hall and ended in a ghostly
ping
at the other end, at a point far beyond her line of vision. Not far behind her, moving at the speed of her own steps, followed a cluster of moths. They were tightly packed together, about the size of a fist, and they remained always the same distance behind, above her left shoulder, as if pulled by a string. They made no sound. They were barely visible, their tiny black bodies merely specks against the dark backdrop of the sleeping school. Why were they there? What were they planning to do, hovering behind Victoria? But Victoria did not ask these things, because she, slowly creeping through the darkened halls of her new school, was busy hatching her own plans.
She had already identified her first move. She would beat out Lucy for the top spot in the class. She would get out of all those stupid class requirements and score a perfect 5.0. Yes, Lucy had said it was impossible, but who was Lucy to tell her what she could or couldn’t do? She was better than Lucy. She had more talents. She was a
winner.
She didn’t need to take retard classes like the others, so it was only fair that she should get something that was inaccessible to them. She’d sweep the school of every prize, every accolade, everything they had to give. She’d be class president. She’d cheat her way to the top of this ridiculous school, and then she’d be Vileroy’s favorite. From there, it was only a matter of time. She’d go to Harvard. Run for Senate. Maybe even be president of a small country. Vileroy would
have
to help. After all, wasn’t that just exactly the kind of thing the governess had always wanted for them? Wasn’t that what the
other
girl from London had asked for and received?
Think big, Victoria.
Behind her, the swarm of moths silently scattered as she turned and walked back to the theater.
Belle sat silently in the dark theater next to Madame Vileroy. Occasionally she looked across the aisle at Thomas and his father, both engrossed in the final act of the play. The woman sitting next to Belle pulled her body away, as far from Belle as it would go. Despite the play, Madame Vileroy hadn’t missed a thing. Without turning to Belle, she leaned in and said in a conspiratorial whisper, “Wouldn’t it be nice if you could control that?”
Belle’s head snapped around. Madame Vileroy only said things like that when she was making a deal. “What do you mean?” Belle whispered a bit too loudly.
“Shh,” a long-necked woman behind them hissed.
Madame Vileroy calmly turned her head to look at the woman. She slowly winked her normal eye, leaving only the branded one, which flashed just slightly. The woman let out a little yelp and cowered back in her seat. Madame Vileroy smiled and turned back to Belle. “I mean, you’re the most beautiful girl in the room. You could have anyone you want — anyone who’ll wait long enough.”
“But I can’t force them to stay.”
“I have something that will help you to control the air around you.”
“I can change it?”
“No, you can change how people react to it. They can react any way
you
want them to — stay as long as you want them to.”
Belle was silent. She didn’t want Madame Vileroy to read on her face how much this was worth to her. But it was too late. She was turning white. Beads of sweat were appearing on her forehead and shoulders, dripping down into her low-cut camisole. Belle could feel her chest growing wet with perspiration. Instinctively, her hand flew to her chest to hide the black mark growing visible over her heart. Madame Vileroy leaned closer, and like a skilled governess, slipped a napkin into her charge’s trembling fist, which Belle held tightly over her heart. Belle dried the sweat and listened with anticipation.
“How many times have you tried to wash it off?”
“Three times today.”
Belle hung her head. She remembered those hours spent in the shower, watching her own chest turning black as the water penetrated her skin, a reminder of her own true nature.
“Well, dear, I’m happy to help. But you have to do something for me.”
“What’s that?” asked Belle, sounding scared.
The governess reassured her. “Don’t worry, dear, nothing’s as big as what you’ve already given up.”
“What do I have to do?”
“Small things. Nothing any regular girl your age wouldn’t do. See that man over there?” she said, pointing to a distinguished-looking man with a gray beard three rows down. “First, I’d like you to find a way to get him to come for a visit. Do you think you can do that?”
Belle nodded but raised an eyebrow. This sounded like a rather strange errand. Why couldn’t Vileroy do it herself? But then again, Belle already knew the answer to that. Madame Vileroy liked it when her children were
involved
in the things she did. It was as if she wanted collaborators — in everything. As if she wanted to implicate them in her crimes, since she herself could never be punished. This was Madame Vileroy’s own weakness, for all her years of expertise.
“Then I’d like you to take Christian an evening snack.”
“A snack?” Belle repeated the odd request slowly. “When?”
“Yes,” Madame Vileroy said casually. “I’ll let you know when.”
“What should I bring him?”
Madame Vileroy cocked her head and put a long finger against her cheek, as if she were thinking. Then she said, “Oh, I don’t know — hot dogs? It’s very easy. On hamburger buns . . .”
“That’s weird.”
“Some people have weird habits, dear. Just do what I ask.”
Belle had to admit, the deal
was
an easy one to take. Much easier than it had at first seemed it would be. Then again, that’s how Madame Vileroy made deals. Dangle something, make it seem impossible to have, then ask for what she wanted, which seemed easy in the face of all the possibilities.
“OK,” said Belle, repeating to make sure. “Invite that man, a snack for Christian. Got it.” It seemed too easy. Belle didn’t understand why Madame Vileroy hadn’t given this gift to her in the first place. The chores seemed harmless enough. She wondered if she should give it more thought, given what she knew of her governess. She looked up and caught the bearded man craning to look at her. Across the aisle, she caught a glimpse of Thomas, with Lucy on his other side, stroking his hand. For a second, Belle’s gaze caught his, and he quickly looked away. She looked down and coughed, and the woman next to her left her seat to find another. An usher tripped on a tear in the carpet and sent a stack of programs scattering to the floor.
“OK, deal.”
Ten soldiers stand in the dark cellar with their rifles pointed at the family. Terror and panic are frozen on the faces of the children. The father holds his wife like a mannequin holding another mannequin. In front of the firing squad, a cloud of smoke lingers in the air, not dissipating. Bullets from the rifles hang in space like a perfectly still swarm. One has already struck the tutor in the thigh. Another is about to enter Aleksey. It is poised no more than two inches from his shoulder.
She steps into the silent scene from a dark corner, from behind the clock — its hands frozen in time. The clacking of her shoes on the stone floor is the only sound. Her bracelet, black onyx, was handmade here in Russia, a gift from the czar — over there holding his wife — before this ugly revolution. She steps through the clutter of suspended bullets; some fall to the floor. She cannot save them all, the children she has raised as her own. Already she knows she’ll have to begin again, somewhere else, as governess to other royals. In frustration she points one soldier’s rifle toward another soldier standing off to the side. When time begins again, they will shoot each other, and have no idea how or why. All the same, she knows Aleksey will never be strong. Anastasia is clever, though. She adjusts the bodies of the horrified family, moving them like dummies. Anastasia will be shielded by her family, possibly even survive this firing squad. The blond woman sighs and walks to the stairs. As she enters the endless summer, she snaps her fingers, the rain begins to fall again, a clock ticks its own life away, and the sound of gunshots begins to hammer into the forgotten night.
The house was as silent as a morgue. Any other house with five teens, even in New York City, would be a carnival at that time in the evening. But not the Faust house. No sounds of vacuums or microwaves, no conversations. No buzz of TV or cars outside. No animals, no mice in the walls, no birds perched on the eaves. No creak in the floorboards. No music. None of the noises of life were in that house, only cold silent stillness.
Bicé’s room was musty and littered with the last of the sunflower seed shells and pastry wrappers she had stashed away. It was pitch-black. Bicé was in the corner, huddled with her books, holding a flashlight like a phone on her shoulder, mumbling things to herself, constantly frightened by the stillness of the dark all around her. Still, she was used to them, these long silences. In the house where all the children had ambitions, deadlines, and big plans, Bicé wandered aimless and alone. But in her books, she could talk to the faceless, ageless friends who loved her, friends who didn’t find her strange.
Hiding,
that’s what Vileroy called this. The most special gift of all, the ability to hide in the creases of time, like the comforting folds of a mother’s skirts.
A spider hung motionless in the door frame, as it had four minutes ago. She knew those four minutes hadn’t gone anywhere. She knew everything had stopped because she had wanted it to. Now the whole house, maybe the whole world, was her silent cave where nothing was moving, not even time. She was terrified of bumping into someone, because she never knew where they’d been when she stopped them. They would be frozen like dead bodies found after a blizzard thaws, expressions of a moment carved into their faces, backs bent in uncomfortable positions. At first they had seemed funny, like rag dolls. She would stroll around the house, put food in Victoria’s constantly open mouth, slide Valentin’s finger in his ear. Then they began reminding her of city ruins like Pompeii. People covered permanently in ash while trying to escape the wrath of a volcano. Belle looked like a mother curled over one of her old dolls, trying to save it. Christian running in his room looked in the middle of running away. Time had stopped still, and Bicé was in a ruined world.
The last time she was alone like this, she had spent what seemed like hours watching the frozen Belle. She had examined her new face, her new body, and wondered,
Is this my Belle? Is she in there somewhere?
She had touched her face and wondered if she could rub past this mask and find her sister. She had felt Belle’s blond hair and closed her eyes, trying to remember all those times she had brushed it when they were little. It didn’t feel the same. She felt her own hair to compare, keeping her eyes closed. For a moment, the old Belle had come back in Bicé’s imagination, and then she was gone, leaving Bicé feeling like half of her had died.