Part One - The Early Years
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Dr Hannibal Lecter, for all his dinner parties and Opera outings, was a very private man. He kept himself to himself, only offering up opinions when he was asked. He had very few actual friends, only a very large number of acquaintances. Mme Émile Babineaux was one such acquaintance although, if she had stayed in America, perhaps she might have become more. As she was a visiting French Diplomat their relationship had only lasted a couple of months before they parted ways. Neither of them regretted what had happened, but neither regretted it was over, either.
As such, Dr Lecter had never expected what had followed. For, just over eight months after her departure from America and from him, Mme Émile Babineaux returned. She stayed long enough to give him the precious bundle she carried and to sign over custody before she left once more, promising herself never to return.
Which was how Dr Lecter found himself staring down into the bassinet that seemed so strange and out of proportion in his room, into the eyes of his daughter. There was no question that she was his. The bright blue eyes she had been born with had rapidly darkened to the same, eerie maroon of Dr Lecter's own and there were a number of other unformed features that he knew would grow to resemble him.
Her name was Mariette Louise. She did not even have a surname yet, the poor child. Mme Babineaux had not deigned to give her surname and Dr Lecter was still wary of passing on his own. For what connotations might this child have to live with as the bastard child of a French Diplomat and a Psychological profiler? No, he wished that he might give her her own surname, but knew not how. He knew not what.
The child was staring back, as unblinkingly as he, with the same bright eyes. She had not learnt to smile yet, or he could have sworn that she was smirking at him. In some aspects she was an unwelcome intruder upon his private life. In others - she was his. Utterly and totally his. For the first time he could lay claim to another human being, knowing that they ought to love him. Mariette was still too young to love him, but he knew she would, one day. He would make sure of it.
And with that resolution in mind, he gave her his name and welcomed the child into his home. It was awkward at times, and his usual patterns of behaviour were disrupted, but he soon learnt to respect that and be grateful for it, just as she soon learnt that it was to him that she owed her loyalty and love, though she did not understand.
The months passed life browned leaves falling from the tall oak and whisked by the breeze gradually down to rest with calm temporariness before fading down into the earth as only a memory. The months stretched into years and Dr Lecter watched with a new sense of admiration for the nature of human life. Mariette grew and matured, she learnt to walk and talk with an elegance that left her peers behind. She came to recognise the love of her father, and her father's love of her. She grew to appreciate the solemn beauty in the arts that Dr Lecter so loved.
It was on her fourth birthday that Dr Lecter instructed her to change into her new gown and to hurry down stairs. He carefully secured her coat around her, then took her by the hand and led her outside to the car.
"Where are we going Papa?" she asked in her clear voice that rang like bells and seemed to carry a melody of its own.
"I have a surprise for you, ma belle," he answered, not revealing a thing and delighting in her excited anticipation.
He took her to see Baltimore's Symphony Orchestra in full regalia. He was friendly with a number of the patrons to the Orchestra and he introduced them all to his daughter. Mariette curtsied and smiled and charmed them all, all of them remarking upon what a wonderful daughter he had. Dr Lecter accepted the praises as what they were and allowed a little of his pride show through. For Mariette was something o be proud of, for sure.
She sat in the seat next to him, an extra cushion on the chair to elevate her a couple of inches more, so that she might see better. Her eyes watched with wide appreciation, mouth slightly parted and spots of colour high in her young cheeks. She blinked only once through the performance, when a note was chimed wrong during a part of Mahler's ninth Symphony that Dr Lecter knew she favoured. Other than that, she sat very still, listening and watching with rapt attention.
Afterwards Dr Lecter led her back to his acquaintances, who cooed delightedly over her knowledge of the music, and expressed their admiration for the piece.
"The second cellist was very good," Mariette said with a smile, when it seemed conversation might wither away and leave them awkward. And conversation flowed on again, neither of the Lecter's saying much more than a few words here or there.
When the musicians appeared and came out to talk to the number who remained, Mariette watched them with transformed awe as they went from the Gods which they were on stage, to the mere humans that they became in a crowd without their instruments. Her father recognised the look and smiled to himself. Mariette was beginning to understand already that what one appeared to be on the outside was not necessarily who they really were.
After a number of introductions to the players, the group retired from the theatre and began making its way back to the Lecters' house. Mariette tugged on her father's sleeve and he knelt to pick her up for the short walk home. One of her hands clutched his jacket lapel and her head rested heavily on his shoulder, golden curls falling about her face. She was tired from a long evening and the momentary indecision as to whether she would eat with them was resolved. She would not.
She ate in the kitchen whilst her father finished preparing the food for their guests and wished them all good night when she was done. Between the memorable starter and the next course, Dr Lecter bid his guests excuse him for a moment whilst he went upstairs to tuck her in.
She was ready for bed when he entered, golden hair spread like a fan about her head and across the pillow and eyes half-shut.
"You left the guests, Papa?" she asked, voice light and slightly teasing.
Dr Lecter smiled and sat on the edge of her bed, stroking a lock of hair from her forehead. "They will not mind. They adore you already."
Mariette smiled, her eyes fully closing and leaning in to the warmth of her father's hand.
"Good night, ma belle," he wished her.
"Good night Papa. Thank you very much for my surprise," she said without opening her eyes, though her smile grew a little wider.
He leant over her and kissed her forehead. "All my love," he said.
"I love you too," she murmured as he left, the smile slipping off her face as her muscles relaxed into sleep.
Dr Lecter shut the door behind him and stood a moment, utterly still. She was utterly his, that little, perfect human behind those doors. But he had come to realise over the past four years that he also belonged utterly to her. It was a scary feeling, but it gave him more satisfaction than he ever believed it might. He did not linger long, moving swiftly back down the stairs to tend to his guests. The conversation was as lively and involving as it had been before, but he noticed with gratitude that their voices were a little quieter than before, their laughs a little more refined.
He thanked them for it as they left, but they brushed his gratitude aside, replacing it with their own for such a wonderful meal. Once the last guest left and he started to clear the remaining dishes from the table, he considered that, all in all, it had been a successful evening. The Orchestra was no longer hindered by its awful flute player, Mariette was happy and content, and his guests well-fed and pleased.
Dr Lecter had retired to his study with a glass of scotch when the doorbell went. He moved quickly to see his visitor, lest they ring the bell again and disturb Mariette. When he opened the door it was the young Special Agent Will Graham who stood there, his face stretched tight with worry and his appearance making him look tired and frantic.
He showed the younger man in, through to the study and listened intently as Graham detailed his revelation. He did not want to kill the other man, but when that light of understanding came to his eyes, he knew he must. The bullets surprised him. He had forgotten the gun. Unlike him to do so. He was not prone to making mistakes. But as they both collapsed back down, the one thought that remained in Dr Lecter's head was that he hoped his thundering heart beat would not wake Mariette.
As it happened, it was the gunshots that woke the four year old, not his heart beat. Mariette had not heard proper gunshots before and so when she woke she was not afraid, only curious. Her father had always taken great pains not to wake her once she went to sleep each night and that he might be so careless surprised her, especially after all the thought he had put into that day.
When Mariette found Special Agent Will Graham sprawled across the floor, blood pooling around him from the wound in his side, and her father splayed backward across the desk, three gunshot wounds in his chest, Mariette did not scream. She stepped delicately over Graham, careful not to spoil her slippers in the blood and moved towards the desk. She moved her father's hand aside, so that she could reach the telephone and quickly dialled the hospital.
When the medics arrived both men were still alive. They found Mariette curled up on her father's work chair, looking into his face and gently stroking his cheek bones and along his brow, kissing him occasionally and whispering words of encouragement. Later, the doctors considered this as maybe the only reason that Dr Lecter managed to live through it - for the love of his child.
The year that followed was a long, hard one for all those involved. For both Graham and Dr Lecter is was long, painful road to recovery that the press followed with avid interest. The trial and conviction that followed was equally as difficult. But, perhaps the worst affected was little Mariette. Seeing her father so helpless completed the thoughts that had seeded in her head the night of her fourth birthday. Dr Lecter had appeared God-like to her in life, but here, on the brink of death, it was painfully clear that he was, indeed, only human.
Mariette stayed in America long enough to see the beginning of the trial, but her mother came, reluctantly, to take her away before it progressed very far. Mariette was glad, at least, to see her father awake again. The policemen had been reluctant to let her see him and speak to him, but she charmed and pleaded with them, until they let her.
The bars separating them did little to restrain as they embraced one another fiercely. He wiped the tears from her eyes and smiled a little.
"Madame Babineaux has come to take me away," Mariette told him on a whisper, scared if she said the words too loud her mother might swoop in that moment and bear her off.
Dr Lecter ran a finger down her cheek. "She is your mother,' he replied.
"But you are my Papa," she replied, with a childish simplicity.
"Ah, ma belle, but I eat people." They had all tried to keep the truth of her father from her, but it was impossible to escape the facts of the trial of the century.
"You don't eat me," Mariette said, again her childish grasp of logic making fools of the 'proper' thing to do. For what could be simpler than a child staying with the parent she knows and loves and who loves her, rather than the parents who does not?
"You can not stay in a cell with me, Mariette," he scolded her lightly. "It would not do."
Mariette watched him intently for a moment, cocking her head to the side. Then, with simple determination, said, "I will not stay with her long."
Dr Lecter smiled and might have laughed, if they had been in private. "Of course you won't."
The door swung open and one of Dr Lecter's guards stepped in. "Time's up," he said gruffly.
Father and daughter moved to the bars again and he held her tightly, placing a tender kiss on her forehead. "I am glad you will not see the trial, ma belle," Dr Lecter smiled and placed a curled finger under her chin, tilting her face up. "All my love," he told her.
"I love you too," she answered, and kissed his cheek.
She left with the guard, his hand not quite touching her as he led her out. Bright eyes so like his own glanced back one last time and Dr Lecter winked. The mischievous light that had been missing from her eyes those past months was ignited once more and she left the room feeling lighter-hearted than she had in a while.
-
Mariette ended up living with her mother for just over a year. In that time, Mme Émile Babineaux awakened a new realisation in her five year old daughter. Up until this point, Mariette had been able to charm her way into and out of everything. Blonde hair, pretty features and an angelic countenance meant only those closest to her could look beyond to the wild mischievous nature that waited hidden beneath the mask. Her father could look beyond, should he chose to, but often did not. She and he and a unique rapport that knew the bounds to push and not to, the masks to wear and not to. She could not pull one by him, just as he could not her.
Her mother, however, was a different breed entirely. She had the same angelic charms as her daughter and had been using them, refining them, practising them for just as long as she had been alive. But it was not simply a case of her not falling for the sweet smiles and innocent gazes, no, Mme Babineaux saw the devil behind it all, when there was only a five year old child.
Mariette's name was changed to Babineaux when she arrived in France, and it was something that both Mariette and Mme Babineaux resented. Mariette was given no time to adjust and was thrown with little planning and no thought to her well-being into the local school. Dr Lecter had been careful in teaching her a number of languages as she grew up, so understanding the language was of little difficulty, but Mariette had been used to a relatively lonely life without seeing more than two or three people, besides her father, everyday. The thirty children per class and endless bustle of school life scared and disorientated Mariette.
Likewise, she could not escape when she was 'home' for Mme Babineaux was a socialite. There were endless parties and functions and dinners that sent Mariette's mind into a whirl. Endless pretty dresses to try on and wear as her mother paraded her before Paris' rich and renowned. On the rare occasions Mariette did get to herself, she was to learn to play the piano, or to draw, or to sew, never to be left to her books.
Two months before her sixth birthday, Two strangers appeared on her mother's doorstep, asking after her. Seeing no reason as to why not, Mme Babineaux introduced them as Lady Murasaki and her husband, Pascal Popil. Mariette watched them with her bright eyes, curious as to what they could possibly want with her, but not enough to say anything aloud to them.
"Mariette?" the Lady Murasaki asked. She was a very beautiful Japanese lady in her early sixties, late fifties perhaps.
"Yes," Mariette answered, voice still clear like a bell.
There was a pause as the atmosphere of the room shifted slightly, Popil crossing and uncrossing his legs, perhaps out of nervousness as the two women were perfectly still.
"I was married to the brother of your grandfather. I am your father's aunt."
Mariette nodded, tilting her head slightly to one side as she often did when seriously considering something. "Yes, I believe Papa spoke of you a few times. But he often prefers to live in the present, rather than the past."
"Your father's trial finished five months ago, the sentence passed last month," she said.
"Yes," Mariette agreed. It was hard to avoid that fact, and all the disgusting rumours surrounding her father's case, when one was constantly surrounded by gossip-mongers.
Lady Murasaki smiled, just a little, and a flash of the past appeared in her eyes before it disappeared. "Pascal and I are travelling to America to visit him. We were wondering if you wanted to come?"
Mariette stared a moment, unmoving as her heart began to beat ferociously in her chest. Such an offer! A return to America, to the life she knew, to see her father again - wait. "Would I be able to see Papa?" she asked quietly, fearful of a negative response.
Popil spoke for the first time. "Why do you want to?" The question was not accusatory, merely curious, as though the once-inspecteur really did not understand why she might want to see him.
"Why do you?" Mariette asked back, eyes still on Lady Murasaki.
"I was an inspecteur on his case when he lived in Paris. I respected him - still do. I want to see where the long years have taken him."
"How old was he then?" Mariette asked, eyes curious, face impassive.
"Thirteen when I first met him. Nineteen when I last," Popil answered easily enough.
"Do you think after nearly thirty years he will still recognise you?"
"Yes."
"Do you think after a year and a half he will recognise me?" There was tremor in her voice as she said it, much as she tried to keep it out. As she grew and changed she had become fearful that her own father might not recognise her.
Popil moved to kneel before her chair and placed a heavy hand on each of her shoulders. "Yes," he said, certain. He squeezed lightly before letting go and returning to his seat.
"You want to see him because you love him," Lady Murasaki said, then.
"Yes."
"Then we shall not stop you from seeing him. The authorities might not let you, but we will," Lady Murasaki said, smiling now.
Mariette looked up to her and a flickering smile appeared briefly on her lips in response. "Will you help me?" she asked. "I wish to see Papa again."
Lady Murasaki leant forward and cupped Mariette's cheek in one hand. "Yes," she said.
-
It did not take long to convince her mother to let her go. Mme Babineaux had never wanted children and getting rid of something she did not want was no sacrifice. So within a fortnight Mariette was ready to leave, her many pretty dresses packed carefully into her suitcases, her books hidden between the skirts so her mother might not find them and stop them from going with her.
Lady Murasaki and Pascal Popil arrived late the evening before they were to leave and were at the Babineaux household ready to go early the next morning. It took little time and effort to transport Mariette's baggage into the car, and then they were off. It was a long, uncomfortable journey, but Mariette found she could not regret that time for during it she got to know her great-aunt and her husband.
Popil was wary of telling the story of Dr Lecter's youth, but Lady Murasaki told it anyway. She told the rapt five year old of Mischa and the cannibals in the forest. Of the butcher and his rudeness, of Hannibal's intelligence and vengeance. She told Mariette that Hannibal had told her, shortly before she left, that she was his favourite person in the world.
"I don't think that would be true any more, though," Lady Murasaki said with a hint of a smile.
"I know he's still very fond of you," Mariette insisted, feeling the need to comfort her new-found relative.
Lady Murasaki's eyes clouded with the past again for a moment, but soon cleared. "Perhaps," she acquiesced. "But I believe, from what you have told me, that you are his favourite person."
Mariette's face lit for a moment in selfish pleasure. To be loved was one thing - and she was sure her father loved her - but to be a favourite was another thing entirely. Mariette remembered quite clearly the evening of her fourth birthday; the Symphony Orchestra, the faces of Dr Lecter's friends, the beautiful music, spoiled by only one missed note, the sound of her father's heart beat beneath her ear as he carried her home. She recalled eating in the kitchen, the voices of their guests filtering through the open door to the hallway, to the Drawing Room, she remembered preparing for bed, her father saying good night, calling her ma belle, like he always did. "All my love," he'd say. "I love you too," she'd answer. She did not care to remember the rest.
But the rest was not important. The rest was what led to the terrible divide between them. No, it was those moments of closeness, of uniqueness to only them, that reminded Mariette why she could forgive her father. For she had not gone this long hearing of his crimes without hating him a little. She could not explain away the deaths he'd caused, could not understand his reasoning. The cannibalism did not bother her so much - her father was not a man to waste resources and, if he had killed them, why not utilise whatever few uses they had left? Mariette just did not understand why he killed in the first place.
But she loved her father without bounds, trusted him implicitly. She would not let this get between them. No matter his crimes, he was her father. One day she hoped he would provide some explanation, until then she could only resent that his choices had separated them so utterly until this point. For she missed him with all her being.
Their arrival in America was quiet and swift. They stayed in a hotel in the centre of Baltimore, waiting a day to get accustomed to the change in daylight hours, before the three of them travelled to Baltimore Forensic Hospital to request entrance.
Lady Murasaki had already applied and her request been granted, as aunt to Dr Lecter. Dr Chilton, the head doctor at the facility thought it might be insightful to allow her down, to see Dr Lecter's responses. It was in such a vein that they believed it would take little effort for them to convince him to let Mariette see her father again.
Mariette stayed at the hotel the first time Lady Murasaki and Popil went to see Dr Lecter. They came back much quieter, introspective, than when they had left. Lady Murasaki's eyes were red from the effort not to cry and Popil's hands shook ever so slightly.
"What happened?" Mariette enquired.
"He is… so like how I remember him," Lady Murasaki tried to explain, "and yet, so different. Still, he shows no remorse, and I wonder if more happened out in those woods than he ever told anyone. To be so lost…" she could not talk any longer.
Popil said nothing more than, "He still scares me."
The next day, Popil took Mariette to the research facility and they left Lady Murasaki at the hotel. She was more bothered by the visit and the memories of the past than she had cared to show at first. Dr Chilton was delighted in a hungry sort of way when Mariette was introduced to him. He did not hesitate to allow her down to see her father, though he seemed very disappointed when she chose not to allow him to place a microphone on her.
"I have not seen Papa for two years, except a brief visit over a year ago," Mariette said quietly, her eyes watering. "Please let me have a little privacy?"
Dr Chilton saw only blonde hair, a pretty face and child like pleas for something one should not have to ask for. He fell for her act; hook, line and sinker. He did not notice Popil's smirk, nor the rolled eyes of the guards as he hurriedly agreed. He did not even watch the visit on the security cameras until long after she's left.
Mariette waited with impatient excitement as the doors were unlocked and locked around her, until finally she stood at the end of the corridor that led down to the cell containing her father. There was a chair waiting for her and she wondered absently if she might use it. With great difficulty she slowed her heart beat and kept her steps calm and unhurried. She wanted to draw out the sense of sweet anticipation that thrilled through her.
And then, there he was. He looked exactly like he had when she had last seen him, handsome, proud, but tired. He was dressed in a grey jumpsuit that she knew he must loathe. His hair was combed back neatly, but there appeared to be less of it than before and he was not allowed gel to keep it back from his face. Still, he was magnificent.
"Papa," she whispered, desperate for his eyes to look into hers, to recognise her and to love her.
He did not look up. "Mariette, Mariette, Mariette," he spoke her name like a mantra. "They said you were coming, but I did not believe them." Then he glanced up and met her gaze. His eyes were filled with a desperation akin to her own. "But they told the truth. Mariette, Mariette, Mariette," he paused. "Ma belle," he breathed out.
And Mariette had to restrain from laughing. He was there! "Papa," she whispered again and moved forward to press her hands to the glass. She slipped her fingers through the holes and he grasped at them, stroking them, wished he could hold her. "How I've missed you."
"You've grown," he said inconsequentially. "Your clothes are more presumptuous."
This time Mariette did laugh. "Yes, yes, I know! Mother did not like me much, but she liked to dress me up and show me off. I like French style, but not so much of it on so little occasion."
"Am I nothing to dress up for then, Mariette?" he teased, eyes glowing red in the darkened hall.
"No, no. I put on something pretty for you today," Mariette told him seriously. "I knew you wouldn't be able to dress up, so I did a bit for the both of us." She stepped back and did a twirl, skirt floating out around her as she did so.
"Ah, now I can see the French in you that you've picked up during my absence."
Mariette looked at him sadly, pushing her fingers through the holes again, needing to touch, to feel that he was real. "I tried to stay the same, but I did not know how," she told him.
"I see you as you were in my dreams, ma belle, the differences tell me that you are real. I like these changes. You are growing up and making me proud." Dr Lecter told her quite seriously and it made her smile.
"I always want to make you proud," she responded. "But with mother it was sometimes so difficult. I do not know why you liked her."
Dr Lecter smiled back at her when she said that. "Ah, but I knew her for but three months and she had a pretty face. You've known her for thirteen months and know that her personality is ugly."
"She's not ugly," Mariette contradicted. "She is just selfish."
"Selfishness is a form of ugliness," her father told her.
"Then I am ugly too," Mariette informed him. "Because, for all the ills you spill upon the world, I want you free so that you can tuck me into bed again at night."
Dr Lecter smiled again and crouched down to her height, pressing his forehead to the glass. She pressed hers against her side, too. "All my love, ma belle," he promised her.
Mariette kissed the glass. "I love you too."
"Will you come back again?" he asked, knowing that their time together was drawing to a close.
"I will try. It depends upon the charity of Lady Murasaki and Mr Popil. I can only stay in America as long as they do. I don't know if they'll want me to keep seeing you."
"They let you come down now, didn't they?"
"I told them I loved you."
"Tell them again," Dr Lecter almost asked her. "Keep telling them until they hear you. I love you, I do not want you to go."
Mariette laughed lightly. "Dr Chilton wants me to keep coming. He thinks I will help give him some insight into your mind."
"Only you could see into my mind."
"If I tell him that he might not let me down again."
There was a moment of silence between them as they only drank in the sight of the other with their eyes. At the end of the corridor keys rattled and a voice called, "Miss Babineaux! Miss Babineaux, you must come back now."
"Your name?" he asked, wanting to keep her there a moment longer.
"Mother changed it," Mariette said. "I'll change it back as soon as I can. I think I must go."
"Come back, ma belle, come back," he asked.
"I will," Mariette promised. "I love you."
French for morons like me:
'Ma belle'; my beauty
'Inspecteur'; inspector
