Have you ever noticed that whenever you really shouldn't be writing something, it's impossible to get off your mind? I have. Anyway, a message from your author: read Great Expectations. Seriously. And Portrait of a Lady. I started them recently, and they are fabulous.
Within the shadow of the ship,
I watched their rich attire:
Blue, glossy green, and velvet black
They coiled and swam; and every track
Was a flash of golden fire.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'.
After a while Christine, armed with her highly sophisticated powers of deduction, decided that on the whole things were going rather well. Her eighteenth birthday had passed, her earnings didn't seem to do anything but rise, a wealthy gentleman had taken a shine to her become an almost nightly regular, she had managed to be a harlot all these years without becoming poxed or clapped and she hadn't been abused by a client in weeks.
In short, she was getting suspicious.
"Nini," she asked one Sunday afternoon when it was too hot to do anything but lie about. "Have you ever had the feeling that things are just going too well?"
The older woman groaned, shielding her eyes against a beam of light that was bouncing off an absinthe bottle. "Frequently," she said through gritted teeth. "I had one of those periods earlier. Now we got landed with Satine." Mome Fromage muttered something about bickering and gave Nini a light rap with her fan. Christine, not entirely satisfied with the response, turned back to reading one of Pearly Queen's Penny Dreadfuls. It wasn't an exactly riveting piece of writing. Christine liked adventure stories, but Pearly Queen favoured books that were sold under counters in the rest of Paris and bought quite openly in Montmartre, the ones labelled 'passionate'. She liked to keep them under her bunk with a secret supply of chocolate and Dominatrix liked to laugh at her.
Pearly Queen was currently poring over a newspaper with Babydoll and Arabia, laughing their heads off. "Look at all these notices for missing girls," Arabia chuckled knowingly. "How many of them do you think ended up down here? Look at this one, Paquette Lorraine… Hey, French Maid! Someone's looking for you!"
French Maid, her face an unbecoming shade of red, tried to look away as if she didn't care, but Christine caught a whisper of "he would."
Arabia, undeterred, read on. "Here's another one, look… Christine Devreaux, age fourteen… Do we have anyone here called Christine?"
Christine's head snapped up far too quickly. There was no way… Her family were not the sort… "Hey, can I borrow that?" she heard herself asking, reaching across the table and pulling the newspaper away.
Arabia's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Why?"
Christine tried to make herself look as bored as possible, while trying to glance at Pearly Queen. She had told Pearly Queen her true name only once, so she might have forgotten it… Pearly Queen stared blankly back, so Christine assumed she had. "Because I'd like to see if my cousin's in there," Christine lied. "I heard she ran away."
Arabia still looked suspicious, but she handed over the paper anyway. Christine, noting her frustration that her hands were shaking, took it and sped up the stairs to the bedrooms before Arabia could say another word.
It was stiflingly hot in the bedroom when Christine pushed her way in, and her stockings already felt as if they were sticking to her. Most of the girls had taken to simply wearing their underthings during the day, modesty not being a valued trait at the Moulin Rouge. It made little difference; Christine still felt like she had been thrown head first into a furnace. "Damn these corsets, damn them, damn them," she hissed, throwing herself into a chair at the central table. Her name couldn't be in the newspaper. It simply couldn't be.
But there it was, black on white. Missing: Christine Devreaux, age fourteen. Last seen on rue de Cygnes… Fourteen. The newspaper must be years old. Despite herself, Christine felt an odd pull on her heart. She had barely thought of her family since she had run away from home, and when she did, it was only in bitter terms. They had thrown her out, she had tried to assure herself. She wouldn't have been let back in. Or would she?
Stop. Enough, Christine told herself firmly. This notice is years old. They've probably given you up for dead. You would just be married off, anyway.
Christine traced over the faded print, a few stubborn curls escaping as she leant forward. They didn't want you, they never wanted you, they were just looking for you out of a sense of duty-
A creak on the stairs yanked Christine back into the dusty bedroom. She leapt up from the table as if she had been burned, ready to invent a brilliant excuse should Arabia or Pearly be standing there. Christine breathed an invisible sigh of relief when it turned out to be simply one of the new girls. Liberty, she remembered vaguely. "You shouldn't sneak up on people like that!" Christine demanded hotly, trying not to sound too shaken.
The girl in the doorway went as white as a consumptive. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but was interrupted by the entrance of scrawny Urchin. "Oh, Travesty, Liberty most certainly did not sneak," Urchin sneered. "She's been staring at you for the past five minutes."
Liberty blushed furiously and stammered some halting excuse. Christine, now thoroughly recovered from her shock, informed the girl that she really didn't care about why Liberty was there, and pushed past to return the newspaper to Pearly Queen and Arabia. On the way, however, she discreetly tore out her parents' notice. Never go back. Never!
The dancehall was considerably louder when Christine returned. Dominatrix had evidently teased Pearly Queen about her choice in literature, and the two were now having a wonderful time screeching at each other. Dominatrix whacked Pearly Queen with some object from her arsenal, and Pearly Queen retaliated by kicking her on the shin and then bolting for the dressing rooms before Dominatrix could take revenge. Considering that she was short and somewhat stocky, Pearly Queen was remarkably fast.
A rather more serious argument was taking place on the other side of the hall between Babydoll and Schoolgirl. Schoolgirl had been raised in Ireland and spoke hesitant, often incorrect French. As a result she was teased by everyone, and this served to make her speak very little, which in turn made her a subject of ridicule. Her self-imposed silence was currently broken, and her fight with Babydoll was punctuated with loud English swear words.
"You lot think I'm an eejit just because I'm Irish!" she insisted.
"Oh, rubbish!" Babydoll returned haughtily. "We don't think you're an idiot because you're Irish, Schoolgirl. We think you're an idiot because you're not French."
This earned her a few laughs from those proud to have never left French soil, but Christine spotted Circus mutter something in Russian and exchange an angry look with Spanish and Gypsy, probably the only time the three acknowledged each other, and China Doll threw a paper ball at Babydoll's head. China Doll was more soft spoken than Nini or Arabia, but even so, Babydoll was going to pay a price for her cheek..
For a moment, the tension between the girls was so thick you could have cut it with one of Dominatrix's knives. Babydoll, upon seeing the resentful faces of China Doll and Arabia, paled and looked to Tattoo for support, who in turn shrugged and continued examining her new inkings. Christine found herself holding her breath, and by the expressions of Harlequin and Antoinette near by she wasn't the only one. Those who had laughed at Babydoll's comment shrunk back and tried to pretend as if they hadn't been involved. Romanian-born Tarot turned to Urchin and gave her a discreet but painful shove.
Then ill-tempered Gambler tripped Pearly Queen, Pearly Queen shrieked at her in outrage and the spell was broken. Nini poured herself some absinthe and the dancehall relaxed. Pearly Queen forgot her argument with Dominatrix and turned on Gambler instead. Gambler was tall, with unhealthy white skin and a pinched face, and though she was Nini's dancer partner she mostly kept to herself. Now, however, she towered over the stocky Pearly and the other girls cheered her on.
Where did they all come from, Christine wondered. The past was rarely spoken about, except by a few younger girls who did so in hushed voices. The other girls packed their memories away, folded and pressed without a crease, ready to be taken out and aired when time had passed enough for them to bear them. Christine took the image of her family, already worn and blurred like the newspaper clipping, and tucked it into some recess of her mind, never to be seen again.
That night Christine danced like a demon, so rapidly and with such aggression that Circus struggled to keep up. She danced as if she wasn't trying to attract a customer, as if she wasn't flicking her skirts up to give them a glimpse of knicker. For the first time in days she danced for herself, oblivious to everything but the throbbing music and the splashes of pink and green around her. When the cancan finished she all but fell into a spare chair, hoping that a rake didn't approach her with an offer. The world was still spinning too much for that.
She need not have worried. The band had struck up the showy tunes for the individual acts, and for the first time Satine took to the stage.
It was as if she was Eve and all the rakes were Adam. Never before had Christine seen so many men stare. As a routine, Satine's was fairly basic; a cheeky, comical song with a bit of suggestive dancing. But Satine simply had a way of performing that raised her above Circus' acrobatics and Schoolgirl's ballet steps.
"They look like little kids on Christmas!" Babydoll observed frantically when they were in the dressing room, peeping through a crack in the door and examining the rakes while her pretty mouth hung open in shock. Christine, who had returned to the dressing room to freshen up the kohl around her eyes, shoved the scandalised blonde out of the way for a closer look.
"Jesus Christ."
Satine, who had finished the last chorus ("Money makes the world go round, the world go round, the world go round…"), curtsied with surprising grace and glided through the velvet curtains, but the patrons did not seem to want her to leave. Eventually Satine graciously returned, throwing out smile after dazzling smile and warmly accepting the applause.
Pandemonium reigned backstage. "How did she do that?" was the main question thrown amongst the girls. Christine settled herself at an empty dressing table, equally mystified. There had been nothing remarkable about Satine's performance in regards to technique. Her dancing had nowhere near the vigour of Nini or the elegance of China Doll; her voice was pretty but lacked the power of Mome Fromage. What, then, had made her so attractive?
"Because Harold treats her like she's something special," Mome Fromage answered instantly when Dominatrix asked the same question. "The men here don't care about talent. They'll go for a girl who's dim as a blind bat provided she sparkles nicely. What do you think these costumes are for?"
Christine considered those words. It was true, the act was subtly different. For a start, Satine had been on her own, whereas most girls were accustomed to sharing the stage. The music had been louder, her costume grander (green, with enough feathers to make your eyes water), and everything had just seemed so much bigger. Almost as if she was…
Almost as if she was the star.
Satine, who had a penchant for elegant gowns, would often send Cecile down to the seamstresses' rooms with a few sous and orders for lace to be sewn on to the sleeves of this dress and the skirt of that gown to be embroidered. Cecile, however, reasoned that all her experience in sewing allowed her to sufficiently embroider the gowns herself, and instead spent the money on food from various vendors that she then split with Garden Girl.
"It's not that I'm stealing," she said through a mouthful of steaming veal and gravy pie. "It's just… redistributing the money. I mean, she would have lost it, anyway."
Garden Girl nodded, her mouth too full to reply. The two girls were sitting beneath a window of the roof of the windmill, a safe distance away from the main hall. Cecile had found the entrance to the tiny attic room when she was twelve. "You've got to eat," Garden Girl justified once she had swallowed a fair amount of piecrust. "If Satine complains, just tell her that if you died of starvation, she wouldn't have a dresser."
"Exactly." Cecile licked a portion of the gravy from her fingers and wiped the rest on her skirt. The faint echo of a clock tower resounded under the cornflower sky, reminding citizens of the hour. Garden Girl gazed miserably out the window for a moment, then got up from the dusty ground.
"I guess I should be going," she whispered. "There's always a competition for the mirrors and if I don't get down there now I'll never have time to do my makeup."
Cecile regarded her friend through sympathetic eyes. Garden Girl was always so melancholy when it came to her work. "Are you ever afraid?" Cecile asked quietly. "Of what might happen, I mean."
Garden Girl paused, her hands remaining by her waist where she had been pulling at a few creases. "Oh. No, I'm not." Garden Girl's speech caused the scar at the corner of her mouth to pull; an ever-present mark of a client's brutality. The girl smoothed down a few more wrinkles in her bodice and spoke again. "It's just a risk of the trade, Cecile. It's better here than it is out there. Safer."
Cecile considered this while polishing off the remainders of her pie. "Do you think I'll ever become a Diamond Dog?" she chewed contemplatively.
Garden Girl, to Cecile's surprise, looked up sharply. The expression she gave Cecile was filled with sadness and something else Cecile had no names for. "For your sake," Garden Girl replied softly, "I hope you don't."
The next afternoon Satine had returned from an early morning rehearsal with the Diamond Dogs far quieter than usual. She said nothing when Cecile helped her into a simple white day dress, and only started to speak once Cecile had sat down in her usual rocking chair.
"They hate me, Juno," Satine whispered sadly, her eyes fixed on her ivory reflection in the mirror. "The girls. They hate me."
Cecile swallowed. Neither Garden Girl nor the other girls Cecile had spoken to mentioned Satine in complementary tones, but that would have been the wrong thing to say. The chair creaked as Cecile leant forward. "I'm sure you're mistaken, Mam'selle."
"Oh, don't defend them, you know it's true," Satine scoffed with a helpless laugh. "Don't think I don't see you running off to talk with them. The girls hate me, and they have every right to." Satine gave a strangled cry and buried her head in her arms. "I'm not one of them. Not that I'd want to be," she laughed again, looking up. "But it would have been nice to belong." Satine rummaged around her dressing table, the movement seeming to startle her out of her reverie. "Oh drat!" she exclaimed, turning around. "I'm all out of powder. Cecile, would you run down and get some?"
Cecile clambered off the rocking chair, her hand-me-down skirt rustling. "I'll be as quick as I can," she confirmed as she made her way to the door.
"Oh," Satine murmured. "Don't… Stay as long as you like," she finished firmly. "I want to be alone for a while."
Cecile knew she should have felt concern for Satine, but for some reason couldn't bring herself to be. Cecile was harsh when it came to priorities, and being liked was one of the lowest. Getting something to eat came first, and since Satine was well fed enough Cecile saw no reason for complaint. Cecile spent the remainder of the afternoon chatting to Garden Girl and Tarot and thinking little of the world.
She was kicked out of the dancers' rooms until the early evening when the girls were beginning to be chased towards the dressing rooms to prepare for the night ahead. Some went immediately to gain a spot in front of the mirrors, others such as foul-mouthed Tattoo and cool, independent Travesty refused to move, confident in their abilities to shove other girls out of the way. Cecile bid various dancers farewell and drifted out of the overheated rooms towards the gardens, leaving the ever-present perfume of cigarette smoke and makeup behind the theatre doors.
The evening was a cool one and Cecile closed her eyes, letting the soft air chill her burning cheeks. The atmosphere carried the fresh smell of rain and crushed flowers, and when Cecile opened her eyes it seemed as if the world was a watercolour painting over which someone had spilt water, and the colours bled together into an unfathomable grey.
Cecile was roughly shaken from her thoughts when a man with hands like dead chickens clapped her on the shoulders. "Well, what have we here?" he crooned into her ear, his moustache scratching her bare neck. Cecile started violently, and tried to pull herself away, but the man held her tight. "I don't think so, miss," he slurred, his dead chicken hands fumbling at the collar of her dress.
Cecile tried to scream, but another man emerged wraith-like from the gathering dusk and pressed his hand over her mouth. "Be quiet now…" the first man mumbled, who, having successfully loosened her dress, was now fighting her corset strings. "Be quiet, and we'll even give you your price… we're fair…"
"I'm not…" Cecile protested, struggling against the arm now clamped about her throat. "I'm not one of the girls… let me go…"
The man in front of her chuckled darkly and chucked her under the chin. "Don't try and fool us, angel face," he taunted maliciously. "And even if it's true…" Cecile winced as the man pressed his lips to her face, leaving her lips and cheek covered in spit. "A cute little thing like you is just waiting to be fucked."
They dragged her behind a wall and threw her to the ground, a dirty rag stuffed in her mouth to keep her from screaming. This was no idle whim. These men wanted to destroy her, to tear her limb from limb. Cecile was almost glad when one of them smashed her skull against the earth. Oblivion was preferable to the worst pain in the world.
Cecile awoke on a dirty mattress beneath a familiar ceiling. The blurred face of a woman swum into view, and when a hazy memory reminded Cecile of the face's identity she had never been more happy in her life. "Elsa!"
The bitter seamstress reached forward to gently push Cecile's hair from her face. "Poor, poor girl," she muttered, dragging a few blankets around Cecile's shoulders. "Poor girl, you're ruined now."
Cecile tried to move her battered limbs and instantly regretted it. Pain shot threw her body as if a thousand knives had ripped her skin. The light of the single candle pricked her eyes like needles, and she fell back onto the bed, a groan escaping from her lips.
Soft fingers gently brushed her face, then reached down to clasp her hand. Garden Girl. The red haired prostitute knelt by the side of the bed, tears leaving white streaks on her rouged cheeks. "I'm so sorry, Cecile," she breathed, her voice as cracked as her chewed-down lips.
Cecile turned her head slightly towards the older girl. That tiny movement alone took a gargantuan effort. "Did they…?" she rasped, her voice barely above a whisper.
Garden Girl leant forward, a few soft strands of hair coming to rest on Cecile's pillow. Their faces touched for the briefest of seconds. "Yes."
Cecile whimpered, unable to contain her tears. How shameful, to have something snatched from her that should have been hers to give. "I hate them!" she croaked, raising her voice. "I hate what they did."
Garden Girl lowered her eyes. "You won't believe how many girls hate them." Cecile wasn't sure if Garden Girl meant the two men who had beaten her or all men in the world. Garden Girl had a knack for always meaning far more than she said. Cecile clasped Garden Girl's paper-pure hand while the other girl searched through the secret pockets in her skirt. "Here," she said finally, placing a handful of scraps on Cecile's bed. "I found this next to you. Keep it. At least you took something from them."
Cecile's eyes flicked towards the little pile. Money. She had just turned her first trick.
In hindsight, Cecile knew that moment was the beginning of the end.
At long last, another chapter! I'm in exams at the moment, hence the delay.
I'm not entirely happy with this chapter, but bear in mind it was written under stress.
References:
Money makes the world go round: lines of a song from 'Cabaret.'
Paquette: name of a slutty French maid in Voltaire's 'Candide'.
