A note to my dear readers — This chapter is (by far) the longest one of this story. In some ways, I think it's also the darkest. I value all your feedback, and obviously it's never my intention to drive any readers away, but I do think it's safe to say that some of you might not like this chapter. Please proceed with caution.
(For my own reference: With this chapter, this story overtakes the wordcount of a previous fic I wrote in 2011, and becomes my longest story so far.)
November 12, 1829
It's late morning — I can tell by the amount of light in my room, and the noise from Rue de l'Ouest outside. It feels strange to be in bed during the day. Papa kept me home from school today because I caught such a chill this morning. I did a number of foolish things this morning. I'm not sure where to begin.
I suppose I should start with the dream I had last night. It was a nightmare that I've dreamt every now and again, for the last several years. It's terrifying, but fortunately, I don't dream it often – only a few times a year, and always during the winter. I've never had this nightmare in warm weather. This week has been so cold that I should've been expecting to have the dream again soon. But I wasn't. It got me completely off-guard last night, and it was worse than ever.
In the dream, I'm always standing in an dim, endlessly long hallway lined with beds. At least, I somehow know there are beds there, even though I can't see them. There are curtains drawn around them, like beds in a hospital – white curtains billowing in the darkness, like something out of a ghost story. I'm alone in the hall, except for a woman standing right in front of me. She always beckons me to come with her, but last night, she went on.
In the dream, we were standing in the hallway with the curtains, this woman and me. I can't put into words how eerie she always is. She's so thin and wasted, with sunken cheeks and impossibly long, thin fingers – more like a skeleton than a living woman. Even her skin has a ghostly grey color to it. Last night, she looked spookier than usual, and I wanted to run away from her, but I seemed to have lost control of my legs, and I was rooted to the spot.
"Come to me, Cosette," this nightmare-woman said, and when she opened her mouth, I gasped. Her gums were full of torn, bloody holes, as if her teeth had been ripped out. I didn't want to look, but I had lost control of my eyes, too. She held her bony hand out to me. "Cosette, it's turned so cold. Come to me, Cosette."
It made me nervous that she kept saying my name, but at first, I tried to be polite. "I can't," I said. "I have to go home. My father's wondering where I am. He's looking for me."
Quicker than I could see, she reached out and grabbed hold of my arm. I gasped again, for her hand was as cold as ice. I tried to break free, but even though her hand, like the rest of her, was nothing but skin and bones, her grip was like a vice.
"Cosette, the light is fading," she said. Her voice was strangely low and wavering, like she had some sort of disease in her chest. It made me shudder. "Come to me, Cosette," she said again, and she tugged hard on my arm, trying to pull me closer.
I dug my heels into the floor. How could someone so thin be so strong? "Let go of me," I told her, but if anything, her grip only got tighter. Oh, where was Papa? I prayed that he would find me soon. This terrible woman was strong, somehow, but Papa was stronger, and he didn't like anyone but him putting their hands on me. He would make her let go of me.
"Cosette, don't you hear the winter wind is crying?" Her voice was like an echo from the grave. "There's a darkness that comes without a warning."
I felt so desperately frightened now. My free hand reached up for the silver cross necklace that I always wear. Papa gave it to me for Christmas last year, and touching it makes me feel better when I'm scared. But in the dream, when I reached for it, it was gone.
"Come to me, Cosette," the woman said again. Why did she keep saying that?
"No, let me go," I said, hoping that I sounded braver than I felt, and still struggling to break free of her. "My father will be here any minute, and when he sees you've put your hands on me —"
"You aren't his," the woman interrupted, her voice cold and angry now. "You're mine. You belong to me."
That unsettled me, for some reason that I can't explain. I flashed back to the day when Papa and I met, to when he sat me on his lap in the carriage and said, "Cosette, you belong to me now. You're my little girl, and I'm your papa."
"No, I don't," I said to the woman, shaking my head. "I belong to my father."
"No, you belong to me," she repeated angrily, "and he isn't your father. You don't even know his name. He doesn't even know your name."
"He does so!" I yelled. Now I was angry, too.
"Your name isn't Cosette, it's Euphrasie. You're fourteen, not thirteen, and your birthday is February 26, not April 7. You were born in Paris. Felix..."
She kept talking, but I didn't want to listen to any more of her lies. I understood now what this woman wanted — she wanted to take me away from Papa. I turned my face away from her and screamed down the hallway, as loudly as I could, "Papa! Papa!"
I thought I heard a door open from far away, and then Papa was there, calling my name and shaking me awake. It made me feel so childish to have him wake me up crying from a nightmare – he hadn't done that in years – but I was too relieved to be embarrassed. He wrapped his arms around me, and I leaned my head against his bare chest (he had no shirt on, only trousers) and listened to his steady, reassuring heartbeat, so relieved that he was there, warm and solid, sitting on the edge of my bed, and that eery ghost-woman was gone. I didn't look at his arms.
Whenever I've had nightmares like this, Papa has always comforted me, but never once asked me to talk about them. He didn't ask me to talk about this one now, but the nightmare had been so frightening and still felt so close that without thinking, I opened my mouth and began telling him the whole thing. It all just spilled out – the hallway full of white sheets like a hospital, the woman's ghastly appearance, everything she said to me, how she grabbed me and wouldn't let go. The spot on my arm where her hand had been still felt cold.
It's hard to describe what happened next. I think I only noticed it because I know Papa so well. At least, perhaps I don't know Papa well – and how it saddens me to write that about my own father – but I know his habits. Before, whenever I've tried to tell him about a nightmare, he's always stopped me right away. But this time, he didn't. He sat there and listened to it all... and there was a strange expression on his face. He looked as if he'd heard this before.
I stopped talking about my nightmare mid-sentence. I said, "Papa... you know something."
He was looking down, at his hands in his lap, but at this, his eyes jerked up to me. I could tell from the look in them that I was right: he did know something. He was hiding something that he didn't want me to find out. But he said nothing, and for a moment, we just stared at each other. His face was wet, and there was a smear of shaving cream on his cheek. I realized that it wasn't so early in the morning before I would've woken up ordinarily, and when he heard me screaming for him, Papa had been in the bathroom shaving. He must've run to my room without even putting on a shirt.
When he didn't answer, I put a hand on his arm, still without looking at it, and pleaded, "Papa, please tell me."
But he shook his head. He looked so uncomfortable. "It's nothing, Cosette," he said thickly. "It was just a dr—"
"No, it wasn't!" He looked startled when I said that – I'd never interrupted him before – but I didn't want him telling me that it was just a dream. Not again, not this time.
He stood up from my bed, and I did too, quickly, because for a horrible moment, I feared he might run right out of my room. I wouldn't put it past him. There's little he wouldn't do to avoid answering my questions.
"You know something – something about my dream," I insisted. I felt like I was on the verge of understanding something very important, if only Papa would tell me what he knew. "What is it?"
He rubbed one hand over his mouth and took a deep breath. He seemed to be bracing himself. "I don't know anything, Cosette," he said carefully. "You just had a bad dream, and you're imagining things."
It was so frustrating, but I kept after him. "Who was that woman? What did she have to do with me? Tell me, Papa." I had never done this before. I had never pushed him so hard to talk about anything before.
Papa shook his head again. "There's nothing to tell," he said firmly. "That time is dead."
That made me angry. Papa did know something, I was sure of it, but he didn't want to tell me. "You've no right to keep secrets from me like this! Why won't you tell m..." But I stopped on the word because just then, Papa turned away from me, and for the first time in my life, I saw his bare back.
His back was so awful that it's hard for me to even write about it. It was worse than his arms. The scars were everywhere, from the nape of his neck until they disappeared beneath the waistband of his pants. I gasped at the sight of them, and Papa spun around quickly, and I could tell by his stricken face that he hadn't meant for me to see. But it was too late. I had already seen. I had even seen enough to tell that they were scars from being whipped.
I swayed on my feet a bit, feeling sick and scared. It made my stomach hurt to think of Papa being hurt so badly. The only people I could think of who might be whipped so much were slaves or prisoners.
Prisoners. The scars like shackles around his wrists. The man on a horse who chased us through the streets. The way he always changed directions to avoid walking past policemen.
No. No no no, he couldn't be, not my Papa. No, it wasn't possible... was it? I didn't want to know, but I had to.
"What happened to your back?" I asked in a very small voice.
He looked hard at me but said nothing. The only sound was the silence that seemed to mock me, the silence that was always my only answer whenever I asked Papa about the past. I felt so frustrated. I wanted so much for him to tell me that he'd never been in prison, that there was some perfectly safe, sensible explanation to the scars all over his body. But there was only silence, and the silence seemed to confirm my worst fears.
"What happened?" I demanded again, my voice bigger and louder. "Who are you?"
He answered me then. "You know who I am, Cosette," he said firmly. Papa and I never shouted at each other, but now, his voice was rising to match mine. "I'm your father."
And then — God forgive me — I did something so horrible I'm ashamed to write about it now. I looked right at him and said, "You're not my father!"
I saw the shock on Papa's face, and then I realized what I'd just said, how cruel and terrible my words were. Had Papa slapped me across the face just then, I wouldn't have blamed him. I deserved it. But he didn't, of course.
One of the last times I ever saw the hateful man who lived at the old inn, he slapped me so hard that I thought the blow would knock my head clean off. I don't remember what I had done to make him so angry.
Sometimes Papa has hugged me or held me so tightly it hurt, but he's never once raised a hand to me. I believe he would sooner cut his hands off than strike me with them. How could I have said something so horrible to him?
I'd been afraid of Papa running out of my room, but I was the one who did it. I don't know what I was thinking. I only knew couldn't stand there facing him after what I'd said. The shocked, hurt look on his face was too much to bear. So I turned away from him and hurried out of my room, up the hall, and then, of all the foolishness, I went right outside to our garden — our front garden, which faces the street, in my nightgown, in the middle of November, with the sun barely risen. I must've lost my mind.
There was ice on the front walk, because it's been so cold and wet lately, and I was barefoot, but I stood there anyway, shivering. I wanted to put as much distance as I could between myself and Papa. I couldn't believe what I'd just said to him. My face felt strangely warm, and I realized I was crying. I don't know how long I stood there, but soon, from behind me, I heard our front door open. I didn't want to turn around and face Papa, but I did.
"I'm sorry, Papa, I'm so sorry," I said over and over, but I don't think he could understand me because I was crying so hard and my teeth were chattering from the cold. He had hastily put on a shirt and his long waist-coat, but he took his coat off and bundled it around me. I immediately felt better — not only warmer, but safer, like his were arms around me, even when they weren't.
I was sure he would be angry with me. As if what I'd just said to him wasn't bad enough, Papa has a rule that I'm never to leave our house in my nightgown, or to let anyone see me in it except him, and now I was out in the front garden in it for all of Paris to see.
But he wasn't angry. He just said, "Come, Cosette, let's go back inside before you catch your death." He stepped closer to me, and I thought he would put his arm around my shoulders and walk me inside, but instead, he swept me off my feet and carried me.
He carried me across the front garden and back inside the house. I leaned my head against his chest, the lapel of his coat brushing my cheek, and said softly, "I really am sorry for what I said, Papa. I didn't mean that."
He carried me through our front foyer and down the hall to my room. "I know you didn't, child," he answered, and I felt a little better. His voice was calm, but his face still looked sad – so sad that it pained me to know that I had made him look that way.
Papa laid me down in my bed, but I sat up even as he was pulling the blankets up over me. "I have to get ready for school," I told him, but Papa shook his head and said, "You're not going to school today, Cosette. You need to stay in bed and get warm again. Lie down, now." I obeyed, and Papa slid one hand beneath the blankets and felt my feet and legs. "You're frozen stiff," he muttered, shaking his head. "Running outside in nothing but your nightgown." I could tell that I would probably get a lecture later, about modest behavior for young ladies, but for now, Papa was tucking me into bed like I was a little girl again. It was a little embarrassing, but I didn't mind so much. He ran his hand over my hair and said that I was to stay in bed until he told me I could get up, but I don't mind that, either. It's given me time to write all this.
Papa can still pick me up as easily as when I was a little girl. When I grew bored in class at the convent school, I used to wonder how he might've gotten so strong. Did he used to be a farmer, sweating under the sun as he pushed plows and loaded haybales? Or was he once a sailor, the salty sea spraying his face as he hauled himself up the mast to secure the rigging? Once I asked him those questions. Papa just laughed and kissed my nose, which always made me laugh, and said how much he loved what a big imagination I had. I was going to bed that night before I realized he never answered. How like him.
But I can't be mad at Papa after what I said to him this morning. "You're not my father." A few pages ago, I wrote that I didn't even want to say the words "my blood father" to him, because I didn't want to hurt him by suggesting that some other man was my father. But what I said to him this morning was a million times worse. I've always thought of Papa as my father, ever since we first met. I didn't mean it, so why did I say it? Where did it come from? It bothers me to know that I'm capable of saying something so hurtful to the man I love more than anyone else in the world. It makes me wonder... perhaps my blood father – whoever, wherever he is – could be a terrible man. Perhaps he is indeed a rapist, just as I suspected, and I inherited a capacity for cruelty from him.
But now I'm just trying to ease my guilt by making excuses. It doesn't matter who my blood father is. Papa is the man who's raised me, and what I said to him was nobody's fault but my own. I should put this journal away right now and pray for forgiveness.