Thanks to Cal Gal for betaing these stories.
Mme Lafarge
Sometimes in my dreams, I see them. Just flashes. A farm. A river bank. A book. And children.
The children. A young boy, and a younger girl, both with big dark eyes and black curly hair. The boy's voice saying, "Read to me, Grandma?"
The book in my lap by the riverside, the little boy snuggled at my side, his eyes wide as I read to him. "Heads will roll, heads will roll on the guillotine!" How he shivers with glee as I do the voice, that cackling voice!
The wind picking up, and the color of the sky turning green. No longer cackling, I say, "Hurry. Help Grandma up. We have to get home."
Running. The boy, with his fast legs and strong heart, racing ahead of me as I hobble along after him, clutching the book close as the wind grows stiffer.
"Mother!" Here comes a young man running across the field toward me, coming to help. Beyond him is the boy, and with the boy, a young woman bearing the little girl in her arms. Such a sweet little family, calling to me, waving to me, urging me to hurry, hurry!
The wind. The black wind, swirling and tugging, screaming in our ears. Ripping and tossing and tearing, that wind. The screaming, the screaming!
The silence.
And this is the point when I always wake up sitting bolt upright in my bed in my little room in the hospital, the little room cluttered full with my things. My things. Things I still have, for the house was untouched. But the people… No, not the people. Of the five people in that field struggling against the swirling wind, there is only one left now: I alone, and with no longer the use of my legs.
I live here in the hospital, here in this cluttered little room full of things that should jog memories in my head but don't. The lamp over the table, the china figurines, the dolls, oh so many dolls!
All that captivates me are the books. My books, my diary - and my guillotine. When it's quiet and no one is stirring outside my room, no one for me to watch and wonder about, then I lose myself in the books. And why not? Whatever self I had before is lost to me. I might as well become someone else! They called me by that other name at first, that empty name, but I would not answer them, no, not I. Not till they got it right. Not till they called me Madame Lafarge.
Here I live in my little prison, my room in the Bastille, prisoner of my body, prisoner of the endless now with no past, no past. And yet…
"The boy will come," I tell the nurses confidently. "He will come and want me to read to him. And the girl. She will come and play with the dolls."
But when my back is turned, when they think I will not hear them, I hear the nurses whispering among themselves. No one is coming for me. No one will come and take me out of here. There is no escape for me.
…
It is silent, for it is night. That is how it should be. But then it is not silent. Voices coming down the stairs. A man's voice first, worried, terribly worried, craving more information. And then a woman. From her words, I think she must be a nurse, and yet I don't know her voice and I know all the voices here. She tells him a Mr Gordon has been seriously injured, that they tried to reach him earlier but could not.
Oh, but how officious the nurse sounds, how cold, practically blaming the man for not being available when they tried to contact him earlier! He presses to know where his friend is.
"Here," she tells him as she leads him to the emergency operating room.
They go in and close the door. I cannot watch, but I listen. I hear a new voice, a man's voice. "Mr West?" But who is this man? Again this is a voice I do not know!
There is a long pause before the worried young man speaks again. He addresses the strange man as a doctor, asking after his friend, a man named Artemus Gordon.
The doctor. I do not know whose voice is colder, the doctor's or the nurse's. He tells the worried Mr West he's too late. And then asks him to identify a body! Cold, cold, cold!
Another long pause. Now Mr West speaks again, but excited! The dead man is not his friend! And yet the doctor wishes to argue with him, asking is he sure. He is sure this is not his friend lying before him dead; I am sure of it. I can hear the joy and relief in his words.
Then I hear sounds that make no sense to me. There is a puff of air? Then a clatter that is nearly a crash! Then a… click?
The doctor speaks again, expressing cool amazement that Mr West is trying to fire a gun, much less that he is able to hold on to it. Next come twin crashes. The first, metallic, I think must be the gun hitting the floor, and the second, also hitting the floor, is a dull thud. A body. A body, but whose?
"Gentlemen!" the doctor calls. Footsteps answer him. I hear squeaking, a familiar sound, but what is it?
Something large is set on the floor. More squeaking - the sound, I think, of something rubbing together. Ah, I know that sound! It is… it is…
The large something is taken up again and the door opens. I crack open my door and peer through as two men come out into the hall, bearing between them… Ah! Wicker! That is what I have been hearing. A wicker basket. Oh, but the biggest wicker basket I have ever seen. Big enough to be a casket!
The men head for the stairs with their burden, the nurse with them. How silent the three are, speaking not a single word as they pass through the building and out the doors.
Now the strange doctor leaves the hospital as well. His voice I hear at least. He calls out, "Sikes! There you are. You're late!"
Someone mumbles apologies but the doctor does not care. "Quickly now! Load him in the wagon. I hope you have the boat ready, Sikes. I want to have Mr James West here well settled in at the…" A thump as the wicker basket lands in the wagon bed. I lose a word or two. "…before the drug I gave him wears off."
The sound of someone slapping the reins, then hoofbeats and wheels running over cobblestones as the wagon moves off carrying Mr West away from here.
But what a curious thing to have happen in the night! I write it all down in my diary.
…
The day comes with its dull routine. I ask to go out, for the boy to come or the girl, but who hears me? No one. They never hear me. They never care.
Ah, but here is someone who cares. Not for me, granted, but he cares for someone! He asks for his friend, saying there was a message. He gives his friend's name and his own name, but the doctor dismisses him. No one was here by that name, says the doctor. No one was ever here by that name.
Ah, but he is lying! There was someone here by that name. I know, for I heard!
But how exciting and how curious! It is so much like what happened in the night, but the names are reversed.
Today's worried young man is nearly ready to fight Alex the orderly over this, but decides not to. He starts to leave. The doctor, satisfied that the man is leaving, goes away himself and Alex with him.
But I have something to say about this. Yes, and something to do. I pull a blank page from my diary…
The young man whirls when the wad of paper hits his back and he glares all around. Ah! What dark hair he has, and what dark eyes! My boy? The boy from my dreams?
He sees my hand poking out where my door is barely open, my finger beckoning to him. Closer he comes and closer still. I scurry back and hide.
In he walks, slowly, looking all around. I wait till he is fully in the room, then slap the door closed. Haha!
"Lafarge!" I tell him, introducing myself. "Madame Lafarge!" And as he gapes at me, I roll my chair to the table where my prized possession stands. Ah, my little guillotine! Heads will roll. Heads will roll!
He tosses down the wad of paper I used to lure him in here and starts to leave, thanking me sarcastically for my help. He does not understand. I must make him understand. He is worried, just as his friend was. Worried when he came in, worried now.
He draws close again, surprised that I saw him come in. But I see everything! I watch everything. That is why I know what happened. And all that I see, I write in my book.
He asks about his friend, calling me Grandma. Grandma, Grandma! Yes, my boy, my boy has come! Dark eyes, dark curls, but a boy no longer, and where is the girl?
No, no, not a girl - his friend. He has a friend and cannot find him. His friend was looking for him and could not find him either. His worried friend. West. James West. That is what the doctor who was the wrong doctor called him when they took him away.
I show my boy, my worried young man, my book and he reaches for it. Ah, but not so fast! He wants the book, but I want something too, something rare and precious to me. The book, I know, is precious to him now. I name my price.
"Take you out!" he exclaims.
Oh but I beg! Out of this room, this pretty prison! Out into the sunshine away from the Bastille, perhaps to find a river bank by a farm to read my book to my boy, my boy, this worried young man who calls me Grandma.
He stares at me for a long moment, long enough for me to wonder what I will do if he simply decides to take my book from me. And then he glances at the door and I know what decision he has made. A moment's scowl, then he steps around me, drawing my chair back to line it up with the doorway. He goes to the door, peeks out, looking this way and that. Then he leaves the door standing wide open and comes around behind me. Ah, he is pushing my chair, shushing me conspiratorially as - bless him! - he takes me out!
Then we stop as he turns to shut the door. And I take my chance, shoving the wheels hard, hurrying for the open doorway marked Surgery Ward, hurrying for freedom from the Bastille!
"Hey!" Oh, he is upon me in a heartbeat, catching the chair, whirling me back, pulling me close as he drops into a regular chair nearby. "Grandma!" he says softly in a tsking scolding voice, reminding me of my promise to tell him of James West.
James West! Why, I never heard of him!
He clicks his tongue at me again, giving me a sidelong look. And then a gleam comes into his eye as he leans still closer and makes me an offer. Oh, such an offer! Bonbons he promises me, a big box of them, as many as I can eat in a month, and with such centers! Thick and gooey, full of nuts and marshmallows and caramels. Oh, but I lick my lips just thinking of them! Eagerly I nod and reach under my shawl to give him the book…
A shadow appears. A voice, scolding but not lightheartedly as my boy's voice had been. "Madame de Lafarge!" says the doctor's voice, getting my name slightly wrong as usual as he talks to me as if to a baby, telling me I've been naughty. Naughty! As if I weren't old enough to be his mother! He sends Alex to take me back to my room, back to the Bastille, then turns to my boy and all but orders him to leave.
I hear the doctor's footsteps echo away, then the voice of the dark-haired young man calls to me again. "Grandma, bonbons!"
Gleefully I cackle out the words the little boy loved so to hear - Heads will roll, heads will roll! - as I bring out my diary and heave it right over Alex' head just before he rolls me into the Bastille once more and closes the door behind me.
…
The days pass. I can no longer tell how many, for my diary is gone and I haven't another. I could, I know, write down everything into one of my reading books, but I can't. Those are for reading. What if the boy comes and I've written in his books? He would be so disappointed!
Then a nurse comes into my room, all atwitter. I have visitors, she says, and begins to tidy me up.
Visitors for me? Are they… could they be…? I picture them again, the boy and girl from my dream.
"No, no, Madame Lafarge!" the nurse scolds. "Not them. Real visitors. A pair of gentlemen." She finishes making me presentable, then rolls me out the door.
Two gentlemen indeed, and I recognize them both. The worried young men! The dark-haired one, smiling, greets me with "Good day, Grandma! I trust you didn't think I'd forgotten about you." He steps forward and presses a kiss to my cheek, then gently lays a large box on my lap. "Bonbons, as promised, in gratitude for helping me find my friend." And he nods at the other.
Oh, bonbons! My hands are shaking as I scrabble the lid open. Yes, yes! Huge, just as he promised. I pick up one and bite into it. Bliss, shear bliss!
But then I look into the box again. Oh, I could eat all these in just one day!
He grins. "That's why I've made arrangements with the shop where I bought those for them to deliver a new box just like this one every day for a solid month."
"Oh!" squeaks the nurse at my side.
"And while I don't mind if you should choose to share your bounty with the lovely ladies here who take care of you, Grandma," he adds, giving the nurse a sidelong look, "it is worth mentioning that if I should find out your gifts are not reaching you, I will not be happy."
I smile up at him. Heads will roll?
"I could see to that, yes," he says and lifts an eyebrow at the nurse.
"Yes, Mr Gordon," she says, properly cowed.
"And," says the other. Mr James West now steps forward. He too kisses my cheek; he too has a package for me. "I also wanted to give you a little something," he says.
But what can the package he lays in my lap be? Surely not more candy. The package is thick, about the size of…
Oh! The size of a book! I pull at the string, then cast aside the brown wrapping paper.
Not a book, but two books! And one of them very familiar. My diary! They have returned my diary.
"And the other is a new diary, for when you finish filling up the old one."
Oh, bless them! Bless them both! I turn to the nurse and hand her my treasures, new and old, to put them away in my room. And as soon as her back is turned I lean forward to my two benefactors and make of them a request, a deeply desired, earnest request.
There is silence as they turn and glance at each other. Then my dark-haired boy nudges his friend with an elbow and says, "Told you!"
"Yes, Madame Lafarge," says Mr James West, "we did come to take you out. There's a little French restaurant nearby and…"
French! I lick my lips in delight. And as they escort me out for a lovely afternoon, with the meal at the restaurant followed by a pleasant carriage ride out into the country, I eavesdrop on their conversation shamelessly.
"You realize, James, not only did we prove that firm will-power - wanting something badly enough - could break one free from Dr Arcularis' spell, but so could a good old-fashioned knock-out punch!"
The other chuckles. "I just hope…"
"Hope what?"
"I hope that the doctor has learned his lesson."
"Hmm. Well, if he hasn't yet, he's got plenty of time behind bars to contemplate it."
"True. It just that, behind prison bars and with all the time in the world on his hands, who knows if he won't try to refine his technique?"
Mr Gordon turns to stare at him. "And with all sorts of fellow prisoners to use for guinea pigs?"
Mr West nods.
Silence. Then, in the same breath together, "We need to warn the warden!"
And just like that, my pleasant day is over. They instantly command the carriage driver to take us back to the Bastille where they turn me over to the care of Alex. The dark-haired boy kisses my cheek again as they take their leave, promising to come visit me whenever they are in town. "I'm afraid that's not very often," he adds, "but we'll come when we can."
And then off they go in search of a telegraph office.
And I, I'm rolled back into my pretty prison. I look around, taking in the trappings of my forgotten life, the books, the dolls, the lamp and the bric-a-brac. And then my eyes fall again on my special treasure. I roll over to the table, take from the box another luscious bonbon and bite into it, and through gooey chocolate-coated caramel I cackle out the words the boy so loved as I draw the blade of the guillotine all the way up to the very tiptop.
Heads will roll!
FIN