Everfair (21 page)

Almost as soon as the dazzle of dancing waters became visible between buildings, they pulled up in front of the white-stoned entrance to Le Metropole Hotel. The cab's roof had given Matty shelter on their way here, of course, and during their brief time outside his hat would protect him. She was easier of mind once they had stepped inside the hotel's dim lobby; the sun was never kind to her friend.

As usual, there were stares. Europeans lived at the Metropole. Any non-Europeans in evidence were working, and did their best to efface themselves. They didn't wear fashionable dresses or elaborate, if odd, coiffures. And none of them had brass hands.

Matty had visited Mr. Owen previously here. He ignored the too-loud offers of help coming from the man stationed at the desk straight across the marble tiles, and made his way to the mechanical lift. It was tucked out of sight around the corner, as he had said it would be.

Mr. Owen occupied a room on the fourth story, the Metropole's top floor. They were the only ones going up. Upon arrival the operator opened the sliding doors for them wordlessly. Matty, though older, waited for her to precede him—a form of politeness she believed Europeans such as he would think due to her maidenhood.

Under the ring and rattle of the doors closing behind him Fwendi heard—something. A shout, then something softer. A groaning sigh? A muffled shriek? Then the clap of another closing door, but wooden—that one! At the passageway's end—she saw it shut! She ran toward it and snatched it open—darkness and the clatter of shoes on naked stairs. As her eyes got used to where she was, she found the railing. She clung to it with her left hand, the one that could feel, and started down. Her right she held ready to fire. A lamp flickered two landings below. It went out. Everything was invisible—like at home, in Kamina.

The sound of the footsteps had stopped. Fwendi froze in place. Grandmother's Brother Mkoi had hunted in his youth; he told how one's prey could hide and turn to show teeth and bite. And why was she running after this door-slammer anyway? What made her risk—what was she risking?

“Fwendi!” Faintly, she heard her friend calling her. She went back up to him. At first she thought not to make any noise, then thought again.

“I'm coming!” Fwendi yelled. She stepped as heavily as she could. The door showed bars of light along its edges. She pushed it wide, but the sky blue–walled passageway was empty.

“Fwendi?” The voice came out of an opening on her right. She entered a room hung in shimmering white cloth and trimmed in gold. On the patterned crimson carpet lay a man from whom seeped more crimson. Blood. He was on his back, his face turned away. He rolled his head and she saw it was Jackie—Mr. Owen. His eyes were shut but his mouth was moving. He must be attempting to speak. Matty knelt beside him. Her friend's skin was paler than she'd ever seen it.

“Where is he hurt?” Fwendi asked. She didn't believe the wound was bad; the patch of red wetness grew larger very slowly. Matty removed Mr. Owen's coat and fumbled at his shirt buttons. Blood soaked the collar and sent scarlet fingers up the white cloth covering the man's chest. He breathed quickly, irregularly. She pulled him over onto his side. What showed looked worse. She helped Matty peel away the gore-soaked shirt. She had experience, but the cut on Mr. Owen's scalp was low and hard to find, hidden by his hair, so flat and now so sticky. A long wound, but fairly shallow. Head wounds bled more than others.

Matty brought her a towel and a bowl of water, and she washed away the drying blood. She folded the towel and pressed its freshest surface against the sluggish flow.

“Might I trouble you for—a spot of—spot of brandy?” Mr. Owen's words, a bare whisper, made her look more carefully around the room. Brandy? On a table at its center she could see dishes, silver, glass bottles. Perhaps— Yes, Matty was pouring a clear brown liquid into a china cup. Fwendi supported her patient as he tipped it to his mouth and swallowed.

“What happened?” Matty asked.

“Opened the door. Thought it might be you two or … or her. Wasn't.”

The wound began bleeding more profusely. “You shouldn't talk,” said Fwendi, but Matty kept asking him things.

“‘Her'? Who does that mean?”

“Toutournier.”

Mademoiselle. Who would say to sew the wound up.

Hearing how she'd just the day before returned from the United States, Mr. Owen had invited Mademoiselle Toutournier to join them. That was who he'd expected. But according to him it was a man in women's clothing who shoved his way into the suite and fought to slit Mr. Owen's throat. The lift's arrival had frightened him off.

Fwendi could sew up the wound herself. Perhaps the hotel provided needle and thread? Matty hunted for them, leaving the room for others in the suite but calling questions over his shoulder: Should they tell the police? The hotel's staff?

A knock. No one answered it. She didn't remember having closed or locked the door. The knob turned. In came Mademoiselle, stopping after only a few steps. “Oh! Is—are you—”

“My apologies,” said Mr. Owen, letting the cup fall. “Not dead yet.” His eyes were slits.

Mademoiselle crouched down, set aside the cup. “No. Daisy wouldn't care for that. Not in the least.” She cocked her chin at Fwendi. “You'd like some help tending to him? Shall I call for a doctor?”

“Don't.” The eyes glittered like fish scales. “That's what they plan on.”

“That's what who plans on? Fwendi, my emergency kit. It's in my bag, at the bottom.”

“The ones who attacked me. The police will blame you. The man wore your sort of costume, you see. And if I'm forced into hospital … they'll come again for me there. I won't be able to get … get away.”

Mademoiselle made a face. “Leopold?”

“His … supporters.”

Fwendi located Mademoiselle's kit. It was wrapped in yellow-dyed leather. Untying it she found lint, tape, scissors, a curved needle, a reel of thickish black thread, a jar of honey, and three tiny flasks containing colorless liquids. She guessed correctly; the first one she opened was alcohol. She set her handkerchief on her left thigh to soak up what spilled, doused the threaded needle, and handed it to Mademoiselle.

“Thank you. Matty, more brandy?”

When Mr. Owen had drunk another near-full cup and Fwendi had swabbed the wound, Mademoiselle sewed its edges tight together. Fwendi smeared it with honey and helped her bandage it. Matty supported Mr. Owen's staggering steps to the sofa with both arms; he insisted on sitting upright but let them pile pillows around him to keep him that way.

“Let's have a looking glass,” he said, once satisfied with his position. His breath had slowed and quieted. No more gasps or panting. “And you may as well eat those sandwiches and cakes and things as let them go to waste.”

“Haven't the appetite,” murmured her friend. “I doubt any of us do. Looking glass? Where shall I find you one—in the bath?”

“Dressing room table.”

Fwendi took a seat with Mademoiselle at the useless tea table but stood almost immediately at a cry from the direction Matty had gone. She met him coming back between a pair of folding doors. In his hand he held a small blade like a miniature shongo: ammunition for the shonguns Winthrop had created. “What's this?” he asked in triumph. “Seems our would-be assassin dropped his weapon!”

Carefully she took it from him with her metal right. Blood coated the largest of its triple cutting edges. In one place this was still wet enough she could dab it off. Gently, gently. Her delicacy was rewarded: a grey gum revealed itself beneath the red.

“What?”

Fwendi carried the knife to Mademoiselle Toutournier. “Mr. Owen, is this what you were attacked with?” she asked. “Fwendi, let him see.”

“Is it poisoned, Mademoiselle?”

“Yes, but—have a care!” Mademoiselle reached out, though it was only a momentary spasm, and then Fwendi had her arm back under control. “But if the poison were truly effective, Mr. Owen would by now be dead.”

 

Alexandria, Egypt, September 1903

The bandages looked like an old-fashioned cravat, Jackie assured himself, gazing into the glass above the twin armchairs. The poison had operated as a purgative, and had also weakened him considerably. After a couple of nights' rest, he was not much recovered, but impatience kept him from accepting his condition. He would do. He would have to do. He returned his attention to his visitors. This was the conversation he'd planned to take place the day of the attempt on his life.

“George has rejoined his wife in Everfair,” he announced. “Who can blame him?” The boy was twenty-two, almost twenty-three years old, crammed full of all the randiness that age implied. Mrs. Hunter—Mrs. Albin—Mrs.
George
Albin, not dear Daisy—must be on the shady side of forty, and couldn't be getting any younger. Gather ye rosebuds—well, perhaps not buds. Be that as it may—

“Be that as it may, the Inter-Benevolent Anti-Dishumanitarian League needs a replacement. Another inspirational story to tell to prospective backers.” He let his gaze rest on Fwendi's hand. “Yours, child.”

“
Mine
?” She may have blushed. He couldn't tell with that black skin.

Jamison hastily gulped down the tea he held to his lips and grimaced—probably at the taste. “I've begun working on a new play. Loosely based on Fwendi's life—”

“Yes?”

“I should be able to finish it soon, and when it's produced—”

“It will raise plenty of money for us, yes. But what we
need
—”

“This one will be different—important—it's going to— This is the one people will remember me by. It's going to change the
world
.”

A play. “My good man.” Making stuff up changed nothing. Careful action such as he advocated by way of the Fabian Society was sure to do the trick. Although propaganda had its place in the big picture …

“It's for the children, and—”

Jackie cut him off. How much longer must he feign wellness? “I'm sure it's very fine. What we want, though, is for Fwendi to take over the speaking engagements George was to have filled for us.”

“But—but how can you accompany her as you did him?”

“I can't. Europeans would judge it to be entirely unsuitable.” He turned to meet the wide, grey eyes. “That will be the job of Mademoiselle Toutournier, who is already charged with her care.”

“Fwendi is not of European descent. Not a white,” Toutournier objected. Must she fight him at every opportunity? Why blame Jackie for Daisy's choice of him as a carnal partner? “Our backers won't care so very much how poorly she has been treated by Leopold.”

“True,” Jackie admitted. “But with the example of your sympathy—”

“Nor am I white. Not purely.” The Frenchwoman looked as if she gloried in her mongrel status.

He made himself get up and go to the marble-topped side table, taking up the folded papers he'd set there in preparation for this meeting. “That no longer seems to be the case. There was an investigation. New evidence has come to light. Your lineage is no more adulterated than my own.”

Quick as anger, fingers snatched the papers from his hand. “What is this? What
tromperie
—deceit—”

“A witness, a sworn statement! This is proof that you are not, after all, a descendant of the man you call ‘
le Gorille
.'”

Toutournier read rapidly in silence, flicking pages aside. “An outrage! My
grand-mère
was never unfaithful to him! Never!”

“Nonetheless. Here it says otherwise.”

The Frenchwoman flung the document onto the newly replaced carpet. “You expect me to swallow this—
histoire
? This packet of lies? You think this—
this
—is more acceptable to our potential supporters than to have dealings with
une Négresse
? You—”

Help came from an unexpected quarter: the girl, Fwendi, grasped Toutournier's gesticulating arms and stilled them. “Mademoiselle, Mademoiselle, calm yourself,
calmez-vous
!” With unlooked-for strength, the young girl guided her to a seat on the sofa. While she poured cups of the fragrant cocoa Jackie had ordered to supplement Le Metropole's unfortunate tea, he withdrew to a strategic armchair and considered his next steps. He knew what they would have to be, though he didn't like taking them.

However, it was for the greater good.

Jamison pulled a matching seat up to the sofa, positioning it between them.

“Do you see why we must do as I suggest?” Jackie asked him, continuing to hope that he wouldn't have to force the necessary outcome.

The Scot nodded. “Surely, though, I'll be able to join the two of them in their travels from time to time?” He reached out to pat Fwendi on her metal arm. “My friend? Our paths will cross—there will be touring productions—missions to England—”

The girl smiled, though she kept her eyes on Toutournier's face. “That would make me happy.”

Mademoiselle Toutournier smiled too. Jackie didn't like her smile. “I imagine, then,” she said, “that you will be ecstatic to learn that there is no need to part from your friend in the first place. For I have no intention of helping you to take up Mr. Owen's offer. Matty may escort you home as he did here. I'll seek some other job with another employer.”

“I wish you wouldn't. I'd hate to press charges.”

A dead quiet.

“Charges?” asked Jamison, sounding bewildered. He glanced momentarily at Jackie, then turned his gaze to Toutournier.

“For trying to kill him.” The Frenchwoman's voice was steady and cold. “Am I correct? You would perpetuate a falsehood?”

“Yes.”

“But you—you couldn't have!” Jamison protested.