The Moon and the Sun (36 page)

“Wait, sea woman! I cannot afford to ruin these shoes.” Marie-Josèphe bared her foot. “Now you may look at my feet however you like.”

The cold fountain water rose above Marie-Josèphe’s ankle. The sea woman submerged. Her voice tickled Marie-Josèphe’s toes.

Marie-Josèphe giggled. “May I look at your foot?”

Without lifting her head or body from the water, the sea woman slid one foot over the edge of the platform. Her hips and knees were far more limber than the joints of a land human. Marie-Josèphe stroked the sea woman’s instep, and the sea woman wriggled her clawed toes. Warmth radiated from the rough skin of her legs.

“Mlle de la Croix, I believe you’ve had enough calvados.” Count Lucien retrieved his flask. “The scholars of the Academy of Sciences will not like to see you unclad.”

“The Academy!” Marie-Josèphe exclaimed. Yves had said not a word about the honor. She snatched her foot from the sea woman’s hands, startling her so she surfaced, snorting.

Marie-Josèphe saw an opportunity, but she had no time to plan. She sang the sea woman’s name.

“Sea woman, dive, breathe underwater. If you value your life, don’t come up until I beg you to return.”

The sea woman whistled in distress, kicked hard, and dove backward in a long graceful curve. Bubbles rushed from her mouth and nose. She breathed out the last of her air and lay on the bottom of the pool, quiet as death.

Outside the tent, footsteps crunched on gravel.

Marie-Josèphe scooped up her shoe and stocking and ran to the laboratory, her left shoe tapping on the planks, her bare right foot silent. She reached her place by the dissection table just in time to conceal her bare foot and her shoe and stocking beneath her skirt.

Footmen ceremoniously positioned the King’s portrait. Yves entered the tent, leading a half-dozen dark-clad scholars and their students. He barely nodded to Marie-Josèphe. The scholars bowed to the portrait and to Count Lucien; they gathered around the dissection table. Count Lucien’s groom brought a step-stool for him to stand on.

Yves uncovered the body of the sea woman’s friend and spoke expansively, in Latin, before the King’s philosophers. “Natural philosophy proves the sea monsters are natural creatures, albeit ugly ones, like dugongs and sea-cows.”

He had saved an arm to dissect for the gentlemen of the Academy. He cut it, exposing sinews, bones, joints.

In the silence of the sea woman’s languor, Marie-Josèphe documented the work. She drew with difficulty. Now that she knew the truth she saw the human features of the dead man. The long fine bones of his fingers reminded her of Count Lucien’s beautiful hands.

Yves put down his knife. Marie-Josèphe laid down her charcoal and flexed her cramped hand. A student displayed her final drawing.

The gentlemen of the Academy questioned Yves about his hunt, his work, the King’s patronage.

“The creatures have large lungs, as one would expect, similar to those of the slower sea mammals. I’ve observed one to remain underwater for ten or twelve minutes.” He moved quickly to the body’s other organs. “The heart —”

He never mentioned the anomalous lobe of the lung.

“Nothing remains to be learned from the monster’s carcass,” Yves said. “I shall of course compare female to male, inasmuch as the female’s fate allows, though we gain little knowledge from the imperfect female copy of any creature.”

“Remarkable work, M. de la Croix,” said the senior scholar, also speaking Latin.

“Let us observe the living sea monster for a moment, if you please.”

“Call the sea monster, sister.” Yves left off speaking Latin, as if he had no idea Marie-Josèphe understood it.

Hurrying ahead, a little awkward with one bare foot, Marie-Josèphe entered the cage. She locked the door, put the key into her pocket, and sat composed on the fountain’s rim with her hands folded in her lap.

How strange it feels, she thought, to do nothing. I cannot remember the last time I sat without drawing or needlework or copying or prayer.

Yves tried the locked gate. “Open the gate.”

“I cannot.” Marie-Josèphe replied in Latin.

Pretending nothing was amiss, the gentlemen peered into the murky water, straining for a glimpse of the sea woman.

Yves frowned. “Come now. Command the creature to leap for the gentlemen. And let me in, immediately.”

“She’s displaying her ability to breathe underwater.”

“The young lady has mistaken your creature for a fish,” said the senior scholar. The other natural philosophers chuckled. “M. de la Croix, your assistant has addled her mind by straining it with the Classics.”

Glowering, Yves rattled the gate.

If she had gained nothing else at the convent — and she had gained very little —she had learned to face wrath and contempt with tranquility. But facing Yves’

displeasure took all her strength.

“Her lungs possess an anomalous lobe, unique to the sea people,” Marie-Josèphe said, still speaking Latin.

Yves stiffened. “Your comments are of no interest.”

He believes I’ll tell the secret, Marie-Josèphe thought. The false secret.

“She hasn’t surfaced since you arrived,” she said. “The lobe allows the sea people to breathe underwater. To breathe from the water.”

“Come out of there immediately.” Yves’ voice rose.

“She intends to remain submerged until she proves it.”

“Does this anomalous lobe exist, Father de la Croix?”

Yves hesitated. “It does.”

“Why did you not mention it?” the gentleman asked.

“I shall write a paper about it. As I’ve not fully studied it, I didn’t wish to pass on erroneous conclusions.”

“Admirable restraint.”

“Thank you.”

“A glimpse of the sea monster, while it still lives, would please us all.”

Yves snatched up a pike and thrust it through the bars, but the sea woman floated out of reach.

“Mlle de la Croix,” Count Lucien said in a courteous voice, “will you open the gate?”

“I cannot, Count Lucien. I beg your forgiveness. I wouldn’t resist your direction, but this is a matter of the life or death of the sea woman.”

“Is she dying?”

“She’s saving her life. She’ll wake at her King’s command.”

17

The sea woman lay at the bottom of the pool, aware of the dirty water, the fish schooling past, the voices of the men of land. Bright sunlight warned her that she could not dive deep enough to fall into a proper trance. She maintained the languor as best she could, because the land woman had asked it of her. Every little while she gasped water into her lungs, then expelled it gradually.

The land woman was the first being she had dared to trust since her capture, the first being perceptive enough to understand her. She would trust her as long as she dared.

She lay very still, gilded by phosphorescence.

oOo

The sea woman drifted supine at the bottom of the pool, her eyes open and staring. Her long green hair floated around her. Underwater, she gasped as if for air.

The King arrived.

Marie-Josèphe rose and curtsied. Count Lucien, Yves, and the gentlemen from the Academy bowed. His Majesty struggled from his wheeled chair. His gout lamed him terribly; he put one arm around Lorraine and leaned his other hand on Count Lucien’s shoulder. Monsieur followed, carrying His Majesty’s walking staff, chasing Lorraine with his gaze. M. Boursin shambled nervously in with the rest of the entourage. The white lace at his collar and cuffs accentuated his prominent Adam’s apple, his bony wrists and skeletal hands. He carried an old book.

“Is it dead?” he muttered. “If it’s spoiled, I’ll be ruined. If it’s dead, I’ll kill myself! It was fat enough yesterday — I should have butchered it then!”

Count Lucien beckoned to an artisan, who apprehensively attacked the lock with a file. Metal rasped on metal.

His Majesty reached the cage and peered inside. “Have you killed my sea monster, Mlle de la Croix?”

“No, Your Majesty.” Marie-Josèphe’s calm was as unshakeable as the King’s.

“Has it drowned itself?” He raised his voice above the racket of the file. Metal shavings fell to the ground.

“No, Your Majesty.”

Count Lucien touched the artisan’s shoulder. The man stopped filing while His Majesty spoke.

“What is it doing?”

The artisan filed at the lock.

“She’s breathing underwater, Sire.”

The artisan stopped —”Why is she doing this?” — and started.

“Because I asked her, Your Majesty.”

The artisan stopped just long enough for His Majesty to speak, then redoubled his efforts at the lock.

“You’ve trained her well.”

“I never trained her at all, Sire.”

“She obeyed you,” Yves said. “Like a dog.”

“She’s demonstrating the function of the unique lobe of her lung. It isn’t —” She hesitated. She kept the false secret. “It only allows her to breathe underwater.”

“How do you know the true function of this organ?”

“Your Majesty, the sea woman told me.”

Lorraine laughed, a short hard bark quickly suppressed. The artisan stopped, filed hard, stopped again.

“Sea woman?” His Majesty exclaimed. “Do you mean to say the sea monster speaks?”

“Marie-Josèphe, enough! I forbid you —” Yves fell silent, like the artisan, when His Majesty held up one hand.

“Answer me, Mlle de la Croix.”

“Yes, Your Majesty. I understand her. She understands me.” The artisan sawed at the lock again. “She isn’t a monster. She speaks, she’s intelligent. She’s a woman, she’s human, like me, like all of us.”

“Your Majesty, please forgive my sister — I am entirely to blame, I’ve permitted her to tax herself —”

“Will it awaken and return to the surface?”

“She will do as you command, Your Majesty,” Marie-Josèphe said. “As will I.”

“Stop that noise.” The artisan left off filing and backed away, bowing. “Mlle de la Croix,” His Majesty said, “be so kind as to open the gate.”

She descended, fitted the key in the keyhole, and turned it. The lock fell apart; the gate opened.

Leaning on Count Lucien and Lorraine, His Majesty made his way to the fountain’s rim.

“She understands. I’ll show you.” Marie-Josèphe descended the stairs to the platform. She patted the water. “Sea woman! His Majesty bids you return!” She sang the sea woman’s name.

The sea woman stretched languorously. She opened her eyes. With an abrupt and powerful kick, she ascended. At the surface, she coughed and spat out a great deal of water. She breathed with a great gasp, blew the spent breath out, and gasped again. The swellings on her forehead and cheeks expanded and deflated, making her face grotesque.

“It’s alive!” M. Boursin whispered.

“What is this thing, Mlle de la Croix,” His Majesty said, “if not a monster?”

“She’s a woman. She’s intelligent —”

“It’s no more intelligent than a parrot,” Yves said.

“This vision of ugliness, a woman?”

“Look at the skull of the sea-woman’s mate, Sire. Look at his bones, look at his hands. Listen to the sea woman, and I’ll tell you what she says.”

“The monster’s nothing like a man,” Yves said. “Look at its grotesque face, the joints of its legs — the concealment of its parts, if Your Majesty will forgive my mentioning the subject.”

“A dog, a parrot, a creature!” His Majesty exclaimed. “But certainly not a woman!”

He turned away.

The shock of failure overcame Marie-Josèphe, as cold and suffocating as if she had fallen into the sea woman’s prison. The sea woman, swimming back and forth at her feet, understood the King’s refusal. She shrieked and spat.

“M. Boursin,” His Majesty said. “Your plans, if you please.”

“Your Majesty, I’ve discovered perfection!” M. Boursin joined His Majesty inside the cage. He opened his shabby old book and displayed it for the King.

“Excellent, M. Boursin. I am pleased.”

“Be so kind as to throw it a fish, Mlle de la Croix, make it leap, so I may estimate it.”

M. Boursin gazed greedily at the sea woman; Marie-Josèphe gazed with disbelief at M.

Boursin and the King.

The sea woman spattered droplets at them with sharp flicks of her webbed toes.

“Your Majesty, the Church deems it a fish, suitable for Fridays. But its flesh is said to be succulent as meat. If I butcher it now, Your Majesty, I might make a dish — a little dish, for Your Majesty alone, perhaps a paté — for your supper alone, so you need not wait for midnight feast.”

“That is most thoughtful of you, M. Boursin.”

“And with the rest of the flesh, I’ll recreate Charlemagne’s banquet, it will be my masterpiece!” He leaned precariously over the rim of the fountain, glancing from the book to the sea woman and back.

He displayed the book to the Academicians, to Yves, to Marie-Josèphe.

A sea woman lay on her belly on a huge platter, her back unnaturally arched and her knees bent; her webbed feet nearly brushed the top of her head. She held a dead sturgeon as if it were suckling at her swollen breasts.

“I’ll fatten its teats with shrimp and scallops. I’ll stuff its body with baked oysters.

I’ll dress its hair with golden caviar! What a shame the male died, what a shame I can’t prepare two! I must butcher this one soon.”

In the woodcut, the roasted sea woman stared with eyes wide open and empty.

Marie-Josèphe screamed.

“I’ll need a Caspian sturgeon... Why, Mlle de la Croix, don’t be alarmed, the creature is grotesque, but I can almost make it beautiful!”

“Close your book, M. Boursin,” said Count Lucien.

Lorraine took the stairs in one leap and snatched Marie-Josèphe into his arms, holding her, muffling her sobs against his chest.

“What’s the matter?” M. Boursin said. “Mlle de la Croix, don’t you like seafood?”

“Where’s my smelling bottle?” Monsieur said. “I put it in my pocket — Did I leave it in my muff...?”

“Your Majesty,” Yves said, “I beg your forgiveness, my sister has forever been tender-hearted. She’s made a pet of the monster...”

Marie-Josèphe huddled against Lorraine, trembling terribly, fighting to control her sobs.

“Here it is!” Monsieur said.

A pungent explosion in her nostrils sent her into a fit of sneezing. Tears blurred her vision.