Chapter 5
“Where are you, Kylie?”
“Je suis à Paris.” Her diction was perfect and authentic, no trace of a New Jersey accent in her now sweet, child-like voice.
“Please speak in English, Kylie.”
“I’m in Paris.” Her accent was distinctly French.
“Are you in the same place in France as in your previous session?”
“Non,” she shook her head. Even her monosyllabic response was heavily accented.
“What year is it?” Claire probed.
“It is the year of our Lord, seventeen hundred and forty-nine.”
“And what is your name?”
“Geneviève.”
“Geneviève what?” Claire wanted specifics. It would be hard to validate a Parisian citizen from 1749.
“Geneviève Lenoir,” she said matter-of-factly, as if the doctor should know.
“How old are you?”
“Je suis douze ans.”
“In English, please,” Claire reminded her patient.
“I am twelve.”
“Who is currently sitting on the throne? Who is your king?”
“King Louis Quinze.” There was not a moment’s hesitation in her response.
Louis the Fifteenth. Claire immediately began to Google for information without so much as a momentary lapse in her rapid-fire questioning of the girl.
“Do you go to school?”
“Oui, à l’eglise Saint-Eustache,” she lapsed back into French.
“In English, please,” Claire reminded her. 1749. According to Google, Louis XV would have been on the throne, validating the information. The hairs on the back of Claire’s next stood at attention.
“Je me regrette,” she began. “I am sorry. I go to the church school at Saint-Eustache.”
“What do you learn there?”
“Sewing. Embroidery,” she trailed off.
“Have you been taught to read?”
“No. I am a girl and a commoner.”
“Do you also work?”
“Yes, I am a chambermaid for Mme. Michaud.”
“Does she treat you well?” Claire noticed that Kylie/Geneviève was twirling her hair. It was not a habit she’d ever noted Kylie to do before. She made a note of the physical manifestation on her iPad.
“Oui.” Again, she lapsed into French, but immediately caught herself. “I think she is nice to me because she wants to find out more about my older brother. I see the way she looks at him. She makes wolf eyes at him.”
“How old is your brother?”
“He is twenty-one.”
“Is he married?”
She laughed. More of a giggle than a laugh, covering her mouth with her hand. “Non, mon frère est un bon vivant.” She caught herself and self-corrected to English, without prompting. “My brother likes to have a very good time. I tell him to watch out or a husband will come after him with a hatchet.”
Claire laughed to herself, “So, he likes married women?”
“They like him. He likes many woman and they all like him, too. He is very handsome.” Another giggle.
“And what do your parents have to say about that?”
Looking down at her hands, but seeing nothing, a lone tear ran down her cheek. “My parents perished in a fire.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Geneviève,” Claire addressed her by the name of the life she was seeing and noted the physical manifestation of tears.
“I was eight,” she volunteered.
“So, who takes care of you?”
“My brother,” she offered cheerfully.
Geneviève …
“Wake up, Ma Petite Chou, or you will be late for school.”
Wiping the sleep from my eyes, I smile at my brother’s handsome face. “I did not hear you come in last night.”
“I had to work late.” He pokes the wood in the fireplace that is heating the black iron pot.
“Mme. Michaud again?”
“Oui.”
He doesn’t turn around to face me.
“Do you like her?” I can’t imagine him kissing her pinched face.
“She pays well for the tasks she needs done.”
I know she pays him for odd jobs: chimney sweeping, roof tiling, replacing rotting floor boards, but I suspect most of his money is made in her bed satisfying her womanly cravings.
“You had better be careful or she will smother you in that giant bosom of hers and you will never escape.”
Putting a bowl of steaming porridge in front of me, he shakes his head, his dark blue eyes laughing at me.
“I really should sell you to the gypsies,” he teases and reaches forward to let a long lock of my hair run through his fingers. “That red hair will get me a good price.” Laughing, “Finish up, I need to get you to school.”
“I can walk alone. It is only a few blocks down to the churchyard.”
Shaking his head, his handsome face becomes very serious. “No, Geneviève. Two more children have gone missing these past few days. We are one of the neighborhoods being targeted. I will not let you walk alone.”
“But will you not be late for work?” I do not know how we would survive if he were to lose his job. And I cannot fathom how I would survive without him.
As if reading my mind, something my big brother is always able to do with the precision of a clockmaker, “Trust me, she is not going to relieve me of my duties. I have got this under control,” he laughs. “It is good that I make her wait. Now if only you would stop making me wait, ma moitié.”
He knows I love when he calls me that. Ma moitié. My half.
“I will make you wait for me forever, mon moitié,” I tease back.
“I believe this to be true.” And he swats me on the bottom to keep me moving.
We could always count on him to be standing in the doorway of the charcuiterie on Rue Montorgueil, just like he did every morning. Shirt sleeves rolled, exposing well-defined muscular arms covered in dark hair, he always appeared oblivious to the chill of winter’s air.
“Bonjour, Monsieur Diot,” I call to him.
I am greeted by his handsome smile.
“C’est la belle, Geneviève. Bonjour, Madamoiselle.”
Giggling at being called beautiful by this big, rough handsome man, I see a look pass between him and my brother.
“Monsieur Lenoir.”
“Monsieur Diot.” My brother nods in acknowledgement.
We are beyond his shop when I hear him call to my brother, “Are you working tonight?”
My brother’s smile is bright as he calls back, “Not if I can help it.”
“A drink?” the charcuitier poses.
My brother answers with an even brighter smile, his head turned around still looking at the handsome older man.
It occurs to me that they are becoming friends, meeting often for drinks. He is so much older than my brother, that I am a little surprised that they have taken up to be friends. Maybe he is a father figure. I know how much my brother misses our father.
Approaching the great stone walls of Saint-Eustache, my brother puts his hands on my shoulders, “Today you walk home with Lilette and you stay with her until her mother can walk you to Mme. Michaud’s. I will meet you there later.”
Looking up at him through my lashes, I hold out my hand.
Laughing, “I should really sell you to the gypsies,” he teases, as he places a denier in my palm.
“They might like me.”
His eyes take on a serious cast, “That is my fear, my rare beauty.” Turning to walk away, he looks back, “I will pick you up from Mme. Michaud’s. Be careful, ma moitié.”
••••••
Lilette and I skip down the Rue Montorgueil trying not to step on the cracks in the cobblestones, laughing about the l’hermitagoise who will come eat us if we do.
Looking through the frosty windows of Patisserie Stohrer, I pull out from my cloth pouch the denier from my brother.
“The two most beautiful little girls in all of Paris,” Monsieur Stohrer gushes as we enter into the warmth of the store, the yeasty smell of dough mingling with the nose-tingling scent of rum and other liquors that the cakes absorb like fat sponges. “The Bourbons cannot compare,” he teases, comparing us to the royal family. “What would you two princesses like today?” He does not really have to ask. We get the same thing every day and he is already plucking them from the counter and wrapping them in paper for us.
The first bite of choux pastry squirts crème chocolat onto my tongue. The rare dark chocolate frosting of the éclair is the most delicious thing on Earth, I have decided, as it joins the choux and crème in my mouth. Slowly, I take small bites so that it will last longer and I can keep it in my memory. This is my luxury. My one luxury. A gift my brother works hard to make sure puts a smile on my face every day. For that alone, I love him more than all the stars in the night’s sky.
We walk six flights up the curving staircase to Lilette’s flat. Her mother is breastfeeding the baby. Both have had coughs for months now. She has mending for us to do and we sit in the stream of light coming in through the window trying to capture the afternoon sun’s warmth as we work. Lilette’s mother will later walk me over to Mme. Michaud’s where today I will launder her dresses.
My brother is very concerned that I not walk alone for fear that I will be abducted and sold. Lone girls are disappearing with frequency, being sold to agents of Louisiana silk factory owners in the New World.
It is two days later that I sit quietly by the fire in Mme. Michaud’s salon mending a green silk and brocade dress. Her bosom has grown so large that I am now repairing my repairs. The thought of my brother’s face pressed into her jiggly flesh makes me queasy.
“Geneviève, Madame would like to see you,” her chambermaid Chantal informs me.
I follow Chantal through the moderately decorated rooms to where Mme. Michaud sits at the dining table. Next to her, a place is set, and a steaming bowl of soup is placed.
I curtsy as I enter the room, “Madame.” I greet her, hoping that my voice is louder than the growl in my stomach. The aroma from the soup is making my hunger burn.
“Geneviève, come sit by me.” There is a false sweetness to her voice. I know it is false because it is a tone I’ve never heard before.
She must be reading the confusion on my face–servants don’t sit at the dining table with their employers, because she comments, “It is alright, come sit next to me.” And she pats the chair.
Taking the seat next to her, I note the fine silk of the fabric. The fragrant steam from the soup rises to my nose. I close my eyes breathing it in and silently telling my verbose stomach tais-toi, be quiet.
“You are looking so slim and pale these days, Geneviève. I am so worried about you.”
I am not sure how to respond. She has never taken much of an interest in me. Now, my brother, on the other hand…
“Eat,” she commands me, motioning to the bowl of soup. Again, she nods her head to let me know that it is alright for me to begin eating.
“This is delicious.” I consciously slow myself down when I realize I am shoveling spoonfuls of soup into my mouth at an alarmingly fast pace.
Mme. Michaud is looking at me with a mask I can see through. There is disgust behind it. But she continues to smile and then calls the cook in to bring me another bowl and crusty bread.
By the time I go back to my mending, I want to curl up like a cat in front of the fire and go to sleep. My stomach almost hurts it feels so good.
A few days later she feeds me fatty mutton. The rich, stringy meat takes away my hunger for the whole night. When I curl up on my mattress that night, I don’t feel any pains.
I know she has a reason for all this and I wonder. Will she marry my brother? But I know that even though she craves him, she could never cross the line to marry him, he is a servant. But if she did, possibly this is practice for taking me on like the daughter she never had.
Maybe if she is nice to me, my brother will satisfy her more. I decide that is the answer.
“Where is this meat on your bones coming from?” My brother asks weeks later. “I am going to have to stop giving you deniers for éclairs,” he teases, “or the gypsies will no longer want you. Your upkeep will be too expensive.”
I laugh. “Mme. Michaud has taken a liking to me. She has been making sure I have hot food in my belly.”
His back is to me as I say that and he spins like a coin on the edge of a tavern table to face me. “She has been doing what?”
“Feeding me,” I stutter, suddenly looking down at the warped floor boards. “And letting me try on her jewels and creams.”
“Chou, look at me,” his fingers are on my chin, tipping my head back. “You need to be careful. Very, very careful.”
“I am.” I stick my chin farther into his hand, part to be defiant, after all, I am a big girl and I can take care of myself, and partly because I like when he takes my chin in his hand and looks at me with serious eyes. My protector.
“Has she asked you about me?”
My eyes are starting to burn as I try to fight back tears. Maybe I’ve done something wrong, after all. Maybe I’ve been a fool.
“Tell me, Chou. It is alright,” he implores, gently running his thumb up and down on my chin to calm me.
“Some days she asks me if you had a good time the night before.”
“What days are those?” His jaw muscles twitch.
“Usually when you’ve been at the tavern.” I’m beginning to shake with panic.
“And what have you told her?”
“I’ve told her I think you did because you came home very late.”
“What else?” He looks angry, his dark hair partially obscuring his deep blue eyes.
“She has asked if you’ve brought anyone home.”
“And what have you told her?”
His fingers on my chin are beginning to hurt and I avert his eyes, focusing on the cast iron pot hanging in the fireplace.
“Geneviève, answer me.”
“I have told her the truth. That you have brought no one.”
“Good. Good girl.” He lets go of my chin, his hand going to cover his own mouth, as he stalks the room.
“Have I done something wrong, mon moitié?”
He crosses the room quickly and sinks to one knee in front of me. Stroking my hair and letting a lock slip through his fingers, “No, ma moitié. You have done nothing wrong. She is just a jealous, crazy old woman and I don’t want her using you to spy on me.”
I gasp, shaking my head. “I would never do anything to hurt you.”
“I know that, ma petite chou. But she is crafty. Very crafty and I want you to be careful.”
I nod, promising I will be.
“I will take care of her,” he vows. “Now promise me you will pretend that we did not have this conversation so that she does not know that I am on to her treachery.”
“Treachery?” I am alarmed at that.
“I do not want you to worry. I will take care of this. I have got this under control. She will not harm you.”
“But will she harm you?” I have a sudden foreboding fear of something terrible happening to my brother. He is all I have. I cannot lose him.
Bending down, he kisses the top of my head, “No, she cannot harm me. I am invincible.” And he shares a smile, the one that makes the ladies swoon.
••••••
I have been giving her the same answer for weeks now, telling her the weather is so cold that my brother stays in all night. I know that she has begun to doubt me, because there is no more special food and she has me cleaning chamber pots, a task that has never been given to me before. My stomach had become familiar with the extra food and now craves it more, and I am hungry all the time. But I cannot tell her the truth.
I cannot tell her that he is out late at night, every night, returning in the small hours of the morning.
“Madame, that salon window is drafty,” my brother comments to her when he comes to retrieve me one evening. “I could try to come earlier tomorrow and fix the sash, if that would please Madame.”
The pinches in her face instantly smooth at his offer and her overly large breasts puff out like a molting bird’s plumage. Even the tone of her voice changes, becoming breathier as she speaks.
I know he is doing this for me. She will no longer dare to assign the cleaning of the chamber pots to me if he is tending to her. I do not care if she does not feed me, I just want to go back to being left alone with my mending and sewing.
Using the pretense of odd jobs, they often disappear behind locked doors in her chamber or the salon. One day the door was slightly ajar and one of her male servants stood outside, peering through the crack as he stroked himself through his clothes. He scurried off like a cockroach when he saw me.
I went and stood in the spot where the man-servant had been. My brother had her facing the wall as he plowed into her.
“You are a dirty whore,” he snarled into her ear. “Your pussy is here to please me, only me, whore. You need to be fucked by a dirty peasant. I am the only man good enough for you.” And he grabbed her by a handful of hair and yanked her head.
Hearing her swine-like grunt brought me to the edge of nausea and I quickly hurried back to my sewing.
It was not long after my brother’s regular visits began again that Mme. Michaud resumed feeding me. As thankful as I was for the warm food in my belly, I was also saddened that there was a cost to my brother. To quell my hunger, he had to satisfy hers.
We left there nightly, often in silence.
“Maybe you should sell me to the gypsies,” I announced one night, “then you could have your freedom and would not have to service that horrid woman to keep me fed and working.”
Putting an arm around my shoulder, he smiled as he gazed off into the frigid night air. With his free hand, he touched his chest, covering his heart. “Ma moitié, there is nothing I would not do for you. You are my heart. My one true heart. We do what we have to do to keep our true heart safe. Do you understand? One protects their true heart at any cost.” He looked down at me.
“But what about you?” I searched his face.
With a secret smile, he dipped his head down, “It is all taken care of,” he confided.
And I knew he was referring to his late-night visits. Satisfied, I smiled, as we walked on.
“Good evening.” We were greeted by one of the members of the night watch as we approached our street. Many neighborhoods throughout Paris had recently increased their night watch as more and more children had gone missing. In addition to seeing our usual night watchmen, we were now crossing paths with several new ones who had appeared in the neighborhood.
My brother makes sure I am bolted in when he leaves in the evening. Many workers live in quarters provided by their employers, but we have remained in the rooms that belonged to our parents, barely scraping by to pay rent and taxes. My father’s miserly cousin was at the door looking for payment immediately upon my parents’ death, and together we have worked to keep our small space.
••••••
“Geneviève, I have the theatre tonight.” Mme. Michaud fills the doorway, a royal blue velvet cape fastened over her pale blue silk dress, a garment I added fabric to just last week to accommodate her expanding girth. Next to her stands a man who looks familiar, yet, I cannot quite place him. I have the distinct feeling that I know him, but I don’t. Something is out of context.
“Your brother left this here last night when he left me.” Mme. Michaud hands me a small leather pouch. Without opening the sack, I can tell by the weight and sound that the bag is filled with coins.
I find it odd that she is being so open about her affairs in front of this other man, potentially sacrificing her reputation.
“Thank you, I shall see that he gets it back.”
My brother has been working a steady job at a cobbler’s shop on the Il de la Cité in the days and not doing odd jobs for Mme. Michaud. I was concerned that with him gone, she would start treating me poorly again, but he calmed my fears. “Don’t worry, ma chou, she knows I am working for the cobbler on Il de la Cité and the money is good. She will not take that out on you.”
The night before when he arrived to retrieve me, he waited in the entrance until I was finished, his coat still buttoned, so he could not have left the pouch then. He must have come back here last night, I decide, and he left it when he was with her.
As he and I walk home, I remember the pouch. “Madame gave me this to return to you.”
“Return to me?” he asks questioningly, his face filled with confusion.
“Yes, she said you left it last night.”
My brother stops in his tracks, “Geneviève, what did you say to her?”
“I told her I would give it to you.”
“Merde!” The anger in my brother’s face transforms him, his eyes wild, darting left to right and back again.
“What is wrong?” I am alarmed by his response.
“I was not with her last night. This was a trap to see if you would say that I was home last night.”
I realize I have failed him and my heart cracks. I try to speak but nothing comes out. My voice is failing me as I have failed him.
“This was her way to spy on me. She knows I am working at the cobbler shop during the day and I told her I cannot leave you at night.”
“I did not know. I wish I had known,” I mutter.
“I am not blaming you, ma moitié. It is my mistake. Do not worry, I will fix this. I will not permit her to abuse you over it.” He kisses my head as we continue down cobblestone streets on our way home.
“Bon soir,” Monsieur Gauthier calls to us as he makes his night watch rounds.
“Bon soir,” I call back to him, sadness in my usual bright tone.
Something is bothering me, besides Mme. Michaud’s trick. But I cannot figure out what it is. It is just out of the reach of my mind.
••••••
Even though my brother has taken on some jobs for Mme. Michaud and spent time satisfying her cravings, I feel a chill from her. Her smile is different with me; there is a different tone to her speech. It feels as if my brother has not been able to make it right with her.
“Do you feel a difference?” I ask him as we walk home one night.
“A little bit.” He thinks for a moment. “She will come around eventually.”
“She has not had me cleaning chamber pots, so for that, I am thankful.” And we both laugh.
“Bon soir,” we greet the night watch as we pass the man, one of the newer ones.
“Monsieur Gauthier must have the night off,” my brother comments.
“It is so cold, I do not blame him for not wanting to be out.” I watch the white smoke from my breath curl into the dark January night.
“Lock up after me, ma moitié,” my brother says as he prepares to leave after dinner. Every night he says the same thing to me, and kisses me on each cheek, then my forehead before he goes.
Once in my sleeping gown, I blow out all the candles and crawl into my box bed, drawing the curtain. As I drift off, it comes to me. I know who he is. I sit up in bed. Alarmed. I know who the man is.
The man on the night watch. It is the man who took Mme. Michaud to the theatre.
••••••
It is morning and my brother is not there. He never returned the night before. My stomach hurts. Not from hunger. I feel fear. Something is very, very wrong.
Dressing quickly, I run down to the street. Someone must know where he is. Small groups of people are huddled on street corners, whispering. I feel their sideways glances. Something is very, very wrong.
The charcuterie shop is closed. Merde! I had hoped that my brother’s friend, Monsieur Diot, might know where he was. Maybe they had been at the tavern together. But the shop is closed when it should already be open.
I lift my skirts so as not to trip as I run down Rue Montorgueil toward Saint-Eustache. As I go to enter the side door into the school rooms I am met by the imposing figure of the priest, tall and smelling of incense, a heavy gold and bead crucifix hangs down the front of his frock.
“Arretez-vous.” Stop!” he commands. “Sortez-vous.” Leave! “Maintenant.” Now!
“Pourquoi?” Why? I ask, tears beginning to stream down my face. What has happened? Where is mon moitié?
“Sodomites and criminals will not bring filth into our hallowed halls,” he bellows, his ugly words reverberating off the gray stone walls.
What is he talking about? I am so confused by what is going on. Something is very, very wrong and I need my brother. I need my brother now.
He shoos me off the property like I’m dirt under a servant’s broom and I stand at the start of Rue Montorgueil not knowing where to go. Again, I lift my skirts and begin to run, tripping over cobblestones I can barely see through my tears.
Lilette’s mother will know what to do, I decide, and run toward their apartment. Climbing the stairs, I stand before their door, tear stained and out of breath. Opening the door with Lilette’s baby brother still latched onto her breast, my confused story spills out between sobs.
“Calm down, we will find out what is going on.”
She makes me tea, which I sip while she finishes feeding the baby.
“Did you eat?” she asks.
I shake my head and she points to some bread on the table. I thank her, but I cannot even look at food without my nausea rising. My stomach and heart are sick with worry.
Where is my brother?
Out on the street we see a small group of people talking. She tells me to stay where I am and hands me the baby to hold while she goes and talks to the neighbors across the street.
Watching her face grow grave with concern, I start to choke on my own tears and hide my face in the baby’s neck. She comes back across the street and takes me by the arm.
“Where is my brother? Do you know where my brother is?” I am distraught. I cannot lose him. I just cannot.
“Oui,” she whispers, barely moving her mouth. “He was taken to Bicêtre.”
“Bicêtre,” I gasp. “The hospital?”
She stops and turns to face me, taking the baby back. “No, Geneviève. Not the hospital. He was taken to the prison.”
My knees are gone and I sink to the cobblestones. Lilette’s mother reaches under one of my arms and pulls me up. She continues to talk in a whispered tone. “He was caught and arrested by the night watch.”
“The night watch,” I spit out. That man. Madame Michaud’s spy. “For what? What did he do?”
She looks away and then continues to look at the ground as she tells me, “For performing sodomy. For homosexual activity.”
“What? My brother? Who would my brother do that with?” I am shocked.
“With Monsieur Diot, the charcuitier.”
I cannot breathe. I have to get to my brother. Bicêtre is far away. How will I get there?
“I need to see him. This is all a mistake.” Breathing deeply, I try and gather my thoughts. “Mme. Michaud. I need Mme. Michaud to help me. She has a carriage. It can take me to my brother. She can help me.”
Lilette’s mother walks with me to Mme. Michaud’s home. A man-servant answers the door, but will not permit me in. I ask to speak to Madame and he tells me that she is indisposed. I beg and plead, but to no avail.
“Leave, Madamoiselle.”
I tell him my brother is in trouble and he shuts the heavy wood door without another word.
Staring at the weathered planks, I am shocked. How is this happening? Mme. Michaud was my only hope to travel to Bicêtre and now it is rapidly slipping away. Stepping back from the entrance, I gaze up. There, in the third-floor salon, at the window where my brother recently repaired the sash, stands Mme. Michaud, her dress a claret red silk.
Our eyes meet and she smiles, then draws the curtain.
As she listens to her patient’s story, Dr. Claire Stoddard literally finds herself gasping for air. The detail is so exquisite that she can feel it. She can visualize it as if it is swimming before her eyes, a motion picture so vivid. She can see that little redhaired girl, looking up from the rough-hewn grey cobblestone street, as if she herself is the one looking down from that salon window in Paris. She can feel the texture of the woman’s silk brocade dress, the color of dark cherries in summer and the slightly scratchy texture of the lace curtains she peers through.
“Were you able to see your brother again?” she asked her patient.
“No. Not until that sham of a trial. I was told that they wanted to make an example of him and Monsieur Diot.”
“So, they were found guilty?” the psychiatrist continued to probe.
Kylie is almost violently twirling a lock of hair. “Yes, they were sentenced to death.” Her voice is a mix of sorrow and anger.
“Did you speak to him?”
“No. He saw me in the courtroom and pounded his heart. I watched him mouth the words, “Ma moitié.”
“You should not go, Geneviève. You should not see this.” Both Lilette and her mother plead with me, but there is nothing that will keep me away. I cannot stay away and neither can the throngs of Parisians who make their way through the squalid summer heat to the Place de Grève to witness yet another debacle of humanity.
I press my way through the crowd, Lilette follows. Her family has been the only ones at my side, while everyone else has abandoned me. The smell of sulphur is thick in the air and the people are cheering. As I make it to the front edge of the crowd, I can see the stake. My brother and Monsieur Diot are bound to it with heavy rope. The flames from the kindling are licking up their legs. I can see from the position of my brother’s head, hanging to his chest, that he is already gone. There were rumors that they would be strangled first to make their deaths more humane. There is nothing humane about any of this.
“Mon moitié,” I cry. “Mon moitié.”
I continue to push trying to get to him. I must get to him and pull him down, take him far away from this vile, ugly crowd. I cannot lose another family member to fire.
“Mon moitié.” I am reaching out, arms outstretched, but they are pulling me back. Pulling me away from mon moitié. “No. No. No,” I cry. “My brother needs me. Let me go to my brother. Get him down from there. He did not do anything wrong.”
Two large men have me pinioned. I cannot get to my brother, although I continue to try and fight their binds. The fire climbs their bodies, igniting their shirts which combust into brilliant blue engulfing flames. I realize that their shirts have been stuffed with sulphur as part of their eternal damnation, for we have now smelled Hell.
“Bruno,” I wail, as I try to break loose. “Bruno….”
“Who is Bruno?” The psychiatrist is quickly typing into her iPad.
“Mon frère. My brother. My brother is Bruno.”
“Bruno is your brother’s name?” Quickly, Claire tries to corroborate.
“Yes.”
Checking her notes, “So, your brother is named Bruno Lenoir?”
“Oui,” the response a reverent whisper.
Pulling up Google, Claire types in Bruno Lenoir. The first entry reads, “France: Plaque Unveiled for Last Men Executed for Being Gay.”
With shaking hands, the psychiatrist placed her iPad on her desk, quickly skimming the article. 1750. Rue Montorgueil. Bruno Lenoir. Jean Diot. Burned at the stake. Place de Grève.
Grasping the edge of her desk, nearing the point of hyperventilation, the enormity of what has just occurred washes over Claire Stoddard, engulfing her, momentarily robbing her senses. Oh, my God. I must tell Marshall. I have to document every detail.
For those psychiatrists utilizing hypnosis and regression analysis with patients, it has proven nearly impossible in their discipline to corroborate the facts and tie them back to actual individuals in history. But Kylie Martin/Geneviève Lenoir had just provided a credible account of a historical event. It wasn’t an event that one could say, “Oh, they just read about that in their history book.” At least not as an American student, who would not have been privy to the details of a foreign event that wasn’t of world magnitude. Yet, from what Claire could see, Kylie’s recounting of the event was remarkably accurate.
Not only did this provide significance in the field of psychiatry and regression therapy, but the ramifications for the belief in reincarnation and of souls living on, surviving death, was earth-shattering. As a scientifically trained professional, Claire’s left brain was ready to mount an attack to debunk what had just happened, yet her gut knew that this was, in fact, one of those breakthroughs into dimensions we did not yet fully understand.
Regaining her composure, Claire pressed on, “Please tell me what happened after Bruno’s death.”
“I was taken.”
“What do you mean taken? Please be more specific.”
“Two men grabbed me. They kept me in a building with others who were taken. They hurt us. Treated us like wild animals. Abused us. Turned us from children to women. Weeks passed before they loaded us onto a barge and from there a ship.”
“Where did the ship take you?”
“They were taking me to Louisiana.”
“To work in the silk factories?” Claire surmised.
Kylie nodded.
“What happened in Louisiana?” Claire knew she could check ship manifests to corroborate.
“I never made it.”
“What happened? Where did you end up instead?”
“I died. I was sick and malnourished. Too weak to fight for my food. People would steal my rations. I had no clean water. They stole my water from me because they knew I could no longer fight them. The pain of starvation.” She rocked, her arms wrapped around her stomach. “I thought I had known hunger. I knew nothing.”
“And you died during the voyage?”
“Yes. I starved.” Kylie was curled up on the couch, remaining quiet for a few moments. “I ended up in the ocean.”
“Are you gone now?” Claire was fascinated, hoping she’d get more.
“I’m gone.”
“Tell me what you learned from that lifetime.”
“Tolerance and independence. And what it’s like to truly have a love bond with another person.” Kylie fell silent. “We never said goodbye,” her whisper was barely audible, but the glistening tears that streamed along her cheeks with that last statement were highly visible.
“Okay Kylie, I am going to count to three and on the count of three, Geneviève will be back in her time and you will be in present day.”
“One,” she paused. “Two,” another pause. “Three.”
Wrapping her arms around herself tightly, Kylie took a series of slow, deep breaths, removing the RGB glasses and headphones, yet her eyes remained closed. Across her face traversed a myriad of emotions, which Claire wished she could have captured digitally. Sadness. Pain. Relief. Confusion.
When her eyes finally opened, she blinked a few times, yet remained unfocused. A moment passed before she looked up at Claire, locking eyes with the therapist.
“And you wonder why I have weight problems. I was starved to death.”
Patient: Kylie Martin
Session #65
Regression #16
December 16, 2014
Regression Length: 10:15 A.M.–10:50 A.M.
Entity: Geneviève Lenoir
Location: Paris, France
Year: 1749-1750
••••••
Shell shocked would be an understatement. Holy fucking shit. Holy fucking shit. It was all she could repeat in her head. Holy fucking shit. Bruno. He couldn’t stay out of trouble. He was so charismatic, thought Kylie. Even looking at him from the viewpoint of a sibling, it was obviously impossible for men and women alike not to be taken in by his charm and dark, handsome looks.
The tightening around her heart, squeezing, cutting, bursting. The pain of losing him. First Gunther and now Bruno. These losses felt so absolute. And the love was overwhelmingly real. She thought Gunther had been painful, but seeing Bruno strapped to a post in the Place de Grève was still unbearable as she crossed 63rd Street in Manhattan.
Post-regression come-downs, as she had named them, were getting tougher and tougher as her regressions revealed more and more details and the entities became three-dimensional strangers who she knew intimately and loved deeply.
I never want to be hungry and thirsty like that again. Those pageant bitches can starve themselves into some neurotic designer’s delusion of perfection, but I don’t ever want to go hungry again. Fuck that shit.
And abused and taken advantage of by men that way. What a horrible, helpless feeling. Ugh. I’d rather they not look at me. Not touch me.
The rhythmic sound of tapping snapped her back from the netherworlds, bringing an instant smile to her face, and all felt right again within that moment. He showed! He was there and oddly she needed him on this day more than she had imagined, and that felt a little shocking, yet good. He was the only one who could be a salve for the hurt in her soul today.
On the other side of the window, the camouflaged rock star’s lopsided grin shone like a beacon only she could see. Jesse fuckin’ Winslow, you are a sight for sore eyes and not just because you are one sexy man.
Kylie made her way to the upfront corner where he sat at the window bar. Taking the seat next to him, it was impossible not to match his smile with one of her own. It was so good to see him. Amazingly good.
He slid a small box over so that it was in front of her, followed by her favorite frozen drink that he had waiting. Immediately, she recognized the blue inscribed logo on the box. Had she just tasted these minutes before or well over two hundred years ago. It was confusing, hard to separate the merge. And today is the day Jesse showed up with this. Seriously? Universe, you are so fucking with me.
“You didn’t.” Her hand was on the top of the flap.
Laughing, “I did. But I have a confession to make.”
Kylie stopped, her hand not moving.
“I ate one,” Jesse confessed.
Bursting into laughter at an admission she did not expect, Kylie opened the box to find a lone éclair. Realizing she needed this, the levity and laughter, made her want to throw her arms around the charismatic rocker to thank him just for his mere presence on this emotional day. What was that saying? There are no coincidences.
“I’m really sorry,” he was so sincere. “It was a moment of weakness. These things should be used as drug replacement therapy.”
Trying hard to not laugh, “I understand,” she deadpanned at the serious nature of his crime.
Picking up the fine pastry, Kylie broke it in half, holding out one of the pieces to Jesse.
“No, it’s for you,” he protested.
“You brought it all the way from Paris. That was so thoughtful. Please share it with me.” Kylie wanted to laugh, how funny that she was offering him her food after her thoughts walking over from Claire’s office about foolish starving pageant girls, and now here she was, giving away her food.
Reaching out, Jesse took the treat, his fingers grazing Kylie’s. Clitoral jolt, she thought. Damn, title that one The Awakening. This man is too sexy for his own good.
She watched his lips and tongue savor the rich chocolate crème tunneled in the flaky layers of choux pastry and as he licked the dark chocolate from his top lip, she could see by his expression that he was lost to the rich texture and flavor explosion in his mouth.
And then he surprised her. Removing his sunglasses, she was overwhelmed by the intensity of emotion in his eyes as they sought and held her gaze. Close up, his eyes were more expressive than she had imagined they would be, yet just as captivating as she had suspected.
“Thank you for sharing and giving me half.” He finished his last bite, savoring it.
Half. Mon moitié.
Kylie sat there for a moment, half an éclair in hand, before extending her hand to Jesse and offering him the remainder of the pastry. Her half. His eyes never left hers, as he smiled and wrapped both his hands around her outstretched hand and brought the éclair to his mouth. Taking the tip of his tongue, he took a swipe of the crème at the center, and then slowly brought the pastry, still wrapped in both their hands, back to her mouth.
“This is your half. It was my gift to you.”
She opened her mouth and he grazed her lips with the treat, rubbing crème on them. The same crème his tongue had just swiped. As he fed her the confection, she let the rich chocolate roll over her tongue. This sublime flavor had the hairs on her forearms standing at attention. Did I just taste this? Or was it the last time I was in Paris? Or 1749? All senses were on overload as she savored the smooth crème. When was it? When was it last? When was the first time? Why today? Twice.
The sticker on the box sitting between them on the counter said, A Paris depuis 1730. In Paris since 1730. I knew that, Kylie mused, though she suspected they cost more than a denier these days.
He had still not let go of her hand, his gaze intent and serious, as if he needed her to eat her half of the treat, his gift to her that must be consumed. Closing her eyes, Kylie took the last bite of the éclair that remained in their hold.
Her half.
It was a taste she had not forgotten and would never, ever forget.
“Jesse, can I get a selfie with you.”
The moment was broken as three girls approached, pulling Kylie to interrupted reality as if she’d been plucked off the cobblestones of Rue Montorgueil. Jesse’s eyes flashed sadness and regret, as his mirrored lenses quickly made their way back to obscure their connection as the girls’ cell phones clicked away.
Leaning forward, he quickly whispered in Kylie’s ear, the anxiety in his voice apparent, “I’ve gotta bolt.”
She nodded, but he was making his way out the door before she could verbally respond.
Sitting quietly for a few minutes, trying to process the overwhelming events of the day and Jesse’s hasty departure, Kylie was quickly losing a grasp on containing her emotions, and a public meltdown in Starbucks, after being seen with Jesse Winslow, would not be a good thing.
Pulling out her phone, she opened their text thread as she stepped back onto the sidewalk.
I didn’t get to thank you. And I didn’t get to say goodbye.
And those two things hung over her for the remainder of the day, keeping her shrouded in a sadness that was hard to comprehend. Falling into an uneasy sleep that night, where worlds began to collide and new faces from millennia past walked alongside contemporaries, she found relief from the need to try and make sense of something that would never, ever be possible.
It was shortly after four a.m. when the text tone from her phone woke her.
You don’t ever have to thank me and you don’t ever have to say goodbye.
Smiling at the text, Kylie thought, I’d love to never say goodbye to you. But this stop/start is so frustrating. There was so much I needed to share with you. And today was just not a good day to not say goodbye. You weren’t the first.
I’m sorry you got busted and had to bolt.
LOL. Yeah, me, too. The minute my sunglasses came off, I was toast. We’ll figure out someplace new to meet.
Someplace new to meet? Kylie could feel the dark shroud lifting off her.
OK
Now sleep, Toots.
Night
Toots? Only Jesse Winslow could get away with calling a woman Toots and make it sound coveted and sexy. Toots, she laughed. Soft and sweet like a Tootsie Roll.
Please don’t make it another month before I hear from you or see you again, Jesse. Please. I have to tell this shit to someone and not have them think I’m totally crazy. You’re the only one I can talk to.
And like an epiphany, I could have told Bruno was the last thought that ran through her head, before both physical and emotional exhaustion won the battle, stealing the remaining vestiges of her consciousness.