‘And what is that, pray tell?’
She sat in perfect stillness. Somehow I felt her eyes fixed on me, even though they were hidden behind her veil. ‘Monsieur, listen carefully to what I have to tell you. All the stories Jeanne Duval told you are true – every last one. They were not fantasies. They were not hallucinations. They were not inventions, fabrications or lies. She was no lunatic, hysteric or Scheherazade. She was not a ghost or a ghoul. She was a teller of the truth. And you would do well to heed it.’ With the utmost grace and dignity, Madame Édmonde stood and, bidding me a good night, walked off towards the doorway.
I was, at first, lost for words, but I managed to blurt out one final question before she disappeared. ‘How is it that you know of this – of Jeanne, of me, of what occurred between us?’
My host stopped at the threshold of the room, still turned away from me, and replied, ‘I shouldn’t have to explain. You already know.’
And then she was gone, leaving me to return to my apartment with the help of Giacomo. For all the laudanum I swallowed, I could not sleep that night, but was plunged into a labyrinth of memories that, since my departure from Paris, I’d done my best to forget. Now, they returned with such force that I feared they might consume me altogether.
The following morning, I was woken by a nightmare. I rang for Giacomo, who once again assisted me to rise from bed, bathe and dress. He pushed me in my chair on wheels to a deserted drawing room and poured me a cup of tea. This room was furnished in mahogany and velvet, and as exuberantly decorated as the dining room of the previous evening. Outside, yesterday’s snow was beginning to melt in the late winter sunshine. I sat in my armchair, sipping my tea, excited by the prospect of seeing Madame Édmonde.
When she arrived several minutes later, she was, once again, veiled. Her dress was as dark and sumptuous as the previous evening’s. As we bade each other good morning, she sat on an armchair beside mine, still moving with that satin grace I’d noticed before. Giacomo poured her a cup of tea. I noted how her veil was a source of power, for it made it impossible to discern precisely where her gaze was aimed. My desire to observe my host was due not to morbid curiosity but to the fervid meditations of the previous, sleepless night. With that veil, such observation was impossible.
It was only when Giacomo had retired from the room that she resumed the conversation. ‘Are you feeling better, Monsieur Baudelaire?’
‘Decidedly not. I barely slept and can hardly move without the assistance of your manservant.’
‘What, pray, was the cause of your insomnia? Is the bed not to your liking?’
‘My restlessness had nothing to do with the bed, which is in fact the most comfortable I have ever known. Rather, it was the riddle you posed me yesterday.’
‘It was less of a riddle and more a statement of fact.’
‘It was a riddle, and I spent the entire night seeking its answer.’
‘Then I fear you wasted your time. The riddle is its own answer.’
I felt a sudden wave of ill temper wash over me, a lifelong habit that has worsened with age. I let it pass before continuing. ‘You said everything Jeanne ever told me was true. Surely not everything?’
‘I said all of her stories were true. Jeanne was not incapable of lying, but about certain things her word was her honour.’
‘If you know all you claim, you also know how fantastic her stories were.’
‘I am aware of their nature.’
‘Jeanne believed in the transmigration of souls.’
‘Yes. She called it crossing.’
‘And yet you insist her stories are true.’
‘Evidently.’
‘You will excuse me if I ask you for proof of your knowledge.’
Madame Édmonde sighed. ‘Where to begin? Shall I tell you about Koahu and Alula, and how they loved one another? Or about the island of Oaeetee, the chief Otahu and the sage Fetu? Shall I tell you about the Solide, its captain Marchand, the surgeon Roblet and the sailor Joubert?’
I was in disbelief. ‘What about the albatross? What do you know of that?’
I had the distinct impression that, with that question, I had managed to launch an arrow of my own through her veil. Her head drooped down. ‘Ah, yes. The albatross. You mean the story of the owl and the tern.’ Her head lifted again.
I could not hide my astonishment. ‘How is it that you are so familiar with these tales?’
‘Oh, Charles, if I tell you, will you not react with your customary disdain?’
‘Jeanne’s stories were a child’s fairytales – a lunatic’s delusions!’ I said, thumping an armrest with a clenched fist.
Madame Édmonde remained perfectly still until she finally said, in almost a whisper, ‘Do you remember the last occasion you saw Jeanne?’
‘How can I forget?’
‘How many people have you told about it?’
‘No one.’ How could I have told anyone? I was too ashamed.
‘If I told you, now, would that be sufficient proof?’
I nodded. ‘Yes. I suppose it would.’ And yet I didn’t want to hear.
‘You had just awoken from one of your nightmares. Jeanne began to console you, as she had done throughout the years. But that morning you would not be consoled. Her tales had long since ceased to comfort you. And on this occasion you were especially inconsolable.’ Madame Édmonde paused. ‘Do you remember how you responded?’
I nodded shamefully. ‘Yes,’ I murmured, ‘I’m afraid I do.’
‘You lost your temper. You told her she was a hysteric, that you could have her locked up, that if she did not stop her nonsense you would have her committed to the Salpêtrière.’
I hung my head. It was all true.
‘Of course, it wasn’t the first time you’d lost your temper. But this occasion was different, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ I groaned. ‘Yes, it was.’
‘And what made it different was that you took out your belt and you began whipping me.’
I opened my mouth, as if by reflex, to both protest and defend myself, but caught between the two reflexes I could only stammer, unable to find the words for the task.
‘You tore the dress from my back, and you whipped me, over and over, until the skin was streaked with blood. And do you remember what you said?’
‘No, please don’t . . .’
‘You said you were whipping me like the slave I was, like the slave I would always be . . .’
‘Enough!’ I cried. Despite my injuries, I sprang from my seat and, cane in hand, limped over to the window that overlooked the courtyard. The pain in my heart now rendered me oblivious to that of my ankle. ‘You want me to believe that you are Jeanne?’ I looked back at her, but no reply emanated from behind the veil. ‘How can such a thing be possible? It contravenes the fundamental laws of nature – of science and physics. I simply cannot accept the notion that the woman who is speaking to me right now was once another woman, one I knew intimately, the woman with whom I shared the best and worst moments of my life. It is utter nonsense – the worst kind of flim-flammery.’
‘You who are a poet, do you not see that the power of the crossing is within every human soul? Whenever you look another person in the eyes, do you not feel within the pit of your stomach a kind of forward yearning so powerful that it frightens you? Do we not avert our gazes in polite society precisely because of the vertigo that comes from looking into the eyes of another? And isn’t that vertigo not so much the fear of crossing as the fear of the desire to cross? Are not our souls constantly reaching out towards the other, striving for the freedom of the crossing?’