Doctor Death (37 page)

“Take off your dress.”

“What?”

“With or without a bullet hole, Mademoiselle Karno.”

I did as she said. My fingertips slipped on the tiny pearl buttons, and I could barely unbutton them, but I managed to at last.

“Lie down on your stomach.”

I obeyed that order as well. Bits of broken glass moved beneath me and stuck to the skin of my naked arms. I felt her knee against my corseted back but could neither see nor sense what she was doing before she let me go and allowed me to sit up again.

She had taken off her own dress and put on mine.

“Now it is your turn,” she said.

Its fit was looser than mine, with a pleated waist and a high-necked lace-bordered collar. And black, naturally, where mine was a restrained, subdued purple. It did not fit me very well. When I was finished, she smiled.

“Get up,” she said.

Only now did I understand her intention. If the sniper in the other préfecture tower got me in his sight, he would pull the trigger. He would shoot the black-clad female figure, not the purple, and would no doubt regret his mistake and perhaps even be tormented by it afterward. But that would not help me very much.

“That is murder, mademoiselle.”

“Not at all. It is a test. If God finds you worthy, He will not let a random bullet bring you down.”

“You are mad!”

“Get up, mademoiselle. Or I will shoot you this instant.”

“I cannot see that it benefits you . . .”

“No? Let me paint you a picture. A clever marksman hits the target he is aiming at. A young woman in black tumbles from the shattered window and falls onto the cobbles of the square below. Where do you think everyone will gather? Where do you think everyone will look?”

“And then what? Even if you get away—what then? Where will you hide? How will you survive?”

“God will not throw away the tool He has spent such a long time creating,” she said with rock-solid conviction. “Get up!”

I continued to sit.

She fired. The shot went through the black skirt right by my thigh and hit the floor. I screamed and pulled my leg all the way up to my chest even though I had actually understood that I was not hurt, that she had missed on purpose.

“Damn you!” I cried.

“No, mademoiselle. I belong not to the devil but to God.”

I thought that was debatable. With fierce gestures I began to rip the hairpins from my pinned-up hair.

“What are you doing?”

“If you really believe God is on your side, it makes no difference,” I said. “I just want to give Him a fair chance to take my side instead.” Though we were both dark haired, there was a difference. My hair was more auburn and straight while hers was wavy. I hoped the difference would be enough to at least make the sniper hesitate and take a second look.

She let me do it. I shook the last pin free and then levered myself into a squatting position. I considered for a brief moment whether a small silent prayer would make any difference, but I did not think so. This was not a game of God’s devising; the outcome would be determined by human observations and decisions, and cold, raw chance.

I rose slowly to my feet.

A shot screamed by me. I remained standing. Now he had to have seen it, I thought. Seen that it was me and not her.

But Imogene had no intention of waiting. While the echo of the rifle shot was still rolling across the préfecture’s roof, she aimed the revolver directly at my chest and pulled the trigger. I sensed it and had time to feel a moment of outrage that she was cheating.

Then I realized that she had not hit me.

I think she was still waiting for me to fall. When she understood that it was not going to happen, she pulled the trigger again.

This time there was just a dry little click. The chamber was empty.

I had absolutely no experience with physical fighting but decided instantly that it was time to change that. I threw myself at her and toppled her backward. She was clinging to the revolver, and I could hear from the repeated clicks that she was still trying to shoot me and apparently did not grasp that she had run out of ammunition. I grabbed her by her wavy hair and started to pound her head against the floor, and I did not stop until she lay perfectly still.

I still believe more in bacteria than in God. But it is a fact that when the Commissioner nine minutes later picked up the Belgian Warrant revolver from the floor, there was still one bullet left in the chamber.

V

November 1887–September 1893

T
he wolf came to her when she was fifteen.

Until then Imogene had thought that the most important thing in life was whether Ferrand really liked her or just pretended to because it would suit everyone if he could take over Les Merises one day. Beyond that, her greatest concern was whether Sister Beatrice had discovered that she had cheated on her Latin with Veronica and had written some of the difficult words on the inside of her arm. She was looking forward to going home for Christmas, and she hoped Bijou would have her puppies before then so she would have time to see them, even though her father had said that it probably would not be until January.

It was a cold, wet day. The wind came howling in from the northwest, full of rain mixed with tiny sharp hailstones, and it
was more or less impossible to go outside. The sisters had allowed the youngest to play in the dining hall and had arranged for the older girls to keep an eye on them.

They played The Wolf Is Coming with the little ones. “The maid goes into the dark forest, picking berries, picking berries . . .” She and Veronica were the forest. It was starting to hurt a bit to stand with her arms raised in this way, especially because that irritating little Camille slowed down the game by trying to sneak to the back of the line so that she would not have to go through the forest.

“Camille,” said Imogene, “come on!”

“I don’t want to,” wailed Camille. “I don’t want to play this stupid game!”

“All the others do,” said Veronica. “Why are you so special?”

“But I don’t want to!” The girl held her arms behind her back so the others in the line could not take her hands.

“She is scared,” said the new girl, what was her name? The one with the soft black hair and the big doe eyes. Cecile.

“She is not a baby, is she?”

“Why do I have to play?” whined irritating Camille. “It is just a stupid game and I don’t feel like it.”

“Camille is afraid of the wolllf, Camille is afraid of the wolllf . . .” A few of the others began singsonging, and the game threatened to dissolve.

“That is enough!” said Imogene. “Cecile, Anette, take Camille by the hand. Then we will start again.”

“But if she does not want to?” It was Cecile protesting again.

Imogene had a headache and her neck hurt, and she had just about had it with the stupid girls who would not follow orders.

“We cannot all expect special treatment,” she barked. “Get going, or I will tell Sister Beatrice! Do you want to be confined to your room again?”

Cecile bit her lip. Then she whispered something to Camille, and Camille took her hand.

They began again. “Father Wolf, he is in the dark forest, prowling here, prowling there . . .”

Imogene did it on purpose. There was no getting away from that. She had a headache, and her neck hurt, and she was grumpy and annoyed. It was clearly on purpose that she drew out the final lyrics.

“Father Wolf in the dark forest is hungry for little girl pie. When the little maid does not come home, Oh, how her mother must cry, must cryyyyyyyyyy . . .”

Camille tried to stop, but Anette was not having any of it. With a shriek she threw herself forward and pulled Camille with her.

“Willy-nilly. You’re in the wolf’s belly. Rip, nip, nip, you’re dead!”

Imogene and Veronica transformed themselves from peaceful trees into hungry wolves, and it was Cecile and irritating Camille who were caught. Camille screamed shrilly and loudly as if a real wolf had caught her. Cecile did not make a sound.

Imogene and Veronica threw them on the ground and began to “eat” them. With hard fingers, they pinched and nipped them, and they were quickly aided by the rest of the “wolf pack.” The two victims tried to protect themselves by curling up and pushing the pinching hands away, but the superior force was too great.

“Eat them, eat them . . . ,” shouted Imogene. “Mmmmm. I think I want to eat a leg!” She grabbed hold of Camille’s lower leg with both her hands and pretended to sink her teeth in.

“Stop it! Stop it!”

“Yum, yum, yum . . . Father Wolf is hungry.”

She nipped a few more times while Camille writhed and wailed and tried to get away. Then Imogene suddenly received a hard shove in the side.

“Leave her alone!”

Somehow Cecile had got away from the others. She was the one who had shoved Imogene. And Imogene’s irritation turned to real anger.

“You are wolf food,” she said. “You have nothing to say. Hold her!”

And then the whole pack threw themselves on Cecile. For them it was still a game, though a slightly rougher version of it.

“Come on, Father Wolf,” said Veronica, and held out one of the girl’s arms to Imogene. “Eat her!”

Imogene stuck her head all the way into the girl’s armpit and pretended to tear her to pieces. She snarled and growled for all she was worth. And the rest of the girls screamed and giggled gleefully.

It was only she and Cecile who knew that it was not all in fun. That Imogene had suddenly given way to a desire she did not understand herself and had closed her teeth around fabric and skin and flesh and had bitten as hard as she could.

It had happened at that moment. She could not understand it any differently. Even though weeks passed before the first marks appeared on her own body, that had to be the moment when the wolf entered her for the first time and filled her with a hot, burning sensation in her head, neck, chest, and abdomen.

It was irritating little Camille who tattled, of course. Cecile never said a word.

Sister Beatrice brought them both, Imogene and Camille, to the convent church and made them kneel in front of the Madonna.

“Camille,” she said, “show Imogene the marks.”

And then Camille had unbuttoned her dress and pulled up
her chemise with a well-practiced martyred expression. Her shoulders, upper arms, and stomach were covered with yellow and blue marks made by the pinching fingers. There must have been thirty or forty.

“Imogene, I am disappointed in you. As a dux, it is your role to correct and care for the others, not to lead the way in a rough game like this. I hereby remove you from your responsibility. And now kiss each other as a sign that you forgive one another as good sisters and friends ought to.”

They exchanged cool friendship kisses, one on each cheek. Camille tried to look pious, but her triumph shone through. Imogene burned with shame, outwardly as well as inwardly.

She made an effort to show that she repented and improved. She got up extra early to help the little ones make their beds and get dressed. She tested them in their catechism and comforted the ones who were homesick, and she was especially attentive to Cecile and Camille. She labored so hard over her own schoolwork that even cranky Sister Francine praised her. Still the headache did not go away; it became worse. An odd weakness had invaded her arms and legs, and no matter how much she slept, she was always tired.

At the beginning of February, shortly before Candlemas, she discovered a circular mark on her shoulder. It was red and swollen and very sore. The next day there was yet another, this time on her breast.

Constance, with whom she shared a room, noticed it almost at once. “Who bit you?”

Imogene knew that her face was turning bright red. “No one has bitten me,” she said. “It just . . . appeared.”

Constance giggled. “Oh, all right. If you say so. But I would not take any more walks alone with that cousin Ferrand if I were you.”

“It has nothing to do with that!”

“She is just jealous because she does not have a beau,” said Veronica. “Pay no attention to her. But you had better show that thing to one of the hospital sisters.”