Over the next few weeks, they finished the album—nine tracks in total. Right before Thanksgiving, Lily, Ezra, and Hugh went back to
Los Angeles. Sandra knew she wouldn’t be going back for Thanksgiving or any other time. She wasn’t a creature of this time. She belonged here with Luke, Paul, and Marie.
26
Helen Lambert
Washington, DC, June 16, 2012
On the way back to Georgetown to see Malique, I’d apparently fainted in the cab. I woke to find the driver standing over me, swearing as I drooled on his pleather seat. After swearing I wasn’t drunk and that I could, indeed, pay him, I roused myself from the backseat and walked up the stairs to Madame Rincky’s shop. So, I’m Philippe Angier’s daughter. I’m a witch. And I’m a witch who lives in a binding curse.
From the waiting room, I could hear that Malique was doing a reading. I studied my fingers. I’d felt that same tingling then burning sensation when I’d touched Marielle Fournier in the nursing home. At the time, I thought that I’d seen an improvement in her condition, and I had been right.
I was curious about the band, No Exit, so I did a quick Internet search on my iPhone while I heard Malique wrapping up. I’d coughed a few times so he’d know it was me out here.
Wading through the millions of Jean-Paul Sartre references, I finally found one curious entry, a post on a Los Angeles website that talked about seeing the band in 1970 at Gazzarri’s on Sunset. The post said that the band had been a highlight on the Strip that summer, but they’d disappeared from the scene just as suddenly as they’d arrived. There were several other theories of what had happened to them. A few other posts mentioned rumors of a lost tape, and one post mentioned Hugh Markwell’s address in Texas. What the hell, I thought. I was running out of time and wanted to find out Sandra’s story as quickly as I could.
Searching for Hugh Markwell, I found a phone number in Austin. He was a professor of environmental studies at the University of Texas, Austin. From the image of him, I could see that it was the same Hugh. Now gray-haired, he really hadn’t changed much, still looking like a 1970s hippie only with a fuller face marked with deep lines.
I rang the extension for UT Austin and got his message. I left him a voicemail saying I was Helen Lambert, publisher of In Frame, and was interested in hearing the story of the lost tapes of his band, No Exit, for a features piece in our September issue.
Sandra’s story was the last one for me, but as with any cliffhanger I was dying to know what had happened to her. So Luke had been producing records back in Taos? I could sense Sandra’s confusion at her powers, her desire to be normal. In piecing together my own fractured lives, I realized that I was not yet a whole person, but a group of women.
I looked at my watch.
The door opened and Malique ushered a crying young woman out of the room. She appeared to be crying with joy, however, hugging Malique. It occurred to me that I hadn’t hugged Malique and wondered if I had some social flaw for failing to do so. It did occur to me that few people would hug him for saying they were living in a binding curse.
I sat down as Malique took a decorative dagger from his bag and placed it on the table. Then, dipping the paintbrush in the vial of blood, the older man began to paint a thin layer of blood on the dagger, turning the knife every direction to cover the blade entirely. Finally, he set the dagger down on the table.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m letting the blood dry.”
“Do we just say some kind of spell?”
He nodded. “As soon as the blood dries.”
I could hear a clock ticking loudly from somewhere. I wondered why Madame Rincky would have a clock so distracting in her salon. The smell of stale incense was clinging to the curtains long after it had burned away.
When Malique was satisfied, he placed his palms down on the table on either side of the dagger and began to speak. It was a strange singsongy sound. I’d heard it before. As Juliet, I’d heard my mother sing this same way the night she placed the curse on me. Malique’s eyes rolled back into his head, but he kept speaking in the same rhythm and voice, high and unsettling. Finally he reached out and grabbed my hand, startling me. He began to shake and then convulse. My hands began to burn, and there was a strange taste on my tongue; I realized my nose had begun to bleed. Malique fell out of the chair and rolled onto the floor, still shaking.
I wasn’t sure if I should call an ambulance. I leaned over Malique, slapping his face. “Malique?”
His eyes opened suddenly, sending me reeling backward from fright. “You scared the shit out of me. Are you okay?”
But it wasn’t him looking at me—his voice was altered, not his own. “Oh, my beautiful girl!” Malique sat up and turned mechanically like the doll from Tales of Hoffmann. “Est-ce toi?”
I pushed myself back against the wall as far as I could get from him, my boots squeaking on the floor as I scrambled.
“You are frightened of me? Don’t you recognize me?”
I cocked my head. “Maman?”
“Juliet, Juliet.” It was Malique, and yet it wasn’t.
“Maman, is that you?” I looked closely at Malique for signs of Juliet’s mother. “Sorry… You just look a bit different than you did before. Well, you look like a rather old Jamaican man.”
“You look different as well.” Malique smiled. “I don’t have much time. I did a terrible thing to you. I need to tell you how sorry I am.”
“Which me?”
“What do you mean?”
“There are many mes, Maman. I’ve been living for a hundred years, over and over, plus I die at thirty-four.” I was a little bitter at the last thing, and I think she picked it up in my voice.
“Oh non,” said Malique. “I am so sorry, Juliet.”
“Yeah, well…” I leaned in. “Where are you exactly?”
Malique shook his head. “I cannot talk about it.” But from his face, I could see pain.
“Are you suffering, Maman?”
“Please don’t ask me about this place. I just want to look at you. My beautiful girl. Your hair is red.” Malique/Maman seemed disturbed by this detail.
“It is.” I touched it, knowing that I must look like Philippe Angier.
“Maman,” I said. “I know about Philippe Angier.” It was uncanny how Malique had captured Juliet’s mother’s speech patterns. At times, I could overlook that it was actually Malique, so perfectly animated was Thérèse LaCompte in his body. Malique’s face twisted.
“I never wanted you to know. He and I were on stage every night together. I can still see him as I saw him then. He was tall with jet-black hair and he commanded the stage. He’d start with hypnosis, grabbing someone from the audience, then he’d move to the cards, and finally his big act was levitating me. I never understood that it was supposed to be a trick. He never used wires so I just assumed that was the way all of the magicians did it. It didn’t occur to me that there was another side to him. That his magic was real.
“Yes, I was his most prized assistant—and also his lover. But I didn’t know that there were many of us. I was with him for a year when I became pregnant with you. Things changed then, but the changes were subtle at first. My door locked at night when it had never been locked before, for my ‘safety.’ When he was sure that the pregnancy was going to come to full term, he told me that I was to be of service to him. And I wanted to be of service to him. I loved him. He was magical—the grandest man I had ever seen. But that’s not what he meant. He took me to a house and told me that it was to be ours after your birth. I was given a room and locked in it. By then, he’d hired another assistant to replace me. I passed her once in the hallway. She was young and blond and she had a rouge dress. I never wore rouge. I was the bleu girl, always in bleu. That’s how he referred to us, by the color of our dresses. I was soon to meet rose girl, violet girl, and jaune girl, for we were all locked in this house together. Jaune and I were both pregnant.”