Page 36 of Souvenir Heart

“So much opportunity, so much to choose from.”

Shaking his head, Marcus took the papers from Andre, rifling through them before slipping them into his sleeve; there were several he hadn’t seen before. But he had no intention of encouraging Scott’s penchant for dare devilry by complimenting his actions.

“Do you think she’ll do as you ask?” Andre asked.

“Request permission for us to visit?”

He nodded, his bright blue eyes sharp.

“After being betrayed and denounced?” Marcus shrugged with more assurance than he felt. “What choice does she have?”

Twenty-Six

“Get a move on, we haven’t got all day,” the flat-nosed guard commanded as Marguerite stumbled through the wicket. With her hands bound behind her back, she found it difficult to keep her balance, and she clasped her fingers around her forearms, trying to steady herself. She felt the roll of paper Marcus had slipped beneath her sleeve. Who was this man who encouraged her to ‘have faith,’ moments after his accusatory, ‘you drew a fish?’

She winced at the sound of the wicket door slamming shut and the rattling clank of a key being turned in the lock. They entered a winding stairwell. Unable to lift her skirt as she mounted the stone steps, she trod on the hem, her shin striking the riser. The thin guard with the large ears, who’d been walking behind her, grabbed her from behind, yanking her back up. She gasped out a “thank you, citizen.”

“Mind your step,” he growled, as if she’d tripped intentionally. As if she’d intended to bark her shin, any more than she’d intended for her cartoon of Marat to be displayed in court. She kicked out at the hem of her striped skirt, trying to flip it out of the way as she lifted her foot to mount the next step.

The flat nosed guard, who was climbing the stairs ahead of them, called out, “Prisoner for the cells.” The stairwell’s stone walls amplifying not only his voice, but the rattle and clank of yet another wicket being unlocked, and beyond it the miserable cacophony of the prisoners in the cells beyond it.

Marguerite gripped her forearms tighter, not for balance, but to keep from joining their miserable howling chorus. The ribbon-tied paper pressed into the tender flesh of her forearm.

What had Marcus given her? Further instructions that would save her? Or that would lead her more surely to the guillotine?

A guard in a tunic and red cap was waiting beside the wicket when they reached the top of the stairs. Flat Nose pulled two sheets of paper from the pocket of his blue uniform jacket.

Red Cap glanced at the seals at the bottom of each, then at Marguerite, then at flat nose. “They sentenced her yet?” he asked.

Flat nose shook his head “Her lawyer showed up,” he replied, in a tone of disgust. “But she will be.”

“What’s she done?”

“Drawn Marat as a fish.” He lowered his voice conspiratorially, as if the mere act of describing her so-called crime might make him complicit.

Red Cap’s eyes widened as if receiving news she’d assaulted the great man instead of simply, innocently, lampooning him.

These were the creatures who were supposed to have a greater capacity for reasoning than women? These half-witted guards? The so-called justices declaring that a drawing made her an enemy of the nation, worthy of death?

As Red Cap returned the papers and Flat Nose pocketed them, she thought about how they must have gotten her drawing. Of the time she’d spent searching for her sketchbook. All the while Victorine had it. Had rifled through it. Had she been looking for a reason to denounce her to the Committee for Public Safety?

Why? In the name of God why? What had she done to make Victorine hate her so?

“Take her through,” Red Cap said, swinging the wicket open.

“In with you,” Flat Nose ordered. The thin guard behind her gave her a shove. As she stepped through, Marguerite thought of the innumerable cups of coffee and brioches she and her “friend” had shared. Of how Victorine liked her coffee black with an extra lump of sugar. How they’d griped amiably about their husbands; Victorine’s constantly left his stockings on the floor by the bed, the late Gerard’s habit of leaving papers on every tabletop. They’d chattered about fashion, the cost of bread and eggs. The weather.

They’d—or had it been she alone, who’d studiously avoided the treacherous shoals of politics?

Had that been her mistake? By failing to discuss politics, had Marguerite missed the tell-tale signs of a political zealot? Assumed that because they’d never discussed the previous September’s massacres, Victorine shared her horror at the mob-led murders of jailed prisoners? Imagined that if she’d shown her the drawing of Marat, she would have shared the humor in it?

They’d never been the best of friends, but how had she missed that the woman hated her enough to wish her here? To wish her dead?

If her hands hadn’t been tied behind her, she would have buried her face in them. How could she have been so stupid?

They were passing by cells now, anxious voices rising as they approached, “Take my petition, Citizen, I beg of you...”

“My portrait to my wife.”