Marie said sternly, 'Let it be, Danielle. It is not Alexandre.'
But Danielle knew they couldn't believe. It didn't matter that they didn't. She did. She helped the man to his feet, and touched his split lip with her cold finger.
And then a screech from a window above: 'William Kemmler, is that you? Get your sorry ass up these steps before I come after you with this hatchet, and I'll do it, you know I will!'
'Fishwife!' screamed Danielle. 'You do not know who you are talking to!'
A lantern came to the window, and then many lanterns at many windows, and there were faces peering out and down. Someone shouted, 'Fishwife? Tillie ain't Kemmler's wife, just pretendin' to be so they's can fuck and still go to church on occasion!' There was a burst of raucous laughter, and then someone spat, a long, hefty hawk the colour of rust that landed with a phatt in a puddle near Danielle's shoe.
Danielle would let it go for now. For tonight. She would come again where there was not so much attention. For to try to reclaim him now would be careless. And carelessness could bring destruction. She had found him. She would return tomorrow, quietly, as her kind was greatly talented, and speak to him.
And bring him to his senses.
And back to her bed, back to her heart. And unlike the other misfortunates who had fallen under her bite, she would raise him from the dead for herself.
The following evening was clear and cold, with a silver moon riding above the lights of Buffalo like a jealous and forgotten toy. Marie and Clarice warned Danielle to let it go, it was insane to believe her love was reincarnated into a fruit vendor, and when she refused to hear them, they refused to go with her. 'We wash our hands of this,' said Marie. 'We cannot endanger ourselves for your folly, as much as we love you.'
Danielle said, 'Then do not.'
She went to the tenement house and watched from the shadows of a dwarfed maple tree as the occupants wandered in and out. Within minutes, two ragged women came out to the stoop in hats and shawls, their teeth broken and brown, and one said, 'You get me some of them cigars if you can, Tillie. If you swipe 'em, we can sell 'em and make us a bit of coin, don't you think?'
Tillie, a skinny thing who could have been twenty or forty, said, 'I'll swipe 'em and you can pay like the rest of 'em.'
'Bitch!'
Tillie strode from the stoop and the other woman spun angrily and went in the other direction.
Danielle counted to twenty. And then she went to the door of the tenement and waited. A man opened the front door, and flinched when he saw her standing there. She kept her lids lowered so the red of her eyes would not be so obvious. 'Hey, honey,' he said. 'What's a fine-looking wench like you doin' standing here?'
'Waiting for you to invite me inside,' said Danielle simply. The man did. She broke his neck in the hall, and stuffed him under the steps. No one was outside the flats to see, and she guessed they might not have cared much, anyway.
Tillie had shouted from a third-floor window, on the left. Danielle trod softly and quickly up the flights of stairs to the flat that surely belonged to William — to Alexandre. The door was locked, but with a simple jerk to the handle it swung open freely. She stepped inside the cluttered apartment.
There were three rooms, set like boxcars one behind the other. Danielle stood in the kitchen. A door to the left led to a parlour. A door to the right led to a bedroom. There was a pot on the cast-iron stove half filled with slop. There was a bedpan on the floor by the table, filled with urine.
'Alexandre,' whispered Danielle. 'What has brought you to another difficult life? You suffered in Paris, and you suffer here. What, precious love, has so cursed you?'
She moved silently into the parlour. Several framed portraits sat, covered in dust, on a tiny table. The cushion of the blue-upholstered settee had popped its seams, and down oozed from the splits. There was a small shelf on the wall behind the settee. On it was an ink well, a pen, several volumes and a black leather book bound with string.
'Yes!' hissed Danielle. 'It is my love, no doubt!' She took the book from the shelf and dropped on to the lumpy settee. He had not wanted her to look in this Bible, but she could not let it be. She flipped through the thin, yellowed pages and came to a place that had been thumbed to near illegibility.
It was in the Book of Trials. She read:
When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing to save the man Jesus and that Jesus was indeed to die to please the crowd, he offered the execution of noble captives, to have the man's wrists slashed with sword and thus causing him to bleed quickly unto death. But from the crowd called up the man Andrew, son of Phinneas the shepherd, who said, Jesus must suffer for his words! Crucify Him! The crowd joined in the mocking call, He must suffer for his words!
'What has this to do with you, Alexandre?' Danielle wondered aloud. 'I don't understand. Jesus, give me understanding so I can help my dearest lover!'
There was thumping at the door, and a woman came into the kitchen. It was Tillie. She saw Danielle through the doorway, and her lips drew back in a snarl. 'Bitch!' she shrieked. 'Come back to fix my shoe and what do I find here? One of William's whores, no doubt, brazen and bold as a sow, sitting on my very own sofa, she is! Waiting for him to come home, eh? Waiting to suck his little worthless worm for a few pennies, yes?'
Danielle stood slowly. There would be no contest with this woman, but she didn't care to kill her if she didn't have to. 'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I've made a mistake. I thought this was the home of my cousin Randolph Sykes. I beg your pardon, miss.'
But the woman was not to be appeased, and she reached for a hatchet that was leaning against the stove.
Danielle held out her hand. 'Miss, just let me go. It would be for the best.'
'What's the best is that William quit his whorin'. What's best is you die quickly and keep your trap shut about it.' Tillie ran her wrist across her nose, sniffed, and stepped into the parlour, hatchet raised.
