My name is Esme Dauphine Fleur de Lys and I am 223 years old. I was born in 1782 the youngest of four older brothers. We were dirt poor bastards with an invisible mother who worked eighty-hour work weeks.
Isabeau, my mother, once told me – on one of the impossibly rare dates she had time to speak with me – that there were only two ways for a girl to be able to feed herself in France during unrest: become a prostitute or become a street urchin. I almost laughed. There was no way I’d be spreading my legs for any amount of money. And though there were workhouses, I knew I’d be spreading them just the same for a terrible job and little pay. So, an urchin I became. I followed my brothers around the city – Yves, Benoit, Henri, and Auben – and, thanks to their tutelage, I quickly became adept at petty theft. Sure, somedays I’d be robbed and go to sleep with a painfully hungry belly, but for the most part I was full and wild and happy.
But easy times never last. You know that. I didn’t at the time, but I sure know now.
The French revolution was cumulating in a bloody exodus the day I turned seventeen. My brothers took up the call and, since the only thing I knew how to do was follow them, I took up the call as well. By the time the barricades arrived, I was subjected to many horrific ‘firsts’ that no human should ever have to experience. I watched three of my brothers die needless, painful deaths and, to this very moment, I grieve the innocent girl I lost that day.
Between rifle volleys, I flitted, in shock, between the wounded, offering what little help or comfort I could. The nauseating smell of rot, pennies, and raw meat overwhelmed the front lines of the barricade, but I put on my big girl stomach so I did not vomit; I did not falter. The things I saw were beyond the pale of horrific: gore, fear, pain, humiliation… But it was while I knelt over Benoit, the only brother I had left, that the deep belief that there are things that are worse than death settled over me like a heavy blanket.
“Tout va bien, mon frère,” I whispered to him, fighting back determined tears. It will be ok, I reassured. “Regarde-moi, regarde-moi.” Look at me. “Ne meurs pas, doux frère. S’il vous plaît. Tu vivras, Benoit, s’il te plait. Vous vivrez!” You will live.
His large, grey eyes rolled around to find my own and focused on me. He did not cry out as I stripped him of his vest and shirt. But his forehead beaded with perspiration and I could almost feel the hot agony radiating forth from his eyes like a furnace that scalded my face. His right arm was shattered from the fall off the top of the barricade and already starting to bruise, the blood within pulsing freely, no longer confined to veins. With every beat of his heart, blood bubbled up like weak geysers from three separate holes in his abdomen and one in his chest, perilously close to his heart. I wept freely then as I looked upon his broken body.
“Ah Beniot. N’ayez pas peur. Je suis là. Esmé est là.” Do not be afraid, I beseeched. He made a soft grunting noise then, and a small trickle of blood emerged from his mouth and ran down the side of his chin. A tortured wail rose up in my throat as I thought him dead. But before it could rent its horrible way out of my mouth, Benoit suddenly grasped my forearm with such strength the wail in my throat quivered and died.
“Je n’ai pas peur, soeur Esme. Pas de la mort. Eloignez-vous de moi, je vous en supplie, et laissez-moi mourir en paix.” He said violently in a great and terrible voice.
I am not afraid, sister Esme. Not of death. Be gone from me, I beg you, and let me die in peace.
People say many things while they stare mortality in its hollow eyes and wait for death – I should know, given how many men I’ve sat with while they waited. But few wish you gone from their side in order to die alone. In fact, when I think about it now, during my time on the barricades, all the dying men I encountered begged me to stay with them, to hold their hand, to not leave until they were at last sleeping. None wished to wait for their appointment with the Reaper alone. I shook my head, refusing to believe he wanted me gone, my tears falling upon his face.
“Non-sens. Jamais. Je ne vous laisserai pas seuls dans cette tâche.” Nonsense, I whispered to him and stroked his sweaty blonde hair away from his impossibly young face. I will not leave you, I told him.
Suddenly, Benoit’s eyes swiveled from me to something behind me, just over my shoulder. He began to shake and tried to pull his hand from my own. His eyes were wide with unrestrained horror and his chest heaved as if he were trying to scream. But I was naïve then, so I held onto his hand even harder, thinking the fright of death had consumed him.
“Ne me touche pas, Esmé. S’il vous plaît! Tu ne comprends pas. Aller! Aller! Avant qu’il ne soit trop tard.”
Do not touch me, Esme. Please! You do not understand. Go! Go! Before it is too late.
But by then it was too late. His eyes glazed over, his hand went limp in my own, he let out his last breath with a mumble, and he died.
A mumble. That is what I first told myself in the weeks following his death. A mumble. But I was naïve then, as I said. I’m not any longer. It was no mumble. It was a short sentence, a name, a curse.
Looking back, I wish I had have heeded him. I wish I had left him alone to die. I wish desperately I had not clung to his hand. But hindsight is a terrible taskmaster and there is nothing I can do about it now. Paint me with your blackest brush, but my feelings will forever remain the same: I wish I had left. I wish I had left.
Ichor. He passes through our touch. You are his now.
His mumble; his last words.
Ichor.
I stood and wiped my eyes with trembling hands and looked down upon the last person that made me feel safe and welcome and worthy in this filthy life. I wanted to stand there and weep until all the water in my body was gone and tears of blood carved their brackish paths down my face. But I could not, for a strange force was turning my body away from the vision of Benoit.
A gentleman in a grey morning suit and matching top hat was smiling at me from afar; too far for anyone to make out, yet I saw him in perfect detail. I felt nothing then, not even numbness, as I observed him and he observed me.
His eyes were hidden by the brim of his hat, but I could still see the rest of his face: his strong jaw, his wide smile, his pale skin, his red lips. I saw that he was tall and confident as he rested his weight upon his decorative walking stick, one foot crossed over the other. His manner screamed ease and comfort.
“Aimer…” Love. He purred in a rich baritone that made my eardrums shiver. I shouldn’t have been able to hear him through all the manic chaos between us, but I did. And in that instant, I did love. I loved him.
“Aimer…” I felt my lips move of their own accord and heard my voice travel to the gentleman.
I should have heeded Benoit when he begged me to leave him.
My God, forgive me, I wish I had left.
***
I’m sitting in my small apartment and the sun is setting. There is so much more to this story but it will have to wait until tomorrow because the sun is setting. Please, no, the sun is setting. And the terrors of the night are salivating in anticipation of the dark that is mere minutes away.