Paris, March 1898
Little Fox,
As I sat on the roof today (you should look up more often, I’ve mentioned roofs in at least half a dozen of my letters, which makes me fear you aren’t getting all of them) and watched you pretend nothing was wrong as you carefully kept Inge from going inside, I wondered how you felt about what you’d just seen.
You do so much to shield Inge from it. Maybe because you see the way it’s eating away at Maher and Dávid. Hollowing them out. Hardening them.
How long do you think you can protect her?
Who is protecting you?
After she left, you leaned against the wall, staring at nothing, so still and silent you could have been the Venus de Milo.
But that’s wrong. I went to the Louvre yesterday, and while she is captivating, I don’t like imagining you without your arms. I want you whole and complete. I want you soft and warm and breathing.
Besides, you’re not a Venus. A Winged Victory, perhaps.
Standing tall and proud at the bow of a ship.
I stood longest in front of L’me brisant les liens qui l’attachent à la terre, though.
The soul breaking the ties that bind her to earth.
What relief she finds, freed at last by death, untethered from the pain of living.
Have you seen it? Did your soul tug you toward it in recognition?
But you’re not going to the Louvre, are you?
As I watched you shield Inge, I thought of my sister. Have I mentioned her? She left me when she was only sixteen. My anchor to the world. My purpose. Off to another home, held by someone I would never truly know, moving on into a life I could never be part of.
I’m glad she’s dead. It brings me such relief, knowing her heart is stilled and her body rendered meaningless. Her soul, broken from the ties that bind it to earth.
As you stared at the space left in Inge’s wake, did you wish you were freed from those ties, too?
Beyond agony and pain and failure? I couldn’t tell.
You never weep, or shake, or vomit. One would think you unmoved by the scene behind the door you blocked.
(Indeed, many of the detectives remark on your cold marble affect, as though you are a piece they might stand in front of, hands clasped behind their back, pretending they could ever comprehend the art of you with only a few moments of staring.)
I know what was behind that door. If you were unmoved, perhaps you’ve broken at last.
But I don’t think you’re unfeeling. Beneath the stiff satin of your fitted jacket, beneath that elegantly pinned hat, beneath those layers of skirts, yours is the stillness of rage. Of determination. Of a predator lying in wait, hoping for the perfect moment to snap her jaws closed.
Looking at you, I feel it all. I am sated when I can see you, when I can experience everything through your carefully held expressions, when I can read an entire month of anger and despair and frustration in the single clench of your delicate fist. I am sated, and still I want more.
I nearly called out to you. Just to watch you look up and see me. But I didn’t call out to my sister as she walked away. I let her go, until it was too late.
Will I do that for you?
Do you want me to?
Kind Regards,
Diavola