Madeleine Is Sleeping by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum Read Free Book Online Page A

chamberpot, an abandoned bedsheet, for the swollen arm of a drowned woman.

Moral
    FROM THE REEDS , a voice says: And so the gardener killed the carp. The widow wished him to.
    M. Pujol asks, How did you know?
    A stone is sent splashing into the water. Madeleine says, This pond doesn't have any fish.
    For the first time, M. Pujol notices this. No, he says, it doesn't.
    Who is the carp? Madeleine asks.
    Oh, M. Pujol says. No one. That story is only to say, I'm afraid of the widow.

Nothing
    THE GIRLS OF THE VILLAGE have all disappeared. Who will bring in the goats? Who will set the table? Mothers stand in doorways, looking provoked. Their daughters are nowhere to be found, although the twilight is filled with names: Marianne! Sophie! Emma! Beatrice!
    Those girls. Wedded to mischief. What will we do with them?
    A cry rises up from the far field: Aha!
    Papa has discovered them.
    And he will bellow; he will make them hurry home. The tall grasses parting, their caps gone askew, they'll come spilling out, red-faced, mock-penitent, grinning with secrets.
    But all is quiet. Papa has not made a sound.
    He is too surprised to speak. Aha! he had shouted, and at once the girls stiffened—hands outstretched, knees deep in the grass. Now Beatrice sits upright, blinking wildly, petals shedding from her face, her breasts, the dark fall of her hair. She has been laid out on the grass; she has been strewn with flowers. The girls have been tending to her: they touched her skin, and spread her hair; they held a mirror beneath her nose.
    Before Papa has even the breath to ask, the girls answer his question:
    Nothing, they murmur. It's nothing

Game
    BEATRICE IS ENRAPTURED by rules, especially those of her own making. In the beginning, her rules were simple enough to remember. She had told the other girls: when visiting Madeleine, one must have very clean hands. One must bring her small gifts, such as ribbons or nosegays. When one approaches, the eyes are lowered, the lips whispering, Hush. Then, if you are old enough, and pretty, you might be allowed to arrange her hair on the pillowcase, or stroke her temples with your fingertips. While younger girls should prepare themselves by standing nearby and murmuring, How beautiful.
    Now that I think about it, Beatrice had said, you had better practice on me first. That way, if you make any mistakes, I can correct you.
    Touch me there, she recommends. And speak more softly. Ow! she complains. You must be more careful. And when you hurt me, you should make up for it with kisses.
    The girls listen, and obey. But try as they might, they never seem to master the rules. Someone inevitably laughs; or a pair of fingers gets tangled in Beatrice's hair—all accidents, merely. But this is why practice is necessary, and punishment, too. You must turn ten somersaults. You must be tied to that tree. You must take off your dress and run around in a circle, singing.
    And then, the girls ask, gasping and aglow, will you let us see Madeleine?
    But even this question forms its own mysterious rule, the girls asking out of neither curiosity nor need but simply habit, in a game where one rule begets another at a pace so dizzying that the outcome has altogether ceased to matter.

Recognition
    ARE YOU CERTAIN that's me? Madeleine asks, examining the photograph: an unsmiling child punishing a naked man.
    The photographer coats a glass plate with collodion; he nods, abstractedly.
    When you disappear behind the camera, I tell my eyes: look forgiving. 1 tell my mouth: appear noble. Where does she go, the person who is forgiving and noble and tender?
    Adrien, feeding the plate into the dark maw of his box, says, I'm simply taking your picture.
    The me in this photograph is not me, the girl insists. She is Madeleine's ghost, pinned here to the paper.
    Adrien lurches dangerously; his equipment sways: Are you ready?
    But his subject is not satisfied: Who is that person in the picture?
    One, two, three, Adrien counts.
    Is there