to try it on. Those wicked boys. Oh, play up, Julia. Say we made you do it. We did, didn’t we, Clem? We did, we made you. Look, we’ll go out and you put the nice dress on and the shawl over your arms, and we find you a veil. The veiled lady! Lady of mystery! Dress up as Marta, go stand on the balcony, fool the guests, whip off the veil at the last second, revealing all. Of course she’d had no intention of showing herself out there. She just wanted a chance to wear the dress for five minutes. It was much too long, of course – she was child-sized – and tight across the bosom, but so perfect, peacock-blue with lighter blue flowers round the low neckline, short puffed sleeves and three layers of skirt. But then Marta had come running in and screamed that her wedding day was ruined and she hated everyone, everyone, and you’ve used my tortoiseshell comb too, oh that’s just too much, bursting into tears and hitting Elisio hard on the side of his head. Get out! Get out, all of you! Get out get out get out! You’ll have to wash it. The comb too.
Nothing would ever change.
Julia drew back the curtain in Madame Soulie’s room and observed her face in a large oval mirror. There’d been a day, it must have been before her fifth birthday, when she looked into the cradle at a chubby brown baby with lips like a flower and a cheek as ripe as a peach. She saw her own dark hand moving towards the round bald head, startling against the white cloths. Elisio. Doña Inés somewhere high above her and smelling faintly of flowers drew in her breath with a high sharp sound, the air changed, and some knowledge of profound difference was finally born. Solana, then still strong and quick, had grabbed her arm quite roughly and said, No! – as if she’d done something wrong. She’d cried. Later Solana gave her a pear. Don’t touch baby.
If I could just – would it be possible, she wondered habitually, if I could just shave – but no, she’d tried and it was not possible, she’d have to shave fifty times a day for it to work. And there’d still be everything else. She remembered a moment, looking into her own eyes in another mirror, razor in hand. The horrible pale flap of skin suddenly nude above her upper lip showed all the more clearly the jut and thrust of it. She’d burst into tears. She never bothered now. Best just keep her hair nice, comb it gracefully towards the temples, down into her beard, keep it nice as she could. You couldn’t hold back the sea. Her face in the mirror was calm, the hair a bit of a mess. A pain burned in her chest. Am I human? Am I actually human? And if I’m not, what does it mean? Ape-woman, bear-woman, human. Thing. Still me, still the Julia creature. Hush, silly girl, said Solana’s voice. The good Lord made you, that’s all that matters. And she followed the thought till it billowed and swooped into a mighty chasm where she was afraid to go.
Madame Soulie opened the door and caught her crying, looking at herself in the mirror. Julia dropped the curtain.
‘What’s this?’ said Madame Soulie, striding into the room. ‘Crying? Oh no no, we mustn’t cry.’
‘If it’s the mothers that have done wrong,’ said Julia, pulling herself together, ‘why does the curse fall on the children?’
Madame Soulie took her by the arm and led her back to the parlour. ‘I’ve often wondered about that,’ she said, ‘and I’m afraid to say I have no idea. The dress is wonderful on you. Stand here in the light and let me pin the hem. And—’ She darted away, rummaged behind a pile of clothes that completely obliterated one of the armchairs. ‘—I’ve got some lovely little boots that might fit. Where are they? Much too small for me.’
Julia wiped her nose and gazed at the pomegranate leaves hanging down outside the window. Wouldn’t make any difference what she wore.
‘Now!’ said Madame Soulie in a tone dripping promise.
‘Should I stand here?’ asked Julia. A bird landed among the leaves and stared at her with tiny black bead eyes.
‘Julia.’
She turned. The boots were dark red with black trim and pointed toes, old but well cared for, the leather soft and clean.
‘They’re beautiful,’ Julia said. ‘Whose were they?’
‘A child.’ Madame Soulie held them at arms’ length. ‘Grew out of them. Her mother was in a show at the Charles. Try them on.’
Julia sat down and put them on. Her feet slipped into them as if they’d always belonged to her.
‘Walk up and down,’ said Madame Soulie. ‘Oh, look at your tiny foot! It’s like a child’s foot.’
‘They’re perfect. Thank you!’
‘And they fit?’
‘Perfectly. Can I keep them on?’
‘Of course you can. Now stand still.’ Madame Soulie knelt to gather up the hem of the lilac dress. ‘Sometimes,’ she said, ‘a curse can be lifted.’
‘Someone tried once,’ Julia said sadly. Remembering Solana burning something smelly, bathing her in salt.
Madame Soulie stuck three or four pins into her mouth. ‘It has to be someone with the power,’ she said through narrowed lips, ‘not just anyone.’ She shook the material. ‘There’s a man I know.’
Julia looked down on the crown of Madame Soulie’s head. She’d put something on it for the colour but the grey was coming through. ‘He couldn’t help me,’ Julia said.
‘Probably not, chérie.’ Madame Soulie looked up, drawing a pin out of her mouth.
‘This man,’ said Julia a little later. ‘What else can he do?’
‘Gris-gris, fortunes. You know.’
‘He tells fortunes?’
‘He does.’ Madame Soulie rose heavily to her feet. ‘Would you like to go and see him? I can take you.’
‘Really?’
Madame Soulie smiled. ‘Leave it to me.’
Rates took her to the French market, then to a big store on the Rue des Grands Hommes. They went next morning early, she in her new red boots, walking with her gloved hand resting on his arm, watching the streets through the mesh of her veil. Women with baskets on their heads walked ahead of them. They passed an oyster stand and she wanted to stop, a man was playing a harp, another an accordion. Rates hurried her on nervously to the market on the levee, but when they got there her nerve faltered. It was the noise, a clicking of bones, a plucking of strings, the yelling of wares and cackling of hens, the grumbling of wheels on stone. A massive press of people jostled in the aisles, slaves and sailors, rough men and ladies of quality. Someone knocked into her and she tightened her grip on Rates’s arm. ‘The colours!’ she said, sticking close. ‘The flowers!’
‘Yes, of course.’ He hurried her on. ‘We’ll buy some flowers later if there’s time.’
But it was all such a rush so of course they didn’t. In the clothes market she chose ribbons, then it was on to the Rue des Grands Hommes without a break, where Rates told the woman in the shop she was his grand-daughter who’d been ill and was sensitive to light. She picked out a yellow and white corset and some rose-pink fabric and they were back in no time. It was as if someone had opened a door and she’d got just one glimpse of something wild and exotic before it closed again. Sitting at the table in the yard, she drew a plan of how she would have her costume. Pearl buttons. Six tucks on the skirt. For her hair, feathers and a single white gardenia. She wrote it all down, listing
