Finding Emilie Read online

  LILI’S MIND WAS in turmoil the following morning as she jostled in the carriage heading to the Abbaye de Panthémont. She’d liked what Monsieur Rousseau said at first. It was encouraging to think that her own ideas could be right even if the church said otherwise, but Rousseau had truly gone too far. The cathedral of Notre-Dame wasn’t just a building. It was God’s house, and the Abbaye de Panthémont was too. They weren’t built to enshrine false ideas. The sheer size of them ought to prove that. They had to honor something right and true. They simply had to. And what about all those martyrs’ gruesome deaths—it wouldn’t be fair at all if the religion they died for wasn’t the true one.

  Annoyance flickered across Lili’s face. Maman had promised she could bring her questions to the salon whenever she wished, and now, when just one visit had given her hundreds more things to ask about, she was on her way back to the abbey instead. And worse, Delphine wasn’t there to grumble with her about it. Delphine’s sore throat had developed into chills and a fever, and she was so listless that Maman allowed her to stay home a few more days. To avoid dealing with Baronne Lomont, who kept a close eye on Lili’s whereabouts, Maman had sent Lili back alone.

  She glanced down. She had gotten no further that the first page of Emile, which she had taken from the table where Maman had left it. “Everything is good as it leaves the hands of the Author of all; everything degenerates when it falls into the hands of man,” he had written. Everything? A vision of Maman singing at the harp while Delphine played the piano came to mind, and Lili shook her head. Monsieur Rousseau was obviously wrong about a great number of things.

  The carriage slowed to a stop, and a moment later the footman opened the door. “Horse came up lame,” he said. “I’m going to bring another from the abbey. It’s not far. Mademoiselle would prefer to stay in the carriage?”

  The golden light beckoning through the open door on a beautiful fall morning made her put the book down. “I’d like to wait outside,” she told him.

  Descending from the carriage, she stood in front of the walls of a large building she did not recognize. “Where am I?”

  “We had to come another way,” the driver answered. “Some disturbance near Saint Benoit, so I took Rue de l’Université instead.”

  Lili walked around to the other side of the carriage. Small, open fields with low fences and tiny buildings lay in front of her, extending as far as she could see in the direction of the Seine. This is Paris? she wondered, making a full circle that revealed nothing but a jagged line of gray rooftops in every direction.

  Along the usual route, walls and buildings cast permanent shadows, and rattling carriages and boisterous voices made a constant din all the way to the abbey gate. Here, the air was dreamlike in its quiet. A harvest bonfire on the far side of the field permeated the air with a scent that seemed more holy to Lili than the incense at mass. The horse nickered and bobbed its head, as if it were blessing her thought.

  Perhaps I’ve made a wish without knowing it. If life were a fairy tale, Lili thought, perhaps a magic spell caused the horse to come up lame, so that she didn’t ride by without noticing that an enchanted field had suddenly appeared on the way to the abbey. But reality seemed magical enough, producing this small patch of the natural world just when Rousseau had made her want to think in new ways about exactly such things. It’s like the whole city is my mind, Lili thought. It’s all been built by others, except this one spot where I can try right now to see things for myself.

  She knew she wasn’t in a fairy tale, but she was going to make a wish anyway. “I wish to understand what Monsieur Rousseau means by the inner light,” she said, softly enough so the driver could not overhear. She shut her eyes. Larks warbled. Rooks squawked in a stand of trees. The odor of mown hay carried by a puff of breeze wove itself into the spicy scent of windfall apples from a garden on the other side of a stone wall. Then she opened her eyes again and took in the azure sky, where clouds bloomed into great explosions of white over flat, gray bases.

  Had Rousseau meant that the inner light was a way of seeing be yond oneself and recognizing holiness everywhere? Even in places where the buildings and streets had overtaken all but the last patch of open ground?

  Lili took in one more deep breath and sent it back into the air. “Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains,” Rousseau had told her. She looked at the distant outline of the abbey over the rooftops. I’m not sure I understand “free,” she thought. So far I’ve learned more about chains.

  When servants from the abbey arrived with Abbess MarieCatherine’s sedan chair to transport Lili the rest of the way, she didn’t want to get in. If the street isn’t fit for walking, these servants shouldn’t have to do it either, she thought, especially carrying a gilded box with another human being inside. She had legs she wanted to use, feet that suddenly wanted to take off and pirouette down the street, but that wasn’t the way things were supposed to be done. She settled for giving each of her carriers a broad smile Baronne Lomont would have found most inappropriate, and then she climbed in and sat back on the black velvet seat for the ride.

  ARRIVING IN HER room at the abbey, Lili missed Delphine with such intensity that the hair on her scalp prickled and her heart seemed to forget a beat. Since she had turned twelve in September, Delphine would be quick to follow; by now they slept in the same bed less and less, because Lili stayed up late with her books, and Delphine complained about the light from the lamp. At the abbey, just like at home, Lili usually finished her toilette as quickly as she could, then sat watching Delphine dawdle over her own. Delphine always wanted her hair and dress just so, fussing over the tiniest details of her appearance so as not to risk Anne-Mathilde and Joséphine’s scorn—though anyone could see that was hopeless. But despite how unlike they were, she and Delphine went through their days side by side, and tonight, for the first time since they came to the convent, Lili would be sleeping in their room alone.

  She went to Delphine’s bed and picked up a small white pillow in the shape of a dog—a gift from Maman after Delphine cried about having to leave Tintin behind when she stayed in the abbey. Lili put the dog pillow on her own bed and gave it an affectionate pat. Then it was time for the routine: hat and boots off, dress changed, soft shoes buttoned. Go down the hall, greet Abbess Marie-Catherine, make the sign of the cross, pray, feign interest in catechism. Then, finally, hours later, the moment of release, when she could lie down in her room to sort out her thoughts in blessed privacy.

  THE PRESENCE OF someone in her room was so oppressive that Lili sensed it as she walked down the hall after her lessons. Sister Jeanne-Bertrand stood up when Lili entered. “I am to take you directly to the abbess,” she said.

  “But I greeted her already, when I came back,” Lili protested.

  “With deceit in your heart!” Anger pushed the nun’s voice so forcefully through her nose that it sounded as if her skull was vibrating. She stood up, and with the full force of her hand, she slapped Lili across the face.

  “What deceit?” Lili’s voice trembled more with rage than pain. She touched her hot cheek, feeling the welt rise. Mon Dieu, can these nuns read my mind? She had barely spoken a word since she returned, and now it seemed even silence wasn’t going to protect her.

  “This!” Sister Jeanne-Bertrand hissed, picking up Emile and shaking it. “How did you come to have a forbidden book?”

  A forbidden book? She’d gotten into the sedan chair without a thought to what she had left behind in the coach. The momentary thrill of having conversed at Maman’s salon with someone important enough to have his work banned by the church gave way to panic. “I—”

  Think first. Lili could sense Maman whispering to her. Most people are not receptive to the truth. She took a breath and looked squarely at the nun. “Someone left it on a table in our parlor. Maman doesn’t know I took it, and I’m not even sure she knew it was left there.”

  Her cheek was throbbing, but she managed to swallow, despite what felt like a rock in her
throat. “I didn’t know it was a bad book. I only looked at the first few words in the carriage. And I always bring something from home to read in the evenings, that’s all.” The nun’s eyes glinted and narrowed. “Before I say my prayers,” Lili added, hating herself for pandering, but desperate to banish the terrifying pall the nun had cast over the room.

  “Prayers indeed, with your immortal soul in peril!” Sister Jeanne-Bertrand shook with indignation. “Bringing a book that blasphemes our Lord into a place dedicated to His glory?”

  Lili touched her hot and swollen cheek as her anger boiled up toward the loveless nun who had invaded her room, toward Sister Thérèse for disrespecting someone as gentle and sweet as Delphine, and toward all the girls like Anne-Mathilde and Joséphine, who composed their faces in pious contemplation one minute and whispered malicious gossip the next. I felt closer to God on that road than I ever have here, Lili thought.

  Say it. Tell her.

  She bowed her head and shut her eyes, hearing Maman’s words again. Whenever you listen to your own heart, think twice before speaking your mind. “Oui, Sister Jeanne-Bertrand,” she murmured before falling silent and letting the nun lead her down the hall to the abbess.

  WITHIN AN HOUR Lili had been banished to a tiny basement room, furnished with a rickety cot, a low stool, and a chamber pot that stank from years of poor cleaning. The room had been permanently darkened by a heavy curtain drawn across the only source of light, a high window just above ground level. A painted crucifix with an agonized Jesus, dripping blood from his crown of thorns, hung on the far wall at an angle that made him appear to be looking right at Lili as he died for her sins. Unnerved, she stepped away from his gaze.

  Sister Jeanne-Bertrand placed a single lit candle on the stool and handed Lili a catechism. “As the abbess said, you will receive nothing to eat until you have memorized ‘The Means of Sanctifying Study’ and recited it to her satisfaction. I will come back in a few hours to check on your progress. You should be able to master the first part by then.”

  “How long will I be here?” Lili’s voice trembled.

  “Until you have been rescued from error,” the nun replied. A chill went down Lili’s spine. Sister Jeanne-Bertrand stood at the door, brandishing a large iron key. “It’s up to you,” she said, locking the door behind her.

  The air compressed. I’m completely alone, Lili realized. Not even Delphine knows where I am. So far Lili had managed to keep back most of her tears, but now she sobbed so deeply her stomach convulsed. She lay down on the bed and shut her eyes, thinking that if she could sleep, she could forget where she was.

  How could life turn around so suddenly? Just a few hours before, she had sensed the holy light of the world, and now, in the name of God, that light was reduced to a thin ray seeping below the curtain onto the gray wall. She was hurt and imprisoned, and no one knew—at least no one who would care.

  She shivered. Every one of her thoughts frightened her. Best to get away from them by beginning her penance. She stood up and moved the candle closer to the bed, trying not to think about Jesus hanging above her, watching. “Sanctifying Study,” she murmured, leafing through the pages until she found her assignment. “As your studies are now among your chief duties, it is of great importance that you sanctify them by directing them to the glory of God and your own spiritual advantage,” the text read. On and on it went. “Godly pursuits … spiritual treasure … divine mercy. Your thoughts are bad. Your soul is in peril. Read, and save yourself.”

  Lili took in the words for a moment and then, keeping her finger on the page, she closed the book over it. “As your studies are now among your chief duties, it is of great importance that you sanctify them by directing them to the glory of God and your own spiritual advantage,” she recited from memory. Reopening the book, she checked the text and found she had remembered it perfectly.

  “To sanctify your studies you should observe three things. First, you should view them as next in importance to your spiritual duties. Submitting to the will of God, obeying your parents, and doing justice to your own God-given soul require that you do all you can to acquire useful knowledge, which, next to virtue, is your most valuable possession.” Useful knowledge? Lili thought back to the world she had glimpsed that morning. I can make more use of what I saw in that field. “Wasting time and laziness are very serious faults,” she read on.

  Wasting time? That’s what this is. She put the book down but picked it up again after a moment. “It’s not a waste if it buys my way out of here,” she said in a low voice, surprised at how even a whisper filled the tiny cell.

  Lili’s voice rose as she added to her recitation. “Consult God more than your books,” the catechism said. “Do not commit the error of vanity when you see the fruit of your learning. Knowledge is a gift from the Almighty, and should not be attributed to your intellect or hard work.” Dear Monsieur Rousseau, she dictated mentally to the air. I thought I should let you know I have just learned that God wrote Emile. And right now, I certainly wish he hadn’t.”

  She felt her black mood sliding into giddiness and let it happen. “Pride, vanity, and a desire to be better than others, or to attract admiration, are motives that reason and religion should teach you to renounce,” she said, marching three steps across her cell and then back again, as if to the drumbeat of a military band. She checked the text. “Oh, sorry—that’s despise and renounce. Mustn’t forget the importance of despising!”

  The thud in her chest was so sudden and strong it pushed Lili down onto the bed. “What am I doing?” She put her hands in front of her face. “I believe in you, dear God,” she whispered, feeling her hot breath trickle through her fingers. “And in your Son.” She let her eyes go up to the crucifix she had been deliberately avoiding. “With all my heart I know you are there, but these words don’t have your love in them at all.”

  Wiping away with her fingers the tears making their way down her face, she looked up at Jesus. “If what the nuns say is true, and this is really what you want of me, please help me understand, and I’ll accept. But if it isn’t, can you please help me get out of this horrible place?”

  Lili got up and paced the few steps of the cell, solemnly reciting the text she had now learned in its entirety. When she said it a second time without mistakes, she banged on the door until her hands ached, but no one answered. With nothing more to do, she lay down on the cot and fell asleep.

  She woke to the sound of a key in the door. “I’ve brought a new candle,” Sister Jeanne-Bertrand said. “So you can continue your work.”

  “It must have gone out when I dozed off,” Lili said, rubbing her eyes to see the nun better in the dim light.

  “You were asleep?” Sister Jeanne-Bertrand sounded as horrified as if she had just walked in on the devil hovering over Lili’s bed. “You were supposed to be working.”

  Lili got up and smoothed her skirt. “I finished,” she said, casting a glance up at Jesus for support. “I’m ready to see the abbess.”

  A predatory glint flickered in the nun’s eyes.

  “Well then,” she said, “let’s find out.”

  ABBESS MARIE-CATHERINE LOOKED up from the papers on her desk. “Is there some problem?” Her eyes darted between Lili and Sister Jeanne-Bertrand in search of an explanation for Lili’s return in only a few hours.

  “She says she’s memorized the whole thing,” the nun said.

  The abbess stood up. “If this is a ploy—”

  “To sanctify your studies you should observe three things,” Lili broke in. She droned her way through the essay, and when she got to the end, she cast a quick glance at Sister Jeanne-Bertrand. Her face was flushed and her eyes had narrowed to slits. “Is this some kind of trick?” she hissed, looking at the abbess as if she too might be sensing an evil presence lurking in the room.

  Marie-Catherine’s face was expressionless behind her black patch. “You are quite a clever girl,” she said. “But you haven’t finished.”

  “That
’s the end,” Lili protested. “That’s all you asked me to do.”

  The abbess arched her eyebrows and wagged her finger as she read from the catechism. “I offer to you, My God, in honor of the actions and grievous sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ …” Sister Jeanne-Bertrand crossed herself. The abbess looked at Lili. “You did not memorize the prayer also?”

  “I didn’t know I was supposed to,” Lili said, in a husky mix of pleading and rage.

  Abbess Marie-Catherine stared at her without a flicker of emotion. “If you had taken pains to think about what you were memorizing, you would have wanted to pray,” she said, “and you would have been grateful to see the prayer right below. From what I’ve observed, if you had read it a few times you would be able to recite it. Can you?”

  “I prayed in my own way to understand God’s message.” Lili stared at her feet.

  The abbess frowned. “That is unwise. Look at me.” She waited for Lili to raise her eyes. “When you keep your prayers to yourself, we in the church have no means to know when you are falling into error.” She glanced down at her papers. “I’m quite busy. Go back to the room and say the prayer twenty times. And—” She consulted the catechism. “‘Pride, vanity, and a desire to be better than others, or to attract admiration, are motives that reason and religion should teach you to renounce and despise.’ It’s clear you were not moved by this advice. You have not fulfilled your task until you show me you have been improved by it.” She closed the catechism. “You may go.”

  * * *

  ALONE IN HER cell, Lili slumped to the floor under the crucifix, leaning her back against the cold stone wall. Her mind felt as dark and blank as the curtain blocking the fading afternoon light. I can’t memorize any more, she thought. I just can’t make myself do it. And even if she did, was there something else the abbess would tell her that anyone truly repentant would have discovered without being told? Is this just a game to keep me here? Will I keep falling short again and again?