Minute Waltz

Dinner was a quiet affair that night, because the master had gone south on some business, and my grandmother was in bed with a cold. I say "quiet" in the sense that it was a calmer affair that it usually would have been, if Granny had been in the mood to get up and join us at the table. But she merely contented herself with lying there in her small, cozy alcove of a room adjoining the side kitchen, yelling for medicine and handkerchiefs every five minutes.

After the fifth bout of sneezing and coughing and loud, drawn-out prayers to God for redemption and predictions of imminent death, Oscar said brusquely, "Andre, I believe your grandmother has died at least seven or eight times since we started eating."

Rosalie, sitting to my right and in the act of lifting a large slice of bread to her mouth, looked like she wasn't sure whether to be horrified or amused. Oscar watched me, her blue eyes hard like a bird of prey's, but I knew bait when I saw it, saw the spark of mirth hidden there.

"I hope she has the common sense to shut the door before she does so," I called in the direction of the wheezing, and it stopped.

"I HEARD THAT!"

Oscar burst into a fit of laughter. I watched Rosalie out of the corner of my eye, watched as she finished stuffing the bread into her mouth, watched as she relaxed and one of the corners of her small mouth curled up. She looked almost angelic.

"Rosalie," said Oscar. "Take smaller bites."

The girl bit her lip, and the moment passed. "Sorry."

My grandmother wheezed again, and this time it sounded like she really was about to hack her lungs out. I put down my fork. "Excuse me," I murmured, pushing my chair back and heading to the kitchen to see if I couldn't get at least a cup of water.

True to form, Granny's long harangue about children these days and why hadn't I found a wife yet, and when would Oscar stop tearing off on all these hare-brained adventures and why on earth couldn't I clean up after myself when I ate took about half the hour. When I finally staggered back to the dining room, Rosalie was gone, and the dishes were mostly cleared away except for my portion, and the candles in the holders had been replaced.

"She finished eating while you were…away," Oscar remarked, noticing my gaze. Her own plate was gone, and she was sipping absentmindedly at a rapidly emptying glass of wine. The sounds of piano chords drifted faintly from the direction of the stairwell. "She's practicing. She's gotten quite good in the past month, don't you think?"

"You would know better than I." I took a sip of my wine, wondering if it was a good idea to ask for another glass. I could feel her eyes watching me from across the table, and tonight was one of those nights on which that gaze was almost tangible, as if I could reach out and touch the power and warmth and gentleness that her eyes held and which she did not even know.

I should be grateful, I thought instead, looking down at my plate. It is not every noble household where a servant boy is allowed to dine with his master at the same table.

"How is Granny?"

"Do you even need to ask?" I responded, and heard Oscar's low, melodious laugh in response. As if on cue, a sneeze resounded from the side kitchen. We looked at each other and laughed.

"I will miss her when I am away," she said.

I frowned. "Away? For what?"

Oscar didn't exactly blink, but I could feel the pause in her gaze all the same. "I expect to be recalled to Versailles for longer periods of time."

"You didn't tell me this."

"I was going to tell you. But things got…a little frenzied."

She didn't mean to say frenzied. I knew what she really meant to say, that there was the queen and there was a handsome man from a country up north called Sweden, and there was a war going on half a world away, and on the day he left, the queen was not the only woman in France who had wept for him.

I wanted to say, Fersen. But instead, I only said, "I see."

"You know how things are now, André. No one trusts anyone anymore. There are even quarrels in the Guard ranks, from what I'm told."

"And you spending more time there will change that…how?"

She looked stubborn. "The queen trusts me."

"Ah yes," I said. "But who trusts the queen?"

I was always too truthfully outspoken for my own good, and the set of her jaw told me that I'd send her on one of her murderous silences if I wasn't careful. I wisely decided not to say anything more, finishing my glass of wine and spearing a piece of soggy, unknown vegetable from my plate.

" 'God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh,' " she murmured at last. "Who penned that?"

"I have no idea," I said frankly, chewing my vegetable and wondering if it would suddenly sprout legs in my mouth. "Who?"

"Voltaire," Oscar said. "One of those old stuffy philosophers that my father would have me study and one that I would be all too happy to do without. But I think that on occasion, old stuffy philosophers have their uses."

I politely refrained from remarking that on occasion, she was crazy. But I held my tongue. "What are you going to do with Rosalie?" I said instead.

Silence fell again, and we could hear the piano again from the stairwell, this time jolting our awareness with a happy waltzing tune that seemed rather out of place for the darkened house at twilight.

"I don't know," Oscar said finally, brushing her hair back, a graceful gesture that was a mockery of the man's uniform which she wore. "It's getting dangerous here. She can't stay."

"But you don't want her to go."

Oscar looked down at her hands, and I scraped the last squishy vegetable off my plate. The sunset outside the windows was strange tonight, too – a phantom orange-gold that seemed to make everything warm and sleepy. "I don't know," she said again. "It's all…"

The waltz stopped.

"She can't stay here," Oscar said again, but I knew then she was not talking about Rosalie.

"No," I agreed. "She can't. Or at least, she doesn't think she can." I brought my eyes up to hers. "So instead she's going to run off to Versailles to a make-believe world that no longer really exists, and pretend."

She said nothing, but I knew from the set of her shoulders she was upset, as she slowly rose from her chair, staring pointedly at me. Take it back, André. Take it back, or else.

"I am not sorry for saying what I had to say," I said.

Her draw was lightning, a clean cut of empty air as she reached for scabbard and sword hilt, bringing her hand up and over the table, a cutting, slicing motion. I responded in kind before I could let myself think. Sword fighting, after all, was a skill of the soul connected to the body, an art for the spirit to overcome the mind, to act rather than react.

But as always, Oscar was quicker. It was only after I had met her blow for blow, stroke for stroke, that I looked down and realized that she was wearing no sword, and neither was I.

We stared at each other through the bleeding red-orange sunset, our empty hands curled into fists as if they were holding the hilts of our weapons – her imaginary sword blade pressed against the flesh of my throat, mine meeting hers in a bizarre cross, countering the fatal stroke.

The piano began again, a strange, flowing harmony of notes like water, and Oscar's hand wavered.

"Aren't we a little old for such games?" she said.

I let my hand drop to my side, turning away from her so that she couldn't see how my fingers were trembling. "I'll clear away the dishes."

"Give me time, André."

I stopped in the middle of stacking dirty china, gathering up the used wine glasses, my head bowed as befitting any common house servant. Rosalie's fingers slipped on one of the piano keys, and the note went sour, and the next chord didn't sound quite right.

"I would give you all the time in the world," I said, "if I held time in my hands."

A sneeze and coughing spasm from the rooms beyond, and I took the convenient excuse to slip out of the room, holding the dirty dishes and wondering if I had again made myself the biggest fool that Oscar had ever known. But if I was a fool, then better to play that part to the fullest, I supposed.

I deposited the dirty dishes in the kitchen and the maid appeared out of the alcove, yawning. I gave her a severe look and she sniffed, scrubbed dirty hands on her apron, and scuttled toward the dishes. I went to the door, poked my head out to the stairwell, projecting my line of sound upwards through the dust motes in the air.

"Rosalie?"

The piano gave a hiccup, stopped. "Yes? André?"

Something flickered against the large foyer window, something that might have been a wisp of cloud or a flock of fluttering birds, or just the sinking sun.

"Play that waltz again," I said. "I'd like to hear something cheerful, before the sun goes down."
 

30 April 2004