Emma Donoghue - Frog Music: A Novel

FROG
MUSIC

A Novel

EMMA DONOGHUE

For Margaret Lonergan,
friend and muse for a quarter of a century

CONTENTS

Sitting on the edge of the bed in the front room, Blanche stoops to rip at the laces of her gaiters. Dors, min ptit quinquin Her husky voice frays to a thread on the second high note. She clears her throat, rasping away the heat.

A train hurtles north from San Jose. The light from the locomotives headlamp jabs through the long gap between the peeling window frame and the green blind, illuminating the room for Blanche: the shabby bureau, the bedstead, and Jenny, lolling against the scarred headboard. The Eight Mile House shakes like cardboard as the freight cars rattle by. Here at San Miguel Station, theyre right at the southern boundarythe last gaspof San Francisco.

Two days Blanche and Jenny have been boarding with the McNamaras, auld acquaintance to Jenny but still virtually strangers to Blanche. How much longer will Blanche be stuck in this four-room shack, she wonders, on the parched outskirts of the outskirts of the City? And how will she decide when its even halfway safe to go back?

Blanche has got the left gaiter off now, and the boot below it, but the laces on the other one have snagged, and in the light of the single candle stub she cant find the knot; her long nails pick at the laces.

Sleep, my little child, my little chick, my fat grape. The old tune comes more sweetly now, the notes like pinpricks. A silly Picard rhyme her grandmother used to sing to Blanche in the tiny attic in Paris.

Dors, min ptit quinquin, min ptit pouchin Jenny slides the refrain back at her like a lazy leaf in a river.

It still amazes Blanche how fast this young woman can pick up a song on first hearing.

How does the rest of it go? Jenny asks, up on one elbow, brown cheeks sparkling with sweat. Her flesh from nose to brows is puffy, darkening. Shell have a pair of black eyes by morning.

But Blanche doesnt want to think about that. Jenny never harps on whats past, does she? She wears her bruises like parade gear, and they fade fast.

Blanche sits up straighter on the edge of the bed and sings on.

Shut your trap, little baby, before I shut it for you, Jenny translates very loosely, nodding. Guess most lullabies boil down to that.

And Blanche is suddenly winded by an image of Ptit, wherever he is. A stern hand coming down to shut his trap. If only she knew the baby was all right: just that much. Has Jenny ever in her life stopped to think before opening her own goddamn trap?

But her friends eyes are half sealed already, feline as she settles back on the limp pillows. Above the nightshirt borrowed from McNamara, Jennys battered face is flattening toward sleep.

Blanche hauls up her skirt and sets her right ankle on her left knee to get a better look at the tangled lace. The gritty canvas of the gaiter clings to her calf like skin that wont be sloughed. Mud flecking the floorboards, the dingy sheets; the whole shack is probably crawling with fleas and lice. Blanche bends closer to make out the knot. Another few seconds and shell have it undone. Her lungs fill, stretching rib cage, skin, corset, bodice, as she croons again: Te mfras du chagrin

The cracks come so hard Blanche takes them for thunder. The hot sky must have finally exploded, forking its blades into the eaves of the Eight Mile House. Oh, she shouldnt have been singing, she thinks with a superstitious shiver; shes brought on a storm.

Quest-ce Is that the start of a question from Jenny, or just a gasp?

The candles out, and its so dark here in the hinterlands. Wait, Blanche tells Jenny, lurching to her feet with her right boot still on. A sulfurous tang on the airshes never known a thunderstorm to smell like that. Fireworks? But what is there to celebrate on the fourteenth of September? Outside, the dogs of San Miguel Station bark in furious chorus. What can blow out a candle? Knock it over, spatter its burning waxis that whats running down her jaw?

John! Thats Ellen McNamara in the back room, bawling for her husband.

A thump, something falling near Blanche. Has the little washstand toppled off the bureau?

John!

Blanches right cheek is dripping as if with scalding tears, but shes not crying. She swabs it and something bitessome monstrous skeeter? No, not an insect, something sharp. Merde , Ive been cut, she cries through the stifling dark.

No answer from Jenny. Behind the thin bedroom wall, in the saloon, a door bangs. McNamara, only half audible, and his wife, and the children, shrieking too high for Blanche to make out the words.

Shes staggering now. The boards crunch under her bare sole. Glass: that must be whats cut her cheek. The lightnings shattered the window and made a hole in the blind, so a murky moonlight is leaking in. Blanche pants in outrage. Will those dogs ever shut up so she can hear herself think? She squints across the bedroom. Jenny? Kicking shards off her foot, Blanche clambers onto the bed, but Jennys no longer there. She couldnt have got past Blanche without opening the door, could she?

The sheets are sodden to the touch. What can have wet them?

Blanches eyes adjust to the faint radiance. Something on the floor between bed and wall, puddled in the corner, moving, but not the way a person moves. Arms bent wrong, nightshirt rucked obscenely, skinny legs daubed with blood, and wearing a carnival version of a familiar face.

Jenny!

Blanche recoils.

A second.

Another.

She forces her hand down towardto feel, to know for sure, at leastbut the geyser spurt against her fingers sends her howling back to the other side of the bed. She clings to the foul sheets.

Light smashes in the doorway from the saloon: McNamara with a lamp. Miss Blanche, are you shot or what?

She blinks down at herself, scarlet all over.

Not quite a month ago, at the House of Mirrors in San Franciscos Chinatown.

From the piano, the soft opening chords of a waltz. In the very center of the little stage, rising like the stigma of a flower: Blanche. All in white tonight, true to her stage name. She begins very slow and stately, as chaste as any ingenue in her first role; thats the trick of the skirt dance. With delicacy, with wonder, as if shes only just discovering the sleek waterfall of white satin spilling from her waist to her toes, Blanche circles the platform. She enfolds herself in the glossy material (forty-four feet around), lingers in its caress.

She makes sure to act as if she hasnt noticed the men in the tight rows of crimson velvet chairs, as if they arent even there. The Grand Saloon is already packed early on this Saturday evening in the middle of August. Lamplight ricochets from the floor-to-ceiling looking glasses, and the red walls and matching tufted carpet seem to pulse with heat. Inside her frilled bodice, sweat is trickling down Blanches sides. But she holds herself as serene as any swan spreading its milky wings. She makes a screen of the vast silk skirt to silhouette her curves. The michetons must be leaning forward by now, eager to peer through the fabric, but she doesnt so much as cast them a glance.

Delibess sweet melody gives way to the bolder theme, and Blanche starts to hop, glide, spin. She pushes every pose to its precise extreme. Face dipped to one knee, she raises the other leg behind her, pointing her toes at the gilt-coffered ceiling. The skirt slithers down her thigh, catching a little on the gauzy tights, threatening to turn inside out, and a few gasps erupt from the audience, even though they can see nothing yetwhat thrills them most, Blanche knows, is what they can only imaginebut she rights herself and starts waltzing again as the music returns to the calm opening tune. Her face still cool and virginal.