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C’est le fin de siècle, Sebastien thought to himself. A new century would dawn tomorrow, and he would be alive to see it, not resting mouldy in a grave. When he had been young, he had not thought much of death - exultation at the death of the aristocracy notwithstanding. His criminal lifestyle had finally given him a choice of endings: die in war for Napoleon’s empire with honour or humiliate his family by a public guillotining. He’d gone to war.
It was little comfort to know it would end. One day thousands of years into time. Whatever that actually meant. From the rooms next door, someone started up a Berliner Gramophone. Behind him, someone started humming along to the song. He glanced at the others in the rented apartment. The world tilted on a strange axis, pulling away from him, leaving him in a gallery he could not see the end of. With only these strange companions for company. Although his Catholic sensibilities first had been outraged when he had realized Andromache searched for a missing female lover, and Joseph and Nicholas ‘loved and fucked’ like a man and woman, as Andromache had delicately put it to him in an awkward conversation, he had long since grown accustomed to the way the world was presented to him. He was locked into their company by dint of their common affliction. It would not behoove him to be passé with the new century bearing down on him.
He caught Andromache’s eye in the mirror hanging above the table de toilette. She grinned at him, waving the bottle of absinthe she had procured at him using her eyes to direct him to look at the glasses and spoons arranged at her elbow. He looked away, unwilling to pretend to be cheerful. He instead met Joseph’s indulgent gaze. He and Nicholas were simultaneously trying to arrange Andromache’s white tie and coif her freshly cut hair.
He turned bodily, to put some distance between them and himself. Their gaiety and the general festive air was genuine - even if he could tell they were only putting it on for him. Apparently, they thought he would appreciate it. He wished he could tell them he wanted nothing more than to crawl into his bed and polish off the Absinthe instead of going to the Moulin Rouge. But they had bought tickets and clothes for him especially for tonight.
For now, his attention strayed to the bottle of perfume that he flipped in his fingers. He popped off the corked top to inhale the scent. Mignonette, violets, roses, a hint of something darker, heavier - amber. It had been his wife’s favorite perfume - made by Fragonard or Molinard or whatever it was called, somewhere in Grasse. He capped the small bottle and moved to place it clumsily on the table clattering the delicate glass against the silvered mirror platter from which he’d taken it.
He flashed Nicolas a grin when the man made a move to catch his elbow. “Too much absinthe,” he said unevenly even as he reached for another glass.
“To celebrate a new century at La Moulin Rouge, it is the perfect drink,” Andromache said in French. She stood to walk into the middle of the main room of their rented lodgings and twirled, the tails of her coat swinging out. “I’m sure to find someone to celebrate with tonight!” She looked eager at the prospect. Sebastien sucked down the drink, crunching the little bit of sugary sludge at the bottom of the glass.
“A woman or man?” Joseph asked.
“Or both?” Added Nicholas.
Andy grinned one of her more feral teeth-baring smiles. Sebastien thought her eyes looked desolate. Like how he had imagined the woman trapped by the yellow wallpaper to have. Joseph and Nicholas laughed and turned to him as one. He held himself still as they fussed at his own incomparable ensemble. How they had the money to afford all this fine silk, wool, and fur and still travel as much as they did, he did not want to know. He needed to start saving more money or acquire it more readily so he didn’t always rely on their charity. Perhaps he could work on that in the new year; his forging skills needed a dusting off.
“You have plans for after the show, Sebastien?” Nicholas asked while he affixed a flower to the button hole in Sebastien’s coat. Sebastien blinked slowly at him, parsing the words. “I don’t think that is a language you have taught me,” he finally said setting his empty glass down.
Nicholas mouthed the words silently to himself, brow furrowing. “Yes, you are correct. A dialect long since forgotten. What are your plans for after the show?” He said in French. Nicholas half-turns from him to tug at the crooked bowtie around Joseph’s neck.
“I’m not sure. Maybe watch the fireworks from la Tour Eiffel.” Maybe throw himself off the highest platform to see if it stuck. Probably not. Had half my head blown off from a cannon in the American civil war and I am still here. He put his hands in his pockets and found his gloves. He took them out and pulled them on. Nicholas finished fussing over Joseph with a heated kiss and Sebastien stepped away to pick up the heavy coat laid neatly over one of the beds in the room holding it for Andromache to slide her arms into, shrugging it over her shoulders. He puts on his own - purchased last week and tailored perfectly. It was heavy, lined with soft fur. Perfect for the winter night.
“Save it for the Moulin, gentlemen! The night is just beginning.” She took the lead, heading out. Joseph and Nicholas followed, and Sebastien locked up after them. He can still smell the perfume. He must have gotten some on his fingers. Perhaps he will find someone with whom to forget his past as well; to begin his life anew with the new century.
The perfume lingers in the air, cloying with sweet-turned-bitter memories.
Perhaps not.