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Sylvia shut the heavy front door behind her. Wiggled her keys in the lock. Dropped her keys into the little bowl on the metal telephone table. Slipped off her white heels. Rubbed her toes, wiggled them. Her stockings were getting worn through at her little toe; she would have to requisition new ones soon, before they totally gave out. Sylvia could just barely remember the last time her stockings had run at work—the experience had left her with a nasty cut down her right calf, the memory of shouts ringing close to her ear, and the strong impression she would never, never again let her stockings tear.
If Sylvia was the sighing type, she might have sighed at that moment, looking down at her stockings. But she just tucked her sensible white heels neatly together beneath the table and stood up straight. She looked at herself in the mirror above the telephone table. The mirror was flat and oval, with just a little embellishment around the edges in worked metal. It was from Sylvia’s aunt as a going-away present. You will need something to protect you in that big horrible place they’re sending you to, she’d said. Sylvia turned her cheek to the right. Her nose sloped elegantly down her face. Her eyepatch bisected her face with a tasteful dark shadow. Beautiful, she thought. And then un-thought it. Beauty, a voice in her head whispered, is the machine we make together.
Sylvia turned to face herself straight on. Set her shoulders. Tried to see the overall shape of Nurse, rather than the individual features that made up Sylvia.
And there she was, coming into focus. Sylvia smiled at the Nurse in the mirror. The Nurse smiled back, red lipstick pristine. Her smile was both knowing and mischievous; she dared Sylvia closer.
Sylvia was a performer. That was what made her the best.
In the bathroom mirror, Sylvia slid her hairpins out of her bun and slipped them each back individually onto the sheet of cardstock that they’d come on from the store. She liberated her cap and placed it in the laundry basket beneath the sink. Shook out her hair. It fell down her back, wavy from being tucked up all day. She slipped off her eyepatch and folded it carefully.
They’d found Sylvia in a tailor’s shop in Sernograd, of all places. She’d been working as an apprentice, living above the shop sharing a bed with another apprentice who’d begun there the month before. His name was Pieter. He was blonde and very shy.
One evening, the bell rang as the shop door opened and Sylvia looked up from mending a tear in a policeman’s cloak. In the doorway stood a woman in a quilted red dress, silhouetted in gold from a rare visible sunset sun. Sylvia squinted. The woman turned, and the light caught her round, dark glasses.
“Where is Sylvia,” the woman said. Her voice was smooth, like a well-oiled metal machine with a lot of steadily running vital parts. Her words carried a barely-detectable accent—just a hint of the city on her breath.
Sylvia stared at the woman.
The other apprentices stared at her too. She could practically feel Pieter’s eyes boring a hole in the back of her head. Her boss, the Head Tailor, rose to his feet, shutting his ledger with a thump. Sylvia couldn’t take her eyes away from the woman in red.
The man at the woman’s arm (for there was a man—wasn’t there always?) pressed her arm, and made a movement towards the door.
Anger flared in Sylvia’s chest, but the woman needed no sympathy.
She held her ground. “Last night, a woman sang at the bar at the end of the road,” the woman said. “And the bartender said her name was Sylvia, and that she was a tailor.”
Sylvia blinked.
“I am in need…” the woman said slowly. “Of a tailor.”
Sylvia stood slowly, work falling to the table. Her heart thrummed. She squared her shoulders. “I’m Sylvia,” she said. Her voice was steady.
The woman turned towards her. Sylvia could see herself reflected in the woman’s glasses.
A shiver of electricity passed between them.
“My name is Marianne,” the woman said. “You will come with me.”
After showering, Sylvia changed into a pair of plain sleep shorts and a drawstring top. She ate a bowl of porridge, washed the bowl, and leaned it on the drainboard next to her single spoon. She padded back to her room and clicked the lamp down low. Fiddled with the radio by her bed before sitting down to comb her hair.
—and Kiera now for some good news from Northwest Lehpka today—Druskanya police liberated the city government buildings this week from the small group of radicals who had managed to occupy the City Leader’s Hall for several days. Eyewitnesses say that chanting and singing could be heard from the street and neighboring buildings at all hours. But rest assured, Draagoshkas, these terrorists will be brought to justice. If you’re just tuning in, I’m Neu Gormak and this is the ten-o’-clock news. Tonight here in Gubrick, preparations are under way for the festivities—and folks there-s even rumors that the Dictator might stop in town after his annual infrastructure inspection…
Sylvia ran the comb through her long, dark hair. Sometimes, on nights like these, with the light low and the noise from the city quieted beneath a dense fog, Sylvia wished she had a cat.
It was impossible, of course. She was gone all day, and the Gubrick apartments for contracted M.O.A.T employees did not allow pets anyway.
Besides, Sylvia reasoned, working the comb through a tangle, her apartment was just the right size for her. No larger. No smaller. It was just right. Three rooms. What more could she need? It was perfectly serviceable.
Despite herself, Sylvia glanced at the desk in the corner of her room. She’d managed to retrieve a more comfortable chair from a neighbor who was leaving his apartment—it was plush and green and matched nothing else in the house, but Sylvia loved it. Its legs had elaborate wooden designs carved in—so unlike the spare metal furnishings provided standard across M.O.A.T. employee housing. The chair sparked a dim fondness in her for a room in her grandparents’ home in the rural Lehpka. On nights like these, if she squinted, Sylvia could almost see a grey cat with a slinky tail curled up in the shadows on the chair.
“Hermann,” Sylvia said. The name for her cat had come to her long ago. She cooed at Hermann, and imagined him jumping down to her, and winding his wiry body around her legs.
She messed around with the radio until she found the show that played folk music from her childhood in rural Lehpka.
—don’t curl away, like a stalk in heavy rain, oh child. The road grows heavy, yellow sun, yellow sun, yellow sun, and the river runs wide…red water, red water, red water—
Sylvia thought about the Most Exalted Vocalist—their wide eyes and small expressive mouth. Their leather gloves clutched around the children’s doll. Oh child. She thought about how they wailed and growled and yelled onstage, so gruff, so teasing. So fun. So different to their usual haunted, nearly hunted demeanor. Gerard was a good performer too. Sylvia thought that was probably why she got along with them so well. Two mirrors, mirroring back whatever mirrors talked about with no one around.
—oh child, lay me down to wander the wide blue water, child, oh child. Like a stalk in heavy rain, oh child—
Sylvia avoided the popular music stations, even though they got the best reception, because she never listened to opera at home. She didn’t mind hearing her own voice on the radio, but she couldn’t stand to hear Marianne’s.
Marianne’s voice was so big in person, her presence so glittering and vast and arresting that Sylvia couldn’t bear to trap her away in the tinny radio speakers. Sylvia had never owned a recorder of any kind herself—had never had a reason to—and found the concept of recorded sound, old as it was, nearly holy.
She preferred to replay Marianne’s performances in her mind. Her dress glittered. Her voice soared just the same. Endless. Wide, like the cliffs out over the coast.
Marianne didn’t feel the same. So silly, Sylvia, she said, once, when Sylvia had confided this belief. Don’t you want everyone to hear how beautiful we sound together?
Sylvia switched off the radio and finished combing her hair in silence.
She thought about Marianne’s manicured nails on her cane. How her head tilted down just before her cue. How their voices resonated when they sang in harmony. The light flashing off her pale shoulders. Red straps. Sylvia thought about running her fingers beneath Marianne’s dress.
Sylvia wove her hair into a loose braid over her shoulder. She thought about how backstage, once, after she sang, Marianne touched her cheek.
Sylvia’s comb clattered to the ground.
She picked it up. Replaced it in the drawer in her side table. Clicked her alarm clock on. Clicked the lamp off. Slid under the white duvet cover. Pulled the sheets up to her chin.
Sylvia liked her apartment. She didn’t need more.
What more is there?
Sylvia closed her eyes, and Marianne’s dark glasses looked back, steadily. She opened her mouth, and began to sing. The words were soft and round and hot and Sylvia let out a single, shaking breath.
Her apartment was silent and dark.
Beauty the voice in her head whispered, is the machine we make together.
Yes, Sylvia thought, worries fading. Marianne the Poet and Sylvia the Nurse. Marianne the Sleight-of-hand. Sylvia the Magician. Marianne the Secret. Sylvia the Clown. Marianne the River. Sylvia Running Wide And Red And Dead. Sylvia? Are you Sylvia? Yes, I’m Sylvia. Who are you?