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Authors: Angela Elliott
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touched a box. I pulled it out from its hiding place beneath the piano. It contained nine short cylindrical cardboard tubes with lids, each labelled: Cylindres Edison Moulés Sur Or . On the end of each lid was the name Berthe Chalgrin and number. I picked a tube and pulled the lid off. Inside was a black cylinder. Could this be Berthe singing? I looked around but could not see any machinery that might play the cylinders. I would take it to Jacques Le Brun. I replaced the lid on the tube and left it on the piano next to my Leica, so I would remember to take it with me when I went.
The music stand held a score, opened on pages two and three. The lyrics were in French. I flicked the pages over gently to see the title – Je Veux Vivre – I want to live.
Chapter 7 – Present Day
“Oh,” says Eva, sitting up. “ Je Veux Vivre ? But I’m singing that. It’s in Gounod’s Romeo and Juliette..”
“I know that now,” I say. “But back then, I knew nothing of opera and nothing of what Berthe sang. It was not until your father… well he wasn’t your father then of course… that would come later… it wasn’t until Laurent brought me information from the archives that we began to understand what had happened to make her want to leave her home in Paris.”
Eva rubs her head. “I’m going to have another whiskey. Do you want one?”
“No dear. Should you be drinking? I’m sure it’s not good for your voice.”
I heard her blow out her cheeks. I am interfering. I should leave well alone. She knows what she is doing – at least, I hope she does.
“You know I’ve been thinking… the words on the note… Je te garde dans mon âme, comme un trésor? They are from Je Veux Vivre too. Juliette is singing about how she wants to be young forever – about how when you get older and you fall in love, things change… your life changes completely and the sweetness of youth is gone, never to return.”
I acknowledge her words with a smile. “I came to know that it was her favourite aria.”
“So what happened next?” Eva says, sipping her drink before placing it on the table at our feet.
“Well, I was scared. I’d never experienced anything like this before. I thought ghosts were something crazy people saw, and I knew I wasn’t crazy, though Lord knows; I was beginning to have my doubts - but something happened in that apartment.” I take Eva’s hand in my own and pat it. “It was too terrible… too… oh God.”
Eva blinks and pulls her hand away.
“What are telling me?”
“When I think about it now, it frightens me even more than it did then.”
“What? What was it?”
“Promise you won’t judge me. Promise.”
“I promise,” says Eva. But I am not sure she will keep her promise – not when she has heard the rest of the story.
Chapter 8 - 1957
I took the cylinder to Jacques Le Brun that afternoon. It was not easy finding his house. I had never known the address and I could not find the right street. The rain was torrential, the sky dark and threatening. I dodged between shop doors, trying to keep dry, and failing abysmally. It was in during one of these forays that I saw her.
She was standing across the street from me, under a shop-front awning. She ought to have been drenched through but she was bone dry, her pink slip of a dress still, though the wind was blowing a gale. She was silver of face and I stared her and she back at me, her gaze unwavering, her eyes empty – seeing and yet not seeing. I shuddered and glanced down the street. I pulled my collar up against the wind. When I looked back, she had gone. I felt sick to my stomach.
I asked a flower seller if she knew where Monsieur Le Brun lived. She pointed along the Rue Parcheminerie and told me to turn right at the end. I ran down the street, afraid that I was being watched, afraid that Berthe would step out from a shop, or catch a hold of my arm and pull me up short. I leant on the wall to get my breath and saw the hemline of
The music stand held a score, opened on pages two and three. The lyrics were in French. I flicked the pages over gently to see the title – Je Veux Vivre – I want to live.
Chapter 7 – Present Day
“Oh,” says Eva, sitting up. “ Je Veux Vivre ? But I’m singing that. It’s in Gounod’s Romeo and Juliette..”
“I know that now,” I say. “But back then, I knew nothing of opera and nothing of what Berthe sang. It was not until your father… well he wasn’t your father then of course… that would come later… it wasn’t until Laurent brought me information from the archives that we began to understand what had happened to make her want to leave her home in Paris.”
Eva rubs her head. “I’m going to have another whiskey. Do you want one?”
“No dear. Should you be drinking? I’m sure it’s not good for your voice.”
I heard her blow out her cheeks. I am interfering. I should leave well alone. She knows what she is doing – at least, I hope she does.
“You know I’ve been thinking… the words on the note… Je te garde dans mon âme, comme un trésor? They are from Je Veux Vivre too. Juliette is singing about how she wants to be young forever – about how when you get older and you fall in love, things change… your life changes completely and the sweetness of youth is gone, never to return.”
I acknowledge her words with a smile. “I came to know that it was her favourite aria.”
“So what happened next?” Eva says, sipping her drink before placing it on the table at our feet.
“Well, I was scared. I’d never experienced anything like this before. I thought ghosts were something crazy people saw, and I knew I wasn’t crazy, though Lord knows; I was beginning to have my doubts - but something happened in that apartment.” I take Eva’s hand in my own and pat it. “It was too terrible… too… oh God.”
Eva blinks and pulls her hand away.
“What are telling me?”
“When I think about it now, it frightens me even more than it did then.”
“What? What was it?”
“Promise you won’t judge me. Promise.”
“I promise,” says Eva. But I am not sure she will keep her promise – not when she has heard the rest of the story.
Chapter 8 - 1957
I took the cylinder to Jacques Le Brun that afternoon. It was not easy finding his house. I had never known the address and I could not find the right street. The rain was torrential, the sky dark and threatening. I dodged between shop doors, trying to keep dry, and failing abysmally. It was in during one of these forays that I saw her.
She was standing across the street from me, under a shop-front awning. She ought to have been drenched through but she was bone dry, her pink slip of a dress still, though the wind was blowing a gale. She was silver of face and I stared her and she back at me, her gaze unwavering, her eyes empty – seeing and yet not seeing. I shuddered and glanced down the street. I pulled my collar up against the wind. When I looked back, she had gone. I felt sick to my stomach.
I asked a flower seller if she knew where Monsieur Le Brun lived. She pointed along the Rue Parcheminerie and told me to turn right at the end. I ran down the street, afraid that I was being watched, afraid that Berthe would step out from a shop, or catch a hold of my arm and pull me up short. I leant on the wall to get my breath and saw the hemline of
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