Page 134
"Yes, of course, but this is considered one of her masterpieces." She continued to gaze down at the waxwork.
" 'What greater punishment can you inflict on a man who betrays you than to take his child?' That's a line from the film." she said. "Of course, she couldn't live with herself afterward and so... this tragic and gruesome ending."
We continued to stare at the wax version of our mentor. There was great detail, right down to the small birthmark on the edge of her chin.
"I just thought of something strange," Rose said. "Stranger than this?" I asked.
"Well. Evan told us that there was the possibility of Gerta committing suicide. right? There was some talk of that in the stories he found in the old papers. remember?"
"But Gerta didn't die. She's upstairs!" I cried.
"Yes, but that was what Evan said he read. And then Madame Senetsky's husband committed suicide soon afterward. That was definite, wasn't it. Cinnamon?"
She thought, her eyes narrowing.
"Yes, I see what you're saving." She looked at the wax figure.
"But the wife committed suicide in this movie, not the husband," Ice pointed out.
"Minor point," Cinnamon said with a smile. "'Madame Senetsky dies on the stage and in movies in many productions, but not in real life.
"In real life, she lives on to perform again and again."
Suddenly, a shadow seemed to slide across the wall. We were all still, listening.
"I don't like this." Rose said, embracing herself. "There are too many dark places here. Let's go back. Let's stop frying to learn about her past and Gerta's before..."
"Before what?" I asked.
"Before we find out too much," Cinnamon answered for her. "Right, Rose?"
"Yes," Rose said. nodding. She was reliving her own family tragedy. her father's suicide. I could see it playing behind her eyes. Reviving something like that surely turned her spine to cold stone.
The sounds from above changed. Now, we heard music.
"Isn't that "Shortrnin Bread'?" I asked Ice. She smiled and nodded.
"We've got to keep going. We're in this far. How can we turngback now?" Cinnamon pondered.
Rose wasn't happy about it, but we continued into the private residence.
Once past the corridor of candles, as it became known in my mind, we found more normal
accommodations: a small kitchen with a round wooden table and four chairs, another living room with plush furnishings, but also pieces that looked like they would be more at home on a stage, like a royalpurple velvet lounging chaise embellished with gold cording, albeit looking never used. There were two large oil paintings, one of which Cinnamon identified as a portrait of the famous actress Sarah Bernhardt and the other as a portrait of the French playwright Moliere. There were Tiffany lamps, crystals glittering like pieces of ice in the lamp light, a small secretary in the far right corner, and a hutch filled with expensivelooking memorabilia.
One door down we discovered what had to be Madame Senetsky's bedroom. It was a very large room with a bed Cinnamon described first as a small stage. It was round, with a crest of big fluffy pillows against the grand, curved headboard built out of what looked like rich mahogany, and in which was carved the words, To hold as t'were the mirror up to nature."
"What does that mean?" Ice asked.
"It's from Hamlet, part of what Hamlet says is the purpose of theater," Cinnamon explained while she gaped at the oversized furniture, with mirrors everywhere, even in the ceiling. There was a large magnifying, mirror at the vanity table, which ran the length of the room and was covered with a variety of makeup, brushes, and pencils. There were jars after jars of skin creams, many of whose labels boastfully announced the end of wrinkles. In an open closet to our left we saw shelves of wigs, same of which we recognized as ones Madame Senetsky had worn at dinners and on other occasions. The clothing closet on the right looked as long and wide as each of our bedrooms.
The walls of the room were papered in pink with figures of mythological creatures like satyrs, sileni, gorgons, and centaurs. Statues of what looked like Greek gods and goddesses stood on pedestals in every available corner.
Most interesting, perhaps, was the tile floor. Each tile was about a foot in diameter and depicted a scene from a famous play. It looked like the entire history of the theater was painted on the floor.
"Someone could go mad in here, never being able to not look at herself and see every blemish or hair out of place." Rose commented, turning from one mirror to the next.
"Doesn't that look like a spotlight?" Ice asked, pointing to a can light in the ceiling directed at the bed.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 134 (Reading here)
- Page 135
- Page 136
- Page 137
- Page 138
- Page 139
- Page 140
- Page 141
- Page 142
- Page 143
- Page 144
- Page 145
- Page 146
- Page 147
- Page 148
- Page 149
- Page 150
- Page 151
- Page 152
- Page 153
- Page 154
- Page 155
- Page 156