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.