Page 45 of The Words Beneath the Noise

“You want to know what this is. What we are. What he is.” She tilted her head. “What you might be.”

The words hit like rifle shots, each one finding its mark.

“Yes,” I managed.

Madam Fortuna was quiet for a moment. Then she reached for a cigarette case on her vanity, took her time lighting one, and exhaled a plume of smoke toward the ceiling.

“Do you know what it's like,” she said slowly, “to spend your entire life being told that what you are is wrong? Not what youdo, mind you. What you are. The essential fact of your existence, treated as a crime.”

“I'm starting to.”

“Starting to.” She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. “That's honest, at least. Most men in your position lie to themselves for decades. Some manage it until they die. The truly unlucky ones get found out and discover just how little mercy the world has for people like us.”

She tapped ash into a small dish.

“I was arrested in 1923. Gross indecency. Spent six months in Pentonville. When I got out, I had nothing. No job, no family willing to claim me, no future that any decent person would recognise.” Her voice was matter-of-fact, but I could hear the old pain underneath. “I thought about ending it. Most of us do, at some point. The weight of being hated for something you can't change, something you didn't choose. It wears on you.”

“But you didn't.”

“No. I didn't.” She met my eyes. “Because I found others. People like me. People who understood. And I realised that survival itself was an act of rebellion. That every day we continued to exist, continued to love, continued to find moments of joy in the cracks of a world that wanted us dead, we were winning a war that had been waged against us for centuries.”

The gramophone in the main room had switched to something else. A woman's voice, singing in a language I didn't recognise. Mournful and beautiful.

“Arthur,” I said. “When he comes here. What does he...”

“What does he find?” Fortuna finished for me. “The same thing we all find. A place to breathe. A place where he doesn't have to pretend. Do you know how exhausting it is, soldier? The constant performance of normalcy? Watching every word, every gesture, every glance, making sure nothing slips through that might give you away?”

I thought about Art's careful control. The way he held himself apart. The tension that lived in his shoulders like a permanent resident.

“I'm beginning to.”

“He comes here to remember that he's not alone. That there are others who understand. That the way he loves is not a sickness to be cured but simply a different way of being human.” She stubbed out her cigarette. “And perhaps, most importantly, to remember that there can be joy. That our lives don't have to be nothing but fear and hiding and shame.”

A knock at the door. The woman from the bar poked her head in.

“Fortuna. Dilly and Maurice are asking after you. And they've spotted our soldier friend.”

Fortuna's expression shifted, something like amusement crossing her features. “Send them up. I think this young man could benefit from multiple perspectives.”

A minute later, the small room became smaller still as Dilly and Maurice crowded in. Dilly perched on a costume trunk, his crimson lips curved in a delighted smile. Maurice leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, regarding me with the patient wariness of a man who had learned to be careful.

“Well, well,” Dilly said. “Vada who's trolled back. The mysterious soldier who follows our Arthur about.”

“Dilly,” Maurice said quietly. “Perhaps don't lead with accusations.”

“I'm not accusing. I'm observing. There's a difference.” But Dilly's smile softened slightly. “You came back. That's something. Men like you, in uniforms like that, usually we never see them again. Either they pretend the whole thing was a fever dream, or they bring friends with handcuffs.”

“I'm not going to do either of those things.”

“No?” Dilly tilted his head, birdlike. “Then what are you going to do?”

The question hung in the air. I looked at each of them in turn: Fortuna with her ancient, knowing eyes. Dilly with his sharp curiosity. Maurice with his careful patience.

“I don't know,” I said honestly. “I came here because I need to understand something.”

“Understand what?” Maurice asked.

“What Arthur found here. What you all have.” I struggled to find the words. “What it means to be... to want...”