The Moon and the Sun

He fled the chapel.

He flew down the hill to the Fountain, leaving Marie-Josèphe struggling to keep up. He pushed his way through the visitors, flung open the cage door, and ran down the stairs. His breath tore his throat.

Oblivious to the spectators, Yves stepped off the platform. The water rose up around him, soaking his cassock. He waded toward Apollo.

“Sea woman! Sherzad!”

The sea woman surfaced beneath Triton. She spat at Yves and snarled.

“Forgive me, I didn’t know, I didn’t understand—I didn’t believe…”

The sea woman watched him, submerged but for the top of her head and her eyes.

Marie-Josèphe hurried to the Fountain. Yves turned to her.

“Tell her—I thought nothing of taking her ring. I thought, how strange to find rubies tangled in an animal’s hair…”

“Tell her yourself,” Marie-Josèphe said, out of breath. “But you frighten her, so be gentle.”

“I captured you,” Yves said. “I allowed your friend to die, and now I’ve sentenced you to death as well. I didn’t understand. I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I’m sorry, for the love of God, please forgive me.” He held out the ring, offering it to her.

Sherzad swam slowly closer, keening.

* * *

Outside the tent, draft horses stamped impatiently, jingling their harness. Their driver waited for his cargo, to take it to the sea.

Marie-Josèphe sat on the rim of the Fountain of Apollo, holding Sherzad’s hand, stroking her coarse dark hair. The sea woman lay on the steps, bracing herself on the stone rim; she leaned against Marie-Josèphe, dripping fetid water, her naked body warming Marie-Josèphe’s side. She pressed her cheek into Marie-Josèphe’s palm, wetting it with her tears. Marie-Josèphe held her close, wishing she could comfort her. The song of Sherzad’s mourning pierced her skin like tiny knives.

Yves spread a silk handkerchief over the man of the sea’s ruined face, and wrapped the canvas shroud around him. With his own hands he helped three servants lift Sherzad’s friend. They placed him in the coffin. Yves folded the canvas around him. The servants carried the coffin to the cage, so Sherzad could look on her friend one final time.

The sea woman fell silent. Though she would not touch her friend with her voice, she placed her webbed hand onto his chest. Her fingers trembled.

“He received no last rites,” Yves said. “I was with him, but I gave him no last rites…”

“Never mind,” Marie-Josèphe said. “The sea people aren’t Christians. They have no god.”

“I could have saved him,” Yves said. “If I’d known… I will save Sherzad, I’ll save her people.”

“Give Sherzad her ring.”

Sherzad plucked the ring from Yves’ palm with extended claws.

“I will bury your friend at sea,” Yves said. “I promise it.”

Sherzad whispered, I want to go, I want to acknowledge his death and contemplate my life.

Yves shook his head.

“Dear Sherzad,” Marie-Josèphe said, “I’m so sorry, it isn’t possible.” Sherzad’s grief made Marie-Josèphe want to weep, but how could she indulge her own sorrow in the face of the sea woman’s loss?

Sherzad freed one of her friend’s last straggled locks from beneath the kerchief; she knotted the ring into his hair.

She bent over the coffin, her long hair shadowing her face. Marie-Josèphe put her arm around Sherzad’s shoulders, but the sea woman shrugged her off, slid down the stairs, and submerged without a sound.

“Was he her husband, whom I allowed to die?”

“Her friend, her lover, not her husband,” Marie-Josèphe said. “The sea folk don’t marry, they make love for pleasure, and on Midsummer Day they mate—”

“I know it! I predicted it, I found it, I saw it—I should have known no mere beasts could behave with such depravity. Perhaps they’re demons, after all—”

“The Church says they aren’t. And isn’t the Church infallible?”

Yves flinched at the anger and sarcasm in her voice.

Yves helped the servants move the coffin back to its supports. They fitted its lid. Yves set the nails himself. He helped them carry the coffin to the freight-wagon, gave the driver a gold coin, and sent the wagon off on the road to Le Havre.

* * *

At the sea woman’s tent, Lucien asked Zelis to bow; he dismounted carefully. Pain edged his spine, creeping up on him like a tiger as the day went on. He regretted Juliette’s departure desperately, but he could not ask her to return.

You’re a fool, he said to himself, to be so respectful of Mlle de la Croix’ scruples.

He was far too proud to entice her into his bed—even if she were of a mind to be enticed—with promises he would not keep: promises of marriage, assurances of saving the sea woman’s life. If Marie-Josèphe did not want him for friendship, for love, for the pleasure they could give each other, he did not want her either.

But he would not delude himself; he liked her, he enjoyed talking with her, he sympathized with her dilemma.

He entered the tent, glad to have good news to give her.