When the Woods told the Beast Prince his new bride had arrived, he had expected to meet some foreign princess curious about his monstrous features, or maybe a witch seeking access to the Woods’ magic. He didn’t expect a very determined-looking miller’s daughter.

She poked and jiggled the straw between her teeth and examined a bit of mutton skewered on the tip, then flicked the straw away. “Look, it’s a win-win. You marry me, and we take this show on the road.”

“This show,” said the Beast Prince, scratching his cheek with a claw. “You mean me.”

“Yes, I mean you! But you’re not the only one, I got a whole stable of performers chompin’ at the bit to get out there and wow the kingdom at large.”

He wrinkled his snout. “Stable? It’s some kind of animal show?”

She waved her hand as if at a fly. “No, stable is biz talk, ignore it, it’s how I talk and who I am, sue me, can’t help it, I grew up in the biz, you know.”

“Didn’t you say you were the miller’s daughter?”

“Well, Beastie, now I think it’s my turn to be offended! Sure, dad crushes grass into dust for a living. And so did his dad before him, and his dad before him.” She pulled a pipe and pouch from the pocket of her worn cloak. “And you know somethin’? I’ll betcha a hundred gold pieces my brother’s gonna wind up cranking that stone just like the rest of ’em.” She sprinkled shredded tobacco from the pouch into the pipe. “And that’s fine, people gotta make a livin’! Times are tough. Just the other day I heard a story ’bout a foundryman, on his way to deliver a stack of ingots? Listen to this…” She plucked a candle from a sconce on the wall and used it to light her pipe. “This guy, his cart gets stuck in the mud, he jumps down to help the horses pull it out, slips in the mud, and crack!” She slapped her hands together. “Horse steps on his hand—like a bunch o’ grapes. His right hand, y’see, the good one, not the ‘satanic’ one. Well, now his good hand’s a mess, so he’s gotta learn to do everything with the devil’s hand, see, which means now nobody trusts him, and he can’t hold more than a damn walking stick.”

The Beast Prince stared. His back had started to ache. He didn’t normally spend so much time in the sitting rooms of this castle, and the chairs didn’t conform to his body’s quadrupedal shape; he only sat like that to put this guest at ease.

It was his first sit-in guest since his exile. Visitors usually shouted curses from their wagons, or stood at the bottom of the front steps just long enough to get a good look before running back into the woods.

But this young woman was in the door before he had pulled it completely open, swinging her hands and saying, “Beastie, you don’t know me, but you’ll be happy I came! Have I got a proposition for you!”

She’d stepped into the middle of the grand foyer, lit by a yellow spotlight of setting sun that shone through the grime of broken windows, and she turned to him and lowered the hood of her cloak. The Beast Prince raised his paws to block the blow of the electric bolt or whipping wind that might blast from her sleeves.

But none came.

There was nothing evil in the young woman’s face. She smiled through crooked teeth, but there was something in that smile, and something in her pale green eyes, that was disarming. She had the look of a merchant counting money at the end of a good day.

Now those green eyes held his in the flickering light of the cobwebbed sitting room. The candles crackled as the layers of dust burned away from their tips.

“Just tragic,” she said. “Needless to say, the guy’s foundry business, well, foundered. His production slowed, he’s got no sons to take over, and being a lefty now his wife’s too scared of him to try for a son! So, what does his story have in common with yours?”

The Beast Prince thought. “People are scared of me?”

“Sure, absolutely, and that’s a real shame. My heart goes out to you. Touched by the devil and all that.”

“It was a witch.”

“Beastie, I gotta tell ya, to all the pointy-headed boil lancers in that village, and even the villages beyond—hell, this whole damn kingdom—a witch and the devil are the same thing. And you wanna know the real tragedy of it?”

He rubbed his back with a paw. “Would you mind if I sat on the floor?”

“Make yourself comfortable, this is your place! And I promise I’ll be outta your hair in a minute. But first, tell me, do you wanna know the real tragedy?”

“What?” The Beast Prince settled onto his stomach on the stone floor, and felt his spine realign itself. “I mean, yes, I do. What is it?”

“The real tragedy is that they lump you in with those monsters, too. Witch, devil, and Beastie, all the same to those foot lickers. But I know you’re not evil. Hell, I’m not even convinced witches are all that evil; I agree with some of their stances on women’s rights—but don’t tell the villagers I said that.” She winked and puffed her pipe again, but it had gone out, so she took the candle to light it again.

The Beast Prince watched a drop of wax fall and solidify on the cold floor. “But what do the foundryman and I have in common?”

“Ah, see? You don’t miss a trick. That attention to detail will take you far! Puts you one-up on the rest of those leather sniffers.” She held her hands as if presenting a painting. “What you have in common with the left-handed foundryman is: a lack of insurance.”

“Insurance?”

“Think about it. No sons, basically no wife, and no business. What’s he got to fall back on? Alone in the world, and nowhere to reach for support. Fell flat on his face.”

“So you propose we marry so I have… support?”

“Don’t think of it as support so much as representation. We tour the land with a group of other hand-picked young talent, and show you off to all the apple-heads who’ll pay—and let me tell you, they’ll all pay—and they’ll learn you’re not such a scary guy. They’ll like you. You might even get another shot at princedom!”

“But… why do we have to be married?”

“Legitimacy! If they see the big, dangerous Beastie’s got a wife, they’ll think, well, he must be doin’ something right! We have a big ceremony at whatever church’ll have us—don’t worry, there isn’t a church in the world that’ll turn down a bribe. We make a big deal of the whole thing, get all the town criers screamin’ scandal about it to everyone.”

“We can’t do that, they’ll trap us in the church and set it ablaze!”

“Ah, no, we’d get ’em on a legal technicality—you are still royalty, after all, are you not?”

“I don’t think so. My parents were the ones who put me in exile here.”

She tisked and picked a bit of tobacco from her lip. “Backstabbers to save their own royal faces. I know the type—the biz is full of ’em. But you were just caught in the crossfire! The witch who turned you only did it to get at the King. And it worked! The King—your own dad—flipped his crown and sent you away to clean the supposed stain,” she made bunny ears with her fingers, “on his reputation. Disgusting.”

His head rose, showing teeth. “You can’t speak that way about my father!”

“Sure I can. And you should too, Beastie. For the first time since your little accident, someone has come to help you.” She made a fist and grinned. “Are you gonna answer the call?”

The Beast Prince lowered his heavy head onto the stone and billowed dust with a sigh from his snout.

She held the pipe in her teeth and watched his eyes.

Finally he shrugged. “Okay, what do I need to do?”

“Fantastic! You won’t regret this! First, I’ll need a down payment on my services to get things rolling with the church.”

“If we’re getting married, isn’t it you who pays me the dowry?”

“Wow, I propose marriage and a successful life in showbiz to a damn werewolf, and now he wants to get conventional on me?”

“Okay, okay,” he pushed himself to his feet and stretched his back. “Wait here, I’ll fetch it.”

“Take your time.” She listened to his claws scrape down the corridor.

A “tsst” came from across the foyer. She saw the man’s face in a broken windowpane. She scowled and shooed him away.

He gave a thumbs-up with a mangled right hand and ducked back out of view.

The garage was already closed for the night, but Toby was still in the convenience store and I buzzed him.

He’s got a lazy eye, so while he plugged his nose and the rest of his face opened up all surprised, his right eye pointed over at the workbench like it was still too scared to look. “Shit… That’s not a… person, is it?”

“Smells like it was alive. Looks like a person. Does it qualify, being that size?” I said. “It’s like a toy.”

“Could be a toy.”

It was about the size of a G.I. Joe. It had green slippers, baggy red-and-yellow-stripe pants, a frilly rainbow polka-dot shirt, curly red hair, and a shiny blue cone hat with a green pompom. But it wasn’t a doll—its puffy half-open eyes were too real. Its makeup was smudged on its shirt and in the glove box.

I took a flathead screwdriver and lifted the thing’s limp arms and legs. They made tiny patting sounds when they fell back down. I pried its lips, and they flapped like a real person’s would. Its jaw hinged open. The screwdriver tip clicked on its tiny teeth.

*

Before Stacy and I split up, we used to take the kids to Flat Beach where there was a gas station curiosity shop with a real taxidermy mermaid. It wasn’t a real mermaid, of course, but it was real taxidermy—the front half of a monkey sewn onto the back half of a fish. They kept it behind a purple curtain in a back room. Cost a dollar each to see it, and we saw it twice each trip. The kids loved that thing.

I told this to Toby while we had a smoke and waited for the garage to air out.

“Move the map racks and the gas cans to the far wall,” I said. “It could go in that nook by the soda fountain. Put a curtain up. Perfect spot.”

“Just lyin’ dead on a table?”

“Nah, we’d use wire to put it in a pose. Maybe like it’s juggling.”

“You think this is something people know about, but just you and I never saw?”

“Well, how many new things do we hear about these days? Everything’s been seen.” I watched a car turn left at the light. “I get the impression if it was common knowledge, we’d know too.”

The car pulled into the lot and parked at a pump. The driver got out and walked toward us.

Toby stepped on his cigarette and said, “Just a moment, sir, I’ll meet you at the window,” then went back through the garage. The guy went to the night window.

The stink was still in the car, so I put some bleach on a rag and wiped out the glove box.

In the passenger side mirror I saw the guy standing at the garage door.

Toby came back. “First customer,” he said as he took the garbage bag from the workbench.

“You told him?”

“Is it a secret?”

I got out the car and followed him.

He untied the bag, staring at the guy with his left eye while his right eye made sure no one else was watching. He held the bag open. “Look at that.”

The guy leaned and looked. “I don’t see anything.”

I took out my penlight and shined it in the bag. The clown’s legs were straight together, but its arms were bent funny.

“A doll,” the guy said.

“That is not a doll,” Toby said.

“Smells like shit.” The guy put his hand over his nose and frowned at me. “What is it?”

I shrugged. “We don’t know. We found it.”

The guy leaned again, and I obliged with my light.

Toby asked him, “How much would you pay to see this?”

“I still don’t know what I’m looking at.”

*

I tacked our first dollar, which the guy had given us, to the wall above the workbench. I’d explained to him about the Flat Beach mermaid, and how this was probably worth more, but he said the dollar was all he had on him.

But he gave us that dollar after he’d already seen it. Which meant something.

*

The car belonged to an old man, who brought it in because the fans weren’t blowing strong enough.

We figured if he ever knew about this thing, he’d forgotten about it. That might be how it died. Forgot to feed it or give it water or air or something. Just let it die in its makeup. It had tiny makeup stuff? Did it put on its own makeup, or did the old man help? And who made the clothes? Were they doll clothes?

I opened the hood to look at the ventilation, and saw the second clown wedged between the exhaust manifold and the cylinder head. Its nylon clothes were scorched on the metal so I had to scrape a bit. It didn’t smell as bad as the first, a bit cooked.

We couldn’t put that one on display, it’d scare the shit out of kids.

I laid it out on a rag on the workbench to surprise Toby.

And it turned out the old man’s fans weren’t blowing strong because a third little clown had chewed a hole through the heater casing and wedged itself inside. I started to think the stupid things had all killed themselves trying to find warm spots to hide.

That third one was in perfect condition, just suffocated or something from the heat. So now we had two good ones—we could set them up like they were juggling together, or like one was spraying seltzer water in the other’s face. We could rig a button for the kids to push and make the seltzer water spray.

That would mean waterproofing the skin with some kind of lacquer after whatever taxidermy we’d have to do. I’d call my buddy Sal to get his help. He’s good with squirrels, which are about that size, and he’d probably know something about waterproofing the skins.

Then I realized we could use the burnt one, too. If the bones were still good, Sal could set up a skeleton display. It’d be better than that ridiculous fake “mermaid,” because it’d be scientific, too, since it’s real.

I felt all shaky installing the new casing because I was thinking how word of mouth would explode about this. Families lining up through the parking lot. And museum types too, when they caught wind of it. They’d beg us to sell these things to them. We’d say no until the price was right. And even then we might still say no, just because. How often do new things like this come out? Not very often, and it’s never something like this.

Stacy would drop off the kids for one of my weekends, and I’d escort the kids in right away and let them look as long as they wanted for free. But Stacy would have to pay her admission and stand in line like everyone else. She’d spend all that time seeing the excitement on everyone else’s face, so impatient to see.

I fantasized about her coming at the same time as the museum people, and I laughed. That’d be too perfect.

*

I took my penlight under the car to look around. Sure enough, I saw some bright colors between the pipes—another one. Then tangled in some cable—another! I hooted loud.

Toby came in and shouted when he saw them lined up on the workbench. “Holy shit, we got five of ’em?!”

“Shut up and help me with this.”

We raised the car on the lift and found three more in the wheel wells. Two of those three were useless, but we got more rags and lined them up on the bench anyway. All their shiny clothes were different colors like jewels.

I could imagine them rigged with mechanisms to balance on balls, swing from trapezes, somersault over each other. For fun we could throw in some of Sal’s squirrels and make the clowns hold whips and chairs like lion tamers.

Toby stayed the rest of his shift and helped me take the car apart. By morning he was asleep sitting against the wall, the car was just a shell on the lift, and there almost wasn’t room on the workbench to put any more of them.

I lowered it and lastly popped open the trunk. There was an old jack and a set of jumper cables. A hole was chewed through into the foam of the back seat. I lifted the trunk’s false floor, where instead of the spare tire there was another one with long blue hair, eyes closed. Its limp body was wrapped like a cat around a handful of tiny squealing clowns, each about the size of my thumb, blind in the light and struggling to suckle at the pom-poms on their mama’s jumpsuit.

Le garage était déjà fermé pour la nuit, mais Toby était encore dans la partie boutique, alors je l’ai appelé.

Il a un œil paresseux, alors pendant qu’il se bouchait le nez et que la surprise gagnait petit à petit son visage, son œil droit a fixé l’établi comme s’il avait encore trop peur de regarder. “Merde… C’est pas une… personne, si ?”

“À l’odeur, c’était bien vivant. Ça ressemble à une personne. Est-ce que ça compte comme une personne, vu comme c’est tout petit ?” J’ai dit. “On dirait un jouet.”

“C’est peut-être un jouet.”

Il était de la taille d’un Action Man. Il avait des chaussures vertes, un pantalon bouffant à rayures rouges et jaunes, une chemise à pois arc-en-ciel, des cheveux roux bouclés et un chapeau pointu bleu, brillant, avec un pompon vert. Mais ce n’était pas une poupée – ses yeux gonflés et entrouverts étaient trop réels. Son maquillage avait bavé sur sa chemise et dans la boîte à gants.

J’ai pris un tournevis à tête plate et j’ai soulevé ses bras et ses jambes flasques. Ils ont fait un petit bruit de tapotement en retombant. J’ai entrouvert sa bouche et ses lèvres se sont écartées comme celles d’une vraie personne. Sa mâchoire s’est ouverte. La pointe du tournevis a tinté contre ses petites dents.

*

Avant que Stacy et moi on se sépare, on avait l’habitude d’emmener les enfants à Flat Beach où il y avait une sorte de cabinet de curiosité dans une station service avec une sirène empaillée. C’était pas une vraie sirène, bien sûr, mais c’était de la vraie taxidermie – la moitié avant d’un singe cousue sur la moitié arrière d’un poisson. Ils la gardaient derrière un rideau violet dans l’arrière-boutique. Ça coûtait un dollar chacun pour la voir, et on la voyait à l’aller et au retour à chaque fois. Les enfants adoraient ce truc.

J’ai raconté ça à Toby pendant qu’on fumait une cigarette en aérant le garage.

“On déplace le portant avec les cartes et les bidons d’essence vers le mur du fond”, j’ai dit. “On pourrait le mettre dans le coin près du distributeur de soda. On accroche un rideau. C’est parfait comme endroit.”

“Juste couché mort sur une table ?”

“Nan, on pourrait utiliser du fil de fer pour le faire prendre la pose. Peut-être comme s’il jonglait.”

“Tu penses que les gens sont au courant pour ce truc, mais que juste toi et moi on en a jamais entendu parler ?”

“Ben…  t’entends souvent parler de nouveaux trucs de ce genre ? Tout a été découvert.” J’ai regardé une voiture tourner à gauche au feu. “J’ai quand même l’impression que si tout le monde était au courant, nous aussi on le saurait.”

La voiture s’est avancée dans le parking et s’est garée devant une pompe à essence. Le conducteur est sorti et s’est dirigé vers nous.

Toby a écrasé sa cigarette et a dit : “Attendez, m’sieur, je vous rejoins à la fenêtre”, puis il est reparti par le garage. Le type est allé à la fenêtre pour le service de nuit.

La voiture sentait encore très fort, alors j’ai mis de l’eau de Javel sur un chiffon et j’ai essuyé la boîte à gants.

Dans le rétroviseur côté passager, j’ai vu le type debout devant la porte du garage.

Toby est revenu en souriant. “Premier client.” Il a pris le sac poubelle qui était posé sur l’établi.

“Tu lui as dit ?”

“C’est un secret ?”

Je suis sorti de la voiture et je l’ai suivi.

Il a défait le nœud du sac, fixant le gars de son œil gauche tandis que son œil droit s’assurait que personne nous observait. Il tenait le sac ouvert. “Regardez-moi ça.”

Le gars s’est penché et a regardé. “Je vois rien.”

J’ai sorti ma mini lampe de poche et j’ai éclairé l’intérieur du sac. Les jambes du clown étaient toutes droites, mais ses bras étaient tordus dans tous les sens.

“Une poupée”, a dit le type.

“C’est pas une poupée”, a dit Toby.

“Ça pue en tout cas.” Le type s’est pincé le nez et a froncé les sourcils en me regardant. “Qu’est-ce que c’est ?”

J’ai haussé les épaules. “On sait pas. On l’a trouvé.”

Le gars s’est penché à nouveau et j’ai rallumé ma lampe de poche.

Toby lui a demandé : “Combien vous seriez prêt à payer pour voir ça ?”

“Je sais toujours pas ce que je regarde.”

*

J’ai accroché notre premier dollar, celui que le gars nous avait donné, sur le mur au-dessus de l’établi. Je lui ai expliqué pour la sirène de Flat Beach, et que ce que nous on a valait probablement plus, mais il a dit qu’il n’avait qu’un dollar sur lui.

Il nous a quand même payé même après avoir vu le clown et ça c’est bon signe.

*

La voiture appartenait à un vieil homme, qui nous l’avait déposée parce que les ventilateurs ne soufflaient pas assez fort.

On s’est dit que s’il était au courant pour le clown, il avait sans doute dû l’oublier. C’est peut-être comme ça qu’il est mort. Il a oublié de le nourrir, de lui donner de l’eau, de l’air ou autre chose. Il l’a juste laissé mourir, tout maquillé. Est-ce qu’il avait des touts petits accessoires de maquillage  ? Il s’est maquillé tout seul ou le vieil homme l’a aidé ? Et qui a fabriqué les vêtements ? C’était des vêtements de poupée ?

J’ai ouvert le capot pour regarder la ventilation, et j’ai vu un deuxième clown coincé entre le collecteur d’échappement et la culasse. Ses vêtements en nylon étaient roussis, collés au métal, j’ai dû gratter un peu. Il ne sentait pas aussi mauvais que le premier. Un peu cuit.

On ne pouvait pas exposer celui-là, il aurait fait trop peur aux enfants.

Je l’ai étalé sur un chiffon sur l’établi pour surprendre Toby.

Finalement les ventilateurs du vieux ne soufflaient pas fort parce qu’un troisième petit clown avait grignoté un trou dans le boîtier du chauffage et s’était coincé à l’intérieur. J’ai commencé à penser que ces bestioles s’étaient toutes tuées en essayant de trouver un endroit chaud où se cacher.

Le troisième était en parfait état, il avait dû suffoquer à cause de la chaleur. Donc maintenant on en avait deux bons – on pourrait les installer comme s’ils jonglaient ensemble, ou comme si l’un arrosait l’autre. On pourrait mettre en place un bouton sur lequel les enfants appuieraient pour faire jaillir l’eau.

Il faudrait imperméabiliser la peau avec une sorte de laque après les avoir empaillé. Je demanderai de l’aide à mon pote Sal. Il est doué avec les écureuils, qui font à peu près cette taille, et il saurait probablement comment imperméabiliser les peaux.

Puis j’ai réalisé qu’on pourrait aussi utiliser celui qui est brûlé. Si les os sont encore en bon état, Sal pourrait fabriquer un petit modèle anatomique avec le squelette. Ce serait mieux que cette fausse “sirène” ridicule, parce qu’il y aurait un côté scientifique, comme ça existe vraiment.

J’en tremblais presque en installant le nouveau boîtier de chauffage, rien que de penser à la façon dont le bouche à oreille allait faire exploser les ventes de billets. Les familles feraient la queue sur le parking. Et les musées aussi, quand ils en entendraient parler. Ils nous supplieraient de les leur vendre. Mais on refuserait jusqu’à ce que le prix nous convienne. Et même quand ça nous conviendrait, on leur dirait quand même non, juste parce qu’on peut se le permettre. Tous les combien des découvertes de cette nature ont lieu ? Pas très souvent, et c’est jamais quelque chose de ce genre.

Stacy me déposerait les enfants un week-end où j’ai la garde, et je les emmènerai directement voir les petits clowns, je les laisserais regarder aussi longtemps qu’ils le veulent gratuitement. Mais Stacy elle, elle devrait payer son billet d’entrée et faire la queue comme tout le monde. Et pendant ce temps-là, elle verrait l’excitation sur le visage de tous les visiteurs, tous impatients d’entrer.

J’imaginais même le scénario où elle arriverait en même temps que les gens du musée, et ça me faisait sourire. Ça serait trop parfait.

*

J’ai jeté un œil sous la voiture avec ma mini lampe de poche. Ça n’a pas manqué, j’ai vu des couleurs vives entre les tuyaux – encore un. Puis emmêlé dans un câble – un autre ! J’ai poussé un cri de joie.

Toby est entré et a juré quand il les a vus alignés sur l’établi. “Oh putain, on en a cinq ?!”

“Tais-toi et donne-moi un coup de main.”

On a soulevé la voiture sur le pont élévateur et on en a trouvé trois autres dans les passages de roues. Deux d’entre eux étaient inutilisables, mais on a étalé d’autres chiffons et on les a quand même alignés sur l’établi avec les autres. Tous leurs petits vêtements brillants étaient de couleurs différentes, comme des bijoux.

Je pouvais les imaginer équipés de mécanismes pour les faire se tenir en équilibre sur des ballons, se balancer sur des trapèzes, faire des sauts périlleux les uns au-dessus des autres. Pour rigoler on pourrait aussi ajouter les écureuils de Sal et faire en sorte que les clowns tiennent des petits fouets et des petites chaises comme des dompteurs de lions.

Toby est resté après son service et m’a aidé à démonter la voiture. Le matin, il dormait assis contre le mur, la voiture n’était plus qu’une coquille sur le pont élévateur, et il n’y avait presque plus de place sur l’établi pour mettre d’autres clowns.

J’ai abaissé la voiture et j’ai enfin ouvert le coffre. Dedans il y avait un vieux cric et un jeu de câbles de démarrage. La mousse du siège arrière avait un trou, fait avec des petites dents. J’ai soulevé le faux plancher du coffre, où à la place de la roue de secours, il y avait un autre clown. Il avait de longs cheveux bleus. Ses yeux étaient fermés. Son corps mou était allongé en boule sur le côté comme une chatte autour d’une poignée de petits clowns gémissants, chacun de la taille de mon pouce, aveugles, et essayant tant bien que mal de téter les pompons du costume de leur maman.

Guillaume looked at her. “Are you okay?”

She remembered the word he taught her for “drink” in French, so she pointed to her head and said, “Yeah, just… le boisson.”

He smiled and nodded. “La boisson. It’s feminine.”

She let him in and he put the small pastry box on the coffee table.

She pointed at it. “La boîte.”

“Exactly! See? You’re getting it.”

That one was easy to remember because she had a secret mnemonic joke that “box” was feminine because it’s like a womb, or American slang for vagina.

“And this?” He pointed down at the old brass bed.

She scrunched her brow. “Oh… Shoot, I don’t remember. Wait, yes, la lit!”

“Le lit. Bed is masculine.”

She’d met Guillaume when finalizing the paperwork for her upcoming French classes. He asked her out right there at the reception desk, as if it was part of the process. Her friend who studied abroad last year had said, “Watch out, French guys are smooth. And they only like doggy style.”

But Guillaume seemed kind, and she knew no one else.

Now he was in her apartment because, as he pointed out, it was too hot to go to a park. The place still didn’t feel like hers. Photos of home she’d stuck in the molding around the window felt about as ensconced as chalk drawings on a brick wall. Her suitcase lay open at the foot of the bed. Clothes draped on the armchair. She picked these up, tossed them into the suitcase, flapped it shut and kicked it under the bed.

Out the window was a layered view of identical off-white facades, sloped metal roofs, and terracotta chimneys in rows like empty flowerpots. All muted colors, even in bright sunlight. Perched on chimneys, antennae, and window railings were pigeons that matched the buildings’ palette so closely that one could have been modeled after the other. She opened the window, and the stale air in the room shifted. “Please, take the chair. It’s more comfortable.” She lit the candle on the coffee table to clear the smell of old wallpaper. The candle was lavender like her mother’s perfume.

“Oh, merci.” Guillaume stepped around the coffee table and stopped to point at the armchair, its red upholstery worn pink in places. “And this?”

“La chaise,” she said proudly, filling two glasses of water at the tiny sink by the foot of the bed. The water tasted like pennies.

“Correct! But this is technically a fauteuil, so it’s masculine.”

“So drink and box are feminine,” she raised an eyebrow, “and everything else is masculine?”

He laughed, following her lead and removing his own shoes—scuffed leather shells like hipsters wore back home. A lot of French guys looked like accidental hipsters. “Many things are feminine.” He pointed at the candle. “Une bougie.”

She feigned offense. “Hey, who you callin’ bougie?”

He paused and leaned forward, “Sorry?” When she didn’t explain, he said, “The candle is la bougie.”

A candle is phallic, she thought, but because it melts away it is feminine. The flame trembled and drank up the liquid wax, her vaporous mother scented the air, and she regretted having lit it.

Guillaume sat back, crossed his heels on a corner of the coffee table and then pointed at it. “You know this one.”

“La table? That’s easy.”

“This one is a… you say ‘coffee table,’ right? In French it’s table basse. Like ‘low table,’ I guess.” He rested his arms on the chair’s arms of carved wood, like a commander after a victory. The masculine Guillaume supported by the masculine armchair. She crossed her legs, and the masculine bed creaked beneath her in protest.

She imagined herself naked on all fours in place of the feminine “low table,” serving as an altar for the vanishing candle and pastry box womb, as well as a footrest for Guillaume.

Her hands went up. “So, is French just totally sexist?”

“What? Why?” He took his feet off the table and leaned forward.

“Seems like everything that’s low or weak or could disappear is feminine.”

He paused. “Well, there are rules about it, yes, but they’re more about how a word is spelled. The thing itself being masculine or feminine—we don’t think of it like that.”

“I see.” Now she hoped he saw her question as just an ignorant joke. “What else in here is feminine?”

He pointed. “Those photos: la photo.”

But that didn’t help. The photos were only stand-ins for the familiar and far away, as ethereal as the scented candle. Her frustration jammed more questions on her tongue like bicycles and modestly-sized cars at a Parisian crosswalk. She resented the traitorous “feminine” boissons buzzing in her warm head. Another sip of penny water.

“And…” Guillaume continued. “Well, this room is feminine. La chambre, the bedroom.”

She scowled at the room. “Huh. Chamber. Like in a medieval castle. What other rooms are mine?”

“Yours?”

“Female.”

“You mean feminine? They’re just words, remember.” His eyes were canny now. “The bathroom is feminine.”

“Oh, yeah? Where the toilet is?”

“No, that’s the WC, which is masculine. They’re different rooms.” Then with a sheepish smile he added, “But toilets are feminine.”

“Ugh! Figures.” She clenched the bedsheet with a fist. “And bathtub probably is, too, huh? Like a big womb where you wash away all your filth?”

“It is, but probably not for that reason… When you take a bath, though, it’s masculine. Prendre un bain.”

“Congratulations. Another point for you.”

“But shower is feminine. La douche.”

“Okay, now you’re just being an asshole.”

He laughed, enjoying the game. “Asshole is masculine.”

“Hm, it kind of is in English, too.”

“Ah, but do you see? You Americans think like that. Not us.” He shrugged with a smirk.

She glowered. “How ’bout the living room?”

“Masculine.”

“But wait, let me guess—the kitchen is feminine.”

“Yes.” His smile grew. But he saw the growing seriousness in her eyes. “Oh, come on! It isn’t like that! This is very sensitive of you, I think.”

Easy for him to say now, after centuries of that just being how the language worked, seemingly as immutable as earth’s orbit around the sun. She imagined an old white Frenchman at the dawn of the language, ordering his wife to go to the feminine kitchen and make him a (probably masculine) sandwich. Then, struck by the concept, he hunches to scribble the idea of gendered language onto his (most likely masculine) paper with his flamboyant (and therefore undoubtedly feminine) quill pen. Under all the layers of unquestioned tradition, she thought, it always boils down to the whim of some white man.

“You know,” Guillaume said, “now I realize technically all the rooms are yours. La pièce—’the room’—feminine.”

She folded her arms and considered counting that as a half-point, if only to make this first interaction more pleasant. Here she was in her new apartment in a new country, arguing with someone she’d have to see five days a week for the next three months while she learned a language that she was, perhaps wrongly, already starting to hate. Who knew what other mines lay in her path, linguistic or otherwise? This is what they call culture shock, she thought. Keep an open mind.

(She would recall and resent this moment of calming reason in class the very next week, when the teacher would confirm that, indeed, the nonspecific “room” was feminine, but that the ceiling, floor, and walls containing that room were all masculine.)

Guillaume looked out the window. “You will learn in your classes, French is a beautiful language.” He raised a finger at her. “Ah! Language—la langue—is feminine. Or as you say, it is ‘yours.’ But I tell you, we don’t think like that. It’s just… words.”

Communication, she thought. Empathy. Of course language was feminine. But she remembered that language was also a cultural touchstone. It conveyed knowledge and recorded history. It shouted from mouths and signs in the street against oppression, and tagged antiestablishment messages on phallic buildings and monuments. Yes, language had been a colonial tool and weapon of the patriarchy, but it had also united people to fight back. Now her toes touched a possible step up in awareness. A deep lavender inhale soothed her.

Guillaume noticed her reverie, and motioned to the box. “Would you like some pastry?”

“Which is it?”

A confused look. “Which?” Then, “Oh, feminine. La patisserie.”

“Well, then of course.” She smiled, and he smiled back, looking relieved. “Is it because pastry is sweet?”

He shrugged, “I don’t think so. Sugar is masculine.”

She took the two plates, forks, and knives from the dish rack at the sink.

“La fourchette,” he said, pointing at the fork. “Feminine.”

“Ah.” Some small satisfaction. “And this?” She held up the knife.

“Le couteau, masculine.”

“Of course. Stabby, stabby.”

He smiled and shook his head, “Of course,” and opened the box.

Inside were two smooth chocolate domes sprinkled with coconut shavings.

“Ooh, what are these?”

“Tête de nègre,” he said.

She stared at him, able for the first time to parse a French phrase herself. “You have a dessert called… ‘n-word head’?”

“It is a very old traditional dessert.” He pushed a knife down through one.

Inside it was white.