Noir fanfic: A Little Princess
Title: A little Princess
Series: Noir
Rating: K+
Characters: Mireille, Odette, Larent, Chloe, Altena, Intoccable
Summary: Even in Mireille's happiest days, darkness was never absent
She lived amongst beauty and had everything she wanted. Her Mamma and Papa loved her, and were so important that even the Corsican Assembly made way in the street. But days still came when Mireille Bouquet sat down and cried. Her Mamma soon followed her to the garden stream, and sat beside her.
“Hush...hush, Mireille.”
“Fabio’s so stupid-I wish he was dead-!”
“Hush, now...he’s your only brother. Just like a little man, he took the blame for everything himself.” Mireille’s tears came hotter and harder, “But you must say sorry for hitting your younger brother. Honestly, that’s all you need to do.”
“Ugh...you’ll get me a new book? Without a big rip in it?”
“Just show me that beautiful smile.”
After her daughter’s tears were done, Odette stayed beside the stream, breathing in the scent of flowerbeds from across the bridge. Mireille put her head in her Mamma’s lap, and gazed at her.
“I’m sorry. And I’m sorry I got my dress all dirty. Papa won’t be home soon, will he?”
“Daddy had to go and talk to M. Bertoni in Ajacchio, about some things. Everyone should be back by the evening, when we’ll have that house party you were so happy about, to celebrate.”
“Everyone...did Daddy go with his friends? I don’t like those men-”
“Mireille; Daddy and M. Bertoni had a bit of an argument. Just like you and Fabio really. So now your Papa is going to M. Bertoni, to forgive him. Because he loves his princess more than any treasure or kingdom in the world. If he was always fighting with his friends instead of forgiving them...you might be like Sarah Crewe in the story, with no Daddy at all.”
“Mmmph...!” Mireille buried herself in her Mamma’s side. Odette steadied her hand, as she touched her daughter’s hair.
“Don’t be scared, Mireille. Think how Sarah always stayed true to herself. No matter where her Daddy was, she knew she was always his little princess.”
“Mmmph, but Sarah Crewe never had a Mama and Daddy like you! You’ve looked after me so well...”
“We always tried.”
Presently, they set off back to the mansion, hand in hand.
“You’re going to play piano in the evening aren’t you, Mamma? I really want to play beautiful music like you when I grow up. Papa says I should be a writer because I’m always reading, and Fabio says I should be an archaeologist, because he’s crazy about dinosaurs...what do you think I’ll be when I grow up, Mamma?”
Odette gazed at Mireille’s pink, bright-eyed face, “I...almost want you to just stay a sweet little girl.”
“Ooo, you should read Peter Pan, Mamma; only boys like Fabio and Papa want to never grow up. I want to grow up soon, so I can be with you and Papa, even when you go to Ajacchio or France on difficult grown up business.”
Odette’s lips trembled, but the smile she finally gave her daughter was indomitable.
-0-
Evening came, and cars piled up in the Bouquet mansion’s drive. The veranda filled with men who were drinking wine together rather than shooting each other in the streets, and perfectly happy about it. George Madeline brought out a crate of his homebrewed beverage; Fabio tried a sip and had to retire early. Odette, wearing a red gown and a diamond necklace Mireille couldn’t take her eyes from, played several Chopin pieces on the piano to heartfelt applause. Mireille herself recited ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’ with barely a tremble or slip; she saw the smiles around her, and flushed happily.
A band naturally formed up, and dancing began; Odette pulled Larent Bouquet from his chair, and they swung about with the gusto of sixteen-year olds. Mireille was hampered by her partner’s relative height, but a sedate tempo definitely suited her uncle’s strong, grave face.
“Is it allowed to be as happy as this?” She called to him over the laughter and music. Uncle Claude smiled quietly, and squeezed her hands,
“Yes, Mireille. Be as happy as you can be, in the times of happiness.”
-0-
“But I thought we were going to France, not Spain...”
“The place is between both countries.” Mireille shied at the tightness of her Papa’s words, and quickly looked out the car window. Some workers in a field were bowing down, as she rolled past them towards the queer-looking old village.
In the village meeting hall, the Bouquets were joined by another couple and a thin, mousey girl, younger than Mireille. The Corsican Princess smiled at her confidently, but had no response. The little girl had her mother’s dark hair and eyes, but didn’t even seem sad, just not much of anything. The grown-ups sat down without exchanging a word.
Before a very important person arrived, Mireille and the other girl were turned out to play round the back. Moodily, she squatted beside the door.
“Good evening,” She finally broke the silence, “My name’s Mireille, of the Bouquet family. It’s polite if someone smiles at you to give them one back.”
“I’m sorry...I don’t know any other girls, so I guess I don’t know.”
“You must have friends! Or do you spend all the time at home with your parents?”
“Um...they’re not hardly ever there, but I stay at home yeah. They say there’s dangerous people outside, so they don’t let me out alone.”
“Don’t your Mamma and Papa love you at all?” The girl stared as if she didn’t know what Mireille was talking about. “Oh, forget it.”
Turning away from a companion she found plain and boring, Mireille idly watched the birds hop between branches in the forest. Chloe watched too, occasionally glancing at Mireille. The Corsican barely noticed (and would forget, until the day Chloe kicked her into a stone floor and brought a knife to her throat) a sharpness buried in her stare.
Finally giving in to temptation, Mireille stood on tiptoe to eavesdrop on her parent’s important talk through the village hall keyhole. The French voice she heard was gentle, but somehow seeped into the heart so deeply, she only dared catch a few words;
“...Monsieur and Madame Bidarte. As true Soldats, your sacrifice will receive exquisite honour. Monsieur and Madame Bouquet...from all I hear, your daughter is a gentle girl. I suppose I will have to be very gentle with her. Sicily, I hear, is a beautiful country; an excellent place for children...”
The Bouquets soon emerged from the village hall; her father silently scooped Mireille up in his arms. Back in the car, she sleepily noticed the Bidartes leaving as well, barely registering that their daughter was not with them.
-0-
Mireille never really found out what had been done to create Silvana Greone. Meeting other Mafia women, meek, grovelling homemakers equally blind to their husband’s businesses and infidelities, was no great help. Maybe an absolute code like the Omerta simply required a few sociopaths each generation, of either gender.
All Mireille saw when she was nine was that the Greone’s daughter was unimaginably pretty, head as sleek as a falcon’s, eyes shining with an unworldly joy. While her father talked with the Sicilian men over wine, the two girls stole off to the cliffs together without a word. Although the daughter of the Bouquets was naturally revered by children and teachers alike at her school, she realised the moment Silvana appeared that she had never really had a friend, and that getting to know the older girl was her most urgent wish. Silvana’s quietly eager smile, she hoped, indicated a similar desire.
They ran beside each other in the grass with equal vigour, knitted buttercup crowns for one princess to give to another. As easily as that, Mireille fell into the violet gaze of her first friend. Silvana’s little eyes surrounded her like still waters, with an interest that made her happy to be Mireille Bouquet.
Thrilling with sudden nervousness, Mireille glanced over the cliff. She could feel something near to her shift, when the distant wave-crashes made her flinch back. But Silvana was smiling. Just as if they were playing together again, as she raised the knife from her waistband, with a practised grip.
Mireille fell back, away from the cliff. Unpunishable by humanity, Silvana held death, like a toy. Mireille’s soul was torn away by her glance. It didn’t matter if she fought or forgave when her life would be gone in a heartbeat. And her friend would never forgive her, because there was nothing that she had done.
Alone on the clifftop, Silvana almost invited a suicidal rush to bear them both into the sea. Mireille never forgot the terror. Never forgot that she was the only one who could possibly have been her friend.
“I know no fear. What about you, Mireille?”
After she had finished, Silvana hauled Mireille back to the lodge. Near-insensible, she heard her sobbing out how the Corsican girl had fallen on a rock and been cut. Her father’s hands grasped her shoulders; Mireille flinched away with a moan, and collapsed on the gravel path.
In Corsica, Mireille hid in a darkened bedroom, as if blinded by madness or cruel sunlight. It was a week before she looked at her face in the mirror and screamed out her tears.
-0-
She stuck close to her Daddy after that; or when he was away, close to his friends with the bare forearms, and waistcoats that bulged at the shoulder. They were glad of her company, though all soon realised that even the lightest touch made her tremble, like a flower in bloom about to fall in pieces.
Odette finally sat Mireille down. She told her that there truly were horrible things in the world, but they could never be allowed to spoil the precious ones. It was the same world they had always laughed in together; happiness was in it, if you searched for the true light.
“Will you protect me? Will nothing horrible ever happen again?” Odette saw in Mireille eyes that she held out little hope.
“Mireille...I will always, always love you. I would make a scar on my brow if it would heal yours."
"Mamma, no!"
"Hush, Mireille. Please...however you can live on, keep smiling.”
-0-
“Please. Look after Mireille.”
She had heard the first two gunshots, in the corridor leading to the veranda. Through the door, her mother looked away from her, smiling. There was a third shot; she could not shut her eyes.
When she stepped onto the veranda, no one was there. The smell from the bodies defiled what it touched. The tune still tinkling from her father’s pocket watch sounded quite different, in the otherworld where precious voices were silent. The love and forgiveness of ten years poured from her heart, and vanished in the burning heat, but the pool of blood that almost reached her feet remained.
As silent as her family, Mireille lived on. She did not cry, because no one would hear her again.