Katherine woke in the familiar darkness, sleeping on a bundle of old theater curtains. She felt comfortable in the dark; ‘it was friendly,’ her father always told her. The only light came from dim candles by his piano. Her father raised one of these tapers on a silver candlestick, lighting his way down towards where she and her sisters slept on the island of gravel. He could move easily down the rocky path, but she was too afraid to walk around in the underground grotto by herself.
Katherine sat up while trying not to disturb her sisters. She couldn’t see her father’s eyes, except for the glint from the candlelight behind his powder blue mask. He came close to the island connected by flat stepping stones in the shallow water. He looked over the four sleeping girls.
“Norma…” he called out.
Norma was the tallest one. She sat up immediately, as if she had been pretending to sleep. Their father approached her with his candlestick. He knelt down and caressed her cheek. Katherine couldn’t see his expression.
“Time for another music lesson,” he said in French. That was the only language he taught them to speak, the only one they could read apart from music.
“Can I come too?” asked Katherine.
He ignored her. He raised Norma by one arm and got her walking along with him. He didn’t walk towards the upper ledge where, with his piano and his writing desk, he usually taught the girls music. Katherine’s sister Joan looked at her in confusion. Lauren, the third, was still asleep. They watched him walk Norma off to the central island in the underground grotto up against the far wall. There was a walled structure on the island, like a small mausoleum with stone steps leading up to it. He opened the doors and led little Norma inside and shut them behind him.
“Why is he taking her in there? We’re not supposed to go in there,” said Joan.
They could see the glint of candlelight under the doors, but they couldn’t hear anything. All they could hear was the gentle lapping of water against the rocky outcroppings and the drips from the ceiling. They waited for what felt like a long time, but neither he nor Norma came out again. Joan and Katherine lay back down and covered their faces with the fabric in their nest. They tried to settle their anxious minds and sleep.
‘Father cares for us,’ thought Katherine. ‘He feed us the finest foods from Paris and keeps us warm and safe. He would never hurt Norma.’
He shook them awake that morning.
“Come, I have brought food,” he said.
They got up and followed him to the broken half of a Corinthian column set piece, where they ate their meals. They could smell something delightful. He had brought back pastries dripping with frosting, and hard-boiled eggs and fresh water. The two girls ate gleefully. He did not join them. Katherine looked up at her father, standing with his back to them.
“Why doesn’t Norma eat with us?” asked Katherine.
Their father did not answer.
“Did she go up to Paris?” asked Katherine.
Their father quickly spun around angrily, his cape twirling around him. “No! None of you can ever go up there! You are safe here.”
“But where is Norma?” demanded Katherine.
He stared in the direction of the dripping water and the tunnel leading deeper into the sewers. Sometimes he acted like he was somewhere far away or could see something they couldn’t. They just had to wait for him to snap back. Their father had a tiny gondola moored on one of the stone islands, tied with a chain and padlock. Occasionally they had seen him paddling down that tunnel and disappearing into the dark. The girls only knew when it was night or day based on one little storm drain from which light poured through from above. The storm drain was directly over the water-filled tunnel leading deeper into the sewer. They had never seen Paris, but had been told it was terrible and cruel. They had never seen anyone but father.
He looked up at the rocky ceiling of the cave as music came down to them and resonated on the water. “They are rehearsing. Come, we must do the same.”
They quickly followed their father along a stepped-stone path, around the pools and the edge of the cavern, up onto a ledge. Father kept his piano, violin and composition sheets up on this ledge, and it was also where he taught their singing and music lessons.
Katherine, Joan and Lauren stood in an alcove and tried singing along with the music coming down from above. Their father took his place behind the piano, hanging up his cape. The girls knew all the cues; father had taught them the piece ahead of time. He always seemed to know what they would be playing up in the opera house.
He didn’t seem pleased by their singing this time. He banged his fist on the keys of the piano and yelled at them, “NO NO! It’s too sweet!”
The girls cowered in fear. He cupped his head in his hands and sat motionless. The girls watched him nervously. He was prone to sudden changes of mood.
“This is the lament of women watching a man going to the guillotine, it’s not a nursery rhyme!” he insisted.
“I’m sorry, father,” said Lauren. “We’ve never seen a man going to the guillotine. What is a guillotine?”
Their father snapped out of his fit of anger and smiled at them. “Of course, my little ones, you’ve never seen one, have you? You have never seen death. I’ve tried to shield you from such things…” He got up from his piano and approached them, his hand outstretched. “I’ve always kept you safe, haven’t I?”
“Yes, father,” said Lauren, “Could we come up to the opera house and watch them? Maybe then we would do it right.”
He came up and stroked Lauren’s hair. “No, my dearest, it would be too dangerous. While I would love to show you the opera, if you were caught you would be taken away to Paris. You wouldn’t like that, would you?”
Lauren smiled, but Katherine could see her sister’s hand shaking behind her back. “No, father.”
“No, what?”
“No, we would never want to leave you.”
“Of course, you wouldn’t. You are happy down here, aren’t you? You are safe, far from the cares of Paris. Come, rest while I play for you.”
He led them back to their nest of old stage curtains. They covered themselves in the fabric, and their father picked up his violin. He played the old familiar lullaby tune he always played to lull them to sleep. Katherine couldn’t see him very well from where she lay, but she always had the impression he felt happiest while playing it. It made her feel happy too, and forget all about Norma and living down in a dark sewer. It was the first melody he had ever taught them and the one Katherine knew best. It was the only thing she could remember from her earlier life. It put her once more to sleep.
Katherine woke up from her nap and looked above for their father. She saw him at his piano, but he looked like he had fallen asleep sitting there. Katherine got up and tried walking over the stones in the dark, tiptoeing along so as not to make any noise. She came up to the small mausoleum-like building with double doors draped with red cloth. The lock on the door was a metal plaque shaped like a musical bar. There were metal musical keys on a track that could make them move up and down along the bar.
‘What line of music opens the door?’ thought Katherine.
There was still candlelight coming from underneath. She looked back towards the music landing. Father had not moved. Katherine touched the first note key. It was cold to the touch. She moved them to match the opening notes of the lullaby their father loved. The crack between the metal doors became wider and she got it open. She only opened it wide enough that she could slip noiselessly inside. This tiny crypt was filled with candles; they seemed to glow to her. They were mainly clustered against the far wall on a curved marble altar of sorts. There were dead roses piled in front of a small white bust of a woman. The bust might once have been beautiful. Part of the face had been cracked and broken off. Katherine saw bits of glittering jewelry, moth-eaten scarves, silken gloves and a tiny music box scattered like offerings on the altar. She was so fascinated, she almost forgot why she was there. Then she saw Norma seated on a chair with her back to her.
“Norma!” she called out in a whisper.
She sat motionless. Katherine slowly approached her. She had something wrapped around her head tied at the back. She tapped Norma on the shoulder. Norma turned to look at her. Half her face was covered in muslin, including one of her eyes.
“What happened to you?” said Katherine.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” said Norma in a dead voice.
Katherine reached up and removed the cloth wrap around Norma’s face. Norma recoiled. Katherine screamed. Norma’s face was now covered in pink scar tissue and one of her eye sockets was black and empty. She backed away in horror and ran into her father, who was standing in the doorway. Her father grabbed her shoulders and forced her back into the crypt.
“You wanted to see?” said her father. “Fine. Look, Katherine, look at what the outside world has done to us!”
He turned Katherine around and made her watch as he removed his own mask. He had never taken off his mask around any of them before. She saw the blistered red scars rippling around his eyes.
“This is what our souls look like! I show you my soul so you will always be a part of me!”
Katherine shut her eyes and refused to look at either of them.
“True art comes from suffering, my little one. You are my children; you should share in my suffering so you can truly appreciate music.”
Her father covered Katherine’s face in a wet cloth that smelled so strongly of ether that Katherine blacked out. Katherine woke tied to a chair. Norma stood in the corner staring at her without blinking her one eye. Her father was busying himself with something on the altar. He turned around. His mask was back on. He was holding a small cup of sizzling fluid and a tiny brush in the other.
“Norma, let her drink. This will dull the pain for you, my dear.”
Norma came up to Katherine with a glass of dark liquid and put it to her lips. Katherine was too woozy to resist.
“It is not a punishment; it is a resurrection.” said her father. “The pain you feel will only inspire your soul. Don’t worry, Norma was my first try. I’ve learned from my mistakes.”
He brought the small cup to Katherine’s face. When he drew out the brush it began smoking and sizzling. Norma held up a canvas with a pattern drawn on it. He started copying the swirls onto Katherine’s face. Katherine’s head was still reeling from whatever drug he had given her in that cup; she felt no pain and lacked the will to scream. She only groaned, louder when the brush touched her skin and quieter every time he turned away. He covered her left cheekbone to her ear and her temple to her jaw and then he started down her neck, collarbone, arm and shoulder, parts of her back and her armpit. Katherine lost consciousness again.
She woke up in the mattress of curtains. She instantly felt the stinging pain on her face and reached to touch it. She was bandaged as Norma had been.
“Stop that! You don’t want to ruin the pattern!” called her father.
Katherine began crying, relieved to find she still had both eyes. Her father came over to her and set down his candlestick. He took her in his arms and kissed her head.
“Why, Papa? Why did you do this to me?” she wailed.
“Don’t cry, my child, it will heal in time. But remember, it is not I who have scarred you, but the world that has scarred us both.”
Katherine cried and her tears irritated the open burns on her face. He gave her a sip of liquor from a glass and told her it would make her sleep. Katherine lay down among the musty theater curtains, hoping to die. When she woke again her sister Lauren was sitting over her.
“I didn’t get a good look. What did he do to you?” said Lauren.
She felt her touch the bandage. “No!” said Katherine. “Don’t take it off! It hurts too much!”
“I’m sorry!” said Lauren.
Lauren sat her up and hugged her sister, letting her sob into her velvet stage costume dress. They looked fearfully up at the rocky ledge where their father practiced his music.
“Why? Why would he do this to us?” asked Lauren.
“You should run away, Lauren! Run away to Paris before he does it to you!” said Katherine.
“I can’t leave all of you behind!” said Lauren.
Their father came down from the ledge. Lauren and Katherine held tightly onto each other, looking up at him in fear. He didn’t come down all the way, but called to them.
“You should be thankful that I love you both!” their father said. “I didn’t have cognac or bandages when it was done to me!” He went back up to his piano and began playing again, as if nothing had happened.
The girls in the catacombs had no measure of time as the years passed since that day. They knew they were growing, since at times they needed new, bigger costumes, and strange new things happened to their bodies that father said were normal. They ran out of operas they didn’t know and their father seemed to be more pleased by their singing. But Katherine didn’t care about pleasing him as much, she cared only in so far as it kept him away from her.
He must have been pleased enough to bring them presents. One day father came back from one of his nighttime excursions into Paris. They stood at the boat launch waiting for him to come in on his little gondola. He brought a small chest over and set it down on the top of the grand piano and opened it. He laid out four stage masks not unlike his own.
“There. These are for you. I brought some paints and adhesive. You may decorate them however you like,” he said.
The three sisters looked at each other. They all, for a number of years, had a matching pattern in their skin. It was an elaborate design of swirls, music bars, spider webs and treble clefs. It might have been as beautiful as their father said, if it wasn’t burnt into them. None of them smiled at him except Norma as he unpackaged the crafting materials from the chest he had no doubt stolen. He set them out on the broken half-column where they ate and stood back to watch their reaction. He looked disappointed by their lack of enthusiasm.
“Thank you, Father,” said Norma.
Norma no longer wore a wrapping or anything to cover the extensive burns. She was missing an eye and part of her hairline would not grow back. Katherine seldom had the stomach to look at her. They all took a mask, sat down around the column and started painting. Norma immediately snatched the scissors away from them. The other three stared at her. She smiled back with a look that made Katherine shudder. Norma cut her mask in half and cut around the eye hole in the shape of a heart. She put a little plaster over the eye and glued some black lace to the bottom.
Father headed back down to the boat launch, watching them out of one eyehole of his mask. He stopped when he saw Katherine looking directly at him.
“Work on your masks.” he said.
Katherine didn’t feel particularly inspired; she just started gluing little cut-glass diamonds to it. She could hear father getting back into the boat and shuffling around with something. She spent more attention listening to whatever he was doing than on her mask’s design. The masks all ended up with the same look. They all copied the heart shape around the eye, but painted various colors and embellishments. They all covered their scars with a spider-web pattern reaching back to the ear. They set the masks on the piano to dry.
“Listen, my children, none but us can dare look at your scars. Never take off your masks except to those to whom you bare your soul.” said their father. “If they betray you after you do, they deserve to die. You cannot show the scars to more than one – that is to be false.”
While they waited for the masks to dry, their father looked back and forth between them and the boat. The girls sat and waited, nibbling on the pastries brought down from Paris.
“Put on the masks,” said their father.
He stood back near the boat, watching them. Norma did as she was told. Her mask was more like an eyepatch, covering her missing eye and hair as well as her scars. The others followed suit. Katherine heard small voices speaking in a language she didn’t understand. When they turned around, they saw their father come towards them with two girls. The two little girls were dressed in the little costumes some of them used to wear when they were smaller. They already had bandages over the left side of their faces. They looked shyly up at the older girls in their masks.
“My daughters, I have found two more sisters for you,” said their father. “This is Scarlett and Bette. They don’t speak French yet, but give them time,” he said, spreading his arms around both of them.
The two small girls came up to them with vacant looks on their faces.
“We’re quite a little choir now, aren’t we?” said father. “We could put on a whole opera by ourselves!”
Katherine looked down at the little girls. ‘Did I look exactly like them when…?’ She didn’t remember when she had first come to the grotto. All she remembered was the lullaby.
“Come and paint with us,” called Lauren.
The little girls looked up at Katherine’s pearly white mask with lace that resembled a frozen spider’s web. Bette was too small to even come up to Katherine’s shoulder. Bette approached her and tried to smile, but she grimaced in pain and touched the bandage over her face.
Katherine walked away in disgust and left the other girls alone. She went to the storm drain, the only way any of them knew when it was day or night. She looked up through it, reaching out in vain to touch it. It was under an arch in Paris, so the sun never directly shone through it, but she could see the light reflecting from other buildings. She jumped up and down, trying to get closer to the opening. She lost her balance after one jump and fell into the disgusting water. She did not know how to swim, especially not in her large costume gown. Her arms reached back up, flailing in the air. She could see one of the walls of the arch through the grate and make out a playbill for the opera stuck on it. They were putting on a new show and all of the singers’ names were printed on it. She saw a Katherine, Lauren, a Norma and Joan in the cast list.
‘Those aren’t even our real names,’ thought Katherine. ‘Who are we?’
She heard splashing and voices calling out to her. She saw her father row up to her in the gondola.
“Katherine, come here! That water is poisonous! You’ll die!”
Her father pulled her out of the water and into the little gondola. She tumbled in, rocking the boat.
“What were you trying to do?”
She said nothing, but scowled at him. He paddled back to the rocky islands that were Katherine’s whole world. He held tightly to her arm when they got out of the boat. When he chained it back to its mooring, she pretended to trip so she could see where he stowed the key to the boat’s chain lock. The other sisters all gathered around them on the boat launch.
“You’ve ruined your mask!” He ripped it from her face and shook the water off it.
The new little sisters recoiled from her with a gasp when they saw the elaborate scar. Katherine closed her eyes in shame and bowed her head.
“I wanted to see Paris,” said Katherine.
“NO! You must never go up there!” said her father. “Haven’t you listened to me? It’s lonely and cold and unforgiving!”
Katherine looked up at her father. Her eyes were hard under her dripping hair. “I don’t want to be your daughter anymore.”
Their father stared at her for a moment as if in disbelief. No one moved. He suddenly struck her across the face, knocking her down.
“How can you say that to your father?! I’ve cared for you! I gave you clothes and food, I taught you so much! Where would you go? Paris will eat you up! Look what it did to your face!”
The other girls ran to help Katherine. Their father barked at them and they froze. Katherine picked herself up from the gravel. He had struck the unblemished half of her face so the other half had fallen into the wet gravel.
“The world didn’t burn my face off, you did,” said Katherine. “We live in a sewer! Everything we are, you burned into us! None of it is real!”
“But without me you are nothing,” said their father. He looked at the six of them accusingly. The other girls were too afraid of him to move. “Katherine, you are going to stand by the piano and sing for me all night long.”
The girls all stared at him.
“The rest of you go to bed now!”
He gestured up to the ledge with the piano and ushered Katherine’s sisters over to their bedding of piled curtains. Katherine walked up the steps like a condemned prisoner and stood aloof with her back against the wall. Her father came up the steps to the music ledge, staring at her. He sat down at his piano and said nothing. Katherine waited for him to say something with her face getting hot.
“What are we going to play, father?” she asked.
“You will not speak until I tell you to! Now, while I play you will sing along, no matter what it is? Understand?”
“Yes.” said Katherine.
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, father.”
Their father looked off to the nest of theater curtains and saw many of the girls still awake and sitting up, watching them, then pretending to go back to sleep again. Their father began playing the lullaby all of them knew so well. Katherine sang along with the words, crying, almost screaming. She hoped she could make his ears bleed. Her voice resonated against the walls of the cavern; the candlesticks shook. Father didn’t seem to mind at all. He smiled under his mask; his shoulders rolled as his playing became more wild and exaggerated. Katherine raised her voice, trying to get back at him.
“Yes! Sing, Katherine!” he called to her.
His piano playing became so wild that he fell off his bench, but Katherine continued singing. When she stopped, the echoes of her voice still bounced off the walls. Then there was silence. Father had not risen from where he had fallen. Katherine looked around. Her sisters weren’t moving, either. Without hesitation, Katherine stepped over to where her father lay and searched his coat for the key to the boat’s chain. She found it and hurried over to the dock. She unlocked the chain and got in the gondola. She picked up the oar and tried pushing the boat away from the dock as she had seen him do. She started paddling frantically down the stream, plunging herself into the unknown.
‘Anything in Paris must be better than this,’ was the only thought that crossed her mind.
She tried not to think of his soft voice or of her sisters, nothing that would slow her down. Without looking back, she paddled on into the dark, brushing up against wet stone walls and rocks. She paddled in the direction farthest from home. This was her only chance and she would take it. She had no plan except to escape.
Suddenly her boat tipped forward, throwing her onto her back. She heard the sound of rushing water and then the boat rocked back and forth. She held on, afraid it would capsize. She closed her eyes, waiting for water to wash over her. She waited a while and then opened her eyes. The rocking had stopped. She had come out of a drain pipe and was sailing down a river. It was night and the stars glittered above her. She looked around and saw glittering Paris, the city of lights.
‘How lovely!’ she thought. ‘I think I will like it here.’