The words are no sooner out of his mouth than Jack hears the key turn in the lock. The door swings open, as if on its own accord, and the sight that greets Jack is like nothing he’s ever seen before. Girardin’s secretary ison its side in the middle of the room—its glass doors smashed, its desktop splintered, all the books and papers scattered from one end of the room to the other. There are other, smaller bookshelves that have been turned over, too, and the chair that Jack sometimes sits in when he visits lays in three distinct pieces.
It is only when Jack closes the door behind him that he finds Girardin sitting in the corner of the room with his head buried in his knees.
“Professor Girardin?”
Girardin lets out a long moan, and when he finally looks up, Jack takes a small step backward. His teacher’s face is wet with tears.
“My precious boy.”
Jack’s heart fills with gratitude. That Girardin should see Jack so completely is a testament to the bond they share.
“My precious Lou.”
Jack shakes his head involuntarily. “What’s the matter with Lou?”
Girardin lets out such a loud sob that Jack starts to panic. Lou is six—too young to have attended the Hallerian Academy at the same time as Jack, but old enough to play stickball with him whenever he comes to borrow books from Girardin. He is a sweet boy with a gap-toothed smile, who thinks Jack walks on water.
Come to think of it, why wasn’t he downstairs with Ivy when Jack arrived? Or even up here, with Addy? And what of his mother? Mrs. Girardin is rarely, if ever, separated from Mary Anne, who eats on such a regular schedule the professor had begun to call her hispetit cochon.
A terrifying thought occurs to Jack, but he pushes it away and asks, “Where’s Lou?”
Girardin’s eyes are squeezed tight, and he shakes his head back and forth, like he can’t bear to offer up the answer.
It doesn’t make any sense. Lou is too young to have been at the performance. Except. Except. Except Placide & Green was staging his father’s play. Jack can feel bile burning the back of his throat. He reaches for Girardin’s arm, rephrases the question. “Was he at the theater?”
Girardin nods, and Jack lunges for the coal bin, where he vomits up everything in his stomach. For several long minutes, he hugs the rim of the bin, and when he can finally sit up, he keeps his eyes on the floor.
Jack can barely get the next question out, but he has to know the whole truth. “And Mrs. Girardin?”
Girardin’s shoulders begin to heave, which tells Jack everything he needs to know.
“No,” Jack sobs. “No, no, no, no, no.”
It’s not that Jack hasn’t understood that the fire has had devastating consequences. He has. But until now, everything he’s witnessed hasn’t felt real. Somehow, Jack has managed to convince himself that the fire is just the biggest and most elaborate production Placide & Green has ever staged.
Jack doesn’t know how many minutes pass, but eventually Girardin begins to speak. “I never intended to remain at the theater for the second piece.”
Jack remembers him saying as much to him at rehearsals.
“But Mrs. Girardin’s brother was with us, and when I announced that I was leaving, she said she wanted to stay.”
“With Lou?”
Tears leak from Girardin’s eyes. “He was asleep in her arms. I offered to carry him home and put him to bed, but she told me to leave him where he was. That she’d wake him for the pantomime.”
Jack closes his eyes, whispers only, “Professor.”
He waits for Girardin to ask him what he saw backstage, what he knows of the fire that killed his family, but the professor doesn’t say another word for the rest of the evening. Eventually, he falls asleep in the same corner where Jack found him.
Jack came to Girardin’s in search of advice, but now he sees that he doesn’t need it. If he wants to do right by his professor and the scores of other families like Girardin’s—not to mention the countless Negroes whose lives have been turned upside down by the theater troupe’s lies—then there is only one thing to do.
CECILY
How’s Mama?” Cecily asks beforeGilbert’s through the door of the boathouse.
“I’m just coming from there.”
“And?”
