CHAPTER ONE The House of Primates The two men mistook me for dead; but I was very much alive. And regrettably so. No doubt I appeared dead. Henry would later say that his breath caught after the crash when he saw me sprawled there in the new-fallen snow, arms and legs akimbo and my skirts askew. My face and neck were sprayed with blood, droplets of blood that "glinted" (said he) in the thin, wintry light. I'd snuck into the zoo at the Jardin des Plantes an hour earlier to conduct my … experiment among the primates. I'd heard on the streets that the elephants were to be slaughtered on New Year's Day. Not for sport, but rather for sustenance.

For food. The elephants-Castor and Pollux by name-were much beloved, true; but the people of Paris were starving. They, no, we had already slaughtered all the other animals in the zoo. Now only the elephants remained. (And the chimps, of course; but they were safe for now. Too like us , the people opined.) It was to be a big and bloody affair, the taking-down of the elephants, with dignitaries, clergy and the like; and so I'd hoped the hubbub would let me do what I'd come to do at la singerie , the faraway monkey house, in peace, in private. Alas, no such luck.

Rather, I did conduct my experiment; but I was still staring at what I'd wrought. I was stunned, actually, too stunned for tears as I backed away from the cage wherein the chimpanzee had changed so … drastically. It was then I heard the approach of Henry and his manservant, Poole. Of course, I did not know them then. (And would that I'd never met them at all!) In the late-day light, with the whole of the city silenced by the recent snowfall and stilled by the Siege-for the Prussians, having finally defeated France, having felled Napoleon III, now held Paris as choking hands hold a throat-I'd misheard the muffled speech of the men. I thought they were yet some distance off, and that I'd have time to steal away unseen. Instead, I had just rushed around a hackberry bush-still looking back over my shoulder at the primates, as if the murdering one might bend the bars and escape, and come after me!-when I ran straight into Poole. Tall and bony Poole, who had hundreds of hammers in his jacket pockets; or so it seemed.

Whump , and down I went. My heart was already beating wildly, owing to all I'd seen in the chimps' enclosure since I'd introduced the salts and the spell (my so-called experiment) and all hell had quite literally broken loose; but once I ran into Poole, well, the last thing I recall is the breath rushing fast from my lungs, whoosh . Like a bellows. Then all my other senses followed suit, abandoning me, such that I fell like a sack of grain onto the snow. And there I lay some while (apparently). Henry knew soon enough that I was alive, quite. My pulse was strong, said he. Yet still I presented a most curious sight.

For there I lay at length; and though I am rather tall, I must have appeared taller still, skinny as I was. (I'd been rendered down to bones by the want of food.) And I was dressed in those rags to which I'd been further reduced. Worse still: that spray of blood which colored my neck and face. Blood that had no discernible source. At least not upon my person. This Henry determined after a cursory examination (for which I was blessedly unconscious). And so: Where had the blood come from? Such was the topic of conversation between the two men as I began to come round.

And once my senses and reason returned, I immediately set about changing said topic. Foggy-headed though I was, still I knew I needed to sway the gentleman from the consideration of the blood and its source. A distraction was wanted. A diversion … "Au secours!" I fairly screamed, sitting upright and clutching both fists to my bosom. Help! For Henry-who seemed to me then to be between twenty and twenty-five years of age-had laid his cold fingers along my bare neck, monitoring my pulse, and the rings (jeweled rings, I remarked) on two of his fingers were like ice. His fingers were cold, yes, but those golden rings were worse. When he made to slip his hand further in, to gauge (I suppose) the truer state of my heart by calling upon it at home, as it were, I resisted. Loudly.

"Mon dieu! Non!" Suddenly I was a demure demoiselle set to scream a second time for help, not the starving streetling I'd become since arriving in Paris six months prior, several weeks shy of my sixteenth birthday. " Mademoiselle , no," stammered Henry, drawing back. His face went pale, setting in stark relief his warm brown eyes and black facial hair: well-trimmed sideburns and a bearded triangle upon his chin. Soon he'd rouged from embarrassment, a red to match that of his full, fleshy lips. Indeed, he flushed not only upon his cheeks, but the muscled flesh of his neck reddened now as well. As did the very lobes of his ears. "You mistake my intent. I am a medical doctor and I merely meant to determine…" Whereupon he began to fumble both the buttons on my chemise and his French; but his fingers were too cold now to manage the buttons, and his skill (or lack thereof) in my native language did not serve him well.

I might have pitied the man then, if I hadn't been so bent on self-preservation. Pity ? Perhaps that's not the word; but I felt … something for him then as he knelt beside me. If not pity, a desire to … to help him somehow. Why had he no hat, no gloves in this bitter cold? Indeed, in the tumult, his single concession to the cold-a red scarf-had come unwound and showed his shirt open at the neck, quite, revealing alabaster flesh and a thin trail of blackest hair tending downward. I returned from this reverie when Henry hardened suddenly and said: "Oh, blast it, Poole! It seems she hasn't a word of English. Do something, won't you?" Of course, I had a few words of English all right, even back then; but what good would it do me to let them know that? I'd only have to answer the many questions they would ask. The older man neared. He knelt.

Then, as if he were the doctor, he pushed my eyelids up (none too gently) with his fingers and had himself a gander underneath. The nerve of him. And breathing his bitter stink right into my face all the while! "She seems well enough to me, sir. I say, leave a few coins and let's 'ead 'ome. Best to avoid any kind of scandal with this type of … fillette, I think they call them. And may I remind you, sir, that Cheffy was planning to serve up that fine sliced spaniel with a bit of boudin, and now that we couldn't get 'old of any blood for a boudin, well, she'll be none too pleased." Now, perhaps my English, still quite spotty on the day in question, gives me no right to quote Poole so; but his look, which sluiced with such disdain down the length of his long nose, like sewage down a drain, told me I understood his meaning all right, if not his every word. And I certainly understood fillette : He took me for a street whore.

The blood old Poole mentioned must surely have been elephant blood, destined for a boudin. Blood sausage. Surely that explained the presence of these two-the dandy and his man-in the zoo on this day, at this hour. Were they gourmets? Epicures, bent on such … delicacies as elephant-blood boudin? Alas, no matter now. "Mes rats! Mes rats!" I began to scream. Where are my rats? Yes: rats. Any meat suffices in the eyes-and bellies-of the starving. Trust me.

And though I'd not yet fallen to eating the creatures myself, I'd been selling rats to starving Parisians for some while. Two sous a piece. Three for the fleshier ones. I'd had a basketful on my arm when I'd crashed into Poole. I'd picked them up that morning, freshly skinned, from … a friend. It was then, while rambling on about my rats, that I struck upon what seemed a surer diversionary tactic, an actual plan . I reasoned that if these two had braved the cold on New Year's Day to try to bribe someone into handing over a bag of elephant's blood for boudin, then surely they would be interested in actual elephant steaks. "I know where…" I began, my English breaking even as I spoke it.

" Bifteck. Bifteck d'éléphant . I know where. To get." "Whatever is she saying, Poole? 'Beefsteak,' does she mean?" "I think so, sir. But it's elephant steak she's on about, methinks.… Oh, this damned French! It slithers about the ear like a conger eel, it does. And of course there are no steaks to be 'ad just yet, sir.

I'd know, as I've called in all me chits at the markets. And Rodolphe at the Café Anglais assures me that first the steaks would 'ave to be marinated a good whi≤ and as they've only just trundled them beasts from 'ere an hour past…" " Oui, oui . Elephant steaks. I know where you can … acheter ." I made the universal symbol for money with my thumb, fore-, and middle fingers. No man mistakes that. "She claims to know where one can buy elephant steaks," offered Poole. "Yes, thanks, Old Socks.

That much I got.".