(“I always said it was like this,” the woman says, when asked. Her fingers are dirty and it makes her skin seem even darker and maybe, maybe the tangles in her hair and the blood that seeps from her cracked lips make the people more likely to call her guilty, and maybe she just doesn’t care. It doesn’t matter, anyhow, she is telling a story - and when she is telling a story, she doesn’t care what the people think, only that the tale is told.

“I always said it was like this. Paris. Caught between eras, living half its life in the past -”

There are eyes, dozens and hundreds of eyes just in this one room, and more watching screens with her face painted in tiny pixels that oscillate, colors that fill an empty canvas like waves of ink. But she doesn’t feel them, doesn’t see them. To her, they are invisible. She sees the bars, feels the bars, flinches at the iron of the bars, how cold they are to the touch - frigid against her skin, burning cold. She shivers, even though the room is warm, hot with body heat, too many people all crowded into the same room between the same glass walls.

“You’d think they’d use something stronger than bars, wouldn’t you?” Or glass - but she doesn’t say that, it’d give her away.

The room is hushed. She means it to be a mystery, maybe, an intrigue, but the people in this place have already decided what it is - an admission of guilt, a final sentence. Her dirty fingers tap on the wood in front of her, a two-three rhythm, jagged fingernails scratching uncomfortably against the smoothness of its surface. Her eyes are fixed on the ceiling, a point somewhere across the room, forty-five degree angle from her head. “Bars,” she says, again, and the word echoes hollowly through the room like a gunshot, and someone jumps, and she laughs. “They put us behind bars.”

The man across the room from her coughs softly. He does not have to say anything, he knows, the crowd has already decided - but he goes on anyway, because it is his duty. His calling. He is not paid to let them decide for him - or maybe he is, but he either way he still has to say the words.

“Do you,” he whispers, “have this symbol -”

But she cuts him off before he can finish, a simple do I? and the sound of her voice snaps so sharply he has nothing to say afterwards.

Her smile is almost a smirk.

What symbol? the crowd wonders, because they had not thought to guess that she might have already been called a criminal in this city, in this place, before now.)

It is a quiet place, the shadows of the alley, the clouds that hang low in the sky over the houses of the artistes, memories of Picasso and Van Gogh and Matisse and Degas and Renoir. She does not understand the rest of Paris, why anyone would see art in its narrow streets and crowded walks, but here, Montmartre, the enchantment is preserved, you can see the paintings in the way the streets close in on themselves and the vendors in their little tents hold charms and cheap jewelry that sing softly in the twilight. And Sacré-Cœur, white and beautiful, repaired so many times over the centuries that Mounia thinks not a single atom is original anymore, but it looks as though it’s never been touched by time. It’s strange, watching the air traffic circle around its dome, lights flashing; strange, climbing the top of the hill and seeing the screens with their billboards screaming color from the more modern quarters of Paris - but here the buildings are as low as ever, and as dirty, and there are almost no groundcars, only people on foot and bicycles that crawl along along with their pedals squeaking slowly.

It’s cold - always colder than she expects, a chill that bites through her fishnet tights and pimples her legs with goosebumps. She tilts herself back, all of her weight to one side, sinking into her hip so her other leg juts out jauntily beneath her skirts. She loves Montmartre for this, for the freedom to walk outside in her stilettos and crimson lipstick, and nobody thinks she is misplaced, everybody understands. In Paris, they would frown. In Paris, they would think she was a common whore.

“You should know to stay away from people like her,” Simão murmurs. He stands in the shadow of a doorway, iron bars dark behind him like a grisly backdrop.

She looks away. She doesn’t smoke, but the cold is enough that her breath puffs into the air mistily anyway. “I should know to stay away from people like you,” she says, without turning back to him, because somehow she can’t stand it if she does (scared, maybe, or just bitter, she’s not sure which). “I told you I’m done. Out.”

“You don’t have that option.”

“Don’t I?” Her eyes flash again. “You underestimate us, Simão, you underestimate the Moulin-Rouge. I can cut you out entirely, if I want to. I’m trying to do this the clean way, but you aren’t letting me, it’s not exactly as though you’re giving me a choice.” Her lips curl, a thin line painted red, and the fishnets on her legs glitter in the dimness. If she turns, she can see the lights leading towards the Moulin-Rouge, even this far away. “I’ll do it the messy way if I have to.”

The way Simão looks at her is less than unconcerned - amused, almost, as though he finds all of this a particularly humorous joke. “You,” he says, smiling. “You would do this the messy way?”

She turns away, back to him. “You underestimate me, you underestimate all of us, you underestimate the Moulin-Rouge, I’ve told you that already.”

“The Moulin-Rouge...and is that where your woman got the idea for her little scheme? Copycat.”

“Simão -”

“My spiderweb is bigger and stronger than yours, Mounia. I would think twice, think carefully, before you make any rash decisions, yes?” He takes a step towards her, turns her by the shoulders so she’s facing him and slips a finger beneath her chin, tips it up so she’s forced to stare him straight in the eye. “You are mine, Mounia, you’ve always been my girl and you know that. And you’re not getting away.” He shakes his head. “And don’t count on the Moulin-Rouge. The red windmill is not what it once was.”

“I’m not going to go with her,” Mounia says, tossing her head, wishing for once that she had a cigarette between her lips - just for the sake of her reflection. “I thought you knew that.”

“Of course I knew that. I wouldn’t have let you.”

She lets that stand without questioning it, without objecting - lets the two of them be suspended in time, weightless, the streets of Montmartre and the glow of the lights that lead to the red windmill, the feeling of the fishnets against her skin and imaginary smoke spiraling towards the clouds and an imaginary cigarette between her crimson lips. And then she spins, the bells in her hair twinkling and singing softly, and she begins to walk, stilettos clicking softly against the uneven pavement.

She watches her reflection pass blurrily from one window to the next, watches Simão’s stay motionless behind her, his lips curved in the ghost of a smile. It bothers her that he smiles. But at least he does not follow her, not now (not yet, she thinks, but she forgets that thought as soon as it comes, because it is happier to forget).

She’s still thinking about him, his steadily unwavering reflection, when she walks into the Moulin-Rouge, underneath the windmill that spins on and on and never seems to stop, the neon lights that shimmer through the streets so bright it hurts to look at them. She doesn’t look at any of the patrons she passes - just weaves her way around to the back and slips inside, the bells in her hair ringing as she walks. The shawl slips from her shoulders, soundless, and gathers on the floor of the dressing room in a pile of silk and tassels.

“You’re late,” says Bethany, swinging around, long blonde hair nearly catching Mounia in the face. She’s perfect. Perfectly French, perfectly beautiful, big blue eyes and white costume studded with diamonds and a smile that lights up the room. “You can’t fall in love with all of them, Moony.”

“Stop calling me that,” Mounia hisses, but it’s probably the hundredth time she’s said it, and the words no longer hold any weight.

“Partner acts don’t work without the other girl. You made me go and do that dance alone, mm?” Bethany laughs a perfect laugh, bell-like and high like music. “I should tell Sahil, you know. He’d like that. Maybe take something off your paycheck, give it to me.” She sits herself on one of the makeup counters, legs swinging out, long and perfectly toned. “What do you say, sister?”

Mounia rolls her eyes. “If you want,” she murmurs.

“Or I could tell him -”

“God, Bethany, you could stop being so coy every time you ask, couldn’t you? Just fucking ask.” She hisses between her teeth, sharp. “And I don’t have anything today, anyway, so it doesn’t matter, does it.”

“I know where you go -”

“Not today. I wasn’t there today.” She curls her lip, tosses her head so the bells ring loudly enough that, for a moment, she can’t hear the music from the stage. Bethany glares. “I know,” Mounia murmurs, throwing her arms up over her head, admiring her poise in the mirror, “I’m useless if I’m not bringing you your goodies. But I’m not your slave, Bethany, I thought you’d realize that by now.” I am nobody’s slave, nobody’s fool (is it true, though? is it really?).

“I never said you were.” Bethany purses her lips at herself, keeps her eyes off Mounia as intently as though Mounia were a real-life Medusa. “We’ve another act coming up, gitan.”

“I know. Five o’clock shift.” She twirls fast, watches her skirt fly out. “You don’t know him, do you?”

“Who?”

“Simão.”

“Not personally.” Bethany’s fingers tangle together, a blur against her head, wrapping the length of her hair into long braids. “Do you know him?” She smiles, suddenly dreamy, and all of the angles of her face, the jagged edges of her jawline and the thin set of her lips soften. Just like magic. That’s the effect he has on the girls - the ones that don’t know him personally, at least. “I’ve heard so much about him, gitan, does he know you?”

Mounia sighs. “Maybe,” she says, twirling again.

“Ahh, you must tell me. Another lover?”

A lover. Far from the truth, but not as far as it might seem, maybe. Mounia smiles. Might as well milk this for what it’s worth - maybe for once Bethany will stop treating her like the poor little gypsy girl she is. “Not a lover. My lover. Passionate. Wildly passionate. You should see him, Bethany -”

“You will introduce us,” the blonde cuts her off, twirling, leaning in so abruptly that Mounia recoils, their faces inches apart. “You will show him to me. I -”

“I can’t.”

Bethany narrows her eyes. “You can’t, or you don’t want to? You don’t want to share -”

“Simão is dangerous, Beth. You’ve no idea. It isn’t the same as just meeting...any man.” That’s not a lie, at least. That part is as true as anything Mounia’s ever told anyone. “I bring a gun with me when I see him, and even that’s not enough to - well, if he ever turns on me, I’ll be dead, you have to know that. If you meet him even once, you’ll never be the same.”

“A dangerous man,” Bethany says, but she doesn’t sound scared, just dreamy.

Mounia kicks at one of the stools by the counter. “It’s not a game. He’s killed people before. I know maybe you think the Moulin-Rouge is the real world, but it’s a bubble, this whole place is a bubble, and sometimes I think you never live outside of it, not even for an instant -”

“I’ve seen people killed before,” Bethany says, her voice hard, and then she turns away, before Mounia has a chance to respond.

“I’m sorry,” Mounia murmurs.

“There was a war here. Maybe you’ve forgotten.”

Forgotten. Forgotten. No, she can never forget. A curse, maybe, or a blessing in disguise, but she will never forget the feeling, never forget the walls and the way they seemed to close in on her, the distant screams. Never forget the smell, the hard cold rain against her naked body, the dirt that turned into mud beneath her feet. Never forget their voices, the shouts, the fist and cross and laurel wreath woven in gray thread. Always a prisoner, you will always be a prisoner, she’s heard those words too many times to forget. The woman was right about that one thing. She will always be chained, one way or another.

But she doesn’t say that - any of that - to Bethany. She turns, and her eyes are dark, and she simply says, softly, “I think we all lost something we loved in the war. I think it’s hard to forget.”

Bethany turns away, so all Mounia can see is the way her hair ripples, golden, down her back, in the hot light of the dressing room lanterns. “Why did you come to the Moulin-Rouge, Mounia? Why you of all people? It’s such a strange place.” She throws a look over her shoulder, and there’s something in the angle of her head, the way her eyes narrow, that tells Mounia it’s more than just a simple, innocent question.

“I’m not the normal Parisian girl,” Mounia shrugs.

“No, you’re not. Your family can’t be from Paris.”

“My family,” she says, watching herself idly in the mirror, “is none of your business. I can never fit in here. My culture is too different. But the Moulin-Rouge takes anyone, anything, anybody, doesn’t matter who you are -”

“- or where you come from,” Bethany smiles. “The Moulin-Rouge protects any girl who comes to its door, doesn’t it?”

“Doesn’t it.” She echoes it so softly she can hardly hear herself, so softly she’s not even sure she believes it anymore. She’s thinking of Simão, and what he said to her, and the way Bethany stares, and how hot the lights feel on her skin. The Moulin-Rouge isn’t what it once was - is it? She came here as a safe place, so long ago, but maybe the years have changed. Maybe the war changed it like it changed everything else. Maybe she shouldn’t -

“It’s five o’clock,” Bethany says, snapping Mounia out of her daze. The look in her eyes is gone, vanished, disappeared so suddenly that Mounia’s left wondering if maybe she could’ve just imagined it, somehow, and then Bethany’s got Mounia by the hand and she’s dragging her out, out of the dressing room with its huge round yellow bulbs and into the hallway, dark and warm and full of costumes that rustle when they brush past.

“You seem off today,” Bethany says, and even in the dark her smile is somehow too sweet to be real, too sweet to be true. “I need you to really put it out there tonight, oui? Don’t want my pay to get docked anymore. C’est pas ma faute -”

“I know,” Mounia whispers. I know you blame me. I know Simão blames me, too, and I know why. But you’re wrong, all of you are wrong, none of you understand -

And then she’s on stage, and she’s not thinking about that anymore, Simão or Bethany or the war - she’s only thinking of the Moulin-Rouge itself, of the feeling of the lights on her face, the costume against her skin.

Ten years. It’s been ten years since she saw the Moulin-Rouge for the first time, the red windmill with its flashing lights and heavy red curtains, and even so it takes her breath away, standing on the stage staring out at all of the faces below. The paintings on the walls, the magnificent murals on the ceiling, the wide open floor crowded with people. There are parts of it that are more modern - like the way the paintings move, the constantly shifting mural on the ceiling (shifts so slowly from one artwork to the next that if you glance at it, it seems absolutely still, but if you look back in an hour it will be completely changed). The lights that seem to make everything glow, as if everything is made of tiny stars, tiny suns floating everywhere she looks. Little things that give the whole place a touch of magic, something to add to the enchantment of antiquity.

She closes her eyes, listens for the music, the low hum. A double bass, low in register, the first note of their opening act. So low even she has to strain to hear it - so low the audience will barely notice anything but the silence, and the girls, spotlighted brilliantly in the middle of the stage. She lifts her chin, the bells in her hair ring gently, she thinks somewhere one of the young men in the audience lets out his breath.

Bethany moves, sparkling, white, and the double bass becomes a cello, and the cello whispers to the sound of a harp, and watching Bethany dance is like watching an angel, ethereal, balletic - but sensual, all curves and hips and knowing eyes. This is Mounia’s favorite part, in a way, standing here in the stillness, taking in the effect of the Moulin-Rouge - the orchestra with its shimmering music, Bethany like a swan on the stage, the audience with its breath held collectively, a whole miniature world waiting, suspended on the brink. She knows Bethany hates it, being nothing but a prelude, but at the same time - there is something about being a part of it all, the breathtaking anticipation. Something about standing there with the orchestra so soft it’s almost an afterthought, and the curtains still half-closed, and all of the lights dimmed to a twilight brightness, knowing something bigger and more is about to happen.

And then - her cue.

This moment, this exact moment - she’s experienced it hundreds of times, thousands, but the feeling never fades, never gets weaker. It begins with the music, the swell that grows from nothing and seems to leak from every corner, every wall, fills the theatre from every direction, and the lights, a shimmer like starlight against a moving train, and Bethany, motionless, suspended above the audience with her white costume fluttering gently in the air. The curtains, shifting in place, seeming to reweave themselves into heavy oriental carpets that sag under their own weight, the curling designs that crawl against Mounia’s face like an ink (but not injected, only painted).

The violin explodes through it all like a shriek, high, keening, cascades from one end of its register to the other, falling and falling until it hits bottom -

The lights on the stage go completely dark.

It is not like home, not exactly, it is Paris’s version of her home - a vision of something exotic, not a reality. But there’s something about it, still, something in how beautiful these people imagine her home to be, that makes it perfect - the bells that glitter in her hair, the headscarf so bright it almost seems to glow under the lights, the facepaint that stands out in crimson and orange and black and purple against her skin. And the lights come up and she’s seen it happen so many times, but she still has to fight not to blink against it - the sudden brightness - and two of the men have lifted her up, high into the air, and Bethany is gone.

The audience stares.

She doesn’t look down - she can’t, she’s supposed to be proud and majestic and sinister, almost, chin up and shoulders back and smiling that sultry, smoky smile she’s practiced so many times - but she can feel them staring at her, all of their eyes, and she can hear the murmurs, the rumble that starts low and becomes so loud it’s like a secondary harmony to the music. The men spin her and she doesn’t even have to think about the choreography - it’s a part of her, a reflex, her body already knows what to do without being told. She arcs back into a backbend, stretches one long leg into the air -

She sees him.

He is one face in hundreds, one face in thousands, but she’d recognize him anywhere. There’s something about him that’s magnetic, draws her eyes to him automatically. Something that makes her spine tingle.

Simão. In the Moulin-Rouge.

And the men - the men lifting her -

Simão’s men -

No. No. He’s never done this before, never been so brazen - the Moulin-Rouge isn’t what it once was - her breath feels frozen in her throat, caught, she feels as though she’s going to suffocate on her own oxygen. She wonders if anybody else knows. Not Bethany, maybe, but any of the others. Moulin-Rouge is like family - but what if Simão has broken the family? Or taken some of them for himself?

He can’t have. They wouldn’t let him -

It makes her nauseous just thinking about it, knowing that his men - his men - are the ones lifting her now, their hands under her legs, and she has to smile, has to flash that sultry look under the lights even though her stomach is tied so tight it hurts, even though she can feel a headache begin to throb behind her temples, even though the way they’re spinning her slowly round and round seems suddenly less majestic and just dizzying. The rest of them can’t know - nobody can know, because he can’t have done this himself, someone inside must be helping him. Must be. And she has to - has to -

It’s all wrong. All a dizzying whirlwind of thoughts, random little fragments flitting through her head like a storm, and she’s not even sure she knows what she’s trying to think about anymore, just that she wants them to put her down, wants the lights to go away, wants the people to go away. Just that she doesn’t know if she can trust anybody. Just that she shouldn’t have been so stupid, so fucking stupid - the Moulin-Rouge, a family, no...the Moulin-Rouge is a business, not a family, cabaret girls and whores and money and lipstick and secrets even she doesn’t know. Maybe she’s slipped up. Maybe, for once, she was too confident, maybe she’s let her guard down too far, maybe it’s going to cost her everything.

And the music is loud, so loud, too loud, the men spin her again and when they put her down their hands are still on her arms, ready for the next lift, and she has to fight the impulse to run. And he’s there, almost like he’s in a spotlight, front and center, she thinks - no, he’s not in the center, definitely not in front, but he might as well be - and he’s watching her, intent, and he’s not smirking, not with his lips...but he could be, from the look in his eyes. Or maybe he’s not, maybe it’s all her imagination. What if she’s paranoid? The words he said today running through her head on repeat - maybe the men carrying her today aren’t his men, maybe he isn’t really here, maybe she’s just imagining different faces under the inks and the facepaint and the bright lights of the theatre.

But she turns when the sequence ends, and looks back at them, and their faces are just as strange-yet-familiar as before, and when she looks into the audience, just as the lights fizzle out and the audience erupts into applause, she sees him again, too, and a part of her is certain it’s not just her imagination.

“Are you alright, gitan?” Bethany asks, as soon as they are backstage again.

“He’s here,” Mounia says, though she’s saying it more for herself than for Bethany, hardly even notices Bethany’s even there.

“Your lover?”

Mounia looks back at her, mouth wide. “My lover,” she says, dully, not understanding, and then she turns back to the mirror, watches her facepaint morph into the shape of a lion and breathe fire along her lips.

“My lover,” she says again, and thinks of the men. Her lips are red. Bethany turns the lights out.

~ ~