After leaving her husband and their suffocating marriage for a new lover in Rome, the narrator of Heather McGowan’s Duchess of Nothing has her freedom, but is still trapped by the routine of life and haunted by her past. Even worse, her lover, Edmund, is just as self-absorbed and remote as her former husband. Her one source of entertainment is Edmund’s seven-year-old brother, a curious, precocious, and defiant child who becomes her responsibility during her lover’s long absences. Spending their days together, they wander the city, simultaneously repelled by and drawn to each other as she teaches him important lessons he would otherwise never learn in school, such as “marriage is a tomb” and being an expert liar is key to getting ahead in the world. But when Edmund abandons them altogether, the amusing relationship between the narrator and her charge suddenly becomes a necessity, and she realizes how much she has come to depend on the boy.

Look at your brother, I tell the boy as we hang out over the balcony to watch Edmund walk across the courtyard on his way to the street.

The ways of your brother are certainly mysterious, I say, But he provides for us so we must never question them. As you know, your brother provides food, shelter and cigarettes; I provide education and comfort, but you, I say sadly, You are not useful at all. You are seven and seven-year-olds are takers only. In their constant yelping for things brought or poured, their complaints about cold feet as well as the inability to walk with any sort of haste, a seven year-old is completely useless. At least in today’s society, I add. Not so long ago children happily pulled a cart or stitched a rug. Alas we live in a different world now.

Below us Edmund closes the gate to the courtyard, disappearing into the city’s yellow haze. The boy and I stand together peacefully watching Edmund’s back make its way down the street. Your brother has never been a great thinker, I murmur.

No, no, Edmund is a sparrow. Still, we appreciate the sparrow for what he gives us. We do not ask the sparrow to inveigle us with talk of sunsets. We do not ask the sparrow to possess the mind of a poet or the plumage of a parrot. The sparrow is the one mistaking glass for air. It is the self-bludgeoning aeronautics of the sparrow that has us starting from the dinner table.

Because of this, the sparrow lives on; he does not get slaughtered for his pretty feathers or his tasty flesh. Perhaps no one has ever accused Edmund of having a great mind, but he is the one we rush to watch stroll across the Piazza Navona or the Via Veneto. The beauty of your brother’s back mitigates certain defects like his brain, I remind the boy.

Wrapped in our sheets, the boy and I like to hang out over the window gate to watch Edmund’s serpentine path across the courtyard every morning, save those mornings the brother is too chilled. He is a sensitive child who feels the cold excessively, especially in the mornings, when this foul city feels polar.

The courtyard below us is empty now and the boy is stretching out his arms to be lifted because he hates the feeling of bare feet on the tiled corridor. Though he is seven and by all appearances old enough to walk down the blessed corridor by himself, Edmund’s brother prefers to be hoisted on my back and borne to the kitchen like a little king, like a junior emperor of some faraway nation chosen to lead while he lay swaddled in the cradle with unfocused eyes.

And like an obedient servant, I bear him as he wishes. On most days. On some days I lie in bed and smoke cigarettes and wish I were in a faraway nation myself.

But today I let the boy clamber onto my back. Today I weave down the hall to the kitchen where I set the boy in one of the yellow chairs bequeathed to Edmund by his father. Edmund’s father gave him the chairs on the condition Edmund also accept the boy. Of course this is not how Edmund puts it; this is how I put it.

Edmund has a different version altogether. He would never link the yellow chairs to his brother’s presence, but for that account you must turn to Edmund’s notes, which number precisely zero. Instead, I am the one left to describe Edmund’s father drinking his way up the coast of Spain, madeira by madeira. Edmund will mumble when asked what happened to the second wife; I will be the one doing justice to the thunderstorm, the librarian who accompanied her, their rain-soaked journey north. But before daddy’s recent wife set off with her lover and two hundred hardcovers rapidly incurring fines, she left the boy with Edmund’s father. And before Edmund’s father set off on his drinking holiday, he deposited the boy along with four yellow chairs with Edmund and me in Rome.

There are days, days when Edmund’s back seems a little tarnished, that I have cast about our rooms wondering what tantalizing treasure I can offer someone to take the boy off my hands/ Today is not that day. Today Edmund’s back has pleased me to such a degree that I hum as I set about boiling the boy’s milk. I am not above breakfast now and then, a real breakfast I mean, not just a cigarette. A cigarette seems like the breakfast of a driven person with many complicated duties to perform throughout the day and several lists in the making. I am not this person; I have no lists. Yet, while no one has ever called me driven as such, there was a time when I did things with a quicker step and lighter heart than I do today. There was a time when I did not live with Edmund or his brother. There was a time when I had a husband, and a time before that when I had neither Edmund nor a husband, but was simply myself. This was the time I spent working in a bank some ways from the village where my husband kept a compound. And while I was not driven, I loved my time at the bank before my husband stole me away. I loved counting crisp notes with finicky precision; I reveled in the authority of pushing the correct number of bills across to a customer. It is quite impossible to say how much I enjoyed it and how distinctive each day felt when in fact every day was nearly identical. In the evenings I would return to my small room, where I would boil a cup of hot water and gaze out of the window. I might add some powdered broth to the water or, when given to extravagance, a peppermint teabag. How I loved to stand by the window stirring lazily as I brought my focus to the street below or to the wild meadow that lay beyond it. I had read books that featured protagonists contemplating views with hot drinks and in my move away from home to that small city I longed for nothing more than novel experiences. So many things seemed to lie outside my windows though in truth there was only a barbershop followed in rapid succession by a series of empty lots. You see, I tell Edmund’s brother as I take the saucepan of milk from the stove, What matters in life is the promise things hold. Whether or not that promise ever comes to pass does not matter. By the time we discover the thing we hoped held promise holds no such promise, we have found a new thing in which to believe. My future held a great deal of promise when I worked at the bank, I tell Edmund’s brother as I hand him his bowl of milk. You would scarcely believe it to look at me now. I learned a number of transactions and specialty procedures that were only ever taught to clerks of exception.

I learned, for example, how to identify counterfeit bills, I say. And, unlike the other girls who were cretins bar none, I extrapolated this skill to circumstances outside of the bank and soon made it my business to recognize fakes of all kinds. Then one spring day my husband walked into the bank in a small felt cap and withdrew me, along with fifty-five bills of our smallest denomination. He brought me to his compound on a distant hill, where he methodically began to drive me mad. My husband was Bavarian and I am not, I tell the boy. I never understood a word he said but I accused him of mumbling rather than face my own shortcomings. I regret that now, I add. From time to time. Certainly I could take some blame for our failure as a couple, but you see I choose not to. In the evenings, I continue, My old husband and I enjoyed sitting across from each other at a small table. We liked to fold our hands and avoid each other’s gaze. Marriage is like that, I tell the boy, A regular tomb.

I tap the packet of cigarettes against the kitchen table for emphasis. The table is quite empty save the boy’s bowl and my packet of cigarettes and our assorted hands. A real tomb, I repeat, my eyes scanning the table surface abstractedly. Where is your green notebook? I ask suddenly, I don’t see it here. The boy shrugs, his eyes go up to the ceiling then come back to rest at a point beyond my shoulder. In the bedroom, he says quietly. In the bedroom, I repeat. Fancy that, in the bedroom. Edmund’s brother picks up his bowl of milk, watching me over the rim.

Frankly, I’m baffled, I tell him. Have we not begun the day? Do you not think something might arise worth penciling in your green notebook? Edmund’s brother nods slowly. Well then I can hardly imagine what purpose your notebook is serving in your bedroom. I cross my arms and lean back in my chair. For a disquieting moment I think I might pitch backward and smash my head on the kitchen floor. The boy flinches, eyes wide with alarm. Quickly I steady myself, leaning forward on my elbows.

These chairs, I murmur. Chairs will be the death of me. I pull out a cigarette and point it at the boy. I would like you to have that notebook with you on today’s expedition, I say. So mind you bring it. He looks about the kitchen vaguely.

Where was I? I ask, turning to the stove to light my cigarette. I will die in the middle of some repetition. Husband, he says. Yes, yes, I say, But at what juncture? Edmund’s brother stares up at the ceiling.

Marriage is a tomb, he recites. Aha, I say, Clever boy. Now, my old husband was neither attractive nor stupid but average in all ways, I say. Except perhaps that he suffered a great deal. Yes, that man suffered more than anyone has a right to suffer, though he lives in a nice compound in the hills. The rich suffer too, let’s not forget. Let’s spread a little charity where we can. As you know, my husband married me in error, believing me to be a sort of woman I am not, I continue. Many men make that mistake upon walking into banks, I tell the boy, They notice a woman in immaculate clothes, remark how happily she complies with requests. They admire a demeanor that seems to guarantee subordination but months later are quite surprised to find their bank teller setting fire to things.

It was all my fault, I admit sadly though I think no such thing. My husband was a haunted man but for that I claim no responsibility. Edmund’s brother is hunched over his bowl, slurping up milk like a cat. Are you listening to a word of this? I ask. The boy nods. Well bowl to mouth then, I tell him, Not the other way around, not mouth to bowl if you please, you are not some cat. Of course the reason I left my old husband is another story, I say, A lesson for a different day, perhaps tomorrow. Today I am warning you about beauty, the fatal mistakes made in its name. I point around the room, encompassing our meager lives with my cigarette. See what happens? I ask. The boy nods, tilting his head. Meow, he says sadly, Meow, he repeats. Meow,
meow, meow. Drink your milk, I say nicely, There’s a good cat. The brother mews a soft protest but obediently picks up the bowl between his paws. For about three minutes there were only two of us. You and Edmund, the boy says, robotically. Yes, Edmund and me, I agree, For about three blessed minutes. After you met him in the Alps, he says. Yes, I say, Precisely. I left my husband and I found your brother at the Alpine Inn. What terrible thing happened in the Alps, do you recall? I ask. You fell in love with Edmund’s back, the boy says. Exactly, I nod, puffing on my cigarette, Well done. Many people would feel discouraged having a back turned to them over and over. They might feel shame or self-pity. Not me. With no face to behold I made it my business to worship his back instead: the valleys of muscle, the flicker of sinew. Let the masses have their churches, their temples, I needed only the back of your brother. You thought his back was beautiful, the boy prompts. Exactly, I say, But you see how in one fatal second you can go from being a couple in love or something like love, to being three people. Because I came along, the boy says. Yes, and in two seconds I became a dogsbody, an unpaid babysitter, a milk boiler. Where I
was once my own person now I am simply the slut who boils your milk; that is the sole definition of my life today. Why? Because
of beauty. So I will boil your milk every morning until I die spent and shriveled, bones ossified, death passing quite unnoticed.

The boy stares at me, no longer a cat. That’s all, I say leaning back and exhaling. That’s the lesson. Beauty is fatal, the boy says quietly. If not beauty then love, I say carefully. Love is fatal, the boy amends. Both are hell, I say getting up, Avoid both is your lesson for today.

© Heather McGowan