Lady Ocarina and the Mask of Laughter

[waterman]

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Paris, October 16, 1793. Place de la Révolution.​

The air smells of iron, ash, and human breath. The crowd has been gathering since the first light of dawn, an unbroken wave of crowded bodies, hoods, tricolor cockades, wide eyes, red noses. Thousands of citizens, from the sans-culottes of the shops to the bourgeoisie in their crumpled cloaks, pour like a river in flood around the wooden platform of the guillotine, built specifically for public executions.

It is the second time that the square has witnessed the death of a sovereign. But today it is not the king who is dying. Today it is Marie Antoinette of Habsburg-Lorraine, widow of Capet, “the Austrian wolf,” as the revolutionary press calls her. After months of imprisonment in the Tour du Temple, after the agony of humiliation, isolation, and a sham trial to bring ignominy upon her, today she is granted her final stage.

She climbs onto the scaffold on an open cart, dressed in white. The dress is simple, the hem stained with mud and dried blood. Her once flowing hair has been cut to better expose the back of her neck to the blade. Her hands tremble, but her face is composed. She looks at the crowd with haughty dignity, exhausted but indomitable.

At the foot of the staircase leading to the blade, separated by wooden barriers, a second stage has been set up. A pillory is mounted on the side, and between the two forks a chained figure can be glimpsed. It is Lady Ocarina, once known in Versailles as the Golden Androgyne, the queen's personal bodyguard, a swordswoman disguised as an officer, a lady-in-waiting and, for many, a silent lover. Her nickname came from the ceramic ocarina she played to calm the queen's spirits on days of melancholy.

Now she is barefoot, tied to the pillory so that her bare feet are turned outward, exposed to the view of the crowd. Her wrists are stretched by rusty chains, and her torso, squeezed into a patched corset, betrays a slow breathlessness. She has not spoken for hours.

Her soles, perfectly clean, are stretched like strings. The torment that awaits her is not death, but the disintegration of her will.

A man stands up on the main stage. It is Maximilien de Robespierre, “the Incorruptible,” a central figure in the Committee of Public Safety. His suit is austere, gray, his face hairless and impassive.

“Citizens of the Republic! Today, Justice takes a necessary step towards Equality. The widow Capet will receive the same fate that tyrants deserve. And the people will see with their own eyes that no symbol of the past is safe.”

Applause. Shouts. Whistles. Some throw onions, others climb on barrels to get a better view. But Robespierre continues.

“And to make it clear that the old aristocracy leaves behind only ridiculous servants as loyal as dogs, here is Lady Ocarina: soldier of the monarchy, melodist of royal tears, virgin dressed as a man... today, dressed for ridicule!”

The square explodes with laughter and derision. Attention shifts.

A new figure climbs onto the secondary stage: Madame De Rire, former Marquise d'Arcy, a fallen noblewoman and now a fervent Jacobin. She wears a theatrical scarlet dress with a corset that exaggerates her curves and a feathered fan. Unlike the austere revolutionaries, she appears as a decadent ghost of the court, transfigured by revenge.

“My dear Ocarina... did you think we would leave you to rot in silence? That your dignity would be extinguished in the darkness of a cell? No. Your tears are an orchestra. And today, your music will be... laughter.”

The executioners step forward. They are two former Opéra actors, forced to serve justice in theatrical form. They wear white masks, mud-blackened jester's costumes, and carry swan feathers, goose quills, and light whips.

The first caress is cautious, a thin line at the base of her fingers. Ocarina clenches her jaw. Her eyelids flutter. Then a second, a pinch under her big toe. The other executioner works between her fingers, separating them, tickling the sensitive skin between them with maniacal attention.

Ocarina resists.

One minute. Two. Five. Her tendons tense, her back arches. Her feet jerk, but not a word, not a cry, not a gasp.

The feathers give way to brushes. The brushstrokes circle, creating a constant, rhythmic dance, a miniature torture.

“I won't laugh. I won't laugh. Not even if I die here. They can skin the soles of my feet. They won't humiliate me like that.”

The audience waits. Their eyes are glued to those white, agitated soles, which look like two birds tied together. Ocarina's face is a steel mask, but her cheeks tremble. A sob. No... a stifled laugh?

Madame De Rire approaches, takes Ocarina's chin between her fingers.

“It seems that Marie Antoinette's maid finds the queen's fate amusing... Don't you want to make the people laugh too?”

Unseen, she slips an arm inside the dress and slides it deep, feeling with her fingers that skin, immaculate except for the gashes left by enemy blades. She squeezes a breast, pinches her hips, scratches her defenseless armpits with studied cruelty.

Now both executioners move with more energy. Their fingers creep under the arch of her foot, striking it with light but constant touches, the center with quick, decisive taps. One begins to use fake nails: delicate scratches along the taut skin. The other changes brushes, using a stiffer one, for military cleaning, but with soft bristles.

A sound. A moan. Then another.

“Hhh—ghh! Hnnn—nnhhh!”

The first sob. A sound that is neither laughter nor crying. Then, finally, like a dam breaking...

“Ah! N-No! Nnnaha—ahahahh—NNNNhhh!”

It is a dry, broken, heartbreaking laugh. Tears stream down her face, not from pain, but from shame. Her throat tightens, her shoulders shake. Her head falls forward, and her voice turns into a grotesque, uncontrollable song.

“AAAah-haha—HAAHH! STOP! AHAH—NOOOO!”

Marie Antoinette stops on the scaffold. She turns. She looks. Her eyes, blurred but alert, meet Ocarina's.

Silence for a second. Then the blade falls.

A sharp thud. The head rolls, blood staining the wood. But the laughter continues.

Ocarina screams with laughter, and the square explodes with jubilation. There is applause, whistling, laughter. Madame De Rire bows.

“A masterpiece. A symphony. Let the score end on this note. Ah, how well you played, my sweet Ocarina...”

*

Paris, July 1798. Hôtel de Brion, Robespierre's secret residence. Interior, night.

The dim light of a candle flickers on the edge of a carved mahogany desk. The smell is a mixture of parchment, wax, and musk. In the room, the shutters are closed, the tapestry on the walls is still from the monarchical era, in faded velvet and dull gold. The Revolution has stripped the world of its vanity, but it has not touched this place.

Madame De Rire is bent over documents. The ink glides quickly under her quill pen, the same one she uses to sign secret notes, decrees whispered persuasively into Maximilien's ear, who listens to her without suspecting the extent to which she influences the Committee. The papers are full of names, revisions of lists, balances of power calibrated with surgical precision. Her face reflected in the mirror is serene, confident. The fine lines around her mouth are ones of pride, not worry.

She stands up. Her transparent nightgown caresses her thighs. She opens the screen, slips off her corset, and approaches the bed.

Then she stops.

A faint, suspended note dances in the air like a breath. It is the sound of an ocarina, deep, melancholic, penetrating. Coming from the window.

The curtains sway. The window is wide open. The candle flame flickers.

“What...?”

A silent figure lunges at her. The flat of a sword strikes her temple. The world turns upside down. Silence. Darkness....

A throbbing pain in her head. Her mouth dry. Touch before sound: wrists bound, leather straps tight around her ankles. The silk sheets brush against her skin, but her body is immobilized. Her arms stretched upward, her legs spread apart, the soles of her feet exposed to the air.

The room is bathed in warm candlelight. And in front of her, a face she knows all too well.

Lady Ocarina.

Her hair is long, wild, loose on her shoulders. Her skin is as pale as the night, hollowed out by years of imprisonment. But her gaze... it's the same as that morning, five years ago. The eyes of the last faithful.

"Do you remember the laughter, madame? I do. Every night. Every single minute."

Ocarina's voice is low, raspy. She speaks as if she had been swallowing smoke for years.

“You thought you had won. But there were those in the Revolution who couldn't stand you manipulating Robespierre. They helped me. A masked man led me out of the Tour du Temple. And he gave me this.”

She turns. A figure emerges from the shadows, cloaked in black, face covered, anonymous, neutral. In his hand, on a blue velvet cushion, he places an object. A deep purple iron mask, carved in the shape of a laughing face, lips stretched into an eternal grimace. The eyes are slits.

Madame De Rire turns pale.

“La Masque Souriant... that mask is... cursed... it belonged to my great-grandmother. No one who wears it while laughing can ever stop! You don't want, for God's sake, you don't want...”

Ocarina smiles.

“What love and what God are you raving about that you betrayed the nation? You forced me into infamous hilarity when our legitimate sovereign perished on the scaffold? One laugh from you is enough, Madame, and this demonic mask will do the rest.”

She sits at the foot of the bed. Slowly, she takes the red satin shoes and ceremoniously slips them off. Madame De Rire's fingers twitch spasmodically, her feet stiffen. The skin underneath is white, smooth, sensitive. She screams, cries for help, but no one answers.

Where have the servants gone?

“Tick... tick... tick...” sings Ocarina. “A feather for every lie. And you've told so many...”

She takes the quill pen with which Madame signed her intrigues. She runs it, without force, over the arch of her right foot. A barely perceptible caress.

A shudder. Then another.

Madame De Rire clenches her teeth, her gaze fixed on the ceiling. She tries to breathe slowly. The tickling is subtle but relentless. She feels every fiber of her body contract so as not to let go. Her fingers bend, her calves tense. But the feather continues, dancing between her toes, creeping underneath, circling, returning, passing over again.

Then, the other foot.

Her nostrils flare, a tremor runs through her jaw. Her fingers close into fists.

Ocarina puts down the feather.

“Quieter than the queen... almost. But I've waited five years. My nails have grown especially for you.”

She raises her hands. Shiny, long, sharp nails, manicured like blades. And she gently sinks them into the most sensitive spots: the base of the arch, the center of the sole, the tips of the toes. She moves them slowly, then rhythmically. She digs, scratches, caresses, titillates.

“Fffff—Fhhh!!!”

A sound, strangled, escapes from Madame's throat. It is like an aborted sob. But her mouth opens. Her eyes fill with tears.

The legend of the smiling mask, an artifact that the most sadistic members of her family used to punish traitors of the worst kind, came back to her mind. No one knew how, no one knew why, but the mask... was hungry for laughter, it was never sated. And when someone who recklessly laughed in its presence was forced to wear it, they were possessed by the evil demon that inhabited it. They would never know respite except for sleep and enough food and drink to sustain themselves. A hell of joyless laughter. It couldn't, it couldn't be her destiny. She is the most important woman in France, she is...

“Pff...”

A hiss escapes her clenched teeth, and the victim has just begun her declaration of surrender.

Ocarina accelerates. She shifts from one foot to the other. Her nails tickle under her big toe, turn in perfect circles on the arch, drum her heels. Her skin sweats. Her fingers fidget, her ankles twist in vain.

“Nnngghhh—Gh—FFHHAAHH!!”

The first burst. A sour, inhuman laugh bursts from Madame's throat. Then another. Then a wave.

“AAAAhahahahaha—NO—AHHH—HAHHHH—STOP! HHHHahhahahah—NOOO!!!”

It's a storm. Tears stream down her face, her lips twist in spasms. Her dignity is gone. Her lungs explode in spasmodic laughter, her muscles tense to the point of spasm.

At that moment, Ocarina grabs the mask.

“Your laughter is perfect. Now... it will be forever.”

The Souriant Mask is pressed onto Madame De Rire's face. There is a mechanical click, then a discharge. The purple iron pulses. Madame screams, laughs, struggles, but it's too late.

Her cheeks contract, her facial muscles tense.

The laughter continues. But she no longer wants to laugh.

She is lifted from the bed by her accomplice, her hands still bound. Outside, the darkness of the night is thick and silent.

Robespierre waits for them at the door. His face is impassive.

“She tried to control me. To use us. Thank you, Ocarina. Now she will disappear... and no one will be able to accuse me anymore.”

Ocarina does not respond. She just watches the figure writhing and laughing as she is carried away.

In the depths of the Tour du Temple, a cell is opened. No words. No name recorded.

Only a masked face and an uninterrupted echo of laughter that never stops.

And so the legend of the Woman in the Iron Mask is born, laughing continuously for decades, for a crime that no one can remember anymore.