Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know - Samira Ahmed Page 0,77
Dumas in history books to even bother Google-stalking the living Dumas I was making out with amongst the archives.
I barely have to lean into my cross-referencing skills: Dumas. Family. Legacy. Estate. Save. And I unearth a treasure trove. Thank you, google.fr.
There are newspaper articles, blog posts, photos of the old Dumas chateau, interviews with Alexandre’s mysterious, horrible uncle. Sure, I’ve been burned by fake Dumas news once already, but how could I not have even looked up the uncle? The one who probably has a Google Alert on me. The headlines jump out at me:
And there she is again, Celenia Mondego, whispering in my ear: a catastrophic inability to grasp obvious facts. Fine, okay. I should’ve googled.
I open up an article to check out an interview with Gérard Dumas, Alexandre’s uncle:
Unfortunately, Alexandre Dumas died penniless, and his beautiful estate fell into disrepair after passing through many hands, eventually coming under the guardianship of the Foundation de Monte Cristo. Together we are working to preserve the legacy of one of France’s greatest artists. We believe the Dumas estate holds many treasures and must remain, forever, a French national institution.
Treasures, he said. The estate holds many treasures. Cherchez la femme, trouvez le trésor.
Damn. It’s like I have all the pieces of the puzzle, but I can’t fit them together. Leila. Byron. Delacroix. The treasure in Dumas’s note. But the Leila in The Giaour died in a sack death, killed by the Pasha, which is why the Giaour avenged her. That’s the whole inspiration for the Delacroix painting. How could she have survived being bound in a sack and drowned? What’s fiction, and what’s the truth?
I run into my room to grab the book of Byron poems I bought right before my whole world became the Upside Down. I flip to the chronology of Byron’s life and run my finger down the years. There it is. 1810–1811: Byron’s Grand Tour—basically a gap year for wealthy nineteenth-century British dudes. A deeper Internet dive leads me to a map of his Tour that looks like it took him around the Mediterranean and to the Bosporus. The Giaour was published in 1813. So was “She Walks in Beauty.” I can feel my brain trying to fill in the blanks, but I can’t see the big picture.
Maybe Alexandre and I left things . . . well, unspoken, and I will probably be eternally pissed at him for what he did, but I also need his help to put together all these pieces. I pick up my phone. Take a deep breath. And text him.
Me: I’m still mad. But I need your help. I still want to find Leila.
Alexandre: Do you hate me?
Me: Like 40%
Alexandre: So that still counts as a passing grade?
Me: Not for Asians.
Alexandre: I’ll take it. And of course, I’m going to help. I want to find her, too.
I weigh whether or not I should say something to Alexandre about finding out about his family—about the bankruptcy of the Dumas estate. About understanding why he wants to save it—even if what he did was awful. But it doesn’t feel right to say it in a text. Too many words. Not enough space.
Me: I have a theory—Byron and Leila are connected. She’s the Leila in THE GIAOUR and another poem, too. She’s real. Somehow.
Alexandre: Didn’t you read the note???
Me: What note?
Alexandre: I slid a note under your door about half an hour after I left. I spoke to the Dumas archive collector in New Zealand and asked him to search his files. I got an email early this morning. It’s a note from Leila.
I hurry to the door. In my wallowing, I must’ve dozed off or been totally out of it. There’s a white envelope with my name on it.
Me: Found it.
Alexandre: Read it. You have more than a theory.
Alexandre: In case you need to hear it again, I’m sorry for everything.
I put my phone down. I’m too distracted to judge the sincerity of Alexandre’s remorse. My hands tremble as I pull out a copy of the letter: