The Dress Shop of Dreams
Page 27
Noa sleeps with the curtains open, allowing as much moonlight as possible to flood her bedroom, allowing her to see each and every picture on the walls, if only a rather pale glimmer. It took Noa weeks to perfect the art display. Reproductions of Monet’s gardens at Giverny blanket one wall: thousands of violets—smudges of purples and mauves—and azaleas, poppies and peonies, tulips and roses, water lilies in pastel pinks floating on serene lakes reflecting weeping willows and shimmers of sunshine. Turner’s sunsets adorn another: bright eyes of gold at the center of skies and seas of searing magenta or soft blue. The third wall is splashed with Jackson Pollocks: a hundred different colors streaked and splattered above Noa’s bed. The fourth wall is decorated by Rothko: blocks of blue and red and yellow blending and bleeding together. The ceiling is papered with the abstract shapes of Kandinsky: triangles, circles and lines tumbling over one another in energetic acrobatics.
Noa adores abstract art. It quiets her mind; it throws up, for her, fewer questions than figurative art. She doesn’t wonder—though perhaps she ought—what intention lay behind the placing of a square or the choice of yellow or blue. Noa can simply gaze at the colors and shapes and enjoy the emptiness inside her, the rare absence of thought, together with a feeling of connection—the shadow of something she misses and longs for.
With the exception of a few cursory words exchanged with librarians and museum curators, virtually (with the exception of her beloved aunt, Heather) the only people Noa speaks with are her professors. So far, to her great fortune, her only two teachers have been so boring and lifeless that they harbour no hidden truths for Noa to blurt out and offend them with. Today, though, she’s meeting a new professor, Amandine Bisset, and Noa can already sense that she won’t be so lucky this time. This new teacher’s name alone suggests sensuality and secrets, veiled lives and lovers, concealed longings and desires. Noa imagines her: tall and willowy with long black curls, enormous brown eyes and lips that have kissed a hundred men and brought them to their knees with whispered French words coated in black coffee and chocolate. Noa is absolutely certain that this woman will be her undoing. After years of carefully clipped silence, she will be unable to contain herself anymore.
It’s a surprise then, when Noa opens the door to Professor Bisset’s office and steps inside. The room is large and the walls are bare—a strange quirk for a professor of art—except for a big, bright poster of Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss hanging opposite a large oak desk, behind which sits Amandine Bisset, head down, scribbling into a notebook.
“Give me a sec,” she says, without a French accent and without looking up.
Noa stands at the edge of the room, not sitting down in her allotted chair, antique and upholstered in dark red leather, wanting to give her new teacher at least the semblance of privacy. While Amandine writes, Noa watches her. She’s been right about the beauty and the black hair but it’s very short, her eyes aren’t brown but green, and Amandine isn’t tall and willowy but average height and verging on voluptuous. More important, however, Noa instantly sees that she’s absolutely accurate about one thing, the worst thing of all: Amandine Bisset is full of secrets.
“It’s strange that your walls are empty,” Noa says, before she can help it. “Why do you have only one painting? Don’t you get bored?”
Professor Bisset looks up from her writing, eyes green (not brown as Noa predicted), almond shaped and pinched in a frown.
“I have a good imagination,” she says, her voice a little sharp and a little shocked. “And you have a rather impolite way of introducing yourself.”
“I’m sorry,” Noa says as she sits. “I can’t help it. I …”
“Oh?” Amandine’s frown deepens, though she sounds more curious than annoyed. She studies Noa, then, about to say something, seems to change her mind. “I’d get bored looking at the same paintings every day, no matter how much I loved them.”
“Except for the Klimt.”
“Yes.”
Amandine glances back at her notebook.
Noa bites her lip, but she can’t stop herself. She sees what her teacher isn’t saying as if it were written on a teleprompter that someone is insisting she read aloud.
“Your husband. That’s why you keep that painting. It reminds you of when you were happy.”
Amandine’s eyes snap up again.
“How did you know that?” she says, her mouth still open as if she wishes she could swallow the words back down now that they’re out. But she can’t, of course, and the truth once spoken is undeniable.
Noa gives a little shrug and starts fishing around in her canvas book bag for her essay. “I’ve been looking forward to the French impressionists,” she mumbles, hoping her teacher will appreciate the swift change of subject and let her off the hook. If Noa’s really lucky she’ll be able to get through the next hour without saying something really off-limits, something that will have Amandine refuse to keep her on as a student. It’s happened before.
“Fuck the French impressionists.”
Having just pulled her essay out of her bag, Noa drops it. Five pages flutter to the floor, but Noa just stares at her teacher, wide-eyed, her fingertips already sticky with fear. Mercifully, the shock empties her mind and silences her mouth.
“Sorry,” Amandine says softly. “I didn’t … of course, that was very rude. But you can’t say something like that and then expect to start talking about Monet. You have to explain yourself first.”
Noa nods. Her mouth is dry. She swallows. “I didn’t mean to upset you. It’s just …” Noa has no idea how to explain herself so that she doesn’t sound crazy or scary or both.
Amandine takes a deep breath and sits up. She pulls her long fingers through her short hair. “You don’t have to give me a rational explanation,” she says. “I’m not a rational person myself. I’m …”
It’s then that Noa sees what Amandine is. And she smiles, just a flicker at the edge of her lips, but a sense of relief that floods her whole body from fingertips to toes. Now she knows that it’s safe, for the very first time in her life, to reveal herself. Noa has only just met this woman, but she knows that Amandine won’t judge, reject or punish her. She knows that it’s finally okay to tell her own secret, to be honest about who she is.
“I see things I shouldn’t,” Noa begins, her voice soft. “I see all the things most people don’t want other people to see. I don’t want to say anything, I want to keep their secrets, but I can’t seem to help saying what I see. I don’t have any control over it, I don’t know why not.”
Amandine sits forward. “How do you see what you see?”
Noa shrugs, twisting a piece of her hair around her finger then smoothing it against her cheek. “I don’t know. I’ve always just known things. That’s okay, I guess, but not being able to shut up about it, that’s a shame.”
Amandine nods. “It doesn’t make you many friends, I suppose.”
“No,” Noa says, “not many.”
Amandine sits back in her chair. “You mentioned my husband.” Her eyes flicker to the one painting on the wall. “And how we used to be happy. So, so happy.”
“But something changed, quite recently. It’s like … a wall between you.” While Noa speaks she looks at her teacher, who’s still gazing at the painting. “You don’t know what’s happened. You wonder if he’s having an affair. You wonder if he loves you anymore.”
Still staring at the painting, Amandine nods, very slowly, as tears pool in her eyes and drop down her cheeks.
“Do you want me to leave?” Noa asks, her voice so soft she almost can’t hear her own words.
“No.” Amandine pauses, taking a long moment before she brushes her cheeks with the back of her hand and looks up at her student again. “No, I don’t want you to leave. I want you to meet my husband. I want you to tell me the truth about him.”