Breath and Bones

by Susann Cokal

  Famke, however, remained dissatisfied with their reading. She continued to ask for magazines and newspapers, although Edouard had banned them from the house as well as the township.

  “They excite the wrong feelings,” he explained patiently, “with their sensationalized stories. Such reading is as dangerous to lung sufferers as novels are.”

  “According to your opinion, even the Bible is sensational. How can it hurt me to read the New York Times? It is only facts.”

  Edouard gave her a tight smile and turned to Patmore again. Thereafter Miss Pym’s already mutilated Bible made a swift trip downmountain, never to be seen again, and Edouard was careful to read only from the least religious domestic poets.

  During the day, he had time at last to pay old bills and to hear reports of progress on the Institute. The triple hexagons were finished and the exteriors quickly painted honey gold, for his original conceit had been to found a sanatorium on the model of a beehive: The workers, doctors and nurses, would come and go with quiet efficiency, flying in and out of the individual rooms in which ailing kings and queens occupied themselves with nothing other than the effort to get well. At last this dream was taking shape, and the Institute would open its doors to patients in May or June. And yet Edouard found his passion for it had faded, replaced by a burgeoning interest in one particular patient who would never be immured in the Institute herself.

  Famke, meanwhile, had begun to think of herself as trapped; a queen she might be, but among the bees even queens were confined to their cells. She was not allowed outside, her hours in the studio were limited, and now that she had new glasses, she had nothing worth reading. She found she missed newspapers the way she had once missed The Thrilling Narrative of an Indian Captivity; she wondered what the Dynamite Gang had done lately and whether Harry Noble had written anything interesting. There might even be news of Albert somewhere. For all she knew, he had sailed back to England.

  As she repainted Hygeia’s waist, she began to think of leaving; by the time she reached the breasts, her departure became certain. She was still weak, yes, but stronger than she had been when she arrived in Hygiene months before; if she’d been able to travel then, she could do it now. With the painting, fine new muscles had stretched themselves over the bones of her hands. She had breasts and hips again, and although Edouard forbade her mirrors, at night she saw herself reflected in the dark windows and knew she had regained a good measure of her bloom, the gleaming hair and rich complexion she was painting into Hygeia.

  “I am beautiful,” she whispered to herself. With each stroke of the brush, it seemed to become more true. She fell in love with the woman she was remaking—growing into a far, far better likeness than that horrible yellow handbill—and wondered if Edouard would let her take the canvas with her when she left. She refused to allow him in the studio, planning to surprise him with her achievements once she’d finished.

  Mercifully, the three maids who came to fetch her at the end of each day, who helped her uncurl her stiff body, walked her down the hallway, and laid her in bed—these singsong sisters were her accomplices. They kept her confidence and did not tell Edouard how tired and cramped she was after working. In their gray costumes, with their expressionless faces, and on their tiny, pained feet, the girls hobbled along, supporting her and themselves on odd tables and outcroppings of iron. They laid her in bed and cleaned her fingers with turpentine. They said nothing, either, to describe the painting, knowing that he longed to hear about it and would never ask. Had Famke thought about it, she would have seen that they were pleased to keep a small secret from him.

  “Missy ready for ’lectricity,” they would report merely, and their smooth faces gave no hint of either what Famke was doing or the disapproval they felt for Edouard’s device. They did not understand the nature of the crisis that it brought about in Famke, never having felt one induced in themselves, so they thought the procedure was for Edouard’s pleasure. If such instruments had been known in the cribs where they used to work as hundred-men’s-wives, customers might have paid for the right to use them on the girls; these girls thought it unfair that Famke underwent the treatments without pay. Thus they saw her privacy as her compensation, and if she had asked them to carry letters outside or even sneak her a few dollars, they might have done it—never mind what they thought of the picture itself, which to them was no better than Edouard’s anatomical charts and drawings.

  If the four of them had been friends, Famke might have told them that with her work, she had begun to relish galvanic electricity even more than before, because she felt it planted the seeds of artistic inspiration in her. When her body started to pulse in the crisis, she saw Nimue, then the brushstrokes she’d have to make to bring Hygeia to look like that long-ago nymph. With those visions, she felt her physical strength grow; and it was a real struggle to bide her time until the next session in the studio. If she could only spend a few uninterrupted days in there, she thought, she might quickly finish and bear the results proudly toward San Francisco.

  “I think I feel strong enough to travel soon,” she hinted to Edouard one night.

  He slammed a heavy book shut, his face as white as her dressing-gown. “By no means, Miss Summerfield!” he said with uncharacteristic force. “You are far below the ideal weight for a woman of your height—you should gain at least twenty more pounds—and you are so easily tired—and you must take care with the air that you breathe, or your lungs might collapse entirely—”

  Famke sighed and ignored him, gazing instead at the red-stained edges of his ornate Collected Patmore. So he would not let her go; and now she felt she could not breathe. But she had recently learned both patience and prudence, so she forced her lungs to inflate and deflate as normal. She bit down on her tongue for strength and to prevent it from speaking.

  There was no telling what Edouard might do if she pressed him; the man who had cut the description of Christ’s death out of a Bible would think nothing of locking a door upon a recalcitrant patient or even tying her to her bed. He read aloud for at least an hour while Famke seethed inwardly.

  The next morning she felt the old heaviness in her limbs, and it was nearly impossible to drag herself from bed and dress for her hours in the studio. As it was, she arrived late, and stood half-slumbering before the canvas.

  He has drugged me, she thought, but she felt too languid to react much. There was no anger, only a mild surprise. She began coughing, too, and lay down on the studio floor—just for a few minutes, she told herself as she sank into velvety darkness. When the maids came to collect her at the end of her allotted time, the filigree floor had imprinted itself on her cheek and arms. All three of them had to carry her to bed.

  Edouard appeared to be all concern, particularly when a half hour’s electrical treatment failed to produce a crisis. He listened to her lungs with his stethoscope and frowned. “Your system has been strained with overwork and excitement,” he said, coiling up his tubes. He hardly dared to look at her as Miss Pym pulled the gown back over her chest. “The bacilli have formed new colonies inside. Or perhaps,” he hypothesized, “there are some memories making you ill? An excess of emotion, even when recollected in tranquility, can be very dangerous. It is best to speak them aloud and despatch them.”

  “I like excitement,” Famke interrupted drowsily. It was as if a thick blanket were wrapped around her, cocooning her from the rest of the world and restricting the flow of air to her lungs. Still, she knew she should give away no more secrets, admit to no more illness. “But could you stand a little farther away?”

  He did, and he opened a window, which helped her breathe somewhat more easily. His movements were slow, as if he were depressed. “It is a medical fact,” he said, “that tuberculosis comes in waves, ebbing and flowing. It is like the pulse of blood through a heart, at times full of strength rushing forward, at times seeping back to rest and renourish itself. You must take rest, too. At least a week, perhaps six, with abundant sleep—”

 
“No more laudanum,” she said, drifting away on a surge of exhaustion.

  “You haven’t had any in a month,” she heard him say from a great distance. His voice sounded so sincere that with the last ounce of her strength she opened her eyes. Mr. Versailles, she thought as she relaxed again, was looking at her almost the way Albert had done.

  Viggo woke with a throbbing headache that nearly eclipsed the aches in the rest of his body. When he moved, the pain felt especially strong where the night before the animal part of his body had throbbed even more strongly than his head did now; and not just once, but four times.

  How could he write to Sister Birgit now? And how could he look Famke in the face when at last he found her?

  The girl in the bed woke briefly as he struggled into his trousers.

  “It’s forty dollars for the night,” she mumbled sleepily. “Plus the two for taking off my corset. You can leave it all on the dresser.”

  Forty-two dollars, and Viggo’s left boot held only thirty-nine. He had to take the rest from the right boot, and when he did it he felt he had sunk to his lowest point. Now not only had he betrayed his love with another woman, he had stolen from Famke as well.

  “Come back and visit me again,” the girl called with an obvious attempt to be charming, before she leaked a little wind and fell asleep again. On her door he read the name Mag: nothing to do with springtime after all. Clumsy glem-mig-ik’s—what Americans called forget-me-nots—clustered around the letters, and Viggo felt ashamed. For a moment, he had forgotten what he should most have remembered.

  He walked through the muddy streets feeling dirty, sinful, repugnant. It seemed right that a donkey should kick him or a stray dog take a bite from his leg; and yet neither of these things happened. He met only one other creature, a tall man with big funereal eyes, carrying a carpetbag and clearly bound for the depot. He was as lost in his own thoughts as Viggo was, and neither acknowledged the other.

  Unmolested, Viggo made his way back to the modest hotel where he had stored his own bag—experience having taught him not to leave expensive chemicals unattended under a flophouse cot—and answered the Spanish proprietor’s greeting with a glumly polite “Good morning.”

  And then came a surprise. “There is someone waiting to see you, Mr. Hart.”

  Viggo frowned. Looking around the shabby hallway that served as the hotel lounge, he had some difficulty imagining who it could be. There had to have been some mistake.

  He said as much to Señor Garcia, who made an elaborate ceremony of checking the register. So the visitor must be a guest at the hotel . . .

  “Ah, aquí.” Garcia’s thick finger underscored a name written in what, even from a distance, Viggo could see was careful textbook script. “Her name is Mrs. Goodhouse. Shall I send my wife to see if she is awake?”

  Chapter 46

  Find a place [in California] that seems as isolated as a mid-ocean island, with neither lightning nor steam, and the dwellers are not prisoners.

  BENJ. F. TAYLOR,

  BETWEEN THE GATES

  As she regained her strength after the third and certainly final collapse, Famke rediscovered her restlessness and resentment, and with them a plan. So Edouard wanted to keep her captive, like a princess in a tower, like a saint in a cell—well then, she would escape. As she unlocked her studio door for her first day back, she determined that the very moment she finished Hygeia, she would find money somewhere in the house and buy a ticket to San Francisco—and wherever else it was necessary to go—and then she would catch up to Albert.

  Albert. The very thought of him stilled the blood in her veins, and she nearly dropped to the floor again. She reminded herself yet again that once they were reunited, he wouldn’t need the fair but frail anymore; she herself would again pose as Calafia, Salome, even Nimue. European painters were fashionable in America; with the right model, Albert would have a great career here. She reminded herself yet again that once he had established himself, she would be more than a muse. Someday he could paint her portrait.

  In a rush of anticipation, Famke slid the drape from Hygeia. The joy of rediscovering her own work—the bright colors, the slim lines, the energy—was surprisingly intense; Hygeia was becoming beautiful, and that transformation made Famke more than usually thoughtful. As she gazed on what she had done to the body before her, and assessed what remained to do, she reflected that she was coming to understand Albert and what had gone amiss with this work—perhaps with all the other pictures he’d painted on American shores. There was a slapdash rhythm to the brush-strokes in the central figure that reminded her of his mad flights through the streets. He must have painted Hygeia under pressure, and quickly; he had perhaps done the background first and taken care with it, but by the time he reached the woman’s figure he was feeling a need to escape, and he had dashed her off. No, he had not succumbed to the careless principles of French painting after all; it was merely the duress of the marketplace that had caused him to sacrifice what he held most dear.

  Well, Famke would continue to go slowly: The most important goal now was to make Hygeia perfect. And then, once she and Albert were reunited—he with his muse, one bringing greater knowledge and understanding to their work together—she thought that she might paint again as well. She might find that she was a real artist; she might paint alongside Albert, matching his strokes with her own, until there was no telling where his work ended and hers began.

  It was a heady, giddying thought. She knelt down before Hygeia and took deep breaths, just as Edouard had taught her: In, out; in, out; and her head cleared. She rang for Precious Flower and a fresh palette.

  When at last Famke stood with brush in hand, the desire to flee ebbed a bit. As she stirred oily spots of color and tapped them gently onto the surface, she knew her painting would be both beautiful and truthful; it would tell the truth about beauty, for, as Albert used to say, in every detail there is a message, and in beauty there is genius. Famke would remain until Hygeia’s genius was full-fledged.

  So in the next days the goddess’s lips and cheeks grew even redder, her jaw thinner, her hair thicker and flaming. The mole vanished from her cheek. Her eyes—though Edouard had not asked for this—became a light, luminous green, the most beautiful eyes Famke could imagine, and the lids receded from the orbs. Her smock thinned out where it touched her body, and in those places Famke painted the whole truth of a woman. This, she imagined, must be how the Mormon God’s wife felt, helping her husband to create.

  At last, one afternoon in April, Famke laid down her brush for the last time. She had done what she could: Hygeia might not quite measure up to the image in her mind’s eye, but she’d come as close as Famke could bring her.

  “Fœrdig.” She said it first in Danish, to please herself, then translated in honor of Albert: “Finished,” although there was no one to hear her.

  The word seemed to travel through the walls, however, and in short order Edouard himself was knocking on the studio door.

  “Miss Summerfield?” he called, and even Famke could sense his timidity. Though he said no more, she also divined his wishes immediately, and since she was so elated to be through she opened the door to him.

  “Yes, I have finished,” she said, wiping her hands on her dress and staining it red, green, yellow. She was flattered now that he wanted to see her work, half proud and half nervous. So this was what it felt like to be an artist . . . “Come and see.”

  Dazzled by the brightness of her smile, Edouard fairly fell into the room. He recovered himself and walked to the easel, where he raised his eyes and took in Hygeia all at once.

  For a long time Edouard was silent, so silent that Famke heard the blood pounding in her head and suddenly, on its own, her body let down some juices. In an attempt at professionalism, she held her breath, trying not to give in to emotion.

  “Well?” she asked at last, her eagerness making her rude. “Do you have an opinion?”

  Edouard filled his lungs to the bottom, weighing a s
peech which he knew was the most important he might ever say to her; there were so many possible words and phrases, and perhaps only one right thing to say. He fidgeted with his old watch fob, which was now worn whisper thin. After the first glance, he could not bring himself to look again at the canvas, which had already burned its image into his brain; he knew his face must be stained with a blush as deep as the one on the painted cheeks.

  “It is my opinion,” he began heavily, “that, as you know, this painting was not much to begin with . . .” He could not think how to end the sentence, and he stopped to fidget some more and consider.

  “There were good parts in the original,” Famke said. Her hands were folded, and beneath the streaks of paint he saw her knuckles had gone white. “The ice was very well done.” And yet, now that she looked at it again through Edouard’s eyes, she thought she might rework it; for Albert had ranged his stalagmites in groups of three, like soldiers marching . . . And how did Edouard feel about her addition of Hygeia’s springs? He had not commented . . .

  Edouard cut into her thoughts, seeming rather to blurt out his next question. “Would you like to take lessons?”

  Famke breathed carefully. “Lessons?”

  “I can arrange it, if you want them.”

  What did that mean? She began with the most hopeful interpretation: “Do you like my painting?”

  Edouard, too, was breathing with his whole body. “There is a certain . . . vigor to what you have done,” he said, obviously struggling to balance tact and truthful opinion. “But I cannot call it quite professional.”

  Half afraid he had misjudged, Edouard looked back up at the immense canvas, and Hygeia’s distasteful green eyes stared glassily back. She stood at slightly more than his own height, as colorful and intricately detailed as a medieval illumination. But those details—the goddess had hair of Famke’s shade, yes, but its intricate whorls and scrolls reminded him of hellfire; her round arms and exaggerated bosom were the depiction of la luxure as imagined by a terrified peasant. And below the breasts—well . . .