by M. J. Rose
“I don’t understand,” Tommy’s mother, Florence Prout, asked her husband. “Why this rush to bury the dead? And why is there no viewing?”
“I don’t know,” Whitley Prout said.
Mrs. Prout looked at Tommy.
“I don’t know, either,” he said.
Since they were Protestant, that didn’t surprise me. But I knew the answer, so I offered it. “Our religion is all about respect,” I explained. “For the living and the dead. It’s more respectful to bury the body as soon as possible, before it can alter. And more respectful to the mourners, so they can begin the healing process. The lack of a viewing is also a form of respect. Tradition teaches that it’s not respectful to look at someone who cannot look back.”
The expression on Mrs. Prout’s face went from disturbed to horrified. The air around her began to color. It was turning the pale green of disgust. What had I said? There was no time to find out, because at that moment, my attention was riveted on Clara Schiff, who was walking down the aisle with Ari by her side.
Never had I seen two such lost souls. The aura of misery around them was its own deep purple shade of black. Shrouding them and casting them in gloom.
Yes, Ari had been furious with his brother and in that moment on the terrace had certainly wanted to kill Monty. Ari’s pride had been profoundly wounded. He’d been humiliated. For the second time, his brother had cuckolded him.
But the fact was, Ari had not killed Monty. No, Monty wouldn’t have fallen if he hadn’t been backing away from his brother’s pointed weapon. But he had fallen, not been pushed or shot. It didn’t matter, though. Parsing the facts wouldn’t change that forever; even after the stain of Monty’s blood on the pavement was washed away, there would still be a stain on Ari’s heart. His brother had died looking down the barrel of Ari’s gun. Yes, Monty had done a despicable thing in cuckolding him. But they were brothers. And there were bonds between siblings that ran deeper and darker than could be explained. I was a twin, and I understood.
What I didn’t understand yet, because I was still in shock, was that the stain of the death was also on me. And it would, in time, threaten my sanity and alter the course of my career.
As people continued to file into the shul and take their seats, I became aware of Tommy and his mother whispering. I couldn’t catch enough words to make out what they said, but their facial expressions told me that she was still upset and Tommy was trying to calm her. When Mr. Prout, who was the farthest away from me but had the loudest whisper, joined in the conversation, I heard him say the word Jewish twice, as if it was a question.
My attention was drawn to the front of the temple, where the rabbi appeared from behind one of the high stone archways flanking the altar. Behind him, the ornate bronze gate where the Torah was kept glowed in the candlelight. Growing up, I’d had no formal religious training. My father was an atheist. And although my mother’s family was Jewish, the only religion she believed in was the worship of art.
When I’d lived in Paris, my great-grandmother exposed me to Judaism, teaching me about my heritage and taking me to Friday-night services. A practicing Jew, she was disturbed by my mother’s lack of respect for our religion.
But then, so much about my mother bothered Grand-mère, as I called her. That Sandrine had allowed the sixteenth-century spirit of La Lune to invade her and use her body as a host was the most deeply disturbing of my mother’s transgressions. Although my great-grandmother’s feelings about Sandrine had softened over the years, given the opportunity, she always warned my sisters and my brother and me that my mother had made a grave mistake by letting La Lune in and that generations of our family would suffer the consequences, just as generations before her had. The world was not kind to those involved in the dark arts. People fear what they do not understand. We had ancestors who had been ostracized, driven from their homes, misunderstood, and even killed for their abilities. And others who were so overburdened by their power that they killed themselves.
The rabbi took his place behind Monty’s simple coffin. Tradition dictated that the box be made of the plainest wood and put together with wooden pegs. No metal at all was used. Also in keeping with custom, there were no flowers. Everyone was equal in death, both the rich and the poor. Dating back to the days when Jews lived in ghettos and few had money, these traditions freed the bereaved from spending more than they could afford.
“Welcome,” the rabbi said, “to the family and friends of Montgomery Schiff on this sad and solemn occasion. We will begin by reciting the El Malei Rachamim on page thirty-nine of your prayer book.”
The rabbi led the congregation in the recitation of the Hebrew memorial prayer. I didn’t hear Tommy or my future in-laws making any effort to read along, even though on the opposite page from the Hebrew was an English transcription they could have easily followed.
I knew that living in New York and being part of the financial community, Tommy’s parents were friendly and did business with many Jews. Surely they had attended other funerals of their peers who were of the Hebraic persuasion. So why were they so obviously disturbed and silent?
More than once, I saw Mrs. Prout watching me. We’d met quite a few times, and both she and her husband had been lovely and welcoming. He’d even spoken to me in French. Both of them were art lovers, and they owned a small but quality collection that included two Renoirs, a Morisot, and an Utrillo, all purchased during their trips to Europe. We’d enjoyed very pleasant conversations about the state of the art world and my own ambitions. But Mrs. Prout’s expression when I caught her eye now belied those past pleasantries.
Was I surprised? Not really. I’d been in the news. Connected to a scandal. And that wasn’t what was done by members of the upper crust. The only times it was proper for your name to appear in the paper was when you married and when you died. Certainly not when a lewd drawing you had created led to a murder attempt and a tragic accident.
After the ceremony, Tommy’s parents said their good-byes, as chilly as the February afternoon. They weren’t going to the burial with us. We joined the cortege to Mount Zion Cemetery in Queens. In the car with us were two of Ari’s friends who had been at the Steward party, and the conversation revolved around the incident.
Tommy and I weren’t alone until the end of that long terrible day when he saw me home. We stood in the hallway while I fumbled in my purse for my key. Opening the door, I was greeted by the familiar brew of commingled scents: the turpentine and oils that were the smells of my trade, a hint of coffee, which was all I drank while I painted, and my own scent, from the House of L’Etoile, the only perfume I wore. It had been one of the gifts Mathieu had given me, and our short-lived love affair was over before I’d finished that first bottle. Each year since, I had ordered a refill. Wearing it was a way to stay connected to a dream that, for a moment in time, had come true.
Although the studio I rented was only one very large room with a tiny kitchen and a bathroom tucked into corners, it was perfect for me. The working area took up two-thirds of the space. The twelve-foot ceilings and the large north-facing skylight gave the impression of spaciousness even amid the clutter. A full wall of shelves overflowed with art supplies, art books, and my “searching” books. These were esoteric volumes I found in out-of-the-way bookstores about mysterious realms, magical talents, biographies of mystics and seers, treatises on the occult and spiritualist movements, histories of witchcraft and alchemy, and tales of the Cathars and Templars in the Languedoc area of France, close to where I had grown up in Cannes.
With all the books, the supplies, and my pencil studies, there was no visible wall left. Over the years, I’d tacked up drawing after drawing, so that in places the artwork was as thick as a sketch pad. Portraits of my parents and siblings, my great-grandmother, and friends I’d left in Paris hung over the white marble fireplace. The three easels set up under the skylight held paintings in various states of finish.
A comfortable couch covered in rust velvet separated the liv
ing area from the work area. An emerald-green silk shawl with salmon-colored fringe and embroidered red roses hid the badly stained wooden top of a rickety side table. Behind it was my bed, a bentwood Art Nouveau wonder my father had designed and shipped over from France. A lavender satin comforter my great-grandmother had given me lay atop it. I’d added pillows in all shades of purple, blue, and green and had placed beside the bed a large celadon and grass-green opalescent vase—cracked, of course—that I’d found in a secondhand shop and had filled with iridescent peacock feathers.
“Do you want to come in?” I asked Tommy. I knew he often felt claustrophobic in my overcrowded living quarters and preferred his sleek uptown apartment, but that afternoon he followed me inside.
“Yes, I suppose so. We need to talk.”
I anticipated a lecture about curtailing the party-favor work and was about to ask him to postpone the harangue, but then I decided it would be preferable to get it over with.
“Do you want some wine?” I asked, before he could start.
“I certainly do. The last three days have been the worst I’ve had since the war. But not wine. I think there’s some of that scotch left that I brought here?”
I poured his drink and my wine and brought them over to the couch. Tommy was sitting with his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands.
“Do you have a headache?”
He looked up. His eyes were bloodshot, and his face was twisted into an anguished expression.
“No. Nothing that simple,” he said, as he reached for the glass and took a long sip of the amber liquid.
Clearly, he was bereft and upset, but so was I, and I had no solace to offer. I was too raw. What I really wanted was for him to take me in his arms and soothe me. But he didn’t.
We both sat in silence and sipped our drinks.
“Everything was my fault,” I finally said, breaking the silence.
“Not everything. You didn’t make Clara sleep with her husband’s brother.” Even though his words were solicitous, his tone was angry, exasperated.
“But I exposed them.”
“They committed the deed, Delphine.”
“Which would have remained their secret if not for me.”
“For God’s sake.” He stood up quickly, jostling the table. “No one cares what you did. No one gives a rat’s ass about you.”
My wineglass shook in my hand, and a splash of red liquid spilled onto the couch. One more stain to cover with a shawl.
Tommy didn’t notice. His back was to me as he stood in front of the windows, looking four flights down into the snow-covered courtyard.
“You were just the party favor that exploded in everyone’s face. Didn’t I ask you to stop this work when we became engaged? I told you that I would help pay your rent here until we were married. Why didn’t you? Is your independence that important to you? This will be the legacy and demise of my generation—a war that gave women a taste of their capabilities and freedom. The jack let out of the box.”
“That’s not fair—” I started to argue.
“It doesn’t matter,” he interrupted. “It’s too late.” He turned and looked at me, the anger in his eyes replaced with sadness.
“What is too late?” I asked.
“I can’t marry you, Delphine.”
“Because of what I drew?”
“No, because of what my parents found out about you.”
I’d expected this to happen. Was prepared for it. My mother had discussed it with my sisters and me since we were little. How to defend ourselves and explain our gifts. How to diffuse the misconceptions. I’d even collected a list of luminaries, from Arthur Conan Doyle to Thomas Alva Edison, who visited psychics.
“My mother and father are quite horrified,” Tommy said.
“Of course they are. Monty died a horrible death. And the way the news stories described it all … my blindfold and the lewd drawings. Of course they are, but—”
“Not about that, darling,” Tommy said, with a hitch in his voice that confused me.
For the last two years, we’d been an item that had raised quite a few eyebrows in the Prouts’ world. Their son was a golden child, who’d excelled at tennis and mathematics, who’d left Harvard in his junior year to enlist, who’d come home a war hero and immediately joined his father at the family bank. As far from an artistic soul as anyone could be, Tommy was a swimming pool. I could see all the way to the bottom without spying any surprises, unlike in the sea’s depths, where all was hidden even in the brightest sunshine.
The relationship had been exactly the kind I’d craved after my mysterious and painful foray into passion with Mathieu.
My mother told me that the moment she met my father, she knew she would love him forever. That didn’t happen to me. But the first time I saw Mathieu, I did think I already knew him. I recognized his face from dreams that I’d put down in my journal. In some of those early surrealistic exercises, he was a lion. Golden and strong. Powerful and sleek.
For weeks, I had tried to convince myself it was a coincidence—that I must have seen him on the street before visiting the bookshop where I actually saw him in the flesh for the first time. But as hard as I tried to convince myself, I knew I didn’t believe it. How, then, was it possible that I’d drawn him before ever seeing him? What did it mean? Those questions were the leitmotif of my life. How was any of what I did possible? What did any of it mean? And what was the purpose?
By the time I was five years old, I had been drawing with a talent that my mother told me she hadn’t developed until she was in her twenties. When I was eight, I was blinded when a child threw lye at me and destroyed the soft tissue of my eyes. For fourteen months, my life was in shadows, without light or color or shape or form. Then my mother’s magick restored my sight. But with it, I had second sight. How? Why did my mother have an ability that others in our lineage didn’t? And why were only the women in our family affected? All my sisters had gifts but not my twin, Sebastian. And why did I have to paint Mathieu’s portrait and see that nightmare in the shadows? I’d run away from him, from Paris, and saved his life, but I couldn’t save our life together. I had fled to New York, only to wind up in the midst of this scandal.
“Delphine, we have to call this off for a while,” Tommy said now.
“But you said it yourself. I just drew the picture. I’m simply a line in today’s tabloid story. Forgotten as soon as another scandal breaks. You said it yourself. I wasn’t the one caught in my brother-in-law’s bed. I didn’t hold the gun on Monty. I know your family has a certain standing. Haven’t you explained to them that it’s not sorcery that helps me draw, just simple thought reading?”
He took my hand. “They didn’t take any of that seriously. What they found out today is worse.”
“What did they find out today?”
“It makes us … it makes it all impossible.”
“What does? What are you talking about, Tommy?”
“Delphine, why didn’t you ever tell me you were Jewish?”
Chapter 5
My studio on Tenth Street was haunted. Not by ghosts. That was my older sister Opaline’s special gift, communicating with those who have passed over. No, my studio was haunted by the frustrations of all the artists who had come to New York to try to make their mark. Who worked tirelessly at the ethereal task of taking brush in hand to create a statement worthy of attracting a gallery owner’s attention. Of tempting a stranger to part with his lucre in exchange for a piece of the artist’s soul on his wall. Of capturing the interest of a critic to write favorably of just one painting. Of getting noticed by a museum director who could move him or her out of the masses of artists in the shadows and into the spotlight’s glow.
The artist who had inhabited my studio before me had failed at all those efforts and hanged himself. Which was the reason my rent was so much lower than that of others in the building. Robert Stanislaw’s sad end didn’t discourage or frighten me, as it had several other prospective tena
nts, but it did bother me enough to write my mother and ask her what I could do to cleanse any lasting negative influences he’d left behind.
Dear Delphine,
Gather one pure beeswax candle for each area of the studio. A crystal goblet—use something lovely. A small dish of sea salt. A vial of sandalwood oil. And five branches of dried sage.
First, open all the windows. Then dissolve the sea salt in hot water and put it in the glass. Sprinkle the floor with the water. Next, anoint each candle with sandalwood oil and light them. While they are burning, put the sage in the sink and set it on fire. Once it’s burned down but still smoking, walk through the studio with it, making sure you smoke out any place where shadows can gather. All the while, whisper an invitation to the energy, telling it that it’s free to go, that you are releasing it.
Finally, spray some of your lovely House of L’Etoile perfume to help put your energy into the air and because you might not like the scent of all that sage.
All my love,
Your Maman
There wasn’t much Stanislaw had left behind that I’d kept. The High Victorian wallpaper and furniture in the studio had been depressing to live with. Brown not being one of my colors, I’d had the place painted a soft, light peach color to go with the hardwood floors I had discovered under the carpets. I decorated in autumnal colors. Rugs and fabrics in rusts, ambers, topazes, and forest greens.
Once I’d lit the candles and filled the room with the scents of sandalwood and sage and then my own fragrance, the energy did feel clean and positive, and it remained so for years. But all that changed after Monty’s funeral. Even the winter sun coming in from the skylight felt too bright for my eyes. Any hint of hope or joy seemed blasphemous.
My grief over Monty’s death, mixed with my anger at Tommy and my self-loathing, overwhelmed me. Because of a secret I had sketched out, someone had died, and my life was forever altered. Although the signs had been there all along, alerting me to the possible dangers involved in revealing the secret lives of others, this marked the first time my work had truly betrayed me. Never had it caused such tragedy. Could I even go on? What other damage would I create by continuing?
