by M. J. Rose
The bright sunshine and sweeping sea view were such a contrast to New York City, and I couldn’t quite acclimate myself to having left one place and being in another.
April ended. May began, and my mother’s gardens came into bloom. I discovered I could waste a whole afternoon sitting under the wisteria arbor, smelling its sweet perfume, reading and dozing.
I had always enjoyed shopping with my mother. Indulging in silks and velvets, perfect pastels, and deep gemstone-colored fabrics was as sensual an experience for me as it was for her. We were artists first and saw fashion through that lens. That season, she took me shopping at all the best boutiques. The long pants and jersey jackets in neutral tones that they were showing suited my mood and my frame. I let my mother dress me like a doll. It was a relief to be pampered. Although dear Clifford had been such a comfort to me throughout my years in Manhattan, nothing beat my mother’s attention. It was as healing as the sun.
She bought me a pale cream-colored crepe de chine jacket with my initials embroidered on the breast. A half dozen white silk blouses. A Lanvin evening dress, a column of black edged in jet beads. At the jeweler, she bought me two long strings of pearls that glowed like the moon. She spoiled me at Coco Chanel’s shop with two pairs of wide-legged pants, one white, one black. And long silky jersey sweaters to go with them. She took me to the salon, where they reshaped my hair and tinted it back to my original color. With the copper gone and the new cut, I looked less wild and more sophisticated.
At night, I let my parents distract me with evenings at their favorite restaurants and music at the best jazz clubs and cabaret shows up and down the Riviera.
Only when I tried to envision the future did I flounder. Or when I read too many passages in my Book of Hours and remembered too much of what it had been like to be in love. To make love.
My mother found me sitting on the terrace staring out at the sea on May 16. I was especially pensive; it was the anniversary of the day I’d met Mathieu.
She sat beside me and took my hand, looking down at it as if she could read the lines etched there.
“Madame Dujols used to read my palm,” she said. “When I lived in Paris at your great-grandmother’s house. She told me so many things about you and your brother and your sisters—even though none of you had even been born. Even that you’d have a broken life line. And here it is.” She pointed.
I nodded. “She showed it to me, too. I think it must represent the time I almost drowned. When Sebastian saved me.”
We were both quiet for a moment.
“Maman, can a curse be reversed?”
“Sometimes.”
“How?”
“Each curse would have its own spell. Why?”
I shook my head. “Just something I was thinking about.”
“Maybe it’s time for you to start drawing a little. You’ve spent enough time processing what happened. You need to turn your back on the past and take some steps forward.”
I knew I looked better than when I’d arrived fresh off the ship. Taking walks in the sea air, sleeping well thanks to my mother’s elixirs, eating our cook’s food made with all fresh ingredients grown in the hills beyond our house, and drinking sparingly of the rosé wine the region was known for—Cannes was bringing me back to life. But was I ready to pick up my pencils again?
*
Sebastian, who lived at the Palm Beach end of the Croisette, only fifteen minutes away, visited and dined with us almost daily. He was delighted when I told him I’d begun drawing a little.
“That’s marvelous. I’ll start talking to clients about some portraits—”
“No.” My mother intervened. “Give your sister time. Don’t rush her on this, Sebastian.”
And I needed time. My thoughts were still in disarray. I wasn’t ready to paint, only sketch. And not compositions from my imagination but basic beach scenes or still lifes. I didn’t know what I wanted to tackle next. Not the Petal Mystique series. That was from another time and place. Not Exploring the Beast, either. I hadn’t learned what I’d hoped to learn from those pieces. I still didn’t know why we were driven to self-destruction. Why were we tempted by what was forbidden? Why was it that the path that would bring us peace was always the one we resisted the most?
“All in time,” my mother said, whenever I asked her how much longer it would be before I knew what I wanted to do next. Before I could see the steps I needed to take to get to the next plateau.
I knew she was right, but it was hard to wait. Impatience, like stubbornness, was ingrained in my character. Inherited from the woman who insisted that I now subdue both traits.
One afternoon, close to the end of May, Sebastian arrived and pestered me into going to an opening at his gallery that evening. So far, I’d avoided any fetes, but my parents had gone to Paris for the week. The truth was, I was lonely in the villa.
“Put on a pretty frock. I’m showing Marsden Hartley’s new canvases, but all eyes are going to be on the prodigal daughter of La Belle Lune returning home.”
My brother had wanted to be an artist when we were very young. We both clamored for brushes and paints when we were only toddlers. By the time we were six, my mother was giving us both art lessons. I had exceptional talent for one so young. Who knew whether it was the witchery I’d inherited or my own innate talent that guided my hand and my sense of color? Sebastian’s ability, though, was commensurate with his age.
My mother—fair in all things when it came to her children—still had his early work and mine hanging on her studio wall. Sebastian’s paintings had a six-year-old’s exuberance and delight. Mine were sophisticated, even for a L’École des Beaux-Arts student. Naive in terms of composition but with technique far beyond my years. I don’t say this out of pride or to boast. I didn’t work for this talent or fight for it. It was as much a gift as my red hair and orange-brown eyes.
Without the magick spark that would have elevated his work from that of an apprentice, Sebastian’s interest in learning how to paint quickly waned. The one trait we’d all—both daughters and son—inherited from our mother was her ambition, and so Sebastian moved on, searching for something at which he could excel.
By the time I regained my sight, my brother determined that one day he would be my dealer, the way Pierre Zakine was Maman’s. With my parents’ permission, he turned a long hallway in our house into an art gallery. As he continued to be interested in the business of art, my parents did everything they could to encourage him. I think my mother always felt a little bit of guilt that her daughters all had special abilities as part of their La Lune legacy, but Sebastian, because he was male, didn’t.
Sebastian’s interest grew throughout his adolescence, and he worked in a local gallery after school and during holidays. At twenty-one, he achieved his dream and opened the Duplessi Gallery on the Croisette next door to the Hotel Carlton. There he sold my work, some of my mother’s, and the paintings and sculptures of other artists he’d discovered through her and her contemporaries, most of whom had ateliers and took on students.
He had a good eye and an even better business mind. He understood that the best galleries featured a mix: the stylistically avant-garde to get people whispering about how bold he was, classics to soothe the soul, some lower-priced art to inspire impulse purchases, and other pieces that would be considered investments. People were desperate to forget about the horrors of the war and set their eyes on beauty. Dabbling in the local art scene appealed to the tourists, and so the gallery flourished.
That night at the Marsden Hartley opening, I was impressed by the guests who stopped by for a look at the new paintings and to sip a glass of champagne and engage in some witty repartee. Mixed in with the French were quite a few Americans who had left the States for the more libertine and much cheaper lifestyle in France. Sebastian introduced me to Gerald and Sarah Murphy, who arrived with F. Scott Fitzgerald, and to Jean Cocteau.
Aware of the artists and writers Sebastian now included in his circle, I saw
my brother in a new light. He’d done a rather good job of finding a place for himself in this world. What a long way he’d come since our Paris days, when I was at L’École studying and making close connections with my fellow classmates and he struggled to work his way in as an outsider. I was the first artist he ever represented, and now I wasn’t sure he needed his witch of a sister and her shadow portraits any longer. As pleased for him as I was, I felt a little left out and wondered if I’d ever find my own circle after abandoning Paris and living in New York for so long. Hating that I was indulging in self-pity, I found a waiter who was happy to refill my champagne glass.
I was wandering through the exhibit, thinking that perhaps I should leave, when my brother waved at me from across the room and motioned for me to come over.
Reaching his side, I found him standing with the renowned opera singer Emma Calvé, whom I’d met briefly years before at the Dujols bookshop in Paris. I remembered how everyone flitted around her, in awe of her stardom.
“La Diva.” My brother introduced her, using the name by which she was most well-known. “This is my sister. Delphine, Madame is an old friend of Maman’s, and she said she thinks you two have been introduced before.”
I extended my hand. She took it and held it in both of hers. A critic had once said she had the voice of an angel—an angel of darkness. I’d never heard her sing, but she looked the part, with raven eyes and hair to match.
“We have met, I’m sure. You weren’t with your mother, though. I would remember that. I knew Sandrine when she was young. I haven’t seen her in years. You look like her, too, but that is not why I think we’ve met. Who could forget your glorious red hair? Where do I know you from, dear?”
Her musical training was audible in her speaking voice. It poured like molten gold, without impurities. She’d aged a little since I’d seen her last—she was heavier—but her somber beauty was still arresting and her eyes still sparkling.
“It is nice to see you again, Madame,” I lied. She exuded nothing but benevolence, and yet all I wanted to do was run from her, get back in the car, and go home. “We did meet once before, in Paris,” I said. “At Pierre Dujols’s bookstore.”
Madame Calvé was one of the greatest divas of her time and had created the major roles of Mascagni and Massenet, but it was her Carmen that had made her famous. She was said to have performed the character as a wanton woman, leaving nothing to the imagination, employing diabolical witchery to seduce Don José. And from what I’d seen of her in Paris, I never doubted it. Madame had been a regular at Librairie du Merveilleux, where Mathieu’s bookbinding workshop was also housed. Interested in the esoteric and spiritualist movement, Madame had attended many lectures given by Mathieu’s uncle and contemporaries, and I’d often seen her in the audience.
Dujols had some of my artwork on the walls of the shop. When she’d inquired about them, he introduced us. The exchange couldn’t have lasted for more than a few minutes. Of course, I’d remember meeting a great star with more clarity than she would remember being introduced to a young painter just starting out.
“Ah, yes. And you were a friend of Mathieu Roubine, weren’t you? He was engaged to be married. Did you know? The woman broke his heart. His uncle told me it never healed.”
For a moment, I felt as if I couldn’t breathe but forced myself to act nonchalant. I couldn’t react. After keeping Mathieu a secret for so long from everyone but my older sister, the last thing I wanted was for the truth of our romance to be revealed at this moment with Sebastian at my side.
Was I the fiancée she was referring to, who had hurt him so badly, or had there been someone after me, the idea of which made me feel worse? I was nervous just hearing his name. I longed for him still. I always would. Our connection was forged with unbreakable bonds. But I was Mathieu’s poison. In New York, he’d been an ocean away. Now it was just a train ride. Far too close.
“I did know him slightly. I’m sorry to hear about his troubles.” And then, changing the subject, I asked her, “Are you in Cannes for the summer? Do you have a house, or are you visiting friends?”
I was thankful when she didn’t notice my abrupt transition, but from the way my brother was looking at me, he did.
“Yes, visiting friends, but I do have a house nearby. An afternoon’s ride away, in Millau. I’ve retired, but I still have soirees there and take in students for the summer.”
The aura around Madame Calvé changed from a soft peach to a teal blue, and I knew that for all her greatness and success, she was supremely unhappy and frustrated. My instinct was to put my arm around her and comfort her, but of course, I refrained.
She continued, “My house is the reason I’m here. I bought it in 1894, after I had learned its history. It’s said that in the Middle Ages, Nicolas Flamel, the greatest alchemist of all time, was given a rare and magical book called The Book of Abraham the Jew, which was rumored to hold the secrets to immortality and transmutation. Flamel spent more than twenty years traveling the world trying to learn its secrets. And once he did, they changed his life. Eventually, the book was stolen by or fell into the hands of Cardinal Richelieu, who, according to legend, was obsessed with learning Flamel’s formulas. At some point toward the end of his life in 1642, he hid the book in my chateau.”
As befitting any world-class opera singer, Madame Calvé had the skills of both an actress and a storyteller, and she was calling on all her powers to draw me in. I couldn’t resist the melodious voice spinning the tale. And at the same time, I sensed danger. Then I thought myself foolish. I’d only had a fleeting impression of something malevolent. It could be nothing. Or a connection to the history of the book she was talking about, not related to her at all.
“Flamel was a great sage and seer,” she was still explaining, “and in his lifetime was known for his kindness and generosity. When he was eighty years old, he faked his and his wife Perenelle’s deaths and funerals so they could travel to India and live with the mystics for eternity. Some say …” Madame paused for effect and lowered her voice theatrically. “Some say they are still alive almost six hundred years later.”
Cold pinpricks crept up my arms and down my back.
“My house is holding on to its secret,” she said, “which is why I came here tonight. To talk to you. I’m quite desperate.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“Madame Calvé has a proposition for you, Delphine,” my brother interjected.
I was startled. I’d been listening to her story so intently I’d forgotten his presence.
“I want you to come and paint a portrait of my house,” Madame said, leaning in toward me, her eyes pleading. They were the most enchanting eyes, I thought, and along with her voice, she was using them to hypnotize me.
“Please,” she whispered. “The Book of Abraham is concealed somewhere in the house. It has been since Richelieu secreted it there. I’ve tried everything to find it, and still the treasure eludes me.”
“I’m so sorry, Madame. I’m no longer doing any shadow portraits. And even if I were, they are of people, not châteaus.”
I glared at my brother. He’d ambushed me without warning. Set the trap and led me into it.
“Please? I told your brother I’ll not only pay for your time but also offer a generous bonus if you can find it.”
How could I escape this conversation? My shame, my fear, my frustration, my anxiety and indecision over my future as an artist were all coming to the surface here, with all these people around me. How could Sebastian have been so insensitive?
Looking for an excuse to get away, I scanned the room and noticed Henri Matisse. He caught my glance and smiled. Matisse was one of Maman’s oldest friends. They were both the same age and had studied with Gustave Moreau at the same time in Paris in the late 1890s, and they had remained close. Their styles could not have been more different. She created jewel-like fantasies; he painted bold still lifes and interiors that had a sensual looseness and freedom. For most of my li
fe, he’d lived just the next city over, in Nice, and was at our house so often he’d become like an uncle to me. While I’d been away, his beard had started turning gray, and his round glasses appeared to have become thicker.
“I’m sorry. I’m really not taking commissions now. I do hope you’ll excuse me,” I said. “One of Maman’s friends needs to speak with me. I hope you enjoy the show.”
I was so grateful for the excuse to get away from her that when Matisse opened his arms to give me a hug, I threw myself into them.
“When will I be seeing your work hanging on these walls again?” he asked, after kissing me hello, his beard scratching my face in that familiar way that made me feel so welcome.
“I just—I just got back,” I stammered.
“In March. It’s June next week.” He held me at arm’s length and examined my face. “Too much sadness there.” He shook his head. “It’s not good to stay away from home for so long. We’re glad you’re back. Your beautiful maman was worried about you. Your brother has not been himself.”
“So I’ve been told,” I said, thinking about how angry I was at Sebastian for setting that trap. Why had he done that? Why was he so desperate to get me to paint? Surely he didn’t need the money; the gallery was obviously thriving.
Matisse took my arm and walked me outside onto the terrace, where he procured two glasses of champagne, one of which he handed to me. “Now, tell me, ma petite belle, why did you stay away so long? What really happened to you in New York?”
Other than my parents, Matisse was the only one who used that endearment. I wanted to answer his question—he’d always been so understanding and kind to me—but I couldn’t bear the thought of repeating my sad tale of woe.
“I painted my way into a nightmare,” I said.
“Too hard to talk about it?” he asked, with empathy in his eyes.
I nodded, not trusting my voice.
“Well, I’m glad Sebastian went to retrieve you. We all missed you. You’ll have to come to the studio. There are some new cats you haven’t met. And a litter of kittens, if you’d like a companion.”
