by M. J. Rose
My true gift was drawing what was beneath the surface, in the present or the past mostly, sometimes in the future. But if I made a great effort, I could sometimes learn about someone by touching him or her. A talent that usually lay dormant. Especially because I’d never learned how to easily access it or fine-tune it.
When Gaspard had first shaken my hand, I’d been surprised by how easily I was able to gather information about him, or at least a sense of his inner being. Now surprise came yet again. A hot energy from Mathieu surged through me. Heating me inside, deep down in my womb. A part of me that had been asleep for so long fluttered, stretched, and flickered. Reminding me of what I’d once known, what I’d once had … and what I’d lost.
Anna was speaking again, but I was hardly listening. Mathieu’s hand in mine was all I could think about.
“Madame Calvé, you’ve invited us all here tonight, so perhaps you’ll begin?”
“We’ve come together to say good night to you, Erik,” Madame said, in her powerfully rich voice.
“Erik? Are you here?” Anna called.
Madame must have turned on a gramophone, because one of Satie’s most haunting melodies filled the eerie silence.
I realized suddenly how astonishing it was that I, a daughter of La Lune, had actually managed to get to the age of twenty-six without ever having attended a séance. I didn’t know what to expect and became anxious. Other than my mother and my sisters, I’d managed to avoid others who had gifts. Spiritualists of every kind had become wildly popular after the war. But I’d been in art school, and Sebastian had encouraged me to concentrate on my painting. He had plans for us and didn’t want my gift corrupted in any way.
Even though Anna had asked us all to close our eyes, I opened mine. Unless I was wearing the blindfold, I couldn’t bear being awake and having my eyes shut. The sensation was too much like being blind, and it scared me.
“Erik? Are you here?” Anna asked again.
The music grew a little louder. I smelled tobacco. Other than that, there were no effects. No flickering lights or objects moving across the room. Anna’s body didn’t collapse; her face did not contort. None of the silly dramatics the newspapers were always reporting.
“Tell us something so we may know it is you,” Anna cajoled the sprit.
The voice that came from the medium when next she spoke was no longer hers. We heard a man’s muffled voice, as if he were speaking from behind his hand, and he spoke quickly, as if he were in a great rush.
“Thank you all for being here.”
“Erik?” Madame whispered. “Is that you?”
“You require more proof than me raising the volume on my music, Emma?” He laughed. “Let me remind you that I prefer only to eat white food: eggs, sugar, veal, salt, rice, pasta, white cheese, certain fish, chicken cooked in water. And that you served none of that tonight to honor me. Or that I boil my wine and drink it mixed with juice, which you didn’t have on hand, either. Or that I was so afraid of strangling myself I never spoke while eating, but you were all quite querulous tonight with food in your mouths, weren’t you?”
“Of course it’s Erik,” Jules said. “Who else could that be?”
“Dear, darling Erik. We were so sorry not to have said good-bye while your body was still on this plane,” Madame said.
“I’m not sorry that I’ve left. It was time. I’m only sorry that you are all still grieving.”
While the words continued pouring out of Anna’s mouth, her eyes remained shut. Her face showed no animation or consciousness.
“We want you to feel our love, Erik. And take it with you on your journey.” Madame’s eyes were wet, and she dabbed them with her handkerchief.
There was a sudden shift in the temperature in the room then. It had been cool, the rain outside having taken away the summer’s heat. But now the air turned freezing. In my thin chiffon dress and bare shoulders, I felt it instantly and shivered. Looking around, I noticed everyone else had felt it, too. And strangest of all, the window panes appeared frosted over with ice crystals. But it was the middle of the summer. How was that possible?
The music came to an abrupt halt, and the needle skidded across the disk with a shriek.
“Eugène, I’m here.” Anna’s voice had changed again. No longer was she speaking for Satie, but now a woman’s voice came through her, a woman older than Anna, a voice ragged and out of breath. As if this woman had been running, rushing to get to us.
Eugène Leverau’s head jerked up. “Thérèse?”
“I’m here.”
“Thérèse? Oh, God!” The archaeologist let out an animal’s wild cry of anguish.
The name Thérèse held unpleasant memories for me. I couldn’t help but think of Thérèse Bruis and her devastating letter. My shame and Sebastian’s reassurance. The reason I’d given him for leaving Paris and the shadow portraits, if only temporarily. Almost five years had passed since then, since Sebastian had told me he’d cleared up that unfortunate misunderstanding and removed her portrait from his gallery.
Across from me, Eugène’s face had lost all color. He’d opened his eyes and was staring at Anna as if what he was hearing was impossible.
“Please close your eyes.” It was Anna’s voice now.
Eugène did as requested.
Once his eyes were closed, Anna resumed speaking in the older, out-of-breath voice. “Eugène, you can’t do what you’re thinking.”
“Why did you leave me? Why didn’t you come to me and tell me?” Eugène pleaded. “We could have worked it out.”
“Everyone believed what they saw. You believed it.”
“You didn’t give me a chance.” His voice broke.
“I was wrong. I am sorry. But you have to accept what’s happened. Your wife and I … Eugène … we’re both worried for you now. We’re here to warn you. We know what you’re thinking. No good will come of it.”
“You should have told me.” He was weeping. His agony was difficult to listen to.
“Don’t do this, Eugène …”
I began trembling. Of course, I didn’t know what the woman talking through Anna was referring to, but the disjointed conversation still made me afraid. The air around me began to grow even cooler and to swirl like a vortex, as if I were caught in an unrelenting current, the way it sometimes did when I was drawing the shadows and uncovering a secret that was buried deep for a reason … a secret that shouldn’t be excavated.
“I have to,” Eugène whispered. “I waited so long … and now … don’t you see it’s fate?”
“I can’t help you from the void.”
“Help me?” Eugène had gone from bereft to angry. “No one can help me anymore. Sophie abandoned me, then you. What’s left for me?”
“You still have a future—”
Eugène cut her off. “No!” he shouted, and stood, disturbing the circle of hands, breaking the psychic’s fragile tether to the other world.
The cold that swirled around me disappeared quite suddenly. The room was flooded with the scent of orange blossoms. And then that, too, was gone.
Confusion reigned. In standing so quickly, Eugène had upended the table. The dish of burning leaves slid toward Jules, who moved so abruptly his chair fell backward, landing on my foot. I let out a little yelp. Mathieu turned and stepped forward to help me. Carmen, Madame’s terrier, came running at the sound of my cry and started barking.
Eugène ran from the room, straight into Sebastian and Yves, who had come to see what the melee was about.
Madame ran after Eugène.
“Is your foot all right?” Jules asked me. “I am so sorry.”
“It was hardly your fault. And yes, it’s fine.”
“What happened?” Sebastian asked me.
“We had an unexpected visitor. Erik Satie was interrupted by a woman from beyond, who arrived to warn Eugène about something he is planning. He was more than surprised. He was acutely disturbed, and it was awful to witness. The poor man.”
“Don’t let it bother you, Delphine. Emma will console him. She’s wonderful at that,” Sebastian reassured me.
“I think it’s time for some brandy,” Picasso said, as he walked toward the bar. He poured out glasses and then distributed them. We all retired to the living room and sat around discussing the séance and the spirit who’d visited Eugène.
Finally, Madame came back. Alone. “I’ve put Eugène to bed with a glass of port.” She looked at our glasses. “But brandy is a better idea.”
“Let me get it for you, Emma,” Jules said. “You need to sit down.”
“What was that all about?” Picasso asked. “What terrible thing happened to Eugène?”
I noticed my brother was still staring at the door, as if he were watching Eugène running past him again.
Cocteau, who’d been quite silent until now, explained. “Thérèse was Eugène’s fiancée. A few of us knew her. She came with him to the Librairie du Merveilleux several times. Poor man—first his wife died and then, a year later, Thérèse. I know how devastated he was, but it’s been four years. I didn’t think he was still so cut up about it.”
“That’s terrible,” I blurted out. “To lose two people so close together. How did it happen?”
“His wife died of a long illness. As grief-stricken as he was, we all felt it was a relief for her. Suffering like that is no life. Thérèse had been her nurse. That’s how Eugène met her. And after Sophie died, Thérèse was there to comfort him. Eventually, they became engaged. I don’t know much about how Thérèse died, although I tried to get him to open up about it. But I thought he was better. Since he’s returned from Egypt, he’s come to a few soirees, seems more engaged. You know better than me, Mathieu—he’s been a regular at the library.”
“I know his fiancée died of a combination of absinthe and laudanum,” Mathieu said.
“Accidental?” Picasso asked.
Mathieu shrugged. “He never shared any of the details with me, and I never pried, so I don’t know the circumstances, but I always got the impression that it was a suicide. He’s never been the same since. And as Cocteau said, it’s been a while. Except …” Mathieu’s gaze drifted over to me for half a second. “Some love affairs never fade.” He looked back at Picasso.
Had anyone else seen Mathieu’s glance rest on me? Had Sebastian? I looked over, but couldn’t tell.
“Time does little to dim their luster. Altogether, Eugène has had tragic luck with the women in his life.”
Mathieu’s words about love affairs that never dim echoed in my mind. I was having trouble focusing on what everyone else was saying.
“I’m exhausted,” Madame Calvé said. “I’m going to bed, but you’re all free to cavort to your heart’s content.”
“I’ll go up with you,” I said, and stood. I was getting a headache, one of the maladies my sister Opaline and I both suffered from as a result of “events,” as she called them. I could never tell when one was about to descend on me, and they could be brutal unless I caught them early. I had some headache powder in my room. If I took it quickly, I might escape this attack.
Together Madame and I climbed the stairs in silence. At the top, we said good night to each other. Before she turned to go toward her room, she pulled me close and hugged me. “There is so little in life that is worthwhile and without risk or pain. Loving someone is very hard,” she said.
And before I could ask her if she was referring to Eugène or someone else, she walked away.
Chapter 39
In my suite, I grabbed my toiletries case, found the powder, and spilled it into a glass, which I filled with water from the tap. I mixed it with my finger and then sat on the edge of the bathtub and drank it down. I was anxious to get ahead of the pain and not allow it to burst open.
After I finished the draft, I rinsed out the glass and went back into the bedroom, where I noticed a package on my pillow. A silver ribbon encircled green watery silk wrapping.
Taking it in my hands, I judged its heft. It had the feel of a book. The size was also right. I untied the satin ribbon, which fell onto the floor, curling like a snake into a perfect coil. Then, because the paper was so beautiful, I unwrapped it carefully.
Inside was indeed a book. The front and back covers appeared to have been made of peacock feathers. I ran my finger over one of them. The iridescent colors twinkled in the light. Emerald, amethyst, sapphire, and turquoise with flecks of gold. The silky feathers against my skin mesmerized me and distracted me from the nascent headache.
The eye of the center feather had been cut out to reveal a deep purple shagreen circle decorated with a crescent moon and outlined in silver. Inside were my initials: DLD. Mathieu had said he’d brought a book for Madame, but surely this wasn’t that. He’d said he didn’t know I’d be here. But this book had my initials on it.
I ran my fingers over the feathers again. I traced the initials. I knew Mathieu’s work almost as well as my own. During the four months I had been with him, I’d spent many evenings in his workshop, painting while he created his marvelous book dressings. People brought him favorite novels or historical tomes, memoirs or family records, so that he could elevate their exteriors into works of art. He also created journals, like this one, that he sold in his uncle’s shop. They were ideal as personal diaries or sketchbooks. Some people used them to record dreams, an ancient art that had recently gained popularity, partly because of the writings of Carl Jung. And for a few rare shoppers who were habitués of the Librairie du Merveilleux, Mathieu also made covers for grimoires holding collections of spells.
Bookbinding was an art like any other, but it didn’t gain much recognition until the turn of the century. Around the time I met him, Mathieu’s books were being shown alongside other great craftsmen’s wares: Rene Lalique’s glass, the ceramics of Charles Catteau, the House of Cartier’s jewelry, Edgar Brandt’s wrought-iron lamps and furniture, and the lacquer screens and furniture of Jean Dunand.
Holding the journal to my chest, I tried to imagine Mathieu walking into my room and looking around. Had he stood by the vanity? Touched my brushes? Had he sniffed my perfume and remembered the day he’d taken me to L’Etoile’s shop? Had he come over to the bed and smoothed out the pillow before placing the gift there? Now I had another entry to add to my Book of Hours. Another artifact to worship.
I placed the book in a drawer of the armoire. I didn’t want its beautiful colors to speak to me, to whisper and tempt me. My mother had taught me that the most powerful force of a daughter of La Lune was not the gift bestowed on her. It wasn’t my mother’s ability to cast spells, or Opaline’s ability to speak the language of stones, or my younger sister Jadine’s talent for reading tears, or my own ability to draw secrets. Our greatest strength and most dangerous power was our determination. With our iron wills, we could do anything once we decided. No one could bend a daughter of La Lune once she made up her mind. And I had made up my mind about Mathieu. I’d left Paris and stayed away. I had orchestrated a good-bye scene so cruel I knew he wouldn’t try to contact me. And he hadn’t tried.
My decision had been the right thing for both of us. My only mistake had been not returning the ring he’d given me. I looked down at the crescent moonstone surrounded by a curve of pale blue sapphires. All the secrets of the orb intensified by the surrounding gems. I hadn’t been able to give it back to him. I’d known how hard my sister had worked on the piece so that it reflected me, choosing sapphires the exact color of Mathieu’s eyes and finding a moonstone with magical qualities. Nothing I could have told her would have justified my returning it.
After I left Paris and had been in New York for a few months, I received a package from Opaline that included six letters from Mathieu. She wrote that he had come to see her at the jewelry store. Distraught that he couldn’t reach me, he begged her for my address, but she refused. Finally, he asked her to at least send me his letters.
Without reading a single one, I burned them all in the fireplace in the studio
. And then I wrote my sister and asked her never to forward anything from him to me again. I could never be with him. I knew that. So to read his letters would only be continuing the torture of missing him.
I lay in my bed, my head nestled in the pillow. I breathed in deeply, trying to locate the faintest whiff of the burnt-vanilla scent that Mathieu wore—and succeeding. I grew warm.
Was he still downstairs? All the guests were staying overnight. Had Mathieu gone to his room? Was it near mine? Was it possible that tonight, somewhere in this castle, Mathieu would be sleeping in a room down the hall from mine?
Mathieu. On whom I’d squandered my one and only wild chance at love—and then had to walk—no, run—away from it.
He was my splendid torture. I shut my eyes, and scenes from our time together came unbidden. His face hovering above me, his hair falling in my face, his penetrating eyes, staring into mine, saying so many things all at once. His long, tapered fingers, rough from the work he did with leather tooling, running up my arms, down my breasts, my stomach, teasing me between my legs. His lips on my lips. Breathing into me and taking my breath into his own lungs. His caramel voice, whispering my name so beautifully that it sounded the way the suede he used on his books felt under my fingers.
Oh, Mathieu. Why are you here?
My hand drifted to all the places his had explored. Now between my legs. My hand was his, stroking me awake and alive and electrified. My hand was his, dipping into the slick and teasing lightning-bolt feelings. My hand was his, sending shudders up and into me.
Oh, Mathieu. Why are you here?
I couldn’t imagine how any man would ever come close to making me feel what even the diluted memory of Mathieu did. Tommy certainly hadn’t. I knew I’d accepted him because he was so clearly different in every way from Mathieu that he’d never remind me of him.
Being with Mathieu was like living inside a secret, magical cave. Being with Tommy was like gliding across a marble dance floor, far from the soul-searing pleasure I had found with Mathieu, the kind that sends you out into the sky past the sun into the deep inky blueness, past the stars and up toward the glow of the moon. I never had to move Mathieu’s hand or squirm away from him. His kisses were never too wet or too dry or too rough or too gentle. From the first time Mathieu touched me—that day in the Luxembourg Gardens when he took my arm—I knew that we were the fit that some people only dream of ever finding. Even trying to explain it to myself, I was confounded. Spontaneous combustion was impossible, wasn’t it?
