We ordered coffee, much against my better judgement. It was late and I just had to get a decent night’s sleep or I would be a wreck in the morning.
I sighed. “But an old lady accumulates things. It’s rare to find anyone living as empty a life as Berthe did in London. I dread to think what I’m going to find in the rooms I haven’t opened yet.”
“My dear,” said Laurent. “There has to be a simple explanation. I do not believe in ghosts, and you have been suffering from the time difference. It is an old building with old neighbours and people like to scare tourists. I would not listen to tales.”
“No. It’s not that. I know what I’ve seen. I know there is something going on and I don’t expect you to believe me, but… as crazy as it sounds, I think Berthe is haunting me. If I could definitively identify the sitter in the painting… I’d be happier. At least…” I paused. I was not sure I would be happier. “You know, I don’t think want to go back there.”
“But there is a job to do. Your grandfather is relying on you.”
“Yes but…” At that moment, I did not think I could cope with whatever may or may not be lying in wait for me.
Laurent sensed my reticence and said: “I will come with you. There is nothing to be afraid of. I am sure we can put your ghost to rest.” He let out a laugh. He was not taking it seriously. It was a game to him. When all was said and done, he was a lawyer and lawyers seldom do anything without recompense. Like as not he would hit me with a big bill for his services. He was probably getting a percentage of the estate anyway, for handling the legalities in France.
“No. I will go alone. If I need you, I will telephone your office.” I doubted I would ask him for anything. Although I found him hugely attractive, I could not allow myself to be taken in by his charm.
“I’m very tired now. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Thank you for the meal. It was… well, it was delightful.” I did not want to appear ungracious, and the meal had been good. If circumstances had been different…
I sighed. Circumstances were not different.
Laurent pursed his lips and observed me in the way that way that older men sometimes reserve for younger women; it was not so much lustful as fatherly.
“Please. I can help you. You say Berthe Chalgrin was an opera singer. No?”
“Yes. Yes, that is correct.”
“Then I will make enquiries. There are extensive archives for the Opera. I will find what I can and let you know. Do you agree?”
“That’s very kind. Thank you.” I had not realised there might be documentation of my great aunt’s career. “If it’s not too much bother.”
Laurent nodded. “No, no. No bother. I will come when I have something to tell you.” He took my hand, and smiled wistfully. “Au revoir,” he said.
I pulled my hand away quickly, and bade him goodnight.
Chapter 6
I was determined to sleep. I persuaded the kitchen to let me have a glass of hot milk and I downed it together with a shot of Courvoisier before turning in. It did the trick and I woke the following morning with a slight headache, which dissipated in the steam of the shower. At least I felt a little more human and the veil of uncertainty about the apartment seemed to have lifted somewhat. I had made some decisions. If he was still alive, I would consult with my father’s old friend, Jacques Le Brun. He knew more than anyone about antiques. If I could recruit his help, then things might go a little more swiftly. The last thing I wanted was to be fleeced by an avaricious dealer when the time came to sell. Jacques, I was sure, would act on my behalf.
A bouquet awaited me at the front desk. I pulled out a card and read: “Beautiful flowers for a beautiful woman. Laurent.”
What was I to do? I handed the bouquet to the receptionist.
“Could you put these in water please?”
“Mais oui Madam.”
I would deal with Laurent later. I asked for a directory and the use of a telephone. It was a long shot but I hoped that Jacques Le Brun had a telephone. I imagined it buried beneath a pile of disparate artefacts, and thought it likely that even if he heard it, he would not answer. I was wrong. He picked up on the second ring.
“Oui,” came his gruff voice.
“Monsieur Le Brun?
“Oui.”
“It’s Sophie, Sophie Chalgrin? Do you remember me? You were friends with my father, Marc Chalgrin.” I did not bother with my married name. I thought it would confuse him.
“Ah oui, Sophie. Yes. You were a little girl, and now not so little I think.”
“That’s right. We used to visit you. I remember your house with such fondness. Do you mind if I ask… are you still there?”
“Oui. But of course. Are you in Paris? It would be marvellous to see you.” It had to have been fifteen years at least. I could not say if my father had kept in touch with him.
“May I?” I said. “Only I’ve something that might interest you.”
“Is it… dare I ask… is it a wonderful piece of porcelain? I am in love with porcelain. The feel, the colour, even the smell…”
“No. No. Better than that.”
“Better than that? A painting. No, no let me guess… a piece of jewellery.”
“No, better still. When can I come?”
“Whenever you wish. An old man like me does not go out much, you know. This afternoon at three? It will give me a chance to have a wash.” He chuckled. He might be old but he had not lost his sense of humour.
“This afternoon then, at around three.”
“That would be wonderful. I look forward to seeing you. A bientôt cherie.”
I replaced the receiver. I should take him something – a small gift, but what? What do you give a man who has dedicated his life to objets d’art? It came to me in a flash. Of course, I would take him something from Berthe’s apartment. Something portable and yet enticing. I wanted him to see the painting, but I could not very well take it off the wall and put it in a taxi. It was simply too big – and in any case I wanted Jacques to have something he could keep. I did not think either my father or grandfather would mind, provided the object had little worth but much to tell by way of a story. That was what Jacques Le Brun loved most about his antiques – the story. Well, I thought. If he likes a story, I’ve got that.
*
I took a taxi to the Rue Tronson du Coudray. The wind was blowing from the north-east and the clouds threatened more rain. I thought I had managed to slip through the front door without being noticed by Armand Pascal, but when I was halfway up the stairs I heard his voice in the foyer.
“Madam… Do you have a moment?”
I stopped in my tracks. “Damn it,” I whispered. “Not really,” I shouted back at him.
“Oh, that is a shame. My father asks after you.”
“Tell him… tell him I will be down later. I am busy right now.”
“Huh…si vous le dites,” I heard him groan. The rest of his utterances were lost in the well of the stairs. I carried on up. It would be useful to hear what the old man had to say, if only because he had actually known Berthe – but then there was the singing and I wanted to know about that too. I would choose something to give to Jacques and then I would go see what Michel Pascal had to say for himself.
There is nothing quite like entering somewhere where no clock ticks, no faucet drips, and there are no foot falls on the parquet floor from other occupants. So desiring was I for distraction that I almost wished the singing to start up. I left my coat on the stand in the hall and took up my apron. Fastening it around my waist, I entered the drawing room. I wanted to move the big chair away from the far door so that I could get through into the rooms beyond. Somehow, during my cleaning and collating session on the previous day, I must have pushed the chair back against the door. I struggled for a couple of minutes, until I thought I had made enough space to slip through the gap. Until that point I had not looked at the painting over the mantle, nor made any particular observations save that the shutters were open, and the
box of crockery and books were stacked, as I had left them…
…but the painting had been slashed from top to bottom.
Horrified, I reached up to finger the torn canvas. It had definitely been intact when I left the day before. Someone had been in and vandalised it. I instantly thought of Armand Pascal and his father. They must have a key. It could not be the old man. He surely could not manage the stairs. But Armand…
I practically flew down the stairs and hammered on their door.
“Oui,” said Armand, opening the door. He had a mouthful of baguette and spluttered out crumbs as he spoke.
“Have you seen… have been up… do you…?” I could not get the words out, I was so mad.
Armand held his hand up, as if to ward me off.
“Ce qui se passe?
I pushed him aside.
“Do you have a key? Of course you do. Have you been up there? Have you seen what has happened?”
“What do you say?” He shoved his thumbs under his belt and hitched his trousers.
“There is a painting. A very big, probably valuable painting… and it has been rendered completely worthless. Someone has cut it.”
“Why do you come to me? I have not been in there for many years. Not since the problem with Madam Guinard’s salle de bain.”
“But you have a key?”
“Mais oui… and it is here.” He shuffled into the kitchen and pulled open a drawer, lifted the key with its label on a string, and handed it to me.
“Voilà. You can keep it. It is rusty. Non? But the same as yours.” He sneered at me and wiped his mouth the back of his hand.
It was true; the key was exactly the same as the one I had.
“Then someone broke in,” I said, enunciating clearly and as calmly as I could muster. I had not thought to check the windows. Was there a fire escape? Could someone have entered that way?
“If you want, we call the police.” Armand shrugged. “If not… I do not know.”
“No. No police. Not yet.” I had to think. I needed to check if anything was missing, or if anything else had been damaged, and that was going to be difficult because I had not inspected enough of the apartment to know of its contents in full.
I ran out of the Pascal’s apartment, taking the stairs two at a time.
“Mon père…”Armand shouted after me.
“Later,” I shouted.
“Toujours plus tard. Américains. Phhh,” he spat.
*
I shut the door to Berthe’s apartment and leant back against it. First things first. Check the windows. The ones in the hall were locked tight. Those in the kitchen too. I had had the presence of mind to bring my camera with me this morning. I would photograph the painting and then try to get through into the other rooms.
In the hall I tried the locked door again. It did not give. I went into the kitchen and rummaged around for a key that might fit, but found nothing. I went back to the door and kicked it hard. Damn it, but I would have to get a crowbar or something. No matter. I took my Leica and took a few shots of the hall, and then the drawing room before framing the painting in my viewfinder.
The painting was whole. There was no sign of the slash through the middle. I reached up and touched where I’d felt the cut, but no… there was definitely nothing wrong with it. I could not believe it. Was I going mad? I used half a roll of film in an attempt to catch the picture just right. Then I took hold of the frame at the bottom and lifted it carefully off the wall, letting it slide down in front of me until it came to rest on the floor. I inspected the back of the canvas. There was a label, which I photographed, but no damage of any kind. I leaned the painting up against a chair and stood back. I imagined the artist telling the sitter to turn a little, to spread out the folds of her dress, and to delicately touch her shoulder with her fingertips, while at her feet a drift of flowers dusted the floor with impressionistic petals.
I let out a long sigh and whispered: “I will keep you in my heart like a treasure.”
I used the rest of the roll of film on the contents of various boxes – mostly silver ware and crystal. I had a second roll in my bag and when I went to retrieve it heard the faintest of voices, singing softly, dreamily almost. I looked out onto the landing, and listened with cocked head, but the singing was even quieter here. I shut the door and followed the sound through the drawing room, past the painting (still entire) to the door on the far side. I fitted myself behind the chair and squeezed through into the hall beyond. It was much as I had first found the apartment: bathed in ghostly shadows and thick with dust. I heaved open a shutter and the glowering sky cast its half-light into the room. The singing faded away.
There were two doors to my left, both slightly ajar. At the end of the hall was another, but this was closed. I pushed the first door open and crossed quickly to the window. I opened the shutter, noticing the Juliet balcony outside, and rotten window frame. The rain had stopped but the sky was still an oppressive grey. When I turned…
… I heard her breathing. I could not see her, but she was there all the same. The bed was unmade, the covers pushed back as if someone had just gotten up. I stood transfixed by the sound…
Eventually, I plucked up the courage to say: “Berthe?” No one replied. I listened, and after a while I could not be sure anymore if it was my breathing I had heard, or that of my ghostly companion.
I fitted the new roll of film in the camera and took a few pictures. The dressing table mirror was opaque with dust, and the bottom drawer was missing. To one side stood a small chair and next to that a heavy walnut armoire. When I opened its doors I found a row of faded calico clothing bags hanging inside, and peeping out from the bottom of each, a drift of moth-eaten silk.
Her clothes were still here. Everything was still here.
I photographed the contents in situ. I could not bring myself to open any of the bags. That would have to wait. Her shoes were lined up in a row. I dared to lift one out. She had such small feet. I put it back in place.
On her nightstand by the bed I found a glass, a bottle of pills, and a silver-framed photograph of the same woman as in the painting, arm in arm with a hard-faced man in a hat. She was staring up at him adoringly, but he had eyes only for the camera.
“Berthe,” I whispered again. I took up the frame and crossed to the window to get a better look. Yes, it was one and the same. I clasped the picture to my breast. So… if this was Berthe, if the painting was of Berthe, if the ghost was Berthe…
But she had been an old lady when she died, and I doubted that ghosts could choose at what age they haunted. I laughed nervously at myself. It sounded ridiculous. Perhaps what I needed was not so much an antique expert as a clairvoyant - or maybe even a priest.
I took the photograph with me into the next room, which contained a brown-stained bath, sink and water closet. The piping was intricate, like something from a Victorian insane asylum. At any minute I expected white coated attendants to enter and hustle me into the bath for ‘treatment. I shuddered and shot a couple pictures, shutting the door when I had done.
Behind the closed door at the end of the hall, I found a room containing a grand piano, and as much, if not more furniture than the drawing room. When I opened the shutters to let the light in I noticed that one wall had a huge, ornately framed mirror hanging on it and opposite, a glass-doored bookcase that ran floor-to-ceiling. A long-dead brown-curled aspidistra occupied a pot on a stand next to a chair, on which was a small box, bound with a faded pink ribbon. Spider webs drifted down from a chandelier, once glittering with light, now hazed with dirt. There was a stuffed penguin, a Chinese-painted cabinet, a card table, a chaise longue, a rolled up carpet, a gilt bird cage, an oil lamp with delicate glass shade, a carved armoire, and a writing desk on which stood a group of silver-framed photographs: Berthe with an older woman, both in costume; Berthe with a very smart young man in uniform; Berthe posing, much as I remembered the postcard picture Michel Pascal had given me; Berthe and the man from the photog
raph I had found in her bedroom; Berthe and a small boy – in this one she was bending down to look at something he was playing with; Berthe and what looked to be the cast of a show – all in costume; Berthe and a small woman who had moved during the taking of the shot, so that she was blurred; Berthe and a very stately looking man in evening dress.
I placed the photograph from her bedroom next to those on the desk and sat on the leather-covered piano stool. My feet touched a box. I pulled it out from its hiding place beneath the piano. It contained nine short cylindrical cardboard tubes with lids, each labelled: Cylindres Edison Moulés Sur Or. On the end of each lid was the name Berthe Chalgrin and number. I picked a tube and pulled the lid off. Inside was a black cylinder. Could this be Berthe singing? I looked around but could not see any machinery that might play the cylinders. I would take it to Jacques Le Brun. I replaced the lid on the tube and left it on the piano next to my Leica, so I would remember to take it with me when I went.
The music stand held a score, opened on pages two and three. The lyrics were in French. I flicked the pages over gently to see the title – Je Veux Vivre – I want to live.
Chapter 7 – Present Day
“Oh,” says Eva, sitting up. “Je Veux Vivre? But I’m singing that. It’s in Gounod’s Romeo and Juliette..”
“I know that now,” I say. “But back then, I knew nothing of opera and nothing of what Berthe sang. It was not until your father… well he wasn’t your father then of course… that would come later… it wasn’t until Laurent brought me information from the archives that we began to understand what had happened to make her want to leave her home in Paris.”
Eva rubs her head. “I’m going to have another whiskey. Do you want one?”
“No dear. Should you be drinking? I’m sure it’s not good for your voice.”
I heard her blow out her cheeks. I am interfering. I should leave well alone. She knows what she is doing – at least, I hope she does.
“You know I’ve been thinking… the words on the note… Je te garde dans mon âme, comme un trésor? They are from Je Veux Vivre too. Juliette is singing about how she wants to be young forever – about how when you get older and you fall in love, things change… your life changes completely and the sweetness of youth is gone, never to return.”
The Remaining Voice Page 5
