by M. J. Rose
In person, Charlotte was lovely, but there was nothing striking about her. There was no exceptional light in her eyes, no fetching tilt to her head, no nuance that turned a woman into a true beauty. But now, listening to her, no one could take his eyes off of her.
No one except for me. Moving the glasses, I scanned the boxes for the one I was looking for. Julien and Charlotte’s father were seated almost opposite to us, both of them riveted to the action onstage.
I watched Julien as he watched Charlotte sing of her longing to see her lover in the light.
Julien did not like to talk about Charlotte, but I’d been able to surmise that her celebrity opened doors for him. In the last two years, he’d built several nightclubs and residences for people in the theatrical world who were more amenable to his avant-garde style than the staid upper-class clientele who typically hired Cingal’s firm. Julien’s reputation had grown because of these commissions. Her star shone on him.
On the stage, Cupid made a dramatic entrance, flying in from above, his iridescent, wide, wondrous wings spread. Along with the rest of the audience, I gasped as this beautiful creature came down to earth to make love to a human who was doomed never to set eyes on him.
It was painful to watch the scene on the stage, impossible not to imagine Julien making love to Charlotte. How did they embrace? What did her kisses taste like? Did he become as aroused as quickly with her or more quickly than with me? What secret touches and tricks did they share?
I was staring at the stage when it happened. Staring at the woman who I was certain came between me and real happiness. My resentment toward her was building. My fury at having to deal with and accept these conventions was growing. So what that Julien had given his word? How could he throw away what we had for her? The opera glasses in my hand warmed, my anger heating them. The gold burned my cheek where the rim rested on my skin. I yanked them away lest they leave a mark on my flesh. The heat they were generating through my gloves was almost intolerable. What was wrong?
In the audience, the theatergoers were murmuring appreciation for what was happening on the stage. What theatrical event was this? Cupid’s wings were shining with a peculiar vermilion and crimson light—what was it?
Suddenly, Cupid began to move in a furious, hysterical way that didn’t fit the part. He was pulling his wings off. They were smoking. The wings were burning.
Charlotte pulled off her mantle. A ring of fire around the hem crept up the garment. The music stopped. For one moment the theater was silent. For that single second the fire held everyone mesmerized, and then the crowd erupted in shouts.
“Fire!”
Panic began to build.
“Fire!”
Beside me Monsieur Garnier took my arm. “Come, Mademoiselle Sandrine. In events like this the panic can be more dangerous than the actual fire. The stagehands are prepared, but the crowd . . . that’s where the real risk is. Quickly as you can . . . I’ll get you to a safe place and then come back and help them.”
I knew he was right, but Julien was in this melee. We had to find him. If Garnier was going to save me, he had to save Julien, too.
“I have a friend here. Can we just find—”
“There’s no time, just come with me. Your grandmother would never forgive me if I didn’t keep you safe.”
On the stage, a line of men passed buckets of water to those closest to the fire, but as they put out one blaze, it seemed another area of the stage burst into flames. The conflagration traveled from fabric to prop, prop to fabric, faster than they could extinguish it.
“You said they’d contain the fire,” I said.
“They will”—but he didn’t sound confident. “No matter what happens, though, you will be safe if you do as I say.”
He pulled me away from the direction of the main staircase and the lobby, the front doors and Julien, and instead toward the back and into a darkened, unadorned hallway.
At the far end, he opened the very last door with a key he pulled from his vest pocket and pointed.
“Three flights down are stone caverns and a lake. Fire cannot work its way through stone. Wait for me. There are candles and matches inside small hollows as you descend. Use them to light your way. Be careful.”
And then he disappeared, shutting the door after him.
I was engulfed by profound darkness. There simply was no light. I tried the door behind me. He’d locked it, or it had self-locked when he’d shut it, I couldn’t open it.
Where was Julien? Had he been hurt in the crush? What if the fire spread before everyone got out? I had only just found him . . . I couldn’t lose him. What if he and Monsieur Cingal had rushed the stage to save Charlotte? What if they were trapped? I could smell the inferno now. The acrid scent filled the air.
I had no choice; the door was locked, and there was no going back. I felt to my right for the niche, found it. Groped for the candle and matches. I found the matches, but instead of a candle, there was only a stub of wax, far too small to light. Whoever had used it last had forgotten to replace it.
There were candles in niches all along the way, Garnier had said. But what if they were all like this one?
Somewhere beyond this door, behind me, I could hear the shouts of the operagoers and stagehands.
I took a deep breath, grabbed hold of the hand railing. How could there be a lake? I vaguely remembered a story about a lake and a frightening phantom who lived below the opera, but that was a legend in a novel.
But if Garnier said it would be safe, it would be. If anyone knew about this place, it would be the man responsible for building it.
At the base of that first flight, I felt around and indeed found a second niche . . . and in it a small candle, this one was big enough to ignite. With an unsteady hand, I struck the match. The flame was so terribly bright after the last few minutes I’d spent in pitch-blackness that I blinked back tears.
With a light, the second staircase was less frightening until I reached the third set of stairs. Greeted with the clammy scent of fungus and an eerie silence punctuated by a slow drip, as steady as a heart beating, I panicked. Everything in front of me was a mystery.
Cautiously, I stepped off the last step, walked forward. In the distance I saw a glimmer of water. I had reached the lake. It was just as Garnier said. A lantern hung from a hook drilled into the stone. Blankets were stacked in a niche in a rock wall.
Garnier had told me to wait for him, and I had every intention of obeying him. Venturing deeper into this underground maze without a guide would be suicidal. There was a very small boat tied up to a stake in the lake. It appeared to be silver and black, but I couldn’t be sure since my candle gave off only a meager beacon. Where would it take me? I was too frightened to find out. Instead I found a rock that could function as a bench and sat. How long would it be before Garnier returned? And what if he didn’t? What if the fire got worse and worse and everyone was—
Becoming alarmed would not help me. I’d brought a small tin of crystallized violets with me and fished inside my reticule to find it. To do so, I had to first take out the opera glasses that I had been holding when the fire broke out.
As I removed them, I noticed something strange.
I had been nowhere near the blaze, and yet the pearls were blackened and soot covered the rubies. A film of it lay over the lenses. As I examined the small binoculars, I saw that the fingertips of my gloves were singed.
Do you understand now?
The echo slid across the lake and was lost in the gloom.
Who had said that? Had Garnier come back so soon? I turned, but no one was there.
I can help you.
It was a woman’s voice. Not a man’s. And perhaps the saddest voice I’d ever heard, as if tears had been turned into sound.
I searched the darkness but couldn’t see anyone, not by the shore, not in the shadows. There
really was no one there. I knew there wouldn’t be. Just as I knew the last several weeks in Paris had been leading to this moment. What was happening? I got up and ran for the stairs. Halfway, I remembered that the door at the top of the last staircase would be locked. I turned around.
Back at ground level, I ran toward the boat. I would get away from her by way of the water.
Don’t run from me. I’m here to help. We both want the same thing, for you to be with Julien.
I took what I thought was my first step into madness. I responded to the voice.
“The soot on the glasses, the burn marks on my gloves . . . You used me to start the fire?”
I thought this would work . . . The voice was fainter now, and I had to strain to hear her. But the fire didn’t spread fast enough. She got away. Now we have to find another way to be rid of her . . .
I spun around and around. Searching for the trickster. There was no one in that cavern with me. But there was something there with me. And I saw her ghostly image in a glint of moonlight on the lake as she finished her whispered promise.
. . . We will find another way.
Moonlight? It was impossible. We were hundreds of feet underground.
Chapter 24
The morning newspapers were full of the story from the night before. There had been a fire at the opera house, but it was extinguished without incident and little damage except to some curtains and stage props. No one had perished. No one was even hurt.
I was relieved that Charlotte had survived, I thought as I walked to school. The evening had been terrifying and confusing. My mind was swimming with unanswered questions. Painting class with Monsieur Moreau would be a welcome diversion.
Inside, I greeted my fellow students and set up my easel. The model took her position. Monsieur Moreau walked around, tilting his head, asking her to move a little this way and a little that way until he was happy with her pose.
I looked from her to the empty canvas. Taking up my brush, I daubed it into the cobalt swirl, the most magical color on my palette. I changed the white robe slipping down the model’s back to a lovely deep-azure shawl. For a moment I closed my eyes and, as if in a dream, saw the depths of the sky in the folds of the fabric, saw the moon and stars shining through its very blueness.
“Yes,” Monsieur Moreau said as he looked over my shoulder at my canvas. “You are right to think through color, use it with imagination. If you don’t have imagination, your color will never be beautiful. Color must be dreamed.”
It was not the first time my teacher had spoken to me as if he could look inside my mind and hear what I was thinking.
“I would like you to stay for a short time after the session. Would that be all right, Mademoiselle?” Moreau asked me.
We were at his atelier at 14 rue de la Rochefoucauld, where he also lived. It was perhaps my favorite place in all of Paris. On the second floor, in the grand parlor, was a nautilus iron staircase. At the top was the painter’s rich universe. His stunning paintings, drawings, and watercolors crowded every wall, crammed tightly together, giving the eye no respite. His love of colors was displayed in the gem-like canvases, each sparkling with ruby, vermilion, royal purple, emerald, and gold. His visionary illustrations of tales from the Bible and mythology were inundated with fantastical winged creatures from angels to dragons. Imagery rife with magic and crowded with symbolism.
Once everyone had left, we ventured downstairs for tea. Sitting in a formal and old-fashioned dusty room, we were served by a middle-aged maid who didn’t linger or say very much.
“Is it possible you are holding back, Mademoiselle?”
I was surprised by his question. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“I’ve watched how quickly you pick up on my suggestions and, at the same time, noticed a hesitancy that implies you know exactly what to do but are reluctant to do it. Does this make any sense to you?”
What to tell him? What to admit? Of course I was doing exactly that, afraid that if he saw how fast I was capable of progressing he would become suspicious. It even frightened me. I was making leaps overnight that would take anyone else weeks or months. Perhaps years.
Wouldn’t he think I was mad if I told him? I was already considered strange enough for my costume and commitment, but he was interested in the esoteric. Hadn’t Gaston told me he’d belonged to a society that summoned angels to help artists? Maybe he was the one person who would understand, who could help me.
“What is it, Mademoiselle Verlaine?”
“Nothing,” I lied. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Some artists are concerned with expressing the words of the soul. That’s all fine, but I’m more interested in rendering visible, so to speak, the inner flashes of intuition. Those have something divine in their apparent insignificance. And transposed by the marvelous effects of pure visual art, they reveal truly magical, I would say even sublime, horizons.”
He waited for a moment. I remained silent. Then he stood.
“Wait there. I should like to show you something.”
Moreau left the room, and while he was gone, I studied the paintings on the walls. Each of a series of small paintings had a brass plaque on its lower arm naming its subject: Andromeda, Diana, Leda, Cleopatra, Salome, and Bathsheba. Each woman shone like a piece of jewelry encrusted with lapis, emeralds, gold, turquoise, sapphires, and rubies. Each solemn and soulful woman looked secretive, contemplating the murder or sacrilege or sacrifice or torture she had inflicted or endured. The extravagant plant life in each painting was as alive as the women; thin tendrils wove around strong verdant leaves; fanning palms shadowed flowers that suggested religious vessels.
I thought of a passage in À Rebours, a decade-old book that all of Moreau’s students had read and quoted by heart, which was considered the bible of decadents. The main character spoke of Moreau’s art as “despairing erudite works, which emanate a singular spell, a fascination that is deeply, intimately disturbing.” These paintings were prime examples of those spells.
Moreau returned several moments later, holding a maroon leather sketchbook.
“People say I am a peintre d’histoire because of my subject matter. But I believe neither in that which I touch nor in that which I see. I believe only in that which I do not see. I believe uniquely in that which I sense, Mademoiselle.”
He opened the book to a fantastical drawing of a whole bevy of angels with elaborate wings of different shapes and sizes. Was the story true? Did he call on angels to help him?
Turning the page, he showed me a Salome dancing before the head of John the Baptist. And the next page, another version of the same tale.
“This is where I record my dreams of kings and queens, witches, unicorns, and strange jewels with unearthly powers. My dreams, you see, are mythical gates that allow me to meet with gods and goddesses and creatures of other realms. The critics write I have poetic hallucinations . . .” He paused. “It is a good description of what comes over me. I hesitate to discuss it even with my closest companions, even more so with a student, but something compelled me to share this with you. And I never deny such strong impulse. Have you ever experienced anything like my poetic hallucinations, Mademoiselle?”
I nodded, afraid to speak, to admit to him what I hadn’t even told Julien.
“You see visions? Hear voices?”
“I have once heard a voice, yes.”
“Don’t be afraid, Mademoiselle. You are gifted, and such talent comes with manifestations we don’t always understand. They say demons are not real, but we know differently, don’t we?”
“Aren’t demons evil?”
“In our sphere, the way we are taught, they could be classified as evil, but is our way of seeing things always correct? We are viewing it from inside our circle. What if we stepped into the spirit’s sphere and looked at us from that same distance. Perhaps we would be
evil and they would be goodness. Don’t judge, Mademoiselle. Live to paint. Paint to live. It may be the only path open to you.”
I took in his words, not sure I even understood them.
“And please don’t pretend anymore with me in class, at the Louvre or here. Even if we cannot explain how or why your talent is exploding, you must not dam it up. Mallarmé, the poet, wrote, ‘Let the window be the art, the mystical experience.’ I want you to show me what you see through the window, Mademoiselle. You must be brave and you must be dark, or you will never be great.”
I left Moreau’s atelier in a fever. I’d been shown what few had seen and been taken into his confidence. If Moreau believed in the realm beyond this one, then there must be some others I could trust who might also. Would I find them that night at the séance that Monsieur Dujols had arranged for me?
Chapter 25
We were seated at a round wooden table in the Librairie du Merveilleux. The doors had been locked and the shades drawn. As usual, books were piled everywhere; maps were laid out on the floor; alembics and jars filled the shelves—nothing was actually different than when I’d visited before, but the atmosphere was almost sinister without the gas lamps turned on, and only the light from candles illuminating Dujols’s cave of wonders. In the dim atmosphere, the undulating wall looked like it might be moving. Or was I just a little drunk from breathing the resinous air rich with burning incense? Or was it the chalk drawing of a pentagram in the center of the table affecting me so?
Dujols shook out a large white cloth and placed it over the symbol. The alphabet was spelled out in four rows of block letters.
Next to the cloth he placed a glass cup, turned upside down.
“Let’s be seated,” he said.
The six of us, including Julien, who had kept his promise to me and come, took our places at the table. He was still wearing the grim expression he’d greeted me with at my house when he arrived to escort me here. During the carriage ride over he was quiet, and I chose not to press him. He was so against this experiment I’d been afraid he would refuse to accompany me. I didn’t want to chase him away by saying the wrong thing.
