The French Impressionist

by Rebecca Bischoff

  I sit and spread out the letters. Something is bothering me. I want to read the dates.

  The hate letter was written in 1869. I compare the dates of all the others, stacking them in uneven piles around me. The earliest was written in 1854, and the others range all the way up to 1868. And after I’ve checked them all, I feel tired, deflated and sad. None of the fan letters were written after the hate mail.

  Closing my eyes, I rest my head on the back of the chair. Marguerite, did you let that guy stop you from acting? Why does this thought make my heart sink inside? Minutes ago, I was almost mad at her. I was jealous, because for her, I thought the stage was a safe place where she could talk like anyone else. Now it looks like her safe place betrayed her.

  When I raise my head, I see how deep the shadows are around me, so I finally gather up the letters and head to Sylvie’s. I feel like my brain was thrown into a blender. My thoughts are whirled mush.

  I’m almost surprised to find myself closing the apartment door behind me. Émile is watching a cooking show, engrossed and taking notes, but he turns to smile at me. Sylvie is singing in the kitchen, softly. I catch a few words. “My child, my sweet child.” Her voice breaks. So does my heart.

  With my back to the door, I hesitate. I am so confused. I was going to tell my story about Zander tonight. But once again, I’m reminded how much Sylvie and Émile are hurt by the unimaginable loss of their son. Is it fair for me to do this to them? To add to their sorrow, to add the burden of a terrible knowledge that’s actually a lie, all so I can convince them to let me stay?

  I turn at the entrance to the hallway and look back at the place that in my heart is now my home. I want to stay here, more than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life. I take a breath and try to imagine the words I’d say. They stick at the back of my throat, choking me. I can’t do it. At least, not tonight.

  With a heavy heart, I stumble to my room. Ansel’s room. I pull pajamas over my head and toss my jeans to the floor. And then, I sit on the bed and stare at the floor.

  I’m selfish.

  I have been all along. I chose Sylvie and Émile as my host family only because they lost a son. I chose them only because Sylvie has suffered so much in her life I knew I’d find a compassionate, loving soul who would embrace me. And I hate myself for it.

  I don’t even really care about Marguerite! I tie her mail into a bundle and add it to the growing collection in my drawer. The pain I felt as I read the hate-filled letter was mostly for me. I wanted Marguerite to be the strong woman I’d created in my mind. I needed her to be fearless, carefree, and successful, the brilliant actress I thought she was, because of one thing. If she couldn’t do it, how can I? I mean, if Marguerite couldn’t ignore her weakness and still live her dream, how can boring, untalented, freakishly weird-sounding Rosemary ever live her own dreams, whatever they are?

  My phone buzzes, and I pick it up. I have seventeen texts from Mom. Seventeen texts that I don’t bother to read. There’s one from Jada, too.

  When are you going to call me, bestie?

  My shoulders slump. I can’t do it. Not right now.

  I delete them all. I fish Marguerite’s portrait from under my bed and prop it up onto a chair so I can see it. Then I curl myself into a ball and hug my knees as I look at her. I don’t know how long I stare, but soon I fall asleep and dream that I’m sitting in a theatre, watching her on the stage. Her face glows and she’s tall and graceful in her pink silk gown. She speaks in a clear voice, with words that flow from her like water in a brook as it speeds over stones, sure and quick.

  _______

  My phone wakes me at dawn. I rub swollen eyes. I must have been crying in my sleep.

  “Loser,” I mumble to myself. When I switch on the lamp, Ansel’s bedroom with its explosions of color takes shape before my eyes, and my heart aches inside me. I love it here. I love the narrow hallway I shuffle down and the tiny bathroom decorated with red roosters where I shower and brush my teeth. I love Sylvie’s paint-spattered floors, and Émile’s tattered cookbooks and gleaming copper pans that hang from the ceiling. I love my French parents, who for the first time in my life make me feel like I belong to a real family.

  The front room is quiet in the early morning. From somewhere upstairs, a dog barks, and a voice quickly shushes it. Someone wearing high heels taps down the hall outside with rapid steps. The tak tak tak sounds grow louder and louder before they pass our door and fade away. I smile to myself, imagining it’s the ghost of Marguerite. She’s leaving because I discovered her secret.

  My phone is beeping and shaking again. It’s like the ghost of my former life, still haunting me. Inside me, something dawns bright as a sunrise. Since coming to Nice, I’ve never been so terrified, and yet . . . I’ve never been so happy.

  Maybe Marguerite wasn’t as strong as I thought she was, but that doesn’t matter.

  I can be as strong as I need to be. Even if that means living a lie.

  Taking the phone with me, I sneak out of the apartment and make my way to the fourth floor, then climb the creaking metal stairs that lead to the rooftop garden. With eyes closed to the waking world around me, I hold out my hand, balancing my phone in my sweaty palm. The morning air is cool. The phone buzzes like an overgrown insect in my hand. It’s been ringing non-stop since it woke me. She’s still trying to call, text, IM me. Can I really do this, right here, right now?

  I’m tired. I’m so tired of everything. Maybe I’m selfish, but I’ll do whatever I have to do to stay.

  It’s time to cut the final string that connects me to my old life.

  Gulls call overhead. They lazily circle on currents of warm ocean air, free to go wherever they choose. They are free, and so am I. I smile.

  Yes, I can do this.

  I let go, and my cell drops.

  I watch it as it falls. Even from four stories up I can hear the satisfying, metallic “crunch” as it lands and tiny bits scatter. No more buzzing. I smile up at the gulls, who screech loudly. I feel like they’re laughing with me.

  Today I declare my independence. It’s time for me to speak.

  Twenty-One

  My hands are shaking. I will tell Sylvie about Zander this afternoon, during our scheduled art lesson, but I want things to be perfect. That’s why I set up a canvas in Sylvie’s studio so I can paint while she works on her books downstairs. I’m trying to recapture the images that flashed through my mind when Thomas locked me in his mother’s apartment. They were my nightmare images. That’s why I choose to recreate them. Thinking about them and about Thomas will put me in the right mood to tell my story. Everything has to be believable.

  So I paint what first comes to me: a kid holding a teddy bear that’s missing an eye and has a torn ear after years of being loved. When I step back to survey what I’ve done so far, it’s not quite right. It’s only a little kid with a toy. The tiny figure isn’t nearly frightened enough to explain the vague feeling of dread that comes over me whenever I think of those nightmare visions. Not sure what to do, I dip my brush and begin to paint swirling clouds of darkness around the child. They’re dark and heavy, more like a thick, oozing sludge than clouds. Suddenly, something sparks in my brain and I paint the shape of a person emerging from the sludge. It’s a man, old and bent, with one hand that reaches out, almost touching the child. I step back, not breathing. It’s like I can feel the fear that spills out from the painting into the room and swirls around me, like a cold fog. Why?

  Émile bursts into the shop.

  “Oh, la, la, it is time! Are you ready, Rosie?” he asks. His eyes sparkle as he looks at me.

  “For what?” I gasp, still not quite able to breathe normally.

  With a loving arm around me, Émile sweeps me from the apartment. “We have a surprise for you,” he says. I’m still shaky and I’ve started to sweat. I take slow, deep breaths as we walk outside to Émile’s car, where Sy
lvie waits inside.

  Palm trees and the faded facades of pastel buildings whir by as I try to catch my breath. We have to stop near a frilly-looking villa lined with white pillars, because a throng of pedestrians fills the street. “They wait for a concert,” Émile says with a grin. The car finally inches away and soon we pass a museum we visited before, one that looks like two buildings trying to crush the giant statue of a woman stuck between them. We pass more skinny apartment buildings that are faded and worn, like ours. Then the older buildings are replaced with different apartment complexes, bigger, more modern, cleaner. Uglier. Finally, the car starts to climb a steep hill, protesting; like a groaning old man climbing stairs.

  We’re in Émile and Sylvie’s tiny orange “deux-chevaux,” and the “two horse” car barely has enough room for me in the practically non-existent back seat. I squirm and try to find some leg room. Maybe my “surprise” is a trip to the cemetery, La Chance, to visit Ansel’s grave. Sylvie holds a tote with bright fuchsia and yellow chrysanthemums spilling from the top. She hands me another bag that feels heavy on my lap. Bottles clink inside. Picnic lunch at La Chance? My French teacher used to talk about her visits to Paris. She would go to a big, famous cemetery filled with huge carved tombstones, and eat bread and cheese sitting next to the monument of her favorite nineteenth-century French writer. Other people do it too, drinking wine and tossing crumbs to the birds. It’s a French thing, I guess, to have picnics in cemeteries so you can be around famous dead people. Or visit loved ones.

  Émile hums and he and Sylvie smile at each other, and I marvel at their mood. Sylvie is little-girl giggly. Her joy is catching, and I find myself smiling a little. The fear I felt after I painted my strange memories begins to ease. Save it for later, I tell myself. For now, I want to make my French parents happy.

  “So, where are we going?” I venture to ask.

  “To see Ansel,” Sylvie replies with a radiant smile she flashes at me as she turns in my direction. I smile back, shocked, but gratified. My pulse quickens and I feel a flutter in my stomach. They want to share Ansel with me. This is good, because it practically means I’m like family to them, doesn’t it? I’ve been trying to hint at joining the family in all my conversations with Sylvie. It’s what I plan to ask after I tell my story this afternoon.

  The car speeds over a bump and we all fly up to hit the roof of the tiny car that holds us inside like sardines. Sylvie laughs out loud. I join in, and then Émile, and we all laugh together. This is perfect! After we visit the grave, I’ll tell my tale. Still full of sadness after being reminded of their loss, Sylvie and Émile will be ready and more than willing to welcome me into their lives. Forever.

  I barely have time to register the new feeling of triumph that washes through me when the car finally crests the top of the hill and we speed down a tree-lined drive. Then we stop before tall iron gates with curving letters that spell out the name “La Chance” across the top. I look through the gates and my laughter dies. This isn’t a cemetery. It’s a tall, tan building with rows and rows of windows. Not a carved angel in sight or tourists throwing bread to the birds.

  Sylvie hops out and opens my door, and I step out, lugging the heavy tote bag. Émile eases the car away to find a parking spot, and I follow Sylvie with dragging steps and a heart that feels like it’s leaking away all of my blood. I don’t understand. I thought Ansel was dead. This isn’t a cemetery.

  Inside, we pass a kind of reception area and head down a long hallway. I don’t want to breathe more than I have to. The air smells like a light layer of antiseptic over a whole lot of putrid. As we move down the corridor I glance into rooms. There is an old, old man whose wispy white hair sticks up in patches on his crinkled skull. He’s lying on a bed and snoring with his mouth gaping wide. In another room, a woman waves at us from her wheelchair. Her thick, gray curls cover her head like a helmet. I try not to stare at her legs, which end in puckered stumps where her knees should be. Sylvie gives her a jolly wave as she passes. The woman says something rapid, but I catch the word, fils, which means “son.” Sylvie smiles and nods, and the legless woman smiles back.

  We stop before a painted door displaying the scene of what looks like the beach close to our apartment. Wide umbrellas dot the pebbly sand and swirling turquoise water swells in the distance. I recognize Sylvie’s work. Émile lopes up the corridor behind us, and catches us as Sylvie reaches to open the door, and swings it wide. She and Émile step in, and motion for me to follow.

  A young man sits in a supercharged power wheelchair, watching TV. The chair is a familiar sight. Jada has one like it. The man’s face is turned away, but his head is covered with dark curls and the curve of a bronze cheek is somehow familiar. Sylvie calls his name, and he turns toward us. I gasp and my tote bag crashes to the floor. The man looks toward the source of the sound and his eyes, nearly black, with long curling lashes, meet mine. He smiles. There’s something pure in his face. It’s a warmth full of truth, like all his thoughts are there to read, clear for anyone to see. Like he has no desire to hide who he is. I know those eyes, so like Sylvie’s. I know that face, that smile that flashes so easily, so often. I’ve seen countless photographs. He is the painted boy on my wall.

  Sylvie and Émile move closer and hover over their son, speaking softly. He responds, but I don’t recognize any words.

  “Rosie, meet our son, Ansel,” Émile says with pride in each note of his voice. I want to say something, but when I try to breathe, to speak, it hurts. I close my mouth; nod my head, trying to read Émile’s expression. Did he and Sylvie understand what I believed? That I thought their son was dead?

  “Isn’t he handsome, Rosie?” Sylvie says, without turning away from her son. Ansel laughs. His voice is deep, rich, but soft.

  “I’d like to meet you, Rosie. Please come closer so I can see you,” he whispers.

  “Of course, of course,” Émile says, taking my arm and leading me toward Ansel’s wheelchair. “We brought you here for this very reason,” he adds. “Our son is coming home, soon. We wanted him to meet our houseguest.”

  Houseguest. The words bore themselves into my body and settle in my chest, heavy and sharp, as I allow myself to be led closer to the man I had thought was dead.

  “How do you like Nice?” Ansel asks. His words are weak and breathy, and he pauses in the middle of the short sentence, as though he’s run out of air. It’s then that I notice something strange attached to his neck with tape. It’s a round plastic thing with a tube that connects to a whirring metal machine hung from the back of the wheelchair. It’s a respirator. Ansel can’t breathe without a machine.

  I have to speak. Ansel is waiting. Tearing my eyes away from his throat, I answer.

  “I love Nice,” I stammer. I flush immediately. My words are hardly recognizable, even to my own ears. “That is, well . . . it’s so full of color,” I add with a rush.

  “I knew,” Ansel says, his liquid dark eyes never leaving mine, “that you would love it. The Cote d’Azur is the perfect place for an artist.” He smiles once more and his face is radiant with a pure joy. “And I cannot wait to see some of your work.”

  Sylvie moves in to fuss over her son and arrange the collar of his shirt, and I step back.

  “He’s coming home,” I murmur to no one in particular. Émile hears me and chuckles. When I look at him, I know shock is etched on my face.

  “Yes, we were surprised as well,” he tells me with a grin, misreading my expression, “but his doctors and therapists believe he is ready. At first, we wondered how we could get him up the stairs, but we think we have found a solution.”

  Émile turns back to his son, and I turn away. I clear my throat several times, trying not to cry. After all these weeks, sharing meals and washing dishes and laughing together, after the painting lessons and the little chats, after Sylvie’s suspicions about Thomas, after all my hints, I’m still not part of the family. How could I h
ave ever thought I would be? Even if I tell my “story,” it won’t matter. I feel so stupid.

  “Isn’t it wonderful, Rosie?” Sylvie says. She steps away from her son and twirls like a dancer, her tangerine-colored skirt billowing around her. Ansel laughs again. “My baby is coming home. I know you will love him, my Rosie! Perhaps you will both paint together some time! C’est merveilleux!”

  I can’t help it. My eyes immediately fly to where Ansel’s stiff hands rest on his lap, curled like claws. I look away, ashamed. Did he see me? Did he know that I was looking at him?

  Émile opens my tote bag, and we have our picnic at La Chance. Bread and fruit, chocolate, and cheese. Bubbly Orangina. I taste nothing, but chew and swallow because that’s what I’m supposed to do. Ansel’s useless arms remain resting in his lap. Sylvie feeds him baby-tiny bites. Émile helps his son drink, holding a straw to his lips. I try not to watch, but can’t help stealing glances. Ansel can eat, but not breathe? And how is it that Sylvie said he could paint?

  “A wonderful surprise, yes, Rosie?” Sylvie asks me suddenly, with twinkling eyes. She looks away before she sees my slight nod. And Émile fusses with something on Ansel’s chair, and then he places the bright chrysanthemums in a vase beside the bed, and Sylvie continues to feed her son, chattering and smiling. I feel like an object in a still-life painting. There really isn’t any room for me in the family I thought I’d found for myself. I’m the houseguest, like Sylvie said. And suddenly, the tears I’d been trying to keep hidden course down my cheeks.

  “Mais, Rosie, qu’est-ce que tu as?” Ansel says. “What’s wrong?”

  I gulp and swipe at my wet cheeks, turning my face away. I feel the gentle pressure of Émile’s hand on my shoulder. Hot tears fall even faster. Kind, soft-spoken Émile. He is who I had chosen to be my father. And part of me still wants to turn to him and feel his arms around me, but I don’t. The painting I’d started this afternoon comes suddenly to my mind, sharp and clear. I’m the figure from my painting, surrounded by the menacing, black sludge. I imagine that dark cloud engulfing me, invading my body. I feel it pouring inside, poisonous, acidic, eating away at everything inside. I’m drowning. I’m dissolving. I am nothing.