She was a lovely woman, perfect for Paul. He was glad he had suggested that match to her father all those years ago, when Matt had stopped to give him a ride into Paris. Gastien never told either her or Paul that he had played matchmaker.
XV
One day when Tristan Michel came to see Gastien at his studio, he brought along a book of drawings under his arm. As he entered, Gastien was just cleaning up some brushes.
“Have I come at a bad time again, Father?” he asked.
“Non, Son, this is fine. What’s new? Just coming to see your father?” Gastien asked.
“Well, that, and I wanted to show you some drawings I made,” Tristan Michel replied shyly.
Gastien’s heart jumped. Perhaps his son was interested in art after all!
“Drawings? Great! Let’s see what you are drawing! Perhaps you would like to also paint!” Gastien said enthusiastically.
Tristan Michel shook his head. “Non, I am sorry. Not that kind of drawing. Here, let me show you. I want to know what you think.”
Gastien and his son sat down at the table. Tristan Michel pushed the notebook over to Gastien. As Gastien opened it, he saw detailed drawings of buildings. They were all done in perspective; there were notes written on the sides, explaining dimensions and other details about the buildings. Some buildings had new, unusual looks, different than any that Gastien had ever seen. These drawings were very methodical, very precise. While not fine art per say, his son definitely had a talent. This talent could end up making Tristan Michel a far better living than his father had ever known.
“Tristan Michel, I think these are very good! What you are doing looks like building plans to me. I am not an architect, but it looks like my son may end up being one. Where did you learn this?”
“We are studying geometry in school, now that I am thirteen.”
Thirteen? Gastien thought. His son was a teenager! Of course, he knew that, but still…Mon Dieu, how could that be? Well, he himself was now thirty-seven, almost thirty-eight. He could not expect time to stand still for either of them.
Tristan Michel continued, “I know that I have a lot to learn, but this really interests me, Father. I love looking at buildings, and I love planning them on paper. Sometimes before I go to sleep, I am thinking about more buildings that I would like to design.”
“Oui, I understand how that is. I see paintings, you see buildings. That must be your passion, Son, like painting is mine. Good for you!” Gastien beamed. “If you become a builder, or an architect, you will make a good living. You will be able to enjoy a very prosperous life! But, most of all, I want you to do whatever it is that makes you happy. Life is too short to work at something you don’t love.”
“Well, I am not going to work for a long time, father. I am only thirteen.” They both laughed. “Still, this is the first time I have really felt this deeply excited about something! Do you think that we could spend some time together going into Paris, just walking and looking at buildings?”
Gastien looked at his son fondly. He was glad the boy had found something that inspired him. “I would love to do that with you. Some Saturday we will do that.”
“How about this Saturday?” Tristan Michel asked excitedly.
“I am busy this Saturday, I am sorry. How about the one after that?”
Tristan Michel sighed. “I have something at school that Saturday.” His shoulders slumped. “I guess it will have to be in three weeks. We have not done anything together for three months. You are always busy.”
Gastien had not realized it had been three months. He really should make more time for his son!
“I will change my plans for this Saturday. I would rather spend it with you, anyway. It will be fun looking at buildings,” he said. The plans were made. Tristan Michel would come to Gastien’s studio on Saturday at ten o’clock.
On Friday, Gastien painted all day. He went out as usual that night to Au Lapin Agile. He tried to leave several times, but amis kept buying him drinks. Before he knew it, he was completely drunk and it was dawn. He hurried home, falling into bed. If he could just get a few hours sleep he would be all right.
XVI
When Tristan Michel arrived at ten, he found Gastien dressed, but looking awful. Gastien’s stomach rolled. He was so hung over he wanted to die. Suddenly, he hurried outside to vomit. As he came back in, his son was heading out the front door.
“Tristan Michel!” he called. Gastien hurried out after his son. “Where are you going?”
Tristan Michel turned and looked at him coldly. “You are in no shape to go walking today, Father. You are still drunk. Why don’t you go back to whatever cabaret you spent most of last night in? Or did they finally get sick of you and throw you out?”
Gastien stopped short. “I am not drunk! I am a bit under the weather from last night, but I certainly am not drunk. Don’t be so disrespectful to me!”
His son looked at him with distaste. “You smell like you are drunk. You look like you are drunk, and your voice sounds like you are drunk. Well, imagine that! I would bet anyone but you would say, ‘He is drunk’!”
Tristan Michel turned away. Looking over his shoulder, he added, “I will respect you when you decide to act like you deserve it.”
“Tristan Michel! Stop it right now! I am willing to go walking with you. I am! Just give me some time to get myself together. I tried to leave the cabaret early, I really did! However, my amis kept buying me drinks! I lost track of time. Come on, Tristan Michel, don’t be that way. Let’s do something today.”
Tristan Michel turned back around. “You are drunk, father, even though you don’t want to admit it. Go find those amis. They have always been more important than me, anyway.”
“Can’t I change your mind?” Gastien was dizzy; he felt like he was going to be sick again.
Tristan Michel whispered, “Non, you can’t change my mind. You are an embarrassment to me this way.”
Gastien blinked back the tears. He knew his son was right. He was drunk.
“I am sorry,” Gastien said sadly.
Then he asked, “Are you going to tell your mother?”
Tristan Michel laughed bitterly. “Non. You have disappointed her enough over the years, I am sure. I don’t want to add another disappointment to her list. I will go by myself on a walk. She won’t know. Not this time. Oh – just so you know – there won’t be a next time. Not if I can help it.”
Gastien reached out and grabbed his son. “Please don’t leave this way. If I just have some coffee, maybe a bath, I will be better. I do want to spend time with you. I am sorry!”
“Please let go of me, you are making a scene!” cried Tristan Michel. He was horrified that people might be watching out of their windows.
“There is no one looking at us! Please, come back to the studio. Let me get ready.”
Tristan Michel pulled away.
Gastien reached for him again, so Tristan Michel pushed him. He caught Gastien off balance, and Gastien fell against the building.
Tristan Michel cried, “I said don’t touch me! Let me go! Look at it this way: this gives you the whole day to find someone who will use their mouth on your bite again! Or maybe you can find some wealthy woman who will lift her skirts for you, and you can shove it into her for a few minutes! After all, it has probably been a few hours since you have had any sex!”
Gastien was livid. “What did you just say to me?”
“You heard me, Father. Too bad you don’t charge, since you make it available so often! We could use the money. Everyone in Montmartre, Pigalle, and probably all of Paris, knows that the thing you are best for is a good, hard screw. Although, let’s not forget, the woman must be married. And, of course, wealthy! You do have your standards to keep. Even so, I am surprised that you don’t have syphilis by now.”
Without thinking, Gastien’s arm shot out and he slapped his son. As soon as his hand made contact, Gastien wished he could take it back.
Tristan Michel’s eyes fi
lled with tears. He continued, “You said you would never hit a child of yours! Another promise broken. Don’t worry, though. By now, I am not at all surprised!” He whirled around and walked away.
Gastien stood there, speechless. Now he was not only sick to his stomach, he was sick in his heart. He could not believe that he had hit Tristan Michel! Finally, Gastien found his voice.
“I am sorry,” he called out. “I reacted without thinking! Please, please come back! Tristan Michel, come back here right now!”
Tristan Michel just kept on walking. Gastien could tell by the set of his son’s shoulders that if he was wise, he would not pursue the young man.
Slowly, he made his way back to his studio and went inside. He knew that Cassie and Vic had seen the spectacle from their shop windows. Who knew which others on the street had witnessed it?
He threw up some more out back. Then he came back in, closed his shutters, stripped, and got into bed. Gastien curled up in a ball and wept. He was no better than his father. In some ways, he was possibly worse.
XVII
Gastien was still lying in bed thinking about how he had once again failed his son. He was so disgusted with himself. Why couldn’t he seem to hold himself together for a simple day with his son? He wanted to be with him.
Gastien realized that he seemed to always get caught up in the moment. That sometimes had disastrous effects. He would have to make sure to never go out the night before when he was going to spend a day with his son. It was obvious that he could not be counted on to get home at a reasonable hour.
Sighing, he got out of bed, got himself cleaned up, and went down the road to eat. Afterward, he took a cabriolet to Odette’s.
When Tristan Michel came to the door, Gastien said, “Let’s go for a walk and talk. Please.”
He stood aside and waited for Tristan Michel to leave first. To his surprise and thankfulness, Tristan Michel did walk with him. As they walked down the road, Gastien tried to explain.
“You are right; I was drunk. At the time, I thought I was simply hung over. Now that enough time has gone by today, I realize that I was still drunk. I ruined this day. You are probably very tired of hearing me say I am sorry. It must mean nothing by now. I know I am tired of having to say it.”
Gastien looked forlornly into his son’s eyes. “I truly wonder if I will ever be able to show you how much I do love you. I am at the point where I have to think not. I am who I am, Tristan Michel. I am not asking you to be proud of some of the things that I do. I am asking you to try to love me anyway. Either way, I will always love you.”
“If you see any value at all in me, I am asking for, yet again, another chance. I am just a stupid, simple painter with too much passion; not enough discipline. I know that. However, I do care. I am also interested in you. If you would join me, I would like to reschedule for two weeks from today. I won’t be hung over. It would be an honor to look at buildings with you and hear some of your ideas.”
Tristan Michel walked in silence a few minutes. “I am so tired of being disappointed, Father. I have a stomach ache all week, wondering if you are going to disappoint me again, every time we do plan something. I don’t know if it is worth the stress. I just don’t know.”
Gastien put his arm around his son. “Well, perhaps it is time for you to see me in a different light. You are a teenager now, noticing my faults more and more. Could you maybe stop hoping that I can be wonderful? Can you just accept me as a normal homme who makes mistakes, but tries his best? A homme that happens to be your father, and loves you, in spite of his weaknesses? Maybe if you can, then you won’t worry so much about me disappointing you. You will just hope that I come through. That is all any of us can hope for from another human being. That is all I am, Tristan Michel. A human, with more faults then most.”
His son looked up at him. “I can’t help but think you are wonderful, Father. I have always thought that. I have always admired you and wished I could understand you better, be accepted into your inner circle; but I just don’t get where you come from. I wish I could, but I don’t fit there.”
“I know that, Son. You don’t have to be like me to be loved by me. Be you! That is what your mother and I both want.”
Tristan Michel sighed. “Let’s try for two weeks from today. If something happens, I will try to understand that you just simply messed up again. I will try not to pin so much hope onto it. But I love being with you! I can’t help it.”
“And I love being with you, even though it must not seem like it. Let’s hope that we get to look at buildings in two weeks. I was very impressed with your drawings. By the way, where did you learn the English slang word ‘screw’and all of the things you accused me of? Those are not things a thirteen-year-old should know quite yet.”
Tristan Michel shrugged his shoulders. “Most thirteen-year-olds don’t have a father like you. I hear things, Father. I can’t help that. You chose your life; however, we all live with it. Because of that choice, I have grown up faster than most. I needed to know what older kids meant when they said things to me about you, so I asked. They explained. “
“It is too bad you have to hear that.”
“In a strange way, I think those sixteen-year-old boys wish they were you.”
Gastien laughed. “Knowing how it felt to be sixteen, I can imagine you may be right. In reality, my sex drive is not a glorious thing. It has been an issue my whole life. I apologize that it has hurt you and your mother. I hope you have not inherited that, as it is not an easy thing for others to live with. I want you to have a normal life and marriage.”
“I can’t imagine marrying some girl. They act so silly.”
“Well, oui, but soon that will be part of the appeal. Something happens to us males during our teenage years, something that makes us find everything about girls amazingly appealing. Just you wait and see.”
Laughing, they made their way back to the house.
Gastien and his son did get to spend that Saturday together. They both enjoyed it immensely. The two took a cabriolet into the heart of Paris and did a lot of walking. Tristan Michel was totally immersed in the designs of the old buildings. They had lunch at Le Procope, where Gastien used to work. Then they walked some more. Over the next couple of years they would do this a couple more times.
Unfortunately, as time went on, the gap between them widened. Tristan Michel would more fully understand his father’s unfaithfulness to his mother, and Gastien would develop a drug habit that made him even more unreliable.
XVIII
During this time, Gastien continued to get further and further away from reality in his paintings. He no longer had to be called by his mistress, “the color”, in order to go to that special place. Every time he started to paint his own things he just went there.
By the time he was 37 he was painting only the color of objects and trying to show the energy coming from them. It was a great frustration to him. He could see the energy radiating from the objects, and he knew the energy from a strawberry was different than the energy from a red rose…yet he could not find a way to translate those different energies onto canvas.
A lot of what he saw was probably due to the use of absinthe, hashish in greater and greater amounts, and finally – by the age of 37 – the use of stronger drugs. Gastien’s pain throughout his body, especially in his hip, increased as he got older. His nightmares about the rape had increased over the years, too. Sometimes the hash could not do the job. Opium could, though; so could morphine. Both substances were legal and readily available. People were falling victim to them every day.
At first, Gastien only rarely indulged. His first time using opium was inside the elephant at Moulin Rouge. The feeling of euphoria and the alteration of his senses were unparalleled by anything he had used before. He saw things in a new light in regard to his work. Gastien hesitated to go back there, or to other opium dens, though. He was afraid that he would completely lose touch with reality.
However, as he aged, he be
gan brewing opium tea in his studio a few times a week. He told himself that a little tea was not dangerous. In fact, just the opposite was true. One could easily overdose on opium tea. No one knew how many seeds were too many for an individual, and the strength of any individual seed was unknown
On occasion, he also took morphine pills when he sat down to paint. Soon he allowed himself to smoke opium once a month. Between the opium, morphine, hash and absinthe (along with his whiskey and vin), Gastien was knocking on heaven’s door most of the time. He thought it helped him paint; it certainly helped his pain.
He learned quickly from others that when using opium or morphine one did not drink alcohol. It was a sure way to die. When he wanted his beloved absinthe or whiskey, he left the opiates alone.
His sex drive decreased because of the opiates. If he was high, sex just seemed like too much trouble. Sometimes, though, Sophie would keep after him anyway. Then, he would make love to her for a good couple of hours, never climaxing. She was in her thirties now, so she was at her sexual peak. He found it enjoyable, in a very surreal way. When high on opium or morphine, the orgasms no longer mattered, just the intense pleasure of feeling that went along with the act.
When Sophie stopped by after work she would often find him painting while drunk or high, she was never sure which. Depending on how messed up he was, she might stay and cook for him. That way they could spend some time together. Other times, he simply was not able to communicate in any way that made sense.
This saddened her, but she could not make him understand that he was abusing his body. For his part, Gastien could not make her understand the pain, and how the high took that pain away. Nor was he about to divulge the nightmares.
Gastien: From Dream to Destiny: A Caddy Rowland Historical Family Saga/Drama (The Gastien Series Book 2) Page 34
