by Ann Charney
The room, her old classroom, where she spent so many hours with Walter’s grandfather’s books, memorizing unfamiliar words and phrases, has changed as well. A fresh coat of paint, new lighting and the addition of comfortable armchairs have given the draughty space a feeling of cosiness.
“I’ve been fixing the old place up,” he says, following her gaze. “I plan to tackle the upstairs next.”
“I guess the antique business has picked up since I left.”
“You could say that.” He gives her an enigmatic grin. “Let me just see to the food and then I’ll tell you all about it.”
There’s soup and smoked trout, and Walter has even managed to find bread that doesn’t come out of a plastic bag. Nerina is glad now that Helena refused to stop at any of the fast food places they’d passed, except to use the washrooms.
“Do you remember my taking you to visit the Robert Louis Stevenson cottage?” Walter asks Nerina, when they’re all seated around the dining room table.
“A small white cabin in Saranac Lake? Yes, I think I remember,” she says, concentrating on the food. Her last meal was the breakfast she shared with Christophe at the Greek diner near his place and she’s ravenous.
“Did Stevenson come here?” Helena asks. “I knew he led a wandering life, ending up in Samoa, I think — about as far from Scotland as one could get — but what brought him this far north?”
“Ill health. He was in New York City, on his way to Colorado Springs to seek treatment for tuberculosis, when he heard promising reports about a new sanatorium in Saranac Lake. On the spur of the moment, he decided to try the facility closer at hand. Not only did his health improve, but during the few months he spent here — from the fall of 1887 until April 1888 — Stevenson produced a dozen new essays and part of a new novel.”
“Those Victorians were really prolific,” Christophe says, sounding a little disheartened. Nerina guesses he’s probably worried about the slow progress of his own work and reaches for his hand under the table.
“And remember, they did it all without computers,” Helena adds with a note of satisfaction. Since being told of some nasty comments posted on a blog by one of her former protégés — a disgruntled artist who felt she hadn’t done enough for him — she has considered the Internet the work of the devil.
“Does this have anything to do with the good news you alluded to on the phone?” Nerina asks. Having appeased her hunger, she is eager to hear the explanation Walter promised.
“I’m coming to that,” he says, enjoying her impatience. “But first you need a little more background information. Stevenson’s travelling party consisted of his wife, his stepson, his mother and the family’s maid, Valentine Roch. Apart from Stevenson’s mention of her in some of his letters, there isn’t a great deal of information about her. But she plays an important part, in the story I’m about to tell you.”
Nerina knows from experience there is no point hurrying Walter along in his account. The slow and methodical way he proceeds when telling a story he likes does not respond to hints of edginess from his audience, and must be allowed to run its inexorable course.
“A few months ago, I purchased a couple of trunks at an estate sale,” Walter continues. “One of them was filled with neat bundles of yellowing sheets of paper covered in writing. At first glance, I assumed they were letters, or someone’s diary. When I began to read the pages, I realized this was a more ambitious sort of writing. Certain passages were even vaguely familiar in a way that made me think of Stevenson, whose books I had greatly admired as a boy. What’s more, the dates at the top of certain pages coincided with his sojourn in this region.
“To check out my hunch, I turned to the work he’d produced during that period, including the unfinished novel The Master of Ballantrae — not his greatest work, I discovered. Still, despite significant differences between the printed versions and the handwritten pages, I found sufficient similarities to make me think I was on the right track. What I had stumbled upon, I concluded, were pages from earlier drafts of the books he worked on during his convalescence.
“The next step was to seek confirmation from specialists in the field. I scanned a selection of pages and sent them off to several scholars whose names I’d tracked down through the Internet. None of the scholars I contacted were ready to commit themselves on the basis of the sample pages I sent; nevertheless, they were sufficiently intrigued to encourage me to pursue the matter further.”
“This is all terribly exciting,” Helena interrupts. “But we still have a long drive ahead of us. Please tell us how the story ends.”
“There really isn’t much more to tell. Once the papers were authenticated — a fascinating story, but I’ll skip the details for the sake of brevity — I sent them to Christie’s to be auctioned off. That was the reason for my visit to the city, by the way,” he adds, turning to Nerina, “an appointment at their offices in Rockefeller Plaza. I was told they expected the find to fetch a high price, and they were not wrong. You see, more than half of Stevenson’s manuscripts have been lost as a result of his frequent moves. Those papers are now in the Yale Beinecke Library.”
“Any idea how these came to be preserved?” Nerina asks, annoyed with Helena’s brusqueness. After the months of humiliation he endured in Venice, Walter is entitled to relish his moment of triumph — at his own pace.
“Not really, but I’ve developed my own theory. The dates marked on the manuscript are all in French — le quinze décembre, for example. What’s more, they are written in a different hand than the pages themselves. Even the ink doesn’t match. This is where Valentine Roch, the family maid, comes in. According to most accounts she was either French or Swiss. In any case, she was the only one in the Stevenson household who would have noted the dates in French. I believe she saved the pages that Stevenson discarded, and before the family left the area for California and the South Seas she deposited them for safekeeping with someone she’d met during her stay here. I don’t know why she kept her master’s writing, or why it was never retrieved, but I intend to find out more about Valentine Roch and perhaps get some answers. Who knows, there may be a book in this.”
“This is wonderful, Walter,” Nerina exclaims. “You were right to believe this place would be good for you. What a great start to your new life.”
“Frankly Walter, I didn’t think you had it in you,” Helena says. “Back in Venice, I could see nothing but failure in your future.”
“Good for you, man,” Christophe interrupts. “Just goes to show you can always turn things around.”
Nerina gives him a grateful smile. Christophe’s encouraging words have managed to offset the sting of Helena’s grudging response.
“Stevenson had something interesting to say about turning your life around,” Walter continues, addressing Christophe. “He wrote, ‘Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well.’ I wish I’d learned that lesson earlier in life.”
Helena’s peevishness, however, has not run its course yet. “Not to take anything away from you Walter, but your change of fortune has more to do with dumb luck than skill,” she says, regretting her words immediately. How smallminded she must seem to Nerina and Christophe. Perhaps there’s still time to make amends.
“You may be right, Helena,” Walter replies, before she can think of a way to soften her comments. “But at least I had the good sense to get out of Venice before it was too late. Maybe you should give some thought to doing the same. Those five flights of stairs can’t be getting any easier at your age.”
This is not going to end well, Nerina thinks, seeing Walter’s face flush with irritation. The only way to prevent further unpleasantness, she decides, is to put a stop to their visit.
“It’s been wonderful, Walter, but we really should get going,” she says, rising from the table.
Christophe is ready to accompany her, but Helena seems to be finding it difficult to get to her feet. Nerina hesitates, remembering her dislike of un
asked assistance, only to find that Walter has beaten her to it.
“You’re right, Walter,” Helena says, allowing him to help her to her feet. “The damp air of Venice and its numerous staircases can’t be good for my arthritis. At my age, however, it’s best not to contemplate any drastic moves.”
PART FOUR
Montreal
XXIV
Gypsy blood
NERINA can’t remember when she last had this much free time on her hands.
Each morning, after Christophe’s early departure for the gallery, she lingers in bed taking pleasure in her unusual idleness. The sound of the chambermaid’s activity in the adjacent room is her signal to dress quickly and head out. She ignores Christophe’s many suggestions of interesting destinations, as well as the tourist guides available in the hotel lobby, preferring to stroll aimlessly, wherever she likes, for as long as she likes.
The city lends itself to purposeless wandering, each random direction revealing its own unexpected reward. A glimpse of a cargo ship, framed between two buildings, as it sails down the river; a narrow street opening suddenly, like a secret passageway, onto an accommodating, elegant square; spiral staircases dangling from buildings like twisted silver ribbons.
The hotel is in the old part of town, a city within the city. Its tight cobbled streets and lanes remind her of places she’s known, and yet they are unlike any of them. The setting, with its large, majestic river and spacious skies, seems to her unmistakeably North American.
In time she starts to explore further afield, choosing buses rather than the metro so that she can see the sights along the way. But when Christophe asks her in the evening where she’s been, she can’t name any streets or landmarks, only a café where she stopped for lunch, a little shop where she bought a pair of sheepskin gloves to keep her hands warm, a place selling handmade soaps that she bought to replace the hygienic spray dispenser the hotel favours.
The people she meets are friendly, and they encourage her when she tries out her schoolgirl French. But she has no desire to allow anyone to intrude on her solitude. Unlike the loneliness brought on by the isolation of Smith Falls, to be alone and purposeless in a strange city, where she knows no one, fills her with a sense of exhilarating freedom.
Her wanderings please Christophe as well, leaving him free to concentrate on his exhibition. As for Helena, she is nearly as busy as Christophe, filling her days by visiting galleries and renewing her contacts with the many people she knows in Montreal. To Nerina’s surprise, she has even set aside her objections to staying in other people’s homes and accepted an invitation from Lillian Rayner, a woman she’s known for years.
“Lillian is one of the most influential art patrons around,” Helena said, explaining her change of policy. “I wouldn’t say we’re friends, but our paths have crossed many times over the years at various international art shows. Despite her reputation for being imperious and difficult, we’ve always gotten along reasonably well.” It is Helena’s hope that she can persuade Lillian to host a reception for Christophe following his opening, the way the Ohstroms did in Venice. “Her patronage could be very beneficial for Christophe,” she added.
“That would be a coup,” Christophe said, when Nerina repeated the conversation to him. Rémi Blois, the gallery owner, has mentioned her to him. Apparently, Rémi has been chasing after her for years.
Two days later, while they’re eating Szechwan takeout in their room, Christophe tells Nerina that Helena and her friend came by the gallery that afternoon.
“I couldn’t really tell what they thought of the work,” Christophe says between mouthfuls of crispy chicken. “Rémi was dancing around them the whole time, so it was hard for anyone else to get a word in. I guess I should be glad he’s such an enthusiastic salesman, but I would have liked to have a chance to explain my work to them myself.”
“Leave it to Helena,” Nerina tells him, looking for a way to end his fretting — for her own sake as well as his. “You know she has a soft spot for you, and she can be incredibly resourceful when motivated. I’m sure she’ll find a way to bring you and this woman together without Rémi.”
It’s not long before Nerina learns her confidence in Helena was not misplaced. This time they are sharing food from a nearby Lebanese restaurant, as Christophe reports on the lunch he had earlier that day with Helena and Lillian. From the picky way he’s eating, removing every shred of green pepper from his fattoush salad, she suspects the meeting did not go as well as he would have liked.
“It was a pretty tense meal,” he admits. “Lillian asked a lot of tough questions about the work. I did my best to answer, but she was so impatient I found myself cut off before I could finish a sentence. Sort of like being grilled by the Grand Inquisitor.”
“Probably nothing to do with you,” Nerina says, trying to be supportive. But the words, emerging from the depth of her newfound tranquillity, come out sounding distant, removed.
“I guess all I do is complain these days,” he says, interpreting her tone as indifference. “You must be sick of it.”
“Don’t worry. You still have a little credit left with me. Anyway, I intend to make you pay for your gloomy ways down the line.”
“Fair enough. In the meantime, can I tell you how I disgraced myself, knocking over my glass of wine and watching it land on the ladies?”
“I hope it was white,” she says, kissing him to cut off any further words of selfflagellation.
Christophe appears much more upbeat the next evening. “Let’s go out tonight,” he says, as soon as he enters their room. “I think we’ve just about completed our survey of takeouts in the area.”
They choose a French restaurant recommended by Rémi. At this early hour they have the place nearly to themselves. An attentive waiter appears almost instantly and begins to recite the day’s long list of specials, but Christophe cuts him off and asks him to come back later.
“What’s up?” Nerina asks, surprised. “You were in such a hurry to get here, I didn’t even have time to change.”
He dodges her question with one of his own. “How do you like what you’ve seen of Montreal so far?”
The question puzzles her. She’s shared her impressions of the city with him faithfully every night. And it’s not as if anything eventful occurred today to change her opinion one way or the other.
“Are you ok? You’re acting a little crazy you know.”
“Yeah, I guess. I feel a little crazy. Tell me this, what would you say to spending a year here, maybe longer?” He leans forward, his body language conveying an intensity of interest in her response that belies his casual tone.
“Somehow I have a feeling this is not a hypothetical question, is it?”
“You’re right, it’s not,” he admits with a smile. “I have an ulterior motive for asking it. Don’t look so suspicious, Nerina, it’s good news. I’ve been offered a teaching job at UQAM, the Université du Québec à Montréal.”
He waits for her to respond, but continues when she says nothing. “One of the guys who was in art school with me is now the acting chair of the Visual Arts Department. He told me a teaching position has opened up there and he would like me to consider it. I have to admit, it’s very tempting.”
Nerina wishes she’d had a chance to order a glass of wine before Christophe chased the waiter away. Christophe’s news has made her feel forlorn, reminding her that she doesn’t know a soul in this city and that no one is chasing after her with offers of any kind.
“You’re going to take it, right?” she says, trying to sound neutral.
“As I said, it’s very tempting. The teaching load isn’t heavy and the salary is decent. It would give me some security and I’d still have time to do my own work.”
She can tell he’s made up his mind, but she tries anyway. “What about New York?” she asks. “I thought you had your heart set on finding a way to stay in the city.”
As she suspected, Christophe’s heart has moved on. “The truth is
, it’s been rough going since my grant ended,” he says. “I don’t know how much longer I can hold on. And Rémi has an exchange deal with a gallery in New York to exhibit each other’s artists. If he decides to take me on, I’d be further ahead than I am right now.”
Nerina can see the attraction of this opportunity for Christophe. It would also be a return to a place to which he is connected through family history — a far cry from her own situation. She likes what she’s seen of the city so far, but that’s a long way from being able to conjure up a life for herself here. How many times can she bring herself to start over from scratch, without a clue of what’s to come?
“What about you?” Christophe asks. “Would you find it hard to leave New York?”
She thinks about what New York means to her: Leo, Meredith, her walks with Edward, her room with the green snake coiling down the armoire. Without Christophe, there’s really not much to keep her there. She sees herself perched as lightly as a bird and able to take off just as easily.
Nevertheless, she hesitates. Is it because the other times she moved it was her choice alone? Even with Walter it was she who had been the precipitating factor for their move. Walter has told her several times that, if not for his desire to help her get to America, he might have never found the courage to dislodge himself.
“I don’t know,” she says, trying to buy time. “This is all very sudden. I’ll have to think about it.”
“I understand. But let me just add one more bit of information for you to consider. I’m pretty sure Rémi can help you find a job. With your experience working for Meredith and Leo and his contacts, it shouldn’t be too difficult.”
“Ok. I said I’d think about it. But first, see if you can catch the waiter’s attention. I think much better after I’ve been fed.”
The next morning brings no greater clarity. As soon as Christophe leaves for the gallery, Nerina calls Marco. Who better than Marco to understand the queasy sensation of being set adrift once again? Still, she’s surprised how happy she is to hear his voice when he answers.
