“Sacré bleu!” he exclaimed, with no irony whatsoever.
“Do you need help?” Régine’s voice came from the bakery kitchen.
Gilles backed away from the painting. “No. She’s not here. There’s no one here.”
“She was right here,” said Régine, now standing in the studio doorway.
Gilles turned so quickly he nearly lost his balance. “Chérie, you startled me. Did you know this shed had a skylight? I’ve never seen a shed with a skylight. Why would you have a skylight here?” He shrugged at the mystery of it all.
Régine held her hand to her mouth as if suppressing a sob, then said, “Come inside, Gilles. I need to tell you something.”
THE COLORMAN HEARD THE KEY RATTLING IN THE LOCK AND OPENED THE door for her.
Bleu entered the apartment and gingerly pried up the brim of her hat. “Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch.”
“You need to finish with him,” said the Colorman. “Someone is getting suspicious.”
“Ouch!” said Bleu with a great blast of air as she pulled off her hat and tossed it to the hall tree. She bent over until she was eye to eye with the Colorman, whose deep-set eyes bulged out a bit as he got a good look at her puffy, purple forehead. “You think?” she said.
“What happened?”
“What do you think happened? Someone hit me.”
“The baker?”
“No, not the baker. His mother, I think. I didn’t see it coming.”
“Did you kill them?”
“Yes, I don’t know who hit me, but I killed them all the same.”
“You’re cranky when you’re bruised. You want wine?”
“Yes, wine, food.” She collapsed on the divan. “Do we have a maid?”
The Colorman turned to her, sheepishly, and shrugged.
“Oh for fuck’s sake. Fine, bring me some wine, then. Who do you think is suspicious?”
“The dwarf. The little painter. He was here. He bought color from me. He was asking about the Dutchman, about Auvers.”
“Surely he hasn’t connected us with the Dutchman. How would he do that?”
The Colorman shrugged again, then handed her a heavy crystal goblet of wine.
“I don’t know. A letter maybe? The Dutchman was mad. And not in the usual way. Maybe we should kill the dwarf, just to be safe.”
“How is that safe? He wouldn’t even be suspicious if you hadn’t murdered the Dutchman.”
“Accident. Couldn’t be helped,” said the Colorman.
“Well, we’re not going to kill him. We’ll hide.”
“What about the baker? He suspects?”
“No, he doesn’t suspect anything. He’s exhausted. I had him in London for a week today. It’s his family.”
“Did you get the painting?”
“Does it look like I got the painting? I brought this.” She threw a partially used tube of paint on the coffee table. “This is all the blue that is left.”
“Why didn’t you get the painting?”
“Because someone just brained me and the painting is fucking huge, isn’t it? It’s still wet, I couldn’t cut it from the stretchers and roll it up. And I might have been noticed, making my way across Montmartre with a bigger-than-life-size nude of myself, don’t you think?”
“I was just asking. London makes you cranky.”
“London does not make me cranky. Losing months of work, getting knocked on the bloody head, and having to talk to you makes me cranky.”
“Oh,” said the Colorman. “I don’t like London.”
“Noted.” She drained her glass. “There’s food?”
“Roast chicken. I saved you half. So, we get the painting, then kill the baker and his family to cover our tracks.”
“No, we don’t kill them. What is with you and the killing? Did you get a taste of it with the Dutchman and now you want to keep trying it? This isn’t like scaring away the maids with your penis. If you keep murdering artists someone will notice, you know?”
“You think I can scare painters away with my penis?” He rolled his eyes to the ceiling at the wonder of the possibility. Bleu didn’t know that he had tried it once with the painter Artemisia and she had threatened to saw his head off; insane Italian tart.
“No, but you can’t kill them, either. Not all of them. Not that way.”
“We’ll use the color. And if you go with me they won’t remember.”
“Of course they won’t bloody remember, they’ll be dead.” Then she called him a name in a dead language that translated, roughly, to “poop on a stick,” but sounded more succinct, like this: “Of course they won’t bloody remember, they’ll be dead, Poopstick.”
“We can move, hide. The dwarf asked about the redheaded laundress. Maybe you should find her again for him. He paints fast.”
She shook her head. “No, we’ll hide, but I have to finish with Lucien.”
“You want a bath?”
“Food.”
“Then a bath? I lit the heater. The water will be hot.”
“You can’t watch.”
“Just a little? Your forehead is turning Tyrian purple. I like it against the white skin.”
“Tyrian purple? That specific? Really?”
He shrugged eloquently, his Oops, I accidentally frightened the maid with my penis and shot the one-eared Dutch painter, couldn’t be helped shrug.
“Colorman,” he explained.
“Bring me food, Poopstick,” she said.
“IS HE GOING TO DIE?” RÉGINE ASKED HER MOTHER.
They sat at Lucien’s bedside. Gilles stood in the doorway of the tiny bedroom.
Mère Lessard did not answer Régine but turned directly to Gilles. “If he dies, you must find that woman and strangle her.”
Gilles knew he and Régine should have found their own house. If they had moved to that little apartment near Gare Saint-Lazare that his boss had offered, he wouldn’t be in this position. Régine could have walked to the bakery in less than twenty minutes, there were good markets, and most of the trains to the west, where he had been working, left from Gare Saint-Lazare. He could have belched without being scolded, asked for what he wanted for supper, and most important, no one would be asking him to strangle a pretty girl. He had never stood up to his mother-in-law, but in this case, he might have to. Was he not a man? Was he not the master of his own house? Régine was his wife, this was his house, and he was finished taking orders, damn it.
“Did you throw some water on him?” Gilles asked.
“No,” said Mère Lessard. “We dragged him up the stairs, undressed him, and got him into bed. He didn’t wake up through that, a little water isn’t going to wake him.”
“I’ll get some water,” said Gilles. Perhaps if he showed he was useful for other things, she would forget about having him strangle the girl.
Régine followed him to the kitchen and took the pitcher from his hand. “Forget the water. You sit.”
She sat across the table from him and took his big, rough hands in hers. There were tears in her eyes. “Gilles, when I tell this thing that I must tell you, you have to promise not to leave me.”
“I promise.” He was not a man of great imagination, but what could she say that would be so horrible? He had shared a house with her mother, after all, what could be worse than that?
“I have killed my sister, my father, and now my sweet brother, Lucien,” she said.
Although that hadn’t at all been what he expected, Gilles nodded knowingly. “Your pot roast?” he said.
In an instant she was on her feet, snatching up a tea towel, a trivet, a sugar bowl, and flinging them at his head. “No, not my fucking pot roast, you idiot. What a stupid thing to say, ‘pot roast’!”
“Don’t kill me,” said Gilles. “I love your pot roast.”
When Mère Lessard came out of the bedroom to check on the commotion, Régine attenuated her tantrum, took Gilles by the hand, and dragged him back down the steps to the bakery to confess what she felt were her crimes.
&
nbsp; MARIE HAD NOT JUST BEEN HER SISTER, SHE HAD BEEN HER BEST FRIEND, and every time she was reminded of her, Régine had to fight back tears, which was difficult in a city where every fourth or fifth woman you met was named Marie.
“Papa loved painters and painting,” said Régine. Gilles had fetched the tall stool from behind the counter in the front, and Régine perched on it by the heavy, marble-topped table where much of the pastry was made. “Maman was always scoffing and teasing Papa about his artist pets, and Lucien, even when he was little, told him that he should paint, but Papa always resisted. The two of them had their own little religion built around the artists on Montmartre—like the painters were a canon of saints. Saint Monet of Le Havre, Saint Cézanne of Aix, Saint Pissarro of Auvers, Saint Renoir of Paris—sometimes it felt like we were feeding every artist on the butte.
“Finally, when I was about nineteen, something happened. I came downstairs one morning and Papa was sitting right here at the pastry table, with a paint box open on his lap, just looking at the colors like they were holy relics. Lucien was at his side, and the two of them seemed like they were in a trance. They hadn’t even fired the ovens yet, and we were about to open. I don’t know where the box of paints had come from. It was too early for them to have gone down to Père Tanguy’s shop in Pigalle, and it hadn’t been there the night before. Lucien looked at me and said, ‘Papa is going to be a painter.’
“That was the last they spoke of it for weeks, but Papa and Lucien cleared out the storage shed, and every day, after the bread came out of the ovens, Papa would disappear into the shed and stay there until supper time. Soon, Lucien took over all of the baking so Papa could paint. One day, Papa came storming through the bakery, ranting about having to have light and how color doesn’t exist without light.”
“Is that why there’s a skylight in the shed?” asked Gilles, who was hoping he could steer the confession toward issues of carpentry, where he had some expertise.
“Yes! Yes!” said Régine. “I thought Maman would throw him out, she was so angry. But the more she complained, the more Papa locked himself in the new studio, and poor Lucien was caught in the middle. He was running the bakery, going to school, taking his painting lessons at Monsieur Renoir’s studio around the corner—too much for just a boy. Marie and I should have helped more, but Maman had divided the family into two camps, not the men and the women, as you would think, but between artists and real people. We were only allowed to help Lucien enough to keep the bakery running, and no more. He, like our father, was a foreign creature, and until he came to his senses, we were to treat him as such.”
“I thought that’s how she felt about every man,” said Gilles, feeling sorry for Lucien and Père Lessard, who had, for the carpenter, taken on a mythical quality. Mère Lessard spoke of him in alternate tones of adoration and disdain. One moment he was so pure and heroic that no man could ever live up to his memory, the next a feckless, irresponsible dreamer who should serve as an example of how far a man-turned-fire-bringer could fall from grace.
Régine patted her husband’s arm. “Whatever you do, you must never tell Maman what I am about to tell you.”
“Never,” said Gilles.
“Maman was away at Grand-mère’s—she’d been gone for days. There was a woman. A young woman, a redhead, I think. I didn’t get a good look at her, just a glimpse, but I saw Papa lead her through the bakery and out to his studio one day. They went in and locked the door. Papa didn’t come out for supper that evening, and he didn’t answer the door when we called for him to come up. The next morning, he didn’t even check on Lucien while my brother made the bread.
“By the next evening Marie was ready to burn the shed down, she was so angry, but I said we couldn’t be sure. He might just be painting her. After all, he didn’t even flirt with girls who came into the bakery like all the other business owners on the butte. Marie said that she was going to check.
“It was midwinter, and it had been snowing for two days. We could see smoke from Papa’s stove out our bedroom window, but little more. Marie put on her winter boots and climbed out onto the roof and made her way to where she could look down through the skylight. I tried to stop her, pull her back into the window, but she would not hear of it. She walked on the peak of the roof, a foot on each side. It was so slippery, she nearly lost her footing with every step. She got to where she could see in the skylight and her eyes went wide, and not as if she were frightened, but in a big smile, like Christmas morning. She turned to say something to me, lost her footing on the peak of the roof and began to slide toward the street. I saw her go over the side and could feel the ground shake when she hit.”
“That’s two stories,” said Gilles.
“She must have landed flat on the back of her head. The doctor could find no broken bones, and there was no blood, but she was unconscious.”
“And did your father come out then?”
“No. I screamed and ran out to Marie. Some of his artist friends, Cézanne and Pissarro, who were down from Auvers, were warming themselves across the street at Madame Jacob’s crémerie; they came running and helped move her into the bakery. Lucien was at his lesson and Maman wasn’t due back until the next morning. Madame Jacob’s daughter ran for the doctor. Cézanne and Pissarro pounded on the studio door but got no answer. When I assured them that Papa was inside, they broke down the door. We found him there, lying on the floor with a handful of brushes and loaded palette, alone. Dead.”
“Mon Dieu!” said Gilles.
“The doctor said it was his heart, but he was dried up, like he’d been in the desert without water for days. Marie lingered for three days and never woke up.”
“And the girl? The one you saw go into the studio?”
“I never saw her come out.”
“But the painting? Couldn’t you find her from that? Find out what happened?”
“There was no painting,” said Régine, dabbing her eyes. “Not one. Empty canvases. Papa had been painting for months by that time, hours and hours every day, and we never saw a painting. Not even Lucien saw one.”
Gilles took her in his great arms and held her while she sobbed against his chest. “It is not your fault, chérie. Bad things sometimes happen. You couldn’t have known.”
“But I did know. I could have stopped them. I could have stopped Lucien when he first took that girl into the studio. It was just like Papa. I just watched. They love the painting so much, I couldn’t. I couldn’t.”
“And your mother never knew why any of this happened.”
“No. It would have only hurt her more. She can never know, even if Lucien doesn’t wake up, she can never know.” She broke down again then, and Gilles held her tighter.
“Never?” said Mère Lessard from the staircase.
Gilles wondered how a woman of such substantial size could move so quietly, even on a creaky staircase.
Fourteen
WE ARE PAINTERS, AND THEREFORE SOMEWHAT USELESS
LUCIEN LAY UNCONSCIOUS FOR EIGHT DAYS. AS WORD OF HIS CONDITION spread around the butte, neighbors and friends stopped by the bakery to offer food, help, and relief for Mère Lessard, who did not want to leave her son’s bedside.
“If he wakes,” instructed the matriarch, “first make him drink some water, then remind him that his mother told him that girl would lead to no good.”
Régine was able to keep the bakery running, with the help of Gilles, who rose early and kneaded the bread dough in the heavy oak tray.
Two Parisian doctors were called, examined Lucien, found no reason for his coma, and each went away murmuring prescriptions of “wait and see.” Mère Lessard would not allow Lucien to be taken to the Hôtel-Dieu, the ancient hospital next to Notre-Dame Cathedral.
“That is a place where you go to die, and my son is not going to die.”
But by the end of the week, the visitors were taking on the aspect of mourners, offering to light candles and say prayers, and there was little talk of recovery, hope, or Lucie
n’s future. Mère Lessard and Régine took turns squeezing water from a cloth over Lucien’s cracked lips, and from time to time he would swallow, so drop by drop he was kept from dying of thirst.
On the seventh day, Régine took the morning train to Auvers-sur-Oise to fetch Dr. Gachet. She returned that afternoon with not only the good doctor, but Camille Pissarro, who had been visiting. Dr. Gachet, whose practice bent toward homeopathy, began adding tinctures of herbs to the steady drip administered by the women, and on the eighth day Lucien opened his eyes to what looked like the white-bearded face of God.
“Welcome back, Rat Catcher,” said Pissarro.
Mère Lessard pressed a handkerchief to her mouth and hurried from the room to hide her tears.
“Oncle Camille,” said Lucien. “How?”
“I came with Gachet. I was in Auvers, painting with Gauguin.”
“Is Minette with you?” Lucien’s voice was dry as dust.
Régine held a cup to Lucien’s lips and he took a sip of water, which gave Pissarro time to recover from the reminder of his daughter, dead now eighteen years. He looked to the doctor and raised an eyebrow, as if to ask if he should speak the truth to the boy, who was obviously still disoriented.
Dr. Gachet stroked his pointed red beard for a second, as if the friction might yield a prognosis, then nodded.
“Minette is gone, Lucien,” Pissarro said. “Many years ago. Don’t you remember?”
“Blue!” said Lucien, sitting up quickly, grabbing Pissarro by the lapels of his jacket. “Did it take her?”
Pissarro looked past Lucien to the corner of the room. There was nothing there to look at, just paint on the walls, but he couldn’t look at Lucien, whose gaze was begging for answers. The old painter’s vision glazed over with tears.
“She was sick, fever,” he said. He shook his head and looked down at the floor, ashamed. “A long time ago, Rat Catcher.”
Lucien looked to Dr. Gachet. “Did it take her?”
The doctor pulled a stool up next to the bed and sat. “Lucien, you’ve been unconscious for over a week. Do you know what happened to you?”
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