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He smiled then, as if viewing something familiar from a great distance, and I felt guilt at having asked a favor so personal.
He turned to Mary. "Good-bye, my dear. It is nice to see a beautiful woman again." She gave him her hand, and he kissed it respectfully, without warmth. "Good-bye, mon ami." He shook hands with me--his grip was strong and dry, as before. "We probably will not meet again, but I wish you the best of luck with your research."
He walked us in silence to his front door and held it open; there was no sign of the servant now. "Good-bye, good-bye," he repeated, but so gently we could hardly hear him. I turned on the walk and waved to him once, where he stood framed by his roses and bougainvillea, impossibly upright, handsome, embalmed, alone. Mary waved, too, and shook her head without speaking. He did not wave back.
That night, as we made love for the second time ever--swimming into the current with more confidence, old lovers overnight--I found Mary's cheeks wet with tears.
"What is it, my darling?"
"Just--today."
"Caillet?" I guessed.
"Henri Robinson," she said. "Caring for so many years for the old woman he loved." And she ran her hand down my shoulder.
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C HAPTER 91 1879
She comes in to breakfast a little late but fresh, washed, only her eyes heavy. Her body is entirely new, unrecognizable to her, her hair done in the simple style she uses when Esmé is not there. Her soul tugs inside her. Perhaps that is the reality of sin, to know the shape of the soul and feel it chafing inside the body. But her heart, shamefully, is light, and that makes the morning seem fair--the sea outside the windows is a giant mirror; the muslin of her skirts feels pleasant against her hands. She asks the innkeeper for news of Olivier, disingenuously, trying to look right at her. The old lady says that monsieur has gone out early for his walk and left an envelope for Béatrice on the front hall table. When she goes to see, the note is not there; perhaps he has removed it himself to give to her. She must ask him later.
The woman puts hot coffee and rolls before her, with a tart of jam; this thick, elderly person in a blue dress, bent at shoulders and waist, is Olivier's age. She feels a kind of indignity on behalf of the old lady, whom Olivier could properly marry and make happy. Then she thinks of a little passage from the night, something, a particular caress that must have lasted two or three minutes at most but that has stayed like a presence on her skin. She asks humbly if there is more butter and hears the woman's "oui" spoken on the in-breath, and the pressure of a warm, impersonal hand on her shoulder. Béatrice wonders why she feels guiltier about this stranger, with her apron and her air of contentment, than about Yves, the overworked and now betrayed husband. But it is true. She does.
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And then he is there--Yves Vignot. It is one of the two strangest moments of her life. He comes into the dining room like a hallucination, peeling off his gloves, his hat and walking stick already somewhere at the entrance--now she remembers having heard the front door open and shut. The small hotel is full of him, he is everywhere, a blur of neat dark jacket, bearded smile, his "Eh, bien!" He has counted on surprising her, but the surprise that fills her is almost faintness. For a moment, the pleasant provincial room, a little raw and new, merges with their rooms in Passy, as if her delight, her guilt, have summoned him to her side, or her to his.
"But I've really startled you!" He throws down his gloves and comes to kiss her, and she manages to rise in time. "I'm sorry, my dear. I should have known better." His face is all regret. "And you're still a little unwell--how could I have thought to surprise you?" His kiss on her cheek is warm, as if he knows this will restore her.
"What a lovely shock," she manages to say. "How did you get away?"
"I told them my beloved wife was ill and that I needed to see to her--oh, I didn't advertise any dangerous illness, but the supervisor was sympathetic enough, and as everyone else answers to me..." He smiles.
She can think of nothing to say that won't come out with a quaver or sound like a lie. Fortunately, he is full of the pleasure of seeing her and of the adventure of his trip, so that by the time they sit down again to her cold coffee, he has already concluded that she looks better than expected, and that the train line is better than he remembered, and that he is thoroughly pleased at being away from the office. After he has washed his hands and had two cups of coffee and a large portion of bread, butter, and jam tart, he asks to see her rooms. He has already booked a room for himself; he won't infringe on her little kingdom, he adds with a squeeze to her shoulder. He is so large, so dignified yet cheerful, his beard thick and well-trimmed. He is, she thinks, so young.
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On the way upstairs he puts his arm around her waist. He has missed her, he says, even more than expected. Not that he'd thought he wouldn't miss her, but he missed her even more than that. His joy makes her want to weep. She has forgotten how safe his arm feels, how sturdy; now she remembers, from the touch of it. In her bedroom he shuts the door behind them and admires all her arrangements with the lightheartedness of a vacationer: the shells she has collected for the dressing table, the small polished desk where she sketches if the weather is bad. She explains each of these things for as long as possible. He stands smiling at her through all of it.
"You look wonderfully healthy, now that I get a better view. You have real roses in your cheeks."
"Well, I have been out painting nearly every morning and afternoon." She will show him her canvases next.
"I hope Olivier goes with you," he says a little sternly.
"Of course he does." She finds her canvas of boats from the first sessions and hands it to him. "In fact, he has encouraged me to work every day, as long as I'm warmly dressed. I always remember to dress myself warmly."
"This is beautiful." He holds the painting up for a moment, and she thinks with a pang how encouraging he has always been, long before Olivier came along. Then he sets it down, careful, understanding that it is still not dry, and takes her hands. "And you are radiant."
"I'm a little tired still," she says, "but thank you."
"On the contrary, you're blushing--there's your old self indeed." He imprisons her hands in both his own, firm now, and kisses her lingeringly. His lips are second nature to her, and frightening. He gathers her face in his hands and kisses her again, then takes off his coat, murmuring something about not having yet bathed. He locks the door and draws the curtains. Travel, the release from work, have made him young again, he says--or she thinks this is what he says, because she hears it from behind the curtain of her
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hair, the pins loosened out of it, and then again during his gentle unbuttoning, unbuckling, unhooking, his drawing a line down her body on the bed, taking her in his slow, matter-of-fact way, her long-accustomed response, the gap between them closing with a fiery familiarity in spite of the images behind her eyelids. It has been months since he has approached her, and she realizes now that he has probably been holding back out of concern for her health. How could she have thought otherwise?
At last, he sleeps against her shoulder for a few minutes, a tired, surprisingly young man with a growing bank account, a man who has escaped his life briefly and taken a train to be near her again.
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Dear Monsieur Robinson:
Please excuse a note from a stranger. I am a psychiatrist working in Washington, DC; recently, I have been involved in the treatment of a distinguished American artist. His case is rather unusual, and some of it revolves around an obsession with the French Impressionist painter Béatrice de Clerval. I understand that you had both a personal and a professional connection with her and that you are a collector of her work, including the canvas known as The Swan Thieves.
Would you allow me to call on you at home in Paris for an hour or so in the next month? I would be very grateful if you could assist me with a little further information about her life and work. It could be of great importance to me in carin
g for my gifted patient. Please let me know at your earliest convenience.
Sincerely yours,
Andrew Marlow, MD
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C HAPTER 92 Marlow
Partly to distract myself from my visions and partly to see what he was doing, I went to visit Robert one time too many. I'd been in that morning, a Friday. When I returned to his room in the afternoon, I found him standing at the easel I had given him. It had been a long week for me, and I'd been sleeping poorly. I wished Mary would visit more often; I always seemed to rest well in her arms. As usual, I thought of her when I entered Robert's room. I wondered, in fact, how he could look at me and not see the secrets I was keeping, and it reminded me how little I really knew about him. I could not hear his life through those well-washed old clothes, his frayed yellow shirt and paint-stained trousers, or even through the warm color of his face and arms below the rolled sleeves, the curl of his hair with its threads of silver. I could not even know him through the reddened, weary eyes he turned on me. Not knowing enough, how could I release him? And if I released him, how would I ever stop wondering about his love for a woman dead since 1910?
He was painting her today--no surprise there--and I sat down in the armchair to watch. He didn't turn his easel away. I assumed that was a kind of pride, like his silence. She was faceless; he was still roughing in the rose color of her gown, the black sofa on which she sat. Part of his skill was this ability to paint without a model, I realized. Had that been one of her gifts to him?
Suddenly it was too much for me. I jumped out of my chair and took a step forward. He painted, arm raised, brush moving, ignoring me. "Robert!"
He said nothing, but he turned his eyes toward me for a split
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second, then went back to the canvas. I'm reasonably tall, reasonably fit, as I've said, although I don't have anything like Robert's imposing casual presence. I wondered what it would be like to punch him. Kate surely must have wanted to. And Mary. I could say, I did it for her. You can talk to anybody you want. "Robert, look at me."
He lowered his brush, giving me the patient, amused face I remember consciously turning on my parents as a teenager. I didn't have any teenagers of my own, but this attention, which should have counted for something, made me angrier than any outburst on his part ever could have. He seemed to wait for the tiresome interruption to pass, so that he could paint again.
I cleared my throat, steadying myself. "Robert, do you understand my desire to help you? Would you like to lead a normal life again--a life out there?" I waved at the window, but I knew I'd already lost this round with the word "normal."
He turned back to the easel.
"I want to help you, but I can't possibly do so unless you participate. I have gone to some trouble for you, you know, and if you are well enough to paint, you are surely well enough to speak."
His face was gentle but closed now.
I waited. Could anything be worse than yelling at a patient? (Sleeping with his former lover, perhaps?) I felt my voice begin to rise in spite of myself. What angered me most was my sense that he knew I did not simply want to help him for his own sake.
"Damn you, Robert," I said quietly instead of shouting, but my voice shook. It came over me that in all my years of training and practice, I had never behaved this way with anyone. Never. I was still looking at him as I left the room. I wasn't afraid he would lunge at me or throw something--I was the one at risk of that myself. I wished later I hadn't kept an eye on him at that moment, because it forced me to see the change in his expression; he didn't return my glance, but he raised his face toward the canvas, and it wore a faint smile. Triumph: a paltry victory, but probably the only kind he had these days.
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C HAPTER 93 1879
Yves stays half a week, walking the beach with a hand on Olivier's shoulder, kissing Béatrice on the back of her neck when she bends to pin up her hair. He is having a veritable holiday--in private he calls it a honeymoon. He loves the view of the Channel; it rests him enormously. But he must go back, to his regret, and he apologizes for having to leave them so soon. She does not dare look at Olivier the entire time Yves is there, except to pass salt or bread at the table. It is intolerable, and yet there are moments when she glances at herself in the mirror, or sees them strolling together, and feels surrounded by love, beloved by both, as if this is the right thing. They take a hansom with Yves to the station in Fécamp; Olivier demurs, but Yves insists that he must come along so that Béatrice will not have to ride back alone. The train exhales loudly; the wheels begin their husky motion. Yves leans out the window and waves, his hat in his hand.
They ride back to the hotel and sit on the veranda, talking about ordinary matters. They paint on the beach and eat their dinner--an old couple now that the third guest is gone. By some mutual consent, she does not visit Olivier's room again, nor does he visit hers. Every wall between them has fallen already, and she does not long for a repetition. It is enough to have this silent memory in their midst. The moment that he--or the moment that she -- or the way his tears of surprise and pleasure fell onto her face. She had thought he would belong to her forever after such a transgression, but it is equally the other way around.
In the train back to Paris, when they are alone, he holds her
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hand like a bird in his large glove, and kisses it before she alights to claim her luggage. They speak very little. She knows, without asking, that he will come to dinner the next day. Together they will tell Papa almost all about their vacation. They will begin work together on their great painting. She will remember him, his long smooth body, his silvery hair, the young man in love inside him, until the day she herself dies. He will always be near her, a spirit of the Channel.
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C HAPTER 94 Marlow
Henri Robinson's reply came as a shock.
Monsieur le Docteur:
Thank you for your letter. I think your patient must be a man named Robert Oliver. He came to see me in Paris nearly ten years ago, and again more recently, and I have good reason to believe that he took something valuable from my apartment on his second visit. I cannot pretend to want to assist him, but if you can bring some light to this matter I will be happy to see you myself. I will consider allowing you to view The Swan Thieves. Please be aware that it is not for sale. Shall we say during the first week of April, any morning, if that suits you?
Respectfully yours,
Henri Robinson
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C HAPTER 95 Marlow
I wished devoutly that I could take Mary to Paris with me, but she had to teach. From the way she declined, I knew that she wouldn't have come even if I'd arranged the trip to fall during her next vacation; it was too big a gift for her to accept from me after Acapulco. Once had been a pleasure, but twice would be a debt. I found a book on the Musée d'Orsay, which I knew she'd longed to see, and she turned the leaves over slowly.
Still, she shook her head, standing in my kitchen, her long hair catching the light. A decisive shake: no. It was less a rejection than quiet self-knowledge on her part. She was making breakfast for us as we talked, a surprising gesture of domesticity. It was the fourth time she'd stayed over at my apartment--I could still count those nights. When she departed, even earlier than I--for her university studio or classroom, or for the café where she liked to draw on lighter workdays--I left the bed unmade behind me and closed the door to the bedroom, to hold her scent. Now she flipped over four eggs and some bacon and set them in front of me with a grin. "I can't go to France with you, but I can cook you an egg, this once. Don't get any ideas, though."
I poured coffee. "If you go to France with me, you can have those nice hard-boiled eggs in little cups with your bread and jam, and much better coffee than this."
"Merci. You know the answer."
"Yes. But what will you say when I ask you to marry me, if I can't even get you onto a plane to France?"
She froze. I had uttered it casually, al
most not knowing I was
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going to, but now I understood I'd been planning it for weeks. She was playing with her fork. My obstacle, I thought, too late, took the form of Robert Oliver, lounging somewhere behind me. No need to ask her what held her gaze, no point in pointing out that there was no one there, or that the Robert she'd known had been replaced by a lethargic man sketching on an institutional bed. Had Robert ever asked her to marry him, even jokingly? The answer, I thought, was written in the lines around her mouth, her eyes, the droop of her hair.
Then she laughed--"If I've gotten this far without marriage, Doctor, I don't need it now" -- and surprised me, in that way she had of knowing things I hadn't thought someone of her generation would, with a line from Cole Porter: " 'For husbands are a boring lot and only give you bother.'"
"Kiss Me, Kate," I said promptly, slapping the table. "You're too young to get married without your mother's permission anyway. And I'm no cradle robber, no Humbert Humbert, no--"
She laughed and flicked a drop of orange juice at me. "Cease the flattery." She picked up her fork again and cut into her eggs. "When you're eighty, buddy, I'll be--"
"Older than I am now, but look how young that is. 'Come on and kiss me, Kate!'" I cried, and she laughed more naturally and came around the table to sit in my lap. But there was a strange echo in the room, the name, Robert's Kate. We felt it together without a word. Perhaps to silence it, Mary kissed me hard. Then I gave her my last piece of bacon, and we finished breakfast like that, Mary on my lap, keeping out bad spirits by huddling together.
I had a great deal to do before I traveled, and it took me much of the morning, the day before I flew to Paris, to get through my paperwork. I saw Robert at noon and sat with him in the usual silence; I had no intention of telling him yet that I had decided to visit Henri Robinson. He would probably notice my absence, but
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