The Witch of Painted Sorrows (The Daughters of La Lune)

by M. J. Rose

  Could he be taking lessons in lovemaking? I hadn’t thought of that before, but my grandmother had told me of similar arrangements. Sometimes shy young men employed women like my grandmother to teach them to be bolder or educate them in the subtleties of seduction so they might be better able to please themselves and their lovers. Sometimes fathers made the arrangements, other times older brothers.

  I didn’t want this to be the case with him, but my mind was wild with the possibility of it. I could not stop myself from imagining my grandmother sitting beside him on the settee, stroking his face, brushing the dark waves of hair off his forehead, and whispering instructions to him.

  He was speaking, and I had missed the first few words.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “I do have a certain amount of work to get done, but I was going to make myself coffee before I began. Would you care for some?”

  “The kitchen is in working order?”

  “Yes, why wouldn’t it be?” he asked.

  I shook my head. Of course my grandmother knew how to lie. “I must have misunderstood,” I told him. “I thought my grandmother had said that there were certain repairs the house needed.”

  I followed him into the kitchen. Nothing here looked broken, outdated, or amiss.

  There was a pot of water boiling on the stove and an apparatus beside it that I had never seen. Nothing like the percolator we had at home, this was a tall glass cylinder. The man put ground coffee in the bottom, then poured the water on top of it and placed a silver disc attached to a plunger on top of the water.

  “Now we wait,” he said. “Have a seat. Or should you be inviting me to have a seat?”

  I sat at the marble-topped table where I had sat so many mornings, a young girl drinking milk and eating pain au chocolat that my grandmother’s cook had just taken out of the oven.

  He sat down and looked at me. It was, I’m sure, meant to be an uncomplicated glance, but his eyes—dark forest-green eyes—­lingered too long on my lips. His fingers moved to his watch fob, and I saw him finger a heavy gold ring. “Forgive me,” he said suddenly. “My name is Julien. Julien Duplessi.”

  “Mine is Sandrine Verlaine.”

  “Mademoiselle Verlaine,” he said, and bowed his head slightly, dark waves of hair falling forward.

  I liked how that sounded in French. Mademoiselle Verlaine . . . not Madame Asch. My new name without Benjamin’s surname ­attached . . . I knew women who had divorced, but none had returned to her maiden name. Was there a court procedure for such a thing?

  The smell of the coffee permeated the kitchen. Monsieur Duplessi got up and attended to the process. He pressed the plunger down and then poured the steaming beverage into two of my grandmother’s china cups. I’d never seen their pattern outside of this house: a white background with a dark midnight-blue band encircling the rim, inside of which a galaxy of silver stars and moons danced. Created by Limoges for the Maison de la Lune.

  Opening a paper bag, Julien removed three buttery croissants and placed them on a plate. The mixed scents of the coffee and the baked goods made my mouth water. Had my grandmother brought these for him? No, she’d left our apartment and come straight here. Had Monsieur Duplessi stopped for them? What kind of guest was he that he felt so at home here, he brought food with him?

  Noticing me eyeing the croissants, he pushed the plate toward me. “Please, help yourself. I can always go and get more if I get hungry. There is an excellent bakery just a few doors down.” He paused and then added, “But of course you know that.”

  “So you plan to stay the day?” I asked.

  “Yes, of course. Every day for several weeks. It’s going to take quite a while.” He looked pleased at the thought.

  “I imagine it will,” I said even though I had no idea what he was talking about and less of an idea how to ask.

  But for the moment it didn’t matter. Nothing did. Not that I was alone here with a stranger, in the kitchen of all places. Or that we were so informally sitting across from each other. Not that my grandmother might in fact return—though I doubted it. None of that mattered because for the first time in two weeks the ache of my recent loss receded. I felt as if I was where I wanted to be. In this house, be it in the kitchen or the parlor. Just here in this house in Paris.

  And even odder, I wanted to be here with this stranger. Breathing in the same air. Observing him. Listening to his low, sultry voice, which warmed me through. I watched him put his lips on the rim of the cup and then, as he was taking a sip, look up and find my eyes on him. He didn’t smile. Didn’t respond. And he didn’t look away. Oh yes, I wanted to be here feeling the sweet and sharp sting of— What was it that I was feeling?

  I vaguely remembered it from that long-ago spring I’d spent in Paris when I was fifteen. Leon Ferre had stirred me like this. It had been as much about the clandestine aspects of being with a boy for the first time, hiding from my grandmother and doing what was forbidden, as it had been about him, but it was real. I used to ache to touch him and have him touch me. For that brief time, ten years ago, I had been fully awake, and then, after the tragedy of him dying, I had gone back to sleep.

  Now, many dreams and terrible nightmares later, my mind was tricking me. Teasing me into thinking I might be able to feel. But I couldn’t. My body would never respond.

  First love, my mother had called my infatuation with Leon when she and my father stopped in Paris on the way from Russia to ­Algiers. She’d smiled and smoothed down my hair and kissed me on the forehead. “Enjoy it, darling.”

  Hearing her, my grandmother had frowned. “Love? Don’t put any stock in it. Marry well, Sandrine. Not often and never for love. That is the only way you’ll be happy. For the women in our family, love is a curse, not a blessing.”

  Chapter 5

  After drinking Monsieur Duplessi’s coffee and eating one of his croissants, I left Maison de la Lune without looking around as I’d wished to and without discovering what Monsieur Duplessi was doing there.

  I needed to hurry back to the rented apartment before too much time passed. My grandmother would surely have returned, found me absent, and begun to worry as it was the first time I’d gone out without her.

  As I shut the front door behind me, I whispered to Maison de la Lune that I’d return. Walking down the steps to the sidewalk, I wondered why I’d begun to think of the house as a living entity. Was it because I missed my father so much and he’d grown up there? Because I’d spent time there as a child and it was familiar to me as few things were anymore? Or was it because so much had happened to me in such a short time that I was slightly mad with grief?

  On the walk from our ancient family home back to the apartment on rue de la Chaise, I worked out the small lie that I would tell my grandmother to excuse my absence. I’d say I hadn’t been able to shake a nightmare, and with her gone, I decided taking a walk might help.

  As I’d expected, she had returned, but she was preoccupied with the dressmaker who was there pinning a new frock and accepted my explanation of needing fresh air without reservation.

  That afternoon, the rain started as Grand-mère and I went out for our daily excursion. We spent the afternoon at the Louvre in the dusty Egyptian wing. It had fascinated me as a girl, and I found it just as compelling now. People in that ancient civilization had spent so much time and effort preparing for the journey to the afterlife. Did all those ablutions make death easier to bear?

  “Would you like to visit Egypt one day?” my grandmother asked.

  We were standing in front of the sarcophagus of Madja. The whitewashed outer coffin was highly decorated with a painting of the dead woman wearing a blue-and-yellow wig and an elaborate gold, carnelian, and lapis lazuli necklace. Her large, kohl-rimmed eyes and placid expression suggested an acceptance of death as something inevitable, perhaps even enviable.

  “I’d love to,” I answered. “It
must be very exotic. We used to visit the Egyptian rooms at the Metropolitan at home, and when we were in London, Papa took me to the British Museum and showed me the Rosetta Stone and explained how it was the key to finally understanding the entire cryptic Egyptian writing system. Did you know he was learning how to read hieroglyphics?”

  “Maybe we should visit Egypt,” my grandmother said. “Paris is so cold and dreary this winter. Exceptionally so.”

  The chance to visit Luxor and Alexandria and sail down the Nile should have excited me but instead filled me with dread. “Leave Paris?”

  Grand-mère turned and gave me a sad smile. “I suppose you’ve had too much change too quickly, mon ange?”

  As I nodded, I felt threatening tears spring to my eyes.

  “But you know you can’t stay in Paris indefinitely,” she added.

  “Why not?” I hadn’t expected this.

  “You have a home and a husband in New York. A life there. You are young and beautiful.” She reached out and smoothed my auburn hair. While it wasn’t as fiery as hers, it had her reddish highlights. “You want to have children, don’t you?”

  “Not with Benjamin, no!” I shook my head. “I’m never going back to him. I want to divorce him.”

  “I would imagine you do. Sandrine, I think it best to tell you that I received a telegram from your father’s lawyer yesterday.”

  “Mr. Lissauer? What did he say?”

  “Your husband returned from his business trip to find you’d gone to visit friends in Virginia. When a week passed and you still weren’t home, he made inquiries and discovered you’d never been in Richmond. He is distraught and anxious about your safety. Knowing how close you and your father were, he reached out to Monsieur Lissauer to see if he had heard from you or had any information.”

  I began to tremble. “Please don’t telegraph him back. Don’t tell Mr. Lissauer you know where I am.”

  “I trust him, mon ange. Maybe he can help?”

  “Don’t tell anyone, please. Promise.” My voice was shrill and despairing. People were looking over at us.

  “All right. Perhaps it’s too soon to talk of these things.” She took my arm, and we walked away from the sarcophagus. “Let’s go have some chocolat chaud at Angelina’s. And perhaps a pastry.”

  My grandmother’s news about Benjamin kept me up almost all night. Restless despite the comfortable bed and soft pillows, my mind turned over all my actions during those days before my departure. Had I been sloppy in my haste and left behind any clues as to where I was going? Had anyone other than William Lenox seen me? Was William back from his trip yet? It seemed unlikely, but if he was and had told Benjamin he’d seen me on the ship to England, was there any way someone could have tracked my journey from Southampton to Calais? Could I even be certain Benjamin didn’t know of my grandmother’s existence? It was supposed to be a tightly guarded secret, but what if my father had taken Benjamin into his confidence? Perhaps he’d decided it was a part of our family history his son-in-law should know. Wouldn’t my father have told me if he’d done that?

  Finally I reassured myself that if Benjamin did know where I was, surely he wouldn’t be trying to find me but would already be here, demanding I return home with him.

  By the time the night gave way to a pale dawn, I had convinced myself that, at least for the time being, I was safe here in Paris with my grandmother, and I allowed my mind to turn to thoughts of another man. I began to wonder about Julien Duplessi. Who was he, and why had he been left alone at my grandmother’s house? And why was I so curious about him?

  Early the next morning, as I drank my tea in my bedroom, I heard my grandmother leave the apartment. It was not even ten o’clock.

  Hurrying downstairs, I looked out the window in time to see her turn at the corner, heading, it appeared, toward rue des Saints-Pères and Maison de la Lune.

  Little more than an hour later she returned, surprised to find me reading in the sitting room instead of in my bedroom.

  “Good morning,” she said. “Are you feeling all right, Sandrine? It’s early for you to be downstairs.”

  I nodded. “Fine, thank you. And early for you to go out,” I said, wanting so much for her to tell me where she’d been.

  “I needed some things from the pharmacy, and there was no one to send. Once I was out, I thought I’d stop to have tea at Ladurée and bring you some macarons.”

  She held out the pale green-and-gold box. Taking them, I thanked her. They had always been my favorite, and a wash of memories came over me of when I’d been here as a young girl. I kissed her. The scent of the cold winter morning on her skin made me think of Maison de la Lune again. Was she telling me the truth, or had she returned to the house and then gone to the patisserie to hide her real reason for leaving so early again?

  Grand-mère went upstairs to her room, and I remained where I was, reading, or trying to. Why didn’t I just ask her?

  I found my grandmother in her bedroom, sitting at her vanity, her jewel boxes open before her.

  Seeing me, she gave me one of her most inviting smiles. Grand-mère was an expert at the art of expression, claiming it was always more seductive to speak with the lips or the eyes than with words.

  Before I had a chance to ask my question, she told me that she was being taken to lunch today by her dear friend who was in town and that she would be gone for most of the day.

  There was no question what kind of dear friend he was. I’d been living with my grandmother for almost a month now and knew the difference between how she dressed on an ordinary day versus a day with an assignation. Today’s visitor was clearly even more special than the others.

  “Who? Is it the count?”

  I had wondered why her benefactor had not visited once since I’d been in Paris but had been loath to ask in case I was bringing up a sensitive topic.

  Grand-mère smiled. “Yes. Now help me pick out my opals,” she said, patting the space beside her on the silk-covered bench.

  Count Gregorio Carrara of Bergamo, Italy, spent most of his time overseeing his family’s marble business. I had met him ten years ago and remembered how much older he was than my grandmother. But from how nervously she prepared, I sensed he was still a demanding lover, and I worried for her.

  “Yes, the count has been away but is back in Paris.” She pulled out an opal choker: four rows of the fiery beads with a diamond-and-emerald clasp. She held it up to her throat and looked at me. I nodded.

  “After a certain age,” she said, “a neck full of jewels is the best camouflage.”

  “For what?”

  “Sad skin that is no longer taut.” Her voice was tinged with melancholy, but only for a moment. “Close it for me, Sandrine.”

  As I snapped the clasp, she laughed. “At least,” she said, examining the effect in the mirror, “his eyesight isn’t as good as it used to be and he doesn’t see my lines and wrinkles.”

  “But you don’t look your age, not at all.”

  And she didn’t. My grandmother was sixty-six years old, but her skin was creamy and still quite firm. Her hair still thick and lustrous. Her hands were graceful and almost without age spots. Her opal de feu eyes were wide and sparkled, filled with all kinds of secrets.

  “I don’t see any of the imperfections you do,” I said.

  “Do you want to know my beauty secret, mon ange?”

  “Of course.”

  “Spend lavishly on creams. Wash your hair with henna at the first sign of gray. Never spend one minute thinking about what you do not have. And most importantly, indulge in everything but love.”

  She looked at me, waiting for some response, but I didn’t have one. I had so little experience with love.

  “Love,” she said emphatically, “is heartbreak. Now, pick something for yourself that you’d like from all these trinkets.”

  The box she
offered was brimming with jewels. Hardly trinkets. I knew, because she was quite open about how she made her living, that these were all gifts from lovers over the years. As she’d gotten older, she hadn’t needed to sell her treasures like so many women of her kind because Albert Salome had given her several properties that provided her with an income large enough that she would always be comfortable.

  I picked through the necklaces and rings. Inspected earrings and bracelets. There were ropes of creamy pearls and . . . I lifted out a strand of black iridescent pearls from the South Seas. Holding them up to my neck, I looked in the mirror.

  Grand-mère shook her head. “The color doesn’t suit you. But my fire opals will. They’ll pick up the highlights in your hair and the glints in your eyes that are like mine.”

  “No, they’re your signature stones,” I said, and kept searching through the emeralds, sapphires, aquamarines, amethysts, and diamonds. Every stone but the one that I loved the best.

  “You have no rubies,” I finally said.

  She shook her head. “I don’t fancy them. Do you?”

  “I love them.” I held out my left hand. On my ring finger was an oval ruby surrounded with diamonds. “I never take it off.”

  My grandmother took my hand in hers and looked down at the ring that had once belonged to her mother. My father had given it to Benjamin to give to me when we’d become betrothed. I would have left it in New York, as I had my wedding ring, but it had never symbolized my marriage to me. It was a family heirloom that I treasured.

  “Papa told me you once said every ruby is a frozen drop of human blood preserved forever as a jewel, and that if we could unlock the secret of how to turn it back into blood, we would have the key to immortality.”

  My grandmother seemed to shrink into herself. “I never told him that.”

  “Who did?”

  She shook her head. “I wouldn’t know,” she said emphatically.

  “Then why did he tell me you said it?”