I don’t speak for a very long time but join her on the floor, take her hand in mine. It is cold and I hope to warm it.
She coughs.
‘I’d like to treat your cough.’
‘No, it’s fine. I’m all right, really.’
Her face has lost its translucence. Her cheeks are red from the hacking spasm. Earlier, she stood by the mirror and slightly rouged her pale lips. When I looked at her she half-smiled and turned away, embarrassed.
‘And I want to bed you,’ I say, with immediate regret.
Blanche says nothing. She stares at the fire. We are silent. The fire crackles. Time passes too quickly. She leaves in a hansom in the early hours. I stand on a kerbstone in my slippers to wave her off. When I turn to go back home the perfect night evaporates. Left behind is concern. Her cough frightens me.
It’s dusk and I am running through trees. Light flickers. I trip over roots and thick ropey weeds but manage to stay on my feet, just. A russet squirrel swishes through brittle autumn leaves, scuttles past me, and climbs up a pine. A bee hums at my side. I hear a screech and the flapping of wings. My breath and my heart create percussion in my ears. Colette in her calico dress and hobnail boots has already reached the clearing.
‘Come on,’ she calls. ‘Run, run.’
Colette does something strange to my organs. She makes me desperate to catch up and touch her. There is so much I don’t understand. I run as fast as I can. When I reach the edge of the forest I pant for a while and hold my chest. There is something unreal about the light here. The sun lies low on the horizon and the sky is muddy. It is neither night nor day. It is in between.
Colette dances round in circles in the clearing with her arms stretched out to the sides. The wet grass makes her boots shine. I laugh at her unashamedness.
‘I’m coming,’ I yell, determined to get ahead, pushing myself forward, flying beyond her with the might of a conqueror. Then scrabbling up the hill on all fours towards the castle, handfuls of grass threaten to slide from my grasp and caked mud creates pressure under my fingernails.
Behind me Colette screams in playful competition, ‘No, wait, wait, wait.’
I’m ahead. I’m the winner. Hero. And king. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. I run across the slack drawbridge, which is conveniently down, shouting, ‘Ho, ho, ho’ with my arms in the air. I climb the nearest wall, my limbs in superb co-ordination, until at the top I look down. Twelve years old and full up with the notion that this is not a child’s game, but neither is it the way that adults behave. It is in between, an unidentified space that hardly exists at all. Nothing feels real here and therefore I can do anything, anything at all.
Colette throws herself up the hill towards me. With every lungful of breath it feels as if she’s jutting into me, merging with me, becoming my own flesh. My want is enormous and I must do something courageous to mark this moment, this omnipotence. But I don’t know what to do and so I jump, expecting to land like a cat. The moat is dry and stony. I arrive with a lump of skin grazed from my buttocks and with my ankle twisted beneath me. My foot is limp and hanging. I moan like an animal in pain.
The Day after the Night Before
April 23rd
‘Colour is a matter of taste and sensitivity.’
Edouard Manet
I awake. Panicked. Soaked in perspiration, kicking off the covers. Daylight and birdsong tumble into the whitewashed room that is too square and too small for all its furniture. The brass bedstead rattles behind me as I move. The cupboard opposite overwhelms like a schoolmaster. There’s only space to get out of bed on one side, there’s a too narrow gap between the window and sink on the far wall. I splash my face with water and wash the putrid sweat from all areas of my skin. I have to go to work. To the hospital where I am never as productive as I would like to be, held back as I am in my therapeutic capabilities.
My first thought is of Bella Laffaire, admitted to the hospital but not on my terms. She will be exposed to hypnotism, electrotherapy and genital manipulation. In my understanding, these therapies are contrary to the Hippocratic oath – primum non nocere – first do no harm.
I’m not sure that I have a valid alternative. I have no experience of treating such deep mental pathology with homeopathy, although my experience in general suggests that it is definitely worth a try, especially if I think the catalyst is well known to me. I intend to make a fuss.
My watch says it’s early, which after such a late night surprises me. I have only slept until my usual waking time. Too few hours and yet I don’t feel tired. Good. I will go to Père Tanguy and buy paint.
When I arrive he is busy, entangled with the artistic needs of Victorine. I stand in line anticipating my next art project: Blanche has agreed to model for me.
It is mostly dark in the long narrow shop that is situated in a back street just off Pigalle. Sunlight slips through a gap between two houses across the street and just about manages to permeate the bald mat by the door, but ignores the window where one of Camille’s paintings, a blue-tinged impression of the Boulevard des Italiens, sits on an easel looking out onto the street. The place is cluttered. Madame Tanguy in her thinning black dress and greying apron sits at a small table at the back of the shop. In front of her are a cash box and a sales register where she scrupulously records every business transaction her husband makes. She has a clump of steely hair tied in a bun. Each parched strand denotes an element of stress caused by her husband’s open heart and generosity.
Old Tanguy wears a blue work shirt and a pair of wide black trousers. He bends over and looks for something amongst a pile of equipment: half constructed easels, paint pots, rolls of canvas and brushes. On the walls hang numerous works of art, coy in the darkness.
I imagine the old merchant coming down at night carrying a lantern that he holds up close to an image he has framed, his heart swollen with pride as he illuminates the magic of Paris streets, country scenes, café culture, the railway station and models, by the young artists whose visual delights are as delicious as ice cream.
Old Tanguy hands Victorine a brown paper bag that is full to the brim. She holds it in front of her like a baby. She faces me but I don’t think she can see me. I would guess that I am in silhouette with the low-lying sun falling in from behind me. So, I am not surprised when she does not say ‘hello’ nor realise that I am watching her: her winsome smile, head tilted slightly to one side, an affectation which is both childish and suggestive. Tanguy wipes his palms on his trousers and says, ‘Mademoiselle Victorine, pay me next time.’
‘I will bring you in a painting, Monsieur Tanguy. You are so kind.’ She places her gloved hand on his shoulder, leans over and kisses him delicately by his ear.
‘I will bring you a painting next time,’ she says again, in a whisper that is shockingly intimate, especially with the old man’s wife looking on. I have moved forward and am standing next to the couple. Now, Victorine can see me well. In the background Madame Tanguy is half-standing in her chair, presumably to catch a better glimpse of what is going on.
‘Doctor Gachet,’ Victorine says, placing that same gloved hand fleetingly in one of mine. ‘Nice to see you.’
Tanguy and I watch as she sways out of the shop, her satin bustle a polite invitation.
Madame Tanguy brings me coffee. When I leave it is nearly ten. I have just enough time to take my purchases home and then get to the hospital. On the street, I am caught unawares by the sight of Victorine.
‘I’ve waited for you,’ she says, toppling slightly as the heel of her shoe gets caught between two cobbles. There is a horse and cart behind her. I grab her elbow to pull her away from the middle of the road. ‘And the things you’ve bought?’ I ask, noticing her arms are empty.
‘I’ve dropped them at my mother’s,’ she says motioning with her head across the street. ‘She is the laundress.’
We walk and I give her time to continue.
‘It’s about Bella. I’d like to come to the hospital to paint her.’
‘Do you have her permission?’ I ask.
‘Do I need it?’
‘I can ask Doctor Charcot. I have to see him this afternoon.’
I realise that I am walking very fast. Victorine is almost running to keep up. I slow down to be courteous.
‘How is she?’ she asks.
‘Nothing can change in such a short period of time.’
‘Were you able to admit her in the way that suited you best?’
‘No. No, I wasn’t.’
‘Doctor Gachet, can I ask you, what was the problem?’
‘I’m not sure it is appropriate for me to tell you. It’s hospital business. Internal affairs. Why do you ask?’
‘I care about women.’
‘Women in general?’
‘Yes, women in general,’ she says.
I nod and think about this.
‘I want to treat her using homeopathy, which is perfectly legal, valuable and effective, but beyond the credibility of the medical establishment.’
‘A bit like the situation for modern painters then.’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Exactly like that.’
‘And what will happen to her if you don’t get to treat her with your remedies?’
‘She’ll be hypnotised by Doctor Charcot and everyone will applaud. I won’t get the opportunity to speak to her. She will become institutionalized, confined – probably for life.’
‘And homeopathy will cure her?’
‘It’s worth a try.’
Victorine stops. We have come to La Pigalle.
‘Doctor Gachet, Paul, you’re an honest man, I like you,’ she says in parting. I watch her walk away and reach with my fingers for the peak of my cap. I am upset. It is unprofessional. I have said too much.
In his office and separated by his desk, ‘What is it Gachet?’ asks Charcot. ‘I am busy. I trust you will be quick?’
‘Doctor Charcot, I want you to seek permission from The Faculty to practice homeopathy on the new patient, Bella Laffaire.’
‘I’m sorry Gachet, am I losing my mind? Haven’t we had this conversation already?’
‘Not conclusively and to my satisfaction.’
‘I see.’
‘Doctor Charcot, with all due respect, I have been working at this hospital for longer than you have and the only difference between our positions here is that you have been allowed to experiment with your brand of science and I have not.’
‘For a reason.’
‘Please, share the reason?’ I ask, sitting down and pulling up my trousers by the creases at my thighs.
‘I don’t have the time for this,’ he says.
‘That is not a good enough reason.’
‘You will have to come back.’
‘Then give me a time,’ I say, leaning forward and bringing my fist down on his desk.
Charcot stiffens and there’s an involuntary twitch in his cheek. He marches to the door, looks sideways along the hall, closes the door softly and comes back and seats himself behind his desk.
‘Maybe we should do it now. Homeopathy is frowned upon because of its absurdity.’
‘And mesmerism … .’
‘Hypnotism.’
‘If you wish … then hypnotism is not absurd?’
‘You can see it man,’ he roars, raising his body from the seat with his hands on his desk, his face coming, phantom-like, towards me. ‘The reaction of hypnotism, you can see it clearly.’
‘And you can see the response when you give a homeopathic remedy.’
Charcot sits down again and stares at his clasped hands.
‘Doctor Gachet, I have no words for you.’
‘Then send a letter.’
‘You will turn this establishment into a laughing stock.’
‘I will prove something. Either that homeopathy is a valid form of medicine or that it is quackery. Tell the Faculty that it is an important experiment that you wish to conduct under the roof of Salpêtrière.’
Charcot sits back and turns his head to look out of the window. When he faces me again I can just about discern the briefest of nods.
I do not believe in coincidence. I believe that forces of the universe dictate when certain fates collide. That is how Victorine and Blanche, two strangers with only my friendship in common, both happen to be performing at the Café de Bade on the same night, and how I find myself sitting next to Edouard Manet.
‘Doctor Paul Gachet, you don’t normally come here in the evening,’ he says, pulling off his lemon suede gloves, and loosening a silk cravat held at his throat by a topaz clip. ‘It’s hot in here.’ He looks around and back again as if he is a little lost and says, ‘Do you mind if I sit with you?’
‘Of course not, help yourself. I’ve come to see Blanche Castets play the violin.’
‘Really? I thought you’d come to see Victorine.’
‘That is a bonus.’
Fascinated by his captivating aura, I watch him flick away the tails of his frock coat, ease himself into a chair and rest a palm nonchalantly on the gold pommel of his cane. He says, clearly to his own amusement, ‘Yes, Victorine is definitely a bonus.’
At which point she arrives, squeezing between tables and pushing past staff with a steady gaze and a flower in her hair.
‘Two of my favourite men sitting together,’ she says, offering us in turn a very confident hand. ‘You’re not drinking. I’ll get the waitress.’ The crowded room absorbs her.
Edouard looks at me out of the corner of his eye. I smile and his old grin widens. Then the light touch of a woman’s fingers rests against my lids from behind and blinds me to everything but the colour red.
‘Blanche?’
She takes the shutters away from my eyes. I stand, introduce her to Edouard who, like Charles, kisses her knuckles while looking up into her eyes. She turns towards me and raises her eyebrows. She wears the lace dress that she wore the day we met.
‘Your friend Victorine will be playing before me,’ she says, sitting down without waiting to be asked. I sit down too, noticing Victorine has found a waitress who she steers in our direction before the maitre d’ entangles her.
‘Would you like a drink?’ Edouard asks.
‘Just water,’ Blanche says.
‘Just water, are you sure?’
‘Yes, I am. Yes.’
‘Gachet?’
‘A beer.’
‘A glass of water, one beer and I’ll have a cognac,’ Edouard says, then turning towards Blanche. ‘Mademoiselle Blanche, what is your act?’
‘I am a musician. I play the violin.’
‘And do you write your own music?’
‘I do, but if you notice Monsieur Edouard, there is a prejudice against original material. The owners of all the café concerts seem only to be interested in popular melodies.’
Blanche reaches for my hand and holds it in my lap.
‘Ah, here come our drinks,’ Edouard says.
A waiter climbs on the bench next to me and twists the valve on a kerosene lamp. The light dims. Victorine sits on a stool in the centre of the café with lamps all around her on the floor. The flower has gone from her hair. She wears pantaloons, a white blouse and a wide brimmed hat. She looks like a matador and plays Spanish guitar with verve and great accomplishment. ‘Mesdames et Monsieurs, I will play a song for you,’ she says, strumming. ‘That Bonaparte’s military men sang when they were at war and away from their loved ones. Imagine. A young man lying in a bunk – all around him are more robust less sensitive souls – playing cards – drinking spirits from a hip flask – laughing – sweating in their underwear from the heat in the belly of the ship.’ The notes on her guitar become more defined. She starts playing chords and humming. She sings.
I never wanted to leave you
But we knew I had to go
The pale light of morning came much too soon
I should have told you so.
Voices from the audience join her.
I should have told you
so.
At the next table, a woman wearing a silver brocade dress, hair high in a chignon, croons with a far away expression. Her hands rest on the table in front of her. It is as if she is making a confession. The barman stands mesmerised with his arms behind his back. Edouard pats his own knee in time to the music and I squeeze Blanche’s fingers gently in my own.
Then Victorine’s performance is over and Blanche goes behind the bar to get her violin. She holds the instrument by its neck and walks through the applauding crowd. As she stands inside the ring of lamps with chin-rest at her neck and eyes closed, she raises the bow and waits. The whole room is encompassed in a rich, commanding sound as the bow slides over the strings. Then a breath-taking silence for several seconds before Blanche plays an old melody. Her soul is inside the music, to my mind, not exactly like a picture in sound but suggestive, so that at one point I feel the warmth of a summer sea at sunset lapping against the shore at Deauville and the next minute I am tasting something cold like a snow flake upon my tongue. When she finishes people are standing, handclapping, and shouting ‘Bravo’. She walks towards me, laughing with her eyes. Edouard leans over and whispers in my ear, ‘You must bring her to one of my mother’s soirées.’
My Work
May 1st
‘Paint the essential character of things.’
Camille Pissarro
As a medical student, I did my apprenticeship in the Hospital for Sick Children. Those vivid times taught me to become the doctor I am today. I can still see those hurrying nurses carrying vessels filled with body fluids amid the choir of maternal wailing that accompanied the moans of children. Patients lying still and dumb in the cacophony; overheated flesh and dull pleading eyes between sheets stained with blood and shit. Big rectangular rooms like barracks, spirited by disease; floor to ceiling windows bringing light and brightness for the too sick to shun; pockets of silence hanging around the few beds that were stripped back to their greying mattresses, and the families that once surrounded them disappeared into the ether.
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