Mesmerised

by Michelle Shine

  ‘To Dejeuner sur l’Herbe,’ I say.

  ‘To Edouard’s cat,’ says Armand.

  ‘Does he have a cat?

  Armand laughs, ‘He has a blue cat with purple eyes, I can see it and anyway, does it really matter?’

  ‘Not at all, to Dejeuner.’

  ‘And Edouard’s cat.’

  ‘To Dejeuner and Edouard’s cat.’

  I call for one more Absinthe.

  One more.

  And one more.

  And I am on a cloud watching them have a picnic on the grass by a river under the trees. Small droplets of light swim through the leaves and weave through the air like fireflies. Crickets hum in the long grass at the edge of the water. A finch lands on a patch of ground that is covered with bluebells. The finch says that if you medicate the humours with Absinthe then the spirit is weakened and grows less and less capable of dealing with pain.

  Up on my cloud, I feel no pain.

  I see Bella playing in a pool of water.

  ‘Hey everybody,’ she calls out. ‘I’ve caught a fish.’

  Victorine sits naked on the grass staring out at no one. Beside her are Gustave and Eugène Manet fully clothed. The three of them have turned into china dolls.

  ‘You’re so unreserved, darling,’ it is Victorine’s voice.

  I wobble on my cloud.

  ‘The fish is a silver slither of pond idiot gyrating and wanting to escape from her pincer hold,’ this is the voice of Gustave.

  ‘Waa!’ Bella drops the creature and wades through mossy, Absinthe coloured scum, one hand on her belly, the other reaching out to the shore.

  ‘Fun,’ she says, when she reaches the others. ‘I like to have fun.’

  ‘Girls like Bella are cleverer than you think,’ Gustave again.

  ‘I can’t believe I had you fooled,’ Bella says.

  I fall off my cloud. I am falling and falling and falling … .

  ‘Actually, it is childish. Bella is childish.’ This is Eugène.

  ‘Is it darling? Is it childish?’ Bella asks.

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, I’m going home,’ says Victorine without moving her lips.

  The four of them are in a boat on the water, with the reflection of sunrays like silver threads of rain. Gliding past cornfields and horses grazing, Victorine leans back against Gustave. Bella sits on the side and the boat rocks wildly.

  ‘Is it deep? I can’t swim,’ she says.

  I am sitting in the stern controlling the rudder.

  I say, ‘Bella, you are a bloody fool.’

  ‘I’m not. I just want you to save me.’

  We both stand. I just manage to save myself from going over the side. Bella falls against me. Her breasts graze my chest. Her hipbones jut into my groin. Her lips are so close I feel the wetness of her breath.

  ‘Well!’ she says.

  The three china dolls are watching.

  ‘Victorine,’ Bella says, ‘Don’t you know it’s rude to stare.’

  Found

  May 19th

  ‘The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.’

  Emile Zola

  Pincers squeeze my shoulder. I am slumped forward onto a hard surface. Red and black spots colour the insides of my lids, lids that refuse to open. It is darkness that they seek.

  ‘It’s time to go,’ a male voice chides.

  Trying to lift my body up is like pulling a spoon out of a deep bowl of treacle. There is the scent of familiar perfume. With difficulty, I manage to look behind me. All is blurred. A knife like pain cuts through my vertex. I battle to keep my lids open and notice that I’m still at the Guerbois. My body releases itself down again onto the bar.

  ‘You have to leave.’

  I nod but don’t move. Moments that could be minutes, that could be hours, pass by. Fingers squeeze my shoulder once more. This time I jolt myself upwards and let my feet slide down onto the floor. When I’m standing I wish I wasn’t. I am as unsteady as if I was walking away from a fairground ride. All the tables are empty. There is no one around. I fall into a chair. Through the lace curtain in the window I can see a dark street, but what night? Have I forgotten something more?

  ‘Oh my god, you look awful. Hello.’

  ‘Blanche?’ I say, glancing over my shoulder, and into the face of the new maitre d’ who I don’t know well. I can’t see Blanche. Where is Blanche? I stand up and stagger back to the bar. My cap has fallen off. I can see it on the floor; a black footprint stamped on its pale cloth. I avoid my reflection and rub my eyes with the heels of my hands. I hear her again, ‘Robert, please make him some coffee, strong, with plenty of sugar. After he drinks it I will take him home.’

  I swivel around on my stool. Blanche leans back into a chair, hands in prayer, knees and thighs pressed together, calves splayed.

  ‘You look beautiful,’ I slur.

  ‘I look tired.’

  ‘Well, I appreciate your concern.’

  She opens an imaginary fan with both hands. I seek out her eyes but it is physically painful to do so as she holds my stare. Robert places a cup on the counter behind me.

  ‘I think you should drink,’ she says. ‘I’ve been told that to be served out of hours comes at great expense.’

  I turn to face the bar. Liquid like tobacco spittle puddles the saucer. The aroma of roasted coffee beans, usually so enticing, does not appeal. I blow onto gold froth until it disperses, lift it to my lips and down it in one. Blanche drapes her arm around my shoulder.

  ‘I care too and it’s dangerous for a lady to walk home alone at night. Either I escort you, or you have to stay at my apartment,’ I whisper towards her through my burning throat.

  She makes a throaty laugh and waves a copy of L’Avenir National in front of me, open at the reviews. I try to focus on the text but the letters skip away. ‘The sharp and irritating colours attack the eye like a steel saw,’ she reads out. ‘Not good news,’ she whispers, and then in my other ear, ‘I’m taking you home’

  I raise my eyebrows and melt like the sugar in my coffee.

  In the absence of a hansom or an omnibus we walk. She props me up as we do so. I’m shivering. We find a bench and sit down. I huddle inside my coat.

  ‘There’s a patient at the hospital called Bella. Victorine brought her in. It’s a long story.’

  ‘I have time.’

  ‘Uh, I can’t think straight. They gave me permission to treat her homeopathically and I’ve given her the wrong remedy.’

  ‘Is that why Victorine pulled you over to talk in private at the Manet’s soirée, was it about Bella?’

  ‘Victorine wants to paint her. She wanted me to arrange it but I can’t.’

  ‘And did you see Georges?’

  ‘No, I mean yes, in a way. He wasn’t impressed. Blanche, I don’t know what’s happening to me. I’m forgetting things. Important things. I almost forgot it was varnishing day for the Salon de Refusés.’

  ‘You work at the hospital and you’ve got a private practice at home. You paint seriously. It’s not like it’s just a hobby for you. Every evening, you are either out at a café, reading a homeopathy book, or you are seeing me,’ she says. ‘Do you think you are too … otherwise engaged?’

  My eyes close involuntarily. I’m almost asleep but aware that her warmth has disappeared from my side and I can hear her footsteps walking away from me.

  ‘Why are you taking this personally? Blanche. Blanche!’

  I try and run to catch up with her but I find myself to be stationary, limbs flagging like a rag doll. Thankfully she returns. I grab outwards for a lamppost to steady me but there isn’t one. I stumble and she catches me just before my knees cave and I sink to the ground.

  ‘You do too much. You have no time for anything, Paul. Not really. You skim over everything like a pebble across the water.’

  ‘That’s not true. I’m a very passionate man.’

  ‘That’s not what I’m saying. I know you are passionate. Y
ou’re kind and you are good, otherwise I wouldn’t be here. But you have more passions than time. Look at us, we’re lovers, but the only time we get to talk is at two o’ clock in the morning, walking home after you’ve knocked yourself out with alcohol and fallen asleep on a bar stool,’ she says, gesticulating wildly. ‘I really don’t like to say this but you’re going to have to choose. You can’t do everything and be everything to all of mankind. You’re not bloody Jesus Christ.’

  We are in a small enclave untouched by Haussmann, there is no pavement and the stones beneath our feet are rocky. The stench of human faeces overwhelms and a river, of probably urine, runs beneath our feet. A window opens from above.

  ‘Why the fuck don’t you go home?’ a baritone calls down.

  We are silent.

  ‘Make a noise like that again and I’m coming down with an axe,’ he says, banging the window frame in its casement, almost shattering the glass.

  We walk again. I don’t know what to say. When we arrive at Rue Faubourg Saint Denis, we climb the stairs carefully, making as little noise as possible. Once inside, I whisper because the walls in this apartment seem too thin in the early hours. ‘I have to be at the hospital by seven.’

  ‘It’s all right, I intend to sleep here by the fire,’ she whispers.

  ‘Take the bed. I’ll sleep here.’

  Sleeping in separate rooms is a strange déjà-vu from an earlier period in our courtship, and one that I hoped would not come back to haunt me.

  ‘Do you think you will sleep?’ she asks.

  ‘I won’t sleep anywhere,’ I answer, truthfully, because suddenly my body is a tight springboard for my nerves. My eyes are too dry and my limbs feel bruised.

  ‘My first class is at ten. When you leave you don’t have to wake me.’

  ‘All right, and thank you. Thank you for caring.’

  ‘It’s not easy.’

  ‘But special.’

  ‘Yes, it is special, I think.’

  Haunted

  May 20th

  ‘Nothing can be done except little by little.’

  Charles Baudelaire

  It’s early. So early, Madame Lemont hasn’t arrived yet. The common parts of the hospital are deserted. There is a cold wind, which happens sometimes, as if the ghosts of past occupants rise up to escort me. I wear them around my neck like an iced scarf. They remind me of the human element that I need to take with me into the consulting room at all times, and especially when I am consulting with those who are compromised. As I make my way down the stairs one putrid smell gives way to another. I feel suddenly fragile and lean over the stairwell retching.

  The thwack of a heavy door closes above and light footsteps descend upon me. I look round. Thankfully, it is Nurse Morrisot.

  ‘Good morning, Doctor Gachet.’

  ‘Nurse, I … .’

  ‘You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.’

  I smile thinly.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Yes, I think so,’ I say, tempted to grab her by the shoulder. ‘I’ve come early to see Bella.’

  ‘A friend of mine was at the Café Guerbois last night and saw you getting drunk on Absinthe.’

  I turn around and retch again, when I turn back she is gone and I wonder if she was ever there. The door clangs once more and her footsteps are on the stairs again, this time much faster than before. She has brought me a mug of coffee that she has somehow managed not to spill. We sit on the stairs and I sip the scalding liquid.

  ‘I don’t mind telling you that I’m against many of the practices going on in this building. The misogynistic practices are the worst and I’m grateful that you try to help the women in this hospital improve their troubled minds, but homeopathy, Doctor Gachet – it seems to have made Bella worse. Can that be right?’

  ‘I think it is, Catherine,’ I say.

  We hear a clanging noise like someone in the kitchen dropping a metal plate. Catherine starts.

  ‘I shouldn’t be here,’ she says, looking over her shoulder.

  ‘Nor I. Doctor Ipsen is meant to be my shadow during all consultations. The fact that he came and went before me last evening was his choice, but if he finds out I have come to see Bella deliberately early this morning … .’

  Catherine Morrisot stares at me for a long time.

  ‘Catherine, I’ve treated people with homeopathy for years. I have a private practice in my home and I’ve witnessed many, many cures. I don’t manage to help everyone but I’ve seen these little sugar pills do magnificent work for more than just a few – too many to call it a miracle, or luck or coincidence. Homeopathy heals, Catherine. We don’t know enough about it yet and I have no idea whether in practice I can help Bella. It’s scientific, built on clearly defined principles, so in theory it absolutely can.

  I down the drink whilst still returning Catherine’s stare.

  ‘Will you help me?’

  ‘If I thought homeopathy could help I would, but Doctor Gachet, I could lose my job.’

  ‘You could become a homeopath.’

  Catherine is not smiling.

  ‘I was wrong about you,’ she says, rising.

  I rise too and grab her upper arm.

  ‘Please, let me go.’

  I release the grip, amazed at my own behaviour.

  ‘I’m still a doctor here. I’d like the keys to Bella’s cell.’

  She reaches in her pocket and dangles them in front of me. They chime like percussion. She drops them into my palm.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say, as she hurries away.

  Despite the early hour Bella is not asleep. She is on the floor, covered in straw from her mattress that she has somehow managed to shred. Her hands and feet are still tied. She is perfectly still. Her pupils are not dilating and the stare is not quite so wild.

  ‘Bella,’ I say softly. ‘We still haven’t been formally introduced. I am Doctor Gachet, a friend of Victorine Meurent who brought you here last month. Do you remember that?

  Bella nods.

  ‘I want to help you. I don’t want you to spend the rest of your life locked up in this place, but you have to be well before you can go free. Mentally well. Do you understand what I mean?’

  I wait and just when I think that maybe she is too insane to comprehend me, Bella nods again, more firmly and definitely this time.

  ‘I can’t untie you yet. I have to be sure of what I’m doing every step of the way, but I can help you to sit up. Would you like me to do that?’

  Another nod.

  I move the scrawny mattress against the wall and shuffle her over. She leans against it with her hands tied and appears far more comfortable.

  I hear a scuttle and scratching behind me.

  ‘Catherine?’

  Heart thumping, I hastily look around, two devilish incisors and a pair of red eyes stare at me. Bella squirms and tries to talk.

  ‘It’s all right, Bella, it’s just a rat. Look, Victorine is a friend of mine. She was concerned and brought you here because she thought I might be able to help you, and I think I can, but you’re going to have to trust me.’

  I wait again but this time Bella doesn’t nod. I go on.

  ‘I would like to take the gag from your mouth. If you scream then you will disturb other patients. There will be pandemonium. You know, you’ve experienced this before. The hospital staff will hear. Matron will come in and I will lose the opportunity to treat you. Will you be quiet when I take off your gag?’

  Bella nods.

  I begin to pick away at the strands of string. As the gag loosens sufficiently, Bella lifts her head, opens her mouth and jolts herself backwards. I quickly place my palm tight against her lips. ‘If you want to have any chance at living a life outside these walls Bella, you have to help me. We have to be a team. I can’t fight the hospital and you as well. You might as well give it a try, because right now, you have nothing to lose.’

  I am under no illusion. I know only too well that this woman is manic and violent. It was
recorded by Catherine at our first official consultation and must suffice as a diagnosis agreed by a doctor sent from the Faculty of Medicine. I take a deep breath and release the pressure against Bella’s mouth. Her eyes hold mine as I walk away and sit with my back against the adjacent wall.

  Silence.

  ‘Good,’ I say softly. ‘We shall start. Would you like a drink of water?’

  Bella shakes her head and lowers it. A pearlescent light slips over the wall outside and in through the bars of the high window making zebra stripes on the floor.

  ‘I have to know what medicine to give you. Bella, you’re going to have to talk to me. Basically, you can say anything, anything at all, only not too loud.’

  Bella says nothing. I look towards the door and a rolling, clattering sound like that of a trolley and also muffled laughter. The noises fade as they move away. I turn towards Bella.

  ‘This place is evil, get me out of here,’ she whispers, and spits vehemently to one side.

  ‘Why are you doing that? What are you feeling?’ I ask equally quietly.

  ‘You will betray me like everyone else,’ she prophesies.

  ‘No, I won’t.’

  ‘I was her,’ she says. ‘No one believes me, but I was her, in another life.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Marie Antoinette,’ she confirms, with a lift of her chin into the air.

  ‘Talk to me more. What was it like being Marie Antoinette?’

  ‘They cut off my head.’

  ‘Why?’

  She doesn’t answer.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I was special, not like the rest.’

  ‘Special in what way?’

  ‘I was the fucking queen,’ she shouts.

  Back at my apartment, I pace the floor. I am frustrated that I was unable to uncover any more information about Bella than that which I already know. I can see the words on the page written by Clemens – Delusions of superiority; thinks she is a queen and yet, the remedy is not Platina. The books tell me to wait. A homeopathic aggravation leads to improvement. But I can sense that it isn’t going to happen this time.

  ‘If you hesitate, if you don’t know what to do when you come to the end of a consultation, do nothing. If in doubt do nought and in this way you are a true follower of the Hippocratic oath,’ Clemens’s words.