The Restoration Artist

by Lewis Desoto

  “Oh, I think so. Every true artist knows it on some level. Lorca’s problems lie elsewhere—lack of confidence, guilt, misplaced loyalty. But she must finish what she has come here to do. She must put her music first. That is why she is here, Monsieur Millar.”

  I stretched my legs out and sat up straighter, easing a kink in my back. “I think I understand what you are telling me, and I’m sympathetic, of course I am. But isn’t it up to Lorca to decide what she wants to do?”

  “It is hard for a woman to be an artist, Leo. I don’t know if you understand this. I speak from experience. A lot stands in our way—society, men, our own hearts. Sometimes it’s very difficult for us to put art first, as male artists have always done. The heart can be an obstacle.”

  “Do you think it is only women that feel that way?” I thought of Claudine, Piero.

  “Perhaps.” She shook her head. “Lorca has told me a bit about you. About your loss. Sometimes a woman confuses pity with love.”

  Now I shook my head. “It’s not pity.”

  “You must not harm her,” she said emphatically.

  “I would never do anything like that. Of course not.”

  “I don’t mean physically,” Jeanette said. “Her entire soul is in that music. If it fails, her soul will break and her demons will consume her.”

  It was the second time in a few hours that someone had mentioned Lorca’s demons.

  “I think you understand me, Leo,” Madame DuPlessis said, and gave me a penetrating look.

  I glanced away, watching gulls drifting above the waves. I thought about the painting in the chapel, the blank canvas waiting there. I remembered the day I had sketched the little donkey, and my resolve to make a painting that would be the truest thing I had ever done. And what if I failed? What demons awaited me?

  Jeanette was looking at me, waiting for me to say something. “Yes, I understand,” I told her.

  She nodded. “Good. We are leaving this afternoon.”

  “You’re taking her away?” I asked, shocked.

  “No, Daubigny and I are leaving. Lorca will be on her own here.”

  “And her husband is fine with this? What does he know?”

  “Armand has been many things to Lorca. Mentor, saviour, protector, lover. Husband, of course. But even he understands now she has a destiny that might take her away from him. From all of us.”

  “Are you suggesting that I should leave too?” I asked her.

  “The tide is coming in,” she said. She stood up. “I ought to get back to the hotel. Now that the storm is over Armand will be wanting to cast off and catch the current.” She offered me her hand. “Au revoir. I don’t know if we will see each other again.”

  “You’ve given me a lot to think about.”

  I sensed a hesitation in her, as if she wanted to say more. Then she did. “Lorca is a different person since she came here, Leo. I saw something in her face today that I have never seen before. Under different circumstances … well.” She shrugged. “You know what the situation is. What will become of it is up to you. And Lorca. But I hope you will think seriously about what I said.”

  “I will. Bon voyage, madame.”

  FROM A VANTAGE POINT ABOVE LE BASSIN, standing just out of sight among the pines, I watched the long motor launch ease away from the stone quay, heard the throaty rumble of the engines. I had watched the boarding of Armand Daubigny and Jeanette, seen the farewells to Victor and Linda and Père Caron. I’d watched the brief embrace of husband and wife, the kissing of each cheek, not on the mouth, more like friends than anything else. I’d watched because I had not believed until now, seeing Lorca waving from the quay and the boat raising a small wake as it left the harbour, that she would not leave too.

  After a suitable interval, I set off along the route de la Croix. The chapel on its islet was inaccessible, isolated by the tide. It was time I found a boat so that I could ferry myself back and forth. Cutting back inland I headed for LeBec, hoping to find Simon Grente there.

  A couple of hours later Simon and I were tying up a little yellow dory on the shore across from the chapel. Simon had towed it there behind the Stella Tilda, and he explained that the best time to cross was at full tide. If it was ebbing or flooding the strong current would carry me either up or down the shore, or even out to sea. Simon asked if I wanted to moor at the chapel, but I said no, I had some errands to do first.

  Once he had left, I headed along the now-familiar chemin des Sirènes towards La Maison du Paradis. My jacket pocket contained the jar of honey that Père Caron had asked me to give to Lorca. The storm had left the path underfoot thick with fallen acorns and the leaves of the oaks and elms were still dripping onto the ferns despite the sunlight filtering from the clear blue sky overhead. I would tell her I understood now. There need not be any secrets between us. Jeanette said she had seen the transformation in Lorca’s face. I knew she loved me. As for Jeanette’s cautions, I no longer believed that love and art were incompatible.

  I heard the music before I was in sight of the cottage and my steps slowed, then came to a stop. I could imagine her feelings, coming back after being in the company of others and wanting only a return to her music. Many times I’d felt the same emotion, as if the studio were the only place in which I could be myself.

  I heard a long sombre note on the clarinet, held for something like ten seconds, before it flowed seamlessly into the next one, and the next, eleven in all, seeming to hang suspended in the air. A sudden shrill burst of sound followed. Violent. Painful. Then the melody, slow, serious, almost world-weary, disappointed. The tune went on in this way, climbing and falling, anxious, hesitant at times, without resolution.

  As had happened the last time I listened to the sounds of the clarinet coming from the cottage, I experienced a feeling of being excluded. This was inward-looking music, private, solitary.

  I waited, wanting to hear a change in the mood and spirit, something hopeful. Where was that striving for liberation, for wholeness, I had heard the first time? The music wandered on, repeating, searching, until it returned to that sudden harsh, angry flurry again, as if rejecting its own ennui. The emotion in the music was almost unbearable to listen to. Thinking about what Jeanette DuPlessis had told me, I felt helpless. Did I understand anything about the complexities of Lorca’s life with Daubigny, or about what had happened in the camp at Rosshalde? Did I even understand what she was trying to do in her music?

  Much as I wanted to see her, to coax her to tell me about the demons she was wrestling with and to rescue her from them, I knew that this was not the moment to intrude. I stepped back and retraced my way along the path between the trees, the sound of the music becoming less and less distinct until it was indistinguishable from the sounds of distant birds.

  CHAPTER 28

  THE NEXT DAY I WAS IN THE CHAPEL EARLY. BUT I did not paint. At least not a picture. I made a colour wheel, which was something that I had not done since my first painting classes at art school. Three things—more accurately, three people—diverted me from working on either “Love and the Pilgrim” or on my own picture, which had no name yet. Untitled. Or Unknown.

  Père Caron arrived at the chapel shortly after me. The tide was out and I had not had to use the dory Simon had provided. I made us each a coffee on the little spirit stove. We talked in a general way about the fête, about the visitors, even about Paris. Every now and then I caught him giving me curious, frowning glances. I had the impression that he had come to check up on me. But he didn’t ask any direct questions, not about why I had left the island so suddenly, nor about why I had come back. I didn’t explain my reasons either, for the present. He was a perceptive man and it was probably clear to him that I’d returned to see Lorca. And Tobias.

  While he smoked one of his cigarettes, sipping from the coffee in his other hand, he stood gazing at Lorca’s portrait, which I’d pinned up on the wall. I had not attempted to remove the smear of red paint, nor to erase the grimacing caricatured mouth. Père C
aron must have seen the picture already while I was away, but he remained silent. Only his frown deepened.

  I told him what had happened, that in all likelihood Tobias had done it. “He was probably here waiting for me and got upset when I never showed up.”

  “Hmm.”

  I almost said, I was with Lorca, but I had a feeling he knew.

  “He took away that little flower painting too.”

  “Ah,” Père Caron said, setting his coffee cup down. “I think I need to talk to him. Explain things. I’m going over to see Étienne later. Tobias will probably be there.”

  “Père, I have something important to discuss with you.”

  “By all means.” He made as if to sit down on a pew.

  “It concerns Tobias, and Étienne. I wonder if we could meet for dinner tonight at the Hôtel des Îles? Could you ask Étienne if he will come too?”

  He looked mystified but agreed readily. As he left he saw the bottle of his honey sitting with my painting equipment. It was the one intended for Lorca. “Oh, you still have that,” he said.

  “I’ll make sure she gets it today.”

  He seemed about to say something, but must have decided against it.

  The storm of the previous day had left unsettled weather in its wake and the sky was full of broken white clouds scudding northwest. The sunlight had a different quality, white rather than the usual yellow tint. I had not been fully aware of it, but there had been a turn in the season. The cusp of summer was past.

  APPROACHING LA MAISON DU PARADIS, I was glad not to hear any music coming through the trees. I don’t know if I could have taken a repetition of yesterday’s emotions. The moment I knocked, I knew she wasn’t there, something about the echoing sound created by my hand on the wood. After placing the jar of honey on the doorstep, I knocked again, making sure, and then walked down the path and shut the iron gate behind me.

  From there, I walked round the side of the garden and down to the top of the dunes behind her house. Just to have a glance at the ocean, I told myself. Passing seabirds often paused on this side of the island and I had sometimes glimpsed small flocks of rare black gulls along these shores. There were no gulls today, but the beach was full of those razor clam shells the French call couteau. I gathered up a few of the more attractive ones to add to the growing collection of seashells on my windowsill in La Minerve. It was almost impossible to resist picking up shells when I walked along the beaches. I’d never seen two exactly the same. I thought of them as jewellery, a kind of sculpture hand-made by the oceans.

  When I looked up from my beachcombing, I saw Lorca and Tobias. They were quite close to me, on a small headland, both looking away at something inland. The way they stood, in stillness, like two figures in a painting, set off such a familiar echo that my heart felt as if a hand had just given it a squeeze. They were like mother and child isolated in an elemental landscape, looking at something only they could perceive, that I would never know. I wasn’t disturbed or pained by the memories flashing through my mind. The sight of them together gave me a strange sense of comfort. I watched a moment longer, then, without disturbing them, went back the way I’d come.

  WHEN I GOT BACK TO THE CHAPEL after visiting the hotel and alerting Linda and Victor to expect us for dinner, the first thing I saw was Tobias’s flower painting propped up on the table. The second was Tobias himself, standing by the far wall, looking like he might flee at any moment. He had on a battered straw hat and a pair of trousers that were rolled up to the knees.

  Without saying anything, I took the painting and hung it on a nail in the wall. Then I removed the portrait of Lorca and placed it under my sketchbook. He watched me from beneath his hat with a mixture of shyness and curiosity. Still ignoring him, I took the big wooden palette I’d brought with me from Paris, and began to lay out pigments along the outer edge. I sensed him approaching, his bare feet silent on the stone floor, and then I could feel him standing just behind my left side. Once the paints were set out, I stepped back and turned to him.

  “I think we should begin with the colour wheel.”

  He frowned and made a round shape with his mouth and then formed a circle with his hands.

  “Imagine a rainbow—you know what that is, of course you do—imagine a rainbow bent into a wheel shape, so that the colours flow into one another. Here, let me show you.”

  With a pencil I drew a large circle on one of the flat boards, then reached for a brush and pulled the palette closer. “The rainbow has yellow, then orange next to it, then red to purple to blue to green and back to yellow. What we call the spectrum.” I placed cadmium yellow, vermilion and cobalt blue at equidistant points on the circle. “Now we mix the yellow and red to get orange.” I showed him. “Next we mix the blue and yellow to make green.” This time I handed him the brush. “And finally, making a mixture of cobalt blue with red will give us a purple. And there we have the rainbow arranged into a wheel.”

  We spent the next few hours refining the wheel, adding white to some mixtures, creating further colours with the secondary hues we had just mixed. Tobias took to it quickly. And when I showed him how colours opposite each other on the wheel could be used to make a whole range of subtle greys, from a faded sunset violet to the green of a tree in the mist, he understood almost intuitively. Of course, he lives very much through his eyes, I told myself. These are the colours with which his world is painted.

  When it was time to finish for the day, for the tide would be coming in soon, Tobias took the colour wheel and tapped himself on the chest with eyebrows raised in a question.

  “Take it with you,” I said. “Do you have your paints?” He nodded and I gave him a few more boards. “You can practise on these.”

  We walked back across the causeway together just as the first questing rivulets of the sea began to touch the sand between us and the main island. I let my hand rest on his shoulder and he looked up quickly. Oh, how that look touched me. The gratitude in it. And, for the first time since I had set eyes on him, affection too. I squeezed his shoulder and blinked away the sudden tears that stung my eyes.

  CANDLES ILLUMINATED THE TABLE in the still air, the sky was starry overhead and the whisper of waves breaking along the shore came up through the darkness. I was sitting in the garden of the Hôtel des Îles. Also at the table were Père Caron and Étienne, along with Linda and Victor. We had just finished eating a sea bass wonderfully cooked in white wine and shallots.

  “I’ve missed your cooking since moving to the other side of the island,” I said to Linda.

  She put on a face of mock disappointment. “Ah, but I hear you favour Ester’s grillades now.”

  “Not the same. There is absolutely no comparison. In fact, I’m thinking of moving back here just for the dinners.”

  “You flatter me too much,” she replied with a pleased smile.

  Since the departure of Daubigny and Jeanette, the hotel was without guests, although Victor had mentioned that a party of birdwatchers was expected for the weekend.

  Père Caron had been the first to arrive, and as we drank an aperitif together, I told him about my afternoon in the chapel.

  He’d nodded and smiled. “Tobias was with Madame Daubigny this morning,” he said. “I met them at her house. I think he is becoming quite fond of her. Anyway, I managed to clarify things for him. We are all forgiven.” He then told me that Lorca had sent her thanks for the gift. I thought of Lorca, alone in her cottage, and I wished she were here. But when I remembered the music I’d heard, I knew her attention was elsewhere at the moment.

  The dishes were cleared away and the cheese platter was placed on the table. I said, “I went to see a doctor while I was in Paris.”

  The priest raised his eyebrows. “Nothing serious, I hope.”

  I smiled, shaking my head. “Not for myself, for Tobias. I talked to a throat specialist.”

  “A throat specialist?” He was frowning now.

  “I wanted to know more about his condition. Whether
it is actually permanent or not.”

  “What did you find out?” Étienne asked.

  “Well, obviously nothing can be determined unless Tobias is actually examined. But the specialist did say that in some cases where there has been an injury to the vocal cords, it can possibly be reversed. Depending on the extent of the damage, of course.”

  “You think there is a possibility?” Étienne said.

  Père Caron rolled a cigarette pensively. He lit it, cleared his throat and said, “What exactly do you have in mind, Leo?”

  “Has Tobias been off the island much?”

  “No, not really. As I told you, we tried to send him to school in Saint-Alban but he always found a way back. We went to Rennes once or twice over the years.”

  “How did he react?”

  “We went by train, which he seemed to like.”

  “He wasn’t frightened of the traffic, all the people, the noise?”

  Père Caron shook his head. “Honestly, I think he enjoyed himself. Once he understood that I wasn’t going to leave him there.”

  “I think we should take Tobias to Paris,” I declared.

  “Paris?”

  “A friend of mine, Serge Bruneau, my art dealer, made some inquiries for me. There is someone at L’hôpital de la Salpêtrière, a Dr. Felix Dault, who specializes in these sorts of ailments. I went to see him. He said that in some cases where there has been external trauma to the throat—he used the example of someone who tries to hang himself—gruesome, I know—but in a way that’s what happened to Tobias, the rope around the neck … Anyway, Dr. Dault said that when the vocal cords are torn they form a kind of scar tissue, just the way skin will do after a cut.”

  “Like the scar around his neck,” Caron murmured.

  “This scar tissue can grow to the extent where it makes speech impossible, especially in children. But sometimes it can be removed.”

  Père Caron said softly, “After his accident, we took him to the clinic in Saint-Alban. You remember, Étienne? The doctor said it was useless to hope that the boy would ever speak. All these years I’ve never thought to question that.” He leaned forward, head bowed. “I’ve grown too lazy here.”