The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque

by Jeffrey Ford

  He looked as if he was making ready to leave, so I asked him one last thing. “Did you ever see her?”

  “Of course,” he said, and took my hand and shook it. “Goodbye, Piambo. Forgive me.” He turned and walked out eastward across the dunes where there was nothing but beach. I watched him until he was swallowed by the night.

  Then I was alone. It started to snow, and I could not help but wonder if what had just transpired was also not just an enormous red herring. I had nothing left save my life, but I deemed this the perfect condition for an artist seeking to create something beautiful. As I headed back through the snow toward the shacks to look for shelter for the night, it seemed to me that the flakes were falling two by two, in perfect pairs.

  MY SELF-PORTRAIT

  THE NEXT day, after making my way back to the La Grange, I telephoned the local police and told them everything I knew. They told me that just the previous evening they had heard from Detective Sills in New York. Two days later, John and a few other men from the force came out to Babylon to search for Mrs. Charbuque and Watkin. It was good to see my old friend, and we spent a night drinking whiskey at the Copper Kettle before he had to be off in search of his quarry. I asked after Samantha, and he told me she was fine. I had hoped perhaps she had sent a message with him, but none was forthcoming.

  When all the hullabaloo associated with the strange case had finally died down, I made a decision to stay on instead of returning to the city. It was my desire to paint for a few months the natural scenes I had become so enamored of during my time at the carriage house. Father Loomis made me a deal. He offered to let me stay in the studio free of charge if I would paint an altarpiece for him. I told him I would, but the theme must be from Genesis.

  “Very well,” he said. “You can do me a favor, though.”

  “And what is that?” I asked.

  “When you paint Eve, give her the face of the woman in your other painting, whoever she was,” he said.

  I made the priest this promise but did him one better, because I painted both Adam and Eve so that they bore the visages of Mrs. Charbuque.

  Except for missing Samantha so terribly, I had what was really quite an idyllic life. After moving my things from the La Grange to the carriage house studio, I set up a daily routine. In the mornings I walked through the woods and down by the bay carrying my sketchbook, making preliminary drawings for landscapes I would later execute. The weather was colder than ever, and I could not take the easel outside. In the afternoons I worked on the church altarpiece. After eating dinner and having a glass of wine with Loomis, I returned to the studio to light another fire and two oil lamps and create, from my sketches and my memory, those scenes I had witnessed on my morning walks.

  Landscape painting was new to me. Gone were the figures and the need to render an expression precisely. In the manner in which I approached them, these pieces were more fluid in nature, offering greater room for interpretation. I was not working in the classical style or the Pre-Raphaelite or the Impressionist. There wasn’t a moment’s thought about where I might sell them or to whom. I was simply painting what I felt and what I saw. The experience was most liberating. After a few weeks I lined them all up against the walls of the studio and was amazed to see that they represented my thoughts and emotions more vividly than any portrait might have. They were, in a sense, all together, my self-portrait.

  It was near the end of November, and I was in the church one afternoon laboring on the image of Satan as the serpent. My snake had a human face, and in honor of Shenz, I used him as the model. I had just finished his beard when the doors of the church opened wide and two men from the local funeral parlor entered pushing a wheeled cart upon which sat a coffin. Usually such a delivery was attended by the deceased’s loved ones. Today, however, the casket was accompanied only by the two deliverymen and the priest.

  He approached the altar and said to me, “You can keep working, Piambo. I don’t think anyone will be attending this Mass. From what I’ve been told, the man who brought this poor woman’s body to the funeral parlor said she passed away from a broken heart, although the official certificate says consumption. Do you find that odd?” He looked at me sideways, as if wanting to say more. When I didn’t respond, he continued. “The stranger left a request with the undertaker that I say a Mass for her before she is buried, but he was not able to stay for it. He left quite a nice sum as payment, though.”

  “What was his name?” I asked, afraid to hear the answer.

  “He didn’t say,” said Loomis softly. “But the deceased’s name is Sibyl.”

  All I could manage was a nod.

  “Well,” he said briskly as I placed my hand on the smooth wood of the coffin, “I have to go to town for an hour or so. When I return, I’ll say the Mass. I suppose I’ll be praying to the rafters. Unless, of course, you want to stand in as a mourner.”

  “Perhaps,” I said.

  “That would be good of you, but either way is fine, my son,” said Father Loomis. He turned, walked down the aisle, and then left the church accompanied by the two workers.

  I held my hand over my mouth as if stifling a scream. The wood of the coffin gleamed with the colored light that streamed in through the stained glass windows. I moved my fingers across its smooth surface. “Luciere,” I said. “Luciere.”

  Here she lay behind her screen. I was no longer in her power, no longer striving to fulfill a commission. I knew that what I should do was complete my work for the day and leave. “Don’t give in,” I said aloud. I wondered how Watkin had actually done her in and made it look like consumption. Did this too fall into the category of his expertise in disguise and costume?

  As I told myself it was time to go, my hand moved along the edge of the casket to find the latch. I slowly pulled it back. The lid popped open a sliver, free now from its clasp. I took two deep breaths and then whispered, “I am here, Mrs. Charbuque.”

  There is no reason to believe me, I know. What were the chances? But I tell you that the figure in my portrait and the woman in the coffin were one and the same. Yes, they were twins. I cried upon seeing her. Perhaps it was for her and her tortured existence, perhaps for me and all I’d been through. Whatever the reason, I felt as if I were weeping blood. She was dressed in a white gown, and around her neck was the locket that held the future. Very carefully I reached in and undid the chain from her neck. Holding the heart-shaped pendant before my eyes, I pictured the two snowflakes inside, unmelting, constantly swirling around each other in endless predictions of tomorrow. I slipped it into my pocket and closed the lid, making sure that it was latched.

  I stayed for the Mass that afternoon, and I was the sole mourner at the funeral of Mrs. Charbuque.

  EPILOGUE: THE ANGEL ON THE BEACH

  TWO DAYS later I took a late-afternoon walk along the beach. I could not concentrate on work, and Father Loomis was away for the day. I strolled down to the shore and sat on my driftwood log. The sun was setting on the horizon, and the air was frigid, the water of the bay nearly frozen over in icy wavelets. I smoked a cigarette and thought about the city and how much I missed it just then. With only a few minutes of light left in the day, I rose and was about to start back to the studio when I saw a figure in the distance, approaching along the shore. At first glance, the person seemed to possess white wings like an angel. They beat wildly and glowed in the last rays of sunlight. A tremor of fear ran through me. Perhaps it was the spirit of Luciere returning to claim her locket. When finally those wings revealed themselves to be the wide ends of a long white scarf, I recognized who it was and went to meet her.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I HOPE THAT the reader will not consider The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque a historical novel in the strict sense of the term. Many of the locations, characters, phenomena, and events described herein were actualities of 1893 and can be validated by textual sources, but at the end of the day I am a fiction writer and not a historian. Occasionally I played it fast and loose with the facts, bo
th out of necessity and desire, so that I could bring you the story of Piambo’s strange commission. Still, there were many works I relied upon in my endeavor.

  For a view of New York during this time period, I found the following books very helpful: King’s Handbook of New York City 1893 by Moses King; Gramercy Park: An American Bloomsbury by Carole Klein; Walt Whitman’s New York, edited by Henry M. Christman; and Victorian America: Transformation in Everyday Life 1876–1915 by Thomas J. Schlereth.

  Some of the texts that helped to expand my limited knowledge of the art of painting, and especially Victorian-era painting, were What Painting Is by James Elkins, The Art of Arts by Anita Albus, What Is Painting? by Julian Bell, Oil Painting Portraits by Ray Smith, Victorian Painting by Christopher Wood, Whistler: A Biography by Stanley Weintraub, and John Singer Sargent: His Portrait by Stanley Olson. The quote from Albert Pinkham Ryder that appears in the novel was found at Rickie Lee Jones’s Albert Pinkham Ryder website.

  For insight into the use of opium during the nineteenth century I am indebted to The Seven Sisters of Sleep by Mordicai C. Cooke and Opium by Martin Booth.

  End Product: The First Taboo by Dan Sabbath and Mandel Hall is a truly amazing and delightful work on the history, philosophy, politics, and power of evacuants. It’s a real shame this book is out of print.

  For information concerning the Phoenicians, I turned to Glenn Markoe’s Phoenicians.

  Many individuals helped me as I worked on this project. First and foremost, I must thank my agent, Howard Morhaim, whose guidance and skill made it possible for me to write this book. I would also like to thank: Kevin Quigley for sharing with me his firsthand knowledge of the art of painting, Michael Gallagher and Bill Watkins for reading and commenting on the manuscript while in progress, Devi Pillai for her role as assistant editor, and Jennifer Brehl, editor, whose encouragement and expertise helped me make this story the best it could possibly be.

  About the Author

  JEFFREY FORD is the author of The Physiognomy, Memoranda, and The Beyond. He is the protégé of the late John Gardner, author of the modern classic Grendel. Ford is a professor of writing and early American literature at Brookdale Community College in New Jersey.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

  Praise for The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque

  “Add dangerously unstable characters speaking with delicious floridity, unexpected bursts of macabre humor and violence, and a gender-bending subplot that subtly picks up steam, and you have a standout literary thriller.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “Ford writes with florid elegance, in the style of an era when the staccato dialogue of today’s sitcoms…would have been rudely uncouth.”

  —Cleveland Plain Dealer

  “Well-crafted, funny, charming, grotesque, bulging with arcane Victoriana, The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque is a deliciously quirky thriller.”

  —Montreal Gazette

  “In The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque, Ford handles the mystery genre with apparent ease, building suspense right from the start…. As Piambo is drawn deeper and deeper into the mystery behind the curtain, the novel moves from one climax to the next, slowly and skillfully increasing the tension so that as the ending nears, the reader, like Piambo—who lives for the stories and will do almost anything to find out more about Mrs. Charbuque—has to know what happens.”

  —Book Page

  “Chillingly surreal.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  Praise for The Beyond

  “Ford is a talent to be reckoned with and Cley and The Beyond are the stunning creations of an artist.”

  —Pittsburgh Tribune

  “A novel of virtual reality like no other…. I once again found myself under the spell of an alternate world marked, like ours, by a maddening tangle of beauty, pity, and terror.”

  —New York Times Book Review

  “A worthy sequel…. A surreal landscape of events, objects, and characters…. Reading Ford’s vivid descriptions of Below’s bizarre subconscious is like stepping into a Dali painting. Ford’s symbolic view of memory and desire is as intriguing as it is haunting…. Admirers of The Physiognomy will prize this book.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  Praise for The Physiognomy

  “A modern allegory in the manner of Franz Kafka…. Ford writes equally well about the scientific cult of precision and acceptance of ambiguity. You don’t have to embrace his anti-science message to appreciate the care and skill that went into its framing.”

  —New York Times Book Review

  “Compact, richly textured, enthralling…. Seriously, logically, stunningly surreal.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  ALSO BY JEFFREY FORD

  The Physiognomy

  Memoranda

  The Beyond

  Copyright

  THE PORTRAIT OF MRS. CHARBUQUE. Copyright © 2002 by Jeffrey Ford. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  EPub © Edition SEPTEMBER 2009 ISBN: 9780061977039

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