Mind Of Steel And Clay

by Enrique Laso

The director exhaled a deep sigh of relief, and leaned back on his chair as he gripped the edge of the table. His pupils had relaxed, like the rest of his features. He could just manage a placid, condescending smile.

  -“Ah, that’s what you’re talking about. You mean the figures that Miss Claudel makes, is that right?

  -“Indeed,” I confirmed. I had the impression that for him, this was a trivial matter, one that had been resolved many years ago and that no one had given a single thought to since.

  -“Our most illustrious patient, as I told you. Well, it’s very simple... She has been banned from making them.”

  -“What do you mean?” I asked, puzzled. This was obviously not the kind of explanation I had been anticipating.

  -“You told me that the name Camille Claudel didn’t sound familiar to you, and the truth is that not many people remember her anymore. Not many people even realise that the great Paul Claudel has a sister, you see. But 25 years ago Camille was a renowned sculptress, highly esteemed in the artistic circles of the time, although always following in the wake of her talented teacher and lover, Auguste Rodin.”

  Hearing the name of this unparalleled genius in sculpture, who had passed away only a few years ago, and linked to Camille, I felt a sudden stabbing pain in my head, and it took a few moments for me to react. It never ceased to amaze me the secrets of the past that people kept hidden, even those of my own family.

  -“Was Miss Claudel Auguste Rodin’s lover?” I asked, still unbelieving and astonished.

  -“Yes, dear Edouard,” Cyril replied, more comfortable now that he knew my concerns had nothing to do with his management. “And even of the great composer Debussy, so they say. As I said before, she's our most distinguished patient.”

  I felt a tremendous emotion erupting inside me. I was excited, and I wanted to know more about this intriguing, seemingly exceptional woman. I wondered what kind of tortuous path had led her to the bleak, almost impenetrable land of insanity.

  -“But how did she end up here?”

  -“I told you that I would prefer it if she told you herself. When she does, by all means come back and tell me what she said, and only then will I give you my opinion.

  The Director got up and led me to some shelves that covered the entire width of the wall to the right of his desk. For a good few minutes he searched for something amongst the hundreds of books.

  -“What are you looking for?” I asked, a little impatient.

  -“Here it is!” he exclaimed, pleased with himself. He came towards me and handed a small, green leather bound book with gold engraved letters. “Read this and then bring it back. They say it is based on Rodin and Miss Claudel’s relationship.

  I read the title of the book: When We Dead Awaken. The Norwegian author sounded somewhat familiar because I had seen a performance of one of his works, A Doll’s House, although I could not name any others. I clung tightly to the book, believing the answers that Cyril Mathieu was so reluctant to disclose were hiding somewhere amongst the pages.

  -“Thank you for this, Mr. Mathieu. But you still haven’t explained why Miss Claudel is banned from making figurines...”

  -“You are tiresome, Edouard”, said the Director, in good humour. “She isn’t only banned from working with mud or clay, from sculpting or any other type of artistic expression; she can’t receive visitors or write to anyone else other than her brother or mother.

  A second stabbing pain shot through my head, leaving behind a perilous trail that flickered with fear and rebellion.

  -“Excuse me, Mr. Mathieu, but what sort of therapy is this?! With all due respect, it seems insufferable to do that to a patient. Instead of allowing her to recover, we’re actually exacerbating the illness. Surely you, more than me, must know this fine well!” I blurted out, enraged, yet fully aware that I was putting myself at risk of losing my recently acquired position at Montdevergues.

  The Director was silent for a few moments before speaking. He came towards me and put a friendly hand on my shoulder, trying to appease my anger. I could sense he felt a sort of reluctant affinity with my recent outburst.

  -“You’re very young, Edouard, and I ask that you don’t take this to heart, because I say it out of envy,” said Cyril, taking a break before continuing, as though trying to catch his breath. “I wish I could hold on to the kind of idealism you defend so well.”

  -“I don’t understand what you mean,” I said, irritated.

  -“The constraints aren’t mine and they haven’t been put in place by another doctor either. You see, they come from Camille’s very own family. I’m actually going against their orders by giving her the occasional permission to work with clay by letting her collect that sludgy mud on wet days to then transform it into works of art. The only thing the guards do is to destroy any proof of the terrible crime.”

  Crushed, I felt entirely defeated by his explanation, and my body began to give way, losing strength, bit-by-bit and deflating, as it sunk in how far human cruelty could go, even between blood relatives. In the sincere, yet deadpan look on the Director’s face, I could see for the first time a stern man who concealed a sensitive soul behind a cold, unfeeling exterior.

  That day I returned to my room and I did not leave until the next morning. I remember it was a never-ending, blurry dusk, as my eyes were reduced to a stinging mush from the tears. A feeling of compassion towards that old lady, who I barely knew but whose terrible story had begun to unravel before my eyes was starting to grow inside me. I predicted, with the eye of a fortune-teller, what the awful truth was, but I still needed more details to fully understand it, if such injustice and hatred could ever be excused. Now, her behaviour, her mistrust and disdain seemed nothing next to the scorn and cruelty she had to endure. I pictured her as she worked on those foul-smelling clay figures with the patience of a craftsman in a magnificent studio whose ambitions for a crude lump of clay moulded by her hands would transform into a thing of beauty and grace. I could see her saying good bye to each of them, one by one, forever, not knowing what would become of the daughters of her restless, capable mind, but perhaps suspecting their early end, an agonising death, with no time for someone else to enjoy them and without the chance to be exhibited or to experience eternal life.

  It was on that fateful evening I decided I could not possibly tolerate such humiliation and I was going to put a stop to this eternal cycle once and for all that was depriving the world of an art worthy of so much more. I was determined that from then on I would bribe the guards to let me keep every single figure moulded by the hands of Camille Claudel and that I would treasure them so that tomorrow, the rest of mankind could see that despite the worst of conditions, humans can still be dignified and can still have dreams, no matter what.

  Chapter 6

  A little girl

  Montdevergues, 9th of November 1943

  I have not been able to write for a week. Overcrowding in the asylum has reached unbearable levels, and worse still, every three or four days we have to suffer the death of at least one patient, very often down to malnutrition. Selfishly, I must admit I cannot complain about my personal situation or the conditions of the employees in general, but for patients, it is different story altogether. Excluding first-class patients, the rest hardly get anything to eat but bread, flour, a little milk and mouldy potatoes. The war has made the living conditions much tougher in Montdevergues, and in my defence, I must say that the help we receive is scarce and barely enough for me to keep this centre afloat. I spend most of my time number crunching, going over inventories, and attending to the endless complaints from my staff. Everyone is anxious, but the worse thing is we are all trapped without even a glimpse of light at the end of this dark tunnel.

  Despite all this, today I arrived at my house with a strong conviction to continue with this diary. I have a goal to reach and nothing or no one should distract me from it. I spent a large part of the day with the picture of Camille stuck in my head. Whether I like it or not, two images in time have
been etched onto my retina: one of her beautiful dark-blue eyes staring straight into mine, and the other of her corpse, wrapped in a sheet and lying between other bodies, just before she was covered over by the muddy earth of Vaucluse. No matter how many years go by, nothing or nobody will be able to wipe these images from my mind.

  They say that a body encased in mud that dries quickly may become petrified. I dream about this idea. Camille, petrified. Camille, transformed into a sculpture moulded by nature. Camille, eternally dug into the earth, like a Greek bust buried by the passing of time. Camille, remodelled into an imperishable work of art.

  After several visits I was eventually able to gain Camille’s trust. Despite being an elusive, tremendously blunt and impenetrable woman, somehow a kind of discrete friendship was growing between us. I think she suspected the fascination I had for her, and that not only did it please her but it also reaffirmed her own theory that she was an exceptional person, brutally abused by those around her.

  -“What can you remember from your childhood?” I asked one summer afternoon, two years after I started at Montdevergues. We had begun to talk about personal matters quite naturally, and Camille had stopped holding back during these conversations.

  -“I remember everything,” she replied in a firm and serious voice. I realised she was still clinging to a handful of good memories which meant she could maintain a certain degree of sanity.

  -“Everything? How can you be so sure?”

  -“Because every night when I go to sleep I go back to my childhood. I become a little girl again, running about Villeneuve in a little dress; I dig up sandy clay from the side of the path and I sit on my father’s lap... It's thanks to these wonderful dreams that I can go on living in this hell.”

  Camille remained silent for a few minutes. I was sure I caught a glimpse in her pupils, like on a cinema screen, of the scattered fragments of film which had once been her life. Although an old lady in her sixties stood before me, inside she was still a little girl, barely 10 years of age, with all her life left to live. I wanted to find out exactly where she came from, so as to best treat any possible psychic illness afflicting her. By then I had already established she was sane, so the only palliative care regime to follow was one that prevented her actually going mad from being locked up.

  -“That’s very interesting,” I said, thinking aloud, and trying to build and strengthen the mutual trust between us, which had proven to be such hard work.

  -“It’s awful, Doctor,” she said, still in her sullen, dry tone. She would often finish her sentences with a slight shiver, as though her body was trying in vain to win a victory that her words couldn’t achieve alone.

  -“Why do you think your childhood comes back to you every night?” I asked, ignoring her comment, and focusing only on what really mattered.

  Camille withdrew to the small window of her room, the same one she used to spy on me through just before we met. She clung to one of the bars that protected the windowpane to stop patients from escaping, or worse, from committing suicide as they hurled themselves into the unknown; not uncommon in psychiatric institutions.

  -“Because then I was free. I could escape, Eduoard, very often in the morning I would just run away and not come back until dusk. Sometimes I even slept in the countryside, out in the open. I wanted to merge with the earth, to become part of it. I liked the way the ground felt, the bumps, the imperfections, the rough pebbles... When I got home my mother, absolutely distraught, would be waiting for me, saying I was a devil, and then would try to punish me.

  -“She tried?” I asked curiously.

  -“Yes. My father would stop her nearly every time. I would have died in that house had it not been for my father. Louis-Prosper...

  -“He forgave you,” I ventured.

  Camille turned to look at me in a sweet way, as though the girl hidden inside her had gained control again of that aged, time-abused body. Her pupils shone, their twinkle filling the room in a special light, almost like twilight in the small villages to the north of Paris.

  -“No. It was much more than that. He understood me. No one has ever understood me like my father did. I thought there were two others who did, but I was wrong. My father was a man before his time, and he also thought I was special.

  I was tempted to say that I thought she was special too, and that I was trying to understand her, but was quick to come to my senses and realise the absurdity of my idea. I was there to help my patient, not to ease my conscience or to stroke my own ego.

  -“And your mother?” I asked, knowing fine well I was about to open an old, painful wound.

  -“My mother was just like any other women who wanted her daughter to be the same; conventional. But that was impossible.

  -“Do you think your mother hated you?”

  -“I don’t know. Maybe. But the hate surely came out of love for me. In her own way, she always wanted the best for me, but she couldn't have been more wrong.

  -“That’s something that happens quite a lot,” I noted, trying to normalise the mother-daughter relationship.

  Camille went back to the window, clutching the bars again which made her look as though she was trapped in a prison. The views were beautiful, but she was sad and subdued.

  -“Why are you asking about my childhood?”

  -“Because it might be important for your treatment.”

  -“My treatment! Please don’t offend me Doctor, what on earth do you want to treat?” she exclaimed angrily.

  I held my breath for a few seconds. I knew that I should be the one to take control of the situation, but this proved particularly difficult when the person in front of me was quite lucid and hated their forced confinement.

  -“I would like to write a report to first try to persuade the Director of the asylum, and then your family, so as to be able to discharge you or at least to transfer you to another centre near Paris.

  -“Is that really possible?” she asked, almost pleadingly.

  -“If you collaborate with me, we can do it.”

  -“I must escape from this nightmare, Doctor. You can’t possibly imagine the suffering I’ve had to endure in this prison.

  As a matter of fact, Camille was right. If you do not experience an event in your own skin, you cannot possibly conceive of the pain it might cause someone else. I attempted to, and tried to give her hope, as then I still believed there was a chance for this old lady, relentlessly withering away in this dismal asylum, far from the place she once called home.

  -“If you could have one wish, what would it be?”

  Camille turned to look at me, her eyes moist. I had never seen her cry in all the years we had shared at Montdevergues, but perhaps on three or four occasions she became sentimental, letting go of the emotional armour that protected her in this eternal gloom.

  -“I think you can guess...”

  -“To be free?”

  Camille shook her head, and then parted the hair that had fallen over face to reveal a crevice-ridden and lacklustre complexion.

  -“To be a little girl again. To play with clay. To see my father, in awe of my first pieces, encouraging me to pursue my vocation,” were her final words; she did not open her mouth to speak again for the entire afternoon. She plunged into a sort of lethargy, only from time to time mumbling unintelligibly. And it was in that moment that I stopped seeing her as a sixty-odd woman, but instead as a little girl. I was certain that Camille had discovered a way to carry on dreaming in a state of wakefulness, which had the strange effect of taking off the years instead of adding them.

  Chapter 7

  An unexpected raise

  Montdevergues, 11th of November 1943

  It has been more than 15 years since I took up the position as Medical Director at Montdevergues. Since then it feels as though time has gone by more slowly. I had only just finished three years as the head of female patients, when very early one morning, Cyril Mathieu called me to his office.

  -“Please, take a seat Edouard,” Cyril
said, seemingly weighed down by something, distracted, with a far off look in his eyes. I had the feeling he was about to bring up something rather delicate.

  -“Thank you, Mr. Mathieu.”

  The Medical Director began to pace up and down the room, frequently nodding and shaking his head, with his hands clasped behind his back as though in search of the missing piece to an important thesis. His demeanour was making me terribly anxious, as I did not have the faintest idea what the meeting could be about.

  -“Are you happy here at the asylum, Edoaurd?” he asked eventually.

  -“Well yes, I think I am Sir,” I stuttered, without really understanding where Cyril was taking this, but suspecting that it must somehow be relevant. For a moment the idea of being dismissed entered my thoughts, and I felt a sudden, unpleasant chill run up my spine.

  -“I’m getting old, you see.”

  I made a gesture with my hand, as though trying to diminish the importance of his statement. Mathieu was a robust man, but it was true that he had seen a fair few years, or rather years that had caused him grief, as the passing of time had indeed left its indelible mark on his face and skin.

  -“Not at all, you're in fine shape,” I cajoled, more relaxed now I was no longer the focus of the conversation.

  Cyril sat back down at his desk and began to rummage through papers, looking over them hurriedly. I still felt uneasy.

  -“I’m going to retire. In four months. I wanted you to know before anyone else,” he announced, locking his eyes on mine. I restrained myself and did not react.

  -“Retire?”

  -“Well, in a manner of speaking. I’m going to move to a small seaside town. Have you heard of Sète?”

  I shook my head, a little confused. It was as though Cyril saw me as his son, addressing me in a warm, friendly manner. He seemed uncomfortable, yet was trying to appear calm and in control of the situation. Light filtered through the curtains of his office, bathing one side of his tense, unshaven face.