by Enrique Laso
As soon as Camille had turned 70, I willingly refrained from harassing her as I had done in the past, which led to her occasionally talking of her own accord about the turbid period of her life hardly recorded before her confinement at Ville-Evrard.
-“Promises don’t mean anything, Edouard. They’re like ash in the wind. My head was filled with false promises. How tough it is to be an artist!” she said, during one of our last conversations about her personal life.
As she spoke, Camille briefly regained some of her old strength, and for a few moments she seemed particularly lucid. I knew that these sporadic episodes were the exception rather than the norm, which only confirmed that Camille was very ill and that the end was drawing gradually closer.
-“You're still an artist,” I said, trying to make sure she never forgot.
-“Don’t be ridiculous, Doctor. I’m just an old decrepit woman who has spent half her life in a madhouse. Though I must admit, I was an artist, a great artist. Once I was considered to be the greatest sculptor in all of France, even more so than Mr. Rodin himself. But as soon as I became independent, I stopped receiving commissions, they cancelled my exhibitions and my sculptures went for a measly amount, so little that I could barely afford to survive... I was starving; I had nothing to live off but bread and water. They ruined me, it was all organised and orchestrated from behind the scenes by that detestable person, you know who I'm talking about.
-“I don’t know what to say Camille,” I replied, convinced by now that any attempt to try to cheer her up would be in vain, and skeptical as to whether Auguste Rodin would have been capable of harming her to such an extent. It just seemed so implausible to me.
-“You know something, Edouard?” she asked, pausing to collect her strength. Her pupils were constricted, as though shielding her from an invisible but blinding light.
-“Go on,” I replied, afraid of the infinite possibilities and absurdities that her mind seemed to be coming up with.
-“If I could be born again, I would never be an artist. I would be anything at all, but never a painter, a sculptress or anything to do with art. I would rather be a washer woman, a servant, or even a prostitute! I would never have suffered or felt such hunger as I have, I can assure you. So much trouble for just a few pieces of plaster and marble, just rocks at the end of the day, and look at what they brought me. No, trust me, if I was put back on this dreadful Earth again I wouldn’t spend a second longer on sculpture.”
I never knew if she was being serious, but it seemed that what she was saying was out of spite and anger. The knowledge of the artist of her youth still ran through her veins, and even if only occasionally, those hands were still the creators behind the clay figurines that filled my little museum; extraordinary, terrific pieces, comparable to those of any renowned artist of the time.
But Camille was still hiding a terrible secret from me. She asked me to come and see her one morning after Paul's children, her nephews, had come to visit her. Those visits did cheer her up, at least for a few hours, but afterwards she would always succumb to a deep depression, and it was not always clear if this were due to the children having come to visit their aunt. It was only on that day that I understood the reason behind her sudden relapses.
-“Let me tell you something, Edouard... I have never been a mother, and it's something that still saddens me now,” said Camille, in a trembling voice but still zealously holding back her emotions.
-“I know, Camille. You don't have any children, but you have your nephews, who are almost just the same,” I said, taking her hand, sensing how heartbroken she was inside.
-“I was pregnant once... but that person, that despicable man, who I shall not name, forced me to have an abortion. That's how he behaved towards me. Me, who wanted so much to give him a son...”
-“But Camille...”
-“That's right. Sometimes I think about the child that they snatched from inside me, I think of what might have become of him, and how my own life would have changed thanks to him. Now it's too late, but his memory still haunts me like a ghost.”
We both remained silent. Camille, with her lost gaze, and me, holding her slender, wrinkled hand until it was time to go for lunch. That day marked the beginning of a series of episodes of deep depression that gradually became more and more frequent and intense. Even now I still do not know if that confession was true, or if it was merely the fruit of a mind tormented by a past of twists and turns, paired with years of cruel imprisonment.
Chapter 25
The stolen letters
Montdevergues, 10th of February 1944
The New Year of 1940 brought with it the sad news that my good friend and mentor, Cyril Mathieu, had passed away in the pretty town of Sète, where he had chosen to retire; a blow that left me depressed for a whole week. I had never been back to see him, despite having promised him I would during my first visit, which made me feel distraught and guilty. The death of a loved one always brings with it the late onset of remorse, the foolish, untimely feeling that we could have done more for that person. I recalled our silent walks around the cemetery to the backdrop of the Mediterranean Sea.
Ten days after I was informed of Mathieu's death, Pascal came to see me in my office. He was the head of male patients and the person who I had believed the former Medical Director was going to appoint instead of me. Pascal was a tall, gaunt man, always seeming to be miles away, but still devoted to his work. Just as Cyril had warned me, he would be my right-hand man if I could win his trust, even if initially rather annoyed by my promotion.
-“Mr. Faret,” he said, despite my insisting that he call me Edouard, having flatly refused, “we need to speak about something rather delicate...”
Pascal was waiting just outside my door, not daring to cross the threshold as though hoping that I would postpone the meeting that he was in fact requesting. I could see a mixture of fear and understanding on his face.
-“Come through, please Pascal. You've already got me intrigued as to what this is about. Tell me, what happened?”
-“Nothing, it's this,” he replied, coming towards me and placing a small tin box rather abruptly on my desk.
-“I don't understand, what's inside this tin?” I asked, not daring to touch it, convinced it had to do with some incredulous bad feelings.
Pascal opened the metal lid, showing me the contents; a bundle of letters and postcards. I was shocked, not knowing where to begin.
-“Before he left, Mr. Mathieu asked us to keep hold of them until after his death,” Pascal stuttered,
-“Are they letters from Cyril Mathieu?”
-“No, Mr. Faret, they're letters that Miss Claudel either sent or received and that the nurses had been expressly ordered to confiscate. Miss Claudel was only allowed messages from Paul or her mother, the only people with whom she could correspond.”
I turned pale, and a shiver ran up my spine. With trembling hands I took the tin, and could already make out Camille's beautiful, neat handwriting on some of the letters.
-“But... for how long has this been going on?”
-“For about five or six years. Camille has only ever written to her brother Paul since then.”
Without looking at Pascal, I began to take out the pile of letters and postcards, spreading them out over my desk. I felt beads of cold sweat forming on my forehead, and I could barely think straight.
-“How could this happen? How...”I murmured.
-“We were just following the strict orders that Mrs. Claudel had imposed on her daughter, nothing more. Anyway, we're fairly sure that Miss Claudel found an accomplice and that a few letters slipped through the net to reach their final destination.”
-“Excuse me, Pascal,” I said dryly, interrupting my colleague, “I have to ask you to leave. This revelation is rather difficult for me to take in, for two reasons. On the one hand, as the act of depriving a deranged woman of her correspondence, and on the other, as the betrayal I feel by the very institution I am supposed to b
e running.
Pascal left without a single word. I was sure that for years he had been secretly dreading that moment, filled with remorse for the role he had played in that tragic game. But now, as time has passed, and having recovered from my initial shock, I strongly believe that neither Pascal nor Mathieu were really guilty of anything, apart from their unflinching obedience; I wonder if I am not guilty of committing the same impardonable error.
When I was alone again, I began to read through all the letters, without any qualms. Most of them were from the first years of her confinement and revealed things I had not been aware of: firstly, there had indeed been more people concerned for Camille than I previously imagined; secondly, that Camille hated Montdevergues with all her might, even going on to describe mallicious intents in her writing, only sparing me from her insults; thirdly, that her hate and resentment for Rodin were so intense that there were reasons to believe that the accusations that she suffered from persecutory delusion, to a point of making herself ill, were in fact true. This was something far easier to identify in her writing than in our numerous encounters, where she was much more secretive.
For days I had no idea what to do with the messages. There were mornings when I only thought about destroying them, throwing them into the fire to turn them into ash forever. On other occasions I believed it would be more ethical to give them back to their rightful owner, Camille. But I immediately discarded that idea, as she was already in a fragile state, and I was sure that one final humiliation (perhaps one she was already aware of, but I could not be entirely certain) could dramatically accelerate her decease. Finally, on the 10th of February, four years ago today, I placed the tin with the letters inside into a desk draw and locked it away. I have never opened it since.
Chapter 26
Atonement
Montdevergues, 12th of February 1944
Today is Saturday. There is a flurry of excitement that has climbed over even the tall walls of Montdevergues. All of a sudden it seems as though France can foresee her imminent release from Nazi chains. Whatever your social class, wherever you are, from Vichy to Avignon, from Paris to Marseille, from the most sumptuous of palaces to the dreariest of asylums, everyone senses and everyone knows that the Germans are about to lose the war, and that their unpleasant stay in our country will soon be nothing but a bad dream. Humans have always had this innate capacity to overcome the worst kind of suffering, to forget their afflictions in record time and to face the future as though starting from square one again. I believe that this is what makes us carry on.
I too am feeling happy. It has been almost four months since I began this short diary, and finally, I am about to end it. I started to write with the rage and strength of an angry god, but now I am concluding it with the peace and patience of a monk. My hand glides the pen across the page, as though swept along by the final bars of a gentle waltz, never to be heard again.
Last September, Paul Claudel was kind enough to come back and visit his sister one last time. Camille remained silent nearly all the time, and she was so weak that she spent most of the day lying in bed. Only by force would she venture outside, walking with great difficulty. After a couple of hours with her, Paul Claudel came to see me, his eyes teary and red.
-“Doctor, how long has my sister got left?” he asked me directly. For the first time I could see that he was really concerned.
-“It’s hard to say. Two months, maybe three at most. But she is a strong woman, despite her health, so it’s not easy to predict how things will go. I am convinced though that she won’t make it through the winter.
Paul Claudel sunk onto the sofa, the same one I received first-class patients on in my office. Whilst his sister went about in rags, he wore an expensive suit, a splendid cap and maintained a flawless, healthy complexion. His thin lips still sickened and repulsed me, like two razor sharp blades in their sheath, ready to wreak havoc without ever touching a thing.
-“She told me she does not receive the kind of treatment she deserves. She says the food is atrocious and that the money I send her isn’t used to improve her conditions. You must understand that this is something I will not tolerate or allow. You are the highest authority of this institution, and therefore I must demand that you put a stop to this kind of abuse at once.”
I found it insulting to listen to the complaints of a man who for ten years had failed to meet the costs of his sister at the asylum. Although it was true that from time to time he would enclose a little something in his letters, this was a flagrant breach of the asylum’s strict rules. As he spoke, I felt a white hot rage boiling inside me, its violent heat evaporating throughout my body.
-“You know fine well that the bursar isn’t just a shop you can go in and expect to find what you’re looking for. Montdevergues has a set of rules that every patient must adhere to. Of course it would have been better if your sister had stayed in first-class and had not been moved to the third-class wings, where the care is unsurprisingly worse, especially given the current circumstances,” I replied defiantly, subtly hinting at the consequences of his own actions. I was not going to let him get away with being so subversive, at least not until I had contested his unflagging impertinence.
-“Doctor, I will not tolerate it...”
-“You will have to tolerate a lot more than you’re used to. I’m not a chancellor at your beck and call. This is a psychiatric hospital, do you understand? This is the place you chose to shut away your sister and to never let her out again,” I said, in an attack of rage that could have had terrible consequences. Paul Claudel stood up, smoothing down his magnificent suit. He gave me a quizzical look before rifling through his briefcase. He held out an official envelope engraved with his letterhead.
-“I’ll be back soon. My sister needs me, and I will do everything within my power to visit her every fortnight. In the meantime, there should be enough in there to give her the best of care. I don’t want her to be deprived of anything. I hope this can be done, and that you will do this as a personal favour to me,” he said, rather humbly.
With that, the great diplomat left and never came back to Montdevergues. I opened the envelope and counted the money he had enclosed to appease his conscience: 500 francs, perhaps a way of buying my silence too in return for my compassion. Although I was sorry for Camille, I was almost relieved that he never came back. I was sure that if our paths crossed again I would have become more agressive, fearless by then, and would have let out all my rage on him that had been bubbling inside me.
The last month of Camille’s life was terrible. She was bothered constantly by insufferable pain and complained continually about the cold and the food, about the nurses and the guards. Nothing could make her happy, and her ailments made me feel such inconsolable devastation.
-“Let’s go for a walk, Camille. We have to walk a bit,” I said cheerfully on one of the last afternoons I took her out in October. She was very thin; she weighed nothing more than skin and bones. I pictured her body without organs, lungs, a stomach, or heart.
-“What about Paul, when is Paul coming? He promised he would visit me, he knows I’m not well. You must have banned him from coming. Don't you think I’ve suffered enough, and you want me to go on suffering? You fools, you’ll finish me off once and for all!”
Camille gave me a hateful look with such bitterness in her eyes I had never seen before. Despite how much it hurt me, and how unfair those looks seemed to me, I forgave her because I knew that her days were numbered, and that her perception of the world was distorted. I let her go on talking, insulting me, as her words passed over me like a gentle breeze, not leaving a trace behind them.
I ordered her to be moved back to the first-class room that she had occupied for so long before. This time Camille accepted and even took the opportunity to apologise for all the abuse she had given me over the years. Her moments of lucidity were rare, but she was surprisingly talkative, as though the rest of the time her mind was inhabited by another person, someone cruel an
d angry. There was nothing to forgive, on the contrary, but I did, just for the sake of an old lady who was now fighting for her life.
On the 18th of October, at night, I already knew that Camille would not wake up the following morning. That day I had held her almost lifeless hand, as her lips barely let out a soft whisper, almost a moan. I could just make out the name she was repeating, like a litany, Paul. From her deathbed, she whispered his name again and again, tirelessly. In her delirium, Camille was looking for her brother. She must have been searching for the little boy who had so loved and admired her when she was just a young girl, surely not the man who had been capable of sealing her confinement. Although her voice was barely audible, in her dreams I pictured her shouting for him at the tops of her lungs, Paul, Paul!, as she ran through the fields of Villeneuve, in search of her little brother who would help her collect the mud on the verges that the rain had left as a gift.
On the 19th of October, I had shut myself away in my office, waiting for Richard or a nurse to come by to give me the tragic news. I waited a couple of hours, with my eyes glued to the door. No one wants to be the bearer of bad news, and I could picture them all passing the task around amongst themselves until eventually a guard had drawn the short straw. The sound of knuckles rapping at the wooden door failed to startle me
-“Mr. Faret,this morning Miss Claudel was found dead in her bed,” the guard blurted out tactlessly as he burst in. He turned on his heel and left sharply, without waiting for me to reply, like a poacher leaving his dead pray behind after a well-aimed shot.
I could feel pain spreading throughout my body, as though my blood was carrying it to every corner of my being. That very same afternoon, through clenched teeth and holding back my tears, I sent a telegram to Paul Claudel. Before the sun went down, I sent another one, and then early the next day, another. As was required by protocol, I organised her burial for the morning of the 21st of October, in part of the cemetery that Montfavet had reserved for the dead from Montdevergues. We buried Camille there, next to other patients, in a communal grave, and there she continues to rest.