“Yes. Doubt you can get them here, not even at Sylvia Beach’s shop. Promise to take good care of them?”
“I will.
“I had better get dressed,” she said.
“Of course. I’ll wait in the hall.”
When she had changed into her clothes, which were still damp but not unbearably so, he followed her downstairs and outside, and then he flagged down a taxi for her. He told the driver where to go, and then, stooping low, surprised her with a kiss on her cheek. “Good night, Ellie.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I had a lovely time.”
“In spite of getting caught in a downpour.”
“In spite of that, yes. And I did enjoy dinner at Chez Rosalie.”
“Will you come out with me again?”
“Yes,” she answered unhesitatingly. “I should like that very much.”
Smiling up at him, she got in the taxi and let it bear her away. As they approached the corner, something made her look back. Sam was still standing there, watching, his kind eyes so serious and sad, and she nearly told the driver to stop the car so she could run back and say something, anything, to erase or ease the loneliness she saw on his face.
But she kept her silence, and the taxi turned the corner, and the moment was lost.
Chapter 14
The list was pinned to the corkboard in the Académie’s front foyer, but try as she might, Helena couldn’t get close enough to read the names. A bell rang, heralding the start of the morning sessions, and the crowd began to thin. She pushed forward, heedless of the crush, until her nose was all but pressed against the notice.
31 octobre 1924
Étudiants admis—peinture à l’huile
M. Dupont
M. Esquivel
M. Goodwin
M. Herrera
M. Kolosov
M. Martens
M. Moreau
Mlle Parr
Mlle Renault
M. Swales
M. Williams
M. Zielinski
She blinked, rubbed at her eyes, and read the list again. Her name was on it. Her name, and Mathilde’s, and Étienne’s. Daisy’s was not.
How was it possible that her name was on the list? Maître Czerny didn’t know she existed; and if he did, if by some means she had made an impression on him, it certainly hadn’t been a positive one. In eight weeks—nearly a hundred hours of class—he hadn’t directed a single comment at her, good or bad, and he had never, not once, spared a glance for any of her work. How could she have been chosen for the oil painting class when far more capable students had been left off the list? It simply made no sense.
Étienne had been brave enough, a week or so earlier, to challenge the maître’s habit of only selecting twelve students from a class of two dozen or more. Silence had followed his question, a silence so profound she’d heard the thump of her own heartbeat, and Helena had feared that her friend would be expelled. At the very least, the maître would find a way to cut Étienne down to size.
“You remind me of myself at your age, Monsieur Moreau. I, too, questioned my teachers, especially when their decisions appeared unfair. So I have a certain tolerance, even fondness, for a young man who dares to speak his mind.
“Why do I choose only twelve among you? I do so because I am not a patient man. I am not a charitable man. And I do not have the patience or charity to waste my time on incompetent students. Understood? Bien.”
After class, when they began their walk to the studio, she made a point of hanging back with Daisy, just so they might have a chance to talk. She’d wanted to say something earlier, but Étienne had been seated between them all day.
As soon as she fell into step beside Daisy, her friend smiled and linked her arm with Helena’s. “Congratulations. I’m so happy for you.”
“Thank you, but I—”
“I’m fine. I’ve worked in oils before and they’re not my favorite medium. Besides, I’m not sure I could stand any more time in one of the maître’s classes.” She rolled her eyes, and Helena tried to smile.
“He’s a brute, and we both know it,” Helena said.
“Perhaps. But he was right not to pick me for the class. And I truly, honestly, am not upset. So don’t worry about me. Promise?”
“I promise.”
Mathilde and Étienne were walking just ahead, and Louisette trailed several yards behind. Helena was fairly certain the woman didn’t understand English, but pitched her voice low just in case.
“Forgive me for intruding,” she ventured, “and don’t feel you need to reply, but I can’t help noticing that your father is really very, ah, vigilant.”
“He is,” Daisy acknowledged, her expression resigned. “I know.”
“How do you bear it? Having her follow you around day after day?”
“It was hard at first, but I got used to it after a while. What else could I do?”
“How long has it been?”
Daisy’s sigh was almost inaudible. “Almost six years. Do you recall my talking about some work I did near the end of the war?”
“With wounded men? Yes, you did mention it. I did something similar. Writing letters for the men, and drawing portraits of them to send home. Was it like that?”
“Not really. It was . . . have you ever heard of the Studio for Portrait Masks? No? The wife of one of my father’s colleagues founded it. Mrs. Ladd was an artist, a sculptor, actually, and she’d heard about a studio in England that provided masks to men who had been disfigured by their injuries. It made her think she might be able to do something similar in France. She went to England, to learn how to make the masks from the experts there, and then she set up a studio here at the end of 1917.”
Helena nodded, trying to take it all in. “How did you come to work there?”
“I was bored, plain and simple. I got to talking with Mrs. Ladd at a dinner party one evening, and she told me about the studio, and then we met again so she could make sure I was serious about it. I mean, the last thing she needed was someone who’d take one look at a man who was missing his jaw, or his nose, and faint on the spot.”
“Presumably you passed inspection.”
“I did. It was upsetting at first—how could it not be?—but the only thing that really bothered me was how depressed most of the men were. Some of them had been rejected by their families because of how they looked, you see, and they’d pretty much given up hope of ever being able to walk down the street without people screaming or turning away.”
“Did you make the masks?”
“Goodness, no. At first I just swept the floors and tidied up, and after a bit I graduated to sitting with the men and holding their hands while the plaster impressions were made of their faces. It’s a very uncomfortable process, and I think it helped them to know someone was nearby.
“After a while, I began to experiment with some paints at home. I’d look in the mirror and then copy what I saw as exactly, and finely, as possible. Once I was certain I could do it, I showed Mrs. Ladd, and she let me help with the painting after that. I was especially good at eyes.”
“What were the masks made of?” Helena asked, fascinated by her friend’s story.
“Copper, hammered very thin, with a layer of enamel paint on top. They were held on with spectacles, even if the wearer didn’t normally need them, because that helped to make the entire mask look more lifelike. At a distance, you wouldn’t realize they were masks—that’s how good they were.”
“But how did working at the studio lead to Louisette?” Helena pressed, still not understanding.
“There was one patient, an American officer, and he and I became friends. He was so nice, you know. Just the nicest man. He’d lost an eye, and the occipital bones around it had been crushed, but he was still very handsome. At least, I thought he was handsome. We . . . well, we danced together, the day the war ended, and I so hoped . . .”
“What happened?”
“Nothing, in the end. I came down wit
h Spanish flu, and spent nearly a month in bed. By the time I’d recovered, Mrs. Ladd had decided to return to Boston and the studio wasn’t taking on any new commissions. And Captain Mancuso had gone back to America.”
“I still don’t understand why your father felt the need for Louisette.”
Daisy’s voice, already faint, faded to a whisper. “Daniel—Captain Mancuso—went home, or I suppose he was sent home, while I was sick with the flu, and I had no way of finding him. I asked my father for help, but he got very upset. He said it was wrong of me to ask, and that I should just forget about Daniel.”
“Oh, Daisy,” Helena said, and gave her friend a handkerchief so she might wipe her eyes.
“And then, almost right away, Daddy hired Louisette. For his ‘peace of mind,’ he said.”
“It is rather odd,” Helena ventured. “Does he know that you dislike her? Won’t he consider someone else?”
“No. He says I’m meant to dislike her. That she’s there to protect me, and not to be my friend.”
“I thought my parents were strict, but this is terrible. Perhaps we can find a way . . .”
But Daisy was shaking her head. “I’m used to her now, and she can’t stop me from spending time with you and Étienne and Mathilde. Only Daddy can do that, and ever since your aunt sent him that letter he hasn’t complained once about the studio or my going out from time to time. So, you see, I can’t really complain.”
HELENA CERTAINLY DIDN’T have cause to complain about anything, for her life in Paris was perfect in nearly every respect. The exception, the single stone in her shoe, was oil painting, for her initial elation at having been chosen for Maître Czerny’s elite class was slowly dissolving into despair.
The difficulty lay in the gulf between her expectations and reality. Back in Antibes, happy in her little studio overlooking the sea, she had imagined that learning to paint in oils would be a straightforward affair, though naturally demanding. It would simply require patient application on her part, and practice would eventually make perfect.
She had assumed that she would have a natural flair for painting in oils. She could not have been more wrong.
Squeezed from the tube, gleaming and fresh on her palette, the oils were gorgeous, like little puddles of melted jewels. Every time, admiring them, she believed. This time the paint would behave. This time the colors would remain true. This time she would create something worth saving.
She failed. Again and again, she failed. The paints, so bright and perfect and new, turned dull at the touch of her brush, and the more she worked at them the worse they looked. Around her, the other students worked so confidently; some, like Étienne, had been painting in oils for years. She was the only one who struggled. She alone was left to flounder with the desperation of an upended tortoise.
And always, always, the voice of the maître, strident, methodical, and unrelenting.
“Fat on lean. Thick on thin. Warm on cold. Engrave these words on your heart—have them tattooed into the skin over your hearts—and forget everything else. These are your commandments. These are the laws I compel you to follow.”
She tried, harder than she’d ever tried at anything, but they were commandments, not habits, and they left her head so crammed full of technique there was no space left for inspiration. There were moments, rare ones, when she figured out the how, but the canvases she then produced were mannered, stiff, and lifeless.
Worst of all? It was impossible to hide from the maître in a class of twelve. He took notice of her now, but only to lavish upon her the disdain he’d once reserved for Daisy.
“Again, Mademoiselle Parr. Again you make of your paint une pagaille upon your palette. I must conclude that you wish to paint with mud, or perhaps you wish to depict mud? En tout cas you are hopeless.”
At lunch and after class each day, Étienne and Mathilde were endlessly patient, never complaining when she needed help working up her paints. From them she learned when to make the paint lean by thinning it with white spirits, and when to fatten it with linseed oil. At Mathilde’s suggestion she altered her brushwork, for the delicate manner she’d used with her watercolors led only to a bumpy mess of impasto on the canvas. At Étienne’s direction she used fewer colors, combining them as needed on her palette.
“Monet often used only five or six,” he explained. “Here—I’ve given you yellow ochre, golden ochre, viridian, vermilion, cobalt blue, and chalk white. These are all you need.”
In the peace of the studio, helped by her friends, and freed from the simmering contempt of the maître, she worked up several small canvases that showed some promise. Back in the grand salon, however, with the maître pacing back and forth, muttering and tearing at his hair, her newfound knowledge and competence drained away like so much dirty bathwater.
“I need a rest,” she told Étienne and Mathilde as they left class one afternoon; Daisy had gone home after the morning session. “It’s only been a week and my head is spinning.”
“It’s the fumes from the paint,” Étienne said teasingly. “We’ll open a few more windows.”
“Ha. I need more than fresh air.”
“I wonder if perhaps you might like some company?” Mathilde asked. “I, too, feel in need of a short vacation from the studio.”
“I should like that very much. I was thinking of taking a walk through the Luxembourg Gardens, but if you—”
“No, that would be most pleasant.”
They bid adieu to Étienne, who was going directly to the studio, and set out for the gardens. Walking side by side, they shared a comfortable silence, rather as if they were old friends who had already disclosed every possible thought, opinion, and secret to one another, and were simply content to be together.
The Luxembourg Gardens were dormant and rather sad at this time of year, but they were quiet, a rarity in a modern city like Paris, and their cool beauty was exactly the tonic that Helena needed after the combustible atmosphere of Maître Czerny’s class.
They walked north to the Musée du Luxembourg, and then, wordlessly agreeing that its paintings could wait for another day, made their way over to the Grand Bassin, and then to the playground. Finding a bench, they sat and watched as beautifully behaved children, their faces gravely dignified, waited their turn for a ride on the garden’s carousel.
“My daughter loves to ride the carousel,” Mathilde said quietly. “Although we have not come here in a while.”
“You have a daughter? I mean . . . I feel as if I ought to have known.”
“Her name is Marie-France. She is almost ten years old.”
“Do you have a photograph of her?”
“Not here. But I may have . . . let me see . . .”
Rummaging through her bag, Mathilde extracted a sketchbook and handed it to Helena. “There—that drawing. That is my daughter.”
“She’s very pretty. Is her hair as dark as yours?”
“Yes. And it is just as straight. It will not hold a curl, no matter what I do.”
“What color are her eyes?”
“Green, like my husband’s.”
Helena didn’t say a thing, just held her breath and waited for Mathilde to continue.
“His name is Antoine. We have been married for twelve years. He was gassed during the war, and he lost his right arm, too. He cannot work, not any more. He does what he can, but . . .”
“It must be very hard for you both,” Helena said, taking care to keep any trace of pity from her voice.
“We live with my parents. They own a café in the eighteenth arrondissement. I work there in the evenings.”
“That is why you aren’t able to come out with us . . . ?”
“That, and Marie-France. I like to be there for her supper, and to put her to bed.”
Helena thought of the tuition she had paid for her own year at the academy, a not inconsiderable sum, and the money she had spent on paints and canvas and other art supplies over the past months. “How is it that you’re able to att
end the academy? I don’t mean to pry, but it’s—”
“I had an uncle. He never married, was fond of me . . . he saw how I loved to draw when I was in school. He encouraged me always. When he died last year, he left me a small legacy. He asked that I use it for art school. I had a term at the École des Beaux-Arts, but I hated it there. So I tried again.”
“How do you manage it all?” Helena asked. “I can scarcely keep my head above water, and I only have to take care of myself.”
“I don’t really have a choice, do I? It’s not so very hard. Of course there are days when I am very tired, but then I remember how fortunate I am. My husband returned from the war, though many did not. I have a roof over my head, enough to eat, family to share my work. I have a child who is happy and healthy. I am a very fortunate woman, am I not?”
Mathilde stood, the same soft smile upon her face, and turned to look down at Helena. “Shall we be on our way?”
Helena returned her smile gratefully. Given what she had just learned, she wouldn’t have been surprised if Mathilde had hated her and Daisy on sight. Her friend carried so many burdens, and unlike Helena she never complained about them—she didn’t even whine about Maître Czerny.
“Where would you like to go now?”
“Would you mind if we visited the cathedral? It’s on the way home for both of us, is it not?”
“It is. Allons-y, then.”
Walking north, Helena and Mathilde continued until the Seine was before them and they were facing the grassy prow of the Île de la Cité. They bore east for half a mile, to the narrow Pont au Double, which led them across to the busy forecourt of Notre-Dame Cathedral.
Long ago, she knew, the church’s great west façade had been brightly painted, though she couldn’t recall if the colors had been stripped away or had simply faded over the centuries. She tried to imagine what the cathedral would have looked like six or seven hundred years earlier, when its stonework had mimicked the stained glass of its windows. Modern eyes would find it jarring, no doubt, but it must have suited medieval tastes.
Helena hadn’t returned to Notre-Dame since her first exploration of Paris in early September, but it promised peace, and sanctuary of a sort, as well. With Mathilde leading the way, they slipped inside, dodging the tourists and their guides. They paused to make certain that Mass was not being said, then walked down the nave toward the high altar.
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