Cezanne's Quarry

by Barbara Corrado Pope

  Zola arched his eyebrows, his curiosity piqued. “You mean something you are going to confront him with after I leave?”

  “Confront may be too strong. But I do not want to taint his testimony.”

  “Yes, then. Yes.” Zola sat back again, ready to listen. “We won’t have time to do anything but say good-bye anyway.”

  “This goes back to those early days that we were just talking about. I understand that when you were young men, you spent part of a summer or two in town on the Seine called Bennecourt.”

  Zola nodded.

  “Did you hear about a rape of a young woman at that time?”

  Zola shook his head. “Surely you do not think that Cézanne—”

  “No, no, nothing like that. What I think may have happened is that Cézanne witnessed such a crime.”

  Zola shrugged. “He never said anything to me.”

  “What if he had?”

  “What if he had what? You yourself know that all of us have ‘witnessed’ that kind of thing. It’s common. Particularly among the lower classes.”

  Martin was taken aback by the great writer’s response, which was meant to protect his friend. Nevertheless, what Zola said was true. It was a fact, recited by droning law professors, that the abuse of young women was by far the most commonly committed and least prosecuted crime in all of France. The implication of these statistics had been that new judges were not to waste too much time on these cases. That was before Martin knew Solange Vernet’s story.

  “I am talking not just about abuse, but an obvious rape, by two individuals on a helpless young woman. Do you think that witnessing such a crime could have unbalanced your friend enough to cause the kind of obsession that I see in these paintings?” Martin knew he was not on solid ground in claiming to “see” anything in the paintings, but he wanted to push Zola.

  “If that were so, I think I would have known about it.”

  “And if he could have helped her and he did not, wouldn’t he have been too ashamed to tell you? To tell anyone?” The words came out sharp and heated. The thought of one of these privileged young men not coming to the aid of the helpless sixteen-year-old Sophie Vernet had suddenly got Martin’s blood up.

  “I don’t know,” Zola responded, unperturbed. “None of this seems likely. Cézanne is a man of such simple passion and tenderness. So much tenderness, in fact, that he often acts the crude peasant in society in order to protect himself. I can’t imagine him harming someone or watching while someone else did so.”

  “You mean to say that Cézanne comes off much rougher around the edges than he really is?”

  “Indeed. Like all of us, he is a man of classical learning.”

  “I see.” No wonder the artist despised Westerbury and his pretensions so much. No wonder Westerbury hated the man who had been given all the opportunities that he did not have.

  “In any case,” Zola asked, rather aggressively, “what does what happened in the sixties have to do with this murder?”

  “Did you know that Solange Vernet was a servant in Bennecourt in 1866 or 1867? Do you think Cézanne knew?” Martin pressed on. “Do you think he knows she was the victim of this rape?”

  “No.” Zola’s mouth formed a perfect O on the inside of his beard and mustache as he communicated his surprise. “No.” His mind was obviously at work. “So you think there is a connection.”

  Martin nodded. Just then, Joseph, who had been diligently recording the interview in his alcove, turned around. How many other people would know about Bennecourt before the day was up? Martin glared at his clerk, who returned to his notes without making a sound.

  Zola pressed down with both hands on his walking stick, considering. “A connection?”

  Martin moved to capitalize on his interest. “M. Zola, can you think of anything that happened during those years in Bennecourt, anything at all, which would help us to find Solange Vernet’s murderer?”

  “And the murderer of the boy.”

  Martin caught his breath. Cézanne had told Zola about that, although he had been instructed not to tell anyone. If they were truly the oldest of friends, having only a few hours in which to trade confidences, Martin did not find this damning. “And the boy,” he conceded.

  Zola got up and began pacing, tapping his walking stick with each step. “There is something. Not the rape of a servant. That is too common. It would not have made the newspapers. But something that I read about at the time that happened during the off-season at Bennecourt or in Gloton, the village across the river. In the early spring, I think. A murder, perhaps? I can’t quite remember. As you say, it was almost twenty years ago.” He paused and turned to Martin. “Do you think that Solange Vernet could have taken part in some heinous crime?”

  “No,” Martin said quickly. That is not at all what he was thinking.

  “I do know this,” the writer continued, “whatever it was, was not resolved. I brought my mother and wife to Gloton to get them away from Paris during the Commune uprising and, having a lot of time on my hands, I asked around.” He pressed his fingers to his forehead as if trying to squeeze the memory out of his brain. Evidently to no avail. “I even thought of making it an episode in Rougon-Macquart.” He looked up at Martin. “No, no. I can’t remember.”

  There was no telling whether a second crime committed near Bennecourt would have any bearing on the Vernet murder. In his desperation, Martin was not above grasping at straws.

  “You understand that so far there are only two suspects in the case.”

  “And Cézanne is one of them.”

  Martin nodded.

  “Then I must do what I can. I cannot let Paul be dragged through the mud, falsely accused.”

  This made Martin bristle. False accusations were not his style. And whatever Cézanne found himself mired in was not the fault of the judiciary.

  Zola must have noticed Martin’s irritation. He offered a conciliatory smile before adding, “I know you have your job to do. And I wish you luck. Let us agree that we are both men who seek justice.”

  “Yes.” The fact that Zola was treating him as a kind of equal gave Martin a flush of pleasure. His embarrassment at being so easily flattered flustered him even more. Zola began pacing again.

  “This is what I can do. I am taking the train to Paris—it’s too hard to get back from here to the spa, where my wife is staying, anyway. Easier to go through Paris. I keep my old files there, the ones I use for research on my novels. I’ll have some time. A day. I’ll look through them. And if I find the articles, I will telegram the essential information to you immediately.”

  “Thank you.” If only he would follow through. If only there would be some new piece of evidence.

  “Should I send the telegram to your home or to the Palais?”

  “My home.” Martin did not want anyone else to read the information before he did. He tore off a piece of paper, quickly wrote down his name and the Picard address, and handed the note to Zola, who folded it and put it in the breast pocket that held his pince-nez.

  “Very well.” Zola held out his hand. Martin took it eagerly. He was relieved that he had gotten through the interview with a modicum of dignity, and that the great man had not fallen below his expectations. Martin would be the last person in the world to condemn Zola for his loyalty to Cézanne. He knew only too well the lengths to which friendship and loyalty could make a man go.

  He ushered Zola out of his chambers and watched as he and Cézanne hugged and kissed each other good-bye. Their parting was full of emotion, as if they were saying farewell for the last time. They were an odd pair. The one rich and confident, the other shabby and vulnerable, despite the gruff exterior. Martin wondered, as he prepared to do battle with the artist, if Zola’s efforts to save his friend would be as futile as his own efforts to save Merckx had been.

  27

  THE THUMP OF ZOLA’S WALKING STICK sounded a slow, hollow retreat down the marble hall. Cézanne waited until his friend reached the staircase, the
n he turned to Martin and, without a word, pushed past him into his chambers. The artist took a seat, cap in hand, eyes fixed on the floor, looking for all the world like a schoolboy resigned to a scolding from his headmaster. But Martin was not a schoolmaster. He was a judge who only felt mounting scorn for the suspect and his puerile demeanor. At best, the artist was a man with a son and common-law wife, who had tried to insert himself between another woman and her longtime lover. At worst, he was a liar, driven by his own demons to kill. And most certainly he was a coward. Martin hoped that once he had driven home to Cézanne that there was a connection between his youthful cowardice and his absurd infatuation with Solange Vernet, the artist would break down and tell him everything.

  Martin peered down on Cézanne. “Did Zola say anything to you about our conversation?”

  “Only to be brave,” was the mumbled reply.

  Only to be brave. How solicitous of the artist’s presumably delicate feelings, Martin thought as he went back to desk. He nodded to Joseph, signaling that the interrogation was about to begin. “M. Cézanne, I need you to tell me more about your relationship with Solange Vernet.”

  Cézanne lifted his head. “But I’ve told you everything. What more do you need to know?”

  “How did you meet?”

  “I told you. I saw her on the Cours. Buying something or other at one of the stands.”

  “And you approached her?”

  “No, no,” the artist shook his head. “I wouldn’t do that.”

  “Then how did you meet?” The man was such a blockhead.

  “Almost by accident. I didn’t plan it. In a café.”

  “How? When?” Martin punched out the questions.

  “One afternoon in March. She was having tea. And for some reason, she decided to speak to me.”

  “For some reason? You never found that strange, or asked yourself why?”

  Cézanne shifted nervously in his chair. Obviously he had never asked himself why. “She knew I was an artist. She was interested in my art.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really.” Cézanne huffed defensively.

  “Did she ever talk to you about having seen you before that day?”

  “No, why should she?” The suspect’s eyes were wide with puzzlement, and the very first signs of fear. None too soon for Martin’s taste.

  “And had you ever seen her before she came to Aix?”

  “No.”

  “You’re certain.”

  “Yes!”

  Martin folded his hands behind his back and went to the window, pretending that he was contemplating the next question. After giving the artist time to swelter, Martin faced him again. “Your friend Zola writes a great deal about hereditary forces and irrational passions. Do you believe that men are driven to do terrible things for reasons they themselves don’t even recognize?”

  The only response was a shrug. Cézanne was shrinking against the wall as if it was the only way he could keep his balance. Martin had thrown him totally off kilter.

  “You don’t know. Well, then, what about yourself? Would you say that you were obsessed with Solange Vernet?”

  Cézanne only stared up at Martin, not answering. There was a drop of sweat hanging at the end of his nose, which he did not bother to wipe off. The room was very still. Even Old Joseph had stopped writing. Martin took off the coat that he had left on for his interview with Zola, pulled his cravat loose, and undid the top button on his shirt.

  Still no answer. Martin sat down, leaning back in his chair. “Well, I suppose you would not admit that outright, would you, although everything you did shows signs of an irrational obsession—involving Zola in your intrigues, going unannounced to the Vernet apartment, writing unanswered letters. And, of course, these.” Martin pointed to the two rolled canvases on his desk. “Explain these. Who is the woman in these pictures?”

  “I don’t know what you mean. I’ve already told you—”

  “Told me what? That you don’t paint that way any more? Maybe there’s a reason for that, too.” Martin’s voice rose. “Maybe once you at last found again the true, living subject of your obsessions—or, as you told me last time, your nightmares—you did not need to try to paint her over and over as a victim or as a whore. You could make the real woman into anything you wanted her to be. Who is this woman?” Martin pounded his fist on the desk.

  “I don’t know. No one. I painted those years ago.”

  “Ah, yes. Years ago.” Martin glanced at his Joseph’s back to make sure he was taking down every word. “Years ago. Yes, and you didn’t know why then—bad novels and worse dreams—those were the reasons, right?”

  Cézanne just sat there, staring at Martin, waiting for the next blow to fall.

  “You also told me ‘you saw Solange Vernet and you loved her,’ but you ‘didn’t know why.’ Right?”

  Cézanne swallowed hard and nodded.

  “Well, I think I can tell you why. What if I told you that Solange Vernet had been your obsession for almost two decades? What if I told you that you knew her years ago?”

  “But,” Cézanne shook his head, “I did not.”

  “Yes, yes, you did.” Martin stood up and unrolled the smaller of the two canvases on the desk. “Look at this! Look at this!” he shouted.

  The artist put his cap on the chair next to him and obediently shuffled to his feet. He peered down at the girl being strangled, crying out for help.

  “Are you telling me that you don’t remember when you first saw her? Or maybe you saw her many times before, and you just watched while they raped her.”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  “Really?”

  The artist’s only answer was an expression of confused disbelief.

  “Bennecourt. Two decades ago, when Solange Vernet was a servant called Sophie. A girl of only sixteen, who was brutally raped before your very eyes.”

  Cézanne retreated, falling into the chair. Joseph was frozen into a position, not making a move or a sound. At least he did not turn around this time. Martin stared at Cézanne, waiting for a response. The artist began running his hands through the hair on the side of his head. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  “You don’t remember seeing this scene with your own eyes?”

  “No!” Cézanne’s denial cracked through the air.

  “She remembered you.” Martin said quietly. “She remembered you,” he repeated. “Your eyes. The way you stared at her.”

  “How would you know that? She’s dead. She could not tell you. Did Westerbury make up this lie?” Cézanne cried out in his own defense.

  “Sometimes,” Martin said, keeping his tone measured, “sometimes the dead can speak for themselves. Solange Vernet explained everything in a letter to her lover the day before she died. She told him how much she hated you, because she would never forget the way you just stood there and stared while she screamed for help. Maybe the reason she is dead, is that you killed her to keep her from telling the world what a coward you were.”

  “I swear, he made up the whole thing.”

  “I’ve read the letter.”

  There was a silence, then Cézanne whispered, “No, that cannot be.”

  “Were you not there in Bennecourt during that summer?”

  Cézanne began to rub his forehead with his fist.

  “Answer me! Were you not in Bennecourt in the summer of 1866 before you painted this picture?”

  “Yes, yes. I was there. But I didn’t know any Sophie.”

  “And you did not see a rape?”

  “No, no. I would not have. . . . I could not have. . . .”

  “Look at this. She is pleading with you. And when she saw you in that café, she recognized you. She said she would never forget your eyes staring at her, refusing to help, getting I don’t know what pleasure out of merely watching—”

  “No, no. That’s not true. This is all a torment to me. Pleasure? The only thing I remember is that I u
sed to have nightmares. Lots of them. I painted them. Those,” he pointed toward the paintings on Martin’s desk. “Those were the nightmares. I read silly novels in Paris. I was lonely. I never would have . . . never. . . . It cannot be. I would never just watch—”

  “Why else would she have accused you?” Martin shouted in frustration. Could it be that Cézanne really did not remember the rape? Martin let the canvas go and watched as it turned itself inward, once more obscuring the plight of the young Sophie Vernet. He pushed it aside and sat down. “Did you and Mme Vernet ever quarrel? Did she throw her memory of your cowardice in your face?”

  “Never!” Cézanne was breathing hard.

  “And when she told you how much she hated you, how much she had always hated you, did you imitate her lover’s handwriting and lure her into the quarry?”

  “No! No, I told you!” He clutched his hair in his hands, covering his ears.

  “Maybe you only got her there to plead your case one last time. Or maybe you had always intended to kill her.”

  “No!”

  “Then whom am I to believe?” Martin said. “An artist, who presumably sees everything and claims he did not see what was right before his very eyes, or the tear-stained last testimony of a murdered woman?”

  After a moment of quiet, Cézanne mutely lifted his arm toward the rolled paintings as if he could not express what he was feeling. Then he let it drop. “You’re sure? She said this?”

  “You really have no memory of this scene as it was played out in the woods near the Seine nineteen years ago?”

  “Only the nightmares.” Cézanne was mumbling. “That’s all I can remember. Years of them. Years. Everything I did then was either in imitation of someone else or something that came from inside my head. From my fantasies. I was just learning. Nature had not yet captured me.”

  That was it? Nature had not yet captured him? Martin was beginning to believe that Cézanne did not remember. That he had been so drunk, or self-centered, or overwrought that he had wiped the crime against Solange Vernet from his memory. Even if this were so, this amnesia certainly did not prove his innocence. Martin glared at the suspect. “M. Cézanne, you do not seem to be grasping the gravity of what I have just told you. It gives you a motive for murder. Did Solange Vernet confront you with your cowardice? Did she tell you about her true feelings?”