by Olivia Lara
‘You are a wonderful man, Vincent Saint Germain. I am a lucky girl,’ she said, smiling through tears.
‘You know as well as I do that I am the lucky one,’ he said and caressed her hand lovingly.
*
Dominique was happy with her job at Galignani’s. Surrounded by art books, she taught herself everything there was to know about painters, Impressionism and Monet. Always Monet. The job paid well, it wasn’t a hard job, and she didn’t have to work long hours. On the contrary, it left her plenty of time to spend with Vincent and also to help Constance, who had slowly started to clean up the old café. The bank agreed to extend the loan and even gave her additional funds – clearly all thanks to Vincent’s intervention. And with the money from Zara’s job and Constance’s waitressing, there was hope now. It wouldn’t be easy or fast but if they kept at it, one day it would happen.
One morning at Galignani’s, Dominique finished arranging the books and stepped back to admire them. Perfect. She moved on to the next shelf. What is going on here? Constable can’t sit next to Turner. They will kill each other. Monet and Manet, no, no, no. Who put them together?
She went downstairs to the storage room to bring back more books and albums when she heard the bell, a sign someone had come into the bookstore.
‘Can you please locate order number 812 in Monday’s delivery?’ the owner asked her through the intercom.
‘Right away,’ said Dominique and went to the ‘hold’ shelf.
She found the book, wrapped in brown paper. ‘Order 812 – prepaid,’ it said on the hand-written label. Discourses on Architecture by Viollet-le-Duc.
Dominique smiled. It was the first time someone had bought that book since she took the job. She grabbed it and was on her way up when she met the owner’s daughter on the stairs.
‘Do you have it?’
Dominique stared. ‘What?’
‘The book my father asked for.’
‘Yes, it’s right here,’ said Dominique showing her the brown package.
‘I’ll take it,’ she said and pulled the book out of Dominique’s hands.
‘It’s alright, I’m sure you have better things to do,’ insisted Dominique.
‘I said I’ll take it,’ said the owner’s daughter and grabbed it from her.
Dominique went back downstairs, feeling disappointed. She wondered what’d gotten into her. She wanted to see the person who ordered that book. Not a lot of people were passionate about Viollet-le-Duc.
A couple of minutes later, the owner’s voice came even louder through the intercom.
‘Come up, will you? The customer is also asking about Monet’s Impressionism.’
Really? The same person? First, Viollet-le-Duc, now Monet’s Impressionism.
She ran up the stairs, almost tumbling and falling.
‘Too late,’ said the owner and made a gesture towards the door. ‘He was in a rush.’
Without thinking, she rushed outside, looking for a man holding the brown paper package under his arm. No sign of him. Something about that moment gave Dominique pause. The coincidence of it. The pairing of the two books. The feeling she had inside. Of loss. Like she’d just missed something.
ALEXANDER
9 DECEMBER 1961
PARIS
Back from Colmar, Alexander was struggling more than ever. He didn’t know if it was his trip to Colmar, or the letter he’d written to Zara, but something in him was screaming. What was he doing? His life didn’t look at all how he’d imagined. And the Sorbonne wasn’t turning out to be what he had hoped for either. Or he wasn’t the same anymore. In the last year, he had felt more and more detached, less motivated, less sure of himself and of what he wanted to do with his life. He’d thought he wanted to teach literature, write a book, or be a book critic but his heart wasn’t in it.
Lately, that nagging feeling of not belonging and of living someone else’s life kept him up at night. And now, it was acute. Suffocating. It had gotten so bad he had considered dropping out of school, even though he was so close to getting his diploma.
One winter day, a few weeks into his last year at the Sorbonne, Alexander made up his mind to not finish the semester. He would quit school and take some time to think things over, decide what he wanted to do next. He packed his things with the rush known only by someone who had made a hard decision and was trying to carry it through before they changed their mind.
As he stuffed his bags with clothes, books, and photos he stumbled onto a small wooden box that had been sitting underneath some old papers on his bookshelf for the last few years. His heart raced. The mere sight of it brought back such strong memories and feelings.
Alexander pulled the curtains to the side to allow more light into his room and carefully opened the box. In it, yellowed by the passing of years, were letters, postcards, notes, newspaper clippings. Some letters were his own, never sent. Among them, the twenty-eight letters he wrote while in detention at La Rolande. He didn’t have the strength to open them. The others, though, those he knew by heart; he had read them many times after he had received them and even more after she disappeared. They were all from Zara.
Alexander opened one letter, then another and another, and the more he read, the more his smile widened.
Everything he needed to figure out was right there in front of him. Clear as day. Alexander held the letters close to his heart and whispered, ‘Thank you, Zara. Thank you,’ as he unpacked his bags after weeks of being in limbo.
In her letters, besides Bartholdi, Zara kept mentioning Viollet-le-Duc – the diocesan architect of Paris, famous for his creative restorations of buildings throughout France.
Why hadn’t he thought of this before? Of course. Art restoration. Art. Hadn’t that been his real dream all along? Finding lost paintings? He didn’t do it for his father. He did it because it made him happy and Zara knew it. She’d known it from the beginning.
And he could do so much more than just being a painting detective. He could save lost paintings from oblivion.
Alexander immediately called JJ and told him.
‘Ecole des Beaux-Arts,’ said JJ, without hesitation. ‘You could easily transfer and make up for credits. This is perfect, Alexander. You’ve made me so happy.’
He was happy too. For the first time in a very long time.
Making an impact on the world, ensuring the next generations got a chance to marvel at the fantastic creations of days past. That was something that made him feel excited about the possibilities. Making an impact by preserving centuries of history, by salvaging priceless and unique works of art.
He wrote down ‘restoration’, grabbed a jacket, and ran down the stairs. Went to the school library and found the name of the book he was looking for, Discourses on Architecture written by Viollet-le-Duc, but they didn’t have it there. A colleague suggested he ordered it from Galignani’s.
*
‘Please locate order 812,’ the bookseller said while holding a button on the desk.
‘Right away,’ a woman’s voice answered.
Alexander’s head snapped back. Something in her voice gave him pause. He had a strange feeling in his stomach. For some reason he couldn’t take his eyes off the side door.
A young woman with long brown hair and bright, inquiring eyes walked through the door seconds later.
‘This is for you, Monsieur,’ she said and gave Alexander the Viollet-le-Duc book.
Alexander took it and hesitated for a moment. ‘T-thank you,’ he stuttered.
Was it the same woman whose voice he’d heard earlier? He couldn’t tell. It could’ve been the same but distorted by the intercom. Although standing in front of her now, looking into her eyes, he didn’t feel anything. And when she gave him the book and their hands accidentally touched, still he felt nothing.
‘Your name wouldn’t be Zara by any chance, would it?’
It wasn’t the first time he’d asked a woman that. He knew it wasn’t her, yet…
She seem
ed confused. ‘No, Monsieur. My name is Florence. Can I help you with anything else?’
‘Do you have a catalog of art books?’ asked Alexander.
‘Are you interested in something in particular?’
‘Monet. I want to know if you have Monet’s Impressionism.’
‘I can help you look for it,’ said Florence, but the owner interrupted them.
‘Our bookstore assistant is quite the Monet expert. Let me call her.’
‘Ah, Father,’ said the young woman, rolling her eyes.
While he waited, Alexander thought he saw a copy of Monet’s Impressionism and grabbed it with trembling hands. Alas, his mind was playing tricks on him. It was just a random book. What did he expect? That Zara had sold the book to a bookstore? Why was he still looking for it? He’d found his copy, given it to her, and gotten his closure. No, he had to stop. Enough was enough.
The man pressed the intercom button. ‘Can you come up, please? The customer is asking about Monet’s Impressionism.’
He was ridiculous: asking random women if they were Zara, seeing the book everywhere. He had to stop.
‘No need, sorry to have bothered you. Thank you for the book, but I have to go,’ he said, and left.
Alexander hesitated for a second in front of the door, without knowing why, his hand still on the handle. Then he let go and walked away.
DOMINIQUE
28 DECEMBER 1961
PARIS
It had been a year since Dominique moved to Paris. She loved Vincent, her job, her small studio overlooking the Eiffel Tower, and Constance and her dedication to Le Petit Coin café. She had a good life and she was happy, so why was she still having those dreams? Those reveries? She thought they would stop once she found Vincent, but they didn’t. She dreamed of museums, the Louvre, and of walking along the Seine. Of late nights sitting on a terrace and looking at the sky. Of paintings and sometimes faraway places. Why did she dream of Vincent in Milan when she had just said goodnight to him in Paris? The dreams didn’t make any sense anymore and all they did was to confuse her and make her overthink everything, all the time.
How she wished her mother was there to advise her, to explain to her how it all worked. To comfort her and tell her it was normal, that they were perhaps just regular dreams.
Dominique tried talking to Constance about it, but she acted like she had no idea what the dreams were and quickly ended the conversation.
So she called Lisa.
‘You know me and these dreams. I’m not much of a believer. I’ve always thought there’s an explanation for everything. Maybe you dream of Milan because you want to go visit, and of museums because you love them so much.’
Although not much help with the dreams, Lisa did give Dominique something to think about.
For a while now, she’d had this lingering feeling that something was missing from her life.
Almost like a sense of purpose. She enjoyed the bookstore and wandering the Parisian museums and looking at paintings, but sometimes when she noticed other people, mostly tourists doing the same thing, she felt small. Like she wasn’t leading the life she was supposed to. What if there was more to it than arranging books? She was proud to help people and see their joy when they got a book they had been looking for, but she needed more. Perhaps she could do something with her art knowledge. But what? There was no obvious choice she could make.
One night, she had a dream. She was walking on a street close to the Louvre, and she could see its massive gates in the corner of her eye. Then she stopped in front of a boy who was handing out fliers and took one. The writing wasn’t clear; all she was able to read was ‘January and June’. ‘This has your name all over it,’ she heard before she woke up.
The next day, Dominique kept thinking about the dream and in the evening, after work, she went to the Louvre. She walked around, until she thought she found the exact spot from her dream. But there was no boy there with a stack of papers in his hand. Disappointed, she went back to her room at the Louvre. The secret room with the Monet. Vincent wasn’t there. He had left that morning for Milan, to review some paintings.
She sat on the bench for quite a while. When she got up to leave, she spotted something under the bench. A piece of paper. She picked it up.
Ecole de Louvre
Become an Art Curator at the world’s largest art museum
Imagine yourself responsible for the biggest Impressionism collection in the world
Classes start in January and June
She stared at it.
Art curator? Impressionism?
Dominique was elated. It was all so obvious. So simple. Why hadn’t she thought of it before? Among other things, art curators did restorations like Viollet-le-Duc. And she would work on Impressionists.
Maybe Lisa was right and there was an explanation for all her dreams. Just like she was right that Dominique loved museums. Whether she’d had the dream because subconsciously she wished to do something with her life that involved museums, or she had the dream for some other reason… Either way, it had led her to the answer she had been looking for.
Dominique rushed home.
‘Constance, where are you? I have news, big news!’
‘What’s going on? Did we win the lottery?’ asked Constance.
‘Better than that. I know what I’m going to do.’
‘Do with what?’
‘My life.’
Constance laughed. ‘I thought you already knew. You’ll marry Vincent, you’ll have beautiful children, a big house, and everything will be perfect.’
‘No, I mean what I’m going to do with my life.’
‘Isn’t that your life?’
‘We’re all meant to do something in this world. I think you are meant to restore this café and become the most beloved chef in the whole of Paris. France, even.’
Constance smirked.
‘And I am meant to become the best art expert in France. Why not?’
‘And how are you going to do that?’
‘I’m going to Ecole de Louvre.’
‘They have a school at the museum?’
‘The best art school in the country. In Europe. In the world.’
‘I thought that was Ecole des Beaux-Arts,’ said Constance.
‘Not if you want to be a curator.’
‘And you want to be a curator?’ she asked, somewhat amused.
Dominique nodded excitedly. ‘I will study museology and art history, and yes, it will take me quite a few years, but this is it for me. This is what I want to do. I want to learn all there is to know about art, and there’s no better place for it. And guess what? Classes start in a few days.’
‘Dominique dear, where did this come from? This new idea of yours? Don’t tell me. One of your dreams?’
Dominique smiled innocently.
Constance sighed. ‘When will you understand dreams are dangerous? They only lead to disappointment.’
‘Are you speaking from experience?’ Dominique snapped.
Constance looked away.
‘Wait a minute. Did you have these dreams too?’
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘Constance,’ pushed Dominique.
‘I said I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘I should’ve known. Lisa had them too when she was young, but she chose to ignore them. Of course you had them as well.’
Constance made a dismissive gesture with her hand. ‘Even if I did, I chose not to listen to them. Just like my mother. Not everyone can be like you and live in a fantasy. Here on Earth, the rest of us struggle with petty things like surviving, having money for food, looking out for our family.’
‘That’s not fair. You and Lisa are all the family I have, and I do my best to help. And I will not stop, just because I go to school.’
Constance’s face fell. ‘I’m sorry, that was mean. You are helping a lot and I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for your support. The café would be just a dream.’ She go
t up to leave then stopped. ‘You know, we’re not just cousins.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘My mother adopted you. We’re – we’re like sisters, aren’t we? And sisters are supposed to stick by each other,’ she said and hugged Dominique. ‘If this is really what you want, go for it. Whether it came from a dream or not.’
DOMINIQUE
9 DECEMBER 1962
PARIS
Becoming an art curator was no easy feat. Four years of studying and internships at various museums in Paris just to get the degree, then eighteen months of full-time apprenticeship at art institutions in Île-de-France through the Institut du Patrimoine. Those were six years of her life she would dedicate to studying and there were no guarantees she would get a curator position when she was done. There were only a handful of spots every year and over two hundred art students fighting for them. More knowledgeable art students. Better prepared. With years of art classes behind them, and wealthy and influential families who supported them.
But that didn’t stop Dominique. She threw herself into her passion, with all her energy, and when she wasn’t working or helping Constance, she studied and read as much as she could. She was going to make it. No matter what it took.
In October, at the end of the second semester at Ecole de Louvre, she was in the top three in her class. Because of her excellent results, she was given a choice between the Louvre and Marmottan for a three-month museum internship, and managed to surprise everyone when she didn’t go for the obvious. Marmottan meant more to her than ten Louvres, but how could anyone understand?
*
One morning, on her way to the mezzanine of the museum for her daily archiving tasks, she noticed a door that usually stayed locked was now slightly open. She hesitantly went in.
The walls were covered in paintings, sketches and drawings, all nicely framed.
‘They are lovely, aren’t they?’ she heard and turned to see an older man behind her.