by Olivia Lara
12 MARCH 1974
CAMBRIDGE
A week went by. Two. Almost three and he hadn’t heard from her. No explanation for not being at the Louvre to receive the Monet. Thankfully, he was able to stop the painting, at the last minute, from being sent back to Surrey. Monet was safe. But what about Dominique? Was she safe? What had happened? Where was she?
The Dominique he knew loved Monet more than… more than many of the things in her life, and she wouldn’t have – willingly – abandoned the painting.
Nobody at the Louvre was helpful. Not the board of directors, not her colleagues, despite his multiple attempts to contact them and get an update on Dominique. Finally, one of them told Anthony she had been on leave since 22 February.
On leave? Since 22 February? The day she was supposed to get the Monet. Something happened, he thought. Ghost or not, I can’t sit around, do nothing and not know what happened to the woman I love.
But Anthony knew he couldn’t just go to Le Petit Coin or her house to look for her and risk being recognized. He had to find another way into the café.
A young painter selling his sketches on Seine’s Rive Gauche became his way back into Le Petit Coin.
‘All you need to do is go across the street into that coffee shop and see if she’s there, if she seems okay, whatever you can find out. She’s hard to miss – a beautiful young woman, with long red hair, big green eyes. Here, take this,’ he said and pulled out of his wallet a folded piece of paper. The photo he had ripped from Le Monde a couple of months ago. It showed Dominique standing in front of the Monet painting at the Louvre, and next to her, in a wheelchair, JJ. It was hard for him to look at that photo. Not only because Dominique was in it, but because JJ was too. He seemed so old, so frail in that wheelchair and it broke his heart to see his godfather like that. It broke his heart that JJ thought he was dead, that he had mourned for him. At least he has Nicole and Dominique, he thought.
‘Monsieur?’ said the young artist, bringing Anthony back to reality.
‘Yes. Here is the photo. Only that she’s pregnant now. Visibly pregnant,’ said Anthony passing him a one-hundred franc bill.
A few minutes later the street artist returned. ‘She was there, monsieur, and she seemed alright but upset about something. It looked like she had been crying and her mother or her friend consoled her,’ he said. ‘But I almost came back to tell you I didn’t find her,’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Anthony.
‘The woman in the café is not pregnant. I looked twice. No baby belly, monsieur.’
DOMINIQUE
25 MARCH 1974
PARIS
Seeing Vincent’s sad face and watching Anne trying to hold back her tears was just as heartbreaking for Dominique as the miscarriage itself.
It had all happened so fast. The pain had been so unbearable, she couldn’t take another step. She asked a passerby for help and they phoned the hospital. She was rushed to the emergency room, and all the way there all she could do was to hope and pray the baby was okay. But when the bleeding started, she knew the baby wasn’t fine. And the doctors confirmed the devastating news. The baby hadn’t been ‘fine’ for a while, she was told; his heart had stopped beating weeks ago.
‘You could’ve died too,’ said the doctor, trying to comfort her. He went on to explain that she’d already had blood poisoning and she risked serious conditions, some irreversible if she had waited longer.
Vincent, who had been by her side through it all, comforted her and assured her everything would be alright.
But Dominique didn’t want to hear all that. She didn’t want to hear anything from anyone. It wasn’t going to be alright. Her baby had died and she was mourning the son she never got a chance to hold, the hopes and dreams she had for him, for all of them together. And she felt guilty. She hadn’t been able to protect her baby.
Dominique didn’t get up from bed for days.
‘Maman, I made you breakfast,’ said Anne one morning. It had been days since she had left her room.
Dominique was just about to tell her daughter she didn’t want anything, when she saw the look in her eyes. Sadness, worry, pain. All so visible on the face of her eight-year-old daughter, who was mourning the loss of her unborn brother as well. It wasn’t just her who had suffered a loss. They all had.
‘Thank you, my angel,’ she said, forcing herself to get up. ‘I’ll eat, but on one condition.’
‘Anything,’ said Anne.
‘That you eat with me.’
Anne smiled and sat in bed next to her mother.
‘Dada is so worried about you,’ she said.
‘I know, honey, I’m sorry. I haven’t been feeling very well lately.’
‘Because of the baby.’
Dominique nodded.
‘But you’re not upset with Dada?’
‘Of course not. He did nothing wrong.’
‘Are you upset with me then?’
‘Oh, honey,’ she said and hugged her daughter tight. ‘Why would I be upset with you? You’re the most wonderful daughter.’
‘In the whole world?’ asked Anne, smiling.
‘In the whole universe,’ she said.
‘I love you, Maman,’ said Anne, tears pooling in her eyes.
‘I love you too, honey.’
*
Later that day she finally left her room. It wasn’t easy and it took Dominique weeks to fully recover, not only physically but also mentally. But she knew she had to do it. By the end of March, she decided it was time to go back to work. Even if she wasn’t fully ready to face the world, she had to get dressed, leave the house and force herself back into her old life. She owed that to her family and herself.
Everyone had been supportive and caring, but all she wanted was to be treated like before, and for everybody to stop looking at her with pity and let her go back to normal and to her job.
‘That’s if I still have a job,’ she said, thinking about the European Restoration Initiative.
On her desk at the Louvre: a pile of letters, cards, and a few bouquets of flowers. Enough, she thought, and wanted to throw them all away but stopped right before tossing the correspondence in the trash, when she saw an envelope from Anthony Peltz.
Dear Mrs Saint Germain,
I was told you would be coming back to work at the end of March and I wanted to let you know the Monet has been waiting in storage for your return. I have attached all the details.
Please keep me posted on the progress you’re making.
Thankfully, we have secured a new round of funding, so I will be traveling for the next three, maybe four months to try and find other artworks in need of our help.
But do continue to address all letters for me to the Louvre Museum and they will forward them along. Rest assured, I will always find time to read your notes and write back.
Yours truly,
Anthony Peltz
Dominique was moved. Moved and intrigued by his message and although she suspected her colleagues had mentioned her health issues to him, they denied it. Why was he nice to her? Anyone else would’ve reassigned the Monet long ago. Fourteen other people would’ve given anything for a chance to work on it.
She was thankful, though, for having that unexpected break and didn’t want to risk questioning it too much. Not knowing how to thank him properly, she decided the best way was to do her job to the best of her abilities.
DOMINIQUE
17 MAY 1974
CAMBRIDGE
Dominique worked hard with her team to revive the Monet and over the last few weeks had received a couple more paintings from Anthony Peltz, shipped from Germany and Italy, precious artwork that somehow survived World War II, hidden in attics and basements.
She did her best not to break her promise to Anthony Peltz and kept him up to date with the progress of the restorations.
Her letters to him were initially simple, short notes. Sparse, once every couple of weeks. Then they became more frequent
as he wrote back with questions and suggestions, sometimes challenging her decisions, other times praising her good judgment. The more he replied, the more she wrote back. He is a man I could have long conversations with, she thought.
Luckily, she was trained in having interminable conversations, especially about art. She chuckled thinking of all the late evenings when she and Anne would sit by the fire sipping hot cocoa and talking about Renoir, Degas, Pissarro, and Monet. Always Monet.
Anne inherited the love for art from her grandfather perhaps, along with a passion for all things beautiful, and that inexplicable weakness for Monet. When she was a little girl, instead of playing with dolls and staying busy with tea parties and dress-ups, Anne taught herself how to paint from Dominique’s books and albums. When she learned how to read, there was no stopping her. She was a sponge for all things art.
*
One Friday in May, after coming home from school, Anne pulled Dominique away and told her, in the most secretive way possible, ‘You have to take me to London.’
‘What’s in London?’ asked Dominique amused. ‘Don’t tell me. An art exhibition.’
‘A once-in-a-lifetime art exhibition, Maman,’ she said enthusiastically.
Dominique chuckled.
‘Never-before-displayed Monet paintings, from a private collection. Only for the weekend.’
‘What weekend?’ Surely, she couldn’t mean that weekend. It was already Friday night.
‘Tomorrow and Sunday. Can we go? Maman, please, can we go? This is the only thing I want. Look, don’t get me anything for my birthday.’
‘Your birthday is in December. By then you’ll find other things,’ she said, smiling.
‘I promise, nothing else, please,’ Anne whined. Anne always remembered she was a child when she wanted something desperately.
Dominique’s first reaction was to say no. Too last minute, too complicated, too far. Then her daughter’s words echoed in her mind along with memories of herself as a little girl. ‘This is the only thing I want.’ She gave in. If it was in her power to make Anne happy, to make her dreams come true, she always did. People might’ve judged her and thought that was bad parenting, but Anne grew up happy, respectful and not too spoiled.
They planned to be on the first flight to London the next morning and come back that same night because JJ wasn’t well, and Dominique didn’t want to leave him alone for too long.
What Anne ‘forgot’ to mention was that the museum was not in London; it was a hundred kilometers north, in Cambridge. When they finally arrived, the Fitzwilliam Museum was already flooded by a sea of visitors, all in a hurry to get inside for different exhibitions, so it took them a while to find the end of the line for the Monet art gallery. It looked like a solid two-hour wait.
Dominique hadn’t anticipated that many people being interested in a collection of paintings, but she’d obviously misjudged a Saturday morning in England.
Anne was anxious so Dominique asked the ticket lady if her daughter could go in and wait inside until she could buy the tickets; especially since the event was free for children under the age of twelve. The woman said it didn’t make a difference to her if it was fine with her mother to leave the child unattended. Dominique trusted her daughter more than she trusted most adults. She kissed her and sent her in.
An hour and a half later, Dominique finally got in, and immediately realized how difficult it would be to find Anne since the place was swarming with people.
She made her way through the crowd and must’ve been halfway through the immense hall when she stopped short, looking around, almost in disbelief. She knew this place. She had dreamed about it the night before. Paintings were being hung on the walls in her dream, but it was the same place, she was certain. And there was a man. Who was he? What was he doing? It was such a short dream. She couldn’t remember. Ever since she’d started having the dreams again, they were shorter, not like before. They were few and far apart, most of them confusing. Voices and faces she couldn’t remember. And sadness. There was a lot of sadness.
Dominique started walking again, looking for Anne when suddenly she found herself unable to breathe. On the other side of the hall, her eyes singled out one person. A man. Actually, a man’s back because he faced the opposite way. There was something about him. His height, posture, something reminded her – no, it wasn’t possible, but it reminded her of Alexander.
Her heart raced to the point of having actual palpitations.
Dominique breathed in and out a few times and closed her eyes for a second, thinking the illusion would go away but when she opened them, that man was still standing there.
They say you see the people you love in every person you meet – it’s only natural. Dominique tried to calm herself. It’s not him. She knew that, but still, her heart told her something else. She stood there, among all those people pushing her to make way, but she didn’t budge. She couldn’t move and risk losing that illusion.
For a few seconds, she forgot about the rules of humankind, about living and death, about what was possible and not and just looked at the back of a man her heart told her was the love of her life. A few seconds were more than she’d had in almost ten years.
‘You didn’t hear me calling you?’ She heard the voice like she was in a dream.
Anne stood next to her with a big smile on her pretty face.
‘Best day ever. Thank you, Maman, I love you.’ She jumped into her mother’s arms.
When Dominique finally turned around, the man was gone. Had he been there in the first place or had she imagined it? Wished it? Dreamed it? Her mind was a trickster. It knew how much her heart desired it to be true, how much her soul longed for him.
He is gone. He has been gone for a long time, Dominique. You were fine. For almost five years you were fine. You let go. Didn’t you? Dominique now wondered if she ever had. Given up on him. On their love. Even when she said she didn’t believe, when she forced herself to move on, there was always a part of her that hoped against hope. Her soul longed for the missing piece. And it seemed it was more powerful than ever. That longing. That feeling of living someone else’s life, smiling someone else’s smiles and saying someone else’s words. She had never really given up, had she?
*
‘So close. You were so close to finding him. What did you do? Did you look for him?’
‘I looked for him everywhere, but he was nowhere to be found. He disappeared, and I thought it was all a dream or wishful thinking. I didn’t know for sure. And if it was him, then why didn’t he come to me?’ I ask and wink.
‘You’re tricking me, aren’t you? You saw each other outside, right? He came to you.’
‘I’m afraid not,’ I say and see the disappointment in her eyes.
ANTHONY
6 JUNE 1974
PARIS
Weeks after the Monet exhibition in Cambridge, Anthony still thought of that day and the mix of emotions that took his senses by storm. Excitement, longing, love, panic.
He didn’t know what caused that acute feeling of fear. That she wouldn’t understand why he hadn’t told her the truth and she would hate him for it. That her love for him had long been gone. That she had forgotten him. That it had never been real.
Or that after five seconds with her, he would get the confirmation his new life was a complete sham and a lie. That it meant nothing without her in it and he couldn’t continue doing the right thing and not telling Dominique he was alive.
He saw her the moment she walked in. He shouldn’t have lingered and risked being seen.
Wasn’t that what you wanted? Why are you running away now? You were the one who dreamed of seeing her, being close to her. Is this close enough for you? Is it? What did you think would happen? You should’ve kept your distance. This was inevitable the moment you secretly made your way into her life again. Inevitable. Stupid man, Anthony scolded himself as he went up the stairs to his office on the second floor of the Fitzwilliam Museum.
He felt alone. He felt like a fraud. What was the right thing to do; did he have any options? He was caught in a vicious circle.
Since the exhibition, his letters to Dominique were replaced by short notes. But she seemed to become more persistent the more he withdrew. Was he making a mistake, yet again, by trying to distance himself from her?
Dominique’s letters slowly became more than just about the paintings. She dropped a thing here and there about her life, the museum, her adventures in Paris, and he slowly got caught in it. How could he not? He was starving for anything Dominique. The smallest of details.
One day, in early June, he received a short note from her letting him know she was taking a couple of weeks off to spend time with a family member who was gravely ill.
For some reason, he immediately thought of JJ and, doing his best not to arouse suspicion, he asked for details.
It was indeed JJ. He had suffered a hemorrhagic stroke a few years back and a second one a few weeks before. He had been recovering slowly but his muscles were extremely weak, and he had difficulty walking. So weak, he needed a wheelchair. Which Anthony already knew from the photo. But it was worse than he imagined. JJ could barely talk; his speech was slurred to the point of being hardly comprehensible and oftentimes he showed signs of mental confusion. He’d also developed glaucoma in both eyes and that made life much harder for him.
Dominique told him that JJ missed his art, he missed being useful, and spending time in his library, reading his books and going to auctions all over the world. He talked about his wife more and more, the friends he had lost decades before, his childhood adventures.
Dominique couldn’t give him back the life or the people he had lost but at least she could make sure he would know how much he was loved and how many people cared about him.
‘I want him to spend his birthday with his family,’ she wrote to Anthony, ‘and although the doctors say JJ is confused most of the time and won’t appreciate the effort, I think they are wrong. JJ knows – I know he does. I will sign his release papers on Friday, after they finish all the tests they need to run. I don’t want to make him stay in the hospital a minute more than necessary.’