Cezanne's Quarry (34 page)

T
HE THUMP OF
Z
OLA’S WALKING STICK
sounded a slow, hollow retreat down the marble hall. Cézanne waited until his friend reached the staircase, then 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 used 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?”

“That she hated me? No, never.” The artist’s body was limp, his voice barely audible. “Never. She hated me. Because I was a coward.” He was talking to himself more than to Martin. “I loved her so much. I thought she loved me. She was always so beautiful, so gracious with me.” He looked up at Martin. “Are you sure it was me? Did she say she hated me?”

He was pitiful. “Should I read you her words? Will that help your
memory
?” Martin said as he got up to open the door to his cabinet.

Cézanne held up his hand and shook his head. Martin caught his breath in relief. He had gotten carried away, and forgotten that the letter was hidden among Solange’s clothes. He did not want to go fishing for it in front of the suspect and Joseph. As he closed the door, he caught a glimpse of the forlorn white and green striped dress folded neatly in a box and saw before him the image of the older Solange, of the woman that Sophie had become. He shut the door and held his hand against it, as if his physical force could hold back these images.

“M. Cézanne,” he said quietly. “Did you ever see Mme Vernet without her gloves?”

“Do you mean . . . did I see her . . . unclothed?”

“No,” Martin retorted sharply. “I asked about her gloves. When she went out.”

Cézanne shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“When we found the body, she was not wearing them. Did Mme Fiquet tell you we were looking for them in Gardanne?”

“No, no.” His head was still shaking in confused denial.

Too confused. Too complacent for Martin’s taste. He let go of the door to his cabinet and sat down. “We think,” he said through clenched teeth, “we believe, that they might be covered with paint and blood. Your paint. Solange Vernet’s blood.”

“I’ve told you.” The artist was rocking back and forth in the chair. “I’ve told you. I have not been near her for months.”

“M. Cézanne, if you denied seeing Mme Vernet being raped as a girl, and we know that you did see this heinous crime, how can we believe you when you say that you did not kill her?”

“I did not. I could not. This is impossible.”

“Maybe you did it in your sleep. In your dreams.” Martin hoped his sarcasm would smite the artist.

“No, no. I sleep either in Gardanne or at the Jas. Ask anyone.”

Said in all innocence. Where Cézanne slept, of course, did not matter. Solange Vernet’s rendevous with death must have taken place in the late afternoon or evening. Martin stared at the artist. Had he been so obsessed that he could commit a murder in his waking hours and not know it? Only an alienist could answer that question. If Martin were dealing with some kind of madman, he was well over his head.

But Cézanne did not look mad or crazy. He looked sad, broken down. Martin took one more stab at provoking him. “You know now, don’t you, that you had run across Solange Vernet when you were young and strong, and you chose not help a poor girl—”

“Yes. Yes!” Cézanne obviously did not want to hear him say it again. “What do you want me to do, tear out my eyes? Tell the whole world what a coward I am? That I am blind! What do you want me to do? All I know is that if she said it, it must be so.”

If she said it, it must be so.
The poor bastard was still in love with her. In love with the fantasy of his own making. In love with a corpse. Martin sighed. It all seemed so hopeless. It would be so much easier if he did not believe Cézanne. Incapable of lying, isn’t that what Zola had claimed? Westerbury’s words also rang out with the same egotistical, passionate truth.
I aspire to greatness! I loved her! That’s enough to prove my innocence!
These two were more alike than either of them was willing to admit. To decide between them, Martin needed evidence. The gloves, the knife, the boy, more witnesses. Something!

Cézanne was staring at him. Martin rose to his feet.

“You may go.”