Murder On The Rue Cassette (A Serafina Florio Mystery) (22 page)

“Here’s one. She knew the
proprietor and bought art books and prints from him.” They entered a small shop
near the Seine, cheek by jowl with antique stores and book sellers.

The wooden façade gleamed with a
new coat of paint and shellac in the blue color Serafina associated with Paris.
Perhaps the French were the only ones capable of creating it, an ultramarine so
deep there were purple overtones. The gold script proclaimed, “
Thomas d’Automne et Fils depuis 1836
” and in the window were
displayed thick tomes containing plates of paintings by David, Jean Auguste
Ingres, Delacroix, Gérome, Poussin, Fragonard, and surprisingly Édouard Manet,
but none of the other new painters. Strange that Elena would frequent such a
traditional shop, but then she remembered the prints she’d seen in her ladies’
parlor, reproductions of paintings by David.

As they entered, Serafina noticed
the shop had a few tourists paging through books. The walls held floor to
ceiling books. Behind the counter, she saw hundreds of small drawers with brass
pulls, no dust, but the exquisite odor of finely crafted paper and binding, the
scent lingering and high pitched, along with the unmistakable smell of
sandalwood and old leather. Something about the store yellowed the light,
antiqued the world and made it turn more slowly.

Loffredo’s face was inscrutable.

Presently a short, round man
with a mustache, white hair, and bushy black eyebrows emerged from the back.

He frowned at them. “Do I know
you? Now let me see,” the man said, combing his mustache with a thumb, “I
recognize you, young man, but not this woman.” Serafina detected a wry smile.

“Forgive my appearance,” she
said.

“An encounter with some Parisian
ruffians,” Loffredo explained.

The man was somewhat solicitous.
Also wary.

“We’ve come to ask you about one
of your customers, Elena Loffredo.”

The proprietor furrowed his
brows. “Give me a moment.”

They were silent until the man
remembered.

“The countess, no?”

They nodded.

The man cocked his head. “Now
when was the last time she was in the store? Hmm.” He thought for a moment. “I
could look it up, but if you bear with me ...” He stared into the space beyond
his customers. “Could have been March. Yes. Wasn’t yet spring, but a hint of
spring. Students still puffing their breath, I remember. The light, silvery.”
He closed his eyes. “And she came into the store, drawn by the David plates. I
had them in the window at the time. Impeccably attired, I might say, as always.
Yes. She bought three prints, portraits, the Comtesse Vilain and her daughter,
the portrait of Madame Récamier, and the portrait of Emilie Sériziat and her
son. Said they were for her ladies’ room. She wanted them framed, she trusted
my taste. They were to be hung on a small vertical wall adjacent to her desk.
She said she was particularly haunted by the portraits of the women with their
children.”

“How did she seem to you, in a
hurry, wistful, flighty, haughty?”

“I ... really couldn’t say.
Except ... how should I put this? The countess could be all of those things in
the space of a few minutes.” He smiled, gave the question greater
consideration. “At peace, I’d say. Not flighty, no. At peace. She said she felt
the world changing around her while she stood still. She’d had quite enough of
doing this and that. She said she needed to do something with her life.”

Chapter
29: An Evening with
Les Mardistes

Serafina was thinking when
Carmela burst into her room and said, “Elena may be painting in the south of
France.”

“Explain.”

“What happened to your hair?
You’ve been with Loffredo, haven’t you?” And Carmela spit out his name as if
she were the mother and Serafina, the wayward child.

Serafina remained calm, neither
denying nor apologizing. “Tell me how you know Elena is in the south of
France.”

“Don’t change the subject. You
and your lover, that ... Elena’s husband, because of your selfishness with him
may have just ruined your reputation. You are beyond repair. Our family will be
devastated. As it is, we hang by a thread. You don’t know what’s going on
because you don’t want to know.”

She saw herself in her
daughter’s rant. Perhaps it was because she was physically spent by the
afternoon’s efforts, or perhaps it was because she was purged of emotion by the
fight with the don’s spies. Perhaps it was because she knew her own heart, or
perhaps because of how well the investigation was proceeding, but she wasn’t
angry with her daughter, not in the least. Serafina marveled at how Carmela’s
temperament matched her own, emotions raw and quick to come to the boil and
with such a tongue. But Carmela was unsettled. She must help her find herself
and in so doing, help to save the family which she knew was in peril. Sicily
could no longer support their work. The don would never give up. They must make
a decision. She must help Carmela find something special, work close to
landscape design.

“Loffredo and I were together this
afternoon, you’re right, but not in the way you mean. Sit next to me. Tell me
what you know about Elena. If she’s alive, we need to find her.”

“Teo, Arcangelo, and Tessa were the
ones responsible for finding the artist who knew her,” Carmela said, sitting
down and visibly subdued.

“How?”

“I’m not quite sure, but the
three of them spend their days near the exhibit on the Boulevard des Capucines.
I think Arcangelo and Teo walk around the area while Tessa goes inside. They’ve
gotten invitations to many of the artists’ studios that way. Some, Tessa said,
do work she admires. Others, not so much. If they ask, she tells them she’s an
artist with a studio in Italy and would like to study in Paris. But most of the
time she talks to them about their work and they are thrilled to show it to
her, unless of course they are deep into their painting and then they don’t
respond.”

Carmela paused and smoothed her
skirt.

“Of course,” Serafina said. “Go
on.”

“Today Tessa met Paul
Cézanne—he has some works in the exhibit.”

Serafina nodded. “With a
southern feel.”

Carmela seemed surprised at the
remark. “Tessa told him how much she loved his work, the lines, the color, the
feeling—you know how Tessa talks. She asked him about his palette, how he
mixes paints, stretches the canvas, what size he works in, like that. Anyway,
he gave her his card and invited her to visit his studio on the Rue de
Vaugirard. They ran back to the hotel for me, and the four of us got quite a
tour. While Tessa and I were asking him some technical questions, Arcangelo and
Teo looked at all the canvases, his brushes, his stretching tools, the rolls of
linen in a corner, his work area. The light in the room was breathtaking, the colors,
the smell of gesso and linseed oil—I shall never forget it.”

Serafina nodded then imagined
Arcangelo in the studio. “He can’t see colors, you know.” She smiled.

“I know. He sees bright colors,
he told me, but not subtle gradations. How much of life he misses.” Carmela
continued. “Teo saw a painting lying in the corner, very different from the
rest of Cézanne’s work. It wasn’t his work, the artist told Teo, but belonged
to a friend, an aspiring artist. Cézanne said he tried to encourage his friend
to paint, to attend one of the many ateliers associated with the École des
Beaux Arts, but she wasn’t interested. Time was running out for her, she told
Cézanne, and anyway she wasn’t interested in what the school had to offer her.
She wanted to paint, to do nothing else, to immerse herself in the world of
sight and art, but confessed that she became easily distracted. ‘A countess,
you know, flits here, goes there,’ he told Teo.”

“So how does he know she’s in
the south of France?” Serafina asked.

“I’m getting to that. He told
her the best thing for her would be to get away from Paris, go someplace where
she wouldn’t be distracted, and paint. ‘Paint, paint, paint, until your
eyeballs drop out of your head. Then paint some more’—his words. He
suggested the south of France, perhaps Arles or Aix. She thought she might just
do that, leave everything and disappear for a year. The canvas was signed Elena
Loffredo.”

Serafina was silent for a while.
“And you didn’t press him? Did he seem to withhold, know more than he told?”

“Perhaps,” Carmela said, “but
I’m not like you. I don’t have the art of drawing people out.”

“Nonsense.” Serafina looked out
at the scene below in the Place du Palais Royal but saw only the thoughts in
her head. If Elena were alive, she had disappeared, left a kitten in her
apartment to starve. If that was the case, how depraved had she become? If she
disappeared, it would be to change her life in a major way, not as a lizard
changes his skin, but a change from the inside out. Would she do that? Could she
do that? What had caused her to think this way? How would she fare without her
friends? Did any of them know about this plan, other than Cézanne? If she was
in the south of France, how would Serafina find her? How could Elena have gone
there without all of her friends knowing?

“What did you think of her
painting?”

Carmela shrugged. “I’m not the
one to ask. I can’t criticize another’s work. Tessa called it muddy. The
composition was beautiful, but the overall impression was ... of someone just
beginning to paint.”

“What do you think we ought to
do?”

“Tessa began talking to him
about her work and he invited all of us to attend a salon this evening. He
called it ‘
Les Mardistes
’
because it meets on Tuesdays at
the home of Stéphane Mallarmé on the Rue de Rome. He thought if she were still
in town, Elena would be there, and if she wasn’t there, perhaps someone else
would know her whereabouts. He said the salon this evening would be
well-attended because Pissarro and his wife planned to be there, an attraction,
especially for the group of painters he formed.

“Will Cézanne be there?”

“Of course. And he thinks that
many musicians will attend. Mallarmé is a symbolist.”

Whatever that was.

“What should we wear?” Carmela
asked.

“One of your new dresses, of
course, the indigo would suit your eyes and hair. You’d stand out in the crowd,
I believe,” Serafina said.

“I don’t want to stand out. I
want to blend in. From our visits to the artists’ studios and to the exhibit,
from the dress of women in their work, I think the women’s outfits will be
unique, colorful, stylish without being slaves to the latest fashion. I think
the clothes we wore on the trip with a tuck here, a slight change
there—they’d be more appropriate than the new dresses Giulia created for
us.”

Rosa walked in. “Wear what you
want and make it unique, a reflection of your soul, and don’t make such a
fuss.”

Serafina sent a note to Loffredo
telling them where they’d be that evening and asking him to please join them,
but he declined, saying he’d wait for their return in the hotel lobby because
he had something important to discuss.

In the end, they dressed the way
they wanted, but with help from Giulia who was summoned at the last minute. The
daughter who had come to Paris to work at the heart of high fashion altered
this, tucked that, changed the jewelry they chose to wear and created unique
costumes. They looked like free spirits. Well, almost.

An hour later, Serafina’s group
stood in the middle of a high-ceilinged room with large windows on one wall
overlooking a park. They huddled together, and as they looked around, they
found all kinds of attire, all of it interesting. Most of the furniture had
been pushed aside to accommodate the large crowd. Guests stood in small
clusters or sat on the floor conversing, or pushed seats into a corner, sitting
close to one another. The talk was earnest, the mood ebullient. A few windows
had been opened to freshen the smoke-filled air, and a spring breeze wafted
inside, along with sounds from the street, the clomp of horses, the belch of a
train.

Most of the guests were artists,
that was clear. All were scrubbed for the event and in their finest clothes,
ready to absorb the program they knew would be a part of the evening.

“My daughter is a painter and
longs to study in Paris,” Rosa said to the man with a long white beard. He and
his wife had just been introduced to them by their host, Stéphane Mallarmé, a
small man with a goatee and warm, intense eyes.

“Then she should ask to join
l’atelier Julian
, just for the basics you
understand,” Camille Pissarro said, turning to Tessa. “There you’ll learn
proportion and perspective, how to mix color. All theory, no art. But don’t
stay more than a year. It will ruin your soul if you try to ape the classics.
That’s what the Salon does not understand. We love the classics, Rembrandt,
David, Ingres, but we reject convention. The world has moved on, thanks to us.
It is by concentrating on line and color, the quality of the light, by drawing
the edges of what you see, the shape of the objects that you wish to paint,
mademoiselle—this is how to become a painter.” His wife nodded and
smiled.

“I love your work, the peace of
the country, the quality of the brush strokes. It’s as if I’m inside the frame,
breathing in the scent of apple blossoms, or wiping the snow off my boots.”

Cézanne joined them. “Listen to
what this man says. Pontoise, indeed: all of France has changed because of him.
Our movement, you will see, will revolutionize art and thought.”

Serafina was lost in the meaning
of his words, but listened to the emotion behind them. She wondered how she
might change the subject to something more, what to say, more earthbound and
practical, like where to find Elena. The man the others called Camille and his
wife broke away with a smile and were engulfed in a knot of artists waiting to
greet them.

Serafina and her group were
interrupted by a woman with a tray of canapés and deviled eggs. She directed
them to a table filled with other hors d’oeuvres and drinks—more trays
heaped with crudités, trays with a selection of cheeses and fruits, and of
course bottles of beer and wine. Visitors swarmed the table.

“Get some food now before it’s
gone. This is a hungry crowd,” their host said.

“Hungry for words, you mean,”
someone said.

“Hungry for meaning.”

“Hungry to feed our souls.”

“Hungry to attain the highest
perfection.”

“Hungry for music.”

There was no way to change the
subject, unless she made it happen, Serafina realized and was about to ask
someone, anyone about Elena when Carmela broke in.

“Excuse me, but we came to the
party not only to be at the heart of artistic thought, but to search for a
friend of ours from our home town. I wonder if you know her, Elena Loffredo,”
she said to a group gathered around them.

No one replied until a painter
said, “I’d love to paint you, your hair, such golden reds, your skin, so
lovely.”

Serafina frowned at his
threadbare jacket, the smudge of paint on the collar of his shirt and his
purple nose. She heard a few others reply to Carmela but couldn’t catch the
words, except for the pleading man in painter’s smock.

Out of the corner of her eye she
saw Arcangelo, somehow separated from Teo, bending toward a woman who was
trying to talk to him, the woman stumbling slightly and sipping from a wine
glass, refilling it herself from the bottle she held in her hand. She touched
Arcangelo on the cheek with full lips and watched as he pulled at his sleeves.
Serafina grabbed Carmela and the two went over to rescue him.

“I asked her if she knew Elena,”
Arcangelo said, rouge smeared on his cheek. His face was flushed, his eyes,
pleading.

“Victorine,” Carmela said, “how
lovely to see you.” She introduced Serafina. Rosa joined them.

“We hear that Elena is in the
south of France.”

“Who told you? Weren’t s’posed
to say anything.”

“Oh well, we knew but not from
anyone in the room. Arles?”

“Not sure. Arles or
Aix-en-Provence, someplace down there. Think I might have the address in my
studio.” She gulped her wine. “Woman thinks she’s a painter. Nonsense. Fraud.
Slut. What does she know of painting, of ... posing?”

Serafina watched her,
fascinated. Her face was divine. She could see why artists loved to paint her.