Sacre Bleu (45 page)

“We won’t need a pistol.”

“That’s probably what Vincent thought that last day he went out to paint.”

Lucien started to argue, but instead said, “Strange, what Gauguin said about Vincent wanting to use blue only in night scenes.”

“Poor Vincent,” Henri said.

They had reached the mouth of the mine. Lucien knelt and pulled a match from his jacket pocket. “We should light the lanterns. Give me yours.”

“I’ll watch for rats,” said Henri.

“They won’t come out where it’s light. That’s why I had to go in here in the first place. To set my traps.”

“Why were you hunting rats?”

“For food.”

“No, really?”

“For my father’s pastries.”

“No, really?”

“The city was under siege. There was no other food.”

“Your father made rat pies?”

“The plan had been tureens—country
pâté
—but then there wasn’t enough bread to eat them with, so he made pies. The crusts were about half sawdust. Yes, rat pies, like Cornish pasties.”

“But I love your meat pasties.”

“Family recipe,” said Lucien.

They crept into the mine, lanterns held high. There was scurrying in the deep shadows.

“Was Berthe as beautiful as I imagine her?” asked Henri.

“I was seven. I was terrified. I thought the Colorman was torturing her.”

“I hope she’s here. I have a small sketch pad in my pocket.”

“She’s not going to be here. That was twenty years ago. She lives in Montparnasse with her husband and her daughter.”

“Oh, and all of a sudden we are bound by time and the possible.”

“Good point.”

“Thus, I brought a sketch pad.”

Suddenly a match ignited only a few feet in front of them and they both yelped and leapt back. Henri tripped over a rotting timber and scrambled to look around.

“My heroes, I presume,” said Juliette, holding the match to the wick of a lamp. She sat on a crate in her periwinkle dress; the
Blue Nude
was propped up against a timber behind her.

“Juliette,” said Lucien. He stumbled to her; his eyes filled with tears as he took her in his arms.

T
HIS WAS GOING TO REQUIRE SOME DELICACY, A CERTAIN FINESSE, A BIT
more subtlety than her normal strategy, which, in most cases, was to remove her clothes. As she kissed Lucien by the orange lantern light in the mine—felt him trying to wrap his very soul around her with his arms, pour it out to her from his heart, in tears, now damp and slick on their faces, as they shared breath and warmth, the moment frozen not by some magical means, but by the exclusive singularity of their embrace, where nothing existed that was not them—she thought:
It’s so much easier when you toss up your skirt, shout, “Voilà!” and you’re off to the races.
This was going to be complicated.

Toulouse-Lautrec cleared his throat loudly and glanced over his shoulder as if he’d been casually browsing around at the edge of the darkness and had only just noticed his friend voraciously snogging a girl down a mine.

Juliette broke the kiss, nipped Lucien’s ear, then pulled his head tight to her bosom and said, “
Bonjour,
Monsieur Henri.” She winked.

“
Bonjour,
mademoiselle,” said Henri, tipping his bowler hat, which was dusted with the white gypsum powder from the mine.

Lucien seemed to come awake, then, and pushed Juliette away, held her at arm’s length by her shoulders. “Are you all right? I thought you might be ill.”

“No, I’m fine.”

“We know all about the Colorman—how he controls you, all the models over the years. How they lose their memory and become ill. We know all of it.”

“You do?” She suppressed the urge to throw up her skirt and try for a bit of misdirection, but with Toulouse-Lautrec there and … well, it would be awkward. “You know all of it?”

“Yes,” said Lucien. “Camille Monet, Renoir’s Margot, even Henri’s Carmen—who knows how many there have been? We know he somehow enchants them—you—with his blue color, how time seems to stop. I was worried you wouldn’t even remember me.”

Juliette took Lucien’s hands and stepped away from him. “Well, that is very close to the truth,” she said. “Perhaps we should sit for a moment and I’ll explain.” She looked to Henri quickly. “Do you have a drink?”

Toulouse-Lautrec produced a silver flask from his jacket pocket.

“What is it?” she asked.

“In this one? Cognac.”

“Give,” she said.

Henri unscrewed the cap and handed the flask to Juliette, who took a quick sip and sat back down on her crate.

“You brought more than one flask?” Lucien asked Henri.

“We didn’t have a pistol,” said Henri with a shrug.

“Leave him alone, he’s rescuing me,” said Juliette, sitting splay-legged now, elbows on her thighs in the manner of pirates conspiring over a treasure map in the dirt. She toasted the two painters with the flask and took another drink. “Sit, Lucien.”

“But the painting—”

“Bonjour,
mademoiselle,” said Henri, tipping his bowler hat, which was dusted with the white gypsum powder from the mine.

Lucien seemed to come awake, then, and pushed Juliette away, held her at arm’s length by her shoulders. “Are you all right? I thought you might be ill.”

“No, I’m fine.”

“We know all about the Colorman—how he controls you, all the models over the years. How they lose their memory and become ill. We know all of it.”

“You do?” She suppressed the urge to throw up her skirt and try for a bit of misdirection, but with Toulouse-Lautrec there and … well, it would be awkward. “You know all of it?”

“Yes,” said Lucien. “Camille Monet, Renoir’s Margot, even Henri’s Carmen—who knows how many there have been? We know he somehow enchants them—you—with his blue color, how time seems to stop. I was worried you wouldn’t even remember me.”

Juliette took Lucien’s hands and stepped away from him. “Well, that is very close to the truth,” she said. “Perhaps we should sit for a moment and I’ll explain.” She looked to Henri quickly. “Do you have a drink?”

Toulouse-Lautrec produced a silver flask from his jacket pocket.

“What is it?” she asked.

“In this one? Cognac.”

“Give,” she said.

Henri unscrewed the cap and handed the flask to Juliette, who took a quick sip and sat back down on her crate.

“You brought more than one flask?” Lucien asked Henri.

“We didn’t have a pistol,” said Henri with a shrug.

“Leave him alone, he’s rescuing me,” said Juliette, sitting splay-legged now, elbows on her thighs in the manner of pirates conspiring over a treasure map in the dirt. She toasted the two painters with the flask and took another drink. “Sit, Lucien.”

“But the painting—”

“Sit!”

He sat. Luckily there was a small barrel behind him at the time.

Toulouse-Lautrec found a perch on a fallen timber and availed himself of his second flask.

“So, you probably have some questions,” she said.

“Like, why are you sitting in a mine?” said Henri.

“Including why I am sitting in a mine.” She continued. “You see, I needed Lucien to remember his first encounter with the blue, his very first encounter, back when he was a boy. I knew that he would remember this place, and I knew he would feel compelled to come here.”

“How did you know?” asked Lucien.

“I know you better than you think,” she said. She took another sip from the flask and held it out to him. “You’ll be wanting some of this.”

“I don’t understand,” said Lucien, taking the flask. “You knew about me coming to this place when I was a child? Seeing the Colorman? You couldn’t have been any older than I was.”

“Yes, well, I was there.”

“Did you see Berthe Morisot naked and covered in blue?” asked Henri, quite excited now.

“In a manner of speaking. I
was
Berthe Morisot naked and covered in blue.”

“Sorry?” said the two painters in unison, tilting their heads like confused dogs.

She shook her head, looked at the chalky dirt between her feet, thought of just how much simpler it would be if she could just shift time and make them both forget that this had ever happened. But alas, no. She said, “You were partially right about the Colorman being connected to all of those women, those models. But I am not
like
them, I
was
them.”

They both waited, each took a drink, looked at her, said nothing. Dogs watching Shakespeare.

“The Colorman makes the color—we call it Sacré Bleu—but I take over the models, enter them, as a spirit, control them, and when the Sacré Bleu goes onto the canvas, I can stop time, take the artists to places they have never been, show them things, inspire them. I
was
Monet’s Camille, I
was
Renoir’s Margot, I
was
Manet’s Victorine, many others, and for a very long time. I have been them all. When I leave them, they don’t remember because they weren’t there, I was.”

“You?” said Henri, who seemed to be having trouble catching his breath. “You were Carmen?”

She nodded. “Yes,
mon amour
.”

“Who—what, what are you?” said Lucien.

“I am a muse,” said Juliette.

“And you—you? What do you do?”

“I amuse,” she said.

She thought it best to let that sink in for a moment, as both of the painters looked mildly nauseated, as if they had consumed too much information and were fighting the need to purge it. She thought that revealing her nature this way, after keeping it a secret for so, so long, she would feel unburdened, liberated. Strangely, no.

“This would have been easier for you if I was naked, wouldn’t it? I thought about it, but lying around naked in a dark mine until you showed up, well, it seemed a little creepy. Look at Lucien’s painting, which is lovely, by the way, before you answer.” She grinned, to no effect at all.
Oh balls,
she thought,
this could be going better.

“I mean,” said Lucien, “what does Juliette do, when she’s not possessed by you?”

“I am Juliette.”

“Yes, you’ve said that,” said Henri. “But who is the real Juliette?”

“And when are you going to wipe her memories and kill her?” asked Lucien.

Balls! Balls! Balls! Great, fiery, dangling balls of the gods!

She took a deep breath before continuing. “Juliette is different. She didn’t exist before I created her. I really
am
her, she is me.”

“So you conjured her out of thin air?” asked Henri.

“Not exactly out of thin air. I have to start with something. I need the meat, so to speak. I found the body of a drowned beggar in the morgue and I shaped Juliette out of that and made her live. I created her for you, Lucien, to be exactly what you would want. To be with you, perfect, just for you.”