The Rules of Magic (39 page)

He checked out of the hotel in the Marais. He had very little with him, but there was enough cash left from Franny's generous gift so that he could shop at a music store near the Sorbonne. There he spent the afternoon searching for an instrument that might replace his cherished Martin left behind in the States.

He found the guitar at the end of the day. A Selmer, the kind the brilliant gypsy musician Django Reinhardt had used. Reinhardt's third and fourth fingers were paralyzed and became webbed after he suffered burns in a fire, but he continued on with a style that was his alone. The guitar Vincent chose was made of laminated rosewood with a walnut neck and an ebony fingerboard. It had been made in the early fifties, and had been banged around, but once Vincent picked it up he didn't want to let it go. He hadn't played since his fingers had been broken, and so he was tentative at first, but he thought of what Django had gone through, and how he'd managed to become one of the greatest jazz guitarists of all time, therefore he couldn't feel sorry for himself.

He was not as skilled as he once was; all the same, strumming the guitar felt like sorcery. The tone was so singular, so nearly human in its trembling pitch, it was as though he'd found his soul in a dusty shop. He was in Paris and he felt alive. Perhaps Agnes had been right: you remained who you were. Vincent bargained, but not too much because he wanted it so. And then he saw a little record player in a corner, a clever little machine fit into a rose-colored leather traveling case. He bought it without bargaining, full price, and he took it with him, tucked under his arm.

He went to a stationery store, where he bought an airmail
letter. He then sat at a café, ordered a coffee, and composed a message to his sisters. He told Jet that one of the best days of his life was when they arrived at the hospital after the accident to find she was alive. He reminded Franny of the story she had told about the minstrel who lost his voice.

He wrote that when he thought of the past he envisioned the three of them lying on the kitchen floor, eavesdropping on their father's therapy sessions. There they were, children trapped in a house they couldn't wait to get away from, but which he now missed every day.

You both rescued me every time I needed you. I hope I'm worthy of such kindness.

We were wrong about Maria's curse. It is simply the way of the world to lose everything you have ever loved. In this, we are like everyone else.

When he went to post the letter, he also had the record player boxed up and sent to April's address in California. He jotted a note on a piece of thin, white paper.
To my dear Regina, to whom I made a promise that I kept.

He did not need to write to William. Mrs. Durant had already taken care of that.

He tossed his backpack into a trash bin in the park where it could be discovered after he was gone. Everything he had, other than his guitar, was folded inside, including the key to 44 Greenwich Avenue. It was a portion of his life he would never
get back. Friends of Madame Durant's were stationed in the Tuileries. They had hung posters on lampposts and a crowd was already gathering. There was an atmosphere of expectation in the streets. Vincent's music was known in France and his underground tape often played.

Vincent wore a black suit. He kept a photograph of William in his shirt pocket, the one taken in California when the world was open to them. They had been standing on the dock in San Francisco and had persuaded a stranger to snap them together, arms entwined, the sky behind them a vivid blue. Tonight he had sipped a tincture of dogwood Madame had given him, so that his voice would come back to him.

For the date of the concert he'd chosen Samhain, All Hallows' Eve, the night of death and transformation. The sky was black and filled with stars and the leaves on the chestnut trees curled up as a sudden flash of cold descended upon the city. He stood on an overpass near the Louvre facing the crowd. The lamps in the park blinked as though they were fireflies. This was the moment he had seen in the three-sided mirror when he was fourteen. When a hush fell he sang the songs he had written in New York, beginning and ending with “I Walk at Night.” He had his fans, but most in the crowd had never heard of him. The last song was a river in which he would have happily drowned.

Isn't that what love makes you do? Go on trying, even when you're through, Go on even when you're made of ash, when there's nothing inside you but the past.

He felt the wolfsbane he had ingested earlier in the evening spreading through him. He was sinking into it as the herb
slowed his heart and his breathing became shallow in his chest. He could see everything he'd never seen before as time slowed down. The glimmering of the world. Those he'd loved who'd loved him in return. The gifts he'd been given. The years he'd had. He was so beautiful in that moment. Those who watched him gasped and forgot where they were. An enchantment took over and people stood in silence. White moths appeared from the grass. They spun past, higher all the time, until they disappeared into the sky.

Vincent was grateful this was the way he was able to leave behind everything he had known before. He collapsed, and when he could not be revived, a doctor who was a friend of Madame Durant's signed the death certificate at 11:58. It was still All Hallows' Eve. The temperature had dropped. Raindrops fell and splattered on the sidewalks. A private ambulance was sent for. Reporters had been called so they might witness his death. The leaves were curling in the cold and no one seemed to have the ability to speak. All was still, except for the siren as the ambulance pulled away, and then, at a little after midnight, the sound of the falling rain turned hard as it became ice striking against the sidewalks and the brown leaves of the chestnut trees.

Madame Durant was the one who made the funeral arrangements, acting swiftly so no questions would be asked. She had placed a very old disappearing spell over Vincent as he'd lain prone.
L'homme invisible.
From that moment on no one would ever figure out the private details of his life. All the same, the
newspapers were filled with reports of his strange death. There were insinuations, with some convinced he had taken his own life and others vowing there had been foul play. A small vigil had begun outside the hotel where he had stayed in the Marais, with flowers deposited in a fragrant muddy pile and white candles lit so that wax flowed into the gutter. The radio stations played “I Walk at Night” and people who didn't know Vincent's name found themselves singing the lyrics as they walked home from work.

The burial was at Père-Lachaise, the cemetery opened by Napoleon in 1804. Jet and Franny's plane was hours late, delayed by a storm in New York. William had traveled with them, wearing a black suit, carrying only a leather backpack. He spoke very little, and seemed so distant the sisters wondered if because he had the sight he had known this was to be his fate all along, to be traveling to France for a funeral.

They took a taxi to the main entrance of the cemetery on Boulevard de Ménilmontant, with William telling the driver that if he ignored stoplights they would pay him double his fare.

“We must be there,” William said.

“We will,” Jet assured him.

Franny simply stared out the window. She had barely spoken since the news had come. She was meant to protect him, and she had failed. Her plans had gone awry, and now he was lost to them. Once at the cemetery, they had soon become disoriented among the angels and monuments until a young man sent by Agnes Durant to search for the missing Americans guided them to the freshly turned grave.

“It can be very confusing here,” the young man said, as he led them down the gravel paths.

“Yes,” the sisters agreed. They had never been more confused in their lives. Why did their thoughts become blurry when they tried to think of their brother?

“This place is very old, and there are so many dead people,” explained their guide, who dressed much as Vincent might have, in a dark coat, with black Levi's from America and suede boots.

For Vincent to have had a heart attack at such a young age was unthinkable, but such was the doctor's report. The sisters could not conceive of a world in which he was gone. They had decided to wear white dresses that Jet had found in the resale shop next to the Chelsea Hotel. They refused to wear black on this day. It was only now that Franny realized what Jet had chosen.

“These are wedding dresses!” she whispered, annoyed.

“You said white. These were all they had on the rack,” Jet said apologetically.

Though it was November and chilly, they slipped off their shoes out of respect. The other guests were friends of Agnes's and, as it turned out, of their mother's. The brevity of the service was fitting. Vincent did not like an excess of emotion, unless it was real love, and then nothing was too much. Agnes hugged the sisters, then kissed William twice. “It's a pleasure to meet you,” she said to him warmly. “I've heard so much about you and now here you are.”

The mourners went to a restaurant nearby for a light dinner. The place was small, lit by candles even in the daylight hours, decorated with trompe l'oeil wallpaper and velvet couches to sit on while they dined.

“Susanna and I came here often when we were young,”
Agnes Durant said. “And we often went to the cafés in the Tuileries, where I first met Vincent. Susanna and I looked so alike people thought we were sisters.”

“Well, we look nothing alike and we
are
sisters,” Jet said, taking Franny's hand in hers. She felt as though they had somehow lost Vincent to this stranger who gazed at them with curious dark eyes.

“I only meant, I feel that I'm family to you,” Madame Durant said, trying to soothe Jet's ruffled feathers.

“Thank you,” Franny said. “Please understand we have lost an actual member of our family.”

“Of course. I would never intrude. I have your best interests at heart.”

Franny found that difficult to believe but she was distracted by the presentation of their supper, which included hors d'oeuvres of oysters and cheeses. The restaurant owner had a little dachshund that lounged on one of the velvet couches.

It was only then Franny realized that William wasn't among them. She imagined he was still at the cemetery, unwilling to leave his beloved. How horrid they had forgotten him in his hour of need.

“I'll be right back,” Franny told Jet as she dashed out, hoping she would find her way back to the burial site. The hour was late and night was falling. She felt panic rising in the back of her throat as she darted along the streets in the evening light, finally finding the pedestrian gate of the cemetery at Porte du Respos and hurrying inside.

There was ice on the paths and her breath came out in cold puffs and the white dress was much too sheer and flimsy for the chill of the day. Gravediggers were flinging clods of earth over
the open grave. Franny stopped. Her heart felt too heavy for her chest.

There was the shadow of a tall man.

“William!” she called, but if it was he, he did not respond.

Franny held one hand over her eyes as the sun went down, and the orange light made it difficult to see. The leaves on the trees were rustling and swirls of earth rose up from the ground.

“Is it you?” Franny cried.

She couldn't tell if she saw one man's shadow or two. And then she knew. She felt her brother near, just as she had when they played hide-and-seek in the basement and their mother could never find them. She followed the path, but the orange light was blinding, and she bumped into a woman bringing flowers to a grave and had to apologize. She didn't realize that she was crying until she spoke to the other mourner. Her apology was accepted with a shrug, and then she was alone. She stopped and watched as the light grew darker and the shadows longer, and then, when it was clear she would not find her way, she returned the way she'd come.