The Witch of Painted Sorrows (23 page)

Julien had said the same thing to me, and it had in fact made me feel better. More myself. I agreed, and we stepped outside.

It was a warm day for early February, warmer than any day had been since I’d arrived in Paris. We entered the heavily wooded park and took a path that led us around a still, calm pond. As we strolled, the doctor extracted a silver case, took out a cigarette, then offered me one. I accepted it. He lit them both.

“I know how upsetting it can be to see someone you love in this state.”

I didn’t smoke often, but I welcomed the distraction. “Yes, very upsetting.” I rolled the cigarette between my gloved fingers.

“But it would really help me to find out more about your grandmother’s history—has anything like this happened before?”

“Not that I am aware of. But I’ve been only been here since January. I saw her infrequently before that, only once every few years.”

“Is there anyone else in your family whom we might talk to in order to find out if this has happened before? Someone who lives here in Paris?”

“I’m not sure there is anyone who knew her well other than her uncle and Cousin Jacob, and they are both dead.”

“Might I come to the house and talk to the servants?”

“I’ve already asked and no, none of them have seen any evidence of a disturbance before.” It wasn’t true, but I was worried that any conversation the doctor might have with the staff would reveal the lies I’d told him.

The doctor dropped his cigarette on the stone path and stomped on it with his shoe. I did the same.

“Are you cold, or shall we keep walking?” he asked.

“I’m not at all cold. I’d like to keep walking.” It had been days since I’d felt the weather. Paris’s winters were much warmer than New York’s, and this was a particularly warm day.

“I once had a patient who was as sane as you or I, and yet every night at ten
PM
he went into paroxysms of panic and fear and began
to scream and tried to harm himself. Every night. It took me a full year to find out that he had watched his wife be attacked and killed in front of his eyes at ten
PM
and was reliving it daily.”

A pigeon flew past us and alighted on a branch of a chestnut tree. A squirrel darted from behind a holly bush, grabbed an acorn, and ran up the trunk of one of the plane trees.

“If only I could find the trigger to this episode, you see, I could help your grandmother.”

“Fine then, yes, come and talk to the servants. Please, talk to anyone you wish to.”

“Thank you. Now, I need you to return to the clinic with me and ask your grandmother how you can get rid of the ghost.”

I shook my head. “I can’t see her again like that.”

“Do you love her?”

“Of course!”

“Then you must help me to help her.”

I began to shake at the thought of going back inside her room and hearing her spew vitriol again. Her words were like vicious black slime suffocating me. “I just can’t.”

“Mademoiselle, I am afraid that if we don’t allow your grandmother to say what she is so desperate to tell you, we may lose her.”

“Do you mean she could die?” I clasped my hands together to stop the acute trembling. “She is the only family I have.”

“No, she’s not physically ill. I don’t fear for her corporeal body. But her mind is ill, and sometimes a patient can become lost to us inside the pathways of their thoughts. Sometimes they go so far into their terror we can’t pull them back.”

I would be free.
The thought sprang up, unbidden. Like a green shoot, breaking through the last frost. Free to live at La Lune and paint and be with Julien. But at that cost? No, of course not.

“I’ll try,” I said.

We walked back into the sanatorium, down the main hallway, and stopped in front of my grandmother’s room. The door was ajar.
Dr. Blanche put his fingers to his lips and motioned me to be quiet and listen.

My grandmother was speaking to her nurse in a very normal voice about a book they had both read and found enjoyable.

“The way the author described the character’s hairstyle would look very good on you,” my grandmother said. “It would accentuate your cheekbones. You have excellent cheekbones, you know.”

She sounded exactly like her old self. A wave of relief flooded over me. The doctor gestured to me that we were going to go in. He opened the door wider for me.

“I’m so happy you’re better,” I said as I walked toward her bed and then bent down to embrace her.

She leaned toward me. I felt her lips on my neck, and I thought she meant to kiss me on the cheek but missed. Before I understood what was happening, she bit into my flesh, grabbing the ruby necklace with her teeth and trying to pull it off.

I pushed her away, but she was still working her jaw and accidentally bit down on my index finger. Drops of dark red blood popped out on the surface of my skin.

I backed up, massaging my neck, looking from her to my finger.

My grandmother shrieked: “Get her out of here. She has La Lune with her.”

The doctor spoke to my grandmother: “Madame Verlaine, listen to me, this is very important. How can Sandrine get rid of La Lune?”

A drop of blood dripped down my hand and fell onto the white marble floor.

“You can’t wear the rubies, Sandrine,” my grandmother continued. “Take them off. All the women in the portraits are wearing them. Every one of them. You need to take off the rubies, or what happened to them will happen to you. Every one of them witnessed their lovers’ lives manipulated so they were free to be with them . . . but it always went wrong . . . In the end every one went mad . . . or died. Some, by their own hand.”

“You are making this up.”

“No.”

“How do you know it then?”

“I know all the stories. They have been passed from mother to daughter. Passed from my mother to me. Warnings. Dire, dire warnings. None of the women were strong enough for La Lune. Every one of them dead. Now I have to warn you.”

I was so cold. Her voice was so desperate. Her words seemed to be echoing in my head. Warnings . . . warnings . . . My neck throbbed. So did my finger. And it was still dripping blood. I looked down and noticed the blood had formed a shape. A familiar shape. I twisted my head. It couldn’t be. I must have stepped in it and smeared it. It just was not possible that the blood had formed a perfect ruby crescent moon. Nothing that was happening was possible. With the toe of my boot, I turned the shape into an unrecognizable mess. If I couldn’t see it anymore I wouldn’t have to accept that the symbol that was all over our house had somehow, mysteriously, appeared here too.

Chapter 23

The glitter and the gold, the lights and the sparkle, the rarest marbles, the shine and the spectacle, the overall glow from all the opulence at the opera house stunned my senses. Even living in New York City, I had never seen anything as grand and ornate as the Palais Garnier. There was not one surface that was not filled with sculptures or painted with gods and goddesses and cherubs, or gilded, or mirrored and gleaming.

As we were shown to my grandmother’s box, I saw my reflection in a gold-framed mirror. During the day I now only wore men’s clothes; tonight I’d taken to borrowing finery from her closet, and the ruby velvet gown I was wearing belonged to her. Cut low across the bosom, it showed off my skin to its best advantage. Around my neck, the necklace that I had not taken off since I’d first put it on glowed, even from a distance. The only blemish was the small welt below the third ruby: I’d had to apply a layer of my grandmother’s makeup there to hide the bite marks her teeth had left on my skin.

Grand-mère’s seats at the opera had remained empty since I’d arrived in Paris, but I had reason to be sitting in them on this night, especially with the important gentleman on my arm. Monsieur Garnier, architect of this grand palace and one of the loyal attendees at my grandmother’s salon, whom I’d met in the apartment on rue
de la Chaise, had been only too happy to attend the gala first night performance of
Cupid and Psyche
with me.

What a coup it would be when Julien noticed me here with Garnier. How jealous he would be that I was being escorted by another man—and a rival at that, the most famous architect in Paris. I had imagined the scene so many times since asking my grandmother’s
old friend
to accompany me that I almost believed the scenario I’d sketched out had happened already.

Julien spotting me. Recognizing Garnier. Taking umbrage. Declaring his feelings for me. Promising to end things with Charlotte.

I’d gone to my grandmother’s lawyer when the majordomo had come to me needing money to run the household the very day that Dr. Blanche presented me with the first week’s rather costly clinic bill. Monsieur Tissot explained that while my grandmother’s investments were secure and she was very well off, the extra rent she’d been paying on the rue de la Chaise apartment had depleted her cash on hand.

“I can of course sell some of her stock, but it’s all doing so nicely, so I’d rather not,” Monsiur Tissot said. “Why don’t you reopen the salon? We all miss it, and we always gave her lavish gifts in exchange for the entertainment, food, and drink she provided. Those gifts could help pay your bills.”

“No, I think I’d rather if you did sell some stock.”

Even if Grand-mère’s staff was adept at supplying the champagne, cigars, and delicacies, I had no interest in playing hostess; all I wanted to do at night was paint and spend time with Julien.

Despite my lack of interest, three evenings later, several of my grandmother’s callers arrived without invitation. Someone had seen the lights on in the mansion, and a rumor had spread that my grandmother’s doors were open once again.

Alice came to find me and explain what had happened, and I came down from the studio, half undressed in a silk kimono, to greet the handful of gentlemen and explain the mistake.

When I entered the parlor, they were relaxed and quite at home,
smoking cigars, drinking champagne, and nibbling on the trays of fruit, cheese, and chocolates that Alice had put out.

Instead of finding the evening distasteful, as I’d imagined I would, I enjoyed flirting and being flirted with. The men seemed responsive to my style, which they told me was even a soupçon more ribald that Grand-mère’s. More of her manner must have rubbed off on me than I’d noticed.

But it was how Julien reacted that pleased me the most. He’d arrived to find me surrounded by men in formal evening attire lounging in the parlor, drinking, smoking, laughing, and all hovering around me like flies to honey.

“Who are all these men? What are they doing here?” He’d pulled me into the hallway. “And what are you wearing?” He fingered my pale peach silk kimono.

It wasn’t the coloring that he objected to, I knew, but how provocative it was. The fabric was so sheer and of such a color to suggest I was naked beneath the silk, even though I was wearing a chemise.

“You look like . . .” He hesitated.

“Yes?”

“What are you thinking, Sandrine?”

“I wasn’t thinking. This is an accident. But now that it’s happened, maybe I should open the salon again. The clinic is expensive. Running this house is expensive. My grandmother’s estate is tied up. It might be a perfect solution. And I rather enjoy the role of libertine.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment but looked from me to the men and then back to me with an unspoken question in his eyes.

“No, I would not entertain the men in my bedroom.”

“Not at first!”

I slapped him. He didn’t say a word or put his hand up to his cheek, which I was sure was smarting.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s come over me. I don’t have any right to question you,” he said.

“These men have always given my grandmother gifts. Not only
for her favors but for her hospitality. For serving the finest food and drink and cigars in Paris and for allowing them use of her bedrooms
fantastique
when they have a special friend they want to entertain. The doctor thinks that with a few more weeks rest my grandmother will be able to come home, and I want her to come home so much. What would be so terrible to go on accepting those gifts in order to keep my grandmother at Dr. Blanche’s clinic?”

“Do I need to explain?”

“Julien, please, either stay and enjoy yourself or leave, but don’t make a scene.”

“I’m sorry. I wish I could solve your financial problems for you.” Julien was quite contrite.

“It’s all right. Would you like to have some champagne?”

His mouth pursed, and he glanced away for a brief second. The expression was one I had come to recognize. He had plans with his fiancée and was torn between his obligations and his desires.

“If you are already spoken for this evening,” I asked, “why are you here?”

“I came to bring you these.” He handed me a bouquet of violets he’d been holding that I hadn’t even noticed.

“And to spend a little time with me before your dinner?”

“Would that be so unusual?” His smile was self-effacing. “I missed our
cinq à sept
today.”

“They are lovely.” I leaned up and kissed him lightly on the lips.

He pulled me to him. “That dress,” he whispered. “If no one was here, I’d rip it off you right now.”

“Stay then, Julien. No one will notice if we disappear for a while.”

His evergreen eyes clouded. “I would, but . . .”

“Go to your dinner then,” I said. Looked down at the flowers. Back up at him. “Thank you for these.” I sniffed the bouquet. “I’ll take them with me . . . to bed.”

I turned and left him standing in the hall and returned to my guests.

I’d discovered something. Julien didn’t mind that I was surrounded by men at the École. There I was in masculine garb and treated like just another student. But when I was dressed as a femme fatale, with other men looking at me, talking to me, flirting with me, he was inflamed with jealousy.

First the salon and next the opera. How much would Julien be able to take?

The orchestra warmed up. Lights dimmed. The crowd quieted. The overture filled the opera house with beautiful, resonant music, and the show began.

I raised my grandmother’s jeweled opera glasses to my eye. Charlotte, playing Psyche, appeared on stage and burst into song. Her voice rang out like bells. My heart sank. How to compete with her? She was a magician, enchanting her listeners. They were just notes on a sheet of music and Italian words, but she transmuted them into ambrosia. I felt defeated. I could only imagine the pride Julien felt watching his songbird, listening to her. This couldn’t be a marriage of convenience. He had to be in love with her. Who could listen to her and not be a little in love with her?

In person, Charlotte was lovely, but there was nothing striking about her. There was no exceptional light in her eyes, no fetching tilt to her head, no nuance that turned a woman into a true beauty. But now, listening to her, no one could take his eyes off of her.

No one except for me. Moving the glasses, I scanned the boxes for the one I was looking for. Julien and Charlotte’s father were seated almost opposite to us, both of them riveted to the action onstage.

I watched Julien as he watched Charlotte sing of her longing to see her lover in the light.

Julien did not like to talk about Charlotte, but I’d been able to surmise that her celebrity opened doors for him. In the last two years, he’d built several nightclubs and residences for people in the theatrical world who were more amenable to his avant-garde style than the staid upper-class clientele who typically hired Cingal’s firm. Julien’s
reputation had grown because of these commissions. Her star shone on him.

On the stage, Cupid made a dramatic entrance, flying in from above, his iridescent, wide, wondrous wings spread. Along with the rest of the audience, I gasped as this beautiful creature came down to earth to make love to a human who was doomed never to set eyes on him.

It was painful to watch the scene on the stage, impossible not to imagine Julien making love to Charlotte. How did they embrace? What did her kisses taste like? Did he become as aroused as quickly with her or more quickly than with me? What secret touches and tricks did they share?

I was staring at the stage when it happened. Staring at the woman who I was certain came between me and real happiness. My resentment toward her was building. My fury at having to deal with and accept these conventions was growing. So what that Julien had given his word? How could he throw away what we had for her? The opera glasses in my hand warmed, my anger heating them. The gold burned my cheek where the rim rested on my skin. I yanked them away lest they leave a mark on my flesh. The heat they were generating through my gloves was almost intolerable. What was wrong?

In the audience, the theatergoers were murmuring appreciation for what was happening on the stage. What theatrical event was this? Cupid’s wings were shining with a peculiar vermilion and crimson light—what was it?

Suddenly, Cupid began to move in a furious, hysterical way that didn’t fit the part. He was pulling his wings off. They were smoking. The wings were burning.

Charlotte pulled off her mantle. A ring of fire around the hem crept up the garment. The music stopped. For one moment the theater was silent. For that single second the fire held everyone mesmerized, and then the crowd erupted in shouts.

“Fire!”

Panic began to build.

“Fire!”

Beside me Monsieur Garnier took my arm. “Come, Mademoiselle Sandrine. In events like this the panic can be more dangerous than the actual fire. The stagehands are prepared, but the crowd . . . that’s where the real risk is. Quickly as you can . . . I’ll get you to a safe place and then come back and help them.”

I knew he was right, but Julien was in this melee. We had to find him. If Garnier was going to save me, he had to save Julien, too.

“I have a friend here. Can we just find—”

“There’s no time, just come with me. Your grandmother would never forgive me if I didn’t keep you safe.”

On the stage, a line of men passed buckets of water to those closest to the fire, but as they put out one blaze, it seemed another area of the stage burst into flames. The conflagration traveled from fabric to prop, prop to fabric, faster than they could extinguish it.

“You said they’d contain the fire,” I said.

“They will”—but he didn’t sound confident. “No matter what happens, though, you will be safe if you do as I say.”

He pulled me away from the direction of the main staircase and the lobby, the front doors and Julien, and instead toward the back and into a darkened, unadorned hallway.

At the far end, he opened the very last door with a key he pulled from his vest pocket and pointed.

“Three flights down are stone caverns and a lake. Fire cannot work its way through stone. Wait for me. There are candles and matches inside small hollows as you descend. Use them to light your way. Be careful.”

And then he disappeared, shutting the door after him.

I was engulfed by profound darkness. There simply was no light. I tried the door behind me. He’d locked it, or it had self-locked when he’d shut it, I couldn’t open it.

Where was Julien? Had he been hurt in the crush? What if the fire spread before everyone got out? I had only just found him . . . I couldn’t lose him. What if he and Monsieur Cingal had rushed the stage to save Charlotte? What if they were trapped? I could smell the inferno now. The acrid scent filled the air.

I had no choice; the door was locked, and there was no going back. I felt to my right for the niche, found it. Groped for the candle and matches. I found the matches, but instead of a candle, there was only a stub of wax, far too small to light. Whoever had used it last had forgotten to replace it.

There were candles in niches all along the way, Garnier had said. But what if they were all like this one?

Somewhere beyond this door, behind me, I could hear the shouts of the operagoers and stagehands.

I took a deep breath, grabbed hold of the hand railing. How could there be a lake? I vaguely remembered a story about a lake and a frightening phantom who lived below the opera, but that was a legend in a novel.

But if Garnier said it would be safe, it would be. If anyone knew about this place, it would be the man responsible for building it.

At the base of that first flight, I felt around and indeed found a second niche . . . and in it a small candle, this one was big enough to ignite. With an unsteady hand, I struck the match. The flame was so terribly bright after the last few minutes I’d spent in pitch-blackness that I blinked back tears.

With a light, the second staircase was less frightening until I reached the third set of stairs. Greeted with the clammy scent of fungus and an eerie silence punctuated by a slow drip, as steady as a heart beating, I panicked. Everything in front of me was a mystery.