The Witch of Painted Sorrows (3 page)

“I don’t want anyone to be able to find me. And no one in New York looking for me would know that name.”

“To find you? Are you hiding? Won’t your husband try to find you? Doesn’t he know where I live?”

I took a breath. “My husband,” I said, “is the reason I’ve left. It’s my husband who I don’t want to find me. ”

“What do you mean, Sandrine? Surely there’s nothing wrong with your marriage?”

I could see worry mixed with the sadness in her eyes. The time had come to tell my grandmother about the terrible thing that had happened to her family.

Chapter 3

We’d all had dinner together. It was a cold and silent affair. My father and Benjamin had been fighting before we dined and had brought their chilliness to the table. Any semblance of civility was, I guessed, for my behalf. As soon as dinner was done, my father told Benjamin he wanted to talk to him in the library.

I went into the parlor and was reading some book or other when I heard their raised voices. I could only pick up an occasional phrase, but from the tenor of his voice, it was clear my father was furious. Benjamin and I had been married for four years and had always lived with my father in his Fifth Avenue mansion. In all that time, I’d never heard my father talk to my husband, his protégé and junior partner, in that tone of voice.

At one point I heard him accuse Benjamin of being a thief. At another of dishonoring his name.

“But you were my partner, you were like a son to me,” I heard my father scream. My father never screamed. What was going on?

After more than thirty minutes, I heard my father shout out my own name. Thinking he was calling me, I went running. I came to the threshold of the library. The door had never been properly shut and remained open a bit. I stepped inside the shadowed antechamber lined with books. Neither man noticed me as I stood in the shadowed alcove and stared.

My father was holding a pistol pointed at Benjamin.

“I trusted you with my daughter!”

“Go ahead and shoot me. How will that protect Sandrine? What kind of life will she have then? Spending her days visiting her broken old father in prison? Embarrassed and humiliated. Ostracized. Is that the life you envisioned for her?” Benjamin said. I couldn’t see his face, but I could hear the smile in his voice. He was taunting my father. “Every loan and transfer form has your name on it, not mine, Philippe. I’ve left instructions that in case of my death the whole packet of incriminating evidence will be sent to the police. You will be the villain of this piece.”

“But they are forgeries.”

“No one will be able to prove that. You’ve let me sign too many legitimate contracts with your name over the years.”

“You organized this whole deceit behind my back while living in my house, with my daughter? You gambled like a fool and then borrowed against reserves to pay off your own debts? You stole from me? You used my trust and largesse to put our bank in jeopardy? How could I have been so blind?”

My father noticed me then. He looked right at me. I’d never seen my father embarrassed before. Never in my life. In that moment he was so ashamed that he could barely hold my gaze. I stepped farther into the room.

“What’s going on?” I asked. When my father didn’t answer, I turned to my husband. “Benjamin? What is going on? What is this? What is Papa talking about?”

Benjamin took me by the arm. “This isn’t something you need to be part of, Sandrine.”

“He’s right,” my father echoed in a broken voice. “Please go, Sandrine.”

Benjamin led me out of the room, and like a fool I went. I shouldn’t have. Had I stayed and demanded to be told all the details of the crisis, I might have made my father see there was another way. Some other solution. Hadn’t he taught me there’s always another
way? But I didn’t stay. I went off with Benjamin, leaving my father to suffer his long night alone.

The next morning Papa didn’t come down to breakfast. I asked his valet to see if he was all right.

Sometime during the night, my father, who was so fastidious, who was so impeccable, had shot himself in the mouth and left behind a bloody mess so horrific that even when I demanded to see his body, I couldn’t stand to be in the room for more than a few moments.

Before I left, I picked up his pistol. It was cold, and I shivered as I slipped it into my pocket. Of all my father’s personal effects, this was the only one I took from his bedroom. I was still married to Benjamin, and I now knew I might need to protect myself one day.

The note his valet found next to his body, when they moved him, had my name on it.

My dearest Sandrine,

There was no other way but this cowardly exit. Leaving you is the hardest thing I have ever done, but this is the best solution. I am not guilty of what Benjamin would have claimed, but I would never be able to prove it. The shame of what you would have to live with is more than I can bear. At least this way, you are protected. Say I was ill and could not bear the pain. Even though the illness is of my soul, not my body, it is true.

With all of my love to you forever,

Your devoted Papa

By the time I finished telling my grandmother the story, I was standing by the fireplace, and she was still seated on the settee. Across the room, our eyes met and held.

Hers sparkled with unshed tears.

“
Mon ange
,” she said in a hoarse, whispery voice that reminded me of burnt sugar. She held out her arms. I went to her and, for the second time that evening, took refuge there, smelling her fiery,
spicy perfume and face powder and feeling no less sad but much safer.

It was only after a few moments that I noticed she was shaking.

“What is it?” I asked.

She shook her head. “My poor Philippe.”

Now I was not the one taking solace but giving it.

Chapter 4

My life in my grandmother’s apartments on the rue de la Chaise took on a routine that was rather comforting in its sameness. We both needed to mourn before we could begin the process of healing, and we mourned together. Our days moved slowly and with less social interaction than was typical of life in Paris. Especially for a woman of my grandmother’s ilk.

In the mornings we would breakfast in our separate bedrooms on trays and then attend to our toilettes. At ten we met in the sitting room, where Grand-mère would write letters, go over the household matters with her housekeeper, receive the seamstress or the milliner, and make arrangements for upcoming assignations, dinners, and salons. Regardless of the recent tragedy, Grand-mère could not afford to ignore her business.

While she saw to running her household, I read the morning papers. At home, my father and I had read them together, stopping often to discuss this article or that. The world was still reeling from the 1893 financial crisis, and there were often items about failed banking institutions in the press. Indeed, at the end of my second week in Paris, there was an article about the Salome Bank of New York. Since it had ties to one of France’s greatest financial institutions, I shouldn’t have been surprised to see it, but it startled me nonetheless.

The Salome Bank of New York, I read, had merged with another institution and was now to be called the Salome and Tarcher Bank of New York.

So Benjamin had found the backing he’d gone to California to secure. Now he would have the funds he needed to replenish those he’d stolen to pay off his debts. Desperate, he’d left the day after my father’s funeral, and the lack of respect his haste showed astounded me. But the money markets never stop for any one man, Benjamin said, and his business was urgent. I’d argued until I realized his being gone would give me an opportunity to take a trip of my own.

It had not been a love match. Benjamin had been dashing and smart and was my father’s protégé. My father regarded him as a young man of substance. And I, who had somehow grown into womanhood eschewing the idea of romantic love, certain I would be better off avoiding it, was relieved to have the matter of my marital status over with.

Had my father not died, I could have accepted and stayed in a marriage without passion. But I could not remain with a brute who had my father’s blood on his hands.

The day after Benjamin left for San Francisco, I ran away in the opposite direction.

Most afternoons, after lunching together, Grand-mère and I would take a walk regardless of the temperature. She believed in braving the chilly air and moving briskly through the Luxembourg Gardens or the Tuileries or just walking by the Seine. Exercise, she told me, kept the body strong and the mind clear. Even rain didn’t keep us from our constitutional. On those days we took the carriage to the Louvre or Bon Marché, the extraordinary department store where Grand-mère was filling in my wardrobe. Not wanting to alert my household staff to the length of my planned stay, I’d taken only what I’d required for a short trip to Virginia. There were all kinds of
clothes and accessories I needed that I didn’t have with me. After only two weeks, under my grandmother’s tutelage, I already looked more French than American.

Usually after our walk we’d stop at Angelina’s for hot chocolate if we were on the Rive Droite or at Café de Flore for coffee if we were on the Gauche. Often, as we sipped our beverages, Grand-mère reminisced about raising my father in a Paris that had changed so much since then. She talked easily with me about her past, even telling me about men she’d known and who had been in love with her. Listening to her and getting caught up in her stories, I understood where my father had gotten his tale-spinning talent.

The only subject that would make my grandmother grow quiet was when I tried to get her to talk about her beautiful house on rue des Saints-Pères. I dreamed about it almost every night . . . strange dreams that were dark and complicated. Visions of ghostlike women wandering through the halls, weeping. I wanted to tell my grandmother about them, but she was so uncomfortable when I raised the subject of the house. She’d always say the same thing—that old houses had many problems, and hers needed extensive renovations, so she’d shut it down to do the work.

Her rush to change the subject made me wonder why discussing the house unsettled her so, but she never gave me a clue.

On Tuesdays, Thursdays, and most Saturdays, our routine included a light supper together at seven, and then at eight I’d retire to my room when my grandmother’s business life began.

Her job required her to be coiffed, perfumed, and manicured, to dress in the height of fashion, to make her salons entertaining fantasy retreats serving up only the finest foods and wines, along with witty repartee and delightful music. All of this took time and effort. Visits with hairdressers, dressmakers, hatmakers, masseuses, and other purveyors took up hours every day. The salons usually commenced
around nine and ended by one or two in the morning, but my grandmother prepared all week. Other nights we dined later, sometimes with a friend or two of hers and sometimes by ourselves.

During her soirees, I was glad to remain upstairs, away from the men, the music, and the noise, hiding in the pale yellow bedroom where I would try to read. I was finally making headway through
The Picture of Dorian Gray
, a book I’d brought from home and tried but failed to read on the ship. I’d been too disturbed. I wasn’t sure if it was the novel’s foreboding tone that mirrored my mood or the fact that this was the last book my father had read before his death. Once I fell under its spell, Mr. Wilde’s story absorbed me and, for a short time, allowed me to stop thinking about everything that had happened to me and worry instead about what was happening to his characters. The novel was a dark, disturbing tale that excited me and made me afraid at the same time.

My father had left annotations and marginalia in the pages that were not always welcome. Sometimes they made me feel closer to him; other times they caused me great sorrow, especially when I found something of particular interest and grasped anew, with a fresh stab of grief, that I couldn’t just get up and go find him so we could discuss what he’d written.

The Picture of Dorian Gray
was reported to be salacious, but my father said he thought I’d like it because it proposed some fascinating theories about the power of art.

My father and I both loved art; he’d nurtured that love in me. I could get lost in a painting, become mesmerized by a fine piece of sculpture. Like him, beauty astounded me. Talent awed me. The magic of art—the transformative powers, the luscious hues, textures, patterns—it all absorbed me. I was fascinated by the way an artist took something he saw and then turned it into a personal statement. I loved seeing the world translated by these great poets of color and line.

When I was thirteen, wanting to please my father, I’d taken up
painting in school. But I could never put down on canvas what I saw so clearly in my mind and was always frustrated. My teacher said that I had real talent and showed great promise but needed to learn to be more patient.

One afternoon my mother found me in tears over a muddy watercolor and asked why I was so upset. I told her it was because I’d wanted to make Papa something that he would love as much as the paintings in the museums and on our walls at home.

After she’d soothed me, she brought my father in, showed him what I’d done, and told him what I’d said.

He tried to point out how good the painting was. No matter what he said, I objected that it was not good enough and that my effort was not great enough to create the kind of gift I wanted to present to him.

“But Sandrine, you are my gift—don’t you know you are the treasure? You don’t have to become something you aren’t to please me.”

But it was not just because the book was about a painter that my father gave me
The Picture of Dorian Gray
. He’d told me the occult aspects of the tale had stirred his imagination, and he was interested in discussing those with me, too. For a self-proclaimed rationalist, he found arcane and esoteric knowledge surprisingly fascinating and studied it with great interest. He wasn’t alone. From France to Russia to America, the occult was experiencing a major revival.

My father believed it was a reaction to rationalism, materialism, and the exciting but frightening scientific discoveries being reported almost daily. Explorers returning from the Far East with stories of strange lands and mystical customs also fueled everyone’s imagination. My father had funded several of those expeditions, as well as others, to find the fabled Hermetic books based on the ancient pagan prophet’s esoteric teachings. Our library was full of books of ancient lore and magick mysticism and the forbidden. For my father it was also personal; he once told me that he believed his mother was something of a psychic, although she protested vociferously.

At the end of the second week of my stay in Paris, Grand-mère changed the routine. When I came downstairs at ten, she was already dressed in her street clothes and preparing to leave. When I asked where she was going, she told me she was meeting an old friend who needed some advice and added she would be back in time for our lunch.

Indeed she was, and since it was raining, we went to the Louvre.

I had grown up in museums, but even compared to New York’s august Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Louvre was so large as to be almost overwhelming.

“As with all wonderful things in life except jewels, it’s best to avoid gluttony when visiting here,” my grandmother said as we entered the ancient palace.

“When we went to the Metropolitan, Papa and I would always pick one small section, take it in, absorb it, and then leave. He always said moderation makes for finer appreciation.”

She smiled. “He learned that from me,
mon ange
.” But it was a sad smile, and I turned away so she wouldn’t see the tears that had sprung to my eyes. Her grief always triggered my own.

We wandered through the Denon wing, on the first floor, heading to room thirteen. “One of my favorite paintings is here,” my grandmother said as we entered, and she headed to a relatively small-sized, brightly colored painting of a voluptuous nude female and muscular male.

“This is Tiepolo’s marvelous
Apollo and Daphne
. It’s so lush and imaginative, don’t you think?” she asked.

Before I could inspect it, I was distracted by two men in blue smocks, each standing at easels in front of a dark, muted painting.

I inched closer. They were copying a complicated and disturbing tableau. I strained to see its name.

THE WITCH OF ENDOR

SALVATOR ROSA, 1668(?)

Stepping back, I studied the original, eight-foot tall vision of horror. The central figure, according to the legend beside the painting, was the spirit of Samuel, called forth by the witch to speak to Saul, who had come to her for advice.

Shrouded in a white hooded robe, the spirit was illuminated by a frenzied fire. Behind him his guards look stricken. And no wonder—the scene was filled with terrifying creatures, owls with supernaturally bright eyes, bloody horse heads, and bat-winged skeletons. The witch herself was a wrinkled old crone, repulsive and offensive. My reaction to her was one of anger, though I didn’t know why.

As I turned to step back so I could examine the foreboding work from a greater distance, one of the painters caught my eye and smiled at me.

“Impressive, isn’t it?” he asked.

At that moment an older man came into the gallery.

“Are you talking or painting, Gaston?” The man, who appeared to be in his sixties, had piercing brown eyes, and there was something very gentle about him. I watched as he stood behind Gaston’s canvas for a moment, inspecting the work. Then he pointed to the masterpiece on the wall.

“Look at the life in that painting. The way Saul cowers. You can feel his fear of the specter and of the witch. That’s what you need to put into your effort. That fear. Have you ever seen a witch? A ghost? In the dark? At night? Been afraid?”