Wild Talent (21 page)

“And where did she go, this other self?” asked M. d'Artois, clearly fascinated.

“She said, to a country that seemed familiar to her, though it was a place where she had never been.”

“And who is to know,” said M. Verlaine, “which is real, and which is not — the Paris drawing room? Or the city of dreams? That is a question for which I have long sought an answer. And you, Mademoiselle David —I think you have puzzled over it as well.”

Alexandra, oddly, did not reply. I could not have guessed, at that moment, what was in her mind.

It is a puzzle for me as well, the nature of this place called “Elsewhere” — this paradoxical country, unknown and yet familiar, where we travel not in body but in spirit. For M. Verlaine it is the magical city he has only visited in dreams. For Madame Blavatsky surely it must be an otherworldly version of the Himalayas, a treasure house of ancient knowledge guarded by Tibetan sages. And as for Alexandra —I think she would see it as a dazzling instant of illumination, when all the mysteries of this world and the next are finally revealed.

By the time we were ready to be escorted home by M. d'Artois, M. Paul Verlaine had finished a second bottle of the artist's cheap, vinegary wine. His speech was slurred, his voice thick with drink and despair as he muttered, as though to himself, “I have squandered my art as I have squandered my life, searching for that other country.”

And then, as we turned to go down the stairs at the end of that long, extraordinary day, he called after us, “You and I, we could search together, Mademoiselle David. My good friend Gautier will know where to find me.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

August 11

I
have moved into a room of my own,
chez Jourdan
, now that one has come available. It is small, stuffy and sparsely furnished, but also very cheap. Alexandra advertised at the university and found two students who are willing to pay me for twice-weekly English lessons in the Jourdan's parlour, and so I am able to manage my rent and also send a little money to my mother. Still, this situation cannot continue. I must look for regular work.

I wonder what my mother makes of the Paris postmarks when she receives my letters. How I wish I could give her my address, so I could have news of home! Little Robbie will be walking and talking now, and Margaret starting school. I cannot bear the thought that I may never see them again.

Meanwhile, I am becoming quite worried about Alexandra. She has grown very thin and pale, and there are dark shadows under her eyes. She eats little, sleeps late, and complains sometimes of stomach ache. I cannot put out of my mind that disturbing letter I received in London, when she wrote of her spiritual exhaustion, her
ennui.
Now I believe it is happening again — I see with deepening concern her mood of melancholy, her loss of appetite, her look of weary disillusionment. Even on these perfect summer days she will sometimes choose to bide in her room, writing page after page in her journal. She is much more devoted than I, in the habit of daily entries; though when I see how she furrows her brow as she writes, I fear she is filling the pages with anxieties and troubled thoughts.

But then without warning another Alexandra appears — one who is filled with restless energy, who talks too quickly, too obsessively, who never sleeps.

This morning she looked up from her well-worn copy of the
Bhagavad Gita
. “Tell me, Jeanne, why should I study? Am I hoping to impress everyone with my superior knowledge? I don't wish to become boring and ridiculous. Only think of M'sieu d'Artois!”

“Surely,” I said, “one studies to acquire wisdom.”

“Or is it merely to gain the good opinion of others? Besides, it is science one learns in the lecture hall, not wisdom. Wisdom is what I find in library of the Musée Guimet.”

And then setting down her book and carefully marking the page, she said “You're right, of course. It will soon be autumn, and there are decisions I have to make. You know that my parents want me to marry, to live in Brussels, to become a respectable member of the bourgeoisie. I have an inheritance, which my parents wish me to invest in a tobacconist's shop. But in October I will be twenty-one, and answerable to no one but myself. I can use my money in any way I see fit.” She gave me a bleak smile. “Yes, chère Jeanne, you need not remind me, an inheritance does not last forever. I know if I do not want a husband — as most assuredly I do not — then I should be thinking of a career.”

As should both of us, I thought, but did not say it aloud. Instead I pointed out, “You've trained in music. You have a lovely voice.”

“A career on the stage? Perhaps—but think what dedication that requires. On the other hand — can you see me as a shopkeeper?”

In truth, I could not.

“When I was a child,” Alexandra said, “I had arranged my whole life in advance. I had such enthusiasm, such idealism — do you know that once I imagined I had a vocation in the Church?”

Now, after days of gloomy silence, a torrent of words spilled out. Once again there was passion and energy in her voice. “The life of the convent seemed like an intoxicating dream, full of light and incense and flowers. That was where I thought I could come nearest to approaching the infinite, the unknowable. And even now I tell myself that I should follow the true faith — the God of my childhood. But Jeanne,” and I realized that she was looking at me with something close to despair, “Jeanne, I am drawn to so many beliefs, so many strange gods. I keep imagining that there is some ultimate hidden truth that I have yet to discover — that no road, however dangerous, must be left unexplored.”

I knew that Alexandra's belief in God is nothing like my parents' quiet, unquestioning faith. For her, it is a great mystery, a part of the even greater mystery of her own existence: a source of endless curiosity, and endless struggle.

She once told me she was “born Catholic, raised Protestant, Buddhist by inclination!” One day, someone may write the story of her life, and how will they describe her? As an anarchist, a scholar, an adventurer? An initiate into the mysteries of religion — or the mysteries of the occult? Or will she simply disappear into history?

Once she left her journal lying open on her desk, and I confess, I could not help myself —I stole a guilty glance at the words she had just written.

I search, I find. I wish to catch a glimpse of the sublime,
the perfect, and this vision is like a spectre which I
pursue . . .

I remember on another occasion that she looked up from her writing, and with a wry smile read me what was on the page:
I have little taste for mediocre things—mediocre
comfort, mediocre situations, and mediocre success.

And the thought came to me, that Madame Blavatsky might well have written those words. In their disdain for the rules of the ordinary world, in their restless search for what lies “beyond”, she and Alexandra are more alike than either one of them suspects.

It came to me also, why Alexandra seemed disturbed by M. Gustave Moreau's chimeras. Surely she must have recognized in them the very spectres that beckon her along this uncharted path.

For me, the inexplicable arrived unsought, unbidden. At best it made me embarrassed and ashamed. At its worst it terrified and overwhelmed me. Now I want to cry out to Alexandra, “Take care what you do, Alexandra! There are roads we are not meant to travel.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

August 12

Y
esterday a letter from Mr. Rufus Dodds brought Madame Blavatsky very much to mind.

Mr. Dodds told me of his historical research, which though going well, has convinced him there is no clear end in sight; and he described Madame Rulenska's latest excursions into the occult (she is now writing poems and painting pictures dictated by the spirit world, with very odd results). He ended with warm wishes for my good health, my good fortune, and my personal safety.

And then I saw there was a second page, with a cryptic postscript:
By the way, it would seem that some time soon
you might receive an unexpected visit.

Those few words at first glance made the blood drain from my face, my heart constrict. Were my worst fears realized? Could word of George's death have reached Paris? Was I to be visited by the police?

But as I looked back at the rest of Mr. Dodds's cheerful letter, there was no hint of so dire a possibility. I showed the letter to Alexandra. “A visitor, writes Mr. Dodds. But who would visit me? Who knows I am here?”

“The Countess Constance, perhaps? Or one of the Keightleys? I know you have kept in touch.”

I shook my head. “They have good manners — they would not dream of simply arriving unannounced. And why does Mr. Dodds not say who it is?”

All at once it came to me. “But of course — it can only be Madame Blavatsky herself! She is already travelling in France, and only HPB would turn up without warning on one's doorstep. Indeed, she has been known to descend bag and baggage upon friends and mere acquaintances for a fortnight's stay. I expect Mr. Dodds has read somewhere that she is on her way to Paris, and is speaking half in jest.”

Alexandra looked stricken. “Clearly, she cannot descend upon
us
for a fortnight.”

“Of course she will not,” I said. “We are very fortunate that we have only two rooms between us, and not a villa. Mr. Dodds may simply be having his little joke. But just in case, we had best lay in a stock of coffee and good English biscuits.”

Truth to tell, I do not really mind the thought of a visit from HPB. It might serve to distract Alexandra from the anxieties and obsessions that beset her.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

August 16

I
am frightened for Alexandra. Each day she seems more overwhelmed by a nameless and inexplicable grief. Melancholia, neurasthenia — whatever name a physician might use, it has descended like a black shadow blotting out the sun. What has become of my high-spirited companion, with her fierce appetite for life? Now all of Paris lies before her like a gift, and she turns her face away. Her talk is no longer of philosophy and eastern wisdom; instead she speaks of self-doubt and loss of faith. Hour upon hour she sits at her desk in that stifling and oppressive room, writing what she says are her “confessions” — as martyred to tormenting thoughts as a mediaeval saint.

Today when I went to her room she set down her pen and turned to me with troubled eyes. “What do you think happens to us when we die, Jeanne? Do you believe there is eternal bliss — or is there nothingness . . . annihilation?”

Her question startled and distressed me. This is a subject I try my best not to think about. “I was taught that our souls rise to heaven,” I replied.

“But who can possibly know? What if our souls are reborn on earth, and then we are doomed to struggle and suffer all over again? That is what Buddhists believe, and their only hope is to achieve Nirvana — a sort of eternal nothingness. Nirvana is what I would wish for myself, Jeanne, if only I had the choice.”

I wanted to weep for the dull weight of hopelessness in her voice. And then she went on: “If I knew that with one bullet I could scatter all the atoms of my body, could forever extinguish my spirit — but how can I be sure of that? God might see me as a soldier who has deserted her post, and then I would be punished for all eternity.”

“Alexandra, please, I beg you, stop!” I clapped my hands over my ears, for I could not bear to listen to this wild talk. I have grown all too familiar with death and disembodied spirits and souls who return to walk the earth. They are spectres I hoped, finally, to have escaped.

I have learned to accept an Alexandra who consorts with anarchists and dissolute poets, who drinks absinthe, smokes cigarettes and is known to the police. But this new Alexandra, with all the light and joy vanished from her eyes, who talks of bullets, and annihilation, and death as something to be freely chosen, is one that I can scarcely recognize.

August 18

There has been no sign of the threatened visit from Madame Blavatsky. At this moment I would half-welcome her ill-tempered, obstreperous presence. For all her eccentricities, HPB has a large measure of common sense, and I desperately need to share my concerns about Alexandra.

August 20

Today I went to Alexandra's room thinking to borrow a new nib for my pen, but when I knocked there was no answer, and so I opened the door and went in. I knew she kept her writing materials in a chest of drawers, and would not mind if I helped myself. I opened a top drawer, found gloves and handkerchiefs, so tried another lower down. I lifted out some envelopes and a notepad, hoping to find the package of nibs lying underneath.

What I found instead was a pistol and a box of bullets.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

August 21

Y
esterday's discovery has filled me with a cold, sick dismay. How can I leave Alexandra alone for even a moment? For weeks now I have known that something was terribly amiss; yet until I caught sight of what was hidden in that dresser drawer, I had not let myself believe that she was in mortal danger.

During the day I will do my best to stay close by her side — but what of the night, when the darkest and most dangerous thoughts are entertained? I have settled on a pretext, flimsy though it may be, to keep watch by night as well.

This morning I told Alexandra, “My room is so hot and close I can scarcely get any sleep. The window is stuck fast, and no effort of mine will dislodge it. M'sieu Jourdan has promised to fix it, in his own good time — but I can only imagine when that may be.”

Alexandra had a book propped open beside her plate, and was holding a cup of coffee long since gone cold. She seemed only to be half-listening to my complaint; but after a moment she looked up and said, “Chérie, you had but to ask, of course till it is fixed you must stay with me.”