Cezanne's Quarry (38 page)

Paul held them up one by one and spread his fingers. Not a mark.

“You hit him back, though, didn’t you, Papa?” Obviously, Hortense was not alone in wondering what kind of fight it could have been.

“Sure, and sent him packing too. Which I am about to do with you in a minute. I can tell your mother wants to talk to me alone.”

“No, I want to hear more!”

Cézanne got up and kissed his son on the forehead. “Go now. We’ll call you for lunch and talk then. So stay outside and close by.”

“All right. But promise—”

“Off with you.” Paul said, as he gave his son a friendly shove toward the door.

They did adore each other. Sometimes Hortense feared that that was the only reason Cézanne put up with her. But why did she have to put up with him?

“Hortense—”

“You don’t have to seem so self-satisfied about this. What happened? Did he come here? Was he in our house?” She started toward the hallway to see if there was damage in the other rooms.

“No, no.” Cézanne stepped in front of her. “We met outside.”

“You fought each other in the street? What were you doing? You’re a grown man. You belong to an important family.”

“Hortense, sit a minute.”

“No, not until you tell me.” She wanted to pick up a plate and smash it over his shiny bald head.

“Sit, please.”

He lowered himself into a chair, wincing just a bit as he settled in. If she was going to get any explanation, she saw no recourse but to sit and listen.

“Its all become clearer now,” he began.

“Oh, he’s knocked some sense into you?”

“You could say that.”

“And you didn’t even bother to hit him back.”

“Maybe I deserved it.”

“Why do you say that?” Although she could certainly think of some reasons of her own.

“It may be a kind of contrition, you know, like when you go to confession in the Church. For all the wrongs I have done.”

“Stop speaking in riddles. I want to know what the fight was about,” she demanded.

“He accused me of hurting her.”

“Hurting
her
?” That was laughable. Solange Vernet had floated through the world impervious to everything except her own selfish desire to surround herself with fawning admirers, fools like Cézanne.

“I did,” he said quietly.

“I don’t want to hear it!”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. The past doesn’t matter. We—”

“Where is he?”

“They took him away. I think he must be in jail.”

“And if he’s not, what if he comes back?”

He had the nerve to shrug. Somehow she had to bring him back to reality. “You know, Paul, the Englishman could be a murderer.”

“I don’t think so,” he said quietly.

“Don’t think so? If not him, who?”

“I don’t know. Maybe him. Maybe not.” He grabbed her arm. “If he did kill her, it was not because he was jealous of me. He told me that. Don’t you see,
that means that I had nothing to do with her death. Nothing at all
!”

Hortense yanked her arm away. If only he cared as much about her! She got up and began unpacking the basket, shaking so hard that the plums tumbled onto the floor.

“Here let me help you,” he continued in the same maddening, conciliatory tone. “We’ll all feel better once we’ve had something to eat.”

After their lunch of cold chicken, cheeses, and pears, it all caught up with her. She lay down on the salon sofa with a book and fell asleep. It was a dreamless sleep, which brought her to a slow awakening. Still groggy from her nap, she struggled to focus on what Paul was doing.

“Stay still, my dear. Just like that. Yes.” She was too tired to care, so she did not move.

“There.” He got up.”I’m going to add a little green and it will be done,” he said, and left the room.

Hortense stretched and sat up on the couch. At least he was drawing again.

When Paul returned, he sat down with her and showed her the sketch. On the right side of the page was the most beautiful drawing he had ever made of her. She looked sleepy, far away, and utterly human. On the left was a giant white
hortensia
in full bloom.

“You see, “ he said. “You are my flower.”

She did not know what to say. All she wanted was to preserve the moment, to feel forever the warmth that flowed from her heart. Paul reached over and kissed her lightly on the lips. Perhaps it would be all right after all.

[The Arlésiennes’] reputation for beauty is completely justified, and it is something more than just beauty. They are both gracious in demeanour and of a great distinction. Their features are of the greatest delicacy and of a Grecian type; for the most part they have dark hair and velvety eyes such as I have only seen hitherto in Indians or in Arabs.

—Alexandre Dumas,
Impressions of Travel: The Midi of France
, 1841
¹¹

I
T HAD TO BE PAST TWO.
Although Martin had only been standing in front of Chez l’Arlésienne for minutes, it felt like hours. He had been anticipating this moment since the night before, when a raucous crowd of workingmen had thwarted his plan to have a quiet early dinner. They had been celebrating something or other, filling the air of the tiny restaurant with cigarette smoke and high spirits, making Martin feel like an outsider. If Clarie had not spotted him at the door, he would have slipped away. But she did not let him leave until he promised to come back today and share what was left over from the midday seating. This was to be their first meal together. Worrying about it had even taken his mind away from Merckx and the case for a while. Still, he had no idea what he was going to say. What he did know is that this little restaurant was the only place in all of Aix where he felt he could be himself. Perhaps because it was the one place where someone knew what he had done and did not condemn him for it.

Martin took one last deep breath before putting his hand on the handle and pushing the door open. Only one customer remained, a white-haired old man with a cane hanging over a chair. Too deaf to have been startled by the bell, he was counting out coins to pay for his meal. Clarie hovered nearby, ready to help him out of his chair. She looked up and smiled at Martin as she handed the bent-over little man his cane. Martin held the door open as he limped out of the restaurant. Then Martin and Clarie were alone. The Choffruts must have been in the kitchen.

“I’ve got things ready over there,” Clarie said before striding over to a little table in the corner. The one farthest from the kitchen, where, three nights ago, he had made his confession.

“This looks good,” he said, as he put his bowler on the chair beside him. “Good, yes, thank you.” She had laid a platter of cold boiled fish and vegetables in the center of the table and spooned aioli on each of their plates. Too late, he realized that he should have been helping her into her seat. Clarie did not seem to notice.

“Come, eat, I’m starving,” she said as she pulled herself closer to the table.

“Me too.” He sat down. There was no reason to be so nervous today. No confession to make. No new elements of the case to hide.

Still, for a moment, neither of them moved.

“All right. Let’s both agree to what is going on.” Clarie picked up a spoon and began arranging carrots, potatoes, and fish on Martin’s plate. “My aunt and uncle think one thing, and we think another.” She paused, eyebrows arched, waiting for him to chime in.

Each time he saw her, she seemed more and more beautiful. Perhaps this is because he had grown accustomed to the way her nose tipped slightly upward after its long descent. Or, was it her dark, almond-shaped eyes, alternatively glimmering with mischief or shining with sympathy?

Martin coughed. “Yes, they are matchmaking and we are—”

“Friends,” she completed his sentence while he was still searching for the right word. “And since there is so little time left before I go to Sèvres, why shouldn’t we—”

“Have an intelligent conversation every once in a while.” Martin surreptitiously wiped his clammy hands on the red-and-white checkered napkin lying in his lap. It was good to get it all out. To recognize that they were of the same mind about so many things, and that romance was out of the question. Because Clarie was leaving in a few months. Because she wasn’t attracted to him. Although she had been very kind.

“Franc probably just went along with my aunt and uncle to get on their good side,” Clarie continued, as she dipped a cold carrot into the aioli. “They are so worried about me.”

“And you’re not?”

Clarie shook her head vigorously as she chewed. “I’m excited about the school. And I can always come back home.”

At least she has a home to come back to, Martin thought, as he plunged a piece of fish into the garlicky white sauce.

“Don’t you long to get back to Lille?”

“No.” Not the Lille of his mother’s expectations and his memories of Merckx.

“You mean,” Clarie said, “they don’t have a young woman back there waiting to marry you? That’s my aunt’s greatest fear, that there is someone already.” She smiled and glanced back toward the kitchen, where the clatter of dishes assured them that the Choffruts were still busy. “If you do,” she whispered, leaning closer to him, “don’t tell her until I leave for Sèvres, or she might ask Franc to find someone else to try and keep me here.”

Martin found this less amusing than Clarie did. “Actually,” he said as he slowly swirled a piece of potato around his plate, “before I left Lille I was almost engaged. The only problem was that I didn’t want to be.”

“Why?” She stopped, suddenly serious. “I mean, why were you supposed to marry her and why didn’t you want to?”

“She is the eldest daughter of distant relatives to whom my mother and I owe a great deal. She’s a handsome, fine young woman, but—” he did not want to be unkind to Marthe DuPont. “Her father’s a monarchist. A rich, influential monarchist,” he said, as if that would explain everything.

“And you don’t love her.”

“We’re very different. She . . . for example, she took some poor souls to Lourdes this month on the National Pilgrimage.” Martin stuffed the piece of potato into his mouth. He had said too much already. He certainly did not want to talk about the letter he had just received from Marthe, describing “her” poor and “her” sick, and begging him to come with her next year to witness the miracles.

Clarie gave him a wry smile. “Not loving her is enough of a reason not to marry. Anyone who describes his fiancée as a ‘handsome, fine young woman’ certainly does not love her.”

Martin was shocked. Marthe DuPont would never have said such a thing. Neither, he was sure, would Solange Vernet. Perhaps Franc was right. This one was indeed a bit wild. Not for the first time, he caught himself imagining what she would look like with her dark hair unfurled from the Arlésienne knot she wore on top of her head. He focused on his plate. He was not used to the clamor of feelings that Clarie aroused in him, wanting to be nearer to her at the very moment he felt like pulling away.

“Sorry.” It was Clarie’s turn to concentrate on her plate as she toyed with her food. “This is not my affair. I know how fortunate I am. My father would never pressure me into an arranged marriage. I shouldn’t have. . . .”

Martin was struggling to find the most gracious way to accept her apology, when they heard the bell. In walked Franc, setting off the all-too-familiar pounding in Martin’s chest. How in God’s name did his intrepid inspector always know where to find him?

“There you are,” Franc said as he marched through the empty restaurant right up to their table. “I looked for you at the Palais and decided to see if you were out and about.”

“Hello Franc,” Martin pushed himself to his feet. Before he had time to make the obligatory offer of a seat, Franc had pulled out the chair beside Clarie. “Do you have any more of that?” his thick, callused finger pointed at their meal.

Clarie got up immediately. “Certainly. Besides, you two probably want to talk for a few minutes alone.”

Martin was about to protest, when Clarie hastily added, “It’s all right. The aioli can wait, and so can I.” She had her back to Franc and gave Martin a look which seemed to say more, a warning not to do anything foolish. Before she left, she touched Martin’s hand ever so lightly to calm him down. This gesture did not escape the inspector, who winked at Martin as Clarie headed toward the kitchen.

Martin ignored him. He could barely stand to look at Franc’s grizzled, hardened face. This time he was more irritated than frightened by his inspector’s unexpected appearance.

“Look, if they’ve got something in the kitchen for me, I’ll move over to another table and eat with the aunt and uncle,” Franc said. “Don’t worry. I won’t ruin your tête-à-tête.”

You ruined it already.

“I just wanted to tell you that I read the letter.”

“And?”

“And I don’t see anything in it that gets us anywhere. It’s still either Cézanne or the Englishman. Who else?”

“You don’t think the earlier rape is important?” As much as he resented Franc’s presence, he knew this discussion was essential.