Cezanne's Quarry (42 page)

“How did you know?” Martin asked, as he placed his arm under the dying man’s head.

“The gloves,” Westerbury made an effort to raise his right hand. “The stains, his hair, on the gloves.” He let out a moan that was almost a shout. “I was going to duel for her. Her honor. Like a man. But he kept . . . coming at me. . . .” Westerbury panted for breath in little whimpers. “He said she was a whore . . . always had been . . . I think he was. . . .” Again he stopped, and his back arched in pain.

“The constable at Bennecourt. Yes, I know.”

“If you knew. . . .” Westerbury whispered. There was little time left.

“I just found out myself. I am going to Paris to look up his records.”

“Then this, this was all in—”

“No, no, not in vain,” Martin spoke louder. He could not let the Englishman die believing that he had died for nothing. “I would not have gotten as far as I have without your help. And I am not sure that I could have found enough proof to prosecute him. He was a powerful man.”

“Was?”

“He’s dead.”

“I did it, then. For. . . .”

“I know.” Martin said, as Westerbury grimaced in agony. He lifted the Englishman’s head closer to his own. “You did it for Solange. For her honor. She deserved such a gallant defender.” This was all puerile. But he did not know what else to say. And somehow it felt right.

Westerbury slowly raised his eyes. They stopped flickering. Had Westerbury heard him? Had he been able to offer any comfort?

Then he heard the words, “for Solange,” and he felt the weight of the Englishman’s head on his arm, as it rolled to the side. The blood dripping from his mouth was the sign that he, too, was dead.

Martin waited until he was sure he could speak with a steady voice before standing up. “Dead. Both of them,” he pronounced. “The Englishman waited for Franc with a pistol. Even so, Franc was strong enough to attack with his knife.”

“Good. Good,” said Jean. “At least he got the bastard back.”

“Yes, he did,” Martin responded quietly. “Yes, he did.”

“So the Englishman was the killer after all, just like Franc said,” François chimed in.

“No, no, he wasn’t.” Martin was not going to lie to them.

“Then who?” Jean approached Martin with fists clenched.

“Let’s worry about that later. For now, we must get Franc and the Englishman back to Aix. You two go back and get a wagon. Remember to bring blankets to wrap the bodies, and have someone go find Dr. Riquel. I’ll stay here and watch over them.” The two gendarmes hesitated for a moment, as if they wanted to continue defending Franc’s honor. “Go,” Martin insisted. “We need to be back in town before dark. You are much better riders than I am.”

The admission satisfied Franc’s loyal comrades enough to send them on their way. They prided themselves on being men of action, ready to kill if necessary. Yet it was Martin, the man of reason, who was in command. And, now, he realized, a man of feeling as well. At the moment, too much feeling. He needed to be alone.

After the men left, Martin climbed up on a boulder. He did not have the stomach to stay close to the two dead bodies. To smell their remains. To shoo away the flies. It would be better to look ahead, he told himself. Now that he had a future.

When he raised his eyes, Martin was surprised to discover that he could see Mont Sainte-Victoire, rising above the reddening boulders and the mournful parasol pines. The sun was only beginning its long, slow, summer descent behind him. Its waning rays covered the mountain with pale, radiant colors: pinks and blues, yellows and greens, oranges and white. Somewhere near the foot of the mountain, Cézanne was rolling up his canvas and tying his easel to a donkey, oblivious to the fact that he had won. He, not Westerbury, would be left to conquer the mountain.

Tomorrow, Martin would catch the train to Paris to find the evidence to prove Franc’s guilt and Westerbury’s innocence. He’d leave a note for Hortense Fiquet, assuring her that she and Cézanne would be left in peace. Above all, and before everything else, he would go in search of Clarie Falchetti. To tell her he was leaving for a while. And to beg her forgiveness.

March 1886

Zola publishes
L’Oeuvre
, his novel about an artist.

4 April 1886

Cézanne sends Zola a curt thank-you for his copy. They never speak again.

28 April 1886

Cézanne marries Hortense Fiquet in a civil ceremony witnessed by his parents.

29 April 1886

The couple marries in a religious ceremony witnessed by Marie Cézanne and Maxim Conil.

The newlyweds will soon start to live apart, Hortense spending as much time in Paris as possible.

23 October 1886

Louis-Auguste Cézanne dies, leaving his son an income of about 25,000 francs a year.

November 1895

Ambroise Vollard mounts an exhibit of Cézanne’s paintings in Paris, arousing interest and some favorable reviews.

29 September 1902

Zola dies under mysterious circumstances. Cézanne weeps bitterly when he hears the news of his oldest friend’s death.

Zola was a legend in his own time.

Cézanne is the father of modern art.

Bernard Martin, Albert Franc, Clarie Falchetti, Solange Vernet, and Charles Westerbury are fictional characters.

1.
    John Rewald,
Cézanne: A Biography
(New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1986), p. 156.

2.
    Nicolas Freeling,
Flanders Sky
(New York: Mysterious Press, 1992), p. 162.

3.
    Sidney Geist,
Interpreting Cézanne
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988), p. 99.

4.
    Cited in Alan B. Spitzer,
The Revolutionary Theories of Louis Auguste Blanqui
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1957).

5.
    Royer quoted in Pnina Abir-Am and Dorinda Outram,
Uneasy Careers and Intimate Lives: Women in Science 1789-1979
(New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1987), p. 147.

6.
    Michelet excerpted in Susan G. Bell and Karen M. Offen, eds.
Women, the Family, and Freedom. Vol. I: 1750-1880
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1983), p. 171.

7.
    Ronald Meek, ed.
Marx and Engels on Malthus
(New York: International Publishers, 1954), p. 186.

8.
    Benjamin F. Martin,
Crime and Criminal Justice Under the Third Republic: The Shame of Marianne
(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990), p. 2.

9.
    Sholem Asch,
The Nazarene
, trans. Maurice Samuel (New York: Putnam’s Sons, 1939), p. 3.

10.
Françoise Cachin et al.,
Cézanne
(Philadelphia: Philadelphia Art Museum, 1996), p. 274.

11.
Alexandre Dumas quoted by Lawrence Durrell in his
Provence
(New York: Arcade, 1990), p. 89.

12.
Joachim Gasquet’s Cézanne: A Memoir with Conversations.
Trans. Christopher Pemberton (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1991), p. 224.

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copyright © 2008 by Barbara Corrado Pope

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