Girl in the Afternoon (16 page)

Auguste turned to Marie who stood frozen in the doorway. “Pack Jacques's things,” he said. “I'll have the coachman take them.”

With rising hysteria Colette screamed, “You can't do this!” and lunged at Auguste.

He sprang out of her way, knocking his chair to the floor. Colette stumbled over it and fell to her knees. “You can't do this!” she screamed again, untangling herself from the chair and crawling toward him, her protest savage and harrowing, her face twisted.

Madame Savaray rose from the table. “Colette, get up.” But Colette stayed on her knees, violently swinging her head as if she meant to shake it from her neck.

Aimée did not move. Everything seemed very far away as the information shifted into place. This was why Henri had left. It was not because he'd kissed her that night in the corridor, or because he'd told her he loved her. It has nothing to do with her at all. Aimée's stomach lurched into her throat. She put her head in her hands, closing her eyes against the cheerful mockery of sunlight that sprang through the windows. She remembered standing in her bedroom on that bitter, cold day when she'd watched the bloody soldier, when she'd felt her anguish like a wide, impassible sea, when Henri's leaving had been her fault.

The gravity of her maman's sin, the shocking truth of what Colette had done, what she had taken from Aimée and what she had taken from Henri, from all of them, scorched through Aimée like a quick fire, leaving a gaping hole in the center of her heart.

Colette stayed on her knees, her face a mask of torment and rage.

Madame Savaray stood above her. “Colette,” she said, crouching down, a cool pain spreading through her knee. “You must get up, my dear.” Her voice was soothing. “The only thing to do is to get up.” She hooked her arms firmly under Colette's and pulled her to her feet.

Auguste backed all the way to the wall like a cornered animal. He wanted to claw his way out of the room, out of himself. He couldn't look at Colette. This was her fault. He had to make this her fault, or else how could he do it? He would never again touch Jacques's soft cheeks, or hear his small voice, or see the joy in his full, innocent smile. Auguste's pain, upon waking that morning, wasn't the resigned pain of loss he'd felt when his sons died, but a repentant, tortured pain. It was his hand, not the hand of God, who had taken his son this time. And the truth of that threatened to destroy him.

He would have preferred Colette throw something at him, smash a plate to the floor, scream for them both, but her outrage turned to deep despair so quickly that all she could do was sway back and forth with closed eyes, head hanging forward.

Madame Savaray looked at Marie, who stood speechless in the doorway. “Help me,” she said, and Marie hurried over and took Colette's arm.

The two of them led her out of the room, guiding her upstairs and into bed where she lay on her side with one arm thrown over her eyes.

Colette heard voices murmuring and the clink of the wooden curtain rings against the rods. She felt her slippers being pulled from her feet, a blanket draped over her legs, a warm hand on her forehead, then cool air against her skin as the hand slipped away. Eventually, the bedroom door clicked shut, and the room went silent.

She pulled her arm from her face and dropped it to her side. She felt detached from her body, cold and heavy as stone, and she imagined herself carved into the bed, a permanent, immovable fixture. A braver woman would find her son, run away with him, risk everything for her child. Colette thought she was that kind of a woman. She'd always imagined herself to be, but here she lay, not running anywhere, feeling the same scooped-out emptiness she experienced after birthing a child. Once the babies struggled their way out of her body, they were no longer hers. The world took them, drew them out into the disease-ridden air and gave them back to God before she even had a chance to kiss them good-bye.

A single streak of sun escaped from a crack in the curtain and fell across the bed, splitting Colette down the middle like a bolt of lightning. God striking her down, she thought, holding out her arm, binding her wrist in that band of light.

For the first time in her life, when it actually mattered most, there was no fight left in her. This was not Auguste's fault. Jacques was her sin. And God, in his own way, had taken him back.

*   *   *

Aimée
needed to walk. She needed to be outside, reminded of the sky and the air, things that were sharp and cold and real.

The revelation of Jacques as both Henri's son and her brother was staggering. The idea of her maman and Henri together made her feel as if she could touch the charred edges of her anger, run her hand along the wounded lip of that hole in her heart.

It was nearly impossible to see her way to Édouard's. Inside his studio, the sun was too bright, the windows too large, the ceilings too high and airy and exposed. Normally, she undressed in front of Édouard, aroused just to have his eyes on her. Today, she slipped her clothes off behind the screen, shaking as she stepped out. She felt dirty, her nudity an affront, an affirmation of her own, sinful nature.

A shudder went through her when she sat on the edge of the divan.

“Are you cold?” Édouard asked.

“I'm fine,” she answered, but he shoved more coal in the stove anyway, distracted, crouching in front of the open door with his back to her.

“Do you believe Lemercier effaced seven stones of
Polichinelle
? I brought them thirty sheets of the finest Japanese paper to print those lithographs. I never instructed them to efface the stones, which of course I didn't even find out until I'd lined up a buyer. Infuriating.” He dropped the coal shovel in the bucket with a clatter that made Aimée jump.

He crossed to his canvas, and Aimée lifted her arm and held her pose. The heat, beating in her face, made her nauseous and it was all she could do to sit still.

Édouard picked up his brush, noticing only the pink flush in Aimée's pale skin.

A light tap came at the door. “Come in,” he said, and Aimée turned as a stout girl stepped into the room, her brown hair pulled into a knot at the nape of her neck. She stared at Aimée and then darted her eyes to the floor.

Édouard looked up, irritated. “What are you doing here?”

“Weren't the instructions eleven o'clock, monsieur?”

“Next week.” Édouard shook his head, and the girl dropped her ardent expression. “Go on then.” He turned from her and dipped his brush.

“Gracious, I don't know how I got it wrong! I'm so very, very sorry.” The pitch of the girl's voice escalated, and Édouard raised his hand.

“Go. Go away.” He motioned dismissively. “I'm working.”

“Of course, Monsieur Manet, my sincerest apologies. I promise to get it right next time.” She lowered her head and nearly tripped on her way out the door.

“New models.” Édouard grimaced. “So fervent as to be annoying.” He looked at Aimée, who had not returned to her pose. “Shall we postpone our session for another day?” Édouard asked.

“Why would we?” Aimée lifted her arm.

“You're looking a bit unwell. We'll stop.”

She let her arm fall, and it smacked against her bare side. “I apologize,” she said.

“No need for apologies.” Édouard took her hand and helped her from the divan. “Go change. I'm almost finished. A few more days and your skin's your own again.” He smiled at her, and Aimée stepped behind the screen feeling weak and vulnerable, with an intense desire to lie down with Édouard again.

But the moment she felt the urge, her stomach lurched, and she dressed quickly, wishing Édouard a good day and hurrying from his studio.

She went home on foot, her nausea increasing with every step until she became too sick and light-headed to continue. Stopping in the middle of the sidewalk, she took a slow breath and rested her eyes on the farthest point in the sky. The clouds moved dizzyingly. The shutters of a nearby window were open, and inside she could hear the grating voice of an angry woman, a woman fed up. Aimée swayed. She lurched at the scent of cooking meat in a nearby apartment, leaned forward, and vomited all over the sidewalk.

 

Chapter 19

The next day the Savaray house was silent. Colette wouldn't leave her room, and Marie brought her a tray of food, which went uneaten. Only Auguste and Madame Savaray ate in the dining room. Not a word passed between them. Aimée had her dinner sent to the studio, where she was working on a meticulously rendered still life: a stack of books, one fallen open on the table, an inkwell, and a quill pen. It had a punctilious level of detail. The precision kept her concentration hard as a rock, isolating her as she painted for hours at a time. She thought of going to see Jacques—no one had forbidden it, not that that would have stopped her—but she couldn't face Henri, not now. Not even for Jacques. So she kept her mind fixed on color and shadow and lines, fighting off the image of Henri in bed with her maman and the reality of Jacques's silent, empty room below her.

What she couldn't keep away was the low hum inside her, the subtle buzz and empty nausea. It was the moment she stood on the sidewalk smelling that cooking meat. The moment when the sky shifted and the earth dropped out from under her that she understood; she knew she was pregnant.

An older gentleman helped her from the sidewalk, avoiding any mention of her vomit at his feet. He put her into a cab and told the driver to take her straight home. But when the carriage turned onto the rue l'Ampère, Aimée told the driver to keep going, anywhere, just for a little while longer.

*   *   *

Five
days later Aimée was sitting on the divan at Édouard's listening to the resonant tick of the enormous clock on the wall, waiting for the bell to toll the hour that released her from her pose. She had worked in her mind how she was going to tell him. What exactly she would say. He would have to help her. He had to. She had no one else to turn to. She couldn't tell anyone in her family.

Édouard was not in a good mood. The painting was almost finished, and the end always bothered him. Rarely was he satisfied, and he had little sympathy for Aimée's pale color and trembling arm. It was throwing everything off. But she'd been this way for days, and he didn't think her color was going to improve.

As he glanced at the clock, thinking he might quit early, the studio door flew open. Startled, he dropped his brush, and a streak of paint shot down the front of his pants.

Aimée turned so quickly her vision blurred, and in a disoriented haze she flung an arm over her bare breasts. Her papa was coming toward her.

His eyes were fierce and narrow as he stood above her, thumping the top of his thighs with clenched fists. “Put your clothes on,” he said, his voice choked.

Aimée jumped up, fully exposed, and her papa's face deepened in color. She turned, trembling, and darted to the screen, the air splintered and brittle against her bare skin.

During the time it took to pull on her drawers and chemise, hook her corset, step into her bustle, pull on her petticoats and dress, clasp and button everything up, the room was completely silent, nothing other than the maddening tick of the clock.

When Aimée stepped out, Édouard was quietly dipping a brush into a jar of soap while her papa stood with his arms folded tightly across his chest, staring at the painting.

Auguste couldn't help but notice how good it was. It had a natural authenticity that would excite him if it were a painting of a classless, working woman, a girl meant for this sort of thing. Why wasn't it enough to paint his daughter in a sumptuous dress with a coy look? Capture her creamy complexion? Reveal the toe of a slipper? Auguste turned away, repulsed. No bourgeois woman showed the curve of her naked back or her bare neck, and certainly not the seductive lingering of her fingers across her own skin.

“You.” Auguste shook his fist at Édouard. “How dare you?” He pointed to the painting. “You will get rid of that filth immediately. I will not have it displayed. Do you hear me?”

Over his initial shock, Édouard stood calmly wiping the tip of his brush with a torn piece of muslin. “I have the utmost respect for your family, Monsieur Savaray,” he said evenly. “I would never reveal your daughter's identity.” He set the brush down and nodded at the painting. “Her face is hidden.”

“It's not her face that concerns me!” Auguste shouted, thumping over to Aimée, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of her upper arm as he marched her to the door.

“Monsieur,” Édouard said. “Your daughter sat willingly. It was, in fact, her idea.”

Aimée stared at Édouard, furious. It was her idea, yes, but by saying it, he made her completely responsible, cleared him of all wrongdoing. Looking at him she suddenly realized how old he was. Old like her papa. She was the naïve one, the one made accountable. Women, apparently, were the only ones made to pay for their sins.

There was a bitter taste in Aimée's mouth, and with overwhelming clarity she realized that her pregnancy would also be seen as her wrongdoing. Édouard would never be held responsible. He would not come to her rescue, nor would he defend her. He had a reputation to uphold, and certain formalities to keep. He would let Aimée go, with a smile and a nod of his head, back to her papa where she belonged.

*   *   *

Aimée
and Auguste rode home in silence. When the carriage stopped, he grabbed her arm as if afraid she might dash away and yanked her into the house. He dragged her up the stairs and tossed her through the doorway of her studio like a filthy rag.

Stumbling forward, Aimée grabbed the arm of the divan and pulled herself up. She turned to her papa with a scornful look, exactly the look she'd worn as a child. It surprised Auguste, as much now as it had then, that his daughter refused to submit to his discipline.