Breath and Bones (47 page)

Well, Famke would continue to go slowly: The most important goal now was to make
Hygeia
perfect. And then, once she and Albert were reunited—he with his muse, one bringing greater knowledge and understanding to their work together—she thought that she might paint again as well. She might find that she was a real artist; she might paint alongside Albert, matching his strokes with her own, until there was no telling where his work ended and hers began.

It was a heady, giddying thought. She knelt down before
Hygeia
and took deep breaths, just as Edouard had taught her: In, out; in, out; and her head cleared. She rang for Precious Flower and a fresh palette.

When at last Famke stood with brush in hand, the desire to flee ebbed a bit. As she stirred oily spots of color and tapped them gently onto the surface, she knew her painting would be both beautiful and truthful; it would tell the truth about beauty, for, as Albert used to say, in every detail there is a message, and in beauty there is genius. Famke would remain until
Hygeia
's genius was full-fledged.

So in the next days the goddess's lips and cheeks grew even redder, her jaw thinner, her hair thicker and flaming. The mole vanished from her cheek. Her eyes—though Edouard had not asked for this—became a light, luminous green, the most beautiful eyes Famke could imagine, and the lids receded from the orbs. Her smock thinned out where it touched her body, and in those places Famke painted the whole truth of a woman. This, she imagined, must be how the Mormon God's wife felt, helping her husband to create.

At last, one afternoon in April, Famke laid down her brush for the last time. She had done what she could: Hygeia might not quite measure up to the image in her mind's eye, but she'd come as close as Famke could bring her.

“
Fœrdig
.” She said it first in Danish, to please herself, then translated in honor of Albert: “Finished,” although there was no one to hear her.

The word seemed to travel through the walls, however, and in short order Edouard himself was knocking on the studio door.

“Miss Summerfield?” he called, and even Famke could sense his timidity. Though he said no more, she also divined his wishes immediately, and since she was so elated to be through she opened the door to him.

“Yes, I have finished,” she said, wiping her hands on her dress and staining it red, green, yellow. She was flattered now that he wanted to see her work, half proud and half nervous. So this was what it felt like to be an artist . . . “Come and see.”

Dazzled by the brightness of her smile, Edouard fairly fell into the room. He recovered himself and walked to the easel, where he raised his eyes and took in
Hygeia
all at once.

For a long time Edouard was silent, so silent that Famke heard the blood pounding in her head and suddenly, on its own, her body let down some juices. In an attempt at professionalism, she held her breath, trying not to give in to emotion.

“Well?” she asked at last, her eagerness making her rude. “Do you have an opinion?”

Edouard filled his lungs to the bottom, weighing a speech which he knew was the most important he might ever say to her; there were so many possible words and phrases, and perhaps only one right thing to say. He fidgeted with his old watch fob, which was now worn whisper thin. After the first glance, he could not bring himself to look again at the canvas, which had already burned its image into his brain; he knew his face must be stained with a blush as deep as the one on the painted cheeks.

“It is my opinion,” he began heavily, “that, as you know, this painting was not much to begin with . . .” He could not think how to end the sentence, and he stopped to fidget some more and consider.

“There were good parts in the original,” Famke said. Her hands were folded, and beneath the streaks of paint he saw her knuckles had gone white. “The ice was very well done.” And yet, now that she looked at it again through Edouard's eyes, she thought she might rework it; for Albert had ranged his stalagmites in groups of three, like soldiers marching . . . And
how did Edouard feel about her addition of Hygeia's springs? He had not commented . . .

Edouard cut into her thoughts, seeming rather to blurt out his next question. “Would you like to take lessons?”

Famke breathed carefully. “Lessons?”

“I can arrange it, if you want them.”

What did that mean? She began with the most hopeful interpretation: “Do you
like
my painting?”

Edouard, too, was breathing with his whole body. “There is a certain . . . vigor to what you have done,” he said, obviously struggling to balance tact and truthful opinion. “But I cannot call it quite professional.”

Half afraid he had misjudged, Edouard looked back up at the immense canvas, and Hygeia's distasteful green eyes stared glassily back. She stood at slightly more than his own height, as colorful and intricately detailed as a medieval illumination. But those details—the goddess had hair of Famke's shade, yes, but its intricate whorls and scrolls reminded him of hellfire; her round arms and exaggerated bosom were the depiction of
la luxure
as imagined by a terrified peasant. And below the breasts—well . . .

If he were to be truthful, he would say this canvas was even worse than when she began.

“What do you mean by ‘professional'?” Famke asked, with perspiration beginning to bead on her brow. “You mean the style of those who paint for hire, to the client's orders, without inspiration?”

Edouard blinked. “I merely referred to a certain . . . polish that is lacking here.”

“I can't varnish it yet,” she protested. “We have to wait till the paint is dry!”

“It is not the varnish,” Edouard said stiffly. “It is the color—garish. It is the lines—exaggerated.” When she continued to stare at him expectantly, he burst out, “This Hygeia looks as if she is—That is, she is not entirely the model of—”

“So you
don't
like her,” she said, holding herself as still as a stone.

“The picture is not ready to hang.” Now Edouard would not look at it or at her. Beachly had been wrong to buy this canvas, and it was his own fault that the thing had only got worse. “The truth, Miss Summerfield, is that
there are certain elements of this composition that make it inappropriate for—for ladies and children—”

Suddenly Famke coughed. She turned her head so that she wouldn't spray the canvas; but this was a normal cough, no blood, and for a moment Edouard congratulated himself on what he had accomplished with her cure. She was
his
masterwork.

Even so, the cough was of long duration, and it so weakened her that she dropped to her knees at Hygeia's feet.

“I know—what you—mean to say,” she gasped. “Her—hairs—”

“True . . . Such things are generally not painted,” Edouard said, fumbling for a handkerchief; for there were tears on Miss Summerfield's cheeks, and he was not sure if they came from the cough or her emotions. “Perhaps you have not been properly exposed to artwork before.” He shuddered to think what horrors her brother, painter of the first disastrous
Hygeia
, might have committed to canvas elsewhere.

“But I
have
,” she said. She ignored the handkerchief he held out. “I have seen more paintings in one year than you have seen in your entire life of living here. And this is what
I
think is art.” She wiped her nose on the back of her hand and said, “Anyway, you see those hairs every day. You see me.”

Edouard felt himself growing warm, and then sickened with a lurch of shame instilled by the religion in which he'd been raised and of which this painting had unfortunately reminded him. He saw those red hairs again in his mind's eye and grew even warmer. “But that is for medical treatment,” he said, rather too loudly. Like a proper clinician, he bent knifelike at the waist, then knelt and dabbed her nose with the handkerchief. “What is appropriate to medicine is unacceptable in entertainment. You may have had the best of intentions—” He stopped.

When he bent so clumsily, he'd brushed the peg holding the muslin used to cover the canvas at night. While he spoke, the fabric drifted slowly down, and now the end of it settled on the crown of Famke's head. The rest swirled away to tangle at her feet, and with the two of them on their knees, Edouard felt as if they were at an altar.

His heart pounded. He imagined he were about to place his lips on hers and thereby seal a pact. “You are—ill,” he said, taking refuge once more in medicine.

Famke's eyes sank slowly shut, then opened halfway as the blood drained from her face. For once, she appeared to agree with him. “I need to rest,” she said, in a feeble voice. But she shrank from his arms, wrapped herself in that muslin drape, and added, “I can walk there myself. You should leave me now.”

Edouard felt he could do nothing but obey.

Birgit twisted the ring on her finger, the one that had marked her, at age eighteen, as a bride of Christ. She had lost some weight lately, and the ring was loose; she would have to wrap it in string to make sure it did not slip off her finger.

“Sister,” Father Absalom said loudly, on a note of rebuke. The nuns sitting behind him were rigid and still, their faces blank. They would model their behavior, as their attitudes, on his.

“I am sorry, Father.” Birgit folded her hands and drew a deep, painful breath; in addition to her other problems, she suspected she had contracted a fever. “What do you wish to ask me?”

She had already confessed to him in private, and her fate was decided, if not yet revealed to her. But it was necessary now to make a second confession to the nuns' council so that she might serve as an example to others tempted to err; and the confession would be extracted in the form of a catechism.

Father Absalom asked, “Were you aware of the girl's immoral past when you sent her to Herr Skatkammer?”

“Yes,” she admitted steadily.

“But you secured this employment and vouched for her good character nonetheless?”

“Yes.”

“And why did you do this?”

“Because I am fond of her, Father.”

There was a silence as this crime sank into the minds of the assembled nuns. No one seemed surprised; truth to tell, it was hard to blame a sister for feeling affection. The lie about Famke's virtue was more serious, but still none of them expected terrible consequences from it.

Father Absalom's tone became somber as he spread a page of writing paper on the table before him. “The letter I have received makes another accusation about your dealings with this girl. Do you know what it is?”

Birgit coughed and then said, “Yes, Father, for you have shown it to me. Herr Skatkammer's housekeeper accuses me of being Famke's mother in body as well as spirit.”

Now some of the nuns could not repress a shiver. They were astonished at how frankly, how calmly Birgit repeated the accusation. What could that mean?

“Are you the girl's mother?”

“No,” said Birgit, “I am not. When she was abandoned at Immaculate Heart, I had been among the sisters for more than a year. Sister Casilde can testify to my virtue and to the fact that I had not been outside the convent walls in that time.”

“There is no record showing precisely when you arrived. And Sister Casilde is ill in bed.”

“But when she recovers, she will tell you I speak the truth.”

This, however, was unlikely; for as everyone assembled there knew, Sister Casilde was old enough to have slipped back into childhood, and her memory was most unreliable. There were no others left from the bygone days.

“And how do you explain the word pinned to the infant's blanket—a word in Swedish, and you the only sister who could translate it?”

Birgit spread her hands and felt the ring slide again. “Many Swedish women came to Denmark to deliver; it was the one place they did not need to give their names to the midwives. I was not such a woman—it is impossible to think I could be. As I told you, I had not been outside the convent in over a year.”

Father Absalom waited.

The nuns pushed their ears from their wimples to listen.

Sister Birgit would say no more.

I see a lily on thy brow

With anguish moist and fever dew,

And on thy cheeks a fading rose

Fast withereth too
.

J
OHN
K
EATS
,
“L
A
B
ELLE
D
AME SANS
M
ERCI
”

Among the prospering industries of the Pacific Coast, one of the most interesting and profitable is that of putting up various articles of food and delicacies in cans and other vessels, for preservation and shipment
.