Immortal Muse (55 page)

“Yes,” and again, “yes.”

For the next few days, she began to believe that everything could be as she wanted it to be. The reconnection with David was fast and satisfying. Her exhaustion vanished like a morning snow in spring; she felt whole and complete once more, and the knife wound on her stomach healed over completely, though the scar was still visible as an angry red line. David swept Camille up in his photography; he had her pose for him, clothed and unclothed, and put the prints up on the walls so they could critique them together. They made love; they talked. She told him details of her long life that she'd never confided to anyone else; she answered any question he asked—and he had many.

She felt, again, complete. Except for the lingering sense of unease due to Nicolas, they could have been in Paris again: alone together and happy. There were moments, even hours, where she could fool herself and believe that it could stay this way.

But she knew that this was only a respite. The Tarot cards told her; her heart told her. Nicolas was a thunderhead looming on the horizon, crawling toward her on legs of jagged lightning. The storm was inevitable.

She could hear the thunder of the storm in her dreams.

She put a small fire spell on a glass flask of explosive powder and gave it to David, teaching him the single word and gesture that would release the spell. “If you see Nicolas, throw the flask at his feet and say the spell word. The explosion should at least give you time to run; at best, it might incapacitate Nicolas long enough for you to do more.”

She'd told him about Antoine and the guillotine, and what that had taught both Nicolas and her. She didn't know if David would actually cut off the man's head if Nicolas were lying unconscious in front of him, but at least he knew.

Camille hunted Nicolas, desperate to find him first. She spread out her cards for some hint of where he might show up next, but the array was cloudy and uncertain, as if something or someone was actively interfering with her reading. She might as well be playing Solitaire with them, for all she learned. Her Ladysmith and vials of chemicals in her handbag, her katana hidden inside a hollowed-out walking staff, she watched Mercedes' apartment, studying each person who entered the building: Nicolas could put another face on his own, but he couldn't change his height or general build. She spent time outside the apartments of the rest of the
Bent Calliope
Group, hoping that she might be lucky enough to see Nicolas. She called Palento every day, asking if they'd found Pierce yet; the answer was always the same: we'll let you know when that happens.

She saw no sign that Nicolas was watching her, though she often found herself peering out the window. She made excuses so that David wouldn't go out alone without her, and though he knew that the Ladysmith was snuggled in her handbag every time they left the apartment, he made no objection.

She called Mercedes, who didn't answer her phone. “Mercedes,” she said after the beep. “I want to apologize. I don't want to lose you as a friend. Please call me back. I'm so sorry. And please, remember what I said about Pierce . . .”

She didn't hear from her. She didn't bother to call any of the other
Bent Calliope
regulars.

On the third day, she went back to the apartment to get more of her things. She stopped at Mrs. Darcy's apartment and told her that she was moving in with David for the time being, and that if she knew of someone who might want to sublet the apartment for a few months, to put them in touch with her. Camille took her time as she packed the essentials from her apartment, wondering whether she should put additional alchemical materials into the boxes she'd stored in her closet and bring them over as well, or if some of her older paintings should go with her too. If she did that, she'd need to call for a cab.

In the end, she packed up most of the things but left them there, taking only a small suitcase of clothing. She walked the several blocks to David's apartment. The day was warm and she walked slowly down Delancey, glancing back over her shoulder now and again, and watching the other side of the street as well.

Holding the suitcase she'd brought, she buzzed the apartment rather than trying to excavate her keys from her purse. She waited; David didn't respond. She buzzed the apartment again; once more, there was no response. He'd said something about working, so Camille figured he was in the studio loft and couldn't hear the buzzer. Grimacing, she set down the suitcase and fished out her keys.

The key ring jangling in her hand, she walked down the hallway—if David was engrossed, he wasn't going to hear her knock, either. But as she came closer, she slowed: if he was working, she should
feel
him, and there was nothing. No stirring of the green heart, no warm, grassy tendrils spilling from the apartment. A few more steps, and she saw the door of the apartment: it was slightly ajar.

Camille set down the suitcase again. She reached into her handbag for the Ladysmith. Her pulse pounded so loudly in her ears that she was certain anyone inside the apartment could hear it. Shielding herself on the wall, she pushed the door open with a foot. She waited, but there was no response and she heard nothing at all from within the apartment.

Taking a long breath, she slid inside. The large main room looked much the same as when she'd left. A coffee mug sat on the table in front of the couch and she could see the dark circle of the brew halfway down the side. She touched the cup; it was warm, but not hot. “David?” she called out tentatively, then more loudly: “David?”

Verdette came padding down from the upstairs studio, yowling angrily and curling around her feet. “David?” she called out more loudly. “Are you up there?” Could he have gone out? Maybe he was just around the back of the building, putting out the trash—that would explain why he left the door open. He'd be back in a few minutes, laughing at her panic.

She saw it then: the folded piece of paper behind the coffee mug. She snatched up the note. Underneath was the explosive flask she'd given David. On the paper itself was a crude sketch of a guillotine, and two brief sentences in French:
Je l'ai. Attente des instructions.

I have him. Wait for instructions.

1941 – 1943

A
FTER SHE LEFT VIENNA AND KLIMT, she reset the trap . . . and Nicolas didn't take the bait.

She'd gone back to Paris, which was still the center of the art world, and stayed there for several years. She thought Nicolas would certainly find the Great War compelling, and so she became—openly—a lover of several of the notorious Parisian writers and artists of the time, but Nicolas never appeared.

Camille began to have some small hope that Nicolas would keep his word, that he would no longer trouble her. When the Great War ended, she traveled to the United States for the first time. As “Alice Small,” she spent time in California on the fringes of Group f/64—the informal club of photographers that included Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, and Sonya Noskowiak, feeding on the green soul-hearts that nurtured her most. Still, the incestuous crowd and their interminable affairs eventually soured on her. She traveled eastward across the continent, first to Chicago, then to New York, remaining a few years in each city, occasionally allowing herself to be prominently committed to one person: again, the trap always remained unsprung.

By the 1930s, she began to think that Nicolas would indeed abide by their truce. She found herself no longer looking constantly over her shoulder or avoiding places where she was alone. She found that she liked New York and the feeling of being immersed in the cutting edge of culture—but, achingly, that city with all its energy and vitality reminded her too much of Paris.

Meanwhile, Europe seemed to be undergoing its own new social paroxysms. She found that she wanted to be there, afraid for her old home.

Late in 1938, not long after British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returned from his talks with Adolf Hitler and declared he had obtained “peace for our time,” she decided to return to France, taking on the identity of Anaïs Dereux. She traveled by ocean liner to England in early 1939, then eventually over the channel into France. She didn't return to Paris except to pass through the city on a train. She continued south to Nice, arriving in February as Prime Minister Chamberlain declared in the British House of Commons that any German attack on France would be automatically considered an attack on Britain.

She wondered then whether she'd made a mistake returning to Europe. The sense of dark and boiling storm clouds looming was palpable, even under the bright Mediterranean sky.

By the time that German troops entered Bohemia and Moravia, incorporating Czechoslovakia into Germany, Anaïs was well-ensconced in the Nice art community. Most of the talk in Nice revolved around the deepening German threat, with some holding out hope that Hitler could be appeased and a peace negotiated, while others scoffed at the idea of a German invasion of France. “The Maginot Line,” the French military commanders stolidly declared, “will keep them out. No army is capable of breaching those defenses.”

On September 1, 1939, the German army crossed the Polish border; two days later, France and the UK declared war on Germany, and the continent trembled on the blood-red precipice once more.

Anaïs could have left then, before the German army turned and invaded France, making a mockery of the Maginot Line, but she did not. She stayed. She stayed because of yet another soul-heart.

 * * * 

Anaïs h
ad settled into one of the old quarters of Nice on the rue Neuscheller, a steep lane high above the Mediterranean, bordered by the remnants of shabby old mansions from the 19th century that had been parceled out into gloomy and musty apartments. Rue Neuscheller was inhabited largely by families whose fortunes had declined sharply during the economic upheaval of the 1930s, and also by an influx of Jews fleeing the rising oppression in Germany. Refugees had been coming to France since the mid-30s, but the violence of Kristallnacht—the 9th of November in 1938—had transformed that trickle to a flood. It was becoming common to hear German or German-accented French being spoken as one walked along the street.

The final week of April of 1940 was warm, with a briny sea breeze wafting inland off the coast, sweeping the hills that spilled down into the azure waters. Anaïs walked slowly down the avenue, enjoying the feel of the sun on her face and the ocean's scent, and anticipating what she'd buy at the market there—bread, certainly, and early vegetables in from the local farms, if they were available, and maybe some fish for dinner. Unfortunately, good food was becoming harder to find and more expensive to buy. As she neared the square with its little shops, she glimpsed a young woman in a blue sweater sitting on one of the benches in the grassy central park, hunched over a tablet of drawing paper and sketching furiously with a pencil.

Anaïs had found artists enough in Nice, most of them with talents pale and subdued. Collectively, they represented enough food for her, but a feast that was bland and without sharp flavors: a gruel of mediocre art. They could sustain her, but couldn't rouse in her the flame that Lucio or Antoine or Gustav had. Ana was drifting in the currents without making headway, and she knew it: in fact, she intended it. The world was at war, but that was still possible to nearly forget in Nice, which hadn't been touched by the screaming of bombers and the chatter of gunfire. Still, it was safer to put down no roots at all in an uncertain world and be attached to no one so that she could flee at need. Nice pretended that it remained a destination for the tourists; that people came for the sea air, for the dramatic views, for relaxation and leisure. Nice pretended that nothing had changed.

It was a pretense that fooled no one, but the mask remained stubbornly in place despite the news.

Ana understood that. She pretended such things herself, pretended that she had eluded Nicolas forever, pretended that she would never see him again, pretended that she could sip from weak soul-hearts and be content. But Ana couldn't alter her character, couldn't fail to pay attention to the hunger within her for more, more, more. She saw the young woman and she stopped: the soul-heart within the girl . . . It was coiled tightly inside, held as closely to her as her body language might have suggested. Yet it glowed even in the sunshine, the potential of it stabbing deep within the girl, the coils writhing as if aching to be released.

And Ana found herself aching in concert with them. Give her enough time and she could unleash everything inside this one; she could let those coils pulse outward to find the inspiration and expression that this mossy potential wanted so desperately. This was not like Gustav's talent; no, Gustav's energy had been constantly in motion and could barely be contained: the taste and feel of this young woman's was different, but it was no less solid and real. Her soul-heart had already known pain, had been nearly suffocated and lost entirely. Ana tasted the radiance with her mind; the heart tightened even more in response, as if frightened.

Ana's fingers slipped between the buttons of her blouse to briefly touch the cameo. The sardonyx felt slick under her touch.
Do I dare do this again?
Then:
It's been over three decades since you've seen Nicolas. He's done what he said he would do. You're safe.

Standing behind the girl, she glanced down at the sketchpad. There, reproduced in gray, firm pencil strokes, were the shops across the way, with a flurry of quickly-sketched figures moving along the sidewalk. “That's a nice rendering,” Anaïs said, and the girl started dramatically, nearly dropping the pencil and grabbing at the sketchpad that threatened to tumble from her knees to the ground. She gaped up at Anaïs, her eyes wide. She was plain in features, with undistinguished brown hair cropped at the shoulders and pulled back with a pale blue ribbon from her face. She appeared to be older than Anaïs had first supposed, maybe about twenty; her body was thin and waif-like, and perhaps that had contributed to the impression. “I love the sense of movement in the sketch,” Ana continued into that face's apprehensive stare. “I can feel the people scurrying about.”

“
Danke
,” the young woman began, then swallowed hard. “I mean,
merci
. I'm glad you like it.” Her French was good, but flavored like so many others with a slight German accent. That alone told Ana that she was one of the refugees.

Ana came around the front of the bench, though she didn't sit. “I'm Anaïs Dereux. I live just up there,” Anaïs said, pointing back up the rue.

“I'm Lotte,” the young woman said. For a moment, Anaïs thought that it was all she would say. She clutched her pad and pencil and seemed prepared to bolt. She shivered, visibly. “Charlotte Salomon,” she said finally. “I live with my grandpar . . .” Again she stopped. “With my grandfather,” she finished. Anaïs was certain Lotte had been about to say “grandparents,” and that sparked a memory of an article in the local paper a week or so ago: a Jewish refugee from Germany, an older woman, had fallen from a high window and died, the story freighted with the heavy intimation that the incident had been no accident but a suicide, though that was never directly stated in the newspaper report.

“May I see your other sketches?” Anaïs asked. “I'm sorry; I shouldn't bother you, but I'm curious . . .”

Ana thought that Lotte would refuse. She hugged the sketchpad to her skinny frame, clutching it with a strange desperation, then abruptly handed it to Anaïs. Ana took it gently, and looked pointedly at the bench; Lotte scooted over to make room for Ana to sit next to her. Ana set the sketchpad on her own lap, carefully lifting the page, nodding as she went back through the sketches: landscapes with the trees of Nice and views of the harbor, a few sketches of buildings, and a larger, more finished portrait of an old woman, who appeared to be sleeping while her likeness was captured.

That one made Ana pause. The curled fingers near the head, the shadows of wrinkles on the face and down the neck, the quiet relaxation of the figure, the lines of her nightdress, the blanket wrapped to her waist: the portrait was evocative and stunning. “Who is this?” Anaïs asked Lotte.

The young woman glanced quickly at the paper and away. “That's Grossmama—my grandmother.”

“It's a lovely sketch of her. Does she like it?”

“I never showed it to her.”

“You should.”

Her mouth tightened, and she looked away from the sketch. “I can't. She . . . died.”

“That happened recently?”

The response was the ghost of a nod from Lotte, and Anaïs was quietly certain that her suspicion was correct.

“I'm very sorry,” Anaïs said. “That's hard, losing someone you've known all your life. I didn't mean to pry. I'm sorry for that, too.”

That earned Anaïs another nod, but the green heart remained wrapped tightly inside and Anaïs could only barely feel it now that Lotte had stopped drawing. Had she not felt it earlier, she might have missed it entirely. “It's all right,” Lotte said. “She . . . She wasn't happy. Being here was hard for her.”

“I've read the papers,” Anaïs said. “I understand.” The vitriol in the newspapers toward the Jews was increasing, with articles claiming that the German refugees were in fact a “fifth column” responsible for the loss of French troops against the onrushing German army in Denmark and Norway, and angry letters insisting that the government must do something about the traitorous Germans on their soil. Posters for the propaganda film
Jew Süss
, depicting a lecherous Jew defiling a pure Aryan girl, adorned the walls around Nice. To be German was bad enough; to be Jewish and German was worse.

Ana let the pages of the sketchpad fall back and handed it to Lotte. She pressed it to her chest as if she'd never expected to have it returned to her. “Do you paint, too?” Ana asked her.

A shrug. “Sometimes. I have some landscapes and some figures that I've done recently.”

“I'd really like to see them,” Ana said. “I might even want to buy one. Could we meet so I could look at them, maybe tomorrow? I could come to your house, perhaps.”

The green heart throbbed once. Ana plucked at its tendrils, prying them loose and tasting them at the same time. Her own mood brightened with the feel of them. “That would be fine, I suppose,” Lotte told her, and the corners of her lips twitched with a hint of a shy smile.

For the first time, the young woman made full eye contact with Anaïs, and the smile finally widened. It made her features suddenly and strangely radiant, and in that moment, Ana felt herself connect, momentarily, with Lotte's green heart. She gasped with the shock of the contact and with the depth of its potential.

 * * * 

“I
think I like this one,” Anaïs said. “How much do you want for it?”

The gouache painting of the steep, green hills outside Nice, falling down to an angry, storm-wracked sea, was competent but not overwhelming, little better than that of a hundred other artists working in the region. Ana could feel no stirring of Lotte's green heart as the young woman looked at the painting: this was not a work of the heart; this was intended to be purely commercial, a piece for the tourists to buy so that Lotte and her grandfather could eat.

Except that a German Jewess' paintings were not particularly coveted by the French tourists in Nice.

“Ten francs?” Charlotte's voice was tentative, and the end of her sentence lifted into a question. Ana shook her head.

“My dear, you undervalue yourself far too much. I'll give you twenty, and I'm still getting a bargain.”

Lotte smiled at that and nodded. They were in Lotte's room on the second floor of the villa l'Ermitage, where her grandfather still lived even after the death of his wife—she was briefly introduced to the man, and she thought him both broken and unpleasant. Lotte's room was small but airy, with white chintz curtains that swayed in the breeze off the Mediterranean. Her bed, with a coverlet embroidered with a trellis of vines and roses, was pushed against a wall, as if afraid to intrude too far into the space. A battered chest of drawers lurked in a corner. In the space that remained, Lotte had set up an easel, and her paintings were stacked against or pinned to the walls. To Ana, the room smelled of Lotte: of paints and perfume.