In
the middle of September 1975, Marte Pollison called Nadine to tell her that her
father had been coughing for days.
He
had worked steadily, refusing to change his routine, but that evening he had
been unable to get out of bed.
"He
won't let me call the doctor,
ma petite
, but I believe he may have
bronchitis
—
what must I do?"
"Nothing,
Marte, I'll be there in the morning.
You
know how he is about doctors
—
don't upset him."
Phillipe
Dalmas made a perfunctory offer to fly to Marseilles with Nadine and drive up
with her to Félice, a matter of little more than an hour and a half, but Nadine
spurned it.
As she drove up to the
gates, she was shocked.
La Tourrello
looked
abandoned, a stone pile from which the life had drained.
In the kitchen she submitted gracefully to
Marte's hugs. "You are more beautiful than ever
—
how gay it must
be in Paris," Marte exclaimed, as she fussed happily over Nadine.
"Why
is the house shut up, Marte?
Why are the
shutters closed, the furniture all covered?"
"Oh,
don't blame me, it's not my fault.
The
pool is empty too and the garden's overgrown, but there's no one here but me to
do all the work.
I've kept the house
dusted and swept and the tiles on the roof are repaired when they need it, but
you know Monsieur fired all the domestics after Madame died, and my arthritis
gets worse every time the mistral blows."
"Poor
Marte
—
of course I understand," Nadine said.
"For
a long while I offered to make up a fire for him in the salon so he could sit
there at night but he never wanted one.
I gave your room a good cleaning and airing this morning, and I'll serve
you dinner in the dining room if you like, or in the kitchen with me.
How long can you stay?"
"Until
I'm sure he's better," Nadine had answered, and mounted the stairs to
Mistral's room.
"I
don't know why the devil you're here," Mistral barked at her as she
entered.
"It was too late to stop
you when Marte, damn her, told me you were coming."
"Marte
is concerned about you."
"She's
an old busybody.
Senile!
I have a bad cold.
All I need is a few days in bed."
"Don't
you think you should call the doctor?"
"Don't
be ridiculous.
I've never seen a doctor
in my life.
I don't need a doctor, I
need a little peace and quiet."
"Marte
thinks it's bronchitis."
"She
doesn't know what she's talking about.
Is she qualified to make a diagnosis?
Just leave me alone."
"Have
you been working too hard?" Nadine asked.
"Working
too hard?
Do you have any idea of what
that means?
I work, that's all.
Work is work."
He coughed, an explosive, unexpected,
uncontrollable cough.
"Get
out of here," he said when he regained his breath.
"You'll catch my cold."
He sipped water from a glass by his bed.
"No,
Father, I'll keep you company a little longer.
Don't pay any attention to me.
I'll just sit here."
Mistral
closed his eyes in indifference and after a minute he fell into a light sleep,
snoring at intervals.
Nadine couldn't
stop staring at him.
Was this the man
Marte described as in good health?
Perhaps
it was simply that Marte hadn't noticed, living with him every day, but Mistral
was so thin that his body made only a long lumpy ridge under the
bedclothes.
From the chair by his bed in
which she sat, his body smelled musty and rank with sweat.
She shook with disgust.
He
was a tough old man and only seventy-five.
He had been able to work as usual until yesterday.
Who knew what reserves of strength were left
in that body?
When she was a little girl
he had been the strongest man in the world.
Great painters, like great orchestra conductors, lived forever if they
didn't manage to kill themselves in one way or another in their youth.
Certainly his manner was not that of a man who believed himself to be in any
danger.
Nadine
bit her lips in a passion of impotent temper.
It was probably a false alarm, a fever, a cough, a sweat, nothing she
hadn't had herself a dozen times.
Still
there was no question that he had lost a great deal of weight.
But thin people live longer than fat ones,
she thought angrily, and tiptoed closer to the bed to gaze into his face.
His nose seemed twice as large as it ever had
for now it stood out from a face from which the flesh had fallen away, a harsh
mask, somber and archaic.
"Damn
it, Nadine, leave me alone!
I want to
sleep!" Mistral rasped, without opening his eyes.
Her
heart jumped and she fled down to the kitchen.
"Marte,
I don't think there's any reason to worry about him.
He's too bad tempered to be really
sick."
"I
couldn't take the responsibility, I had to telephone you," Marte muttered.
"Of
course you did.
Anyway, I'm glad I came
if only to see you.
Father's kept me
away for so long.
You know I would have
come as often as possible but he refused to see me.
I've never understood it, but what could I
do?
It's his house, after all."
"If
only your mother were still alive.
Do
you remember the parties?
And how
beautiful the house was, filled with flowers, servants everywhere, the kitchen
full of food?
And all the famous
people?
Oh, Madame was the queen of the
countryside," she said sadly.
"You
look tired, my poor Marte," Nadine consoled her.
"I
kept looking in on him last night, climbing up and down those stairs.
I didn't get much sleep, but you mustn't
worry about me.
"I
think we should both go to bed early tonight.
I'm just down the hall from his room so I'll keep his door and my door
open and if Father needs anything I'll hear him...
I sleep lightly.
You mustn't climb stairs like that with your
arthritis.
And tomorrow, if I think it's
necessary, I'll call the doctor no matter what he says."
"I'm
glad you came,
petite chérie.
I
feel much better with you in charge.
It's all too much for an old woman like me."
As
Nadine lay in bed that night she was too alert to sleep.
She imagined herself taking a candle and
creeping down to the kitchen and finding the key to the studio on the big key
ring that hung there.
She imagined
walking through the silent rooms of the shuttered house and going out the
back, past the empty pool, to the great wooden doors of the studio.
She saw herself unlocking the doors and
snapping on the work lights and walking through the studio to the storage room
where the supreme works of France's greatest living artist lay on their racks,
hundreds of canvases, more valuable than any jewels.
In her mind she counted them, she estimated
their value
—
yes, in the hundreds of millions of francs, if Mistral's
dealer was correct, and there was no reason to believe he was not.
A fortune too great, too vast to
understand.
In that studio was her
brilliant, triumphant future, Nadine told herself, hugging her body with
impatience.
Not mere paintings
—
no, so much more.
The houses she would
own all over the world, the marvelous objects she would buy and buy and buy,
the receptions she would give; the inherited glory that would finally,
conclusively descend on her, the allure that would allow her to know
everyone.
The world would be at the feet
of Mistral's daughter.
Soon.
Very soon.
How soon?
She
got out of bed and walked softly into Mistral's room.
His breathing was ugly to hear, so much more
labored than it had been earlier.
He
struggled horribly to produce each strangulated snore.
She observed him carefully for a long time,
far enough from the bed so that he couldn't see her if he opened his eyes.
Finally Nadine went back to her room and
slept soundly until morning.
She dressed
hastily and returned to Mistral's bedside.
He was half awake and the water glass next to his bed was empty.
The chamber pot that Marte had put on the
bedside table was half full.
Nadine emptied
it, sickened and rigid.
She poured some
water for him and held it to his lips.
"How
do you feel?" she asked.
"Like
yesterday," he said but his voice was a whisper and, even without touching
his skin, Nadine could feel the hectic fever that was baking him reach its hot
fingers out to her.
She busied herself
with a washcloth and warm water, dabbing away, concealing her revulsion.
"I don't think I should try to shave
you.
I've never done it before,"
she said lightly.
"Shall I ask Marte
to make you breakfast?"
"Not
hungry...
more water," he muttered,
coughing again in that savage, gasping way that seemed so deep that it might
have come from his bowels, a cough that jerked him up in bed and bent him in
half.
Nadine
went down to the kitchen to find Marte just coming in, a worried look on her
face.
"He
spent a very good night," Nadine said cheerfully.
"I've given him a sponge bath and made
him nice and comfortable.
He's gone back
to sleep.
That's the very best thing for
him.
I tried to get him to eat but he
refused.
I know exactly how he feels
—
when I have that kind of cold I don't want to even smell food, only sip
liquids.
My Paris doctor says that they
still haven't invented anything to equal bed rest and liquids."
"Oh,
I feel guilty about letting you do all this," Marte said unhappily.
"Marte,
my old Marte, if I can't take care of my own father...?
Look, you make some good strong soup, a beef
broth, and perhaps later I'll be able to get him to drink some."
"Don't
you think we should telephone the doctor in Apt who took care of Madame?"
"That
would put Father into such a rage that he'd get worse.
You know how he prides himself on never being
sick.
I wouldn't want to be responsible
for bringing a doctor to the house unless I thought he truly wasn't well.
It would make him as mad as seeing a priest
walk in!
All he needs is good, plain
nursing.
Marte, I know what you can do
to make yourself useful!
Make me a
beautiful roast chicken the way only you can make it.
I'm starving!
And one of your apricot tarts and a big platter of cheeses, just for
me.
I dream of the cheeses from
Félice.
And country butter."
"I'll
have to go into the village, there isn't much in the house."
"Then
go, go.
I'll be here, don't worry."
During
all that long, hot September day Nadine guarded the sickroom.
She stood in the corridor outside of the
half-opened door and listened avidly.
Mistral coughed constantly and violently.
Sometimes he moaned and called her name in a
pleading, desperate voice that was so weak that it could barely be heard.
He whispered harshly for Marte, over and
over, and coughed again, more rendingly every hour and yet, it seemed to her,
without as much force as before. Occasionally, he seemed to fall asleep but
never for long.
Downstairs, Marte,
relieved and comforted, busied herself in cooking and making the house look
welcoming.
"Open
all the shutters, Marte, take those awful covers off the furniture, pick some
flowers, build a fire in the grate
—
at night it's too depressing like
this," Nadine had commanded, and Marte, delighted at the new life in the
house, had been glad to obey.
When
Monsieur was well enough to come down to complain, it would be time enough to
close the shutters again.