Sacre Bleu (33 page)

“If we have no blue, what good is a new painter?” Juliette said.

“And the Dutchman’s brother. You don’t think he has our paintings? You know if the Dutchman told the dwarf about us, he told his brother.”

“If he has it, he wouldn’t show it to me. I looked at a hundred of Vincent’s canvases. None painted with Sacré Bleu.”

“You need to fix the brother’s memory.”

“I can’t go back to Montmartre looking like this anymore. When the family starts conking you on the head, it’s time to change strategies. If you want me to go back, I need the blue.”

“If we can get the color, you need to clean this up.” The Colorman took off his hat and scratched his head, a patchy carpet of coarse black hair. He could, perhaps, get the color, but he didn’t want her to know the source, which was going to be awkward, since he’d need her to help him make it. Maybe he should just buy a new gun and start shooting painters. It was much simpler that way. “If you can’t make them forget, the baker and the dwarf, the Dutchman’s brother, then you need to finish them.”

“I know.” She pulled her carrot greens away from Étienne, who snapped at her in protest. Then she noticed that his great erect donkey dick was jutting damply out from under him and off the edge of the sofa. She smacked its tip with her carrot and the donkey brayed like a broken bellows in protest.

“He missed you,” explained the Colorman.

I
T’S TWO THIRTY.
I
T’S TWO THIRTY.
I
T’S TWO THIRTY.”

“You’re supposed to use the watch as a point on which to focus,” said the Professeur, who was swinging his pocket watch by the chain in front of Lucien’s face. “Not to continually check the time.”

“You didn’t say that.” Lucien squinted at the watch. They’d been at this for a half an hour, trying to access Lucien’s earliest memories of the Colorman, but all they’d discovered was the time. “You just said concentrate on the watch. I thought you’d want to know what time it was.”

“When does he start to behave like a chicken?” asked Henri. “I need to get to the printers.”

“A subject for hypnosis must be suggestible,” said the Professeur. “Perhaps we should try it on you, Monsieur Lautrec.”

“And waste the thousands of
francs
I’ve spent on alcohol trying to destroy the very memories you are trying to raise? I think not. I have an idea, though, that may work on Lucien. Could we try an experiment?”

“Of course,” said the Professeur.

“I’ll need what is left of the blue oil color I gave you for analysis.”

The Professeur retrieved the color from the bedroom/laboratory and gave it to Lautrec, who uncapped the tube.

“I’m not eating paint,” said Lucien.

“You don’t have to eat it,” said Henri. “You merely have to look at it.” And with that, he squeezed a dollop of paint out onto the Professeur’s watch and smeared it around on the face.

“This was my father’s watch,” said the Professeur, frowning at his newly painted timepiece.

“In the name of science!” pronounced Toulouse-Lautrec. “Now try it.” He limped off to the kitchen. “Don’t you at least keep some sherry for cooking?”

The Professeur dangled the watch in front of Lucien’s face. “Now, if you just concentrate on the watch, on the blue.”

Lucien sat bolt upright on the couch. “I don’t see the point of this. What am I going to remember?”

Henri was returning to the parlor with a very dusty bottle of brandy in hand. “We don’t know what you’re going to remember until you remember it.”

“You think it will help me find Juliette?” And therein lay the resistance. Lucien was afraid that the Professeur might, indeed, be able to conjure up lost memories, but what if Lucien remembered that his Juliette was some sort of villain? He couldn’t bear it.

“Wait. Henri, you said that Carmen didn’t remember you, but she wasn’t unkind to you, right? She didn’t seem to be trying to hide from you? Perhaps she was an unwilling participant in the Colorman’s scheme. Perhaps she loved you deeply and he made her forget. Perhaps Juliette, too, is being manipulated against her will.”

“Perhaps,” said Lautrec absentmindedly, “but she is too beautiful, I think, to not be inherently evil.”

Henri was ambling around the room looking in various nooks and crannies, moving different machines and instruments, and finally settled on a small graduated cylinder. He began to pour brandy into it.

“Monsieur,” said the Professeur, shaking his head. “That was last used for a substance that is quite poisonous.”

“Oh balls,” said Lautrec. He snatched the skull of a small animal, a monkey, it appeared, from the Professeur’s desk and poured a dollop of brandy into it, then slurped off the top.

“Henri!” scolded Lucien.

“May I suggest a
demitasse
from the kitchen,” said the Professeur. “I prepare my own coffee in the morning.”

“Oh, right,” said Henri, draining the monkey skull and replacing it on the desk, then limping back to the kitchen.

“Why don’t you just drink out of the bottle?” Lucien called after him.

Henri’s head popped back around the corner. “Please, monsieur, what am I, a barbarian?”

When they were all settled again in the parlor, Henri with his brandy, the Professeur with his watch, Lucien with his foreboding, the process began again. This time the Professeur spun the watch slowly on its chain while he recited the litany of relaxation, concentration, and sleep to Lucien.

“Your eyelids will feel heavy, Lucien, and you may close them when you wish. When you do, you will fall into a deep sleep. You will still be able to hear me, and answer me, but you will be asleep.”

Lucien closed his eyes and his head slumped forward onto his chest.

“You are completely safe here,” said the Professeur. “Nothing can harm you.”

“If you feel you need to scratch around looking for worms, we will understand,” said Henri.

The Professeur shushed the painter with a finger to his lips, then whispered, “Please, monsieur, I am not going to make him think he is a chicken.” To Lucien he said, “How are you, Lucien?”

“I am completely safe and nothing can harm me.”

“That’s right. Now I’d like you to go back, travel back, back in time. Imagine you are going down a flight of steps, and with each step you take, you go back another year. You will see your past go by, and remember all the pleasant moments, but keep moving until you first encounter this Colorman.”

“I see him,” said Lucien. “I’m with Juliette. We are drinking wine at the Lapin Agile. I can see him out the window. He is standing across the street with his donkey.”

“And how far back have you traveled?”

“Perhaps three years. Yes, three years. Juliette is radiant.”

“Of course she is,” said the Professeur. “But now you need to continue your journey, down the stairs, until you see the Colorman again. Down, down, back through time.”

“I see him!”

“And how far have you gone?”

“I’m young. Maybe fourteen.”

“Are you secretly aroused by the nuns at school?” asked Henri.

“No, there are no nuns,” said Lucien.

“Perhaps it was just me,” Henri said.

“No, it wasn’t just you,” said the Professeur, with no further explanation. “Go on, Lucien, what do you see?”

“It is early morning, and it is raining. I have been out in the rain, but now I’m under a roof. A very high glass roof.”

“And where is this roof?”

“It is a train station. It’s Gare Saint-Lazare. I have been carrying three easels and a paint box for Monsieur Monet. He is still standing out in the rain, talking to the Colorman. The Colorman can’t get his donkey to come under the awning of the station. Monsieur Monet says he has no money for color. He says he is going to capture the fury of smoke and steam. The Colorman hands him a tube of ultramarine. He says this is the only way, and Monet can pay him later. I can’t hear what the Colorman says next, but Monsieur Monet laughs at him and takes the paint.”

“Is the Colorman working with a girl?” asked Henri. “Do you see a girl?”

“Yes. Not
with
the Colorman, but nearby. She is inside the station, but it’s very early, and there is almost no one else around.”

“What does she look like?”

“I can’t see. She is holding an umbrella so I can’t see her face. She’s small, thin. From her dress and posture I would say she is fairly young.”

“Can you move closer?” said the Professeur. “See if you can get a look at her.”

“I set down the easels and walk toward her. She peeks around her umbrella, then hurries away, out toward the rue de Rome exit. As she steps into the rain she has to lift the umbrella. Yes, she’s young. Pretty.”

“Do you know her?”

“Can you touch her bosoms?” asked Henri.

“Monsieur Toulouse-Lautrec, please,” said the Professeur.

“What? It’s an illusion, there are no rules of propriety.”

“It’s Margot,” said Lucien. “The girl who Monsieur Renoir has been painting at the Moulin de la Galette. She is leaning over, talking to the Colorman behind her umbrella. They leave together, down the boulevard. I will try to follow them.”

Paris, 1877, Gare Saint-Lazare

“I
AM THE PAINTER
M
ONET,”
M
ONET ANNOUNCED TO THE STATION MANAGER.
The usher, who had presented Monet’s calling card, stood by the manager’s desk, frozen in a half bow to the grandiose gentleman. Lucien stood in the doorway, drooling, as he had been instructed, and haphazardly juggling the three easels, Monet’s paint box, and a broad wooden case for carrying wet canvases.

“I am the painter Monet. I have decided to paint your station.”
Claude Monet
—Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1875

Monet wore a velvet jacket and a silk waistcoat bound with a gold watch chain; lace cuffs draped his wrists; a black silk cravat was tied at his throat, pinned with a pearl stickpin—every inch the gentleman, dandy, and master of his universe. His lapel bulged a bit, betraying half a baguette that he had concealed in his coat, the remains of the breakfast Mère Lessard had sent along to him, since he had no money for food.