Starry Nights (9 page)

Clio raises her eyebrows. “The ballet? But I can't leave.”

“I think I might be able to arrange for a special performance here.”

“That sounds like a perfect, as you call it, second date.”

Clio puts the empty takeout container on a wooden bench. We walk across the cavernous thoroughfare to visit my dancer friends. I tap twice near the frame. The girl in white squeezes her way out of the paint.

“I'm all better now,” she announces. She points to her foot. “Thank you.”

“Anytime. By the way, I'm Julien. And this is Clio.”

“Oh. Hi, Julien and Clio,” she says, giggling. “I'm Emmanuelle.”

“Nice to meet you, Emmanuelle,” I say, and it's the first time I've learned the name of one of Degas's dancers.

“Pleasure to meet you too,” Clio says with a quick curtsy that reminds me once again of the time she's from.

Emmanuelle looks back at her frame and motions for her friend to join her. In a flutter of white tulle her friend springs free. Moments later, all the Degas girls are wriggling out of frames, encouraging the other dancers to make their getaways too. They jeté their way into the finale of
Swan Lake
as the dancers in pinks and whites and blues become the swans, with Emmanuelle as Odette. Her young friend plays the prince, still another girl assumes the role of the evil sorcerer. We watch them perform. When they're finished, Clio and I shout “brava” as the corps take their swanlike bows, then leap back into their frames.

As Emmanuelle goes still, I wonder what happens to her when she's inside the frame. If she pines for escape, trapped in some sort of bizarre eternity of paint, or if she is simply a shadow of the girl she once was.

Clio and I resume our walk through the galleries. “Clio, are you the girl Renoir painted? Or are you just, I don't know, a
version
of her now that lives on in the art?”

“You mean, am I like the other paintings? Paint coming to life at night?”

“Something like that. I don't entirely understand if it's really them who come out, or just some alternate version that exists solely in the art. But you seem different. Most of the paintings don't say much. More than a few words, at least, like with Emmanuelle. Are they ghosts?” I ask with a forced laugh.

She shakes her head. “But I've heard that the ghosts of great artists inhabit cafés.”

“Really?” I can't tell if she's joking.

“Since that's where so many writers, artists, and poets hang out,” she says with a teasing grin. “Though you'd think they might visit museums too.”

“Please don't tell me we're going to be visited by a ghost of an artist.”

She stops walking and faces me, her expression serious now. “When the paintings come out for you, it's what people have meant all along when they talk about artists being immortal. In a way, their work can live forever. When the art comes alive it's like the immortal version of the painting, like a little bit of the person painted has gotten to live forever. But the people, they aren't stuck inside the painting. They don't spend their days wandering beyond the frame. They aren't alive on the other side.”

“You're not just paint when you go inside the frame?” I knew she was different. I knew she was a girl, and not just a shadow of the painting's subject. But I had no idea how real she was.

“That's why I asked about the real Monet's garden. Because I live in the painted one. All the time.”

“You live in Monet's garden?”

“That's where I was when Renoir painted me. So when I go back in the frame, that's where I am, in a painted version. That's where I sleep. That's where I've been.”

“That sounds beautiful and awful at the same time.”

Her eyes are full of such sadness. “It is. It's gorgeous there, but it's lonely. I've been completely alone this whole time.”

“Did he trap you? Renoir?”

She sighs and shakes her head, her beautiful blond curls moving gently, like a breeze. I can't even imagine what she's feeling. “There were things we didn't agree on. But, Julien,” she says and places her hand on mine, “I don't actually want to talk about Renoir right now.”

Maybe the story is true. Perhaps Renoir was in love with her, but she didn't feel the same. So he locked her away in a painted cage.

“Fair enough,” I say, and I'm not sure where to go next. I want to ask her about her life before, about who she was and if she wants to go back. But maybe there is no back. Maybe there's just this, life inside and out of a painting.

“But you know what I do want to talk about?” she asks.

“What do you want to talk about?”

“You. Tell me about you.” She reaches for my hand and slides her fingers into mine. “Tell me how you spend your days, Julien.”

Right now, I spend them waiting for the night.

I pass an art gallery where a Jack Russell terrier has camped out in the window, slumbering at the claw feet of a chair from years ago. I stop to say hi to the dog through the window, then I wave to Zola, the owner's daughter. Zola goes to school with me and helps out in her mother's gallery. Zola smiles and waves back, then points to the low neckline of her red-and-black dress.

I laugh and she pops outside. “Today's take,” she says and removes a tiny pink-and-blue-china espresso cup from between her breasts. “I took it from Ladurée this morning. Their coffee is awful.”

“Zola, how many times do I have to tell you? All the coffee in France is awful.”

“And until the coffee improves, I will keep stealing coffee cups from all over Paris. I'm angling for one from the Red Café. Just opened a few days ago, and I hear the coffee is wretched.”

Zola has amassed quite a collection of coffee cups in the last
few years, tucking them between her breasts as she takes them from Les Deux Magots and Angelina as well as her neighborhood joints. She always brings them into school to show me her latest trophies. I don't discourage the hobby—it's entertaining to me, especially when she demonstrates exactly how she steals each one.

“Keep on then, my favorite thief.”

“How is your Renoir doing?” In addition to running the gallery, Zola's mother is a renowned art authenticator and has verified paintings for museums around the world, including
The Girl in the Garden
for us.

“She's amazing,” I say, feeling as if I have a wonderful secret, and I do.

Zola heads back into the store, and I turn the corner onto the museum's block, saying hello to a few of my mother's coworkers who are taking their lunchtime smoking breaks. I dart into a side door to the offices and snag my name tag.

“Julien.” It's my mother, and her voice is crisp and too controlled, the way she talks when she's worried.

“What's going on?”

She tips her forehead to her office, and I follow her. She closes the door. “
The Boy with the Cat
has sun damage now too.”

“What? It never even sees the sun.”
The Boy with the Cat
is also a Renoir. Like the piano girls, it's always protected from the sun, so this shouldn't be happening.

“I know. But now it's fading too.”

“When did this happen?”

“I saw it today when I was out on the floors.”

“Are the restorers coming?”

“Yes. Right after they visit the Louvre.” That can only mean one thing. I tense. “Claire called me today.” My mother's jaw tightens and her coal eyes are hard. “The sun damage is back on the piano girls too.”

“Where's the sun damage on the piano girls?” I ask carefully.

“The keys. On the piano keys.” She holds out her hands, as if she's looking for an answer to fall into them. “I have no idea what is happening. Why are our Renoirs getting sun damage?”

“I don't know,” I say, even though I'm pretty sure she was asking rhetorically. I do know there seems to be two different things happening to the art—there's the simple fading of the Renoirs, then the stranger shedding of the others, like
Bathsheba
.

“Maybe sunlight is getting into one of the rooms where it's not supposed to,” she says, grasping for an answer.

“Of course. That's probably it. What about
The Girl in the Garden,
though?”

She smiles, and her shoulders relax. “Perfect. Thank God.”

“Are any other Renoirs fading?”

“I checked each and every one. They're all fine, so let's hope it's just contained to those two, and when the museum closes I'll have the crews do a thorough check of the room to see if sunlight could be sneaking in.”

I head to the main floor, where I find my tour group for the day. I guide them through the galleries, stopping at the usual paintings before I bring them to one of Renoir's portraits of a woman,
Gabrielle with a Rose.
She is half-dressed, holding a rose near her ear. One breast is exposed and the woman's chest is luminous, the shawl over her shoulders looks like the inside of an oyster shell. I scan quickly for any sun damage. My heart catches when I see that the corner of the shawl, a tiny sliver of painted fabric, has turned pale.

I flash back to the piano girls. I was the first one to notice the sun damage in that work several weeks ago, and then my mother could see it. When the damage returned I was the first one to notice it at the Louvre, then a few days later Claire could see it. For some reason, I can see the sun damage before anyone else can.

My chest tightens with the knowledge that any day now my mother, and everyone else, will be able to see what's happening to
Gabrielle
. A fuse has been lit, slow and quiet.

I force myself to focus on the tour group.

“Renoir painted until late in his life, and this is one of the last masterpieces he created. What's particularly interesting about this work is he was crippled with arthritis when he painted it,” I tell them and hold out my hands, turning them into claws. “He strapped the paintbrushes to his wrists and painted like that because his fingers were too gnarled to hold the brushes anymore. And yet, even with his damaged hands, he still crafted such works of beauty.”

I take a step back and let them admire the painting, especially since this may be one of the last times anyone can enjoy it in its proper state.

A woman with short hair and glasses clears her throat and speaks. “I've noticed that you have a lot of paintings by men. But the only women you seem to have here are the painted ones.” Her tone is challenging, like a student in a graduate class. She's not the first person to make this observation though, so I have a response ready.

“We have paintings by Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt.”

The woman scoffs. “Isn't that kind of like saying, ‘Oh, I have a black friend'?”

I hold up my palms to her, a sign that I'm not fighting. “They were amazing painters too. Their work isn't here as some sort of quota.”

“But you have mostly male painters on your walls.”

“Unfortunately, most artists have been men. In France, women weren't even admitted to art school until 1894, when Suzanne Valadon was the first. But things are starting to change.”

“Maybe your walls can change then,” she says, holding her chin up high.

“Perhaps they will. I personally think anyone can create art. Girl, guy, educated, self-taught. Art is for everyone.”

“I disagree.”

There's a guy's voice now, and I'm feeling a bit ganged up on. I look for the voice, and I'm surprised to see someone I know. It's Max, who draws caricatures by the river. “You have to be great to make art that matters,” he says.

I give him a look like he can't be serious. I don't know Max well, but this doesn't sound like the guy who joked about horses
the other day. The other visitors start to look away and shuffle their feet.

“Well, one of the things to remember about great art is it can cost a lot,” I say, going for humor to ease my way out of this awkward attack from different angles. I guide them to the nearby Van Gogh, his
Portrait of Dr. Gachet.
“This is the physician who treated Van Gogh in the final months of his life. The artist produced only two authenticated paintings of Dr. Gachet. One of them is here on our walls,” I say, pointing to the red-and-blue image of a man who looks as depressed as his patient was. I'm glad he's never popped out of his frame at night. “The other sold for $82.5 million at auction.”

There are gasps from the crowd at the price tag. “Enjoy the rest of your visit at the Musée d'Orsay.”

I quickly thank today's group, and as they scatter I pull Max aside.

“Hey, Max. What's the story? You seem a little—”

He cuts me off. “Your painting is a fake.”

“I'm sorry?”

“Your
Girl in the Garden.
It belongs to my family,” he says as he stares at me with unflinching eyes. A thick curl of dark hair slides onto his forehead. “To my parents.”

“Whoa. I don't think so.” I want to ask how he could even own a Renoir, but for all I know his family could be recluse millionaires, collectors who live in a castle and bid anonymously at auctions the world over. Still, with the ratty sweatshirt and its worn cuffs hanging down to his fingernails, he hardly has the trappings of someone whose family traffics in priceless paintings.

Sweatshirt.
My mind returns to the other night. The guy on the steps I barely noticed, but noticed enough to see his sweatshirt. That was Max. Why is he watching me?

“I have the papers,” Max says as he taps a black leather folder.

“And how come you never mentioned this all the times I saw you by the river? It's just coming up now?”

“It was not part of our conversations,” he says, and his voice is off, like it doesn't quite fit him.