The Memory Painter: A Novel (3 page)

As he prepared to step into the street, he felt a searing pain behind his temple.

He hissed in shock and gripped his forehead. The woman waiting to cross next to him asked if he was all right.

Bryan closed his eyes, fighting the onset of a vision. Usually they came while he slept and days apart from one another, so to have two within twenty-four hours—and with no trigger in sight—stunned him. He needed to get home before he lost consciousness.

Muttering, “just a headache,” he raced off, knowing he only had minutes before his mind took him somewhere else.

FIVE

THE BLACK RIVER, SAINT PETERSBURG, RUSSIA

JANUARY 27, 1837

Alexander stared out the carriage window and thought that if his life were a book and God had a pen, then George d’Anthès had been written to play the antagonist. Or perhaps the devil held the pen, for there was no doubt an evil heart hid behind the Frenchman’s handsome looks and charming manner. Why else would Alexander find himself in a carriage at dawn on his way to duel with the man?

He only wished that he had the power to write today’s outcome. It had been years since he had challenged anyone, let alone wielded a pistol. At thirty-seven, Alexander’s world revolved around his wife, their four children, his writing, and whatever money could be earned by it. Yet he longed for the simple solace of his study to write his Peter the Great novel … perhaps his best work yet, if he could ever finish the damned thing.

With a heavy sigh, Alexander reached out to feel the pistol box. Perhaps it was folly to duel, but he refused to live out his days with the knowledge that he had done nothing to defend his wife’s honor and his manhood. Ever since George d’Anthès had arrived in the city, he had robbed them of both. D’Anthès’ ceaseless and open pursuit of Natalia could not be borne.

Hailed the beauty of Russia, Natalia outshone every woman at court. Such exquisiteness came with a price and he had been paying it for years, both mentally and financially. His wife was the belle of every party, and every party required a lovely gown and jewels. They had been living beyond their means and Alexander could not write fast enough to pay his debtors.

But money was the least of his worries at the moment; he hoped he would not shoot himself or create some other embarrassment, for he knew this contest would be talked about. He was not an egotistical man, but he acknowledged himself as a public figure. His writing had resounded with his countrymen—at least what had not been censored or denied publication.

The truth was, he wrote as he breathed and could not have stopped the words if he had wanted to. Even now he felt the beginning of a poem swirling among his dark thoughts.

He had forgotten his talisman today while getting dressed, a turquoise ring given to him by his good friend Nashchokin to protect him against harm. And he had to return to the house to get his coat. Even though he knew it would be terrible luck to retrace his steps, his feet had moved on their own accord.

These bad omens had started him thinking about the mechanics of destiny, and like an expert engineer, he had taken that notion and begun to craft a poem. If he had not been running late, he would have ordered the driver to pull over then and there so his pen could have free rein. He felt the words forming and only hoped to remember them later.

The carriage came to a stop and Alexander looked up with surprise. Here so soon—the time had vanished. He had hoped d’Anthès would be late so that he could have more time to gather his thoughts. But upon seeing his rival, the words dancing in his mind faded at once.

D’Anthès eyed him with a derisive sneer and bowed his head. “I thought you weren’t coming. Old men don’t do well in the morning.”

Ignoring him, Alexander got out of the carriage and prepared his weapon. He breathed in the cold, marveling at how the snow-covered countryside resembled the one he had imagined for Onegin and Lensky when he had written their duel. Would he die just as his fictional poet Lensky had?

“Ten paces,” he heard himself insist.

D’Anthès frowned. “But that’s point-blank range.”

Alexander nodded and stared at his challenger’s face. Something in d’Anthès’ eyes pulled at him, making him feel that they had played this part before—known hatred for one another before. Had their novel already been written? He felt the lines were there, destined to be enacted. And now here they both were. The ten paces felt like an eternity.

Turning to face the man who would kill him, Alexander knew his fate. It was as if he had left his lucky turquoise ring behind deliberately—as if somehow he had known in his heart’s darkest chasm that nothing could protect him on this day.

D’Anthès’ gun fired. Alexander felt the bullet flame in his stomach and dropped to his knees. As pain fogged his mind, he stared at the blood blooming in the snow and thought:
I am a winter rose.

He saw that the bullet had hit exactly where Natalia had forgotten to sew a button back onto his coat and the realization brought his mind back to his duty. “My shot,” he insisted, though his voice sounded faint.

D’Anthès stood still, but with a slight tremor. Though mortally wounded, Alexander still had the right to shoot. He aimed as straight as his shaking limbs would allow and fired. He saw d’Anthès drop to the ground.

Alexander fell back. The deed was done. He stared at the sky above him and waited for elation to take hold, but felt only emptiness. “Strange,” he murmured to the clouds, “I thought I would be pleased.”

*   *   *

Alexander floated in and out of consciousness until Natalia’s screams roused him, and he knew he was back home.

He opened his eyes to find her crying on his chest, and tried to offer her comfort through his pain. “Do not shed tears, my love. It is over.”

He stroked her hair, feeling her sobs against his body. The public—or the mob, as he liked to call them—had called her cold and selfish and questioned her devotion to him time and time again. But he did not have to explain their love; it filled his heart.

During the days that followed, he stayed lucid, but only for pockets of time, as eight doctors—including the Tsar’s personal physician—visited his bedside in an attempt to save him. They all knew he was dying. His spirit lingered only because of Alexander’s determination to leave this life without debt so his family would be free.

In the moments when he was awake, he dictated a list detailing his liabilities, along with a letter to the Tsar asking to be absolved of his obligations. The reply came within a day. Alexander smiled when he read it. The Tsar, who had clipped his wings and prevented him from going abroad, prevented his work from being published—prevented so many things—had freed him in the end.

He laid his head back on his pillow and stared at his library, where the books he had written sat next to others like old friends. He would miss this life, but he felt happy to leave behind his writing. They were the pages that contained his heart.

He heard Natalia enter the room. “We don’t have cloudberries,” she said, “but we have cloudberry jam.”

Alexander held out his hand. “Feed it to me?” She sat beside him. He opened his mouth, feeling the spoon slip inside. The jam tasted like ambrosia. He swallowed it and said, “I want you to remarry.” Natalia held the next spoonful midair, her lip quivering. Though Alexander did not want to continue, he did. “Mourn me and then let my memory go. Find a good man, someone who will provide for you better than I have.”

Natalia broke down. “A good man? You are the only good man.” She clenched her hand into a fist. “I wish I had been born a man. As God is my witness, if I were a man I would hunt down d’Anthès and kill him.”

Alexander tried to calm her, but she continued to work herself into a state. “I should have been a man, then I could make him pay for what he’s done!”

Alexander closed his eyes, unable to stop a smile, imagining his Natalia out for vengeance. How he would miss her. He had known innumerable women in his life, but he had wanted none of them for his own until Natalia. He loved her beauty, her charm, and her girlishness—how polar opposite they were, but how well they understood each other. No one could drive him madder or soothe his spirit more.

He hoped the world would be kind to her. She was not to blame for this fiasco. His friends had told him d’Anthès still lived, having only suffered a wounded arm. Just as well, he thought. He did not want to have the man’s death on his conscience. Perhaps he was the lucky one. D’Anthès would have his death marked on his soul, a blemish surely impossible to erase.

Alexander’s mind took him back to his poem. Two days had passed since the duel and he had not yet written it. Perhaps he should ask Natalia for his pen.

He tried to form the words on his lips, but became distracted as a light drew near, growing brighter with its warmth. The figure of a woman stood shining within it, holding out her hand for him.

Alexander gazed at her in wonder, knowing he must be dreaming. Lada herself, the ancient goddess of beauty and love, had sprung from a favorite folktale and come for him.

But her hair was black as night, her eyes a wondrous indigo. Jeweled bands spiraled up her arms and around her neck, and a golden headdress graced the crown of her head like an Egyptian queen. She spoke to him with her eyes, and somehow Alexander heard the words,
All that you are will be remembered.

His entire being filled with peace as his spirit reached out to take her hand. With a last fleeting thought about the poem, he assured himself,
I will write it when I wake
.

*   *   *

Bryan opened his eyes and saw the painting of Natalia before him. She was lovely even in her grief, clutching her husband’s hand as he took his final breath: He had just painted the moment of Alexander Pushkin’s death.

Unable to fight the tide of memories, Bryan heard the Russian words pour from him as he cried for Natalia, for their children, for a life now irrevocably gone.

His rational mind tried to gain control. He forced his breathing to slow and whispered his mantra. “I am here now, I’m here now, I’m here now, I’m here now…”

But the words weren’t working. Overcome by the urge to write, he found a pen and scribbled line after line. After ten minutes he stared at the paper—the writing was in Russian. And Pushkin’s last poem, the one the world never saw, now rested in his hands.

Bryan ripped the paper to shreds. He didn’t want Alexander Pushkin’s memories. He had not yet recovered from remembering the lifetime of the priest in ancient Rome. Now he had the life of Russia’s greatest, most prolific poet in his head too, all within the span of a few days. He felt besieged.

Unable to stop himself, he grabbed the nearest paint tubes and started to defile the painting, yelling obscenities in Russian. He didn’t want to see Natalia, to love her, to feel her loss.

Repeated knocking at the door jarred Bryan from his rampage and saved him from destroying more paintings in the studio. He threw down the paint tubes, stormed over to the door, and whipped it open—screaming in Russian at the poor man standing there.

The pizza delivery guy took a step back. “Dude. Sorry, you order a pizza?”

Bryan stood there frozen, his mind blank.

The pizza guy tried again. “You order pizza? Speak-a-English? This number 401?”

Bryan shook his head in a daze. “Next door,” he whispered and closed the door.

He walked back into his studio, becoming aware of his surroundings. The shredded poem littered the floor. His hands and clothes were streaked with paint.

He picked up the scraps of paper, grabbed the painting and his keys. He needed to get out.

Outside his building, he passed by the dumpster, threw the painting and the poem into it, and kept going. God, he needed some normality. The past week had been intense. Sometimes the visions came in fragments, like reliving chapters from an autobiography, and other times a life came all at once like a tidal wave. Alexander Pushkin and Origenes Adamantius had both been tidal waves. It felt like drowning.

For the first time, real fear hit him. He didn’t know how much longer he could keep having these attacks and still function. What if he had one in public, what if he had one with
Her
.

There would be no way to explain it, and at some point he knew he wouldn’t be able to hide them anymore. The episodes were growing stronger and becoming more frequent.

Consumed by these thoughts, he was unsure of how long he had been walking until he found himself heading to the wharf. He passed by street vendors selling their wares to tourists, and a Haitian woman behind a makeshift table displaying silver rings called out to him.

“Hey, I have ring for you.”

Bryan turned and saw her holding it out to him.

“This one suit you,” she said, her smile a riddle, and put the ring in his hand. “It protect you from bad spirits.”

Bryan stared dumbfounded at the turquoise ring. It was almost identical to Pushkin’s talisman. The only difference was in the marbling of the stone.

“How much?” he asked, reaching for his wallet.

She wanted twenty. Bryan gave her the bill and slipped the ring on his finger. It felt as if it were made for him.
Was it a sign?
If so, he couldn’t imagine what the message might be.

As he walked on, he thought about the ethereal woman Alexander had seen moments before his death. This was not the first time she had materialized in the dreams of the people whose lifetimes Bryan had remembered. He wondered who she was and why she kept appearing. She looked like a picture he had once seen of the Egyptian goddess Isis, and this had been the real reason behind his visit to the Great Pyramid exhibit. He kept hoping to discover who she was.

Maybe he would try to paint her again. He had only attempted it once, years ago. With a sigh, he put his hands in his pockets—hands that should not belong to an artist but did—and for the thousandth time, he prayed for understanding.

SIX

Linz didn’t usually attend art openings. A hermit by nature, she preferred curling up with a good book or working on a new puzzle whenever she gave herself downtime from work. And she did attend the symphony. It was her one foray into the arts.