The Painting (17 page)

As she comes down the aisle, she stops, beds on both sides of her. A new face in his cot. He is gone? Edmond is gone, risen from his cot, slipped on his trousers, and walked out? To where? Did she pass him on the street? Was he
in the long line that snaked around a corner for the bakery? Or standing near the Seine, where water buckets are coming up on a makeshift pulley? Perhaps he was the man looking up at the sky wondering if it might rain. Why didn’t he wait for her to come this morning? Certainly Pierre wouldn’t have come for him. She walks down the aisle and stands bewildered in front of the bed.

Gone, says the young man with a white bandage over his ear.

What? she says.

The man who typically shouts at her is speaking to her in a normal tone. His thin pale lips moving.

Gone. Last night. After you left.

Where? Where did he go?

She grabs the arm of a nurse who is walking by.

My brother. Where is he? Where is my brother? He was here, in this cot. Yesterday, right here, and now he’s gone.

The nurse scours a chart. I’m sorry, she says, her brown eyes softening, and she lowers her head.

She doesn’t let go of the nurse’s arm; her fingers dig into the woman’s flesh.

Please, mademoiselle, says the nurse.

Natalia begins to shake the arm, and the nurse drops her tray, splattering metal and glass. A wounded soldier shouts at her and another nurse runs over, but Natalia won’t let go. The answer is hidden in there, behind the white apron of the nurse’s uniform. Where is he? she must know. Someone grabs her from behind, pins her arms to her side, a man’s smoky breath on her neck. Another nurse comes to her. She is falling, submerged in white.

In the basement, lady, says the soldier. Packed away in a coffin.

Natalia rips out of the stronghold, runs to the back of the large room, flies down the staircase. In the dark room, everywhere, wooden coffins, rows and rows of them, stacked on top of each other. The airless room, the suffocating odor of rotting flesh. Her stomach wretches and churns. She presses her handkerchief to her nose.

You’re not allowed down here, says a nurse.

Where is my brother?

The nurse grabs her arm, and Natalia shoves her away, sending her into a stack of coffins.

Where is my brother?

A man with two protruding teeth and a long face comes up to her.

I’m sorry for the intrusion, says the nurse to the man.

It’s fine, says the man. He asks for her brother’s name.

She shouldn’t be down here, says the nurse, her voice sharp and sour. It’s against the rules.

Shut up, says Natalia. You just shut up. Shut up.

Calm down, says the man. Tell me his name.

Edmond. Edmond Blanc.

He leads her to the back of the room and points to a square wooden box. His name, painted in red on the side, in bold letters. Edmond’s name. She stares blankly at the box. Anyone could be in there. They are lying. She reaches for the lid. Nailed shut. Tugging and pulling, she tries to pry it open.

I’m sorry, mademoiselle, we cannot open it, says the man.

He’s my brother.

We cannot, says the man. We have too much to do here, and if we make an exception for you, then we will have to do so for everyone.

The nurse stands off to the side. Natalia flings herself on top of the coffin lid, pressing her lips to the crack between the lid and the bottom of the coffin. Edmond. Edmond.

Mademoiselle.

Edmond, she sobs.

Please, says the nurse. You must go. This is against the rules.

Natalia rests her cheek on the wood. Hands pull on her shoulders, lifting her limp body, dragging her upstairs. The wood coffin shut, shut, nailed shut, and the nurse pulling her, her feet dragging, up the staircase, through the thicket of moans and cries and vacant eyes, where death haunts and takes, passing his cot. She jerks away from the nurse and tries to run back to the basement.

Someone presses something against her nose, and an acrid smell fills her nostrils. The sounds elongate, dragging across the rough surface of her mind,
each letter, each vowel, its own vibration in her ear. She doesn’t want to move her heavy limbs. Ever again. She will lie where he did. Find the pillow that held his head, his sweet head. Won’t ever leave here. She stretches her fingers like tendrils, and closes her eyes, finding the place behind her eyelids, the world of red and black.

Strong hands lift her deflated, flattened body, shuffle her down the aisle toward the door. Someone opens the door and leads her outside. She stands stunned on the sidewalk in the flat gray light. Everything moves around her, but she is as still as a piece of driftwood buried in the sand, the wild current rushing around. The first raindrops splatter and a wailing wind blows. Someone runs into her and she crumples to the ground, as if falling back into a great sea.

W
HERE IS
P
IERRE
? Natalia stands in the doorway of Jorgen’s office.

Jorgen pushes his palms against the edge of the desk and rises, knocking over the lit candle. Red wax splatters on his hand.

Jesus, he mumbles.

Where is Pierre? Her voice is monotone, a hard hand clamped down on it. The rims of her eyes are pinkish red; streaks of dirt pattern her skirt, and her hands are scraped raw.

Did you fall?

Pierre. Where is he?

I don’t know. Why are your hands bloody?

He died. Edmond. He died last night.

Jorgen unrolls his sleeves down to his wrists, picks up his pencil, and puts it back down.

Her eyes brim with water, and she fights back the tears. When I went to the hospital this morning, he was gone.

Jorgen looks over to the chair in the corner and shakes his head. He won’t look at her; can’t look at her. Didn’t she know this was going to happen? How could she remain so deceived? So blind? He has the strong urge to say these things to her, the anger unfurling inside. He feels a certain self-satisfaction; he was certain Edmond was going to die. The world is not the way she views
it, and it’s good for her to discover this lesson now. But he can’t say these things to her. What should he say? Where is Pierre so she will leave his office? Before she entered, he felt prosperous, and for the first time in a long time, almost giddy, as he ran his fingers through the large pile of bills stuffed away in his drawer. And now, now, she is crying and a heavy shadow of despair soaks into the corners of the room.

She wraps her arms in front of her and crouches far into herself. Do you know where I found him? They put him in the basement. Stuck him in a coffin in the basement as if he were a piece of luggage or something they had to hurry and get rid of. She stops for a moment and begins to weep silently, pressing a handkerchief to her eyes.

Jorgen chews on the side of his cheek until he nicks it and draws blood. Where is Pierre? He steps toward her, wanting to find Pierre. She twitches and he stops moving.

They nailed the coffin shut. She stops again and trembles. I didn’t get to see him because they nailed it shut.

Her face quivers, and her head drops as she begins to sob. Jorgen looks down at his rows of numbers, and the wind blows in through the open window and wraps strands of her hair around her neck.

Natalia, he says, and his tone is weak and constrained. Anyone else would go to her, comfort her, but a thick, black line bars his way, something as sturdy as a wall across the room. Please stop crying, he thinks. Please, I beg you. He glances down at the musty books and stands there, stiffly, awkwardly.

Natalia, he says.

Crying softer now, she steps toward him. With her right hand, she is taking the cloth of her skirt and bunching it up into a tight ball. Over and over, her hand reaching, grabbing, releasing, and now there is blood on her skirt. He knows he should do something. But what does he have to give? He’s only a meager fistful of himself, nothing remaining for anyone and, really, barely anything for himself. Look at him, he’s missing a goddamn leg. What does she want from him? And if, by some miracle, he made it across that divide, what would he do? He presses his thigh into the edge of the desk, hard, trying to make the moment tilt another way, and when it doesn’t, he wishes again she
would leave him alone. Fury surges and he clenches his jaw. He looks at his crutch.

He loved France, she says, still bunching up her skirt. He fought for his country and was such a good man. Such a good, noble man. How could this have happened?

And everything that comes to mind to say is wrong, so he stands, his hands gripped tightly together, grateful for the wide stretch of desk between him and her.

She leans against the side wall, staring out the window. Did I tell you he saved me once? It was a hot summer day. I’d taken the sailboat out on the big lake. The ducks and geese were all around. The wind picked up and the boat tipped over. I was a young girl, and I didn’t know how to swim. Have you ever come close to drowning? Felt the water go down into your nose and mouth? Choking, I remember choking and sinking. Clawing at something but there is nothing to get ahold of. There is no light underwater. Edmond heard me. She begins to cry anew and it takes a while for her to speak.

He tugs on his sleeve, waiting, listening for Pierre.

Edmond saved me, she says, her eyes filled with tears. He dove into the water and raced toward me. He swam so fast, his arms were wings.

She presses her hand to her heart. The many nights she sat beside her brother, believing he was in God’s hands. But he wasn’t and God turned his back on Edmond, on her. All those nights and days, praying, holding her brother’s hand, imagining that through her touch, he might find vitality to rise again. All the while, the man across from her brother, spewing oily vitriol at her for visiting every day. Who comes to see me? he shouted. No one, and then there is you. The sound of the whimpering ones, fallen into the state of boyhood, and the angry men who lashed out and attacked, like trapped animals. She remembers a young man’s fingers curling inward as he died, as if drawing in his claws. But her brother was different; he never complained or shouted or yelled about the pain. He was blessed and should have been spared. He was honest and true and courageous. Edmond should have been spared. Shouldn’t God have turned and chosen another? Why did He let her lose him? She looks at Jorgen, bewildered, and for the first time sees him
standing like a rigid pole. Jorgen is still behind that desk. Why did she come here? Where is Pierre?

He steps toward her. She leans toward him, and it is more like falling, wrapping her arms around his neck; he holds her, rigidly, not smelling the lilac scent of her hair or feeling her wet tears, or her breasts rising and falling. Tries not to feel her strong back, the way she clutches him, her fingertips pressed hard into his back. A shudder ripples through her shoulders, her ribs, her hips. Natalia’s body releases its grief, and underneath, the softness of a breeze.

It’s too late, she cries. Too late.

Anything he could say would be wrong.

Too late.

It is she who releases him. Pierre, she says. I must find Pierre. Her hair falls limply around her face.

He feels helpless. Her eyes are deep blue, the color of a heavy rain. Her hair a beautiful shade of rich reddish brown, unleashed from its usual bun, wildly disheveled. She looks radiant and luminous, her cheeks flushed pink, as if something has washed away and left her in a lovely state. And in that moment, he sees all of her, the young girl and the grown woman, and it is too much, a terrible moment of utter honesty. She turns to the door. He drops his head and stares at the dust-covered floor. When he looks up again, she is gone. Her footsteps echo down the hallway, and then fade, and then they are gone.

Natalia, he says.

He numbly walks over to his chair, plops down and sighs with relief and agitation. He stares blankly at the numbers, gazes so long they begin to scramble and yaw, arranging and rearranging themselves over and over, turning into dots and squares and patterns of long, slithery snakes. He looks at the doorway and sees the dark hall. The front door opens and closes downstairs. He stares out the open window.

W
HEN SHE ARRIVES AGAIN
, she hears Pierre talking in Jorgen’s office, Pierre’s shrill cackle spilling from his thin-lipped mouth and the low
rumble of Jorgen’s monotone voice. She presses her hand to the door and enters the dimly lit room. Her brother’s face is sweaty from excitement, and Jorgen sits expressionless at his desk, his hand clutching a pencil, as stiff as when she last saw him.

Our man here knows a route into the city that bypasses both the Prussians and the French, says Pierre. If our army listened to him, they’d realize there is a gap leaving Paris wide open for attack. They should be consulting his maps. Hell, they should make him a general and have him run the war. He used it to get ammunition for his men, didn’t you?

She can barely look at her brother, who shrugged when she told him about Edmond’s death. What did you expect? he asked. The French are the ones who declared war and we’re paying the price. She stares at Pierre’s hands, their grotesqueness. The dirt under his nails and the hangnails. The things they’ve touched, the prostitutes, the money, his stingy, wiry body. He pushes a finger into his ear, fiddles around for earwax. She shudders and takes short sips of breath, not wanting to breathe the same air as he does. She won’t tell him her news. He’d just make her feel worse than she already does.

Jorgen fumbles a pencil between his fingers and stares at his row of numbers.

The food supplies in the city are extremely low, says Pierre, striding up and down the room, and will become increasingly so as winter approaches. Have you seen the lines for bread? My God, he rubs his hand over his misshapen head. And the prices? Bread will become like precious flank of steak. Hell, it’s already become so. Water will be like wine. A block of cheese, glowing gold.

Pierre stops and grins at the Dane. Natalia coughs and Jorgen’s gaze shifts to her. Her face is pale, her eyes weary, and before she sees him staring, he looks beyond her to the boxes lined up against the walls, filled with marvelous things for him to sell, and then beyond that, he imagines the fancy rich people in the luxurious, top-floor apartments, to the new leg that will be fitted to his limb so he can walk again, walk with the command and boldness he once had, walk right out of here.