Chapter 44 Present Day #2
Each day…each day I must live with this knowledge, with love’s touch upon my heart. My heart and my eyes have now been opened. I see colors and hues that I never thought possible. I see the world as God intended.
Elle looked through her tears at Oscar. “Why do you torture me by forcing me to read this again?” She blew out a deep breath and continued:
What is this love that changes every part of me, changes my eyes, my mind, my heart, my soul?
What is this love I try to recreate on the canvas with these mortal hands?
These incomplete, unfinished strokes of color and light.
What is this love that awakens me in the night with your presence?
I have never been a God-fearing man, but now I fear this God of love the most. Does He tease us with this love of His that we can only catch glimpses of its sweet fragrance, only to see shadows of the real thing?
So, I will paint. I will paint everything I see and all that is unseen. And perhaps someday people will also see these glimpses, these shadows of love.
I have never experienced so much joy and so much pain in the same instant. I will create the most beautiful garden so that I may walk in your presence. I may smell your sweet fragrance, I may taste your goodness, I may know your beauty each day.
May a day never exist that I don’t think about you, my love, Ma Belle, my Juliet.
Elle put down the letter, covered her face with her napkin, and wept.
Oscar leaned back, stretched his elbows above his head, and wiped his eyes with his hands.
“Who is this woman?” he asked the heavens.
He looked at Elle, who still had her face hidden in her hands as her body shook with sorrow.
He let her grieve then reached across the table and touched her arm to comfort her.
This slowed her sobs until she could speak. “I am so sorry, Oscar. Look what a mess I am. Like a crazy woman.” She blew her nose into her napkin, then wiped at the smeared mascara below her eyes. “Look what you have done to me,” she sighed and laughed.
“You okay?”
“It is just…what woman doesn’t want to love and be loved like that!”
“Yes, and every man,” Oscar added.
She blew her nose again and sadness clouded her eyes. “When I kissed you, I knew you did not feel the magic…that love’s first strike.”
Oscar searched for words.
“It is okay, Oscar. Now we know, and now we can be best of friends. Oui?”
“Look Elle. I think you are something special—beautiful, funny, smart…so many things—” He stopped and took a sip from his water glass.
“You really think so?”
“Oh man, of course…you will find the one…the one you will enjoy real magic with. I know he will be a very lucky man. Someday, I hope we will both find that.” He motioned to the love letters.
“Oui, and until that time we can live vicariously through Oscar and Julia,” she said and picked up the second letter. Poorly written with a shaky hand, Elle stumbled through the translation.
Ma Belle,
I am old now. My life has passed me by. My dear Camille is gone. My lovely Alice is gone. My dear son, Jean, has died. I have known love and the pain it brings to risk love. I would not change a thing.
My paintings have brought great success, but it is this love that matters most of all. I would give everything for another taste. I would give it all to glimpse upon your beauty one last time.
My eyes have clouded, and I can barely see colors and shapes. But as my vision fades, love only grows. I would travel to Fontainebleau once again to see your painting if I could see it. Oh, the joy, the day I painted you at the springhead. If only I could have captured your grace and your…
Elle held the letter up to the light: “Magnifique, oui,” she said and continued to read.
…your magnificence.
What is this love? This power that expands beyond an ocean and through time.
What is this love that I have held? Where does it go?
It cannot go into the grave with me. It must live on.
My last wish is for someone to go for me, be my eyes and my heart, to visit you at Chateau de Fontainebleau, and give you my love.
Forever yours, Oscar.
Elle and Oscar’s eyes met, speechless once again.
Their soup was getting cold, and if there was any hope of enjoying it, the rest of the letters would have to wait.
They had read them at the gardener’s cottage, and they knew about this portrait that Monet had painted of Shibata Yuria in the Emperor’s Palace.
The gardener had even seen it years ago and described where it hung in the Palace.
Difficult, but not impossible to get to, he’d told them.
He thought the master had been disappointed that her father had given it as a gift to the Emperor.
Each time Oscar heard Monet’s words, it was as if his great-great-great-great-grandfather sat with them sharing his vulnerabilities and insecurities.
Never feeling like his work was ever good enough or complete—always trying to live up to the expectations of those around him.
All this was Oscar’s legacy…the highs and the lows, the successes and failures.
These traits strung together within his own DNA.
Oscar squeezed at his forehead until Elle read his mind.
“You will go visit this painting, non? And now you go to Fontainebleau?”
Oscar nodded. “Yes, I’m a little nervous about it…you know how good my French is,” he added in his fake accent.
“I wish I could go with you, but I’m afraid I have plans already set for tomorrow.”
“I understand…but maybe you can point me in the right direction.”