Chapter 6 #2
Was it possible to experience déjà vu with someone you’d never met, an artist long dead? Or was déjà vu nothing more than
a metaphysical extension of a wish? The desire for connection creates inevitability, maybe. It is a way of scumbling the past
with the intentions of the present. She was afraid to break the spell in front of her.
“What is it?” she asked, indicating the screen.
“This is copy of a note that Ly sent to Blanc. One of the few that missed the fire.”
She read it aloud, translating as she went:
Emil—you’ll think me a fool. I’ve gone and left something at the Chateau des Miroirs, buried under the endless sun. I know
we promised never to return to that cursed spot, but I’m allowed the indulgence of sentimentality now, aren’t I?
If you ever want to find me, know that I’m off to—
No matter where I go, you will be at my side, my dearest, most forgiving friend.
The note was unsigned, dated for the spring of 1943, the year of Ly’s disappearance. A rectangular patch had been excised from the center of the page.
She peered closer. “It looks like there was once an address. Or a town?”
“I tried to find the missing piece. See how it was extracted, though: precise, expurgated, as if it’d been sliced out with
a penknife. It’s not accidental, this omission.”
“Definitely not,” she agreed. “What’s Chateau des Miroirs?”
“I looked into it once. There’s no such place with that name. It must have been a private joke between them. Maybe Blanc is
the ‘most beloved’ that Ly was writing to in your letter. Maybe the offering is the same as whatever Ly left at the Chateau des Miroirs.”
It felt unlikely to her, since the letter was written in Vietnamese, but she probed. “You think they were in love, Ly and Blanc?”
Paul shrugged. “Their relationship seemed intimate. Blanc liked men; it was one of those open secrets of the time. But there’s
nothing known about Ly’s romantic entanglements, so it’s all conjecture without evidence.”
He gingerly handed her letter back to her. Vivi felt a rush of triumph in observing the reverent, covetous way he gazed at
it. He saw the letter’s value. The highest hurdle, that of disbelief, had been scaled.
As if reading her thoughts, he said, “Say I believe this is from Ly. What then?”
“You read it yourself. There’s an offering out there, something Ly wanted found.”
“Buried treasure?” he snorted.
“Why not? What if there is another painting, hidden in some pocket of history? Wouldn’t you give anything to study it? If
we could figure out where this Chateau des Miroirs is, we could find it. A missing Ly. One last Ly. It’d be a landmark discovery, even more than the restored Blue Mirror.”
“You stake a lot on this hunch of yours.”
“Let me look in your files. If I can’t find anything in Blanc’s correspondence, then what have you lost?”
A lock of hair fell over his eye as he shook his head. “You ask for trust, with nothing in return. What’s to stop you from
stealing my work and giving it to one of the upstart curators at your museum?”
“You have my word.”
“You’ll have to do better than that. I’ve met too many mercenary scholars in my time.”
A long pause. The deep-seated wriggle of reluctance, along with a desperation so sharp she felt she was choking on it. She
wanted Calla next to her, helping her make the decision, but as usual, her sister had eluded responsibility.
Finally, she burst out, “You can have Ly’s letter. The original. Even if I don’t find anything in Blanc’s correspondence.”
“What about the sketch?”
That was too much for Vivi. Words, she might relinquish. But not the art, never the art. “No. The letter will have to be enough.”
She saw the way his gaze hooked onto Ly’s letter. A rare find, and one that no scholar could resist. Wrongness spiked through her. The letter had become a sort of
companion for the sisters, patiently waiting for their understanding. It was, in an oblique way, a final gift from their father.
But she shook off her compunction. They needed to move forward, before the public realized that there was another painting
underneath the Blue Mirror they’d known. Before the scholars began swarming. She knew how Calla could be, once thwarted. If she lost the offering, whatever
it was, she might fall headlong into another bender. Each time, it’d become harder for Vivi to pull her out.
All or nothing—that had always been the game. She held Paul’s gaze, hoping he couldn’t see how close she’d come to snatching
the letter back from him.
Finally, he nodded. “You have until the end of the day. I won’t miss my dinner for you.”
He cleared a space on the floor for her. She sat in front of his thick files, vibrating with expectation. While she had access
to many archival documents at the Forster, she’d never seen the breadth of correspondence that lay in front of her. A mountain
of unpublished primary sources, a scholar’s feast. No wonder that Paul didn’t want to share it.
There were dozens of letters with crumbling seals, along with scrawled missives on hotel stationery. She came across a handful
of photographs of unsmiling young men sitting on the steps of a stone building in Paris. There were postcards and signed sketches,
all given as gifts to Blanc. It must have taken decades—a fortune—for Paul to assemble this trove.
While the letters were imminently interesting from a scholarly standpoint, the clock pressed against her. She skimmed Blanc’s
letter of introduction to August Bazin—the painter who’d later bemoan Ly’s excessive use of blue—and Blanc’s scathing tirades to Breton, with whom he could not reconcile his ideas of art.
Ly’s name appeared once or twice in passing, but aside from the note she’d already examined, there seemed to be few direct exchanges
between the two.
But when she lifted the last folder, full of Blanc’s correspondence with his sister, Justine Allard, her fingertips began
to warm.
There’s a specific moment of inevitability that one may feel amid scholarly pursuit. Samuel once described it to Vivi as a
plummeting sensation. He said it was as if you were diving from the highest crag into a depthless pool, knowing that somewhere
in all the obscurity lies a pearl so bright and worthwhile that it might illuminate everything around you, if you could only
clasp your hands around it. Instinct, Samuel said, predestination.
Vivi began to experience that plummeting sensation when she lifted the first of Blanc’s letters to Justine. Her eyes skated so quickly across the words that they began to cross. She paused to gird her patience, then began to read again, committing each word to memory.
Justine Allard
Maison de Notre Rêve
Arles, France
April 4, 1936
Darling JuJu,
Can it be that my infant sister—the brat nipping at my ankles—has turned forty? That makes me positively withered. Do you
hear the knell of death yourself or are you, as ever, immune to the passage of time? I hope that Marcel has spoilt you properly
with paintings. (I meant to ask if you’d received the drawing I sent by the wonderfully sleek Eileen Agar? She will be something
in a few years!) I wish that I could have attended your birthday fête in Arles, but Paris (and yes, handsome Gabriel) keeps
me occupied.
I know it’s not the thing to ask for a favor on someone else’s birthday, but I must be a cretin for the sake of friendship.
One of my artists, L, has sunk into one of his strange depressions. You know his work; you admired it last time you were in
the city.
You remember me speaking of him now? He is difficult to forget.
L will not eat; he is painfully thin and will not touch his paints.
And he has no family, no friends aside from me.
I worry about his mental state. An artist who does not create is like a powder keg that will not light.
But there’s little for me to do for him.
The jealousies eat him alive, along with whatever memories continue to taunt him from his past. I don’t worry that he will harm anyone else—he is gentle of heart—but I worry that he will harm himself. It would not be the first time, JuJu.
I know you have the old servants’ cottage at Maison de Notre Rêve. No one uses it anymore, yes? Could you find it in your
heart to open it up to my friend? The fresh air will revitalize him, I am sure, and the nature is unparalleled. You would
be helping a prodigiously talented painter find his bearings again. And you would be helping to put your brother’s mind at
ease. A fortnight should be enough; I ask for no more of your hospitality.
Affectionately yours,
Emi
Emil Blanc
Montparnasse
Paris, France
April 29, 1936
Yes, Emi, send your artist. He may stay as long as it takes to return to himself. Marcel is in Germany this summer, but I
will do all that I can to bring L back to life. In the name of art!
Your loving JuJu
PS. The Agar is very nice, but I prefer L’s landscapes.
PPS. I feel as old as the hills. Change will be welcome.
Justine Allard
Maison de Notre Rêve
Arles, France
May 7, 1936
JuJu, you’ve saved us. Again, you have my gratitude. L will arrive on next Sunday’s train. I’ve told him he owes you a painting.
You may be his most devoted collector yet.
All my heart,
Emi
Emil Blanc
Montparnasse
Paris, France
May 17, 1936
Emi,
You did not lie when you said that L had lost weight, but you didn’t mention how much of his sanity he’d relinquished. Oh,
the poor thing. What a wraith he is in the homely little chateau. The servants are tasked with providing the most tempting
food and entertainments we can manage at Maison de Notre Rêve. So far, L is immune to temptation.
But I’m told by the maid that he has opened his crate of paints just this very morning! I’ve caught sight of him with his sketchbook, lurking among the trees. I think he works more from honor—he’s obliged to provide that painting you commissioned—than from inspiration. Yet, it is a start.
If I can help him, I will. Not in the name of art, but for his own sake. I’ve taken a liking to my wandering ghost.
Come visit soon. The company will do L good, as it will me.
Your loving JuJu