Chapter 15
Fifteen
Days fell into weeks that melded into months as René, now a steady fixture in my life, continued working on his pieces.
I hadn’t expected or wanted anything serious.
When I’d started with René, I’d thought it would be a simple, if intense, affair, destined to burn itself out, but I’d come to rely on my time with him, as his passion sparked my creativity, allowing my writing to flow.
Being with someone after so many decades, no longer feeling alone, eased the burden of my work for Death.
All I had to do was not fall too deeply in love—not care too much.
But it endured, our time together spanning into years.
Being with René offered entrée to another world and the invitations to literary salons and art showings became endless.
We were the toast of Paris, and now I was gaining access to all sides of the city, from society circles—where I was now a celebrated guest rather than an attraction—to the hidden places few knew about, exposing me to a prism of love that extended through an array of people and expressions.
I’d never before considered this a possibility.
René’s sensuality was a force that attracted followers.
After an exhibition or a show, someone would usually be willing to join us in bed.
We experimented with other lovers but always found our way back to each other, so much so that I stopped waiting for the end, for him to fall for another muse and move on.
Eight years passed. We’d settled into a routine, him with his painting and his shows and me with my writing. I thought I would eventually have to confess my secret. But René always claimed that he had known I was a goddess from the moment he saw me.
That I retained my looks, he said, was only further proof of my divinity. But if we continued, I couldn’t stay young forever because it would raise too many questions.
I’d begun to form a plan for us to leave the city as I’d done in the past, perhaps traveling across Europe until I could return. It would’ve worked too, but life didn’t let us get that far.
The first tremor came in 1879—a subtle shake in René’s right hand made him drop his paintbrush.
“Merde.” I found him retrieving the brush, paint spattered on his white shirt, a glob of royal blue marring the center of his painting.
“What happened?”
“Nothing,” René said, staring at the blob. “Clumsy, I guess.”
He wasn’t clumsy. René was one of the most precise men I’d met, from setting up his paints to lining his shoes in the closet. “Clumsy” was the last word I’d use for him.
But clumsy he became.
Dropping paintbrushes.
Knocking over glasses.
Making mistakes on pieces.
At first, it happened only once a week.
Then once a day.
Eventually, sharp spasms shot through his hand consistently, smearing paint and destroying hours of work.
We consulted with doctors, healers, and eventually quacks, anyone who promised a cure, but none came. Tonics, elixirs—anything that anyone could sell, René would buy them, downing one after another and watching and flexing his hand.
Nothing worked; if anything, it grew worse.
It took a toll on him. My brilliant René, once active and joyful, began to spend his days in bed, staring out the window, wrapped in heavy sheets, binding himself to still his quaking body.
I did my best to distract him. I kept him company. I read to him and brought books and other entertainment, but he remained unmoved.
“Maybe you can switch mediums?” I suggested one day in early September.
“What?” His tone should have warned me off.
“Make art in another way. I know you need to create.”
René sneered. “How, Marguerite? I am a painter, but I can barely hold a pencil. Should I cut shapes from paper?” He snorted. “Perhaps I take up sculpting? I’m sure I’d be great with a chisel.”
He turned his back and didn’t speak to me the rest of the day.
I didn’t know what else to do, when suddenly the tremors improved.
I thought it was a miracle. After months of being unable to grip the brush, René was back at his easel, painting like a man possessed, and his mood improved.
His work was different from before—big round shapes, clashing colors, and odd themes.
I didn’t critique or comment because he was creating again, even if his muse seemed to have changed.
All was well until he started disappearing. Though he could paint again, I found him less in the studio and less in the house—staying out all night and not returning home for days. When he did return, the slightest comment could set him off.
And then the money went missing.
At first, small increments, then hundreds, then thousands of francs, vanished without explanation.
I suspected another woman but found the answer at the bottom of his coat pocket.
An opium vial stained blue.
I didn’t do anything at first.
Being with René—a René who could paint—was better than being without him, but that René slowly shifted, his sweetness souring, tension threading through our every interaction.
With each passing day, he grew more irritable and violent, smashing wine bottles and slashing at his canvases.
I wondered if one day that anger would be focused on me.
“There’s not a problem. I’m creating. It’s the process,” he’d bark and scream.
He grew skinny, his face haggard, eyes heavy lidded, at times zombielike, others manic. He continued the cycle, sleeping through the day, growing angry, and disappearing.
The final time, he was gone for a week, along with one thousand francs I’d hidden in the house for emergencies.
After the fourth day, I was sure I would receive word of him dead in an alley, and half hoped I would, exhausted by his ups and downs.
But I kept checking our familiar cafés and other haunts, hoping someone had seen him.
At the end of the week, I discovered him comatose in his studio, skin waxy, thinner than he’d been before.
Wine bottles and blue opium vials littered the floor, and candles and soot-stained opium pipes lay prominently on the table.
The room stank of sweat, smoke, and oil paint, half-finished canvases on three easels—sharp-sided figures with gnashing teeth.
I collected the bottles and cleaned the entire place, throwing the windows wide and waiting for him to wake up.
He did so slowly, groggily, blinking at the bright light with unfocused eyes. He started to smile, his old one, and for a second, I thought it would all be okay.
And it was.
Until he started riffling through the covers with his left hand, his motions frantic as he ripped the sheets back.
My heart sank.
I sat beside him. “René, you have to stop this.”
“Stop what?” he said, avoiding my eyes, still searching.
I gripped his hand. “You know what I mean.”
He snatched his hand back, getting to his feet, wobbling. “Who are you to know?” he spat.
“René! I’m only trying to help!”
He yanked the covers from the bed and pushed the mattress to the floor.
“Do you think I don’t know how you taunt me?
Do you think I haven’t noticed?” He dropped to his knees, scouring under the cracks of the bed.
Finding nothing, he stood, knocking into me as he rambled through the table’s drawers, searching for his stash.
“Where is it? You can’t hide it from me! ”
He wouldn’t find it. I’d already disposed of it.
“René, calm down, lay back. Rest and let it pass. You can paint later.” I wrapped my arms around him, soothing. I’d seen him like this, before he disappeared.
He needed the opium. It had hooked itself into him.
He fought against me, thin but still strong. “You’re trying to trick me—you, you witch!”
He shoved me, and I fell to the floor, knocking my head on the edge of the bed. Tiny white spots danced before my eyes. I pressed my fingers to the side of my head, and they came away with blood.
René kept searching, muttering, turning over the table, and slamming books around.
“They told me I couldn’t trust you. I knew it. You’re a witch, Marguerite! A damned witch!”
“René, stop!”
“Tell me the truth!” He came over, grabbing me by the shoulders.
The smell of his unwashed body rose, cloying, as his fingers dug into my shoulders.
I knew I could do nothing to stop him. “You’re the same, the exact same as the day I painted you.
How are you unchanged, while I have this?
” he asked, waving his palsied right hand.
“Have you bewitched yourself?” His eyes glossy with unwept tears. “Or cursed me? Tell me!”
“René, it’s not that. I made a deal—”
“A deal with who? Satan?” His eyes grew wide, and he shook me even harder. “Who is your master, you lying bitch?”
“René, you’re hurting me!”
“You, you damned whore of Satan.” He grabbed my face, fingers squeezing into my jaw, his nails cutting into my skin. “You are still young and perfect while my arm wastes away!”
“Stop it!”
“They told me. They told me you’re sucking me dry for your youth.”
Spittle formed at the corner of his mouth; his irises disappeared, and his eyes went black.
My René was gone.
He launched himself at me, hands on my throat, squeezing, his ragged nails tearing through my skin. I sagged to the floor, scrambling for anything to defend myself. When my hand connected with a thick wooden palette, I grabbed it and thrust it toward him.
The first blow glanced him, but the second one connected with his temple with a sick thump, and he slowed, blinking once before he collapsed forward, crumpling on top of me.
I heaved beneath him, hands shaking as I pushed up, shoving him off, oil paint smearing us both, the lead white mixing with the red of his blood.
He breathed, but only just.
I gathered myself, the room in a state, and backed away.
No matter how much I loved him, there was no coming back from this. Never in my life would I forget the emptiness in his face or the pain of my lungs yearning for breath. He was unrecognizable.
Nothing good would be found in the bottom of that vial or with René ever again.
After more than half a century, my time in Paris had come to an end.