Chapter 38
I’ve exposed the subject to the jut of her chin. Because I’m working across the piece, I haven’t yet uncovered the right shoulder and arm, nor that edge of her rib cage. That’s the next phase of conservation.
From what I can tell at this stage, she’s slender, showcased by the light and dark shadows of her external obliques.
There is a softness to her belly, however, that doesn’t match the tautness of the rest of her.
Clearly this is a postpartum body—parts of you never return to the way they were before, after stretching out to accommodate human life.
I set a hand on my stomach, rounding out now that I’m nearing nineteen weeks.
The quickening has begun—bubbles popping low in my pelvis, a sensation of butterfly wings tickling my insides.
I’ve tried to explain the sensations to Wyatt, who’s impatient to feel her movements himself, but it’s impossible to do them justice.
Right above the subject’s navel is the hourglass-shaped black hole, with the crosshatching, from breastbone to belly.
It’s another common memento mori symbol, the hourglass, and it looks like it’s been carved right out of her chest, due to the artist’s use of shading and texture.
Her left hand, the fingers grotesquely long and skeletal, press to her chest above the hourglass shape.
I’m currently working on the edges of the hourglass, specifically on the subject’s right side.
There’s a strange pebbling in the color, which likely occurred after the paint aged versus being original to the piece.
I have a theory as to what’s happened, and why, but I’ll need to analyze a sample to be certain.
Using my scalpel, I remove a fleck of the paint from the hourglass and tap it carefully onto a slide for microscopic evaluation.
I’m trying not to think about my mother—or her presentation, whose last line continues to unnerve me—as I work.
But today it’s impossible not to think about my mother, because she’s in the room with me.
Standing off to the side, her head hanging precariously to the right, as though the bones are rubber.
“You know what that is, Mathilde,” she says. “You have to trust your instincts more, not rely so much on technology.”
I do know what it is, or at least I suspect I do. Rust staining. Usually seen on paper, but it can happen with paint as well. Say, in a case when the paint interacts with the mineral iron…which is an essential element in the production of blood.
But I don’t respond to my mother’s comment, because she’s dead and can’t possibly be here talking to me in my art studio about rust staining, or anything else.
It’s best for me to write this off as my overactive, grief-soaked imagination bringing her to life as a comfort.
Or the low-iron thing. I cling to these possibilities, even as she continues talking to me.
“Mathilde. Please look at me.”
I shake my head, quickly tidying my tools. That’s enough for one day. I need some fresh air. I need out of this room.
“I’m sorry, my darling,” she says. “It isn’t supposed to be this way.”
I’m suddenly freezing, like I’ve jumped into a cold lake back home on a late October morning. My breath catches, her words hanging in the room. Squeezing my eyes shut, I continue shaking my head. No, no, no. NO.
“Please go away,” I whisper. “You can’t be here. Please, leave me alone.”
The coldness disappears as quickly as it comes, and I cautiously open my eyes. Look to the corner of the room, see that it’s empty.
My mother is gone.
—
I need information and reassurance as urgently as I need an escape.
Thankfully, this time when I call, Cecil picks up right away.
I’m nibbling some mixed nuts and sipping a hot lemon balm tea, both of which came in this week’s NourishBox.
The note that arrived with the tea says it’s good for “mom-xiety and irritability,” which makes me roll my eyes, but I still brew a cup.
Using the microwave, because I keep forgetting to bring the kettle down.
So far the tea has done nothing but make me have to pee.
“Tilly, nice to hear from you. How are you?” Cecil asks. “How’s the family?”
I pause, too long.
“Tilly? You there?”
“Yes. I’m here. How are you? How’s the weather in Toronto?”
“I’m well, thank you for asking. And it’s sleeting, which I’m sure you don’t miss. But I have the sense this isn’t a social call,” he says. “So why don’t we get right to it?”
I sigh, wrap my hands around the still-warm mug. A ghost of the chill lingers in my body. “I have a few questions about Charlotte Leclerc, and…well, my mother’s conservation of The Child.”
“I’m not sure I’ll be able to help,” Cecil replies. “I wasn’t at the museum when your mother was working on that piece—but let me try.”
“I found her presentation on EduNet. The one she was supposed to give at that CAC conference. They just uploaded it recently. Have you read it?”
“I have.” Cecil’s tone gives nothing away.
“Her experience with The Child…” I don’t quite know how to ask for what I need. How do I explain what’s happening with the painting in my studio? With me? “I’m not sure exactly how to put this.”
“As plainly as you can, Tilly. Always the best way.”
I think back to when Mom was working on the Leclerc. That night in the museum. I lean into the memories, forcing myself back in time.
She was distracted, and consumed by the work.
Her clothes baggier, her cheekbones sharper.
I was a petulant teenager, preoccupied with my own ego and experiences, so didn’t pay much attention to the changes.
I don’t remember much else about the piece, or her conservation, except for that odd night at the museum, and then later, a strict warning to never go into her studio without her being there.
She had never been that explicit, and I remember telling her to “chill, bruh,” in my obnoxious teenager lingo, for it seemed overly dramatic.
I wonder now about that warning. Was it about confidentiality around her work, a particular piece resting in her studio?
Perhaps, even, The Child? It could explain her sudden edginess, though it made little sense.
Paintings didn’t leave the museum mid-treatment—no one’s home was set up for that type of work back then.
Mom’s studio was a place she practiced techniques, or read, in her off time.
None of this is particularly helpful at the moment, so I focus on the presentation.
“There’s a lot in there that’s familiar,” I say to Cecil. “The use of body-based materials, for one thing. The melancholy of Leclerc’s color choices and memento mori style. The sense that what you’re seeing is only surface level, and that she’s hidden truths within the composition.”
I take a breath, pacing around the kitchen. My bladder protests, and I set down my half-drunk tea.
“The last paragraph. The question. It…I—” A deep cramp squeezes my lower abdomen. My breath leaves me as I double over. “Oh!”
“Tilly? Are you all right?”
The pain and pressure are gone a second later, though they leave me mildly breathless. “Stubbed my toe, I’m fine.” I stretch back—maybe it’s round ligament pain, which is common in the second trimester—but feel only a mild tension in my abdomen.
“Anyway, I’m having a similar experience with The Mother, and I don’t understand it.” I pause. “Even thinking what I’m thinking makes me wonder if I’m losing my mind.” It feels good to say it out loud.
“Did I ever tell you about what happened when Svetlana Telets’s The Woman of the Rain was gifted to the museum?” Cecil asks.
“I don’t think so.” I haven’t heard this story, but I know the piece.
The Woman of the Rain is said to be cursed.
It was painted by the artist Svetlana Telets in only five hours; a self-described fever-dream creation.
The first few owners of the artwork described terrifying experiences: horrible nightmares once it was hung in their homes; things breaking, and a sense of being watched; and some even claimed to have seen the rain woman walking through rooms in the darkness of night.
“I worked on the conservation with a colleague, Julia Dreyer, who I believe you know?”
“Yes, Julia and I had some crossover at the AGO.” Julia is now in Germany, heading up a conservation program there. We exchange messages once a year, at Christmas.
“I’ve never had this happen before, nor since, but there was something about that painting…
” Cecil’s voice trails away. “Julia and I both felt it. A malevolence we couldn’t explain.
I had perplexing insomnia the entire time we worked on it, which continued even after it went on display.
Awful nightmares that would wake me in a cold sweat.
It was the eyes, I think. There was something strange about her eyes. ”
I set a hand to my throat and swallow hard.
“In the years since I’ve often wondered if my mind created that experience of fearfulness. That me knowing the painting was rumored to be cursed then made it so in my reality.”
“Hmm. A form of cognitive bias,” I murmur.
“Precisely,” Cecil says.
I consider this in the context of my own situation.
No question something similar could be happening to me.
I’m well aware of the rumors about Leclerc’s methods, the strange lore that follows her.
Perhaps I’m hallucinating my mother too.
The anniversary of her death is only a couple of weeks away.
Wouldn’t be unheard of—our reaction to a painful loss isn’t predictable, nor is its timeline.
Add in the stress of the pregnancy, plus the hours of focused work on the conservation…
Yes, that could explain it.
“We get so close to the art, and to the artist,” Cecil continues. “Sometimes it’s as though you’ve become one entity, as you well know. There’s nothing pathological about that, Tilly. It’s part of the job.”
By the time we hang up I feel better.