Chapter 10
10
And the nights are worth the wait.
For the next few days, my life seems to pass by in a dream state. A trance of fantastic first, second, third, and fourth dates.
Sunlit hours pass molasses slow, and evening hours race by like they have somewhere to be. One moment follows another too quickly as Clio and I wander through the Musée d’Orsay enjoying each other’s company.
We eat, dining on sandwiches, bread, and croissants.
We talk, discussing art and music and ballet.
And we ramble too, chatting about little things, the smell of flowers, what color would have been better on that bridge Monet painted, and if the Moulin Rouge is as fun as the paintings make it appear.
And we kiss. I lose track of time in our kisses, stolen in alcoves, stairwells, quiet corners far away from the prying eyes of Van Goghs and Toulouse-Lautrecs, those Peeping Toms.
We kiss like it’s the only thing we’ve wanted to do all day.
We kiss good night like it’s all we’ll want to do tomorrow.
And it never gets easier to say goodbye to Clio at the edge of her frame.
Despite the impatience that runs like white noise through my day, there are still things that need doing. I’m not merely a guy infatuated with a beautiful, lively mystery of a woman in a painted garden. I’m also a university student and a museum intern.
So I put some effort into being more present at school and work. Of course, since my independent study project and my duties as docent and guide at the Musée d’Orsay both center around Woman Wandering in the Irises , I can’t totally leave her behind. Which is a good thing, since I don’t want to.
On the fifth day since I met Clio—because that’s how I tell time now—I drag myself to an early lecture on campus and then a meeting with my faculty advisor. Ironically, he cautions me not to rely too much on indirect sources for my research—I’m not sure I can get any more direct than to be dating the subject of the painting itself.
With that done, I head to the museum for a full schedule of tours. Along the familiar route, I pass an art gallery where a Jack Russell terrier snoozes in the front window, stretched out between the clawed feet of an antique chair. He’s fast asleep, so I don’t slow to greet him, but I do spot my friend Zola coming from the opposite direction. She’s the spitting image of Zoe Saldana, so much so that I’ve seen tourists do double-takes in the street, which always makes me chuckle.
Zola owns the gallery along with her wife, who is a renowned art authenticator. She’s done work for the Musée d’Orsay as well as museums around the world.
I wave, and Zola grins when she spots me. “You caught me coming back from my coffee break,” she says, a gleam in her eyes.
“What’s today’s verdict?” I ask.
She shows me her phone and her latest blog post, featuring an image of two tiny pink-and-blue espresso cups from Ladurée, turned upside down.
I cringe in exaggerated horror. “Not the vicious two cups down.” It’s not the worst rating on Zola’s coffee blog, where she reviews espressos at cafés all over the city, but it’s pretty bad.
“Ladurée’s espresso was simply awful.”
Shaking my head sadly, I put a hand on her shoulder. “Zola, how many times do I have to tell you? All the coffee in France is wretched.”
She gazes heavenward. “I dream of a day when our espresso is as good as our chocolate.”
“Keep dreaming.”
I gesture to the shop, where I saw no sign of Zola’s wife when I looked in on the snoozing pup in the window. “Where’s Celeste today?”
She waves airily. “She got called to consult on a suspicious painting. All very hush-hush,” she adds, leaning in like a conspirator.
“I hope that means you’ll tell me when you can.”
“ Naturellement. ” She winks. “And speaking of paintings, how is your Renoir doing?”
No need to ask which one she means—Celeste verified Woman Wandering in the Irises for us. It makes me feel related to her and Zola somehow. Two more people tied to Clio’s painting.
“She’s amazing.” And that feels amazing to say, as if I have a wonderful secret.
Which I do.
We exchange bonjours , and Zola heads into the store while I continue to the corner and turn onto the museum’s block. Greeting some of the staff taking their lunchtime smoke breaks, I dart into a side door to the offices and snag my name tag.
Adaline pops her head out of her office door as if she’s been waiting on me. “Hey, Julien. Got a minute?”
She looks worried. There’s tension between her brows that matches the tightness in her voice.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
Gesturing for me to follow, she ducks back into her office and closes the door before she speaks. “ The Boy with the Cat has sun damage now too.”
“It never even sees the sun.” That’s another one of our Renoirs here, and like the Young Girls at the Piano at the Louvre it’s always protected from damaging UV light.
“I saw it today when I was out on the floor. And the restorers are coming right after they visit the Louvre.” Adaline falls into her desk chair and rubs her hands over her face “Claire called me today. The sun damage is back on the Young Girls at the Piano too.”
Back.
I sort through the timeline in my head. The damage had been repaired before the painting went to the Louvre, but when I’d seen it there, the fading had returned, but Claire hadn’t been able to see the damage.
And now, a few weeks later, she can.
What does that mean, that other people can see what only I had been able to see before? Nothing good, I’m sure.
“I have no idea what is happening,” Adaline says.
From what I can tell, two vastly different things are happening to the art. There’s the simple fading of the Renoirs that appears like sun damage. Then there are the more drastic, more destructive changes to the others, like Bathsheba falling to pieces, like the flame in the La Tour.
I dread asking my next question, but I have to know. “What about Woman Wandering in the Irises though?”
Adaline breathes deep and her shoulders relax. “Perfect. Thank God.”
“That’s good.” I’m dizzy with relief. It seems selfish to worry more about one painting than all the others. But Clio is different, more than paint and canvas. She’s the woman I want to spend my nights with, and she’s alive in that painting. “And I’ll be sure to check the other Renoirs in the museum for sun damage,” I say, then I rush off for my scheduled tour.
I meet the group on the main floor and guide them through the galleries, stopping at the featured paintings. One of them is another Renoir, a portrait of a woman, Gabrielle with a Rose . She is half-dressed, wearing a shawl over her shoulders, holding a rose near her ear.
As I promised Adaline, I scan quickly for any sun damage, and my heart catches when I see that a tiny sliver of her painted shawl has turned pale.
If this follows the pattern, then in a few days, Adaline will be able to see the fading too. First things first—I force myself to focus on the tour group here in front of Gabrielle.
“Renoir painted until late in his life, and this is one of the last masterpieces he created,” I tell them. “By that time, he was crippled with arthritis.” Curling my fingers into claws, I demonstrate. “He strapped the paintbrushes to his wrists and painted like that because his fingers were too gnarled to hold the brushes anymore. And yet, even with his damaged hands, he still crafted such works of beauty.”
I take a step back and let them admire the painting before we move on to the next. One of the last on the tour is Van Gogh’s Portrait of Dr. Gachet .
“This is the physician who treated Van Gogh in the final months of his life. This is one of only two authenticated paintings of Dr. Gachet. The other sold for more than eighty-two million dollars at auction.”
That’s always a good note to end on, since the price of art at auction is a topic that baffles but intrigues people. It usually provokes some animated conversations after I thank everyone and wish them a good day.
Today is no different, as two Americans stand in front of the red-and-blue Van Gogh and marvel at such a price. I’m about to leave them to their debate when a man clears his throat loudly enough to interrupt the couple.
“Great art demands a great price,” the man says.
I search out the voice and am surprised to see Max, the artist I pass almost every day drawing caricatures by the river. “You have to be great—have great talent—to make art that matters,” he adds.
I don’t know Max well, but this doesn’t sound like the guy who joked about horses the other day. The pair in front of the Van Gogh do that smile Americans do when they don’t know how else to respond and then make an awkward exit with the last of the tour group.
Max, though, strides over to me and lifts his chin defiantly. “Your painting is a fake.”
I blink, unable to put that into context. “I’m sorry?”
“ Woman Wandering in the Irises . It belongs to my family.” He stares at me with unflinching eyes, and a thick curl of dark hair slides onto his forehead. “To my parents.”
“Whoa. I don’t think so.” I want to ask how a street artist could even own a Renoir, but I suppose that’s elitist. For all I know, his family could be reclusive millionaires, collectors who live in a castle full of Dr. Gachets. In his ratty sweatshirt with worn cuffs hanging down to his fingernails, Max could be some kind of family rebel, I suppose.
Sweatshirt. The other night, leaving the museum after my date with Clio, didn’t I see a guy in a sweatshirt and jeans lounging on the steps? It certainly could have been Max. But why? Had he been watching me? Or was he staking out the museum?
He’s definitely confronting me now, tapping a black leather folder he’s carrying. “I have the papers to prove it,” he says.
That shakes me out of my dazed confusion. “How come you’ve never mentioned this all the times I saw you by the river? You knew I worked at the Musée, and it’s been in the news that the Renoir was coming here. Why are you just bringing this up now?”
“It was not part of our conversations,” he says. His voice is off somehow, like the words and cadence don’t quite fit. “And if you’ll just introduce me to your sister, I can resolve the matter with her.”
Adaline has enough worries at the moment. More than that, though, there’s the queasiness that sets in at the thought of Max—of anyone—taking Clio away.
Her painting is mine to keep safe. Mine to protect.
I motion for Max to follow me to the stairwell where we’ll have some privacy, and I channel that desperate feeling into a voice of steady authority. “Show me the papers first,” I say when the stairwell door closes behind us. “Then I’ll take you to the curator’s office.”
Max still holds the folder against his chest like we’re in a standoff. “It was ours,” he insists. “It was stolen during the war, and we’ve been searching for it since then.”
Reaching inside the folder and using only the tips of his fingers to handle them, he pulls out a sheaf of papers and hands them to me. A quick scan shows they claim his family bought the painting from Remy’s family before the Second World War.
When Max leans closer to look at the papers alongside me, his breath smells like heavy rose perfume, like how I imagine the girls at their vanities in those Renoir paintings smell.
Max nods to the papers. “I would like to show Ms. Garnier the documents.”
I’m not an expert on authentication, so even though it’s the last thing I want to do, I lead him downstairs to my sister’s office and introduce her to Max, who corrects me to say his name is Maximillian Broussard. He launches immediately into an impassioned assertion of his family’s ownership of Woman Wandering in the Irises , and all I can think is, You don’t own Clio. No one does. No one can claim her, and I vow to make sure that stays true.
As he talks, all I can think about is the woman I kissed last night, how warm and sensual she is, how clever and fun, and how sad she is at times . . . sad to be trapped.
I cannot let this man take her away.
I can’t let anyone get their hands on Clio. I have to protect her until I can figure out how to help her.
Free her.
It’s the first time I’ve let myself think it in so many words. But if she’s trapped, then it stands to reason she can be let loose. I haven’t a clue how, but I won’t figure it out if Max or anyone else takes the painting out of the museum.
Adaline stands, looking remarkably poised and confident, considering the acquisition of Woman Wandering in the Irises might be the pinnacle of her career so far and this man is questioning it.
“Mr. Broussard,” she says, “the museum has researched this painting’s ownership thoroughly, but we treat provenance claims quite seriously. I will certainly look into this and be in touch after I confer with the board.”
Opening the door, she flicks her gaze toward me, and I see a bit of “holy shit” when our eyes meet. It doesn’t come through in her voice though. “Julien, can you show Mr. Broussard out?”
“Of course, Adaline,” I say with the same formality—stiff upper lip and all that.
I guide Max upstairs, out to the gallery floor, and then to the main exit. “I am sorry to be the bearer of such bad news,” he prattles, not sounding sorry at all. He leans closer and speaks in a low voice, the cloying rose perfume thick on his breath. “But some women can just be trouble, and they shouldn’t be let out.”
As he clips the ends of those last words, it’s as if some force has vacuumed up all the sound, so there’s only Max and me. He’s not just here for the painting. He knows about the woman in the irises. But how? I suspect he’s been watching me, but how could he spy on Clio as anything other than a painted figure in a frame?
I’m stuck with that thought as Max leaves. But once he’s out the door, I step outside and watch him walk away from the museum. After he heads across the street, I follow him. He settles back into the green-slatted chair in front of his easel where he usually is, where he paints his bloody caricatures, then pushes up the cuffs of his sleeves.
When I see his hands, I nearly stumble. His fingers are curled inward, the nails scratching his palms, bent up and seized.
Like Renoir’s.
Then, he cracks his knuckles and turns his TEN EUROS sign around, and his hands are back to normal. Young, flexible Max’s hands.
Clio’s words about the ghosts of great artists come back to me. Though you’d think they might visit museums too.
What if she wasn’t joking? Could the ghost of Renoir be inhabiting Max the street artist?
I walk over to Max as he reaches for his pencils. Grabbing the other green chair, the one his customers sit in while he does their caricatures, I plunk myself down.
“You seriously want your picture drawn?” He laughs a little, sounding like Max again, the street artist drawing exaggerated sketches of tourists.
“What was the deal with that back there?” I ask.
He frowns, and it looks genuine. “What back where?”
“Hello?” I gesture across the street. “In the museum?”
The side-eye looks authentic too. “I’ve been here the whole time. What are you talking about?”
“You were just on my tour,” I press him, less because I think he’s lying and more because I suspect he’s not. “You had all those documents for the painting.”
Max laughs. The dour guy he was a few minutes ago has vanished. “I don’t know what you’ve been smoking, but can I have some of it?”
I stand and run a hand through my hair. I excuse myself then walk across the bridge, trying to make sense of this newest wrinkle. Just when I’ve settled into the idea of living art, I learn that ghosts might be real too. The rose perfume smell, the hands—are those signs of ghostly possession?
No clue.
No bloody clue at all.
Who would know?
The only person I can think to ask is Remy. If there’s anyone in Paris who might have something useful to say about ghosts, I’m betting it’s him.
As I walk along the river, I ring him and launch into everything about Max.
“Interesting,” he says pensively, and that’s interesting too, since Remy is usually buoyant and bursting with words.
"Why is that interesting?” I press as a riverboat cruises by in the water below.
“My sister and I have been doing a little digging into forgers. We’ve gotten word that someone is back in business.”
“Someone?” I ask, tension in my voice.
“Julien, let me call you in a bit.”
“But . . .” I sputter, feeling desperate, needing to know what I can do to keep the Woman Wandering in the Irises safe.
“Good things come to those who wait,” he says, and that’s the Remy I know.
He hangs up, and I heave the most massive sigh as I stare at the screen.
With nothing to do but my final tour for the day, I return to the museum, chat up another group about Renoir, Van Gogh, Monet, and more, and shortly after they disperse, Remy’s name lights up my screen again. I duck into a stairwell.
“Can you get to the Marais in twenty minutes?”
“Sure. What part?”
He gives me an address. “Sophie has been casing a shop that may be a new forgery operation. And we think that’s where that guy doctored up those papers your friend brought you today.”
A thrill of excitement and relief whips through me. “I’ll be there right away.”
“And Julien? Bring that calf you won at the party. You never know when the Muses’ dust might come in handy.”
Ending the call, I grab my messenger bag containing the calf, head out the side exit, and dart into the nearest Metro.