Chapter 15
15
I see a familiar face in my only tour the next day, and it’s a welcome one this time. Emilie gives me a little wave and then a quick smile when I notice her in the group.
I wish I had seen her before we started. I want to ask if she’s heard from the Paris Opera Ballet. It’s so easy to imagine her on the stage. Even the way she moves around the gallery is graceful but powerful, as if a swan mingled with a leopard to make her.
When we stop at the Degas I’ve gotten to know, though, I do a double-take. How have I not noticed before that Emilie is a photocopy of Emmanuelle? She’s older, but with the same delicate bones, the same black hair and milky skin.
“You look just like her,” says a round woman standing next to Emilie, so I know I haven’t imagined the likeness. “Maybe you’re related.”
The group turns their eyes on the flesh-and-blood girl, and Emilie’s ears flame red.
“You never know,” she says, glancing away.
The attention seems to make her uncomfortable, so I jump in and guide the group to the next painting, taking the scrutiny off of Emilie, catching her relieved and grateful smile.
When the tour ends and the group disperses, she lingers behind, as I’d hoped she would. I find her near the Van Gogh, tilting her head as she gazes at Dr. Gachet in his royal-blue coat.
“So?” I say, and she turns to smile shyly at me. “Are you dancing under the chandelier now?”
Her smile transforms into one that’s broad and beaming. “And hanging out with the Phantom in the underground lake. But he hasn’t crashed the chandelier yet.”
“I knew you’d get in!” I grin, oddly proud of her, despite barely knowing her. “That’s amazing. Congratulations!”
“Thank you.” Then there’s a pause, and Emilie seems to start and stop for a moment, before saying, “Would it be weird if I asked if you want to grab a coffee with me?”
“Weird to get coffee?”
“Weird for me to ask. The coffee is just coffee.” She waves a hand vaguely. “Lucy is my only friend outside of ballet, and you know how she and Simon have been grafted onto one another.”
I laugh, because that’s accurate. “Sure. That would be great.”
We leave and walk around the people lounging on the steps of the museum, stretched out in the warm August sun. I tense when I see Max on the sidewalk, but he’s sketching a young couple, moving his pencil quickly across the paper. His hands are normal, supple.
Is normal Max a sign that thwarting Renoir’s forgery efforts has banished his ghost to. . . wherever the spirits of artists go?
As Emilie and I weave past him, I say hello. It’s like poking a bruise to see if it’s healing. “How’s it going, Max?”
“Going great,” he answers, sounding like the Max I know. “Just found out I’m going to be teaching a class on caricature at an after-school program. Applied for the gig a few weeks ago. I’m stoked.”
“That’s great.” And I mean it. The real Max is personable and will enjoy talking about what he loves, I’m sure.
He laughs. “Pretty soon, a whole generation of French youth will be drawing pointy chins and big noses.”
I laugh too, relieved that Max has regained sole proprietorship of his own body.
Emilie and I pop into a café and order coffee.
“So, that Degas. You might not believe this, but you want to know why I got so red when that woman said what she did about me looking like the woman in the painting?”
“Red?” I ask, straight-faced. “I hadn’t noticed.”
She pretends to swat at me. The waiter brings our coffees, and Emilie stirs sugar into hers.
“Try me,” I say. “You’d be surprised at the things I believe.”
She hesitates than plunges, the words rushing out. “I’m like the great-great-great something of some Degas dancer.” Her nose wrinkles with an embarrassed grimace. “That’s what my mother tells me, at least. It sounds crazy, doesn’t it?”
“Emilie, that doesn’t sound the least bit crazy.” Or if it does, her crazy is nothing compared to mine.
“So, she was supposedly this amazing dancer. Her name was?—”
“Emmanuelle.” We say it in unison.
Emilie’s mouth falls open in shock. “How did you know her name?”
I wave to dismiss my gaffe and improvise, “It must have been in the description in one of the catalogs.”
That actually makes more sense than the truth.
“Sometimes I wish I weren’t related to her,” Emilie says with a sigh. She rests her chin on her hand, and I hear the faintest notes of music again, just like I did at the café in Montmartre.
“Why would you wish that?”
“It’s too much pressure. I’ll never live up to it.”
The strains of music grow louder. Emilie’s gaze is turned inward, so I glance around to see where the melody might be coming from. Thing is, I have a feeling, but I need to rule out mundane possibilities. “Do you hear that?”
“Hear what?” She looks around too.
“It sounds like flutes.” I point to the ceiling speakers, even though the music surrounds Emilie, wreathing her in melody. “You haven’t heard them at all?”
“No, but is the music pretty, at least?” She sounds amused.
I smile. “Very much so. But tell me why you think you won’t live up to her?”
The music has become distinct now. The string section comes in, and the melody turns to three-four time. This waltz is familiar—iconic, even, recognizable without even knowing the ballet. The source isn’t the café’s sound system, but the down-in-the-dumps ballerina in front of me.
“Because I’m awful.” Emilie sinks deeper into her propped fist. “I’m rehearsing right now for?—”
“ The Sleeping Beauty ,” I finish.
Emilie sits up straight and gapes at me. “How did you do that again ? How did you know?”
I shrug. “Just a guess.”
It’s like when I saw exactly how Gustave could finish his art piece, as clearly as if I had read a schematic. He only needed a final touch of inspiration. With Emilie, I hear music when she needs a boost of confidence.
I don’t know how Remy’s eternal Muses work, but this is how I work. Finally, something for my Human Muse User Manual.
Desperately, I wish I could text Clio and tell her my insight, right now, while I’m still giddy from it.
“A guess?” Emilie narrows her eyes then wags a finger at me. “Or perhaps you looked at our calendar and know that’s the next ballet of the season.”
“That must have been it. I’m sure I read it somewhere. I bet you’ll even get a solo.”
As soon as I say it, the music fades, like someone has closed the doors of the orchestra hall.
“I’m trying out for one.” Emilie’s shoulders have relaxed, and so has her smile. “And thank you for saying that. I don’t know why, but I always feel so much better about my dancing after I talk to you.”
“I’m glad. You should feel good about your dancing.”
“Will you come to the performance?”
“Name the time. I’m there.”
She gives me a time and a date a few weeks from now, and we finish our coffee and say goodbye, both of us feeling good about the encounter.
But good feelings don’t always last.
* * *
On my walk back to the museum, my phone pings with a text.
Remy: Julien, mon ami !
Julien: That’s not at all a suspicious way to start a conversation.
Remy: C’est vrai. But promise to consider that I am but a lowly messenger for the powers that be.
Julien: What does that mean?
Remy: It means “Don’t shoot the messenger.” Here goes. The Muses want to know how everything is going with the Woman Wandering in the Irises .
Julien: Oh, really. The Muses want to know? Did you get an email, or do they communicate by skywriting?
Remy: Don’t be absurd. They write a note and leave it in the basement.
Julien: Oh, well, of course. I’m heading in to work right now. That is a hint to get on with telling me the message.
Remy: Yes, of course. The woman in the painting—they want to know how she is.
Julien: Tell them she’s fine.
Remy: Is she?
Julien: She’s just great. Truly.
I make it up the stairs and wave to the guard at the reserved entrance. He lowers the rope and lets me through. The exchange gives my thoughts time to catch up, and I add another line, completely without sarcasm.
Julien: And tell them I do appreciate their concern.
Remy: I will.
I bound down the steps to the main floor, but then stop short when I smell that rose perfume, thick and heavy. I turn around and see Max walking to the door with that out-of-sync gait. I get a good look at his hands; they’re curled up into the cuffs of a long-sleeved shirt. My chest tightens—that’s not really Max at all.
What is Renoir up to now?
I suppose he could be up to nothing more sinister than gazing at his own masterpieces and reminiscing.
But I highly doubt it.
My sister is alone in the break room, head propped in her hands over a cup of tea. Even though a teabag still dangles over the rim of the cup, the drink has stopped steaming.
I reach behind me and close the break room door without her asking. “What’s wrong?”
She pinches the bridge of her nose and slumps against the back of the chair. “It’s Gabrielle,” she says, mentioning the Renoir.
“The sun damage?”
“Yes. Her painting has it now too. On her shawl.” I take the seat across from her in wordless sympathy, trying to keep calm, at least on the outside.
“And it’s not just us now.” Adelin’s voice hitches with despair. “The Young Girls at the Piano is fading even more at the Louvre. And I heard from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston today. Dance at Bougival is having problems too.” Running a hand over her face, she says, “How is this happening? We didn’t find any light coming in, and even if we did, Boston now makes three different locations. It’s like the Renoirs are turning into . . . mall art .”
Could the curse on Clio’s painting be responsible?
Except that, while the problem might have worsened recently, the Young Girls at the Piano started to fade weeks ago, well before Clio’s painting arrived here.
“What can I do to help?” I ask my sister as much as my boss.
“You have such a good eye, Julien. You noticed the problem with the Young Girls at the Piano long before anyone else. If you would go over all the Renoirs now—really fine-tooth comb them—that would give us a clearer picture of where we stand.”
“Of course,” I tell her. I round the table, and even though we’re at work, I bend over and wrap my arms around her shoulders in a brotherly hug. “I’m so sorry you’re having to deal with this.”
She pats my forearm then gives it a squeeze. “I’m just sick about the damage to the art is all.”
“I know. Me too.” I squeeze her back and then straighten. “I’ll get right on it—inspect those Renoirs like an auditor inspects a tax return.”
At least that makes her chuckle.
With the museum’s catalog pulled up on my phone, I start at the far end of the top floor and methodically work my way through the galleries. I know now why I can see the irregularities before anyone else.
On my inspection tour, I find trouble brewing on one more of our Renoirs. I send Adaline an email with the bad news that the masterpiece may soon join its fallen comrades, then let her know I’m going to head over to the Louvre and inspect the pieces over there.
I won’t only be looking for sun damage though. I want to examine the warped paintings I saw the last time I was there, see if they’re sicker.
I have to figure out what’s going on before it hurts Clio.