Eager to be away from all this, Mason waded into the crowd and looked for Richard. It took her some time to find him in the winter garden in conversation with Hank, Mary Cassatt, and Mrs. Potter Palmer. She watched him for a moment. He was the center of attention, lionized by the others and very much enjoying his triumph.
As she waited for a lull in the conversation that would allow her to approach, she glanced about the room and her gaze once again came to rest on Count Orlaf. He was standing by himself in an unguarded moment, glaring at Richard with naked hatred in his eyes. It was quickly masked as he was joined by several other guests. But that momentary glimpse of his hatred added to the sense of menace that seemed to be closing in on all sides.
Mason had to get out of there. She went to Richard and stood beside him, waiting to be noticed. When he did, she told him, “I’d like to leave.”
He stepped away from the conversation and said in a lowered tone, “Hank has arranged for us to go to dinner with Mrs. Palmer. He thinks she may write a bank draft to cover all the rest of the expenses for the pavilion.”
“I have a headache. I really want to go back to the hotel.”
“This could be really important.”
“You go ahead with them. It’s a pretty day and we’re not far away. I’ll just walk back.”
“Are you certain you don’t mind?”
“It’s fine.”
“I’ll drop in after dinner and see how you’re feeling.”
“No, don’t bother. I think I’ll just go to bed early.”
She walked down Boulevard Haussmann, past the long, geometrical rows of Second Empire façades, only vaguely aware of the afternoon sun dancing in the leaves of the almond trees like an effect in a Monet landscape. The Sunday strollers passed by in a blur. By the time she reached her hotel, her head was splitting. She couldn’t eat, so she went to bed early, but she couldn’t sleeep.
What was happening to her? She wasn’t sure. Much of it was the terrifying sense of self-loss that had come upon her at the lecture. But it was more than that. For the first time, she was seized by doubt about what they were doing and how they were doing it.
For her part, Mason was finding that this fame she’d once thought would be the solution to all her problems was not just cheap and unsatisfying, but a kind of ludicrous joke. Witness the scene today. Moreover, she no longer wanted to—or had the ability to, apparently—paint the kind of pictures the world wanted to see from her. Her love for Richard had filled that hole and healed her need to express that particular vision. She’d be happy to just walk away from all this and spend the rest of her life with him, painting whatever struck her fancy.
But Richard needed this. His nightmares told her that he was being driven by dark forces he didn’t even understand to create, celebrate, and immortalize a false Mason. A Mason he now seemed to be distancing from her—the real Mason—in his mind. And in this quest, he was willing to go to any lengths, no matter how immoral.
She finally drifted off around three in the morning, feeling exhausted and emotionally spent.
She awoke late and ordered breakfast in her room. When it came with the usual morning edition of Le Figaro, she noticed the front-page story detailing Signore Lugini’s crowning of Mason Caldwell as the “martyred messiah of art.” The lead had picked up on his poignant assertion that “we cannot see her paintings except through our own tears.” Beside the main article was a secondary story about an incident yesterday afternoon on the fairgrounds when a display of three Caldwell paintings had elicited an unusually emotional response from the crowd. A succession of viewers had broken down in front of them, sobbing uncontrollably. It was an outpouring of grief, the paper noted, the likes of which had not been seen in the city since the death of Victor Hugo.
There was a knock on the door, Richard’s distinctive double rap. She went downstairs and let him in. He took in her nightgown and said, “You’re not up?”
“No, I didn’t sleep well last night.”
“I hope you’re not still feeling sorry for Lugini.”
“I don’t feel good about it. But I’m actually more upset about something else. Your old friend Emma told me yesterday that she’s just acquired a Mason Caldwell painting on her own.”
Something flicked in Richard’s eyes that looked more like annoyance than surprise. “A forgery, naturally.”
“Of course it’s a forgery!”
He shrugged. “Well, you have to expect that. When an artist becomes famous, forgers will follow. Anyway, she may just have been trying to get your goat. That’s her style.”
“And what’s this about displaying paintings on the fairgrounds? You didn’t tell me you were going to do that.”
“I thought it best to keep them in the public eye.”
“I find it rather strange that on the same day Lugini coins that poignant phrase about seeing the paintings through tears, people start breaking into sobs in front of them and there just happen to be reporters there to witness the spectacle.”
He gave her a mysterious smile.
“You paid them to break into tears, didn’t you?”
“Only the first few. After that, they started doing it on their own. It was contagious. They’re still doing it. I was just there. It’s something to behold, to see how deeply the paintings touch people.”
“They only did that because you manipulated them into it!”
“I may have started the ball rolling, but go see for yourself. Hundreds of people have filed through already this morning, and their tears couldn’t be more genuine. They’re moved to tears, and the process is cleansing for them.”
“But it’s false.”
“It’s not false. It’s real. Mason’s paintings are—”
“Dammit! Will you stop talking about me as if I’m dead?”
He chuckled. “Believe me, I know you’re very much alive.”
She sighed her exasperation. “Richard, may I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
“The other night in Auvers, after you had the nightmare, you said that something was pushing you to do all this. What exactly did you mean?”
“Did I say that? I don’t recall. I often talk a lot of rot after one of my screaming terrors.”
“Why is this so important to you?”
He gave her a blank look. “This?”
“What we’re doing. Why do you need to do it so much that it’s become your calling in life?”
He still looked puzzled. “You know why. Because I love art. I love these paintings and the story behind them. I want to share that love with the world.”
“But why these paintings? What is it in them that speaks to you, that made you bond with them so instantly?”
He was peering at her as if he’d never thought about it, didn’t even want to think about it. “Why don’t you tell me what’s really bothering you?”
“Richard, I’m losing myself! Everything that makes me who I am is slipping away. Now you’ve even planted records that say I’m Amy. I couldn’t even prove in a court of law that I’m not Amy Caldwell.”
He came to her and took her shoulders in his hands. “Look, you’ve been through a lot, and you’re tired. Duval’s bluff has you spooked. The trouble you’ve had painting probably rests uneasily on your mind. No doubt, you saw that bastard Orlaf at the reception, lurking in the wings. And granted, it’s a sobering experience to see your sister canonized in the pantheon of art.”
“My sister?”
He smiled. “You know what I mean. But what we’re creating here for posterity is important. It’s the most important thing we will ever do in our lives. We’re like the people who saved the scrolls containing the Greek myths from the Turks. It doesn’t matter whether Zeus and Hera really lived. What matters is what their stories give to the world. Hope. Succor. Wisdom. Inspiration.”
He kissed her then. It took a while for her to soften in his arms. But when she finally did, he picked her up and carried her to the bedroom and made love to her. It was wonderful, and she desperately needed it. But when he dressed and returned to his hotel room, she was left with a curious uncertainty about who he loved the most: the flesh and blood woman, or the legend he’d just so passionately defended.
The next morning brought another blow.
The front page of Le Figaro had yet another story about Mason Caldwell. This one gleefully reported that England’s illustrious Duchess of Wimsley had acquired not one but three previously unknown paintings by the tragic young artist. They’d been authenticated by several experts, were declared to be of the highest quality, and through the generosity of the new owner, were being displayed today in the window of the Durand-Ruel Gallery on Rue Peletier.
In a fury, Mason dressed and stormed the five blocks to the gallery. Already, there was a considerable crowd in front of the window. Several young women were sobbing. Mason pushed her way to the front. What she saw nearly knocked her to the ground.
Positioned in the window were three size-thirty canvases, each depicting a scene very much in her style. Each contained an exquisitely beautiful model who might have been Lisette, surrounded by a foreboding, hostile universe. Each study was imaginatively conceived and stylishly rendered. They were so much like what she’d done in the past that she had to search her memory to make certain she hadn’t painted them and merely forgotten.
But no, they were masterful counterfeits.
She felt utterly violated, as if she’d just been raped.
She remembered the morning when this unique vision had hit her. How satisfying it was. How it seemed to encompass everything she’d experienced and everything she’d felt up to that moment. Of the weeks and months and years she’d worked to reach that point.
And though she’d now outgrown this vision, the pain she felt on seeing it usurped by some faceless criminal who’d signed her name in the corner was excruciating.
Only another artist could know what she now felt, standing in that spot, looking in that window.
She slowly trudged away, through the sobbing crowd of shopgirls and back to her hotel. The sensation she’d had before of losing herself, of being swept away by malevolent forces, engulfed her completely.
But this wasn’t to be the end of her bad day. For when Mason retrieved her key at the desk, the clerk said, “There’s a gentleman waiting for you over there.”
She turned to see Inspector Duval sitting in a chair by the fireplace at the far end of the lobby.
Oh, God, not now.
But what could she do?
She tried to assume a pleasant look and walked over to him. As she approached, he stood and eyed her shrewdly.
“I have some news for you,” he said, “regarding the death of your sister. Join me, please.” He indicated the chair beside him and they sat down. “We have finally had a breakthrough.”
“Breakthrough?”
He seemed to be examining her, judging her reaction to this. “Yes,” he said, with agonizing deliberation, “a witness has finally turned up.”
“What kind of witness?”
“One who was passing the bridge shortly before the alleged suicide.”
“I don’t understand. Who would be—?”
“A latier. What you call a milkman. And what he had to say was most interesting.”
She braced herself. “What did he say?”
“That there were two women on the bridge that night. Two women conversing.”
“How could he possibly remember such a thing?”
“It was the foulest night in our city that he’d ever seen. His wife hadn’t wanted him to go out, but he insisted because his customers would expect their milk in the morning.”
“But that was four months ago!”
“Even so, they were the only people he saw during his entire route. He remembers thinking they were crazy, standing in the wind and rain at the edge of the Pont de l’Alma.”
“And what does the milkman’s testimony lead you to conclude, Inspector?” she had to ask.
“I am not prepared to say at this juncture. But I will say that it confirms all of my worst suspicions about this case and gives me the confidence to assure you, Mademoiselle, that an arrest will soon be forthcoming.”