Paris
Montdevergues, 19th of November 1943
It has been more than a week since I have had chance to write again. It is Friday night, and Saturday morning I have decided to have a rest. The days at Montdevergues drag on, each hour is pensively mulled over and prolonged; it feels like dying and taking one last laborious breath that never ends. Some are waiting for a new piece of news, a change of direction, some kind of sign. Others are simply waiting to die.
Not long after my conversation with Cyril Mathieu, I found Camille in the same garden where we had first met. By then I knew that she rarely left her room, and when she did it was under the orders of a guard or nurse. We cannot allow patients to spend hours on end shut up in their room.
As I saw her, I was tempted just to slip past without saying a word, pretending not to have noticed her. I could still feel the dead weight of the Medical Director’s words on Camille’s mother and her inexplicable, cruel behaviour. Although I knew it would be theoretically impossible, I did not want to speak with Camille until I had read the entire secret of her past that was still in Cyril Mathieu’s possession, and he was not planning on handing it over until his departure. But it was too late, Camille was already coming towards me. She whispered in my ear:
-“Last night I dreamt of Paris and I woke up in a good mood.”
As I looked at her that morning, I could see that her face was glowing, as though the woman before my eyes was completely different to the enraged and resentful one I usually found on my weekly visits. It may seem strange to say, but that happiness that to me appeared to be only momentary, made me seriously fear for her mental health, as though her nostalgia and spitefulness were in fact symptoms of sanity, whilst joyfulness indicated the contrary.
-“That's wonderful news. It’s been so long since I saw you smile like that,” I said, knowing that it was really the first time she had ever done so in my presence.
Camille bowed her head, like an uncomfortable, uneasy teenager. She scraped one of her feet on the ground, leaving a mark on the pebble path that resembled the shape of a human torso. I suddenly remembered the figures I had salvaged from their impending doom as shards of clay in the skip.
-When I went to Paris, I felt truly happy. My father had agreed to let me go to classes at the academy, despite the disapproval of my stubborn mother. He knew that I had already become a real artist, and he didn’t want to clip my wings, but spread them for me with his own two hands, quite the the opposite.”
-“That’s a beautiful thing to say.”
At that moment Camille did something which took me by surprise: she took hold of my arm and began to walk with me, around the flowerbeds and further from the main building that was her impenetrable fortress.
-“I discovered a whole new world in Paris. I met other artists, women like myself, who were fighting to make a name for themselves and to find their niche in a world of men. We couldn’t work at the studios, we couldn’t take part in the most important competitions or even display our work. But the more adventurous of us still dared to try and change things,” she exclaimed, holding back a wall of emotion.
-“No doubt you had to be very careful,” I pointed out, continuing the conversation. I was glad that she was sharing these moments of happy reflection with me.
Camille leaned into me. I could feel her body, angular in places, fleshy at the hips. Her limp caused her to push into me slightly, as I supported her weight.
-“Yes, I did. But I felt like a volcano, a typhoon, an uncontrollable force of nature. Even if now I want to go back to Villeneuve, back then the capital seemed like a miracle to me. I believed that the world of art and the whole of France would find out who Camille Claudel was.”
As we walked, the surrounding patients looked on in both surprise and envy. The medical staff and assistants were shocked by the scene too. Even I was not entirely sure what was happening. The human mind is a mystery, not even we experts can unlock every single puzzle of its cryptic code. At that moment I felt I was gliding into an open paradise, guided by Camille’s neurones. The journey was smooth and pleasant.
-“And in they did in the end, didn't they?”
-“Yes, they did. But it wasn't long before I was denied what was mine. I was robbed of my life and my work,” she mumbled.
I was afraid that Camille was getting herself worked up thanks to my clumsy comment, which had seemingly brought back the darkest memory of her life. I tilted my head as I tried to see if there was any sign of a change of mood in her eyes, but everything seemed to be steady.
-“Don’t hurt yourself, Camille.”
-“No, nothing can ever hurt me now.”
Her radiant happiness was contagious. I even began to believe, as conceitedly as it sounds, that this slight improvement was undeniably down to my skills as a psychiatrist, and that sooner rather than later this woman, who had spent years of her life shrouded in darkness, would wake up with my help to a new life filled with joy.
-“What do you mean?” I asked, expecting an answer perhaps vaguely related to myself. This is how self-centred and vain I can be sometimes.
-“Because last night I was in Paris, and I was back sculpting marble, and everything had started again, right from the beginning.”