The Swan Thieves

Chapter 91 1879

She comes in to breakfast a little late but fresh, washed, only her eyes heavy. Her body is entirely new, unrecognizable to her, her hair done in the simple style she uses when Esme is not there. Her soul tugs inside her. Perhaps that is the reality of sin, to know the shape of the soul and feel it chafing inside the body. But her heart, shamefully, is light, and that makes the morning seem fair--the sea outside the windows is a giant mirror; the muslin of her skirts feels pleasant against her hands. She asks the innkeeper for news of Olivier, disingenuously, trying to look right at her. The old lady says that monsieur has gone out early for his walk and left an envelope for Beatrice on the front hall table. When she goes to see, the note is not there; perhaps he has removed it himself to give to her. She must ask him later.

The woman puts hot coffee and rolls before her, with a tart of jam; this thick, elderly person in a blue dress, bent at shoulders and waist, is Olivier's age. She feels a kind of indignity on behalf of the old lady, whom Olivier could properly marry and make happy. Then she thinks of a little passage from the night, something, a particular caress that must have lasted two or three minutes at most but that has stayed like a presence on her skin. She asks humbly if there is more butter and hears the woman's "oui" spoken on the in-breath, and the pressure of a warm, impersonal hand on her shoulder. Beatrice wonders why she feels guiltier about this stranger, with her apron and her air of contentment, than about Yves, the overworked and now betrayed husband. But it is true. She does.

And then he is there--Yves Vignot. It is one of the two strangest moments of her life. He comes into the dining room like a hallucination, peeling off his gloves, his hat and walking stick already somewhere at the entrance--now she remembers having heard the front door open and shut. The small hotel is full of him, he is everywhere, a blur of neat dark jacket, bearded smile, his "Eh, bien!" He has counted on surprising her, but the surprise that fills her is almost faintness. For a moment, the pleasant provincial room, a little raw and new, merges with their rooms in Passy, as if her delight, her guilt, have summoned him to her side, or her to his.

"But I've really startled you!" He throws down his gloves and comes to kiss her, and she manages to rise in time. "I'm sorry, my dear. I should have known better." His face is all regret. "And you're still a little unwell--how could I have thought to surprise you?" His kiss on her cheek is warm, as if he knows this will restore her.

"What a lovely shock," she manages to say. "How did you get away?"

"I told them my beloved wife was ill and that I needed to see to her--oh, I didn't advertise any dangerous illness, but the supervisor was sympathetic enough, and as everyone else answers to me..." He smiles.

She can think of nothing to say that won't come out with a quaver or sound like a lie. Fortunately, he is full of the pleasure of seeing her and of the adventure of his trip, so that by the time they sit down again to her cold coffee, he has already concluded that she looks better than expected, and that the train line is better than he remembered, and that he is thoroughly pleased at being away from the office. After he has washed his hands and had two cups of coffee and a large portion of bread, butter, and jam tart, he asks to see her rooms. He has already booked a room for himself; he won't infringe on her little kingdom, he adds with a squeeze to her shoulder. He is so large, so dignified yet cheerful, his beard thick and well-trimmed. He is, she thinks, so young.
the way upstairs he puts his arm around her waist. He has missed her, he says, even more than expected. Not that he'd thought he wouldn't miss her, but he missed her even more than that. His joy makes her want to weep. She has forgotten how safe his arm feels, how sturdy; now she remembers, from the touch of it. In her bedroom he shuts the door behind them and admires all her arrangements with the lightheartedness of a vacationer: the shells she has collected for the dressing table, the small polished desk where she sketches if the weather is bad. She explains each of these things for as long as possible. He stands smiling at her through all of it.

"You look wonderfully healthy, now that I get a better view. You have real roses in your cheeks."

"Well, I have been out painting nearly every morning and afternoon." She will show him her canvases next.

"I hope Olivier goes with you," he says a little sternly.

"Of course he does." She finds her canvas of boats from the first sessions and hands it to him. "In fact, he has encouraged me to work every day, as long as I'm warmly dressed. I always remember to dress myself warmly."

"This is beautiful." He holds the painting up for a moment, and she thinks with a pang how encouraging he has always been, long before Olivier came along. Then he sets it down, careful, understanding that it is still not dry, and takes her hands. "And you are radiant."

"I'm a little tired still," she says, "but thank you."

"On the contrary, you're blushing--there's your old self indeed." He imprisons her hands in both his own, firm now, and kisses her lingeringly. His lips are second nature to her, and frightening. He gathers her face in his hands and kisses her again, then takes off his coat, murmuring something about not having yet bathed. He locks the door and draws the curtains. Travel, the release from work, have made him young again, he says--or she thinks this is what he says, because she hears it from behind the curtain of her hair, the pins loosened out of it, and then again during his gentle unbuttoning, unbuckling, unhooking, his drawing a line down her body on the bed, taking her in his slow, matter-of-fact way, her long-accustomed response, the gap between them closing with a fiery familiarity in spite of the images behind her eyelids. It has been months since he has approached her, and she realizes now that he has probably been holding back out of concern for her health. How could she have thought otherwise?

At last, he sleeps against her shoulder for a few minutes, a tired, surprisingly young man with a growing bank account, a man who has escaped his life briefly and taken a train to be near her again.

Dear Monsieur Robinson:

Please excuse a note from a stranger. I am a psychiatrist working in Washington, DC; recently, I have been involved in the treatment of a distinguished American artist. His case is rather unusual, and some of it revolves around an obsession with the French Impressionist painter Beatrice de Clerval. I understand that you had both a personal and a professional connection with her and that you are a collector of her work, including the canvas known as The Swan Thieves.

Would you allow me to call on you at home in Paris for an hour or so in the next month? I would be very grateful if you could assist me with a little further information about her life and work. It could be of great importance to me in caring for my gifted patient. Please let me know at your earliest convenience.

Sincerely yours,

Andrew Marlow, MD

Chapter 92 Marlow

Partly to distract myself from my visions and partly to see what he was doing, I went to visit Robert one time too many. I'd been in that morning, a Friday. When I returned to his room in the afternoon, I found him standing at the easel I had given him. It had been a long week for me, and I'd been sleeping poorly. I wished Mary would visit more often; I always seemed to rest well in her arms. As usual, I thought of her when I entered Robert's room. I wondered, in fact, how he could look at me and not see the secrets I was keeping, and it reminded me how little I really knew about him. I could not hear his life through those well-washed old clothes, his frayed yellow shirt and paint-stained trousers, or even through the warm color of his face and arms below the rolled sleeves, the curl of his hair with its threads of silver. I could not even know him through the reddened, weary eyes he turned on me. Not knowing enough, how could I release him? And if I released him, how would I ever stop wondering about his love for a woman dead since 1910?

He was painting her today--no surprise there--and I sat down in the armchair to watch. He didn't turn his easel away. I assumed that was a kind of pride, like his silence. She was faceless; he was still roughing in the rose color of her gown, the black sofa on which she sat. Part of his skill was this ability to paint without a model, I realized. Had that been one of her gifts to him?

Suddenly it was too much for me. I jumped out of my chair and took a step forward. He painted, arm raised, brush moving, ignoring me. "Robert!"

He said nothing, but he turned his eyes toward me for a split second, then went back to the canvas. I'm reasonably tall, reasonably fit, as I've said, although I don't have anything like Robert's imposing casual presence. I wondered what it would be like to punch him. Kate surely must have wanted to. And Mary. I could say, I did it for her. You can talk to anybody you want. "Robert, look at me."

He lowered his brush, giving me the patient, amused face I remember consciously turning on my parents as a teenager. I didn't have any teenagers of my own, but this attention, which should have counted for something, made me angrier than any outburst on his part ever could have. He seemed to wait for the tiresome interruption to pass, so that he could paint again.

I cleared my throat, steadying myself. "Robert, do you understand my desire to help you? Would you like to lead a normal life again--a life out there?" I waved at the window, but I knew I'd already lost this round with the word "normal."

He turned back to the easel.

"I want to help you, but I can't possibly do so unless you participate. I have gone to some trouble for you, you know, and if you are well enough to paint, you are surely well enough to speak."

His face was gentle but closed now.

I waited. Could anything be worse than yelling at a patient? (Sleeping with his former lover, perhaps?) I felt my voice begin to rise in spite of myself. What angered me most was my sense that he knew I did not simply want to help him for his own sake.

"Damn you, Robert," I said quietly instead of shouting, but my voice shook. It came over me that in all my years of training and practice, I had never behaved this way with anyone. Never. I was still looking at him as I left the room. I wasn't afraid he would lunge at me or throw something--I was the one at risk of that myself. I wished later I hadn't kept an eye on him at that moment, because it forced me to see the change in his expression; he didn't return my glance, but he raised his face toward the canvas, and it wore a faint smile. Triumph: a paltry victory, but probably the only kind he had these days.