Girl in the Afternoon (31 page)

Now, Jeanne's small voice drifted down the hall, and Aimée imagined her
grand-mère
grimacing and trying to hide a satisfied smile.

Aimée walked to a blank canvas that stood on an easel in the middle of the room. Propping her hands on her hips in exactly the way her
grand-mère
would have, she tried to see what was waiting in the empty space.

She remembered an article she'd read by Mallarmé in London's
Art Monthly Review
touting Manet as the leader of this new “school,” these “impressionists.” The article said that truth for the modern painter was to see nature and reproduce her, freely, without restraint.

Gathering her old portable paint box and easel, Aimée headed back outside to the Île Saint-Louis. She set up her easel in the middle of the Pont Saint-Louis where she could see the smooth stone walls rising out of the water on either side of the bridge. Édouard had taught her to paint the changing light, to capture a moment and let it go, to remember, always, that nothing is fixed or absolute.

Arranging her hat so the sharp slant of sun wasn't in her eyes, she picked up a piece of charcoal and looked over the white peaks rising and falling in the rushing gray-green water below.

She understood now that Édouard's words were about so much more than painting.
Seek the truth,
he had said.
And love it when it is found
.

 

ENGLAND 1878

 

Epilogue

It is gray here, and it rains a lot. I don't mind. It fits how I feel inside, and I like the raindrops pattering on my head.

I like being out of doors better than in, but I have always liked this, so at least not everything has changed. I do wonder if I am the same person that I was before. Most of the time I don't feel the same, but then I get distracted, looking up into the trees, or watching the birds, and for a moment, I feel like my old self. I feel just the way I used to when standing at the edge of the Seine looking up into the trees and watching the birds.

*   *   *

I
found a family of mice in the bottom drawer of my dresser this morning. There are six tiny, pink babies.

I am not going to tell anyone because someone will clean them up. It is very important here that everything is clean, and the house is so big it takes many people to keep it that way. Any of them might sweep away my mice.

I will have to be very careful, and secretive, and protect them.

I brought the maman mouse a few oats and a snitch of cheese from the kitchen. The kitchen is a long way from my bedroom, and I had to hide the food in my pocket because Cook is mean. It doesn't seem at all practical that the kitchen is so far away from everything.

When I asked why we couldn't eat in the kitchen like we used to, Maman said, “This is not France. It's just the way it's done here. We will simply have to get used to everything being so far away from everything else.”

She says
this is not France
about almost everything.

The worst is at night, when it gets dark. I am not used to sleeping by myself, and I feel afraid. I want Maman and Papa to sleep in the next room like they used to. But they are far away also.

At least I have my mice.

*   *   *

The
baby mice are no longer pink. They have ever so much gray fur, and they eat right out of my hand. I put one of my stockings in the drawer for them to crawl inside of because it is getting cold.

Maman will be angry when she finds my stocking missing. I will know she is angry because she will bite her lower lip and get that line between her eyebrows, but she won't scold me. She never scolds me anymore.

Because of this I realize there are a good many, naughty things I could get away with, but I do not want Maman to be unhappy, so I am trying very hard to be good, even if I did ruin a perfectly decent stocking.

*   *   *

Maman
was not mad about the stocking. She smiled when I showed her the nest the mice made inside of it with ripped-up bits of paper. She promised to keep them a secret. She said, “You're entirely right about the cleaning; far too much of it going on in this house. I'd say we could use a few mice around the place. Remind us of home, yes?”

This made me feel how much I love my maman.

And then the sad feeling came because it made me think how much Jeanne would love the mice too, and how Maman and I would tell her to keep them a secret, and Jeanne would hold her little finger up to her lips and close her eyes, as if she was shutting the secret up inside her.

Whenever the sad feeling comes, I pretend Jeanne is with me.

After Maman leaves I tell Jeanne she can't pick the mice up because she is too little and she will squish them. Then I show her how to put the oats in the palm of her hand and lay her hand flat so the mice can climb up and nibble on them. Then I tell her to hold very still.

I pretend the quiet in the room is because she's doing exactly as I tell her and keeping very still. In my heart I know the quiet is because she isn't really here, and this makes me want to cry. I don't, because I am seven years old now and much too big to cry, but I feel the feeling of crying inside even if I don't let the tears out.

*   *   *

Papa
keeps trying to make Maman and me happy.

He tells us of all the things he did as a boy at Abbington Hall, shows us the places in his memories. But he does it in a loud, cheerful voice, and I know he is pretending because Papa is not loud, nor particularly cheerful.

I can see in his face that he is as sad as I am, and I know that he is just making up the good memories because I heard him tell Maman when he was a boy he hated it here. Maman told him we would make new memories. But, later, I heard her crying when she thought no one was around.

I guess we are all pretending not to be sad for each other.

*   *   *

My
mice are gone. I am not worried for them. It's spring, and they will be warm outside.

*   *   *

I
feel lonelier than ever without them, but hopeful. Hopeful because Maman laughed today, and Papa kissed her afterward.

*   *   *

Jeanne's
birthday is in four days.

I remember how we used to pick the blossoms of wild honeysuckle, deep orange in color, and crush them between our fingers. I remember how we used to pull small saplings to the ground and let them go like catapults. I remember how Jeanne used to giggle and put her hands to her mouth, then pull them away and put them over mine.

Remembering is all I have of her now.

I have stopped pretending to talk to her because I don't know what she looks like anymore, and I don't know how she sounds. Four years old is a lot different from three years old, and I do not want to imagine her at three years old forever. I want to imagine her as she really is.

On her birthday I am going to pick flowers for her and put them on the table. I am going to buy a hat with a blue satin streamer and hang it on the back of a chair. I will ask Maman to find candy violets, even though I am not sure if violets grow in Burford as they did in Thoméry.

I am sure this will make Maman cry. I will tell her it's going to be okay, but that it's very important we do this every year.

It is important because someday I am going to find my little sister.

It will be hard because she will grow up, and I will grow up, and we won't know what the other one looks like even if we've imagined it.

But when she sees me, and I see her, it won't matter.

Our hearts will know each other.

Of this, I am certain.

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It is a joy to be able to thank all of those whose support, guidance, friendship, and love have helped me on this journey.

Immense gratitude and appreciation to Heide Lange, Rachael Dillon Fried, and the staff at Sanford J. Greenburger Associates, Inc., for believing in my work and seeing the possibilities from the beginning. Thank you to Stefanie Diaz for landing such early book deals abroad, and a huge thank-you to my outstanding agent, Stephanie Delman, for her indefatigable encouragement, dedication, and excitement. I couldn't have done any of this without my editor Laura Chasen's meticulous notes and spot-on insight, not to mention utter faith in me. Thank you to my wonderful new editor Alicia Clancy for stepping in and seeing this through to the end. Thank you to my copy editors Sarah and Chris at Script Acuity Studio, to my production editor, Emily Walters, to my marketing team, Brant Janeway, Angie Giammarino, and Katie Bassel, and everyone at St. Martin's Press who had a hand in getting this book out into the world.

I am deeply grateful for the wealth of information I gathered from others. Books I relied on included
The Private Lives of the Impressionists
by Sue Roe;
Growing Up with the Impressionists: The Diary of Julie Manet
;
I Am the Most Interesting Book of All: The Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
, translated by Phyllis Howard Kernberger;
The Belly of Paris
, by Émile Zola, translated by Mark Kurlansky;
The Masterpiece
, by Émile Zola, edited by Roger Pearson and translated by Thomas Walton;
Édouard Manet: Rebel in a Frock Coat
, by Beth Archer Brombert.

Thank you to my readers for trudging through first drafts with kind and honest critique: Ariane Goodwin, Stephen Muzzy, Heather Fulton, Sarah Heinemann, Michelle King, Robert Burdick, Isaiah Weiss, Lilia Teal, Nicole Cusano, and Bob Sekula.

A bursting, heartfelt thank-you to the mentors who supported my writing in all phases: my first teachers, Michael and Rebecca Muir-Harmony, who published my work at the ripe age of six at Full Circle School's Rumbling Raisin Press and encouraged my garrulous personality and brimming imagination; June Kuzmeskus for letting me bust through the conventional box of high school and create my own writing curriculum; and to Roni Natov for her inspiring classes at Brooklyn College and for guiding me through a thesis that led to the beginnings of my first novel.

There aren't words enough to thank my mother, who painstakingly read every version of this novel. Suffice to say I wouldn't be here if it weren't for her scrupulous, pitch-perfect edits and, of course, her loving, motherly support. Thanks to my dad, who cried tears of joy when hearing of my book deal, who loves books more than anyone I know, and who would carve a spot in gold on his bookshelf for this one if he could.

This book is dedicated to my sister, a masterful artist and my inspiration. A thank-you pales to all she has given me.

To my children, Silas and Rowan, for sacrificing their mom to many a writing weekend and for filling my days with adventure and my heart to the brim.

Finally, to Stephen, my husband, for his unwavering love and patience, for believing we would get here one day, and for giving me a life that has allowed for all of this to be.

 

About the Author

Serena Burdick
grew up in a small town in Western Massachusetts. She studied at Sarah Lawrence College before moving to California, where she graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and later to New York, where she majored in English literature at Brooklyn College. She has always been active in theater as well as writing with a passion about the visual arts and Paris. She has returned to Western Massachusetts, where she now lives with her husband and two sons.
Girl in the Afternoon
is Serena's debut novel. Visit her online at
www.serenaburdick.com
. Or sign up for email updates
here
.

 

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