The Remaining Voice (6 page)

“You are tired, I can see that,” said Laurent. “May I contact you in the morning?”

I opened my eyes and stared directly at him. “You seem to do exactly what you want to do. You have not asked before if you may keep me company. Why start now?”

“Uhuh. You think I do not care? You think I play with you? Perhaps because you are rich now?” He frowned. “I do not need your money. I like your company. You are… what shall I say? Bright and alive… and I find myself wanting to spend all my time with you and none of it in that office of mine. Is that so wrong?”

I was embarrassed and did not know what to say.

“Monsieur… Laurent… I too… I enjoy your company a great deal. I’m just not used to a man paying me such attention. I’m still a married woman, after all.”

Laurent interjected: “I thought you were getting a divorce.”

“Yes, but you know how difficult and expensive that is in the States?”

“Not so difficult when you have a lawyer on your side.” He smiled and I sensed a rekindling of his charm. It was difficult to remain mad at him for long.

“Okay,” I said. “This is what my plan is. I have been to see an old family friend here in Paris and he has agreed to look over the photographs I took this afternoon…”

“Oh, you took photographs?”

“Yes. It was necessary… easier. Anyway, he is going tell me if there is anything of value. I can pick the photographs up tomorrow morning.”

“Who is this ‘family friend’?”

For a moment I thought Laurent jealous, but it was rather that he was used to asking questions of this nature.

“Someone my father knew. Jacques Le Brun? You know him?”

“Non.”

“Well, he’s an antiques dealer, or perhaps it would be better to call him a collector. I have absolute trust in him.”

“So… that is good, but you cannot have finished already. It is too big a task.
N’est pas?”

“That’s true. I haven’t, not yet, but…”

“But you are fearful.”

I bit my lip. I did not want to admit to being scared, yet at times, during the last two days fear had washed over me so that I felt sick to my stomach.

“Would you like me to come with you tomorrow?” Laurent asked.

I would like that very much, but I did not know how to say it without sounding over eager.

Laurent pushed his chair back, ready to dismiss himself.

“If not,” he said. “I will find out some more about our man Truffaut. I can meet you at the apartment at lunchtime, if you like.” He had sensed my caution. I was grateful for his sensitivity.

“That would be a good idea,” I said.

“Very well.
A demain.”

Chapter 9

I wish I could say I slept well that night, but I did not. After Laurent left me I ate in a small café close to the hotel and returned early to my room. I took some painkillers for a headache that had been threatening most of the day, and when I lay down the room started to spin and I felt sick. I thought I may have eaten something that had disagreed with me, and I got up and walked the room back and forth, back and forth, nursing both my head and my belly. By one o’clock I was anxious and dizzy with fatigue. My head had stopped aching, and my stomach had settled, but I had been left with the sensation that I was out-of-sync with time, and could not lay down again for fear that something terrible might happen.

I opened the window for some fresh air and the cold night blasted in. I pulled my dressing gown tighter and peered out of the window at the street below. A taxi drew up and disgorged its occupants. A young couple, arm in arm, passed by, he trying to steal a kiss, she coyly pulling away. A man stopped to light a cigarette, cupping his hand against the wind. A car passed, and then another…

…and there she was, standing in the shadow of the building opposite. She looked straight up at me and I pulled back inside the room, afraid for my sanity, but also because I did not understand what she wanted of me, and I was not in the right state of mind to figure it out. When I dared to look again, she was gone. I crawled into my bed and lay frozen beneath the sheets. Had she really been there? Or was it that I was so tired, I could not tell what was real and what was not?

I must have slept because I woke, with a start, at seven-thirty, sweat dripping off me. I stripped and stood under the shower for a full five minutes, letting the water course down my body. I was not sure how I would face the world. I was not sure of anything. I dried myself and put on my most comfortable clothes: a cornflower blue shirt and capri pants. I pulled my hair back into a pony tail and dabbed the lightest amount of powder across my forehead, nose and cheeks. Laurent would have to take me as he found me.

I took a taxi directly to the photographers. They had been as good as their word. The assistant handed me two packets of photographs, and I tore into the first, scattering most of the pictures across the shop floor. The assistant helped pick them up, but my attention was drawn to the three photographs left in the packet. They were of the big picture of Berthe.

It was not just slashed from top to bottom – it was cut to ribbons.

I turned each photograph over in my hands, held them up to the light, and finally, spread them on the countertop to compare them.

“
Y at-il quelque chose de mal?”
asked the assistant.

I shook my head, confused.

“We can alter the brightness, but the contrast… I can do nothing with,” he said, trying to be helpful.

“No. No, it’s okay. Thank you.” I gathered the photographs and stuffed them in my bag. My God, he must have thought I was a mad woman. I wondered if I should go directly to Jacques’s and show him the photographs and try to explain, but something was nagging me to go back to the apartment. As reticent as I was to return, I had to see the painting.

*

By the time I reached the Rue Tronson Du Coudray the wind was howling at my back. I shut the street door and leant on it. Armand’s door opened and he and leered at me.

“If it is not too much trouble, my father would have a word with you,” he said. He did not wait for my reply. He turned on his heels and disappeared. I did not follow him. Instead, I went upstairs.

I threw my coat off in the hall, and tied the apron around my waist. Taking up my notepad and pen, I hurried into the drawing room. The painting was where I had left it on the previous day, leaning against a chair. There was nothing wrong with it. Nothing at all. I took the packet of photographs out of my bag and found those of the painting, breathing a sigh of relief when I saw that they still showed it to be completely destroyed. At last, I had some proof I was not crazy.

“Okay,” I said to the room. “What do you want of me?”

I listened to the wind singing in the wires outside and whistling through the gaps in the window frames. Other than that, I heard nothing unusual. I wanted to finish cataloguing the contents, and then get out. I would recommend to my grandfather that he have Jacques Le Brun handle the sale of the contents, so that I need not step foot inside the apartment ever again. I had promised Jacques I would show him the photographs, and I knew if there was something that took his fancy, I would be hard pushed to refuse him.

I took my notepad and went through to the inner hallway; past the bedroom, past the bathroom, and on into the ‘music room’. I ran my fingers through the dust on the front of the glass-doored bookcase, and the world slid sideways. I staggered, found a chair, pushed the small box on it onto the floor and sat down. The box split, but the contents did not spill out onto the floor as the lid was tied on with pink ribbon. I rubbed my temple. What was I doing here? I needed a good night’s sleep. I picked the box up off the floor, untied the ribbon and lifted the lid.

Inside was a stash of letters, beneath which was a bundle of leather-bound notebooks, tied with more ribbon. I picked out a letter at random and opened it carefully. The paper was thin and yellow with age, the postmark 3
rd
March 1907. In French it read:

My dear Berthe,

I am bound for Marseille on the
SS La Gascogne. I cannot say when it will arrive. You should not expect me before 1
st
June as I have much business. I dare say the wedding is off, or at the very least postponed. Your last letter went astray and only reached me when I got to New York. I was troubled by your account of your last performance. It seems as if you are trying to recapture your lost youth. It is gone my dear. You are best to accept it as so.

Robert

Interesting. I set the letters carefully aside, took the notebooks out and pulled the ribbon free. I skimmed a couple of pages and found:

“I have a sitting at eleven for Monsieur Helleu. He is to begin the painting Robert has commissioned. I do not care to sit still for so long.”

Did she mean
the
painting? I flicked through the second notebook, coming to rest at a passage that talked of singing in
Roméo and Juliette
and of preparing to welcome Robert back from New York.

“Robert has promised me a June wedding. I have been measured for my dress. Racine came with me. She thinks I should have my hair dressed by the ladies’ Gronheim. I do not care for their use of flowers with everything. I prefer diamonds. I have told Robert nothing of my part as Juliette. He does not approve. I cannot simply give up my career. I have striven for too long to achieve fame.”

I frowned and picked out another letter. Robert was spare with words. There was no, sentiment, no kindness; he was abrupt and cold, talking of further delays and people he had met in Marseille, including a wonderful (his word) woman by the name of Marianne Cloutel, whom he wanted Berthe to meet. He talked of her as his ‘protégé’. I looked for the corresponding dated passage in the diary. Berthe was still speaking of Robert in glowing terms. She made no mention of his new ‘mistress’.

“Robert really is the kindest of men. He wishes to postpone our nuptials. It is as well, as I have been asked to go on tour and reprise Juliette. Gounod’s words salve my aching heart. Racine has made me promise not to worry over much about Robert’s absence. I do so rely on her good sense.”

Racine? Was she a friend? Or perhaps the maid Laurent had mentioned? Whichever, I was sure now that if I wanted to understand what had happened to Berthe, I would have to read the contents of the letters and diaries very carefully. I packed the papers away and closed the lid on the box. I had no watch to go by and so did not know the time, but my stomach told me it must be nearly lunch. I could go down to the café on the corner and read some more. I would leave a message with the Pascals to send Laurent there when he arrived.

I retied the ribbon around the box. As I did, I heard someone crying. I dare not look, and yet… out of the corner of my eye I saw her. She had covered her face with her hands, but it was clear - she was crying. I allowed myself a better look, turning towards her very slowly, afraid that any abrupt movement might fracture the vision. She sighed, stood up, as if in a dream, and crossed the room to the door. At which point, her image faded until she was no longer there.

I let out a breath. She had been there, next to me. I could have touched her if I had reached out… or at least felt her presence like a wind. Yes, that was it – she was like a wind that took your breath away; invisible save for those spinning moments when all around entered the vortex.  I hardly knew what I should do next, but I tucked the small box under my arm, and followed in her ghostly footsteps. In the inner hall I heard a voice, humming softly, like a lullaby sung to a baby as it fell asleep. I followed the sound into the bedroom.

The armoire was wide open. A dress lay half on the bed and half on the floor, as if thrown down in temper. I put the box down on the dressing table, and the hum subsided to a hushing sibilant.  I ran my hand over the translucent white silk and fine lace of the dress. Should I gather it up and put in back in place? Something told me no – leave it be.

“Okay,” I whispered. “I’m sorry. I don’t…”

She came from the cold light reflected by the mirror on the wall opposite. One moment she was a silvered luminosity, the next a rabble of iridescent butterflies, and then she became entire. She stood by the window gazing out. She was so real and yet…

I was in a vacuum. I could not breathe. I saw a smaller, less graceful woman than Berthe pass straight through me, is if she had come from behind and I was not there at all. She said something, but I could not catch the words. Berthe turned and reached out. I could see the tears on her cheeks. Her eyes were great black holes of despair. She spoke, yet I did not hear her words, only knew what she was saying.

“Racine
.
I don’t know what I will do without him.”

The other woman took Berthe’s hands in her own and kissed them. I could not see her face, but knew she was a plain woman by the dress she wore and the way she had her hair up in a tight bun on her head.

“Madam. It will take time.”

I backed up - hit the wall with a thud.

They looked at me in unison, and then away again. The threads of then and now were drawing tighter and I feared I would be lost in this other world. I gulped in air and clenched my hands so that I could feel my nails cutting into my palms. I wanted to escape. I wanted to be far far from here…

…and then they were gone and the room was as cold as a New York winter when the East River threatens to freeze right over.

I fled the apartment.

The door was open to the street, and a broom leant against the wall. Armand Pascal stood at the bottom of the stairs. He fed a cigarette into his mouth. I smiled at him nervously. I did not want him to know I had been shaken by my experience.

“What have you found out then?” He sneered and lit the cigarette, flicking the match outside.

“Nothing much,” I said, hoping he would not question me further. I wanted so much to be out of there, yet I was caught in a curious web of terrifying confusion.

“You are going out?”

“Yes, for a coffee.”

“You have left your coat? It is cold outside.” He took a drag on his cigarette.

“Yes…” I glanced back up the stairs. In my rush to leave, I had left everything there: my coat, my purse, the photographs, and the box, which I knew to be on the dressing table in the bedroom. I did not want to have to go back so soon.

“People hear things. It is not unusual in an old building.” A wry smile played on Armand’s face.

“What do you mean?”

He shrugged. “The pipes are old. The wood is rotten in places. My father expected you to visit him again. You did not come.” Armand took up his broom, rolled his cigarette from one side of his mouth to the other, and began to sweep the hall.

“I was busy…  am busy.” Despite my reticence, I turned to go back. It would be too cold outside without my coat, and I wanted the photographs so I could show Jacques the painting and tell him about my ghosts.

Armand flicked ash and made a face. “I would have thought you would want to hear an old man’s confession. He does not have long to live you know.”

“Confession? What confession? What are you talking about?”

“She liked me.” He thumbed upwards. “She called me
petit mignon
. That piano? The one in the big room? She gave me lessons while my mother cleaned and cooked for her.”

“Racine?” I whispered.

“Ah… so you do know. It is as I thought.” He shuffled back to his apartment. 

“Shut the door when you go,” he said.

“What happened?” I called after him.

He waved a hand, opened a cupboard and put the broom inside. Then he entered his apartment and closed the door on me. Frustrated, I made after him. I would have the father and son tell me in plain language what they knew, but the bell out front rang and pulled me up in my tracks. I had a lunch appointment. I could not break it. Laurent would have more information for me.