“You don’t dress up in gentleman’s clothes and study painting at Les Beaux-Arts?”
“Monsieur le Docteur, my grandmother is clearly not only hysterical, she is also delusional. Might I see her now?”
“Do you know who La Lune is?” he asked.
I shivered and tried to keep my voice steady. “Yes, an ancestor of ours. A courtesan who became a legend and started a legacy. Our family home is named after her.”
“Your grandmother is convinced that her ghost is taking you over. I’m afraid it’s a most disturbing story that she’s concocted and is quite obsessed by.”
I leaned across the desk toward the doctor, aware that I’d learned the seductive movement from none other than the woman we were discussing. “What would cause such a thing?” I asked, laden with concern.
“There are many possible causes. That’s why I was asking you what happened before the doctor was called.”
“Deaths . . . wouldn’t they make her think of ghosts? Her son. Then her uncle. Then her cousin. Isn’t that enough to explain her preoccupation?”
“I don’t think so.” He stood. “Let us go see your grandmother.”
I followed him down a long hallway, past well-lit offices, and then into the living quarters. I glimpsed a simple combination bedroom/sitting room where a woman in a dressing gown sat in a rocking chair by the window. A few doors down, a nurse exited another such room, and I saw two men sitting on a couch, sipping what appeared to be coffee or tea.
“It’s very nice here. I’m afraid I was picturing something quite different.”
“Thank you. We have the funds needed to ensure we can keep the clinic up to the highest standards. Nothing like the city madhouses.”
We’d reached the end of the hall. The doctor pointed to the door on the left.
“This is your grandmother’s room. She doesn’t yet have all her privileges, so she is restrained. I want you to be prepared.”
He opened the door and gestured for me to walk in.
Despite his warning, I gasped.
My beautiful Grand-mère was lying on top of a bed, her arms tied to the bedposts. Her hair was stringy and dull. Her naked face looked drawn and ravaged. Her eyes went wide when she saw me, and something wild filled them. My lovely Grand-mère, who never had looked her age, who entertained some of the wealthiest men in Europe, whose jewels rivaled those of princesses, was wearing a white shift stained with something red—not blood, I hoped—looked right at me and started to scream.
“La Lune, La Lune!” she cried. “Save Sandrine from La Lune!” She began to sob. Then gagged. Then vomited.
The nurse, whom I hadn’t even noticed, rose from her chair in the corner and attended to her.
I stood, shocked, disgusted, and saddened. The doctor helped the nurse, then spoke soothing words to my grandmother that seemed to actually quiet her.
He turned to me. “Why don’t you try to talk to her and tell her you’re all right? As you can see, she’s quite worried about you.”
“Can she hear me?”
“Yes.”
I walked toward the bed and stepped into my grandmother’s line of sight.
“Grand-mère, please, don’t worry about me. I’m fine. I love you. I want you to get better.”
“I didn’t think you loved your husband,” she said.
I hadn’t known what to expect her to say . . . but that certainly wasn’t it.
“I don’t. I never have.”
“When you first came to Paris, you weren’t in love. I was so happy. You were safe. But you’ve met someone, haven’t you?”
“No,” I lied. “Why are you asking me this?”
“This is what she does, waits for a woman in love and then inhabits her. Have you taken a lover? You mustn’t. She’s why I never wanted you to come back to Paris. She waits in her house for someone to fall in love . . . and then she drives our women mad.”
This sounded like a version of the legend that my father had alluded to so many years ago. Surely no one could believe this? A woman dead for more than two hundred and fifty years could not somehow live on in Verlaine daughters, sisters, and nieces.
My grandmother turned to the doctor.
“Sandrine is beautiful, isn’t she? So strong. So like her father. But she’s too curious. Curiosity is dangerous for Verlaines, and—oh! No!” My grandmother screamed and pointed. “Doctor, do you see her? Look behind Sandrine. See the shadow tied to her? That’s the witch. That’s La Lune.”
“Now, now, Madame Verlaine,” the doctor began to soothe.
“Don’t try to placate me. Look at Sandrine. The witch is right behind her. Do you see the shadow? She’s desperate for love.” She turned her head to me. “Sandrine, you have to cast her out. Are you listening? Cast her out!”
I turned and run from the room and was soon careening down the corridor. At the end of the hall, out of breath, I stopped. I put my hand on the windowsill and looked out into the garden. Watching a robin picking at a twig, probably about to steal it away for nest building, I tried to stifle my sobs, but I was crying too hard.
A few moments later, the doctor joined me by the window.
“Are you all right, Mademoiselle?”
“My grandmother is really very ill, isn’t she?”
He handed me a handkerchief. “She’s had a severe break from reality. And it is serious, but I have seen far more serious situations resolve in time. If you would indulge me, though, I’d like to ask you to help me so I can help treat her.”
“Of course,” I said.
“Would you go back to your grandmother and ask her how you can get rid of La Lune?”
The thought of seeing her again filled me with dread. She wanted to destroy me. The person I was becoming. The painter. Julien’s lover. Was she jealous of my youth and my life? Yes, I could see now that had been happening since I came to Paris. My grandmother was aging, and my vitality was a threat to her.
“But you said you don’t believe in ghosts.”
“No. I don’t believe you are any more inhabited by a demon ghost than I am,” the doctor said. “But she believes you are, and perhaps if you enacted the ritual that she believes will rid you of the demon, we can convince her that you are safe again. It might be the first step to restoring her vitality.”
I didn’t respond.
“I’ll be with you. The nurse will be there. You don’t need to be afraid. You do want to help her, don’t you?”
No, a voice I could hear inside of me said. No, don’t help her.
A wave of nausea rocked me. I pressed my forehead against the cool window glass. What was happening? I was hearing— What was I hearing? The doctor was trying to soothe me and so was the voice inside of me—I couldn’t tell which was which—I had to get away—I was so frightened.
I took off, running away from her, from him, from the nurse, from the old lady who had once been my beautiful grandmother. As I ran, I heard the doctor’s footsteps behind me as he called out.
“Mademoiselle Verlaine? Please, don’t be afraid.”
I got lost in the maze of corridors and wound up in a large room filled with eucalyptus-scented mist so thick that at first I couldn’t make out where I was. Odd sounds echoed in the space: steam hissing, wind gusts, then a shriek, then a laugh. And under it all was the sound of water, dripping, dripping.
As I stumbled through the space, my eyes adjusted to the condensations, and I could make out copper tubs outfitted with strange metal tubing. In one of the tubs a man wearing a white dressing gown soaked and sang a schoolchild’s rhyme in a high-pitched, squeaky voice. In the next tub another man sat upright, his eyes half shut.
“Pretty lady, will you bathe me?” he asked, his voice heavy with sexual innuendo.