“So then why were you there?” She was examining my face and thinking out loud. “The article said she was there with a German businessman who is building a department store in the 5th and her fiancé and . . .” She put it all together and let out a small scream. “Oh no! It was La Lune. She caused the accident? This is how it begins.”
Fall, fire. Fall, fire. I could not hear what my grandmother was saying anymore. I was seeing my burnt gloves, the blackened pearls. Hearing Charlotte’s laugh as she sailed over the balcony railing. I put my head in my hands. Dug my fingers into my forehead. Wanted to feel pain. Searing stings. Anything to stop thinking what I was thinking. Accepting this horrible reality. Fire, fall.
I heard a noise. Glass breaking. My grandmother was reaching across the table. She’d knocked over one china cup, now was knocking over the teapot, which spilled onto the cloth and her dress, grabbed my hands and pulled them to her. She was holding them so tightly I worried she might break my bones, and then how would I paint?
“This is what she does. She wants her passions fulfilled, Sandrine. At any price. She craves it. And she uses us to do it.”
“Tell me,” I whispered, needing to hear the story. I had seen a woman die. I had felt the push at my back, and it hadn’t been the wind.
My grandmother leaned forward conspiratorially, as if she were afraid for anyone but me to hear. “She incubates in a host in order to relive her past. That is what my mother told me. What I told your father. She incubates. Always trying to re-create her time in Paris when she was painting, when she was with Cherubino, being in love and being loved back, before her jealousy cost her lover his life. None of the women she’s infested have been strong enough to withstand La Lune’s spirit and stay sane or talented enough to become the artist she was. Marguerite, Camille, Eugenie, Clothilde, Simone . . .”
My grandmother was naming all the women in the portraits on the stairs.
“Marguerite claimed that within days of becoming betrothed to her lover, she began to see La Lune when she looked in the mirror. A month later, she threw herself off of the Pont Neuf in the dead of winter and froze to death in the swirling, black waters.
“Under La Lune’s influence, Simone became so passionate, so hungry for her lover, that she drove him away. Her beau was so frightened by her appetite that he left her the night before they were to announce their betrothal. She painted over a hundred portraits of him—all -terrible—and, when she completed the last, took poison and died.”
And then my grandmother’s voice changed and became a hoarse whisper with a heavier accent. Completely and totally unrecognizable.
“Don’t be afraid, Sandrine. I’ve learned from my mistakes. From each woman I learned a little bit more. I know better how to control my appetites. I won’t force all my desperation onto you. I won’t overwhelm you with my appetites. I will just show you the life that you can have and you will want it enough . . . want it so much . . . that you will invite me to stay. And then we will both have what we want. What we need.”
“Grand-mère? Grand-mère?”
She didn’t say anything more, just sat frozen like one of Rodin’s marbles, sightless eyes staring straight ahead, not speaking, not acknowledging that she could even hear me.
“Grand-mère? Grand-mère?”
Finally she blinked, and then her eyes widened in horror. She knew, as did I, what had happened.
My grandmother rose, came around the table to me. Reaching out, she grabbed the neck of my dress and jerked it open. Buttons flew. Fabric ripped. I pushed her hand away. She stumbled and fell against the bed.
My grandmother looked so helpless then, sprawled half on and half off, clutching at the comforter for balance. She was breathing heavily, sweat on her forehead, her eyes glazed.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“She got inside me. She made me talk to you for her.” She lunged at me again. “You have to take her necklace off,” she yelled as she pulled at the rubies around my neck. “Off . . . off . . .”
Alerted by the noise, the nurse ran into the room. “Madame Verlaine, please, please. It’s not good for you to become overexcited.”
The nurse tried to disengage my grandmother from me, but she resisted.
“Let go of your granddaughter, Madame, or you will not be able to see her again.”
My grandmother pushed her off. The nurse fell. Grabbing hold of me, my grandmother gripped my arms. Her fingers dug, like talons, into my skin. Her hair had come undone, and tears had melted her mascara. The charming coquette had disappeared. My grandmother was gone, and once again I was facing a madwoman I did not know.
The nurse, who’d gone out to get help, returned now with two orderlies who rushed in and dragged my grandmother off me, but not before she’d ripped the sleeve of my gown and scratched the skin beneath the fabric.
I backed up, away from her, and stood against the wall, watching the scene.
“She’s a succubus . . . She sucks us dry like a whore sucking a cock . . . like a bitch in heat . . .”
While my grandmother continued ranting, the two orderlies held her down and the nurse administered the sedative. That done, the male helpers tied my grandmother to her bed, first her wrists and then her ankles.
My grandmother, who wore the most expensive silks and satins, who slept on the finest Egyptian cotton, was bound by coarse hemp, fabric too rough for her skin.
And all I could do was watch in terror.
“If you keep this up, Madame, the doctor isn’t going to let you go home. And you want to go home, don’t you?” the nurse said soothingly, trying to calm my grandmother.
“La Lune needs a host, Sandrine. You think I’m mad, but I’m not. I’m as sane as anyone around me. You need to believe me. Go home. Look at the portraits . . .” She was slowing down. The sedative was taking effect. “They are all wearing the rubies . . . Look at the women . . .” She was falling asleep as she spoke. Now her voice was just a whisper, and I had to move forward to hear what she was saying.
“Look at the women . . . in their eyes . . . the same . . .”
And then she was asleep.
At rest, she looked once again like my grandmother. I reached out and touched her cheek, wanting so much to relieve her suffering.
The nurse put her arm around me. “I know it’s very hard to see her like this, but it’s just a little setback. She didn’t have an incident all week. She’s been just wonderful.”
I nodded but didn’t say anything. Would it do any good to tell the nurse that it was me? That my grandmother couldn’t be around me for any length of time without becoming deranged and spouting lunatic theories that were all ridiculous?
My fingers moved up to my neck, and I touched the rubies. I’d been careful to wear a dress that would cover the carved stones lest she see them and try to take them off me again. I wouldn’t allow that to happen. No one would ever remove them from my throat but me. They’d been hidden in the house for me to find, and I had. Good things had happened since I’d put them on. Hadn’t Julien become my lover since I’d found them? Hadn’t I begun painting? Wasn’t I becoming exactly who I was meant to be?
Chapter 29
I returned to Maison de la Lune with a purpose. I told Alice that no, I didn’t want coffee or chocolat chaud, and yes, I’d call her later if I changed my mind.
“Do you want the telegram that arrived?” she asked, holding out a silver tray with a single slim envelope in its center.
I took it with trepidation. Mr. Lissauer’s communiqués never contained good news.
The lawyer wrote that the longer the search to find me continued, the more Benjamin became convinced I was in hiding because I had information that could destroy him. In addition, rumors were now circulating in the business community that my husband had become so obsessed with the fruitless efforts, he was becoming unhinged.