I only half listened to Sebastian’s story. As much as I was interested in the castle’s history, I was too distracted by the sense that I’d seen it before. Why was it so familiar? Even if I’d once seen a photo of it and not paid much attention, it wouldn’t explain the particular cluster of feelings welling up in me.
Excitement, mixed with fear, laced with power. Similar to the bouquet of emotions I experienced when I put on the blindfold. Or when I was scrying. Giving in to irresistible temptation was always dangerously thrilling. To be privy to a secret scene, knowing I was lifting a veil that very few people even knew existed, was exhilarating. Despite the potential danger, the craving to feel that painful elation again enticed me.
And that’s when I remembered. I’d been scrying unintentionally days before when Sebastian was standing on the street beside a rain puddle. And I’d seen this very facade in the reflection. But in that watery image, my brother had been standing in front of the castle, warning me: Unless you are here to save me . . .
I’d thought I could save someone once before. Would it be different with Sebastian?
Chapter 23
Book of Hours
July 18, 1920
Mathieu took me to the Louxor movie palace today. From the first step into the lobby, I was transported. A combination of Art Deco and Egyptian Revival, every inch gleamed. A replica of an ancient cartouche hung above the box office. The ochre walls were decorated with lotus-blossom motifs in dark green, cobalt, and turquoise. Giant terra-cotta sphinxes stared with black-and-white glass eyes as the guests filed in.
We settled down in plush red velvet seats, and La Belle Dame Sans Merci, directed by Germaine Dulac, began. I’d read about the movie when it had opened and knew about the romantic notion of a woman in a failed relationship which ends when her male lover, who cannot live without her, kills himself.
Dulac’s movie was set in the present, postwar France. It opened with a phone call between the main character, Lola, an actress, and her lover professing his undying adoration and passion for her.
Mercilessly, she replied that she would forget him “in the time it takes to smoke a cigarette.”
After the film ended, Mathieu took me to a nearby café for wine.
“What did you think of the movie?” he asked.
“It was sad, wasn’t it?”
“Victor Hugo once said that melancholy is the pleasure of being sad.”
“Yes, that’s a perfect way to describe it.”
Once again, Mathieu had found the exact words to explain how I felt.
“It was stunning visually. But Lola was such a victim of love,” I said. “So twisted by her own pain she had to employ her talents as an actress to get her revenge on the whole male species.”
“She’d been disposed of by men, so she used them.”
“And whatever delight that gave her, ultimately she was miserable,” I added.
“The poem the title was based on was by Keats. Do you know it?”
“I know no poetry. And no poets but you.” I smiled at him, but he flinched at my words. Retreated and grew silent. As he had in the bar the first time we’d talked about his aspirations, he drank what was in his glass too fast.
I’d made a mistake. And now I felt terrible. How could I help him? What magick could I call on to close the gash in his soul that kept him from being the artist I knew with all my heart he was meant to be?
He picked up the half-full bottle of wine. “Let’s walk,” he said, as he took some coins out of his pocket and left them on the table.
Outside, night had fallen, and the sky was filled with clouds. We walked in and out of their shadows toward the river.
He held the bottle in one hand, the other hand in his pocket. I didn’t know what to say to defuse my gaffe, so I was silent.
Finally, we reached the Seine, and I followed him down the stone steps to the shore. There we stopped under a leafy chestnut tree, and he pulled me as close to him as he could and kissed me hard on the lips. Surprised but not displeased by his intensity, I kissed him back.
On the river, a tugboat chugged by. Somewhere a dog barked. My world had narrowed to the space within Mathieu’s arms.
We broke apart, and he pulled me down onto a bench. He offered me the bottle. I took a drink and handed it back to him. Either the kiss or the wine had emboldened me.
“I’m sorry for what I said in the café,” I whispered.
He shook his head angrily. “No. It’s me. The movie disturbed me. It made me think about Keats’s life. Such a brilliant but short life. He died at twenty-five. That’s the same age my brother was when he died. That’s what disturbs me about the movie the most. While it’s a romantic notion to kill yourself over being jilted, it’s too melodramatic. Too wasteful.”
“No, I can’t imagine you doing anything like that,” I said.
“How would I handle it if you treated me as callously as Lola?” He’d become playful again, teasing me.
“But I never could.”
“Ah, but never is a long time, Delphine.”
I felt a wave of sadness come over me.
“Someone more handsome, more successful, with better prospects, will come along, and you’ll—”
“No. It can’t be like that for us.”
“Us?” he asked. “You and me?”
“No, my sisters and me.”
And so, while we drank more of the cold, dry wine, I told him what each daughter of La Lune inherits. Not the bits and pieces of legends and gossip that he’d heard over the years from conversations in the bookshop but the truth.
“My great-grandmother has always said that for the women in our family, love is not a blessing. It leads to heartbreak and tragedy. For generations, we’ve been cursed when it comes to matters of the heart. We are only allowed one absolute love per lifetime. And that love, once given, never wanes. Even if the man is untrue or dies, we are destined to pine for him and never find another mate.”
“I believe in a lot of things, Delphine, but that is simply not possible. It’s suggestive thinking. I’ve read about it—it’s all explained in what the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud has been writing about.”
“I know about him. And Carl Jung. My brother is fascinated by their theories. But believe me, this curse is real. Generations have tried without luck to find an antidote to love, going back to the first La Lune, who lost her lover, Cherubino, and did everything in her power, including selling her soul, to try to bring him back from the dead. She failed. And like every other daughter since who has made a similar effort, she never stopped loving him.”
By now, I was crying. Unable to stop myself from imagining how I’d feel if I lost Mathieu.
He twisted on the bench so he was facing me, then took both my hands in his, and my heart lurched. The slightest touch, the scent of him, the sight of him moving so purposefully—I reacted to it all.
“I promise you, I will not leave you,” he said.
I could see in his eyes that he meant every word, and as he took me in his arms again, I tried to make myself believe him and be soothed by him and at the same time be set on fire by his lips and fingers and sweet whispered endearments.
Chapter 24