Reaching the shore, Mathieu docked the boat in front of a rustic pink-and-green building outfitted with terraces. Across the front were wooden letters spelling out Le Chalet des ?les.
“Proust and Zola came here often during the Belle époque. And it hasn’t lost any of its charm. At least, I don’t think it has. You’ll have to decide for yourself.”
Over a luncheon of delicious lobster bisque followed by a delicate roasted capon with a chestnut sauce, Mathieu told me stories about the park and the days he’d spent there with his brother.
“My aunt and uncle used to bring us every weekend, and we’d explore another section. There’s a waterfall I must take you to see. We used to run under the rushing sheet of water. Behind it is a hidden grotto. If you could get past your fear of water, I could show it to you. It’s a marvelous, gloomy, secret place that stirred our imagination when we were boys. We used to hide in there and look for buried treasure, sure we’d find it. And one day, we did. A bag of gold coins. We whooped and hollered. It was the very best of days.” He smiled. “Years later, my uncle told me he’d buried the coins there the day before and hoped no one would come across them but us.”
After lunch, I invited him to our house. I wanted to show him my studio and so rarely had a chance, but my great-grandmother was spending a few days in Fontainebleau with friends. Sebastian was in Cannes. And Opaline always stayed at the shop during the week. We would have the maison to ourselves.
“I feel as if I’m walking through a museum,” Mathieu said, as I showed him through the downstairs rooms. He stopped to study a nude painting of Diana done by Corot in the front parlor.
“I thought I saw this painting in the Louvre,” he said.
“A very similar version.”
He stopped in front of an almost full-size marble sculpture of another Diana wearing her crescent-moon headpiece. Someone had once draped a double string of gray pearls around her neck, and they hung there still.
“This place is both appalling and appealing,” he said. “I’ve only read about the homes of the Grand Horizontals,” he said, using one of the more eloquent terms for Paris’s great courtesans. “Every inch is designed to please her gentlemen callers, isn’t it?”
“Just wait.” I took him upstairs and showed him the many fantasy bedrooms. “Whatever a man’s desire, there is a room to match,” I said, as I opened the door to one that recalled the mirrored palace of Marie Antoinette and then another that resembled a monk’s chamber with a single bed, a straw rug, and religious frescoes on the wall. I showed Mathieu the Egyptian room, a Chinese pagoda, and a Persian garden, its walls painted with trees and flowering bushes against a midnight-blue sky complete with stars, a perfect crescent moon, and the onion-shaped minarets of Persepolis in the distance.
“Would you like to try one out?” I asked, half-teasing, half-serious. I’d fantasized about being with him in these rooms in the last weeks since we’d become lovers.
“No, I think I’d rather see yours.”
“Down this way,” I said, and led him to the cream and blue bedroom that had none of the fanciful decorations of the chambers where my great-grandmother and her ladies entertained.
Mathieu laughed when he saw it. “Quite subdued compared with the rest of the maison. And a relief,” he said, as he looked around. He walked to my dresser and touched my silver repoussé mirror and the bottle of perfume that he’d bought me. He studied a picture frame that held a photograph of Sebastian and me at the beach when we were both about ten.
“Is this after your sight was restored?” he asked.
“Yes.”
Mathieu peered at the photo as if he were gleaning some critical information from it. “What a terrible time you must have had.”
I sat down on the edge of my bed. I didn’t want to talk about it and was about to change the subject. But then I thought that if I did open up, perhaps it would encourage Mathieu to talk more about his brother. It was like an itch that demands to be scratched, and I was obsessed with helping him discover the secret buried so deep in him that he couldn’t cast any light on it.
“Everything was dark. I kept waiting for morning. But it never came. And I became so clumsy. Always bumping into things and hurting myself. I don’t know how I would have endured it if it hadn’t been for Sebastian. He attached himself to me as if we’d become Siamese twins overnight. He was my eyes. I became so dependent on him and my art. Because I could still draw. I couldn’t see what I drew, but I could feel the paper under my hands and the weight of the pencils in my fingers, and I had control of the sweep of the lines. My sisters and I became more discreet about our gifts after the accident. Psychics and séances and fortune-telling may be popular and acceptable to discuss even in polite society. But we are all wary of using stronger words to describe our abilities.”
“Now that you mention it, you hardly ever use the words witch or witchcraft.”
I nodded.
“But you can, you know, with me. In private. I’m not scared of it.” He smiled. “In fact,” he said, touching his finger to my lips, “you can say anything you want to me.”
He put his arm around my shoulders before leaning in to kiss me. I leaned forward and kissed him back.
“I’ve imagined you here in my room,” I whispered. “Does that shock you?”
He laughed. “No, it delights me. Tell me what you imagined.”
And I did. I told him that sometimes after we’d spent too many days apart, I would wake up having dreamed of being with him and stay in my bed, conjuring his image, the feel and the scent of his skin, and how I’d use my hand between my legs, mimicking what he did to me, until I managed an explosion on my own.
“Show me,” he whispered.
Suddenly, I felt shy. He sensed it and urged me on. “I want to see what you do when you are by yourself. I can’t imagine how beautiful you must look lying in your bed, touching yourself, thinking of me.”
With seductive words of encouragement, he persuaded me to get undressed and into my bed. I lay down on my stomach, my head buried in my pillow, my hand between my legs, and I began to stroke myself.
He only lasted a few minutes before he replaced my fingers with his own, and I felt his body join mine. Our lovemaking was slow and languorous. Both of us enjoyed the surprise of the new position we’d discovered.
Afterward, he fell asleep, and I watched him for a while. His body was so beautiful. Like one of the graceful marbles in the Louvre. Without disturbing him, I reached for this Book of Hours and my silver pencil and began to sketch his long lines and lean form, wincing as I used the side of the graphite to shadow his skin, capturing the brutal battle scars that marred it. What had happened to him in the attack? Why was he still living half a life because of it?
I moved on, and when I reached his thighs, I didn’t shy away from drawing his still slightly tumescent penis.
This was so unlike drawing live nude models in class. Their nakedness was impersonal and removed. Mathieu’s was redolent with our lovemaking and passion.