Anna was a well-known medium, famous for her séances. One of her biggest supporters, Arthur Conan Doyle, had attended several and written about how astonishing he believed her to be. There had been numerous articles about her talent, and of course, I’d read a few of them. One couldn’t be interested in the occult—and it seemed everyone was in the 1920s—without stumbling upon her name. She wasn’t popular just in France but also in England and in New York. Like an opera singer or a theatrical star, she’d gone on several world tours. For as many people who believed in her and flocked to see her, there were even more who tried to debunk her. But so far, no one had been able to prove she was a charlatan. She appeared to have a true gift.
Séances could be very disturbing when taken seriously. I’d never been drawn to them. There was enough tumult in my own mind and no need to invite more.
Yet I was curious now to watch Anna in action. Her reputation wasn’t the only reason. When we had been introduced that evening, I was surprised not to sense any mystery about her at all. She was pretty in the most ordinary way. Blond curls, peach-colored skin, lovely hands with perfectly shaped oval nails. She’d looked at me with clear gray eyes that showed no hint of guile. She reminded me of a doll in one of the more fashionable shops on rue Saint-Honoré in Paris. Her frilly silver frock and silver slippers matched her eyes. Her mouth, a delightful bow, was lipsticked in a sassy magenta. Her words practically bubbled over when she spoke in a girlish voice that I imagined could become most grating.
Despite my initial hesitation, I felt no apprehension by the time I sat down at her séance table after dinner. Because of her fame, I assumed she had a keen ability to read people’s thoughts. That wasn’t witchery at all but more connected to science, similar to the way a radio picks up signals. And with an actor’s ability to mimic other people’s voices, one could put on a very powerful performance.
There were ten of us at the table. My brother and Yves Villant had begged off and were in the library smoking cigars. I sat next to Cocteau, and before anyone could take the seat on my other side, Mathieu slid in.
This made me nervous, since I feared we would have to hold hands when Anna called the spirits to gather, and I didn’t know if I would be able to bear the feel of his skin on mine again.
While Madame and Anna prepared the room, Mathieu chatted to me as if I were just another guest. No one listening could have guessed how loaded his questions were.
“Did you enjoy your escape to New York?” he asked.
“I did.”
“What brought you back? Friends? Family? A lover?”
I tried to keep my voice light and teasing. “Monsieur, you embarrass me. That’s quite a personal question, isn’t it?”
“Are there any other kinds of questions that matter? There’s too much small talk at parties. Too much surface chatter. If it’s even possible to truly know someone, to begin to know someone, you must ask questions that are sometimes embarrassing.”
“And accept that the person being questioned won’t answer truthfully.”
“Which would be a shame, for how else can someone get to the heart of the matter?”
“What about you? Are you enjoying your shop now that you run the Librairie du Merveilleux?”
“It’s quite an honor for Uncle Pierre to have turned it over to me.”
“And you continue to get quite a lot of acclaim for your bookbinding, too. You must be working long hours.”
“So you keep track of me?” he asked.
I ignored the question. “Are you quite happy with your work?”
“I’m satisfied. I don’t know if I can be happy.”
“I saw one of your books just yesterday. Madame gave one to the groundskeeper’s son.”
“You’ll see another later. I brought one for you. You know about Emma’s plan for us, don’t you?”
“Her plan? For us?”
I had no idea what he was talking about. No idea of what us might mean in any context. There was no us and hadn’t been for nearly five years. Only my sister Opaline knew Mathieu existed. We’d run into her by accident one afternoon near L’école. She thought he was one of my classmates, and I didn’t dissuade her from that notion. But then, later that summer, Mathieu visited her jewelry shop to commission my ring. Even though he told me he’d described it to her as a gift of appreciation and friendship, as opposed to an engagement ring, my sister knew we were not just friends but were involved in a serious love affair.
After Mathieu gave the ring to me, I went to Opaline and begged her to keep my secret. Lying, I said that I wasn’t sure how I felt about him and that until I was certain, I didn’t want the family to know. Why had I been so intent on keeping him a secret? Rereading my Book of Hours, it seemed I was afraid that if I talked about him and shared him with my family, he might disappear like quicksilver, which vaporized when mixed with water even at the lowest temperatures.
“Don’t worry, mon chat,” Mathieu said.
He’d often told me I reminded him of a cat because of the lazy way I stretched after I’d been painting for too long and because of the way I stared at him—just the way his cat did—unblinking for so long, inscrutable, telling nothing of what I was thinking.
I winced at the endearment and the flood of memories it brought back. As if I weren’t already bombarded with enough of them.
“Emma’s plan,” Mathieu said, “is for me to take your sketches of her house and put them into a book. To keep all the drawings in one place.”
“So you know everything about why I am here?”
“I do, yes. Emma and my uncle have been friends since the early days of Péladan and his secret society. She was a member of the original inner circle and has attended the salons and ceremonies for years. I’ve known her since I was a boy working at the bookshop after school. Once she bought this castle, she enlisted Uncle Pierre to help her find the lost Book of Abraham. He’s tracked down dozens of rare books for her, anything with even a single mention of the treasure. When she heard about what happened to you in America and your return, she came to the shop to discuss her plan with my uncle right away.”
“And you were there, of course.”
“Of course.”
“And you told her you knew me?”
“No. She had a recollection of having met you before and remembered that we’d known each other.”
“And you confirmed that you knew me?”
“Yes, Delphine. Why would I have denied it?”
“And is that all?”
“That I told her? Yes.”
“What are you not saying?” I asked.
“Nothing. It’s all very innocent.”
“Is your being here also innocent?”
“Yes. I knew that she’d hired you when she asked me to make the journal for the drawings. But I didn’t know this was the weekend you’d be in residence.”