I don’t imagine I will ever be able to open this journal and read through these entries again. But when I began this chronicle in May, I resolved to record every hour I spent with Mathieu. And so our last few minutes must be included, despite their excruciating melancholy.
After the blindfolded drawing session when I saw into the future, I avoided Mathieu for more than a week, claiming a sudden illness. And I was ill—sick over what I had seen and my understanding of what I must do about it. I stayed in bed, eyes red from crying, uninterested in any of the food Grand-mère sent up to my room. While I hid away, I made plans to leave Paris. That part was easy compared with figuring out how to tell Mathieu. What could I say that wouldn’t invite questions? That would kill the relationship without leaving any possibility for reconciliation? I was determined it had to be a clean, decisive break. I wasn’t sure I’d be capable of remaining steadfast in my decision to go if he begged me to stay.
In the end, I took the coward’s way out. I arranged for him to see me in a compromising position with another man. I paid Claude Cherchez, one of my fellow students who was always short of funds, to act the part of my lover. The plan was for us to be seen together, heads close, holding hands, and then kissing passionately in the café a few blocks from the bookshop where Mathieu and his uncle ate lunch every day. I’d told my friend only enough to get his sympathy. That Mathieu had become a bore but wouldn’t leave me alone, and I was hoping if he saw me with a new lover, he’d understand it was time to move on.
It was a scene worthy of Alexandre Dumas. Claude and I were already seated and had finished half a bottle of wine, when Mathieu and Pierre Dujols entered Café de Flore.
Neither of them noticed me at first, and those minutes of waiting while they walked to their table were agony. Claude held my shaking hands and whispered what looked like words of love but were really gossip about our fellow classmates. I prayed I’d get through the encounter without breaking down and concentrated on Claude’s banter rather than turning my head.
In the window’s reflection, I watched Mathieu and his uncle sit down at a table where they couldn’t avoid seeing me once they got settled. And indeed, after only a few moments, I saw Mathieu look our way, then stand and head toward us.
I whispered to Claude to kiss me right away. He played his part well, if not with a bit too much enthusiasm. But it was all for the best, because the kiss stopped Mathieu in mid-step, and he didn’t approach our table. Not then. Not at all.
When I next checked in the window’s reflection, the table Mathieu and his uncle had occupied was empty.
That was a week ago. Every day since then, a letter from Mathieu has arrived at the house. I’ve burned them all. What good will it do me to read Mathieu’s words? Whether he is hurt or confused or furious, I cannot be swayed. I have to go.
The dawn has broken. Outside my window, the pink-orange sky will soon be turning pale blue and then a more intense cerulean blue, and it will be time for me to go.
I feel lost. I am lonesome. All the dreams I’ve dreamed for the last four months have died, and along with them, some of my soul has died, too.
I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to return to Paris. Wouldn’t the memories haunt me and drive me mad? Even now, here in my bedroom, I turn my head to the window and for a moment see Mathieu standing there, naked, after our last lovemaking, backlit by the late-afternoon sun.
I go to sleep, and even though I know the sheets have been laundered a dozen times since he lay on them, I still inhale them, searching for a hint of his cologne.
What would I do if I walked down a street and saw Mathieu walking toward me or spotted him in a café? Or simply heard his name spoken in passing?
Every scenario is untenable.
I know I can’t completely escape. No matter where I go, there will be moments when I will think of him. For the rest of my life, every time I see two lovers embrace, I will miss him.
I can’t remember which kiss was our last. How is that possible? I don’t have an exact count of how many times we kissed. According to my Book of Hours entries, we saw each other more than sixty-four times and spent more than three hundred hours together. If Mathieu kissed me a dozen times during some hours and only one or two times during others, that would be at least a thousand kisses. And yet, as I sit here, as much as I try, I can’t recreate the sensation of his lips on mine. I can remember that it happened and that it made me feel sublime, but experience it anew? No. How cruel is love? How mercurial? To be all bright, strong, bold, and powerful splashes of colors while you are in its midst—and then, once you’re out of its immediate presence, all you have left are thinned-out, pale hints as memories.
If only I could kiss him once more and could write down every nuance and keep it safe on these pages, so whenever I am needy, I can open my book and feel one of his kisses again in all its red, purple, deep-magenta intensity.
I hope that one day I will find solace in believing I have done the right thing by leaving him to keep him safe. That one day the pain of missing him will be attenuated by knowing he is alive and well.
But now I can only think of how I always believed I would be with Mathieu forever. Of how the world changed color when he came into my life. Of how lonely I was until I met him. And how that loneliness has returned and will stay with me forever. I always thought I’d see Mathieu again. And again. And now, I know, I never will.
Chapter 41
My younger sister, Jadine, collects people’s tears and uses them to help her clients find their happiness through the salty water. As I dressed to leave the chateau, I thought that if she were there that night, I would have let her collect my tears so she could offer me advice. But she was in Paris.
My mother might have been able to hold my hands and feel my energy and give me insight into how to exorcise Mathieu’s pull. But she was in Cannes.
My father, with no magickal thinking, would have put his arms around me and told me he loved me and understood. That might have been what I needed the most at that moment. But he was in England, building a country house for an eccentric art collector.
And Sebastian? My twin, my other half, who knew me in many ways better than anyone else, who had been my eyes when I couldn’t see, who shared my determination and my passion for art—he would want to fight my battle for me. He would see Mathieu as the villain in this story. Would somehow blame him. But none of my despair was Mathieu’s doing. Like so many times before, the doing was all mine.
The house was quiet as I crept down the stairs, not wanting to disturb anyone. I’d drive into town. There was an inn there. A place to spend the night away from temptation. And then, in the morning, I’d telephone Sebastian and explain, and he’d understand and pack up my things and join me, and we’d go home.