“I’ve been looking for you for years.”
“What are you talking about?” I was becoming more and more frightened.
“I’d heard about you but never knew your name,” Eugène said with disgust. He turned to Sebastian. “And you, have you always been your sister’s manager?”
“I have.”
“Always?”
“Yes, since she was in L’école. Why?”
“And normally”—he turned to me—“next you would paint this? Do a full oil painting?”
“Yes, usually I do.”
“I don’t want that. I’ll pay you, of course. But I don’t want a painting of this.”
Sebastian was standing behind me, looking at the drawings.
The first was of two women in a sickroom. One in a bed, the other standing, adjusting her pillow. It was harmless. Kind, even. In the second drawing, the woman who had been adjusting the pillow was holding it aloft. And in the third drawing, she was smothering the woman in the bed with it.
I looked at Sebastian. “What is going on?”
Sebastian didn’t answer, but Eugène did. “Yes, you drew these before. You drew the last moments of a desperately ill woman’s life, as she secretly begged her nurse to help her die so she wouldn’t have to endure any more pain. The last moments of my wife’s life, with her nurse, Thérèse Bruis. But you drew it as a murder, not a mercy killing. And your brother blackmailed Thérèse with what you painted. He told her he was going to hang the painting in his gallery unless she bought it from him. Thérèse sold everything she had, but it wasn’t enough. And so he did it. He hung the painting. One of our friends saw it and told Thérèse. She went to see it, realized how recognizable she was, and begged your brother to take the painting down. But he refused. And then she wrote you and begged you, too. But you just ignored her. I would have given you the money. I would have bought the damn painting. I would have done anything to save her. But she didn’t think she could explain it to me. Thérèse thought I’d always see her with blood on her hands. That I wouldn’t understand that my wife had wanted her nurse to help her die. That I wouldn’t believe that Thérèse hadn’t set out to fall in love with me. That I would never accept that our love was not tainted. And because neither of you would help her keep her secret, she wrote me a letter, posted it, and then overdosed on laudanum. Thérèse took her own life because of what you drew and then committed to canvas.”
I looked at Sebastian, shocked. “You blackmailed her?”
He didn’t answer. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash. Eugène had pulled out a knife. The blade shone in the candlelight.
“Watch out, Sebastian!” I screamed.
Sebastian rushed him. Pushed him. Eugène fought back. The two men overturned a chair. Crashed into a table. Porcelain figurines fell and shattered on the floor.
The studio door was flung open. Madame rushed into the room, followed by Mathieu, who grabbed me, pulled me back toward the doorway, and told Madame to hold on to me.
Their entrance had distracted Sebastian. Eugène had taken advantage of that to grab my brother in a choke hold. The knife was up against his neck, the point almost piercing the skin.
“Eugène, this isn’t a good idea,” Mathieu said calmly, as if he were talking about choosing a cigar. “Whatever Sebastian said or did . . . there are other ways to work out your differences.” He took another step closer to the two men. “Whatever is wrong, you can’t resolve it like this. Not like this.”
By taking slow, small steps, Mathieu had finally reached Eugène’s side. Suddenly, in one quick move that stunned us all, Mathieu pushed Sebastian out of the way and grabbed Eugène’s arm—the one holding the knife—and pulled it backward.
The push had been too rough. My brother fell backward against the fireplace, and there was a crack as his head hit the marble mantel.
I screamed.
Mathieu let go of Eugène to kneel down and see if my brother was all right.
Eugène lunged. He was blind with the fury of the fight, with the desire to get his revenge. I didn’t even know if he realized that Sebastian was the one lying on the floor and that the man he was about to stab was Mathieu.
I could see that the blade was headed for the middle of Mathieu’s back. Eugène was going to drive the knife into the flesh between his shoulders.
I tried to break free, but Madame held me back. I pushed her away and ran forward, throwing myself on Eugène, trying but failing to stop him from stabbing Mathieu.
Suddenly, there was blood everywhere. Eugène stumbled, as if stunned that he’d actually used his weapon. I knelt down beside Mathieu. I hadn’t stopped Eugène, but the impact of my jumping on him had ruined his aim. The knife had gone into Mathieu’s arm. The same arm that had been so damaged in the war.
There was so much blood. Had the knife severed a vein? The wound had to be stanched quickly. But first, I had to pull out the knife. I grabbed it and yanked, but it wouldn’t budge. I tried again, gritting my teeth, gripping the handle, I tugged as hard as I could. It gave. For a moment, I just stood there holding the knife, blood dripping on my legs, my stockings, my shoes. Seeing the scene in my mind. Recognizing it from a drawing I had done so long ago.
Then I sprang into action. “We have to stop the blood!” I heard myself scream.
Madame grabbed a linen cloth off a table and wrapped it around Mathieu’s arm, pressing it as tightly as she could around his wound.
His eyes were closed. He wasn’t moving.
All the guests had come running. I saw Picasso and Anna and some of the household staff crowding in the doorway.
As I watched Madame doing what she had learned how to do in the orphanage, all I could think about was the image I had drawn years before of me standing above a felled Mathieu. Knife in my hand. The exact same scenario, down to the blood spatter pattern on the floor.
“I was wrong,” I whispered to Mathieu’s inert body. “I didn’t hurt you. I didn’t hurt you. It wasn’t me.”
Chapter 47
Madame and I sat beside Mathieu’s bed all that night. Watching over him and waiting for him to regain consciousness. Hoping he would. Praying to some God I’d never engaged with before. Desperate to see a sign that the worst was over. That infection wouldn’t set in. That Madame had done all the right things. That Mathieu would recover.
I didn’t know where my brother was. For the time being, I didn’t care. Madame told me he hadn’t been hurt badly at all. Not even suffering a headache. Meanwhile, Picasso and Cocteau and the others had locked Eugène in one of the bedrooms, and the butler was standing guard. The atmosphere in the house had taken on a metallic gray sheen and a sour smell.
“This, too, shall pass,” Madame said, trying to reassure me. “All will be well again, you’ll see. Order will be restored.”
Tears came to my eyes. I tried to speak but failed. I wanted to believe her, but could I? She put her hand on mine.