She rings the bell. When nothing happens within the next minute, she rings again. Still nothing. The house must be large, its sounds discreet and muffled. Please, let it not be her who answers. They surely have servants. She tries to convince herself, though what she is really trying to do is banish the mounting reasons to turn back.
She rings once more, doubting the mechanism works. After all, this is Spain, an old country that idles beneath the sun. She turns towards her friends waiting in the convertible at the bottom of the drive and smiles at them. They have put on dark glasses to suit the mood, to be fashionable, and to keep from being recognised, Rémi had added pompously.
The place is steeped in the sharp fragrance of orange blossom. Spaniards say the scent changes the blood. Her heart beats faster, borne along by fear and exhilaration. She strokes the white flowers, plucks one and raises it to her nostrils. A beautiful place to love.
She hears footsteps. A butler opens the door, his complexion dark, his eyes those of an old hand at propriety.
“Bon dia, en què us puc ajudar?”[^3]
“Ho sento. No parlo ni català ni espanyol. Parleu francès o anglès?”[^4]
“French,” he says with scarcely an accent.
“I would like to speak to Léo.”
“Monsieur rarely receives visitors.”
“Is he growing old?”
She immediately regrets the irony. The servant remains silent.
“Do you know who I am?”
“No, madame.”
Is he lying? Does Léo not have a photograph of her somewhere, in an album, among newspaper clippings? Servants know everything about their masters. She tries to read a gaze too courteous to be entirely innocent. Besides, a butler is so unlike Léo—surely that woman’s influence. Léo merely inhabits places; he does not live in them. Has he changed? She doubts it. A genius does not change; he merely remains unpredictable. She decides to play the game.
“My name is Marthe Archambault, his… a friend of many years. I did not announce my visit, but I am certain he will wish to see me.”
The butler, the consummate automaton, asks her to come in and wait in the small drawing room while he enquires of Monsieur. She signals to her companions that all is well, using the agreed sign, a V for victory. She feels foolish, but Rémi had insisted. If they were going to spring surprises, they might as well disguise themselves as “James Blonde”; it would make more of an impression, he had joked. And why not? Rémi’s good humour was contagious. Hélène settles comfortably into her seat, Rémi switches off the engine with a yawn, and Gustave waves her on so they can get it over with. She goes inside.
The butler leaves her alone in a small room. For a time, her fears regain the upper hand. She does not want to see the other woman, does not want to know the story that binds them. She could simply have telephoned… Enough with the ifs and maybes. She is here, and here she will remain.
The room is rather pretty, soberly decorated with the subtle taste of wealthy people. It resembles the antechamber of a convent, she thinks. A few orange branches stand in an attractive vase. But the magic is absent. Orange blossom intoxicates only when free, in contact with other branches.
The interior clashes with the originality of Catalonia. Near her armchair, she notices a curious ornament made of crystal, gold and copper, a kind of allegory of Dalí’s melting clocks. This thing is not Léo.
“A first-period Gondiari. A monstrosity made by one of Dalí’s arse-lickers.”
She starts, recognises the voice and does not want to turn around. She did not hear him enter and feels ridiculous, unprepared. And yet she tells herself: at last.
“Hello, Léo,” she says, replacing the ornament on its stand, still unable to face him. “Surely you weren’t the one who bought this.”
She turns. He stands very straight, still too handsome, his shoulders perhaps a little more stooped, but no more than that. He is the same man: tall, with the insolence of a Tarzan who has aged well. Those eyes—how well she knows those eyes, how thoroughly she understands that body! She wants to rise but cannot.
“Why are you here?”
She adjusts at once to the hardness of his tone. She senses his fear and stands.
“I don’t know why I came. I was in town…”
He snickers.
“You haven’t changed.”
Now she looks him in the eyes.
“Neither have you, except perhaps for the butler and the ornament.”
“Are you getting used to your new millions?”
That is not what she wants to hear. She wants him to be silent and paint for her.
“We are indeed getting used to them—Gustave, Hélène, Rémi and I.”
“And Armand?”
“He died at Christmas.”
He says nothing. His gaze leaves hers. The hand resting on the doorframe tightens, then relaxes. He remains in the doorway, as though wanting to end this as quickly as possible.
“You can spare me five minutes, surely?”
“Why did you come?” he repeats, exasperated.
She has the moral high ground.
“Why are you so cold with me, Léo?”
Is he angry, or merely annoyed?
“I’m too old to…”
“…to be in love?”
She moves towards him. The painfully familiar act of approaching has the effect of softening her boldness. She waits a few more seconds, trying to nourish herself—yes, she thinks, nourish herself on him—then changes direction.
“It’s lovely here…”
She sits, trying to gain time, and finally says:
“My quest is simple. Forty years of life together deserve a true farewell.”
He appears to soften; she relaxes.
“You are still as beautiful as ever.”
The remark seems sincere.
“Don’t say anything merely to hurt me.”
“That was never, ever my intention.”
She does not believe him, yet has no desire to reply. Her anger, disgust and love recede. She nervously fingers her gloves.
“I no longer know what to say,” she says weakly. “Perhaps I should simply admit that you continue to disarm me… It’s so foolish. I still haven’t recovered, as you can see.”
If she is to have her revenge, it will be by showing weakness before him.
“I understand,” he says.
“Do you? No, you will never understand. Say only that you hear me.”
She gives him what she hopes is a courageous look. Yet she realises that all she is doing is thrusting out her chest, mechanically displaying her charms. He seems to make a decision:
“Follow me.”
He beckons her on. She must pass in front of him. Does he wear cologne now? She does not dare look at him, examining the fabric of his clothes instead. Overdressed as well. What has become of him?
The door opens onto a staircase of some fifty steps. Astonished, she turns towards him.
“The façade of this house is a trompe-l’œil. The true residence is below, beyond the garden. I’ll ask Julio to bring your friends some refreshments.”
“You?”
“Yes. I’ve known you were there from the beginning. Things are modern here, you know.”
She smiles; the James Blonde effect has failed. Rémi will be disappointed and will not like seeing the butler bring him a glass of punch. Unless he makes advances to the man? No, the butler is too old. She cannot remain serious. Rémi is contagious. She descends the long staircase. At the bottom, an entirely different setting presents itself: a garden reigns at the centre of a colonnaded gallery that conceals the greater part of the residence. To her regret, she will see only this fragment, for he motions her through the first door on their left.
She stares, open-mouthed.
“My private museum,” he says simply.
She goes forward. The immense room must surely contain the painter’s entire body of work, or at least what remains in his possession. He produced so much. The paintings hang very close together, giving the room an unreal, dizzying air. A pageant of colour reminds her of the spontaneous yet calculated gestures that gave birth on canvas to geometries of unconscious truths.
“Do you still paint?”
He does not answer. What she sees on the walls answers for him: no. She recognises several works he painted in her home, though many others are entirely unknown to her. He lets her examine them and sits. A servant emerges through a door carrying a tray on which stands a carafe of what she takes to be orange juice. Léo has prepared his staging; he will never willingly relinquish control. No, he has not changed.
“You have kept the habit of veiling paintings you no longer like.”
“It is more a question of visual rhythm,” he says. “I am often tempted to burn them.”
She smiles at the parallel with what she had begun to do with her books.
Léo’s tone is so different when he speaks of his art. He becomes her friend again, sharing the same vocabulary. The servant approaches to offer her a glass.
“Is it poisoned?” she asks.
The servant does not understand and is visibly unsettled; he turns towards his employer. Léo motions for him to pay no attention. She takes the glass, thanking him in the Catalan she learnt on the fly. Her words fall within the scope of his duties, and he smiles at her extravagantly before leaving. Léo raises his glass. She drinks without imitating him.
“Are you happy?”
He laughs. She knows one must not ask him such things. He has lost none of his arrogance. Still, she doubts the way she sees him. The atmosphere turns poisonous. She feels the urge to leave and erase this episode. Hélène was right. The sauce has been spoiled. Nothing remains of their past. It is up to her to consign this man to the realm of dreams.
“Strange,” she says. “I would like to leave. I no longer know what to say to you. I have probably already written all of it. I would feel as though I were repeating myself,” she says bravely.
“You were always like that.”
“Like what?”
“You want a confrontation, but you give up when the moment comes.”
How arrogant he is!
“You mean I soften? It was always the only way to soften you.”
“And you succeeded every time.”
“Then why did you leave?”
“Don’t you know?”
She hopes he has no valid reason to offer, but he appears too sure of himself. Once again, he robs her of her composure. The orange juice, excellent though it is, dries her throat.
“No, I don’t know, Léo. I believed in you. In your fidelity. Was I blind?”
“You were too good.”
“Come now! Tell that to someone else, my friend.”
Talking to him is easy; she allows herself this reminder of their conjugal friendship, though even to her own ears it now rings false. He empties his glass in one draught. Once again, she recognises the gesture. She recognises everything about him. And yet he is elsewhere now, terribly elsewhere.
“We could have adopted a child.”
What is she saying? She is irritated by this last-ditch boldness.
“I don’t like this conversation,” he says abruptly.
“Answer me, please.”
He rises, angry.
“Things went wrong for us, Marthe, simply wrong. I was never faithful to you, for God’s sake! How could you not realise it—you, the queen of analytic insight?”
She absorbs the blow and clenches her teeth. Artists are, after all, only ordinary living beings. He should be speaking of his cowardice. She puts down her glass and rises.
“I was a fool to come here.”
She looks at him, uncertain whether to pity him or thicken her armour instead.
He goes to the back of the room, where paintings are covered by a curtain. He pulls on several cords and the curtain opens swiftly. She feels faint and recognises The Casimir Effect and the Red Painting. He remains near them, his back still turned to her.
“I was the mysterious buyer on the telephone during the auction. I could simply have refused to let you sell them; you gave me every opportunity to do so, and I appreciate it. I let you play your little game because you would never have allowed me to give you more money than necessary. Besides, it amused me. You are too proud, even prouder than I am.”
He stops and sighs.
“You truly were the source of all my inspiration, Marthe. Absurd as it may sound, you alone understood me, and you alone were blind.”
“After forty years, Léo…”
“No. I had so many parallel lives…”
“You thought you were Picasso.”
He continues to turn his back on her, as though unwilling to display the shame she believes is the only possible feeling. But everything is becoming confused in her thoughts. Léo has changed. Just as she has, without a doubt, she tries to convince herself. It takes only a few years for the neurotic networks of their interdependence to dry up and lose their memory.
“I didn’t leave you, Marthe,” he says in a deep voice. “Destiny came between us.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Reyes came into my life and became pregnant. I closed my heart to you.”
“The neighbour’s silver is always more beautiful,” she says in a tone she hopes is neutral.
“The pregnancy was an accident.”
He lowers his head. The silence lengthens. Marthe hears his breathing, shorter than it once was.
“But also a deliverance.”
She falls silent. The conversation, she senses, is beginning to go round in circles. He still does not turn; she observes his frame, now showing signs of weakness. He has grown old, she tells herself. She feels pity, though at this moment she could just as easily collapse in tears, humiliated.
“I didn’t leave because I no longer loved you. I had to choose, if one can put it that way. I needed that child.”
“You fell into that trap, poor man.”
She understands that she is nothing to him now, too far removed from his sin.
“Take care when you speak of traps, Marthe. You are the first to flare up and lose your reason.”
“How dare you!”
There, she tells herself, at least there will be a few flashes of lightning and peals of thunder.
“You are afraid before the Eternal, that is all. It is almost too foolish. How could you renounce all those years for that? You didn’t even need it. We were too old to play that game, Léo. Too old! So you found yourself a healthy broodmare. At our age, we must take the time to finish the books we are writing, leave nothing suspended. All we can do is say goodbye.”
She stops, breathless. She could continue for a long time, put him on trial for every silence and every absence, finally empty herself of all she has held back for five years. The reproaches crowd inside her, too numerous to find their order. Faced with this man who has turned his back on her, she realises that nothing remains of the speech she had imagined. The truth catches her entirely unprepared.
“I am sorry, Marthe. I never deserved you.”
At the very least, his words succeed in adding fuel to the fire.
“You could have let me decide that for myself! I have told you: I am too old now. I can still say that I have always loved you and will love you until the end. I am as unoriginal as that—or as you are, ultimately. But what does it matter?” she resigns herself to saying weakly. “I am still capable of happiness. You were a beautiful story, a powerful drug. We could have…”
She pauses for what seems far too long:
“We could have died together.”
“I still think of that often.”
He turns. She studies his eyes. She tells herself that perhaps she has her revenge. He has been crying, though he will not manage to tell her he still loves her. She rises slowly.
“I have something for you.”
She searches her handbag, hesitates, then takes out a small, ornate box. She never takes her eyes off him. She realises that she could go to him and kiss him. He is ageing before her eyes. He is no longer the great painter beloved by others. One day he too will die, swallowed by the Earth.
They are too old now to wound each other needlessly. Only the right cuts should be made, she thinks—clean incisions, delivered with respect.
“Some of Armand’s ashes. Mix them into your colours. They will surely give a soul to the wonders you paint. Goodbye, Léo. Be happy.”
She leaves quickly and closes the door too hard, ashamed to abandon the ashes she wanted to keep for herself. She is about to climb the stairs when she hears a woman’s voice.
“Augusti! On ets?”[^5]
She freezes.
“Augusti!”
She turns. A child of about five or six stands before her.
“Hola!” he says.
She answers weakly.
“Hola, Augusti.”
“French?” he asks with a cheerful smile.
His good humour pierces her heart. She nods. The child has his father’s eyes, but the rest is foreign to her. A woman appears along the path and stops when she sees Marthe. She is too young, Marthe thinks, and very beautiful. She was right: Léo chose a fine broodmare.
“Hola, Reyes,” she manages to say.
“Good morning, madame,” the young woman replies in excellent French. “Are you Marthe?”
She nods, feeling tears blur her vision. The two women look at each other, embarrassed. Augusti turns towards his mother.
“Qui és aquesta dona, mare?”
“Una amiga del teu pare.”[^6]
Augusti looks at Marthe, who understands Léo’s new happiness.
“Forgive me,” she says, turning away—fleeing, above all.
“Adéu!” the boy says.
“Adéu-siau,” she hears the young woman say.^7
She runs almost all the way up the stairs. Anger, jealousy, envy and sadness make her nauseous.
She has time to wipe away her tears before going outside. The sun does not seem to have moved, as though the episode had never taken place. She quickly goes down to join her friends.
“Well?” Hélène asks.
“It’s done,” she says, restraining her emotion as she sits beside her friend in the back. “There is nothing left to tell. The story is over.”
“Not before time,” Gustave adds.
“He has a lovely house,” she manages to say teasingly. “Did you get your orange juice?”
They laugh, as though they understand that they must move on and leave her in peace.
“You left your dark glasses in the car. You could have impressed him with them—they make you look so stylish,” Rémi suggests.
“Her eyes are steel. She doesn’t need glasses!” Gustave comments.
Hélène whispers to her:
“Are you all right?”
“As they say, it will pass,” she says with a sigh. “I’ll tell you about it. The weather is magnificent,” she adds loudly. “What if we went to see that famous church by Gaudí?”
Before Rémi starts the car, Marthe has time to look at Léo’s property one last time. She feels as though she is dying, or beginning again. She breathes in. Returning from the Mediterranean, the wind strikes the trees with violent blows, laden with sea scents that mingle with the fragrance of orange blossom. She thinks of seaweed; wind and water are the same thing, she tells herself.
[^3]: Good morning, how may I help you?
[^4]: I’m sorry. I speak neither Catalan nor Spanish. Do you speak French or English?
[^5]: Augusti! Where are you?
[^6]: “Who is this lady, Mummy?” “A friend of your father’s.”