“She did that herself, Aline,” he said. “She used to decorate hats in a high-class shop in the seventeenth arrondissement.”
“It’s very pretty. I’ve never had such a hat.”
“Put it on,” he said. “Like this, so we can see your face.” He tilted it back. With his hands on it, he felt he was touching both women at once.
“I like the poppies. A nice choice,” Gustave said to Alphonsine.
“You look ducky, darling,” Angèle said. “There’s nothing like a new hat to perk up a woman, body and soul.”
“Look at the bridge!” Jules said in alarm.
Pierre was running across it, dodging people in his way.
“That’s dedication,” Antonio said.
“No,” Angèle said. “He just doesn’t want to miss the dessert.”
Pierre ran up the stairs shouting, “Raoul. We need you.”
“Where’s Paul?” Auguste demanded.
Instantly Raoul followed him out, and they both ran back across the bridge and into a waiting hackney which sped off at a gallop.
“What do you make of that?” Alphonse asked.
“Some sort of joke, most likely,” Auguste said. A knot formed in the pit of his stomach. Gustave’s wan face showed he didn’t believe him.
He waited some time to calm himself, and set to work on Aline in her hat in profile against Alphonse’s torso so Alphonse could go back to tend the boats. He got the froth of her ruffle against Alphonse’s belly, her waist in front of his white pant leg, the dog’s head, neck, and paw against his raised thigh, Alphonse’s broad hand on the railing against her back. And now the most exquisite, a tendril of her reddish blond hair tickling Alphonse’s knuckle. Alphonse was a fool if he wasn’t enjoying it.
“All right, Alphonse. You can go. I’ll finish you during the week.”
Alphonse nodded and left.
Auguste scrubbed Ellen’s face with turpentine so he could reposition it between Jules and Charles. The glass up to her lips darkened the skin beneath it. Soft blue-gray for the foot of the glass to harmonize with Jules’s shirt. He would add white around the rim and paint her silver ring and bracelets later, when he would highlight spots all over the canvas.
Père Fournaise came upstairs and stood to the side of him. Auguste felt the pressure of his presence.
“What was all that about?”
“We don’t know,” Auguste replied.
Fournaise looked at the painting. “You’ll be finished soon.”
“Not today, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“The Fêtes are next Sunday.”
“I know, I know.”
“I can come on Saturday,” Ellen offered. “All day.”
“How about the rest of you?” Auguste asked.
“Both days. One to pose. One to enjoy the Fêtes,” Jules said.
“You don’t think we’re going to miss watching Hercules in the jousts, do you? I’d rather miss my own wedding day,” Angèle said.
Auguste chortled. He couldn’t imagine such an occasion.
“We can start early and work until you finish,” Jules said.
“I can only come in the afternoon. I have to work half-days on Saturdays,” Aline said.
The person he needed most. He turned to Fournaise. “Is it all right if I paint Saturday?”
Fournaise hesitated.
“Yes!” Alphonsine declared.
“D’accord,” Fournaise said and ducked back downstairs.
Alphonsine’s expression was triumphant. Auguste gave her a look that contained his thanks, and went back to work on Aline’s dress, the drape of her polonaise sweeping around her hip. Her naked hip under that swirl of fabric.
“You seem so far away when you’re painting,” Aline said.
The only way he could be closer was if he used his fingers instead of the brush.
“What are you thinking when you paint?” she asked in that slow drawl of hers.
“About how nice a streak of lavender-pink would look against the lighter blue on the back of your shoulder where the light hits it.” The public answer, nonetheless true.
“You don’t see us? As people?” Aline asked.
“Yes. I see how slight changes in color create the shape of your cheek. And I see how the edge of your hat brim fits neatly between the lines of Alphonse’s body.”
“He sees you like a carrot,” Alphonsine said.
He took it as a reminder of all that had passed between them.
“Is a voice telling you how to make each part?” Aline asked.
“It is my voice. It’s also my heart, my brain, and my loins.”
“Is that all you think?” Aline asked. “Only those kinds of things?”
“No. I think about being brave.”
His fingers cramped in their grasp of the brush. He had to set down his palette to slide out the brush and massage his fingers to get them pliable again. He went downstairs.
“Leave him be,” he heard Gustave murmur.
Alphonsine watched Auguste walk up the path to the north of the island, still working on his hand. She choked up seeing him break off a branch with his left hand and whip it against a tree trunk.
Paul was in some kind of trouble. She couldn’t do anything about that, but she could do something for Auguste, to ease him, even for a short time. She had to think. Only something that occupied his senses would distract him from his worries.
Gustave lit a cigarette and Jules lit his pipe and Antonio poured more wine. Angèle’s hand on her glass was unsteady. Antonio sat down and stroked her wrist.
Aline picked up tubes of paint one at a time and made shapes with her mouth. It was apparent that she was trying to fix the letters in her mind and link them with the smears on each tube.
“What’s this called?” she asked, holding one.
“Vermilion. The color Alphonsine chose for the flowers on your hat,” Gustave said, acknowledging what she’d done. Did Gustave know at what cost? Did she, even as she gave it? Aline did look pretty in the hat. She thought of it a new way—it would be something of her own creation in the painting.
“Ver-mil-ion,” Aline said slowly. “Vermilion. That sounds nice.”
Couldn’t Aline read it off the tube? It came as a shock. Aline would have a long way to go to understand his art like she did. That she should be jealous of someone so unschooled seemed ridiculous, but that gave her little comfort.
“What’s in those cups?” Aline asked.
Gustave explained.
Aline pointed to one thing after another, asking their names. Easel. Scraping knife. Palette knife. Palette. Gustave was amused, but Alphonsine saw deeper. She had wanted to find fault with Aline, but couldn’t. Aline knew her deficiency and was preparing herself.
“P-A-L-A-T?” Aline asked, spelling out the word.
“P-A-L-E-T-T-E,” Gustave said.
“It stands for an idea,” Alphonsine said. Before Gustave could supply a word in their little game, she said, “harmony,” meaning more than color harmonies, but her mouth strained to say it.
Auguste thrashed through foliage to get to the river. He crouched on the bank and dipped in his hands, working his fingers in the cool water, rubbing them. The passing of ripples made his knuckles appear hideously large and his fingers unnaturally curled. He splashed the image away. Too appalling even to tell Dr. Guilbert. The future too harrowing to put into words. He cooled down his face and let the water stream under his shirt collar.
He would have lost his composure if he had stayed on the terrace. Too much at once. His fingers, Alphonsine and Aline with the hat between them, the group breaking up, his own precipitation of that, Claude even thinking of giving up painting, Degas’ accusation that he was betraying the group with his selfishness.
And Paul missing, Pierre too hurried to say. If it was the brute in the cabaret, then it was a question of triangles. Two men and one woman. Two women and one man was another sort of problem. Who was he to judge? He didn’t
know which direction the current was taking him.
And his painting limping along with no clear way to anchor the terrace, the thirteen people on a barge. Thirteen. What had Pierre said? Thirteen at table meant someone would die. If Paul was in trouble with that hothead…He ran back.
Upstairs, Aline set down a tube quickly and picked up her dog and held him against her chest as if he were a shield. “I was just curious how verrrmilion is spelled.”
“Can you get Émile to come on Saturday?” he asked Ellen.
“That rat! That flimflammer! That monster! Consider him dead.”
“Madre di Dio! I think the lady has an opinion,” Antonio said.
A blow to the stomach. He sank onto the chair, not daring to say what he was thinking.
“Palette,” he heard Aline whisper to Jacques Valentin. “P-A-L-E-TT-E,” puffing the letters right at the dog’s nose.
Instinctively he painted, but without joy. When the light faded he was glad to stop. None of them wanted to leave. Alphonsine brought up a bottle of eau-de-vie de mirabelle, the yellow plum brandy made by orchardists along the river, and a box of Bouchons, cork-shaped chocolates. She was trying. Perhaps too hard. It made him feel obligated. She thought too much.
He rolled his shoulders, folded himself up on the chair, and examined the painting. Coming along. Coming along. Far enough to lay in the foliage in dry strokes to harmonize with the colors already there. He would do that tomorrow. The tops of some trees were turning the same yellow-gold as the straw hats. Autumn was coming. He swirled his eau-de-vie and watched the clear liquid catch the light. Everyone was waiting to know, hardly speaking, checking the bridge. Antonio’s hand covered Angèle’s on the table.
“You’ve got the Inès today,” Jules said to Gustave. “Can eight fit?”
“Five.”
“I’ll stay here in case they come,” Auguste said.
“Alphonse won’t let them leave,” Alphonsine said.
“I said I’m staying.” He needed solitude to nurse his worries.
Aline sighed. “I’ve never been on a sailboat.”
Antonio made rowing gestures. “I’ll take a yole with two ladies.”
“Ellen and me,” Angèle offered. “Just to lark around between the bridges.” Her voice was flat.
“What about Jacques Valentin?” Aline asked.
“Tie him on a short leash to the tree nearest the dock,” Alphonsine answered. “Alphonse will watch him.”
Gustave stood up. “Let’s go.”
When Auguste saw them piling into the boat, he dashed downstairs to join them.
Aline sat next to him close enough that her dress lay over his pant leg and her arm brushed his. Alphonsine and Jules sat across from them. It was a smooth, slow sail without any thought of the sailing regatta two weeks away. They were riding low in the water. With five people, Gustave was being cautious.
“Will you take the helm?” Gustave asked Alphonsine. He looked a little green.
She answered by popping up and changing places with Gustave. She was closer now. His foot could touch her toe.
“Oh, it’s so alive,” she said, grasping the tiller.
So are you, Auguste thought, noticing her alert scrutiny of the sail, her eyes scanning port and starboard, forward and aft. Aline alert too, turning in all directions, excited to be on the water. Alphonsine statuesque at the helm. Aline restless, grabbing on to her skirt, her hat. One woman’s eyes calm and narrow, checking the telltales in the leach of the sail for any shift in the wind, the other’s eyes wide at the novelty of passing up rowboats. One face serious, the other gay. One sweet mouth silent, the other sweet mouth issuing soft breathy sounds. Four round, peachy cheeks. Delicious skin under chins. Smooth competent hands with a needle and thread. Smooth competent hands with a pair of tweezers. One who would be pliable, one who was already formed. One almost losing her hat. Better that he hold it. Her reddish blond hair now blowing against his face. Adoring one through the other one’s hair. Seductive, this luxury of pleasures. How could he indulge himself when his good friend might be in danger?
When the boat heeled a bit, Aline cried out and grabbed his arm. When the gust passed and the boat leveled itself, she let go of him and laughed at her fright. Alphonsine noticed and brought in the tiller to sail closer to the wind. The boat heeled more sharply which pitched Aline into him, and she held on to his arm, not letting go this time. Alphonsine gave him a subtle, knowing look. Why had she done that, thrown Aline right into his arms? Was she trying to take the big worry off his mind for a few minutes? Could she be that selfless? Damned if she wasn’t one complicated woman.
What would it be like to live with so complex a woman? One who did accounting and read literature? She might interrupt him to talk about Madame Bovary’s vanity or some damn thing, and he would be drawn out of his own contemplation of a painting. Such a woman might want to be too involved, might even interfere with his work. He had to remind himself that his love of women had a lot to do with the quiet, domestic atmosphere they created, like his country-bred mother did.
They sailed in short tacks up and down the river, turning just beyond each bridge. After every train from Paris, they came about to check the footbridge. Each time they passed the yole rowed by Antonio, they exchanged a few words, but no one sang a canotier song.
Shadows of trees stretched like dark fingers across the water from the western bank. They stayed out a long time, not knowing what else to do, never going as far upstream as the tip of the island, but once they went downstream to La Grenouillère to listen to the music from the barge dance floor. The little round island connected to the bank and the barge by two precarious catwalks was crowded with people dressed for a Sunday stroll, surrounded by swimmers just the way Auguste and Claude had painted it. Its banks were shored up with pilings so it looked like a wheel of cheese.
“Do you know what they call that little island?” Auguste asked.
“The Camembert,” Aline said, as though proud to know. “It looks so jolly from here.”
“It’s also called the Flower Pot,” Jules said, “and the women are the blossoms.”
“You’ve never seen it from the water?” Auguste asked.
“I can’t swim. Géraldine can. You should go swimming with her.”
“But I don’t want to.” He faced away from Alphonsine and whispered to Aline, “I want to swim with you.”
Alphonsine brought the boat about and sailed upstream. When they passed under the railroad bridge, he spotted Antonio rowing for shore furiously.
“Look on the passerelle!” Angèle shouted. Ellen pointed with both arms. Antonio rowed like an engine.
“Faster! Faster!” shouted Angèle, paddling furiously up to her elbow.
Pierre and Raoul and Paul waved wildly from the footbridge. Both boats sent up a cheer.
“Vous voilà! Vous voilà!” Auguste yelled out, emptying his lungs till there was nothing left, and holding up a fist.
Gustave brought the boat to the dock.
“You owe it to us to tell us what you were up to,” Auguste demanded.
“And it better be good or he’ll have you poached,” Angèle yelled.
“Upstairs,” Raoul said.
Everyone, including the two Alphonses, filed through the outdoor tables filled with customers, hurried up to the terrace, and crowded around one table, leaning in. Paul’s nose wasn’t straddled by his spectacles.
“You tell them, Raoul,” Pierre said.
“No,” Raoul said. “Paul should. It was his affair.”
“For the love of God, somebody tell!” Auguste said.
“I was in a duel.”
“Merde alors!” Angèle said.
Antonio’s arm went around her shoulder.
Ellen and Aline gasped. Alphonsine’s face lost its color. Gustave looked about to faint.
“That’s what I dreaded,” Auguste said.
“Not by choice,” Paul said.
Fournaise poured all three
men an eau-de-vie. Paul’s hand was steady as he took it. Pierre’s trembled.
“That fellow at the cabaret?” Auguste asked.
“Yes, the idiot and his plague of a woman. Curses on both of them.”
“Why did you come tearing in here earlier?” Alphonse asked Pierre.
“To get a godfather,” Pierre said. “To negotiate Paul’s way out of pistols with only one of them loaded. To get Raoul’s swords.”
“I have a pair of light rapiers from my cavalry days with a lively whip to them.” He patted Paul on the back. “Just a few words of advice, a reminder of some moves, and he took the field.”
“Was it a long engagement?” Antonio asked.
“Yes,” Paul said.
“Describe,” Antonio said.
“You tell it, Raoul. It’s a blur to me.”
“An inauspicious opening when his opponent, Douvaz, beat Paul’s blade aside and attacked,” Raoul said.
“Paul parried?” Antonio asked.
“And riposted with an ill-aimed thrust. Douvaz countered, but Paul changed the rhythm so that a coup passé by Douvaz threw him forward.”
“The result?” Antonio asked.
“It unsettled him enough that it put Paul in the aggressor’s position for a series. He did a fine feint that slid along Douvaz’s blade nearly to the hilt, but Douvaz dodged and countered with a Russian lunge. His thrust missed but showed he meant no game. Paul tired him until Douvaz slowed enough for Paul to execute a coup extraordinaire, a deception that passed so quickly around Douvaz’s tip that he couldn’t follow and Paul thrust home. He performed admirably.”
“And Douvaz?” Auguste asked.
“He won’t be a problem again,” Raoul said. “A deep wound just above the hip. His surgeon was on the field in a flash. He’s in the hospital by now.”
“Wishing he’d kept his foul trap shut,” Angèle said.
“No. Unconscious, I would guess. It’s not likely that he’ll be promenading for a while.”
Silence spread over the group as the seriousness set in. No one moved.
“Where are your spectacles?” Auguste asked.
Paul’s hands went up to his eyes. “They flew off, I guess.”