Sacré Bleu

“I did?”

“Many times.”

“Well I meant theorist. He’s angry at me because I won’t join any of his movements. Cloisonnism? What is that? Fencing your colors up in line. That’s just Japanese printmaking with a new name.”

Lucien poured Henri another glass of wine from the carafe, because if he couldn’t somehow force his friend to slow down and listen, he was afraid he was going to have to choke him.

“I suppose we’ll have to drug the cat, or have the ballerina hide a trout in her tutu.”

“I went to Giverny,” Lucien said. “Monet says the blue color can stop time. Literally stop time for the painter.”

“Oh,” said Henri. “So what you remembered, when the Professeur hypnotized you, with the trains, that happened?”

“Yes,” Lucien said. “Monet really painted six paintings in a half an hour. To him it was hours. The Colorman told him what would happen that day. But before then, and after, the color always came by way of his wife, Camille.”

“But she died, didn’t she?” said Henri.

“Monet says they all die, Henri. There’s always a woman and she always dies.”

Henri twirled his cigar in the crystal ashtray, paring off the snowy powder of ash and punishing the ember, daring it to go out. He looked over his pince-nez at Lucien, studying the baker as if he were a painting, analyzing the brushstrokes that formed his eyelashes. Lucien feigned a cough and looked at the table, unable to hold his friend’s gaze.

“Not always,” Henri said, his voice soft, the voice of a friend, not the outrageous painter Toulouse-Lautrec. “They don’t always die. Carmen went away. She’s fine. Juliette went away, before, and she came back. Maybe she’ll come back again.”

“But you said yourself that Carmen nearly died. What if Juliette is sick somewhere? What if the Colorman has locked her up? Who knows what he does to them?”

“Carmen knows,” said Henri. “We could ask her what the Colorman does, where he goes.”

“But she doesn’t remember anything.”

“And neither did you, until the Professeur did his parlor trick with the blue watch.”

“We don’t have any more blue.”

“Yes we do, Lucien. We have your Blue Nude. Remember how Renoir reacted when he saw it? It was as if he were transported back to his Margot. We’ll ask Carmen to remember while she’s looking at your painting.”

“I will try anything, Henri, but won’t seeing Carmen be painful for you?”

“If she remembers me as I remember her, no. If not, well, I’ll be heartbroken, but she’s a redhead, it’s to be expected. Tomorrow morning you can get your painting from Bruant and bring it to my studio. That gives me time to do some sketches for Salis and run by the brothel at rue d’Amboise for some light evening debauchery. In the morning, I’ll go to the Marais and bring Carmen back to question her before the Blue Nude. Perhaps Le Professeur will help.”

“He’s gone away, exploring some newly discovered cave in Spain.”

“Do you know if he fixed my mechanical stilts?”

“I know he had been working on them. He said he would leave them at your studio. They weren’t there?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t been there. I wanted to have breakfast before I started work.”

“She’s both a clown and a lesbian. At the same time! Art weeps for the missed opportunity.” La Clownesse Cha-U-Kao au Moulin Rouge—Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, 1895

THE COLORMAN UNLOCKED THE DOOR AND WALKED THE MANET SIDEWAYS into the flat. It was dark, not a single gaslight was lit, yet he could see Juliette by the moonlight streaming through the windows. She stood at the stove, stirring something in a pot. It smelled like stew, lamb maybe.

“Chérie, why are you standing in the dark like a ninny? Come look at what I have. I’ll bet you don’t remember this one.” He leaned the painting against the wall, then took a box of matches from the mantel, climbed on a chair under one of the gas sconces, turned the valve, and lit a match. Even on the chair, he could not reach the lamp. Somewhere there was a brass extension rod that a match could be clipped on for lighting the overhead lamp, but he wasn’t going to find it in the dark.

“Come help me.”

She dropped her spoon and moved across the room in awkward, mechanical steps. She took the match from him and held it to the mantel, which sizzled into a white-hot glow.

She stepped back and stood there, still holding the lit match. The Colorman blew it out before it burned her fingers. She wore the periwinkle dress. A note was pinned on ruffles at her bosom. It read DO NOT BONK THE JULIETTE in bold yet elegant script.