“And when you left?” said Lucien. “When you went away? Broke my heart, where did you go?”
“Vincent was a great talent,” she said. “I didn’t want to go. I don’t always get to choose.”
“You left Paris to go after Vincent? As Juliette?”
“Yes, as Juliette. Juliette always has to be nearby now, no matter what body I’m in, so I had to go. The Colorman wanted him to paint with the Sacré Bleu. I had to go. I’m sorry.”
“And Carmen nearly died when you left her,” said Henri forlornly.
“That’s what she does,” spat Lucien. “She takes them, she uses them, uses the artist, then she leaves and they die, not knowing what has happened to them. You leave the artists broken, grieving.”
“There’s always a price, Lucien,” she said softly, looking down. She wasn’t prepared for him to be angry with her. It hadn’t occurred to her that he could be, and it hurt. It confused her and it hurt.
“A price? A price?”
“Yes,” she said. “Do you think great art comes at no cost? There’s a price to be paid.”
“And how will you collect for my painting of you? Kill this person, this thing I call Juliette?”
Now she stood and slapped him, pulling the force of the blow at the last second so she didn’t shatter his cheekbone.
“It’s him! It’s the Colorman who decides. I am a slave, Lucien! I am bound to him, to his power to make the blue. I do what he wants. He makes the color, I inspire the artist to paint, then the Colorman uses the painting to make more Sacré Bleu. More goes into it, must go into it, than just the paint. Love, passion, the force of life, even pain goes into the Sacré Bleu, and the color keeps the Colorman alive forever. Forever, Lucien! And without the Sacré Bleu, there is no Juliette. No muse. Without it, I don’t exist. So I do what he wants, and I live, and others grow sick, and suffer, and die because of it.” She was crying now, screaming at him through tears, feeling as if he was falling, spinning away from her. “That’s the price, and he always demands it, and I collect, but it is not my choice. I am a slave.”
Lucien snatched her hand out of the air and held it to his heart. “I’m sorry.”
She nodded, furiously, but turned her face away from him so he wouldn’t see her. Suddenly Toulouse-Lautrec was beside them, snapping a crisp linen handkerchief from his breast pocket and presenting it to her.
“Mademoiselle, s’il vous plaît,” he said.
She took the handkerchief and dabbed her eyes and nose, sniffled into it, hid behind it, taking her hand from Lucien’s chest to fuss with strands of her hair that were sticking to her face. Then she peeked over the handkerchief and noticed that Henri was grinning at her. She looked to Lucien, who was grinning as well.
“What?” she said.
“Nothing,” said Lucien.
“What? What?” she said. Wretched creatures, men. Were they laughing at her pain? She looked at Henri. “What?”
“Nothing,” he said.
“You’re grinning at me like lunatics? I am a creature of awesome power and divine aspect. I am the spark of invention, the light of man’s imagination. I raise you drooling monkeys from rubbing your own pathetic shit on the rocks to bringing beauty and art to your world. I am a force, the fearsome muse of creation. I am a fucking goddess!”
“I know,” said Henri.
“And you’re grinning at me?”
“Yes,” said Lucien.
“Why?”
“Because I nailed a goddess,” said Lucien.
“Me too,” said Henri, grinning enough now to unseat his pince-nez. “Although not at the same time.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” said the muse.
ONCE IT WAS DETERMINED THAT LUCIEN AND HENRI WERE, INDEED, WRETCHED creatures with ethical compasses that pivoted around a point at their groins, which is to say, men, and that Juliette was also a creature of abstract, if not altogether absent, ethics herself, although with some fealty to beauty, which is to say, a muse, it was further determined, by unanimous consent, that in order to proceed with her revelation, more alcohol would be required, which left only to be decided the matter of where.
They wound their way up the butte with no particular destination in mind.