Inamorata (9 page)

O
DILÉ

I
was obsessed with Madeleine—I can see that now, though at the time I knew only that I was fascinated. For months, I followed her like a hapless puppy, and was grateful that she seemed to want me about. I know now it was because my insistence bewildered her.
You are something new,
she said to me, and I didn’t understand until much later exactly how much of a novelty I was. She was used to leaving, and I would not be left.

She had abandoned her artist, as she’d told me she would do, and he went into a decline soon after, a depression that ended with his suicide. She seemed unmoved by it, unsurprised. When I brought her the news, she said only, “Ah, very sad,” as if the sadness were simply something to be acknowledged, a fact like
that dog is black,
but not something she felt. She was quiet and reflective in those first days—she liked to listen to me talk, and I found in her a listener who was always interested, if not empathetic.

“What is it you want with me?” she asked me one day, those black eyes sharp, and I felt the question held weight and import; I felt oddly that my future depended on what I might say.

“I want to be like you,” I told her.

“You want this, you mean,” she said, gesturing to the room, which was almost cloying in its opulence—scarves and pillows, golden statuettes, lamps inlaid with jewels, plush carpets.

I shook my head dismissively. “I have enough
things
.”

“You want lovers then.”

“No. I want to be what you are.”

“What I am?” she asked, and there was a wariness in her voice, a stillness I had not heard before.

“These men you’ve inspired will never forget you. You’ve made your mark upon them. They say you are unforgettable.” People knew her
name
; they wanted to be with her. Since she’d left the artist, there had been letters, pleas, visits from other artists: poets and painters and musicians, all begging for a moment with her, all hoping for more. Madeleine did something I had never before seen in a woman alone: she chose whom she liked without regard for money or prestige, and her choice transformed. She whipped her lovers into an artistic frenzy. She moved them and inspired them, and I wanted to know how she did it. No one ever looked past her. No one ever looked away. They remembered her. I wanted what she had with an intensity that sometimes frightened me.

I never wondered about the strange things I saw in her, though I should have. I never wondered at how quickly she went through her lovers—sometimes only in days. Now and again I came to her rooms in the morning to see them staggering away as if they’d been weakened by a fever. I found one or two of them collapsed on her carpet. She would say only that it was nothing—he was ill, he’d forgotten to eat, the night had been exhausting—and the servants carried them away. In those first months, two killed themselves over her, one jumping from a balcony and another hanging himself. I didn’t wonder at it—why would I? I understood it. I would have been devastated had she cast me aside.

I put off the few lovers I had, not caring when they grew so impatient with my lack of attention that they left me for others. I cared only for her. Her influence was astonishing; she told me stories of the men she’d inspired, and I was stunned at how much she’d done in her life, how many works of art owed their existence to her. The realization only increased my own sense that she held the answer to my every dissatisfaction. I believed she alone knew how to make me stop
wanting.

Tell me how to be you.
I must have said such words, or variations of them, several times, and she always put me off.
You don’t know what you’re asking,
cherie, or,
Be happy with your own life.

But I was not, and over the next six months, it became more and more evident. She took up with a composer, and I watched in envy as she cajoled him into writing his best opera—a stunning enough piece, but nothing to thrill the ages. I began to realize that what she’d said before was true, that she had an eye for talent, but not for brilliance. I began to think that she was not utilizing her abilities to their utmost.

“Do you never wonder what the world could be if you chose to inspire the best?” I asked her one day.

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

I shrugged. “This composer has talent, but he is like your artist. He will be famous for a time, but he will be forgotten. Do you not wish for more? You could be known as the muse to genius, Madeleine. You could change the world. Choose the best, instead of the middling talents you take up.”

She turned a critical eye to me. “Do you think you could do better?”

“Yes. Let me find someone worthy of you.”

She went thoughtful. I felt the magic of her dark eyes as I always did; there was something truly astounding within them. She said slowly, as if she were trying to decide something, “Very well, find him. Bring him to me and we will see if you are right.”

It was the only thing she had ever asked of me, and I was determined not to fail her. I still had some cachet, and I used what was left of it to attend the suppers and balls that had once been, for me, de rigueur. I went to the theater, to the gambling halls where artists gathered looking to change their luck.

When I found him, I knew. He was not pretty. His hair was dark and wild, and he had been crippled in childhood, a bad hip that required the constant use of a cane. He was also nearly sixty, but in those days neither Madeleine nor I shirked from age. He had a gnarled face, but it was not unpleasant, and his eyes were sharp. I found him reading his poetry at a small supper, and I knew the moment I heard him that he was touched with genius, though I think no one else at the gathering noticed. They chatted through his reading, laughing among themselves, paying no attention, and I could tell by his sighs that he was discouraged at the end of it.

Afterward, I brought him a glass of sherry to ease the rasp in his voice. I think he was surprised I deigned to notice him. I was still beautiful, after all, and he was not a man used to such attention. I said, “Come with me. There is someone I would like you to meet.”

I took him to Madeleine’s. When I brought him through the door, she raised her eyebrow and I said, “Trust me.”

He was struck immediately, as they all were. When she invited him to have wine with her, he stayed. I left them with a smug sense of satisfaction. Because I was right about him. His poetry still is lauded, though he went mad soon after Madeleine left him. It was a small price to pay, I thought then. I think it now.

Although Madeleine was grateful for what I’d done, something changed after that. I often caught her watching me when she thought I wasn’t looking, and the expression on her face made me uneasy.

One day, as we strolled the halls of a private art exhibition, Madeleine stopped short, as if arrested, before a portrait of a young man. He was dressed in velvet finery; his hair hanging in dark curls to his shoulders, his eyes so black they were only pools of opacity.

Madeleine shuddered. “Those eyes.”

I frowned. “What of them?”

“How they follow me. They seem . . .” She let the words fall away as if she could not wrangle them.

I glanced at the portrait. The eyes were badly done, with no depth, and I saw no real reason for them to have so affected her. I started to move on. She touched my arm to stop me. Her gaze had not left the portrait.

“What do you know of demons, Odilé?”

It was the painting, I knew. It was obvious that it troubled her. “It’s only that the artist did a poor job of capturing dark eyes. I hardly think him a demon.”

“How little you know of the world.”

That stung—it was unlike Madeleine to be so dismissive. “I’m hardly an innocent.”

“No, but there is so much you don’t know. You’re like everyone else, believing things because you’ve never questioned them.”

“Why would you say such a thing to me?”

“Because it’s true.” She seemed hardly aware that she’d offended me. “You talk as if you would know a demon if you saw it.”

“I believe I would,” I said coldly, thinking of the man who’d taken my virginity and left me bleeding on the floor. “One rarely mistakes malice and cruelty.”

“And you think those things the province of demons alone.”

“No, of course not. But I think it is how you know when you are dealing with one. The man who ruined me had a demon’s eyes. I see them in my nightmares.”

“And yet, had it not been for him, you would be a common whore like your mother, instead of one of the preeminent courtesans in Paris.”

“No longer preeminent,” I said softly, feeling the pinch of it.

“But you are better off than you would have been otherwise, are you not? He forced you to do what you had only dreamed of before. He was not your ruin, but your savior.”

“I hardly think of it so rosily.”

“No, you are like everyone else. You would like to think that things are easily categorized. Mankind likes little boxes. Everything in its place. And yet . . .” She moved close to the painting, reaching out, pointing to the boy’s painted eyes. “You say the artist hasn’t the skill to paint dark eyes. I say you are not looking closely enough.”

She laid a finger upon the eyes. I looked, and suddenly those blank painted orbs sprung to life. They seemed to glimmer, as if her pale skin and the rings on her fingers caught the light and reflected them into the paint. Though I was looking only at heavy impasto, I thought suddenly of the compelling nature of her gaze, those times when its darkness seemed to pull me in, to capture me in an endless orbit, and I saw the same thing now, in the eyes of a painted boy.

“Do you see, Odilé?” she whispered. “Do you not see the light, even in such darkness? Now that you are looking for it, do you see what is beyond a first glance?”

She drew her finger from the painting. The boy’s eyes went black again, black as eternity, endless, and yet . . . I saw that glimmer in them, as if the reflection she’d put there had somehow
stayed. Ah, but that was impossible, wasn’t it? It was only an illusion.

When she turned to look at me, I saw that glimmer in her eyes too, something that spoke of hidden things, of a knowledge beyond what anyone could or should possess—a knowledge I yearned for.

She said, “You told me I should use my talent to change the world.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “And I was right, wasn’t I? His poetry was stunning, and everyone knows who inspired it. It will last. And so will you.”

“You know this?”

“How can anyone know for certain? But yes, I think it will.”

She looked back at the painting. I heard sounds in the hall beyond, footsteps, the swish of skirts, the low murmur of talk and laughter.

“And if you had such a talent for inspiration, what would you do?”

“What I advised you to do. Inspire the world. Leave a
mark.
”

“No matter the cost?”

“Is there a cost?” I asked. “I confess I fail to see it. And even if there were, surely such an outcome is worth it? To change the world
and
have your name be known and remembered? Yes, I think it must be worth anything. Now come, shall we move on? I’m beginning to feel the boy’s eyes as you do.”

She nodded, but before I could take a step, she said, “How glad I am to have discovered you, Odilé.”

The warmth of her smile was a balm on my irritation. I forgot everything but her. I forgot what we’d spoken of. I forgot the confession she’d wrought from me; I failed to see its meaning. I was glad only to be with her.

Later, I realized how true were the things she’d said. I
was
blind. I had no conception of the world beyond my pleasure, and so I did not see how it tilted and bent. I did not see the door I was walking through, nor how it would change my life. I did not realize we weren’t talking of figurative demons at all.

N
ICHOLAS

I
t was
mid afternoon by the time Giles and I left the Hannigans at the Danieli and returned to our own rooms off the Campo San Fantin, but there were still a few hours before the salon.

I told Giles I had to run out for a bit, and he didn’t question me; he was too busy looking over his canvas, where he’d scratched in Sophie Hannigan’s form leaning over the balustrade. It was decent enough, though if Giles had any gift at all, it was for allegory. Something about overly muscled, winged gods and fantastical creatures called to what talent he had—perhaps it was simply that no one had ever seen such creatures except in books, and so he didn’t have to make them look real.

I left him there making endless alterations, and went out the door and down the stairs. Our place was small; no palazzo, this, but just a merchant’s house, with a shop selling relics on the ground floor, owned by a Jew whose constantly circulating inventory of saint’s parts suggested a connection either to the occult or a cemetery. He preferred his home in the Ghetto, as did his wife, apparently, because he rented out the rest of the house. There was a German couple on the middle floor, and Giles and I had the upper, reached by two flights of stairs leading from a courtyard that was mostly a repository of junk, and which included a well with a constant layer of greenish scum that neither Giles nor I would drink from, and a tumble of old blacksmithing tools—don’t ask me why; I don’t know. I never saw anyone even look through them.

The chief attraction of the place was a roof garden, which was the reason we’d taken the rooms to begin with, and which only Giles ever visited in his constant search for the perfect landscape—which apparently was an endless array of tiled roofs and the top of the Teatro La Fenice. Venice’s most famous and beloved theater was closed now until the start of the Carnivale season, though Carnivale itself was nearly extinct but for a few costume balls given by those wishing to keep the old decadence alive.

I hurried out into the campo, and made my way to the Casa Dana Rosti. There, I drew back into the shadows of an upturned boat on the
fondamenta
of the adjacent palace and waited.

I was lucky—it was only an hour before I heard the squeak of her door, swollen in the humidity, scraping against the stone floor above the water stairs. The gondolier stepped out, leaving the door open behind him. A man—red haired, young, with that anxious exuberance she always inspired, at least in the beginning—emerged, adjusting his suit coat as if he’d just thrown it on. He glanced behind him as he walked toward the waiting gondola; his yearning obvious.

Behind him, I saw a flash of white, ephemeral as a ghost, and then she was there, her hair falling loose and heavy down her back, her gray eyes hooded. Venetian chain glinted at her wrists, coils and coils of fine gold, but other than that she wore only her chemise, and she was obviously naked beneath it. Her breasts jiggled as she embraced the red-haired man and then drew back, leaving him with a lingering kiss.

I forced myself to remember Barcelona, the things I’d seen in that darkened room, the horror. I watched as she smiled at him, as he left her reluctantly, climbing into the gondola. I burned his features into my memory until I knew I would not mistake him when I saw him again. He settled onto the cushions; she lifted her hand in farewell as she stepped back into the shadows, closing the door, and the gondolier plied his oar, gliding away.

I lurched from my hiding place, racing until I reached the
traghetto
station, just in time to see the glint of the sun on the man’s red hair as the gondola made its way down the Grand Canal. There were gondoliers loitering about as always, waiting for fares, and I hired one quickly, saying, “You see that one there? I want to know where it goes.”

He only nodded, setting off almost before I was aboard, and we followed, into the Rio de Ca’ Corner, another turn, past San Anzolo. It came to a stop at the Campo San Maurizio, and the red-haired man got out. I disembarked quickly, hurrying to catch up.

But in just those few moments, he had disappeared—not a difficulty in Venice. I ran to the various
calli
that led from the campo, searching each of them. He was either moving more quickly than I’d thought, or he had taken none of them. Frustrated and annoyed, I went back to the campo. I stood beside the ubiquitous wellhead, staring down at its black stone cap, and wondered how it was possible to lose someone I’d been nearly close enough to touch.

He had to be somewhere around the Campo; he had disappeared too quickly for it to be otherwise. I sat on the stone steps of the wellhead, staring at the little church of San Maurizio. Tomorrow I would be better prepared; I would have a gondola waiting. I would be ready to follow him now that I knew for a certainty she’d found someone new.

I glanced up at the sky. It had to be close to five, and I still had to wash and dress. Wearily, I stood, meaning to make my way back to the rooms I shared with Giles, which fortunately were not far away.

And then I heard the organ music coming from the church, and I knew where the red-haired man had gone, and why she’d chosen him.

Slowly, I made my way up the shallow, narrow steps and walked through the open doors into the nave. There he was, sitting at the organ, his hands moving over the keys, shoulders rising and falling, feet pumping with a seemingly boundless energy.

I knew how that felt.

I closed my eyes, letting his music wash over me for a moment, listening to the things that had obviously called to her. There was no one else in the church—he was only rehearsing—and so I waited for the piece to end before going to stand beside him. As he leafed through a sheaf of music, I said, “Your playing is very good. Where did you train?”

He started as if he hadn’t realized I was there, though I’d been standing right beside him. I saw the distraction in his expression—something else I recognized. “Oh. Oh, thank you. Thank you very much. I learned in Dublin.”

An Irishman. And as pretty as she liked them. Strong features to go with a strong accent. I smiled. “You’ve given me several good hours, listening to your music. Perhaps you’d allow me to buy you a drink in thanks.”

He hesitated. “Thank you, but I really must—”

“We have a friend in common, I think.”

“We do?”

“Odilé León,” I said smoothly.

“Odilé,” he whispered, reverently.

I said, “I could tell you a hundred stories of her.”

I saw the leap of curiosity in his eyes, his fevered longing. “A drink, you said? Well, why not?”

I got back to our rooms to find Giles waiting anxiously for me. “Hurry up, will you?” he said as I came through the door. “Did you forget the time? We told the Hannigans six.”

After my conversation with San Maurizio’s organist, I was more than ready to think of something other than Odilé. It never took much to reinvigorate my desire for her, and talking about her for an hour had been more than enough. I hated that she was still so hard to resist, even after everything. Odilé made my desire for Sophie Hannigan seem a paltry, ordinary thing compared to what I’d experienced before.

Or so I thought. But when Sophie Hannigan made her appearance in the lobby of the Danieli, followed closely by her brother, I did what I’d thought was impossible: I forgot Odilé.

Gone was the tightly corsetted, respectable-looking woman who’d spent the day with us in the Gardens. Tonight, Sophie Hannigan seemed to more properly belong to the bohemians. She wore a draped, full gown of a bluish-green color with medieval sleeves, her hair loosely gathered, looking ready to fall at the slightest touch. She looked as if she’d stepped from a Rossetti painting—some Pre-Raphaelite Lilith come to life. Giles was struck dumb, and I was not much better.

Joseph Hannigan wore the same dark blue coat he’d worn since I’d met him, but with it he wore a vest and brown trousers with a thin black stripe. He hadn’t bothered to oil his hair, though it was swept back elegantly from his broad forehead. “Do you think us presentable enough? We weren’t certain if tonight required evening wear.”

The two of them were captivating; their strange alchemy hit me anew. Giles opened and closed his mouth as if his words had completely left him. I worked to gather myself.

“You’ll fit in perfectly.” I motioned to the door. “Shall we?”

We went out to the waiting gondola and settled ourselves, Hannigan and his sister on the center cushions, Giles and I perched awkwardly on the sides.

“Tea began at five,” I told them as we started off. “But people will come and go all evening. It’s a very casual sort of thing.”

Hannigan nodded. “Who will be there tonight, do you think?”

I said, “Whistler probably. And the Curtises and their son—they’re expatriates. Out of Boston, I believe. Mr. Curtis especially can be a bit tiresome.”

“Prepare yourself to
not
defend your country,” Giles put in. “He despises America. They both do.”

“Why?” Miss Hannigan asked.

Giles said, “Something about your long-over War. I stopped listening to him weeks ago. Don’t bring it up if you want to save your ears. And the rest of us from having to listen to it again.”

“We’ll remember,” Hannigan said with a smile.

I went on, “Possibly Robert Browning. They’re expecting him any day. And Frank Duveneck no doubt.” I looked at Hannigan. “They’ll want you to draw something in the guestbook. They like caricatures the best.”

Hannigan’s blue eyes sparkled with amusement. “Caricatures? Well, I can do that.”

“What should I do?” Miss Hannigan asked.

“As I said this afternoon, simply be engaging.”

There wasn’t time for more conversation; we were there. Ca’ Alv
isi was square and plain, not so adorned as many of the other great palazzos of Venice, with a single row of balconies across only the main floor—the piano nobile. Our gondolier pulled up to the blue and white
pali
and let us off. A servant waiting in the archway said, “Welcome to the Ca’ Alvisi,” as he helped Miss Hannigan on the slippery, water-splashed steps.

He left us to make our own way through the darkened receiving court, with its paving stones and pillars and faint gaslight sputtering against pale walls and shadowing the corners, toward the stairs that led to the main floor, and the salon. Giles led the way while I followed behind the Hannigans. Miss Hannigan had her hand in the crook of her brother’s arm, and he leaned close to whisper something to her, an intimacy that felt odd, off-putting and alluring at the same time. As we entered the
portego
, the tinkling music and laughter and smoke-filled rooms of Mrs. Bronson’s salon met us full on.

The long, well-lit
portego
, with its glowing terrazzo floors, ended at the main balcony, which was outfitted with soft cushions, and looked out directly upon the glowing white dome and statues and porticoes of Santa Maria della Salute. It was crowded, as always, and as we entered, conversations paused, every eye turned to look at the Hannigans. So Giles and I weren’t the only ones fascinated with them. I’ll admit I liked the attention. I swelled a bit as I led them past the smaller drawing rooms—one of which had been made into a permanent miniature theater for our many impromptu dramas or readings—to the
sala
where Katharine Bronson held court.

It too had windowed doors that opened onto another narrow balcony, but even the air coming off the canal could not dissipate the cloud of cigar and cigarette smoke fogging the room, hovering near the exquisitely molded and painted ceilings and wisping around the dark velvet drapes.

There was the clinking of cups against saucers, tea poured from a silver service, sherry from Murano glass decanters. Arthur Bronson, Katharine’s husband, stood talking to someone in the corner. I was surprised to see him; it was rumored he was ill, and he rarely made an appearance. Near the balcony, against a frescoed wall, was a settee upon which sat Katharine Bronson, resplendent in deep green silk, her brown hair artfully arranged above a kindly, animated face.