The Art of Death (7 page)

“What’s a French 75?” Anthony asked Babette Fouré. He had overheard her giving the order to a waiter just before he pulled out a chair for Madeleine at the St. Elmo Steak House in downtown Indianapolis.

“I’m surprised you don’t know. It’s a cocktail made famous at Harry’s Bar in Paris,” Babette said in her throaty voice. “Gin, St. Germain -- which is elderflower liqueur, Madeleine -- lemon juice, and champagne. You must try it.” Without waiting to hear whether her guests were interested, she crooked a finger in the direction of the bar. “I’ll order it for you. And jumbo shrimp for the table.”

Anthony smiled. Babette was nothing if not forceful. Though petite, she exuded the self-confidence, power and energy of a world leader. Her deeply tanned face was that of an aging gamin, her clothes simple and sophisticated, her gestures dramatic. She had lost some of her French accent but still peppered her conversation with French words.

Babette’s self-confidence came not from her achievements but from the staggering coincidences, all of them good, that marked her life, from abandoned orphan raised by nuns to department store clerk to wife of a bourgeois pharmacist to mistress of a rich foreigner to respected art dealer in her adopted country.

Anthony especially relished Babette’s stories about the rich foreigner, a Russian energy czar whose mistress she had once been. Though married, Sergei never appeared in public with his wife or children. He shamelessly lived a very flashy life with a succession of mistresses.

Babette’s tales of her Russian experience were dramatic, often funny, sometimes frightening, like the time in Moscow when they were ambushed in Sergei’s armored limousine. The driver and bodyguard in the front seat were killed. Sergei, who was the human equivalent of the Russian bear, somehow flung himself through the opening between the front and back seats and sped away, unharmed except for a large gash on his forehead.  

Despite his rough ways and ruthless nature, Sergei could be a gentleman. When he shipped Babette back to France after having fallen in love with the much younger nanny, a tall skinny blonde from the Caucasus and therefore Babette’s opposite number, he generously gave her the deed to a fabulous apartment in the 16th Arrondissement and deposited a very large sum of money in Babette’s name in a Paris bank. Four months later, Sergei and the blond nanny were gunned down in a Moscow nightclub and his fortune was confiscated by the government.

Babette was not an artist herself, nor was she a formally educated woman, but she loved artists and intellectuals of all kinds. Violinists, playwrights, ballerinas, professors, sculptors, novelists, actors, opera singers -- all of them fascinated her. Besides owning the art gallery on Mass Ave, she owned a gorgeous house in the Watermark on Senate Avenue overlooking the Canal. It was there that she ran a salon of sorts, modeled on the gatherings of artists and intellectuals in the 17th and 18th centuries in France. The Sunday afternoon gatherings, which were held on the third-story deck in good weather, amused and educated her. That’s where she first encountered Dr. Beltrami, who was escorting a beautiful young “indie” filmmaker visiting from Hollywood. Through Dr. Beltrami she eventually met Madeleine Harrod.

Madeleine Harrod was different. Violent moods flickered across her face without the woman’s giving voice to them. The onlooker could only guess what was going through her mind. She talked and dressed more like a stylish businesswoman than a tortured artist, yet her paintings suggested a melancholy temperament, an obsession with death, a soul more comfortable in dark places than in the limelight.

“Are you pleased, Madeleine, with the sales?” Babette asked as the artist took her first sip of French 75 and pronounced it delicious.

“Staggered,” she said brightly. “I never expected to sell seven pictures in one showing.” Madeleine saluted the older woman with her glass. “Of course, I’d have preferred to sell all twenty-two of them, but at that price, it’s a miracle to sell even one.”

“You’ll be gratified to hear that two of the buyers are from New York and a third is a famous Hollywood director.”

“Really? I met the director’s representative but I didn’t know he bought anything.”

“Which of your paintings is your personal favorite?”

Madeleine replied without hesitation. “The Empress Elisabeth of Austria. Very beautiful, she was a bit of a rebel, a free spirit who cared little for court protocol. Who could have predicted that at age sixty on her way to catch a steamer in Switzerland she’d be stabbed to death by an anarchist?”

“And why is that picture your favorite?”

Madeleine closed her eyes in thought. “I guess because I’m a free spirit too. I get her: Being so independent was worth it, even if in the end she was stabbed to death by a stranger because she refused the protection she was entitled to. I hope that’s what I captured in the Empress’s face -- the look of submission in the moment of death. She accepted the risk she took.”

“Aren’t you afraid of being brought down by the unexpected?”

Out of contrariness, Madeleine shook her head, intending to say she wasn’t afraid of anything, but then instantly changed her mind. “Aren’t we all?”

Instead of answering, Babette paused while the waiter distributed menus. She snapped hers closed and laid it aside. “I recommend the duck, though of course the steaks are always good. Anyway, Madeleine, I saw you talking to the eminent Dr. Eagleton, the self-proclaimed expert of the art world. What was on her mind?”

“She wanted to know why I painted Ivan the Terrible with a saintly expression.”

“Strange question, for her at least. So . . . so direct, so unacademic.”

“I thought so too. Usually she asks about abstract things I’ve never even thought of.”

“And why did you? Paint him with a saintly expression, that is.”

“It isn’t saintly, though he was a religious man. Terrible temper, of course, but devout. As the first Tsar of All the Russias, he felt good about what he did to unite so many ethnic groups. Piles of bodies, of course, including his wife’s and his oldest son’s, and he enjoyed torturing people, but to him the means justified the ends. Or at least that’s the way I imagine he felt.”

“And is that the way you feel about life -- the means justify the ends?”

Madeleine hesitated. “Sometimes.”

“Give me an example.”

“If you want something really badly, then do what you have to do to get it.”

“
Très intéressant
,” Babette mused.

“Or if you’re threatened, then you can do what you have to do to protect yourself.”

“Have you ever been threatened?” Babette asked.

Madeleine glanced at Anthony.

“Go ahead, tell her,” he said.

“I was followed tonight, all night, by a man I’ve never seen before. Anthony says he never noticed. Beatrice said the same thing. But somebody else
must
have seen him. Did you?”

Babette looked thoughtful. “
Ce que l'homme
?
”

“A man dressed like a ship captain, navy blazer with big brass buttons and white duck pants. Anthony’s height, burnt by the sun, deeply furrowed forehead. White hair, little white tufts on his sideburns. Slate gray eyes, no light in them. He spoke in a monotone. The only time he spoke was about the Nicole picture, said he saw what happened at the Dunes.”

“How strange!” Babette said. Having heard all about Madeleine’s heroism at the Dunes, she had no interest in hearing more about it. “He sounds harmless, almost a caricature, like the ancient mariner. Why do you sound so frightened?”

“He grabbed my arm.” She held out her arm so Anthony and Babette could see the faint red marks circling her wrist.

“Why didn’t you tell the security guard?”

“Never thought of it.” Madeleine shook herself and stood up. “I need to call Daddy, make sure he’s okay. I’ll be back in a second.” She tapped Anthony’s shoulder. “Order the duck for me. Not too rare.”

When Madeleine had disappeared in the direction of the ladies’ room, Babette mused, “Poor woman seems scared.”

“She takes things very personally. When her mother died, she interpreted it as abandonment. When her husbands wanted a divorce, she viewed it as a personal betrayal. When a friend criticizes her, she assumes it’s disloyalty. When someone compliments her on a painting but doesn’t buy it, she feels rejected.”

“So is that the theme of her paintings -- recreating what has died or been lost so she doesn’t feel abandoned? Refusing to let the ultimate abandonment -- death -- defeat her? After all, all three of her careers -- fine artist, forensic artist, and toymaker -- have to do with resurrecting the dead.”

Anthony playfully wagged his finger at Babette. “Now you’re weaving into my lane. She’s a complicated woman, that’s all. Very talented, but very complicated. She sees things the rest of us don’t see.”

Babette smiled enigmatically. Dr. Beltrami had the academic look of a man who enjoyed no outdoor amusements. Not the warrior type, like her dear, departed Sergei, but instead an intellectual living in his head, fiercely covetous of his own special knowledge of the wounded psyche. Not her type at all. She had indeed wandered into his lane, for she was thinking like a psychiatrist whereas the psychiatrist was thinking like a lover.

She kept her eye on the hallway where the artist had disappeared to make a call. Would Madeleine return with the glittering eyes and heightened mood of someone with a secret habit? Babette did not disapprove of recreational drug use on moral grounds, nor was she surprised by anything artists did. But if the drug began interfering with the quality of the woman’s art, then she would drop her like a hot stone. Life had not made Babette a sentimental fool.