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Paris, Montmartre, 1891
“SO YOU SEE, SHOOTING HIM IS NOT ENOUGH,” SAID JULIETTE. “I HAVE TO GO BACK.”
They were sharing a baguette and butter with coffee at the Café Nouvelle Athènes in Place Pigalle. Juliette had volunteered to buy breakfast, since she was the only one with any money left.
Outside, around the fountain in the square, models, young women and a few men, were lined up waiting to be hired. Artists in search of a model need only come to the “parade of models” to find a subject, and with a few francs, the contract would be sealed. Those girls who were not lucky enough to be hired by an artist might move down the boulevard to sell their wares in a different way. There was a fluid line between prostitute and model, dancer and whore, mistress and madame; all were denizens of the demimonde.
“You’re really not hungover at all?” asked Lucien, who experienced something akin to seasickness every time he turned his head to look around the café.
“Muse,” explained Henri. Then to Juliette, he said, “So, you and the Colorman are the reason Hadrian built his wall across Britain?”
She nodded modestly. “Inspiration is my business.”
“He built that wall because he was afraid of the Picts,” said Lucien, jealous that he was not emperor of Rome and could not build a wall across a country for her.
“Or annoyed by them,” said Henri.
“Mon Dieu! For painters, you don’t understand inspiration at all,” said the muse.
“You’re not Jane Avril, are you?” asked Henri, recoiling from the bite of a shifty suspicion.
“No,” said Juliette. “I have not been the pleasure of her company.”
“Oh good,” said Henri. “Because I think she is very close to going to bed with me, and I would like to think she responds to my charm and not a proclivity for the color blue.”
“I assure you, Henri, it is your charm,” said Juliette, laughing musically, leaning over and brushing Henri’s hand with her fingertips.
“Perhaps then, mademoiselle, you and Lucien can accompany me to the Moulin Rouge this evening and help convince the lady to view me on the horizontal, as that is where my charm is most compelling.”
“It’s like breakfasting with a goat,” said Lucien.
“I’m sorry, Henri, but I can’t,” said Juliette.
“A goat in a hat,” said Lucien.
“I really have to return to the Colorman. I have no choice.”
“You can’t,” said Lucien. “Stay with me. Make him come after you. I’ll defend you.”
“You can’t,” she said.
“Then we’ll run away. You’re the one who travels through time and space, right? We’ll go hide somewhere.”
“I can’t,” she said. “He can compel me to return to him. I told you, I am a slave.”
“Well, what then?” Lucien nearly fell out of his chair trying to move to her side, then caught himself on the table.
“I won’t be free as long as he lives.”
“But you said yourself, he can’t be killed,” said Henri.
“He can’t be killed as long as there are paintings made with unharvested Sacré Bleu. That is my theory. When I saw the Manet nude, I thought that was my chance. I thought that painting must be what protected him, but now I know there are others, or it’s something else. He’s alive. I can feel him pulling me back.”
“I don’t understand,” said Lucien. “What can we do?”
She leaned into the center of the table and the two painters leaned in for the conspiracy. “I’ve taken the Sacré Bleu we made with the Manet nude. It’s in the mine with your Blue Nude. He’ll need more. Gauguin is leaving for Tahiti, so I will go to the artist he’s found for me. A Monsieur Seurat.”
“Seurat’s a peintre optique,” said Henri. “He paints with tiny dots of pure color. Enormous canvases. He’ll take years to complete a painting.”
