I followed him outside, shutting the door behind me.
“Your grandmother wants to maintain her privacy regarding her illness, and, as her doctor, I must respect her wishes. That said, without divulging too much, I’m sorry to say that I expect her time is limited. You should try to keep her as comfortable as possible and to spend as much time with her as you can. I will come by in another few days to see if she needs more syrup to help her at night.”
He looked at his watch, then left me alone outside the door, his words still ringing in my ears.
***
The morning’s joyfulness of walking through the park with Alex—sharing our most intimate experiences and the thrill of his embrace—was now lost to the devastating news that Marthe’s illness was far more serious than I had believed. All my life I had prided myself in my ability to truly gauge my surroundings. Yet somehow I had failed to sense how much Marthe was ailing. I felt that I had let her down.
Dr. Payard said she would be sleeping for some time due to the codeine in the syrup. I walked slowly down the hallway and turned the doorknob to her bedroom. Tucked within her damask sheets and lying underneath her upholstered headboard with its spray of birds and butterflies, Marthe slept like an empress. Her slender white fingers were clasped in front of her, and her titian hair, now white at the temples, was piled atop her head. Even her pale eyelids looked like perfect half-moons.
I pulled up a chair and sat down at her bedside. The mirror aboveher caught the reflection of the two of us within its frame. It was a touching image. Two women who had come into each other’s lives unexpectedly. I had first come to her simply to learn more of her story, not realizing that together we would create a new one that was uniquely our own.
I looked around the room. The vanity that I now knew contained her old love letters from Charles, along with a handful from Boldini, and, more importantly for me, the ones from Madame Franeau lovingly detailing my father’s childhood. I admired the free-standing mirror before which she had so often dressed for Charles, and where she had prepared herself prior to being painted by Boldini. I had imagined her bedroom almost like a stage as she described all the events in her life story, and all of the furniture seemed eerily familiar to me despite only having been inside her bedroom on a few occasions. I walked over to her oak wardrobe, which housed her collection of silk dresses. I could hardly help myself as I pulled the small brass knobs to reveal what was inside.
In the front were the black silk faille, the lilac dress she loved so dearly. To the left were more contemporary dresses made from wool gabardine, a single skirt in midnight blue velvet, and even the wide-legged black trousers she had sewn herself. But at the far end of her wardrobe, behind the black velvet cape and the silver one with the pink ribbons, hung the one gown that had provided the signature look of her beautiful, sensual life: the pink silk charmeuse and organza dress she had worn when Boldini painted her. I reached to touch it. I felt the fluid silk between my fingers and could imagine her before my eyes. As I examined the bodice, I could see the detail more clearly than Boldini had depicted it in the painting—the two plackets of lace on the bodice and the gray belt with the horseshoe-shaped buckle of crystal beads. I marveled at the delicacy of the cloudlike sleeves, and the sheer beauty of the pink-tourmaline-colored silk. The gown felt forbidden, something that was reserved only for Marthe’s skin and certainly not mine.
As exquisite as the dress was, it needed Marthe to bring it to life. Boldini’s brush had rendered more than just a portrait of a woman in a sumptuous gown; he had captured Marthe’s sensuality and exuberance. It made me pause to think how the final portrait had so many layers that contributed to making something so beautiful.
Sadly, Marthe now looked far from the robust femme fatale Boldini had captured in his portrait. Gone was the voluptuous figure and the blush of youth. Her body seemed half its size now. Her shoulders seemed to cave in, her breasts far smaller. She appeared almost childlike sleeping.
Next to her bed, inches away from her water pitcher and glass, I noticed two things I had not expected to see there. The first was the old leather volume of the fables of Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian, which Charles had given her so many years before. The second was the gold pocket watch she had mentioned during the course of her storytelling, but had never once shown me.
Unable to stop myself, I reached for the watch. The casing was now dull with age, and the metal slightly scratched. I carefully used my fingernail to open it and, there, just as she had described, was a winged dove engraved on the inside. The hands were stopped at 6:14.
***
I held the watch in my palms, hoping that I had the capacity to make time stand still. Marthe was fading. She conserved her speech. She mostly kept herself tightly wrapped in her layers of sheeting, the covers and blanket pulled up to her narrow chin. Her eyelids were pale lilac. Her skin, the color of rice paper. As she slept, I grasped her hand.
The memory of my own mother on her deathbed returned to me. At the time, I had thought the same thing I did now sitting beside Marthe. That we leave this world the very way we arrive. Our bodies shrunken and our eyes sealed shut.
50.
April 1940
Iwrote furiously to my father, but with letters censored, all I could say was this:
Please take leave. Grandmother is gravely ill. Come at once.
Over the next few days, I did not abandon Marthe’s side. I listened to her labored breathing, heavy from the medication. She murmured words underneath her breath, as though she was revealing something from her dreams. Once she asked for candied oranges. Another time she cried out for Charles.
I felt her deflating within my fingers. I noticed the contrast from when I clasped Alex’s hands, the warmth and pulse that pushed forth from the inside of his veins outward toward his skin. His vitality was palpable. But when I held Marthe’s fingers, I had the sensation that it was only a matter of time before she was completely lost to me.
***
I fell asleep with my head pressed to the edge of her bed, my fingers numb from holding Marthe’s hand in my own. Moonlight streamed into the bedroom when I awakened from my slumber. Marthe’s eyes were now open. I heard her voice, barely audible.
“Solange.” My name seemed to catch in the back of her throat. She wiggled her hand from mine and reached for the glass of water that was on the nightstand.
She pushed herself up from toward the back of the bed.
“Please go to my dresser and open the top drawer.”
I did as I was instructed and walked toward the back of the room, where her wooden dresser with the ormolu handles and marble top was located. Perched on top were more Chinese vases and other painted figurines.
I opened the top drawer, but saw only folded corsets and other delicate undergarments.
“There is a leather folio underneath.”
