“How do you know all this, Melissa?” Was she some kind of demon? Did she have visions too? The bird in my chest flapped its wings wildly, desperate to escape its anxiety-riddled cage. I felt like chunks of me were breaking off at every turn.
“I have a very long memory,” she said, choosing her words carefully.
“But you were there?”
“I owned the brothel, Martin. I was Bonnaire’s….” She paused, glancing down at her ringed fingers. “I was your aunt.” I pressed her for more information, but she wouldn’t tell me how or why she knew the things she knew. She did say that Simone was an immigrant from Louisiana. Her parents died of influenza shortly after arriving in Paris. She’d showed up on our doorstep deathly ill and starving.
“I wanted to turn her away, but you insisted we bring her in. You nursed her back to health,” she said.
“I don’t remember that, but I remember her hair. Running my fingers through it.” My hand danced in the air. I felt the phantom sensation of her curls tangling in my fingers like silken thread. Then it was Andre and I was running my hand down his smooth back, kissing the valley between his shoulder blades, smelling his skin. I bit my lower lip to stop it from trembling.
“Every morning I’d have one of the girls braid it, and every night it’d come loose again. It took me beating her before she admitted that you were the one undoing it.”
She smelled like lilacs and her laughter sounded like church bells. I’d wanted to see her hair loose around her shoulders, the way the light played on the curls and made them come alive, so vibrant and colorful, just like her.
“She was one of your prostitutes?” I asked.
“No, she was a maid. You wouldn’t let me sell her. She was your… pet. And then, later, she was your lover.”
I remembered fresh-cut flowers and pastries, small gifts appearing at my side while I painted. Or was that Andre? He always fed me while I worked.
“She was kind.” Andre had the biggest heart of anyone I’d ever met.
Melissa nodded and wrung her hands. She wouldn’t meet my eyes. “You loved her very much.”
“What happened to her? Did she run away?” Would he ever come back to me? I was a fish chasing my own tail.
Melissa shook her head. “All I ever wanted was for you to be successful, Martin. To be known. Even if she wasn’t a whore, she was black. I was trying to elevate your status so that society would take your work seriously. How could I do that with her riding your coattails?”
I thought of the twin paintings and remembered painting her while she slept, like Andre, the adoration flowing through my fingers into each loving brushstroke. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. In the day, she danced away from me, but at night, I could study her undisturbed.
“What happened to her, Melissa?”
“You were mad, Martin. You weren’t yourself.”
“What happened?” It was me who did it, made her go away, just like Andre. My desire turned to jealousy because I didn’t think I was worthy of someone so special. Or maybe it was because I thought my devotion was stronger than their own, because I was vain and an asshole.
Melissa wouldn’t speak of it. But however terrible, I had to know. I shook her shoulders gently. “Tell me what happened, Melissa. You owe it to me.”
Melissa hid her eyes from me as though shielding herself from the sun. “She got pregnant, and she was afraid to tell you. I told you it was someone else’s, one of our regular customers who’d taken an interest in her. You believed me. I thought you’d only turn her out.”
“Of course I believed you,” I spat at her. “You were my only ally in that entire godforsaken city.”
I covered my mouth, shocked. Where did that come from?
“I’m so sorry, Martin.” She hugged herself, rocking back and forth on the couch where we sat. I saw Simone’s bulging eyes, emanating terror, her open mouth gasping for breath. Andre had told me he couldn’t breathe, that I was choking him. He’d reached for his throat. Perhaps he felt my fingers there, squeezing his velvet neck, strangling the life out of him.
“I killed her,” I said. Melissa nodded. “And when I realized what I’d done, I set my studio on fire.”
“You burned everything. All those beautiful paintings, a lifetime of treasures, gone. They’d be shown in galleries today if they’d survived you. They’d be worth millions of dollars. You’d be famous. I wanted to kill you, Martin, but you were already so sick.”
I didn’t care about being famous, then or now. I just wanted him back. My soul keened for him, that he might hear my call and return to me. Just pick up the fucking phone and call me.
“You died a few days later of smoke inhalation,” she said. “I’ve been looking for you, for lifetimes. I found you once in Vienna, but I lost you in the war. I found you again, here in Miami when you were twelve. Your grandfather was selling your paintings at a produce stand. I saw the signature and I knew it was you. You painted my portrait.”
My eyes found her face. I remembered that portrait. She hadn’t aged since that day more than a decade ago. My arms broke out in goose bumps.
“You recognized Andre too,” I said.
