“Here’s one. She knew the proprietor and bought art books and prints from him.” They entered a small shop near the Seine, cheek by jowl with antique stores and book sellers.
The wooden facade gleamed with a new coat of paint and shellac in the blue color Serafina associated with Paris. Perhaps the French were the only ones capable of creating it, an ultramarine so deep there were purple overtones. The gold script proclaimed, “ Thomas d’Automne et Fils depuis 1836 ” and in the window were displayed thick tomes containing plates of paintings by David, Jean Auguste Ingres, Delacroix, Gerome, Poussin, Fragonard, and surprisingly Edouard Manet, but none of the other new painters. Strange that Elena would frequent such a traditional shop, but then she remembered the prints she’d seen in her ladies’ parlor, reproductions of paintings by David.
As they entered, Serafina noticed the shop had a few tourists paging through books. The walls held floor to ceiling books. Behind the counter, she saw hundreds of small drawers with brass pulls, no dust, but the exquisite odor of finely crafted paper and binding, the scent lingering and high pitched, along with the unmistakable smell of sandalwood and old leather. Something about the store yellowed the light, antiqued the world and made it turn more slowly.
Loffredo’s face was inscrutable.
Presently a short, round man with a mustache, white hair, and bushy black eyebrows emerged from the back.
He frowned at them. “Do I know you? Now let me see,” the man said, combing his mustache with a thumb, “I recognize you, young man, but not this woman.” Serafina detected a wry smile.
“Forgive my appearance,” she said.
“An encounter with some Parisian ruffians,” Loffredo explained.
The man was somewhat solicitous. Also wary.
“We’ve come to ask you about one of your customers, Elena Loffredo.”
The proprietor furrowed his brows. “Give me a moment.”
They were silent until the man remembered.
“The countess, no?”
They nodded.
The man cocked his head. “Now when was the last time she was in the store? Hmm.” He thought for a moment. “I could look it up, but if you bear with me…” He stared into the space beyond his customers. “Could have been March. Yes. Wasn’t yet spring, but a hint of spring. Students still puffing their breath, I remember. The light, silvery.” He closed his eyes. “And she came into the store, drawn by the David plates. I had them in the window at the time. Impeccably attired, I might say, as always. Yes. She bought three prints, portraits, the Comtesse Vilain and her daughter, the portrait of Madame Recamier, and the portrait of Emilie Seriziat and her son. Said they were for her ladies’ room. She wanted them framed, she trusted my taste. They were to be hung on a small vertical wall adjacent to her desk. She said she was particularly haunted by the portraits of the women with their children.”
“How did she seem to you, in a hurry, wistful, flighty, haughty?”
“I… really couldn’t say. Except… how should I put this? The countess could be all of those things in the space of a few minutes.” He smiled, gave the question greater consideration. “At peace, I’d say. Not flighty, no. At peace. She said she felt the world changing around her while she stood still. She’d had quite enough of doing this and that. She said she needed to do something with her life.”
Chapter 29: An Evening with Les Mardistes
Serafina was thinking when Carmela burst into her room and said, “Elena may be painting in the south of France.”
“Explain.”
“What happened to your hair? You’ve been with Loffredo, haven’t you?” And Carmela spit out his name as if she were the mother and Serafina, the wayward child.
Serafina remained calm, neither denying nor apologizing. “Tell me how you know Elena is in the south of France.”
“Don’t change the subject. You and your lover, that… Elena’s husband, because of your selfishness with him may have just ruined your reputation. You are beyond repair. Our family will be devastated. As it is, we hang by a thread. You don’t know what’s going on because you don’t want to know.”
She saw herself in her daughter’s rant. Perhaps it was because she was physically spent by the afternoon’s efforts, or perhaps it was because she was purged of emotion by the fight with the don’s spies. Perhaps it was because she knew her own heart, or perhaps because of how well the investigation was proceeding, but she wasn’t angry with her daughter, not in the least. Serafina marveled at how Carmela’s temperament matched her own, emotions raw and quick to come to the boil and with such a tongue. But Carmela was unsettled. She must help her find herself and in so doing, help to save the family which she knew was in peril. Sicily could no longer support their work. The don would never give up. They must make a decision. She must help Carmela find something special, work close to landscape design.
“Loffredo and I were together this afternoon, you’re right, but not in the way you mean. Sit next to me. Tell me what you know about Elena. If she’s alive, we need to find her.”
“Teo, Arcangelo, and Tessa were the ones responsible for finding the artist who knew her,” Carmela said, sitting down and visibly subdued.
“How?”
“I’m not quite sure, but the three of them spend their days near the exhibit on the Boulevard des Capucines. I think Arcangelo and Teo walk around the area while Tessa goes inside. They’ve gotten invitations to many of the artists’ studios that way. Some, Tessa said, do work she admires. Others, not so much. If they ask, she tells them she’s an artist with a studio in Italy and would like to study in Paris. But most of the time she talks to them about their work and they are thrilled to show it to her, unless of course they are deep into their painting and then they don’t respond.”
Carmela paused and smoothed her skirt.
“Of course,” Serafina said. “Go on.”
“Today Tessa met Paul Cezanne-he has some works in the exhibit.”
Serafina nodded. “With a southern feel.”
Carmela seemed surprised at the remark. “Tessa told him how much she loved his work, the lines, the color, the feeling-you know how Tessa talks. She asked him about his palette, how he mixes paints, stretches the canvas, what size he works in, like that. Anyway, he gave her his card and invited her to visit his studio on the Rue de Vaugirard. They ran back to the hotel for me, and the four of us got quite a tour. While Tessa and I were asking him some technical questions, Arcangelo and Teo looked at all the canvases, his brushes, his stretching tools, the rolls of linen in a corner, his work area. The light in the room was breathtaking, the colors, the smell of gesso and linseed oil-I shall never forget it.”
Serafina nodded then imagined Arcangelo in the studio. “He can’t see colors, you know.” She smiled.
“I know. He sees bright colors, he told me, but not subtle gradations. How much of life he misses.” Carmela continued. “Teo saw a painting lying in the corner, very different from the rest of Cezanne’s work. It wasn’t his work, the artist told Teo, but belonged to a friend, an aspiring artist. Cezanne said he tried to encourage his friend to paint, to attend one of the many ateliers associated with the Ecole des Beaux Arts, but she wasn’t interested. Time was running out for her, she told Cezanne, and anyway she wasn’t interested in what the school had to offer her. She wanted to paint, to do nothing else, to immerse herself in the world of sight and art, but confessed that she became easily distracted. ‘A countess, you know, flits here, goes there,’ he told Teo.”