canon | excerpt

[stationnaire]

CHAPTER 5, SCENE 1

They invited her back to the Dubois mansion, a stone’s throw from Versailles, exactly one week and one day later.

The invitation was exceedingly formal, delivered by mail and written on gold-tinted stationary; mademoiselle Gallard was welcome to paint their son’s portrait, all had been taken care of, a studio had been prepared down to the last detail and was at her free disposal.

Dress code: liberal, had been added at the bottom in a scrawl that Sylvie suspected was monsieur Dubois’, whereas the rest of the letter had been composed in a beautiful, rounded handwriting that must be his wife’s. In response, she had Claire find some of her old dresses from Marseille, otherwise stored away in boxes probably never to be unearthed again, good riddance, and they pinned her artist’s smock to the front of the black one, conservative and dull, monsieur Dubois ought to find comfort in it.

And so, a grey, pleasantly rainy Tuesday, two weeks after the Easter dinner, the Dubois’ chauffeur came to pick her up in an automobile far fancier and newer than her brother’s, not that her brother cared one bit, she knew, and drove her back to Armand’s home, where he took her to the room his father had, he told her with a smile, had an infamous Expressionist friend help design; she wouldn’t lack anything and if anything should be missing, against expectation, they would gladly buy it for her.

Sylvie felt halfway like a celebrity, and her black dress was such an ill fit for that role, right? Even if Armand had greeted her by kissing both her cheeks, one hand on her waist, muttering against the side of her face, you look wonderful.

She’d laughed. She couldn’t tell whether he was an exceptional liar or an exceptional optimist. Well, she could. To her knowledge, he wasn’t lying.

And you’re just unbelievable, she told him in return.

The studio that monsieur Dubois had decorated for her was unbelievable, too. It was located in the western corner room, with not only one but two tall, arched windows, allowing light from both the west and the south side, it was the most beautiful inflow of light she’d seen anywhere, and she’d painted in the ancient halls of the Marseille art academy, hadn’t she? The room was filled with old sideboards, drawers full of oil paints and natural resin, watercolours, pencils, brushes, an easel leaning against the wall next to one window along with a handful of canvases, both ones already applied to wooden frames and a whole roll of fabric to be fixed in whatever size she might desire. Armand saw her gaping wonder as she took a walk around, following her quietly.

“Do you like it?” he asked, trying to sound tempered and succeeding at least somewhat. Yet, the hope was there.

“It’s incredible, Armand, did you really arrange for this?” she replied.

“My father did,” he insisted, but Sylvie was beginning to catch on to how he blamed his father for everything he didn’t feel he could take credit for himself. She had a feeling that the idea had definitely not originated with Dubois père. It came from somewhere else, and he wouldn’t even let her thank him properly.

What a funny, old bird he was.

A few of Sylvie’s works had been taken out of storage as well and brought along to the mansion, to give her sitter a sense of her style and colour palette. The voluptuous maid and the old matron with the wart had carried them to the studio and placed them, all three, next to each other on the empty, windowless wall opposite the west window. The light fell on them nicely there. Armand walked over to study them, not in any hurry. He remained silent while looking, which made her nervous.

“Do you like them?” she wanted to know after the minutes had stretched on for what felt a very long time.

“I don’t understand this woman,” he said and nodded at the last painting in the row, the smallest of them, featuring an ocean-inspired background, all blues, whites and light greys, and a woman floating mid-air above a roaring sea, turned towards the spectator, but her face bare, no features, no mouth, nose or eyes, just the pale skin of her head continuing from her forehead and down, like a curtain almost. A curtain which hadn’t been lifted yet. Less poetically, she looked like an egg in a tight-fitting tablecloth.

“I don’t understand her either. She hasn’t told me anything much about herself,” Sylvie explained, meaning that’s why, I haven’t looked her in the eyes yet, I don’t know who she is. He turned his attention back on the canvas, studying her motif – one she had worked on continuously for years now, since leaving boarding school and lodging with the aunties – and somehow, it felt like he was studying her, as if the woman Sylvie didn’t know was herself.

The thought scared her. Moving a little closer to Armand, she took his hand and leaned in against his side, her temple pressed to his shoulder.

“Can you like something you don’t understand?” she asked. Quietly.

“Sometimes, it can prove necessary to,” he answered. She wasn’t sure she understood what he meant, but she liked him all the same. Maybe that was the meaning of it.

Without saying anything, they stood some time next to each other, Sylvie holding his hand, Armand’s eyes watching the woman without a face, without an identity, even without a name. Sylvie had never been able to find a title for this particular painting, she had settled with calling it, The Faceless. Even if it sounded like one of the ghost stories they’d told at her boarding school, and she hated getting frightened, really, she hated the jolt fear sent through your system. She’d had enough of that for a lifetime.

Finally, he let go of her hand and pointed to the stool that had been placed in the exact intersection where the light from the west-facing window and the south-facing window merged, creating a particularly sunny spot, even on a rainy day like today. Sylvie liked the grey hues, they were beautiful. Armand would look beautiful, bathed in them, though she didn’t tell him so. He said: “How do you want me?”

Dropping her gaze, Sylvie buried her hands deep in the front pockets of her smock. When he noticed her blush, he blushed, too. She felt wonderfully seen when he did. It was a real thrill.

“It depends on the image you want,” she told him, voice soft. “The king would stand, preferably next to something small, so he looked bigger.”

“I’m no king,” he said, making her once more think of his father, monsieur Dubois who was without a doubt King, capitalised, and whose son Armand was. Prince, then? Heir to the throne. Wasn’t that why Charles wanted them engaged to be married so bad? She moved over to the stool and looked down at it for a while, then back up at Armand who had followed her, trailing behind. She could feel his eyes on her.

“Be comfortable and happy, that’s all I’m asking of you,” she said, before walking over to the easel and manoeuvring it a few metres to the left, to stand in front of the stool; then she picked one of the larger canvases already on a frame and balanced it on the easel, it was a fight against balance points and gravity, but Sylvie won. Lastly, she walked over to the buffet she’d found full of pencils and brushes, grabbing a couple of dark grey pencils, already sharpened. He’d prepared everything for her, hadn’t he?

Armand or Armand’s father, not one and the same thing, but not further apart than that, either. The resources sprung from the same well, if nothing else.

When she turned back around, Armand had sat down on the simple wooden stool, legs spread wide apart and his elbows resting on his knees, his hands folded in a relaxed manner in between. Comfortable and happy.

She did promise not to ask anything more of him.