am I?”
“Rueil-la-Gadeliere.”
Groggily, Mason placed the name in her mind. Renoir had painted there. But it couldn’t be! It was fifty miles downriver!
“How long have I been here?”
“It has been nearly four weeks since the good Lord brought you to us.”
“Four weeks!”
Again, she tried to sit, but her head swam sickly. The kind woman helped her back, adjusting her covers as she introduced her family. They were the Carriers, farmers who lived at the edge of the river. They’d chanced to spot her sprawled on top of the massive tree limb as it had floated by the morning after the storm. In their launch, they’d pursued and rescued her. They were a poor and simple people, and seemed to her blurry eyes as if they’d just stepped out of a painting by Millet. Pere Carrier assured her that they were happy to take care of her and wanted nothing in return.
“And the woman…the other woman…”
They exchanged puzzled glances, and the father said, “There was no other woman with you.”
Mason felt a heavy sadness. She’d wanted so badly to help that poor nameless soul on the bridge. Madame Carrier saw the tears that slipped down her cheek and gently stroked her hair back off her face. “There, there. You’ve been very ill. You must rest and not worry. You will stay with us and let us care for you until you are yourself again.”
Choked with tears, all Mason could do was nod her gratitude. Madame Carrier gave her some more medicine and before long, she’d once again drifted back to sleep.
Three days later, Mason awoke with more strength. She managed to get out of bed and stand for a few minutes. Every day she increased her time out of bed until finally she was able to take walks around the nearby village.
The Carriers were wonderful. They accepted her as a member of the family and gave no indication that they wanted her to leave. As her strength returned, she found herself enjoying being protected within the bosom of this family and being away from the life she’d left in Paris.
It was an idyllic retreat. Her gratitude at having been so miraculously spared blotted out any thoughts of the past or feelings of failure. The air had never smelled so sweet; the sky had never seemed so blue. She savored every moment of life, putting off thinking about where she would go from here. She had no commitments in Paris and she’d told Lisette she might go to Auvers, a village on the Oise River where she often retreated to paint, so there was no need to notify her. For now, it was enough just to be alive.
But then one day she decided to walk into the village. She’d been away from Paris for just over seven weeks by then and had lost a great deal of weight. She barely resembled herself, but she felt wholly refreshed, bursting with energy and robust with health.
Then she saw it: her name on a newspaper lying on an outside table at the local café. She snatched it up and hastily began to read.
The article told the story of how the late American painter Mason Caldwell—whose body had washed up on the shore of Neuilly, just outside of Paris, on the eighth of February—was becoming a posthumous celebrity. The Parisian papers had been in competition to glamorize what they were calling her suicide. According to them, she’d thrown herself from the bridge with the desperate romanticism of Madame Bovary. That was remarkable enough, but even more astonishing was the fact that dealers were actually competing to acquire the right to sell her paintings!
Stunned, she stumbled back to Chez Carrier and, without telling them what had happened, announced that she must return to Paris at once. Asking no questions, they gave her five francs, and she set out to correct the ghastly mistake.
On the riverboat back to the city, the scenario of what must have happened played through her mind. The woman on the bridge that night—the one she’d tried so hard to save—had drowned and her body, which was found more than a week later, had been mistaken for Mason’s. She tried to remember her face, so briefly glimpsed when the wind had blown back the concealing hood. Who was she? She must have some family who Mason should contact and tell the sad news. Nearly two months later, they must be out of their minds with worry. Her message would be a blow, but at least they’d know what had really happened.
It was late by the time the now nearly complete Eiffel Tower came into view. Passing the fairgrounds below it, she saw the silhouettes of dozens of new buildings for the upcoming Exposition that had sprung up in her absence. She looked around her at the once-familiar sights of her adopted city and felt lost and alone, like a stranger. This wasn’t the Paris she’d left behind. This was a Paris where Mason Caldwell was no longer alive.
She had no idea how to go about accomplishing what suddenly seemed like an overwhelming task. All she knew was that she needed to go to someone—now, at once—who would be happy to see her. She needed to be welcomed back from the dead.
She needed Lisette.
Mason’s childhood had been isolated and lonely, and she’d never had a close friend before Lisette. They’d met shortly after Mason had arrived in Paris. She’d outfitted herself with art supplies and had set out to La Grande Jatte, an island in the Seine where the bourgeoisie went to enjoy their leisure time. She’d set up her easel, plopped her straw hat on her head, and picked up her brush. Everything at the ready, she’d looked about, wondering what to paint. Women dressed in their Sunday best strolled unhurriedly along the paths or picnicked beneath the trees. Men, in top hats or derbies, lounged in the shade, watching the sailboats glide along the river. Children frolicked on the grass or waded along the banks, their squeals piercing the air. Typical Impressionistic motifs. She was looking for something different, but she didn’t know quite what.
Then she saw Lisette. She was a child-woman with a tumbled tangle of luxurious gold hair that seemed to glow in the fulsome sunshine of summer. Half a dozen dogs of all sizes and breeds surrounded her, panting in anticipation as she raised a small ball she held in her hand. She was barefoot and was laughing as the two poodles leapt into the lake. Hiking up her skirts, she’d run playfully in after them, picking them up in both arms and smothering them with heartfelt kisses, completely mindless to the fact that they were soaking her pretty yellow dress. She was effortlessly elegant and earthy all at once, delighting in the movements of her own body, completely unconscious of the effect she was creating.
At this point, Mason hadn’t found the artistic vision that would later so possess her. But one look at the carefree young woman made her realize that she’d found something special. A Greek goddess for the modern age, a new kind of woman full of light and color and sensual grace.
She found, when she introduced herself in halting French, that Lisette was a trapeze artist and acrobat. When Mason asked if she would model for her, the young woman wrinkled her nose in distaste, then reconsidered and said with a shrug, “Et bien. Why not?” Mason was so satisfied with the results of the sitting that, several weeks later and after many frustrating afternoons of painting plaster casts and bowls of oranges, she decided to seek out her reluctant model at the Folies-Bergères, where she’d said she was currently appearing. This time Lisette refused. But several days later, she appeared at Mason’s Montmartre flat and said, rather haughtily, “I have nothing to do this afternoon, so you may paint me.”
As Mason worked in a lightning flash of inspiration, she realized she’d found the subject she’d been looking for—one who somehow fit into the vision she was struggling to formulate. She still couldn’t explain to herself exactly what place Lisette would occupy in this grand scheme, but she’d never felt more at one
