Night Blooming Jasmine

 

Morseau ambled up the steep ancient cobbled street with an energy that seemed sprightly for his age and just slightly overweight stature.  He breathed rather hard from the climb.  It would affect even the young Suzie at the hotel where he lunched. Morseau suffered from weakened lungs a consequence of an ailment of his youth and fifty years of life.  It had affected his speaking voice but not his wonderful singing. 

 

Still, he smiled at all he met on the way to the Ministry in Grasse.  Not so much at the joy of seeing them, that was there too, but, simply that he enjoyed his job and the walk to work.  Everyone who met Morseau was infected by his Monet sky personality.  He kept his darkness at home.

 

He was one of those rare people who could create reward in what to most would consider a trivial job in the social service department of Alpes Maritimes.  It could be that he looked at those who came to him and thought “but for the grace of God and folks like me….” and recognized his blessings, despite his life had been far from easy.  It could be too, that his job was an escape from the disappointment of his true passions, which had become less than inspired in recent years.

 

He lived mostly for his sole son, but the lad was now a man and would soon go out on his own.  Already Fils, as he was nicknamed, devoted himself to his studies and his job at the Parfumerie Galimard.  Little time was left for just the two of them as it had been through all these years.  That would leave Morseau his catatonic wife and his painting.  Probably he would divorce this wife as soon as the young man left home.  The silence was too much and undeserved.

 

Painting would remain, at least the dream of painting.  For Morseau it was mostly a dream, even if, he was rather good.  As a young man he had come to some crazy notion that he could not see the light properly from his right as his hand and arm shadowed the canvas and came to seek left handed female collaborators.  He reflected too that he missed something from not being a woman, perhaps the influence of his very dynamic mother. She had taught him in the arts and culinary much as a father might influence a tomboy in the manly subjects of hunting and fishing; additions to his gender rather than contrast.

 

As one would assume it was both difficult to find someone willing to embark upon such an unusual artistic journey and impossible to find someone to stick with it; individual ego being the basis of most art. He did occasionally run into somebody for short periods but only one canvas was ever completed, that with a gypsy girl from his days at the academy in Nice.  It was adolescent and pure and stored away in perfect forgetfulness.

 

It was one of those propitious accidents that turn people’s lives around or upside down.  Morseau almost morose in his daily routine turned his nose as an unfamiliar fragrance seemed to draw him toward the perfume factory.  He thought he knew all the wondrous smells of home, jasmine, rose, orange, a comforting awareness that made it home and this new aroma was slightly disconcerting and enticing too.  As he turned he saw a placard pasted to the white stucco of the building across the street.  It was somewhat weathered but he recognized a memory.

 

Morseau understood that for an accident to be propitious required one component external to the occasion itself.  For instance, Morseau was born with feet so exquisite that they should be the model for all the portrayed saints with their tiny sandals.  Morseau understood that proper shoes would remind those about him of this accident of nature, much as the rings on his elegant fingers accentuated his perfect hands.  And so he went to cross the street totally unaware of the rag woman and her lumbering cart.  Luck was with him since obviously all other senses had been muted, he hadn’t even heard the sound of the great Belgians massive iron shoes on the cobbles, but up hill not much effort was needed to sidestep his demise.

 

He looked at the faded bill, “Georgiana, The Worlds Most Intriguing Mesmerist” it read and announced a long past showing at a club in Marseilles.  Indeed, he squinted, it was her caricature, yes older by the thirty-five years since he last saw her, indeed, her. There was an address of an agent in Paris, which to make the accident propitious, he took down.

 

“Madame”, he wrote on stationary at the hotel, “Perhaps you might remember me.  I believe we shared classes in our youth” knowing full well there could be no other. “If so, please write if you have the time.  I would very much like that.  Morseau.”  He purchased an envelope from the maitre d’ and made his way to the post.

 

It was immediate, the concern at the sound of his letter dropping through the chute.  He wondered at his actions; had he made a grievous mistake?  Well, no matter now it was done, and what harm could come of it?  His life could be no worse for it.  Now to work, he would be just on time rather than his normal half hour early, well, what harm could come from it?

 

Just a week passed and Suzie, almost besides herself, announced to the entire luncheon, “Morseau, a post has arrived for you from Grenoble!”  Morseau was beyond himself as he opened the envelope.  What rejection would it contain?  Probably something like “I have many fans, but Monsieur who are you, with your claims?  Please don’t write again.”

 

He looked upon the folded paper, perfumed with a fragrance from Grasse.  Et alors? What of it? What harm could it carry, a simple note.  Which read: “Morseau. Oh wonderful shy Morseau, I remember all about you…the walk to your home, across the fields of tuberose, you of such talent! when we waltzed that night under the gas lamps on the park path and made tender sweet love in the jasmine with the orchestra playing so distant..as if in a fog..the painting we made with the unicorn under your sun and my moon, yes Morseau, I remember you and I would so much love to see you…you today.  With Love. Georgiana.”

 

The flood of youthful memories was too much for Morseau and he ran from the hotel barely missing the hooves of the rag picker’s Belgium monster as she began the steep decent.  Indeed it was terribly upsetting.  What now?  And so began a long correspondence.

 

Much had happened to Georgiana over the years.  She had left Nice an orphan at 15 and wandered from artist to artist.  In Madrid her own work was recognized, true with some difficulty, as she was a woman and overshadowed by her cubist boyfriend.  Finally she had married a fellow in Flanders raising two daughters, now grown, in the Flemish countryside.  All seemed contented, but slightly strained by her need to see, until the diagnosis.  In total though she felt blessed and wrote Morseau.  “I am blessed, perhaps guarded by angels.  I am blessed by great tragedy and wonderful love.  I have been blessed with two daughters of fine minds and spirits. I have been blessed by those I’ve met and those I have yet to meet, both enemy and friend. I have been blessed by being able to be whomsoever I have wished to be.”

 

She left Flanders and her children and husband to seek another Georgiana.  The selection of Mesmerism was simply the result of the moment rather than consciousness.  And now she traveled about, town to town, a gypsy once again.  Her billing as Europe’s only female Mesmerist seemed to bring the curious, who thought she must actually be a witch. The common conjecture was women do not have the sonorous voice required to induce the trance.  Or so they thought.

 

One day she wrote Morseau that she would be coming to Grasse to help Karl and Rosa with their new child.  Morseau wasn’t sure he wanted to see Georgiana after all.  After thirty years of aging he was no longer the blonde blue-eyed lad with the “killer” body that she would remember.  Georgina had no fear, in general or about the encounter, she was who she was and couldn’t do much about it and usually didn’t try.

 

They met at the hotel the evening after Georgiana’s arrival. Suzie colorfully served, without asking, Morseau’s favorite lager.  Georgiana ordered Ricard with water on the side.  It didn’t matter because they were enrapt in each others eyes.  How could it be after all these years, that they were the same children?  They made love in the alley under the spring stars.

 

The apartment was small, cozy is what the owner of the boarding house said.  Georgiana would putter about make tea on the stays in Grasse between travels for her show and her interludes with Morseau to paint a new canvas.  Occasionally she would practice on the land lady.  Unsurprisingly, the land lady never asked for rent, which Georgiana wouldn’t have had anyway.  She had left her husband destitute with only a bag of clothes and she thought of the proceeds of her shows as numbers of sugared crepes and miles of train tickets.  At one show she had even responded to her employer’s, “Madame your 200 francs.” “How many crepes?”  “Pardon?”

 

It was the times with Morseau, oh those surreal times with Morseau.  They would weekend at the strangest places, for two who had no money, casinos of Monaco, Bastia, and once a fortnight in the oasis El Eulma, where they painted the full moon under the full moon by the full moon.

 

The canvas seemed to have no limits and captured each moment without compromising the value of any moment to come or past.  On those rare occasions that they did not see each other, consumed in their own vision, their brushes would cross and nearly magically little rainbows would appear on the canvas sky made of Morseau’s passionate red and yellows and Georgiana’s mystic blue’s and violets and brooks would spout from mountain new formed springs of Morseau’s pure whites and Georgiana’s crystalline grays cascading in clear streams down the canvas.

 

There were no people on the canvas save some strange souls brought into this world by forces beyond the two’s control, as one might run into a stranger on a train that has no place on this earth, but recognize brotherhood and speak with them as family.  Morseau too, forgot of his wife and her silence.  Georgiana forgot of herself and her pain.

 

The post from Flanders did not read right to Morseau and filled him with dread.  Georgiana’s husband had taken ill and she had returned to care for her family during his convalescence. “Dearest Morseau: I am not doing well.  I have a feeling I have never known, fear.  I need to live there is so much to do. Love Georgiana”

 

Georgiana returned to Grasse just before Christmas.  Things were not right with her spirit but she did not reveal the true depths to fragile Morseau.  She and Morseau partied with friends but did not paint.  Friends said what a fine pair they made.  Things were not right for Morseau.

 

It was a very cold February, unusually cold for Provence, extremely cold.  It had even snowed, though lightly, in Cannes.  Georgiana had returned from St. Petersburg where she had enrolled her daughter in the famous ballet school.  There had been little correspondence between Morseau and Georgiana since the letter from Flanders.  Morseau though cast aside his complaints and went to see her with his usual unmitigated enthusiasm.

 

“Morseau I must speak with you but you are the one person I can not speak too.”

“Of course you can tell me anything.”

“Morseau there has been an accident”

“An accident?...... You mean you have been with another man!  You accidentally laid down and someone accidentally…..!”

“Oh no Morseau…it is much worse than that…that would be none of your business.  No Morseau I can no longer paint.  I met a man in St. Petersburg who is perfect for my needs, I have promised.”

“I don’t understand.  Can he love you like I?  Is he handsomer?  Younger?  He has money!  That is a new silk blouse!  Oh no! He is rich.”

“No Morseau, it is none of those things….Morseau I must live…my daughter…my art…I am not able to be as I was…I am not as I was.  I am no longer what you dream me to be.”

 

“What of this canvas?  We must finish it!”

“Morseau, look….it has always been finished.  Each moment, each perfect joyous moment, each and every perfect twilight star is captured in timelessness.”

 

“Georgiana, I can take care of you.  I will find another job, yes I will work two jobs! I will divorce my wife.  I will give up everything, come home to me.”

 

Morseau began to cry and Georgiana began to cry for him.

 

“Sacrifice? Our love is not sacrifice, love is not sacrifice.  That is abhorrent.  Our love is sharing.  Just two people sharing this time together.  Sacrifice is an abomination, greedy and self serving or serving some weak god who needs demean us…and I have nothing left to share but these memories on this canvas and pain that would destroy you. That, I will not share with you.”

 

“Then this…this..is a lie, a thousand lies!”

 

Morseau grabbed the waxed beaker of acid from Georgiana’s studio desk that she had been etching glass with and threw it on the canvas.  All the vibrant colors, all the moments, melted and burned.  Georgiana’s stare didn’t waiver throughout the violent coughing from the hellish fumes.  She stopped crying. An opal tear remained on her cheek and rainbowed in the stream of golden light making its way through the lace curtained window.

 

“No, Morseau, no, a thousand truths”, she whispered.

 

Morseau looked at the kitchen table, at the rabbit he had brought for dinner and the curved skinning knife.  He took the knife and slashed the canvas.  Each slash drew blood from Georgiana’s soul, as he meant it should.  When she could take no more she bolted from the door into the street, to run free of the pain, to be a gypsy again, to leave but never say good-bye.

 

It was an accident, perhaps propitious, presuming one’s perspective of external influence.  At the inquest the rag picker was not held responsible.  It was determined that it was common knowledge that, in the afternoon, when the cart was full and she was headed downhill turning onto Rue Droite, it was impossible to stop the cart and the great Belgium.  Momentum was the word. 

  

 

 Monet "Coquelicots"