Chapter 3.2 - Claire Paints Again

“You better get out of that doorway before your grandmother sees you,” Grandfather’s voice startled Claire from her reverie. She’d been daydreaming between the mirrors, unaware of the passing of time, and now that she was back to earth she couldn’t even remember what she’d been daydreaming about. She lingered in the alcove a bit longer, staring at her reflections, rendered cold and dull by the artificial light. The room felt heavier all of a sudden, for no reason at all, to the outrage of Claire’s grandmother who had popped in from the porch through one of the French doors of the parlor.

“Get out of the doorway right now!” she raised her voice, more alarmed than upset. Claire moved out from between the mirrors and the room recovered its usual coziness. 

“Told you!” Grandfather commented from his chair and then resumed reading his newspaper.

“Where is my room spritz? Now I have to chase away all the blood suckers, otherwise none of us are going to be able to sleep a wink!” She sprayed the fragrant mix of vervain and rosemary water, directing soft puffs of mist in the four directions. It always seemed to do a number on the mosquitoes. 

Grandmother continued to walk around the rooms for a while, mumbling something under her breath, something Claire couldn’t make out.

“That should do it! Child, I thought I taught you better than to leave the door open, and at dusk, no less! What were you thinking? I don’t even want to imagine what kind of things could have gotten in!”

“I’m sorry, maman, I got distracted,” Claire attempted an excuse.

“By what? I bet you can’t even remember right now!” grandmother retorted in a tone that sounded worried. She didn’t wait for a confirmation. “That’s what I keep telling you, but you never listen!”

The light in the room started feeling warmer and grandmother’s spirits lifted. 

“Time for dinner,” she announced. 

Claire instinctively looked at the clock, which showed five minutes to eight, and started setting the table with habitual motions, still deep in thought. Grandmother showed up from the kitchen, holding a skillet of bread pudding, as the clock struck eight. “Just in time!” she announced proudly.

“Tomorrow I need to plant those potatoes, they’re sprouting through the sack already,” Grandfather broke the silence, making plans for the next day out loud, as he always did, in order to sort out his thought process.

The conversation flowed lightly, leaping from one subject to another like a playful mountain brook jumping around boulders. It carried the essence of their lives and mixed it together casually into something that was each of them and more, the conversation itself, which thus became the fourth being at the table. 

If there was a place in the world where Claire felt she belonged it was here, sharing this meal with her grandparents and talking about the weather, the staking of tomatoes, the tending of the beehives and a million other little things that were not that important in the grand scheme of things. The carefree nature of an unhurried life.

Claire’s mind held a secret stash of these easy evenings together which didn’t much differ from each other: they were the nest that  protected her happiness, the security which sustained her soul in hard times, the retreat she always went back to when she wanted to find peace. It is strange, the soul: it hides itself inside a fortress of feelings like in a castle built of water and feels safe behind its soft and movable walls simply because it believes it is. Emotions are the true protectors, much stronger than thoughts and so much harder to change. They can be one’s lighthouse in the storm or the unseen rip current that drowns one in a calm sea. Claire’s emotional fortress sheltered her soul and turned these evening hours into sacred space, into the nave of a cathedral which held the certainty that she was loved. 

The dinner ended and while she helped take the dishes back to the kitchen she noticed the light in the room had changed again, making the space feel smaller and warmer, as if illumined by candle light. Grandmother noticed it too, but she said nothing, just smiled to herself instead.

“Bebelle, how come you never talk about your life in the city?” grandmother asked, and Claire didn’t know if the latter wanted to carry on a conversation just to avoid the awkwardness of spending time in the kitchen in silence or if she genuinely wanted to know. 

“Oh, there is not much to tell, really,” she tried to avoid the subject. “You know, just life.”

“There is no such a thing as just life,” grandmother chided, half joking. “And your life is definitely less just life than other people’s, that’s for sure. You ended up in the art scene, that was kind of special, wasn’t it?”

“I never gave it much thought, it sort of happened,” Claire hesitated.

“Very few things are truly random in this life, bebelle,” Grandmother replied. “Very few. How come you’re not painting anymore?”

“Why do you think I became a curator?” the young woman laughed. “I wasn’t any good at it.”

“Art is not about being good at it, art is about sharing with other people those things inside your soul that are too powerful, too big to fit into words. Unless you are a poet, of course.”

“But I don’t have anything to share,” Claire blushed. She knew that wasn’t true. Those things her grandmother was talking abut, those feelings that were too big and powerful to fit into words, were always brewing right under the surface of her mind, restless and eager to come out. 

“Of course you do,” Grandmother chuckled. “You’re just afraid is all.”

“Afraid?” Claire’s eyes widened with surprise. “Of what?”

“Oh, many things. What people will say, being different, feeling misunderstood, the usual,” Grandmother continued casually, like she was talking about pie. “The worst of all, admitting those things to yourself. Not all of them are pleasant. Some are very scary.”

“But what if nobody cares?” Claire asked.

“There’s another one,” Grandmother nodded. “You care, that’s one person more than nobody. What were your paintings about?”

“Oh, pretty much abstract,” Claire avoided the question.

“I am familiar with the concept of abstraction, that’s not what I asked you,” Grandmother gave her a probing stare.

“The shadow,” Claire’s answer came so softly she was sure Grandmother didn’t hear it.

“What about it?” the latter replied.

“The way it feels to me, I guess. You said it yourself, if I could put these feelings into words I wouldn’t need to find other ways to express them.”

“Try,” Grandmother insisted.

“I don’t know, it’s like something I had my whole life, an entire part of me that I forgot and I’m struggling to remember, but I don’t know whether I’ll like it if I do. It scares me and sustains me at the same time, it runs in my blood. It’s the way it feels, the way I have to chase after it deeper and deeper inside my heart, like following the light of a candle between mirrors.” She paused, embarrassed. “That’s silly. I’m sorry, maman, I feel ridiculous saying this.”

“Your truth is never silly, bebelle,” Grandmother turned very serious. “Your truth is never wrong. It’s who you are, it’s why you are here.”