Mind Of Steel And Clay Page 7

  -“In the end I was the one to give in,” she said suddenly, in an earnest voice.

  I held back my joy but gave her a smile in return. She was glowing, she had put on her best dress and had done her hair, tying it in a bun at the top of her head. A few unruly hairs fell on either side of her face, endowing her with an innocent, youthful appearance.

  -“You look wonderful, Camille,” I said, making amends and calling her by her first name, just as she had shouted for me at the window. It was my way of showing her that everything was all right.

  -“Oh stop it. I’m old enough to be your grandmother...”

  I took a seat on the edge of her bed, whilst she took hers on a chair, just in the right spot to catch the few rays of light that entered the room from the small window. It was like staring at a beautiful Spanish painting by a Flamenco artist from the Romantic period.

  -“Next time, just don’t make such scene, you can ask for me through one of the guards,” I said, making light of the commotion she had just created and that my colleagues had all been witness to.

  -“I needed to see you. I was going mad,” she said, giggling at the same time, “Edouard, this place is even more terrible when you’re far from me. I promise I’ll never, ever question your motives again.”

  After hearing those words spoken with such feeling, a sort of ripple ran through me, a sensation only comparable to being in your mother’s arms as a child. The warmth of Camille’s words flowed right through into to my soul, leaving nothing but pure affection.

  -“Montdevergues would be a worse place for me too if you weren’t my patient. I even did something as outrageous as removing Richard from his post so that I could see to you personally. And I can assure you that this was something quite unprecedented.”

  Camille frowned, waving her hand, pretending to be displeased, showing she was on my side.

  -“That young man does mean well, but he hasn’t a clue. He was fixated on me taking this thing and that, in filling out questionnaires, and well, you know...”

  -“Everyone has their own way,” I said, in slight defence of my colleague. I knew perfectly well that he was excellent at his job.

  -“But I need you. You might irritate me sometimes, but I do feel as though you understand me, and, like Cyril Mathieu, you would never treat me like a lunatic.”

  -“But the thing is, you aren’t,” I said, biting my tongue just a second to late, remembering distinctly the former Medical Director’s words.

  -“Thank you, Edouard,” said Camille, tilting her head to one side as though trying to escape from my gaze to feel safe in some unknown place of her imagination.

  A powerful curiosity suddenly took hold of me. Apart from her father, who was it who had first discovered Camille’s impressive creative abilities?

  -“Camille, can I ask you something?” I said politely.

  -“Of course you can.”

  -“Who discovered your talent? Do you remember?”

  Camille softened her features, leaving no trace of any wrinkles on her usually drawn, weathered face. Her dark-blue eyes lit up with the glimmer of a long-lost memory that her mind had only just retrieved.

  -“How could I ever forget him! Alfred Boucher...”

  She pronounced the name in a slow, deliberate way, making each syllable appear to last forever. Even only two steps from her, I could see her pupils were dilated, almost merging into their iris frame.

  -“Who was this man?” I asked, excited and also a little envious of this unknown figure who had discovered the artist in her before anyone else. I would become overwhelmed by a ridiculous yet uncontrollable jealousy every time an influential person emerged from Camille’s past.

  -“He was only 13 or 14 years’ older than me, but I saw him as a sort of grandfather, as I suppose he was twice my age. He was a peaceful person, and I was sure he would go far in the world of art. In his own way, I do think he was in love with me,” said Camille, blushing. “He was the one who saw my first figures, when I was still only a little girl, and he was the one who tried to persuade my father into allowing me to study at an academy.”

  -“And did he succeed?”

  -“Yes, of course! He was actually my teacher for a while. When I arrived in Paris I took classes at the Académie Colarossi, one of the only places that accepted women in those days. Every day was a challenge, but every day was an extraordinary gift,” Camille exclaimed, rather sadly.

  -“Please, go on. Everything you’re telling me is so interesting. I love listening to you,” I said, trying not to put her off.

  Camille raised a hand to her forehead and began to rub her temples. She seemed exhausted and confused, and I was afraid that our pleasant chat was about to draw to a close.

  -“Sorry, Edouard...”

  -“No, please, there’s nothing to be sorry about. You’re tired. Would you like me to bring you some water?” I asked, hoping it had just been a passing dizzy spell.

  -“No, I’m fine honestly. Please, don’t go, I’m fine. It’s just that...” she mumbled, her voice trailing off. Camille was translucent as the small window bathed her in light. The image of that woman, who still conserved something of her natural beauty, astonished me, as a misty, hazy aura hung about her that morning, endowing her with an almost supernatural appearance.

  -“I’d like to take your photograph,” I suggested, trying to cheer her up.

  -“What did you say?” she asked, quickly recovering from her brief giddy spell.

  -“You heard me, you’re so splendid today, it would be a shame to let it go to waste and to not take your photograph,” I said, certain that she would not refuse my outlandish offer.

  Camille blushed again. She could barely look at me, and when she did, it was only fleetingly, almost unnoticeably. She ran her hand over her dress, as though trying to smooth out the creases.

  -“Alright. But just one and just for you to keep. I don’t want it being passed about.”

  -“Agreed. You were saying that Boucher was your teacher at the Académie Colarossi...” I said, picking up from where we had left off in the interesting conversation.

  -“Yes, yes... Then I rented out a small studio with three other girls, all foreign, magnificent sculptors... What were they called? My God, I’ve forgotten their names,” she said, frustrated.

  -“Don’t worry. The same thing happens to me all the time,” I said, trying to minimise her confusion.

  -“No, wait. My best friend was Jessie Lipscomb, an English girl. I met her family and I travelled to their country. I spent some time there... An extraordinary woman and sculptress. She was always joking, inviting me to parties, and teasing me because she said that Mr Boucher fancied me...”

  -“So, it was true...” I said, mischievously.

  -“I don’t know. He wasn’t very outspoken. Losing him was very painful for me, he was a great inspiration.”

  - “Did he pass away?”

  -“No! He was awarded a very important and prestigious prize and he had to leave for Italy, to Florence. Another sculptor was brought in to replace him as the teacher,” said Camille, as her face changed and curled into a grimace, so bitter that it made my blood run cold. The expression on her face was a concoction of hate and internal rage. It could not have been more obvious that it was the man who had replaced Boucher that she despised.

  -“What happened, Camille? Who was this new teacher who brings back such bad memories?” I asked, truly intrigued.

  -“A good friend of Alfred Boucher, someone very well-known: Mr Auguste Rodin,” she answered gruffly, her voice choked with emotion.

  Then, that day our conversation came to an end. The photograph that Camille had eventually let me take is right in front of me. Despite her neat dress and tidy hair, I see a sad, broken, old woman who seems to be waiting only for death to free her soul forever.

  Chapter 15

  Camille’s rage

  Montdevergues, 24th of December 1943

  Christmas has arrived at the asylum, b
ut there is absolutely nothing to celebrate. The cold and deprivation will make these festive days an utterly dreadful experience, instead of the restorative consolation that brings the child to life inside each and every one of us. For tomorrow we have arranged a special but very simple menu, and will try to put on some performances that the patients have been rehearsing, for lack of anything else to do rather than out of real interest. I am surprised by the enthusiasm shown by some of the doctors and nurses under these awful circumstances. I envy their strong, determined nature that somehow manages to breathe momentary joy into the patients. I, on the other hand, cannot seem to impart even the slightest bit of enthusiasm to the outside world. But nor do I pose as a hurdle to those who are thriving and who try themselves and assist others to forget the dire circumstances we have had to endure.

  Every Christmas Camille would experience destructive fits of rage and depression which would last for a week. She would not leave her room, not even if forced, screaming and shouting at everything at Montdevergues that crossed her path. I was fully aware that this violence was born and caused by the extreme hurt she felt, an atrocious injustice that propelled her to rebel until she could no more.

  As the years went by, Camille seemed to be adjusting to her cruel confinement. She tolerated the days spent at the asylum in an almost passive way, as though she had already given in to her demise, quite sure that until the end of her days, she would never see another sky than the one that hung over the department of Vaucluse. But on one of her last Christmases, I was woken in the early hours of the morning. One of the nurses came to my room, both concerned and a little embarrassed.

  -“Mr. Faret, please forgive me for waking you at this hour. It’s Miss Claudel. She’s out of control, shouting, howling almost like an animal, and she’s making the other patients very anxious. We’ve tried to calm her but she only wants to speak with you.”

  By then everyone at Montdevergues was quite used to the strange relationship going on between Camille and I, and in the end they had accepted it as something completely normal. I followed the nurse to the female wing, where almost 700 patients were confined together. It was a while since Camille had voluntarily left her comfortable first class quarters for the gruesome conditions of the third. I found her dressed in a nightgown, her hair in a dishevelled mess, having thrown herself onto the floor by her bed, squealing like a pig who was about to have its head chopped off.

  -“Camille!” I said firmly and with authority. Everyone around me jumped at my sudden dictatorial tone of voice, which they were so unaccustomed to, and a deathly silence fell over the room. I was truly angry and I was not going to put up with this scene any longer.

  -“Everyone’s forgotten me, Edouard. Everyone...” she moaned, lying in a heap as she slowly rolled around on the floor, absolutely defeated. I could see her legs from under her nightgown, and very prudishly, but instinctively, I turned away.

  -“Come on Camille, come with me,” I said moving towards her, to console her as though she was a little helpless child who had just lost their family.

  I signalled to the nurses and guards to leave me alone with Camille, to restore the peace in the wing, before I led Camille, almost dragging her all the way to my office. I felt the weight of her body and a faint acidic smell impregnating my nose, all the way to my amygdale. It all felt incredibly unpleasant and uncomfortable, but there was no other solution than for me to be the one to take control of the situation. When we reached my office, I propped Camille on a chair and I stayed by her side, taking her hand to calm her. She had hardly said a word over the course of our walk upstairs, only whimpering softly occasionally, as though not aware of what was going on around her and immersed in a dream.

  -“I’m so sorry Edouard. You’re so good to me. You’re all I have. You’re all I have left after so many years...”

  -“What happened, Camille?” I asked, gently squeezing her hand.

  -“No one comes to see me. Not even my brother Paul, my cousins, my old friends... Today I realised that everything I ever did was in vain. I was stripped of everything, Edouard, don’t you see? Even my own life was taken off me!”

  I nodded. In a way I had come round to understanding those nervous breakdowns of hers and even wondered why they did not happen more often. Camille was inconsolable, her body was sprawled over the chair as though her bones and muscles had crumbled and could no longer hold her up.

  -“I’m here, Camille. I’m here...” I said, patting her reassuringly with my hand. I clung tightly on to her; trying to instil the energy she lacked to fully revive her.

  -“I was a great artist, you know that. What’s happened to me is so unfair. A few years into my confinement I wrote a letter to my cousin Charles, telling him, horrified, that one of his former neighbours, the Marquee, had died after 30 years in an asylum. The very same thing that terrified me so before is happening to me right now!”

  -“No, Camille, no, don’t say that,” I whispered, for lack of anything better to say to her, yet also shaken by the peculiar premonition that had suddenly leapt from her, perhaps as proof that even the worst of nightmares can come true.

  -“I know that I haven’t got long left. I’m sick, I’m alone, I’m a prisoner and I’m long forgotten. In a few years’ time there’ll be nothing left of me, of what would have been the greatest sculptor of all time.”

  Camille’s voice grew stronger. She had regained some of the control of her movements and seemed particularly lucid, but was still heavyhearted and extremely down. Her eyes were dry, and instead of tears, her pupils were rather constricted with rage. On the contrary, I was becoming more and more misty-eyed, gripped by my lack of power and a feeling of desperation. My conscience was overwhelmed with an irrefutable and dangerous sympathy, the kind that is so detrimental to doctors.

  -“I’ll try my best to make sure you’re cared for in the best possible way, Camille. You have to go back to your room; I can’t allow you to sleep in the wings anymore. Please, for me,” I begged, more as a favour to my own conscience rather than to ease her suffering.

  -“Ok, fine. But you must promise me one thing in return,” she said, almost threateningly.

  -“Go on,” I said, nervously but rather excitedly anticipating her request.

  -“Promise me that you’ll fight to redeem my memory. Promise me that the name Camille Claudel will not be forgotten, that it will not be remembered as the name of a lunatic who spent almost half her life surrounded by the deranged. Promise me that I’ll be remembered as a great sculptress, who was able to create the most stunning of pieces, who could conceive of beauty where there was nothing but a lump of plaster, clay or marble. Promise me...” she pleaded.

  -“I promise Camille, I promise,” I replied, my voice choked with emotion. And with that, she gave in and fell fast asleep by my side. I had to take her to the little sofa so she could spend the night in my office, dreaming of the notion that even if soon she would no longer be here, a certain Edouard Faret would fight tooth and nail to recover her honour and her memory.

  Chapter 16

  Mr. Rodin

  Montdevergues, 27th of December 1943

  Today is Monday. Lately, Mondays have been quite enjoyable. It is like being reborn, and every week seems like a new chance to start again. It is not long before these illusions vanish, and all the strength that urged me to get up is suffocated by a putrid reality that closes in on you like a cloud of black smoke. But at least for a few hours, perhaps three or four, I could even say I was happy and that my soul harboured hopes for the future. Even from the start, I know it will not last very long, that these fragile, mirages of feelings cannot be grasped, and can only be enjoyed transiently. But at least I can console myself with the thought of a few minutes’ happiness.

  When living in Paris with her mother, brother Paul and sister Louise, hopes like these must have thrived in Camille’s soul as Auguste Rodin taught her in his small studio nearby.

  -“Tell me about Rodin...” I said one day w
hen she seemed to be in quite a good mood.

  -“You want me to tell you about Mr. Rodin?” she asked in the same bold, brazen way she did to everything in those days.

  -“Yes, I would like you to. We’ve hardly mentioned him up until now, and I think he was quite an important person in your life,” I said insistently.

  We were taking a walk outside the Mondevergues walls, along the winding footpath that led all the way to Montfavet. It was something out of the ordinary, but this time she had gladly accepted my invitation. I would often try to persuade her to join me on a walk, but she hardly ever agreed to. Camille walked along holding my arm, because her limp and the fact she rarely went on long walks made her tire very quickly. It was a beautiful afternoon, with a light breeze that brought with it the smell of the fertile Avignon fields. Only in the distance could you see some menacing clouds that seemed to be there just to decorate the falling dusk.

  -“The first time I saw him I thought he was hideous. Ugly, large, almost animal-like, with a big head and a long, thick beard. He was a bit short-sighted and squinted all the time,” she said, quite naturally, which encouraged me as I hoped perhaps this delicate conversation would not end in a nervous breakdown or a fit of rage.

  -“He sounds almost comical,” I remarked, smiling.

  -“He was. As I told you, there were four of us girls at the studio, and Mr. Rodin came to substitute our former teacher, Mr Boucher, who'd left for Florence. I was the most serious one, but the others were always joking about how shy Mr. Rodin was, and how funny he looked. I hated him to begin with...”

  I stopped. The shadows of the trees that lined the path to Monfavet were growing longer, stretching out over the sown fields of grain. I wanted to give Camille time to delve deeper into her memories, but without a commotion, in a peaceful, relaxed way.

  -“So soon? As soon as you met him?”

  -“Yes, and I had good reason to,” Camille replied, convincing me to keep walking. “Mr. Boucher had shown some of my work to Paul Dubois, a very well-known sculptor, and having seen them, he said that I must have taken lessons from Rodin, when I didn’t even know him!” exclaimed Camille, indignantly.