Page 43 of The Art of Vanishing

Jean

In a split second, everything changed. Moments after Jamie’s entrance, Mark followed, right on her heels but too late to see where Claire had been. I expected Jamie to react, to scream or ring some kind of alarm, walking Claire away from the paintings as quickly as she could. But she said nothing.

“Ah, Claire,” Mark said. “If you don’t mind, I have a few more questions for you, a few things I’m trying to figure out from the video footage of last night’s events.

Please, feel free to have a seat.” Mark gestured to the bench in the center of the room and Claire sat as instructed.

She swallowed hard, nervously running her hand along the waistband of her jumpsuit.

“So,” Mark continued, “you said last night that you hid when you heard voices you didn’t recognize in the museum. How long were you hiding before the thieves set off the alarm?”

“I don’t know,” Claire said, “a few minutes? At least. It could have been longer.”

“Right, right,” Mark said as he paced in front of her.

“But you see, I can’t find you anywhere on the security footage for a while before the two suspects made it up here.

Like, many, many minutes. You’re not on any of the footage in this room or any of the other rooms in this wing for nearly an hour.

And if you’d hidden behind the journal stand, as you said you had, shouldn’t it be you and not the thieves who set off the alarm?

It’s very odd; it’s like you’d vanished into thin air. ”

I could see on Claire’s face that she was wary anything she might say right now could incriminate her, so she said nothing.

“And,” Mark went on, “something weird happened with the cameras when you reappeared. Everything got a bit fuzzy for a moment and all of a sudden, you were there, right behind the journal stand. Of course, we can tell you weren’t one of the two thieves as we have footage of them both running through the museum at the same time, heading for the exit.

But it’s very peculiar. I’ve never seen anything like it. Do you have any explanation for it?”

“Maybe there’s something wrong with the footage,” Claire posited.

“Maybe it’s damaged.” There was nothing more to say, we could both see it in Jamie’s face.

She had figured out exactly where Claire had been, and Jamie knew Claire couldn’t and wouldn’t explain any further.

Mark might chalk it all up to a suspicious blip in the footage, but Jamie would always know better.

“Maybe it is,” Jamie said. “But, and I’m sorry to say it, Claire, we’re going to need to ask you to clean out your locker.”

“Am I under arrest?” Claire asked.

“No,” Jamie and Mark answered in unison.

“No,” Mark clarified.

“Unfortunately, you are a person of interest at this time, having been so close to the crime yourself,” Jamie said.

“While no official judgment is being issued right now, we cannot have you here, unattended, for security reasons.” Jamie and Claire shared a look, one that conveyed that based on what Jamie had seen tonight, Claire would not be asked back to the museum.

She clearly had her reasons for not wanting to say anything in front of Mark, but this decision would not be reversed.

I’m sure, when it all came down to it, the museum couldn’t employ staff who felt such ownership of the art, which seemed somewhat wrong to me.

Isn’t that exactly the point, I thought, of art in the first place?

An artist puts what they choose on a canvas or a piece of paper or a wall or whatever they’re working with, and at some point, they finish and they let go and they give it up to the viewer.

They’ve done their work to make what speaks to them, but all sense of interpretation and meaning is out of their hands.

That belongs to someone else, to each person who comes in contact with the art and invests in it a piece of themselves.

They get to own what the artwork means to them, and therefore, a part of what it means as a whole.

Take me, for instance. Sure, I’m myself, with my thoughts and my desires, but I have a negligible amount of agency compared to the hundreds of people a day who come and view me.

I am what they think of me. And even more so, I have been changed, formed, and codified, for now at least, by what Claire has perceived of me for the past months.

Soon, I’ll fade into something new, brought on by a new wave of thought or some yet-to-be-elucidated piece of “research” about my family.

As permanent as I am, forever etched onto this canvas, the meaning of my existence constantly feels transient.

“You’ll need to stick around town, of course,” Mark added. “I’ll be in touch. Don’t go anywhere else just yet, okay?”

Claire’s smile was tinged with sadness. “Where would I go? My life is right here, in this city.”

Then Jamie shocked us both by looking right into my eyes, as if she was seeing the entire situation for what it really was.

She looked down at her phone, which had not rung, and turned to Mark.

“It seems that Tony is trying to reach us, that he is feeling well enough to talk to us about last night. Claire, Mark and I need to step into my office for a moment. I trust we can meet you in the locker room to turn in your uniform, once you’ve had time to change? ”

Jamie knew, she knew everything, and she was giving us a chance to say goodbye. It was a risk on Jamie’s part—what if Claire tried to stay here forever? But, of course, Jamie knew Claire was a mother and would likely not choose that course.

“Of course,” Claire confirmed, and Jamie steered a somewhat confused Mark from the room. Claire took one last look around before reaching up to grab my hand for the final time. My fingers reached for hers, and I helped her in as I always did.

“I think this is it,” I said, holding her close to me. We didn’t have enough time now for anything but the truth.

“For the first time,” Claire said as she pressed her face against my chest, “I’m wondering if I should just stay. Say screw it and make this my life, here with you.”

I pulled away from her just enough to look at her face.

“You know you can’t do that,” I said. “As much as it breaks my heart to say it, you have to go. You have people out there who need you.” I was parroting the words she’d told me so many months earlier, finally understanding the true scope of them.

Claire wasn’t mine to keep; she never had been.

“I really loved you,” Claire said. “This was never just about the fairy tale for me. I see you, the person you actually are, despite all the things that should keep us apart. I know we keep calling it magic, but this was real. This part was always real to me, Jean.”

“I know,” I told her. “I loved you too. I will think about you forever.” We shared a deep, sad kiss, one I knew would live in my memory for decades, maybe centuries.

“Will you come back and visit?” I asked. “As a museum guest? When time has passed and all of this is behind us, when they’ve caught the thieves and the journal is back where it’s meant to be? Will you come and see me?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “It sounds too hard right now, to see you but know I can’t be with you. But I’ll try. If time can heal…I’ll try.” And I knew that was all I could ask for. I kissed her again, one last time.

“Goodbye, Jean,” she said. “Thank you for showing me how wonderful life is here.”

“Goodbye, Claire.” I held her hand as she lowered herself down and, with one last look at me, climbed back into her world.