Page 7 of The Art of Vanishing

Jean

Claire had greatly improved her mastery of the mop, no longer having to double back to cover spots she’d missed.

If Linda could’ve seen her, I knew she’d be proud.

But Linda never came by. I didn’t mind. It meant I had Claire all to myself.

Well, myself and anyone else who stuck around in the paintings of our gallery at night, but they tended to pay Claire no mind.

At the end of each night, Claire came right up next to me, dusting the frame that ran just under my toes.

Having her this close made me feel like something magnetic was running its way along my skin, charging up something that had me ready to shoot off through the ceiling.

Even as I maintained my relaxed posture, every muscle in my body clenched.

My forearms were on fire. She had this look on her face, as if she might be wondering what it would be like to be held by me.

Or, at least, I was hoping that’s what the look meant.

Nothing about Claire implied an education in art; she lacked the pretension of the curators, assistants, and guides who marched through these hallways like they ran the place, which they did to a certain extent.

I could always tell when someone had studied art or art history.

They projected a confidence that said “even if I don’t understand something yet, I will before anyone notices.

” Claire had no preconceived notions about anything that hung before her.

She was looking at us sheerly for what we were.

It was reminiscent of the way the collector saw us as well, for our shape, our colors, and our light.

Unlike in other museums that I was familiar with, we were never moved around at a curator’s whim.

We were on the walls in specific places, based on four principles drawn up by the man who had put us here: light, color, line, and space.

And as none of those things were ever changing about us, we never went anywhere.

After he died, people tried to challenge that.

A claim has been made for everything: for rearranging us, for sending us out on tour, for moving us miles away to a brand-new building identical in its layout to the original space—that one actually happened.

You name a change; someone has thought of it.

But for the most part, we stay where we are and I like it that way.

At least we roam somewhat freely at night.

Marguerite would not have been satisfied if we were housebound.

We were so different, she and I. Born to a different mother, she was brazen and bossy where I was quiet and contemplative.

Five years my senior, she acted as if she was another maternal figure to me.

A very intense one at that; she was opinionated and critical of every decision I made, whether she spoke her thoughts aloud or just allowed them to register in the way she looked at me.

If I was completely honest, I was incredibly intimidated by her.

If we’d been hung in a different museum, one with a more flexible collection, we might have been sent out on tour.

Marguerite would have relished the constant change, shifting from gallery to gallery or museum to museum.

She would have thrived in rooms we didn’t recognize, displayed for patrons speaking languages we didn’t understand.

I’m sure she found our reality dull, but she didn’t let that hold her back.

She’d carved out the life she wanted here.

She’d been the first of us to learn English, desperate to understand every passing conversation between patrons and to befriend as many of the other painting subjects as she could.

Pierre was quick on her tail; my language skills took somewhat longer to develop but I became fluent eventually.

I wasn’t sure my mother had ever learned; she certainly never spoke anything but French to me.

I admired that piece of Marguerite, her ability to make life a thing she wanted to live. I was paralyzed, waiting for my purpose to come and find me. She sought hers without needing anyone’s permission.

As the leaves through the windows changed from their vibrant green to the reds, yellows, and oranges of autumn, so too changed my level of satisfaction with our situation, mine and Claire’s. I could happily listen to Claire talk all night long, but I yearned to be able to show her I was listening.

I became increasingly interested in demonstrating to Claire what I had come to feel for her, or at least in being able to communicate with her in some way. Out of sheer desperation, I turned to Marguerite for advice.

The galleries had just emptied out for the day. Marguerite stood up almost immediately, her back cracking twice as she relieved it of the stress of perching on a wooden piano bench for an entire shift. She checked in with Pierre, who smiled as he zipped out of the room. She made to follow him.

“Marguerite—” My voice cracked with anticipation. She turned wordlessly in my direction. “I was hoping I could— err —that I could ask for your consultation.”

“On what, younger brother?” Her tone sparkled with authority; this was Marguerite’s favorite version of herself.

“As you’ve probably seen and heard, Claire has become somewhat attached to me.” Marguerite impressed upon me with her gaze how obvious this statement was. “As I have to her.”

“There’s no denying you two both are holding on to some confusing infatuation. Everyone has been talking about it.”

Until this moment, it hadn’t really crossed my mind that my contemporaries in other canvases would care what I’d been up to but, of course, everyone in our gallery had been able to hear her clear as day.

Naturally they must have gossiped about it.

To their credit, there’d been little to talk about in the past few years, and now they had star-crossed lovers in their very own home.

Or maybe it was just me, lover, singular.

“Right, well, right you all are, I guess. Anyway, I think I need to show her that I am listening, that I can hear what she says.”

“Jean,” she said, a sharpness creeping into her tone. “Are you sure you want to go down that path?”

“I know, I know this could go all wrong. You think I’m insane for asking and I think I’m insane too, but I believe I’ll go truly out of my mind if I don’t at least try.”

“And what do you need from me?” Marguerite said as she exhaled a delicate cloud of smoke, its airy quality the opposite of her stone-cold demeanor.

“I don’t know.” I was growing wary of her stony expression. “I thought maybe you might have heard of something like this before?”

“I don’t know what magical information you expect me to know, Jean, or why I’d be the one to know it.”

“Of course not. I’m sure you wouldn’t have waited this long to tell me if you knew.” I caught a glint of something cross Marguerite’s face, something that told me if she had heard, I wouldn’t have been the first one she told. I waited, hoping that twinge of guilt might work to my advantage.

“I know you know that you won’t be able to get out there,” she said.

Her tone felt like an eye roll. By “there,” she meant into the museum, out of our frame, into their world.

I did know that; it was the first anecdote I can remember hearing once we’d entered into this painted state, of poor souls who had grown bored of the world on the walls or were desperate to reach someone from their past life.

They’d tried to escape, but it was impossible.

“I am aware of that,” I replied bitterly. “I was thinking more of some way to communicate with her, to pass her a message.”

“They talk about her in the other rooms too. Not all of them, but the other galleries she cleans can tell there is something different about her.”

“What do they say?”

“They think she can see us.”

“See us how?” I knew Marguerite did not simply mean that Claire could see us hanging in front of her, as paintings in gilded frames.

Of course she could see us like that. She meant something with more nuance, something I thought I understood as well, but I needed to hear Marguerite say it.

Because there was a small part of me that hoped, but hardly dared to admit it, that Claire saw us for all that we were and that’s why she was looking extra-long at me.

“Andromeda has been testing her. She noticed Claire standing directly in front of her the other night, mimicking her posture. Andromeda started moving ever so slowly into a slightly different pose. A few moments later, Claire followed suit.”

I exhaled, my breath coming out as a shudder.

“But, Jean.” She eyed me warily. “I don’t tell you this lightly. I’ll never keep a secret from you. But I’m afraid you’ll take this too far.”

“Marguerite, I’m a grown man. I don’t need you to be my mother.”

“I’m just saying I’ve seen you hurt before. I wish you’d never have to feel that again.”

Silence hung heavy in the air, like a cloud of fog neither of us would wave away.

“Are we in any danger? If I try—” I hesitated, not knowing what I was even about to attempt. “If I try something, could I put us or our world at risk?”

“I don’t know. But if I were you…” I held my breath as I waited for what she had to say.

“I wouldn’t risk it. I can’t say if there might be some hidden consequence lurking for us.

But I am anxious it might put her in danger.

You of all people should know that.” She offered me a cigarette and we finished them, together, smoking in silence.

She knew what I’d gone through before. She didn’t need to say it out loud.

The last thing I wanted was to endanger Claire. Something about her was special; I could just tell. But I had to know for sure. I set about to make a plan to get Claire’s attention, even though it was obvious I did not have Marguerite’s approval, and probably never would. I was on my own in this.