Page 18 of Chateau Reverie

Sitting before the portrait is Madame Kramarov. She is staring up at the painting, tears running down her cheeks, even as she smiles. Genevieve has never seen anyone cry in such a calm manner before, as though the tears were utterly inconsequential, as natural as breathing or blinking. The sight feels sacred somehow.

Genevieve steps forward, and Kramarov glances at her. ‘Mademoiselle de Vienne.’

‘Forgive me. I did not mean to interrupt.’

‘Nonsense,’ Kramarov says—although she does not turn her chair around but looks back to the painting. ‘I apologise, mademoiselle. I did not expect anyone else to see me in such a state.’

‘Are you well?’ Genevieve asks, then feels a fool for the question.

‘I am better than I have been in many years, my dear. I know him, you see. The man in the painting.’

Genevieve glances curiously between the portrait and the woman before her. Kramarov shifts in her chair; the golden pendant at her neck catches the light, dazzling Genevieve.

Kramarov notices Genevieve’s gaze, and she smiles, wrapping her fingers around the pendant. ‘It is chaim,’ she says. ‘It means life. Growth. Something real and living. A blessing, in this place.’

‘It is beautiful.’

Kramarov makes a sound of agreement. Then, inevitably, her eyes gravitate back to the painting. She sighs. ‘Have you ever been in love, mademoiselle?’

She cannot lie. Not about this. ‘I have.’

Kramarov nods in approval. ‘It is an important thing, to love while you are young. I did so myself, in Kharkiv—that is the city I was born in.’

‘Is that where you met him?’ Genevieve asks gently, gesturing to the painting.

‘It was. I was happier before we met—that is the irony of it. My family were wealthy. I had three brothers and was the only daughter; my parents indulged me more than they should have. But then Petro came.’ Madame Kramarov smiles at the portrait. ‘Dear Petro Ivanov. He worked for the pigeon post and he would write to me. Poems so lovely, you could taste the words in your mouth as you spoke them, like the sweetest of wines. We met secretly each night, when my father was at evening prayers. I loved him. I have never loved another as I loved him.’

‘You could not marry him?’

Kramarov gives her a pitying look. ‘He was a Gentile, zeeskeit.’

‘Oh. Of course. Forgive me.’

‘When I was eighteen my family moved to Odessa. There was nothing I could do; I left him behind. I was a coward, and I could not bear to say farewell. I did not tell him we were leaving. To him, I disappeared with the wind. I have regretted that ever since. Now that I am older, a widow, I am determined to find him. I have looked everywhere, in Kharkiv, in Odessa, Paris, Vienna. . . But I do not know where he is. That is why I have come here.’

‘Oh,’ Genevieve breathes. ‘Your wish is to see him again?’

Kramarov looks down at her hands in her lap. Each of her fingers bears a different ring, glinting gold and silver. She folds them over each other slowly, so that Genevieve can see the blue threads of her veins pulling and pushing with the movement. There are liver spots on her hands, and a soft sag of skin at her wrists. Genevieve observes her face and notes her beauty, the startling greenness of her eyes and the pale grey of her lashes, dove feathers fluttering with each blink.

‘I have spent my life living in my past,’ Madame Kramarov says. ‘Perhaps I ought to forget him. Perhaps, perhaps. But I cannot. And this painting—it frightens me. I have already found my figurine, in this, the very first room I entered. It was lying below his portrait, as if taunting me, as if forcing me to see him once more. How could these people know his face? How could they show it to me?’

‘I do not know,’ Genevieve says. ‘There are things about this place that seem impossible.’

‘That are impossible,’ Kramarov corrects. ‘I fear this Château is a dream. I fear it is a nightmare.’

A dream. Outside the window, something flutters, and they both glance towards it: a butterfly passing by—it is too distant to see clearly, but there is something in the fractal glimmer of its wings that seems inorganic, its symmetry too perfect, its movements stuttered as if driven by clockwork.

Genevieve thinks of her wish on the invitation, the new life it would offer her. She thinks of the hedge maze and the glass oranges in the courtyard and Leander Sterne laughing with her in the rose garden, the golden halo of his hair, the shadow cast by his jaw, the strength of his arm beneath her hand.

‘I want it to be real,’ Genevieve says.

‘I do not,’ Kramarov replies, voice tainted with pity. ‘No longer, at least. All I want now is to wake up.’

Seven

Leander is trying to find Genevieve. It feels ridiculous, after so purposefully turning her away—but that’s why the Château has given him her figurine, isn’t it? To force them to interact once more. Lady Reverie has set the scene, and she will not permit Leander to ruin it. She knows that, despite his desperation, he won’t allow Genevieve to take the penalty.

He needs her secret—that is what he tells himself. If she loses this game, she will be gone before he has a chance to steal it.