The heat in August made the city shimmer—an Impressionist painting on the verge of melting. Elsa sat in a linen shift, her arms streaked faintly with plaster dust, her fingers still tingling from the morning’s work. Across the salon of their borrowed apartment on the rue de Bellechasse, Claude leaned barefoot at the open window, shirt unbuttoned, reading aloud from the newspaper.

“Apparently,” he said, in a voice that could ruffle silk, “the bishop of Meaux has condemned modern sculpture as ‘a menace to the soul.’ Shall we repent before lunch?”

Elsa laughed. “Not before I finish that torso in the corner.” She gestured with her coffee cup, noting the curved plaster limbs she’d been perfecting for three weeks. “Unless, of course, you model for me. Again.”

Claude raised one eyebrow. “Always, mon amour. Though it may raise more than a bishop’s concern.”

Their flirtation, easy and habitual now, hung between them like smoke. She was nearly forty, he not yet thirty. Yet in his presence, Elsa felt more alive than she could remember—more than her wedding day in Pasadena’s All Saints Chapel fifteen years ago, more than those tentative, trembling days on Kauai, more than the long, patient evenings raising her son in the shadows of a man she respected but for whom she felt no passion.

She loved Rufi, of course. Fiercely. His letters were tucked under her pillow, his school photo on the mantel. But in this city, with its scandalous salons and rumbling cafés, with Gertrude’s and Alice’s dinners and the taste of absinthe on her lover’s lips, she had found something more than maternal or wifely duty. She had found a Life.

Someone knocked sharply at the door. Claude rose first, glancing at Elsa before pulling it open.

At the threshold stood Eva Behr. Wrapped in her traveling coat despite the heat, leaning on her walnut cane, her hands gnarled with arthritis but her posture upright, her hair pinned in a meticulous silver coil. Behind her stood a bellhop with a trunk.

“Mother,” Elsa whispered.

“You’re thinner,” Eva replied, not unkindly. Her eyes swept the room. “You smell of clay.”

“I’ve been sculpting.”

“And Paris, I see, has been sculpting you.”

Claude, caught off-guard by the force of maternal coolness, stepped back, suddenly aware of his bare chest.

Eva turned to him. “Monsieur Blanchard, I presume?”

“Claude,” he said, awkwardly offering his hand.

She did not take it.

Instead, she shuffled into the apartment, eyes hawkish, noting the open wine bottle, the tangle of bedsheets in the corner, the sculpture of a woman’s thigh mid-stride.

Eva sighed. “Elsa. You’ve had your adventure. But you have a child. A husband. And people in Pasadena are no longer whispering—they’re writing letters.”

Elsa’s mouth tightened. “Rufus knows where I am. And I write to Rufi every week. You know that.”

“He’s fourteen. He needs his mother.”

“I was a ghost of a mother in California. I had no soul there. Only obligations.”

“You made vows.”

“I made a mistake.” Elsa’s voice cracked then. “And now I’m alive.”

Eva paused, her voice softening. “Alive ... in sin?”

“Alive in art. In love. In Paris!”

Claude watched her, surprised by the ferocity braided into her words.

“I can’t go back, Mother,” Elsa said softly. “Not yet. Maybe not ever.”

In the silence, the distant thrum of a passing automobile.

Eva had traveled from California by train to visit friends in New York, then sailed to France on a steamship. An exhausting journey. With visible pain, she settled into a nearby chair. “Then at least show me your studio. If I must endure your rebellion, I will not be blind to it.”

Elsa moved to her side and pressed her cool sculptor’s hands against her mother’s. “You came all this way.”

“To bring you home.”

Elsa knelt beside her. “But this is my home now.”

Claude quietly retreated to fetch a paper fan from the other room, buttoning his shirt as he went, his heart fluttering.

Outside, Paris glittered and sizzled, and somewhere nearby, bells rang. But inside, two women—one driven by duty, the other by desire—sat in fragile truce amid a tangle of art, memory, and love.

**

A few weeks later, Elsa and Claude sat together on the rocks of Wimereux Beach. The sea sparkled, but the mood was tense. “I can’t do this anymore,” he said. “I love you, but I can’t keep sneaking around.”

“I know,” she replied, her heart torn with each word. “I feel the same, but I can’t just leave Rufi. And Mummy needs me. I can’t abandon her either.”

“Then what are we doing? Shall we continue this way forever? It’s not fair to either of us.” Claude’s voice rose in frustration.

“I know, I know,” Elsa said, “but I can’t walk away, they depend on me.” Her voice wavered. “Rufi feels abandoned, and he’s right—I’ve been a selfish and horrible mother. ... And my mother ... her arthritis ... she’s so ashamed of me. I should go back to them, Clau Clau. I’m so sorry.”

Silence stretched between them, as waves lapped against the rocks.

Claude finally spoke, his tone resigned. “I understand, Elsa. I do. But I can’t keep living in limbo. It’s too painful.... Take your time ... figure things out. I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. So if you plan to come back to me, please let’s get married.”

***

On the long voyage home, Eva had fallen ill and was met at the train depot in Pasadena by an ambulance. Elsa traveled back as soon as possible and, with Rufi, helped care for her mother, who died a month later just before Thanksgiving. Her family didn’t relish the scandal that her presence would’ve caused at the funeral, so Elsa returned to France. She spent Christmas with Claude and his parents in their country home outside of Paris, while she mourned.

Sheila Grether-Marion

was born and raised in Pasadena, California, and is the grand-niece of Elsa Behr Blanchard (1888–1979). Sheila, a Chair Emerita of the Pasadena Playhouse Board of Directors, is retired from careers as a professional fund-raiser for non-profits and as a financial advisor at Merrill Lynch. She now has more time to focus on writing her memoirs. The stories about Elsa and Claude in MacQueen’s Quinterly are the first excerpts to be published from her manuscript-in-progress of historical fiction. She is also writing a play about her grand-aunt.

During high school, Sheila was an usher at The Pasadena Playhouse, and later served many years on The Playhouse Board of Directors. A former actor and professional fund-raiser, she assisted in raising millions of dollars for non-profit organizations, and received several awards including The President’s Award for Public Sector Initiatives in 1982, as well as citations from Mayor Tom Bradley, the Board of Los Angeles Library Commissions, and the Los Angeles County Library for her work to raise funds to combat illiteracy.

In 1987, Sheila began her second career, as a broker and financial advisor with Merrill Lynch in Pasadena, and retired three decades later as the senior partner of her investment team. She now lives in Sierra Madre with her husband, Mark.

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⚡ Resurrection by Sheila Grether-Marion, a feature article about her recovery from an injury received during a canoe ride on the Zambezi River; published 2 November 2018 in So Cal Women’s Conference Magazine (Volume 7, Number 1), pages 30-31. Magazine is available at Issuu.com.