City of Ash Read Free

own age of twenty-eight. Though snow fell in great drifts outside my door, his dark blond hair was gold streaked, as if he’d been in the sun, and he was, frankly, beautiful. There wasn’t a woman there who didn’t notice him. His smile took me aback—of all the men I’d met, I’d only been so affected by a personality one other time, when I’d first seen Nathan.
    Marat reminded me of everything I’d once had, everything I’d lost. He made me realize what a prisoner I’d become, how unhappy I was. Nathan ignored me—even worse, he was contemptuous of everything I believed in. Marat had that combination ofintellect and poetry and passion that had once been my husband, and he was taken with me. I had missed that kind of admiration. I began to feel alive again. He made me see that there were other men, men who accepted me as I was, who
wanted
me as I was.
    Jean-Claude Marat was in truth everything that Nathan had pretended to be. When my father asked me whom he should commission to sculpt a bust of himself for the newly built Harriet Stratford Wing of Mercy Hospital—my father’s endowment in my late mother’s name—I didn’t hesitate to give him Claude’s name.
    I went to every sitting. I sat quietly and watched as Claude sketched and chatted amiably with Papa. Soon I was bending over his shoulder as he sculpted Papa’s head in clay, his fingers working so quickly I could barely grasp the movements, forming a nose where before there had been only a lump; a bold, quick thumb drag, and suddenly there was an eyebrow. When the sittings were done, Papa would have luncheon served, and often he would be too busy to stay, and so Claude and I lingered over duck or lobster salad and wine and talked.
    I was starved for the passion Nathan had kindled and withheld. When Claude said to me one day, half drunk, at my salon, “I would like to sculpt you, my sweet Ginny,” I saw the opportunity I hadn’t realized I’d been waiting for.
    A scandal. The one thing Nathan would never tolerate.
    I knew it would work. I wanted to end my marriage. Divorce was not a choice; it was nearly impossible to attain, and Nathan would surely fight it. My father would be devastated, my grandmother horrified. Most important, I had no cause to offer any judge. Unhappiness was not an acceptable reason. Women in many marriages were unhappy; should the world set them all free?
    Marriage had taken from me what control I had over my own life. My only choice now was to try to control Nathan, and Marat presented me with the one thing I knew my husband could never ignore. To pose for a statue meant for a very public display—the exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago—would be so scandalous Nathan would never forgive it. He would leave me. I would be free. My father would understand in time, as would the rest of society. I had done worse things, after all, and been forgiven.Someday I would tell my father the truth. He might even admire my cunning, particularly when I told him how cruel Nathan could be.
    So I agreed to pose. I met Claude each afternoon in his rooms, sitting for hours while he sketched me. It was to be Andromeda on the rocks awaiting the sea serpent, just at the moment when she saw Perseus for the first time, and I knew it would be brilliant. I must pose from life for it, of course, but Claude and I were friends and nothing more, though I did not miss the way his eyes burned when he looked at me. I even encouraged it, stretching and preening upon the fur rug he’d spread on the floor for me to lie upon. I liked the attention; it felt forever since I’d had it. He called me
ma muse américaine
, and I liked that name. I liked it very much.
    The room was scented with absinthe and the metallic earthy tang of clay and the perfume of our bodies in sun and close quarters. He moved from sketching to clay, his fingers covered in slurry, white where it dried at his knuckles, smeared upon his cheek. Clay gave way to marble. I began to take