City of Ash Read Free Page A

form beneath his hands, a reverse Galatea, Pygmalion turning me from flesh into stone. I began to feel a growing excitement. Soon. Soon it would be displayed, and I would be free.
    I knew there was gossip, of course, but I ignored it. Claude and I must spend a great deal of time together, and people noticed. It was part of my plan. I waited for Nathan to notice too, to say something. He did not. And I was so absorbed by my own intentions that I was blind to all else.
    I was naive, and so I misjudged everything.
    The sculpture
Andromeda Chained to the Rocks
was taken to the Art Institute of Chicago. The opening night, Nathan and I arrived fashionably late, and I was nervous with excitement and anticipation.
    The electric lights blared, from somewhere came the sound of a small orchestra, talk, laughter. The first of my set that I came upon was Mrs. Steven Bentham—I smiled at her, and her expression froze; she turned away from me so violently I was startled. I looked at Nathan, whose own expression had gone grim. “Shall we see what you’ve done this time?”
    I had never been cut like this before. Not one after another, cut after cut. My closest friend, Anna Lowe, widened her eyes in horror when she saw me and moved swiftly away. I had not expected this, and I faltered, uncertain. Nathan put his hand over mine, his fingers squeezing cruelly tight as he led me steadily into the main gallery. There was a crowd gathered at the center, a scandalized silence around one sculpture. They looked up as we approached. I felt their disapproval and anger as I took in Claude’s masterpiece. Scaled to life, every sinew and muscle delineated, every curve and curl, in the expression desire and longing. I had not expected it to look so much like me, and yet it was me made divine, manacles about the wrists, staked out in chains, the arch of a back, breasts thrust, hair curling about a nipple, a raised knee, the splash of waves upon the rocks. It was a beautiful thing—but no one could see how beautiful it was.
    Nathan simmered in a way I recognized too well. My father was there, but as I went to him, he made a gesture, and suddenly Nathan was hurrying me out of the gallery. The whispers vibrated in the air. Nathan bundled me into the carriage and stared out the window at the falling snow. I was unsettled. I began to feel sick. This had not turned out as I’d hoped. I’d meant only to alienate Nathan, not my friends. But they had turned from me, and Nathan was still here—why was he still here? Why did he say nothing? I couldn’t bear his silence. I forced myself to say, “Nathan—”
    He slammed his fist against the carriage wall so violently I jumped and shrank back. When we pulled to a stop before my father’s house, my childhood home, I was grateful. My father would understand. He would soothe society and help me with Nathan. This could still end as I’d intended.
    We had just hurried up the snow-slicked walk when there came the sound of my father’s carriage. He and my grandmother got out, and then they were in the foyer beside us, and we gave up our cloaks and scarves and hats in silence. My grandmother’s face was drawn and white—she’d aged ten years in an hour. But it was the disappointment on Papa’s face that startled me. It was unexpected and impossible. I realized suddenly what they believed, what everyone must believe. I’d thought only of thescandal of posing, not of what an unclothed sculpture said about me and Claude. They thought there’d been an affair.
    “Oh no,” I began. “You don’t understand—”
    My father pointed to the parlor. “Wait in there, Geneva, while your husband and I discuss what is to be done.” The forbidding cast of his face made me swallow my objection; with the habit of obedience and adoration, I went into the darkened parlor while the three of them went down the hall to Papa’s study.
    When they finally sent for me, what felt like hours later, I was stiff with dread. The study