Page 68 of Six Days in Bombay

She must have done the same thing with Amit, I thought. I looked away, trying to hide my disappointment.

She patted my hand in sympathy. Then, with ever so slight a change in the pitch of her voice, she said, “I was married to a lovely man when I scouted Mira Novak at theécole. I saw Mira’s enormous talent, what she was capable of, right away. No one had to teach her how to paint well. She’d always had it. She just needed someone to shape it. Jean and I were both charmed by her. She was eighteen then and a little lost. Mad about her Italian tutor Paolo. She’d left Florence because he wouldn’t commit to her.” Josephine’s attention wandered off, and I sensed she was recalling a memory.

She blinked and continued, “We also saw her loneliness, which we mistook for vulnerability. I told you how artists need to be protected. People like me make sure they’re protected from greedy collectors. Mira was fierce, but in the way a young girl dresses in the clothes of an older woman to keep fear at bay. Like a child, she was always testing the limits of what others wouldput up with from her. She slept with anyone and everyone. No one was off-limits. To prove she could.”

Jo looked into the murky waters of the Seine below. “She got involved in marches for equality—like the one you saw yesterday at La Rotonde. She thought that just because she was half Indian it gave her the right to defend every injustice the world has ever known. She was a wild bird looking to land somewhere. Prague was her city of birth, but it wasn’t her home. She studied in Paris and loved it here, but she couldn’t make herself heard amidst the chest-beating men ten years older and twenty kilos heavier than she was. She studied in Florence and spent all her time mooning over Paolo. None of that was good for her painting.”

Josephine reached for her cheroots. She removed one but didn’t light it. “I was the one who recommended she try painting in India. Perhaps because she was still infatuated with Paolo. Perhaps because I knew that the half of her that was Indian hadn’t yet seen the light of day. It needed to grow inside her. And look what happened.” She smiled wide, a mother proud of her chick. “Her art took on new meaning. She wasn’t desperate to prove anything. She was excited toshowsomething. She could fight injustice without having to march for it. She showed women at work, the kind of grinding labor they neither chose nor wanted. That is—was—” she paused, her mouth getting used to the word “—her genius.”

Jo’s account was similar to what Mira had told me from her hospital bed. Why she painted what she did. How she came to discover the essence of herself in India. But one thing differed. Mira had made it seem as if she’d been in control of the relationship with Paolo, and Josephine was saying otherwise. From the time Jo met her to the time Mira arrived at our hospital, ten years had passed. Why would Mira say the baby she lost at Wadia’s was Paolo’s?

“Tell me about Paolo,” I said.

Jo made a face. She lit her cheroot. “He was her tutor.” Sheexhaled a plume of smoke toward the sky. “Mira was fifteen when she met him in Florence. What was he doing getting involved with a student half his age? He was beautiful, I’ll give him that. Mira loved painting him. But he disgusted me. Did you know he was also sleeping with her mother? That really played with Mira’s head. It tortured her.Hetortured her. What kind of monster does that?” She shook her head.

Josephine went on, “It makes me angry to think how much more she could have accomplished without being distracted by him. His interference cost her. In the end, the tryst with him left her so unhappy. You have no idea how often Jean and I went to her lodgings to find her in bed. For days. I would have to coax her into better humor. Bring food to her. She loved those little macrons from Ladurée. I would buy them in every color. She would stuff herself and be happy for a minute. I would settle her in bed and brush her hair until she fell asleep.” Josephine smiled indulgently.

“As I said, for all her remarkable looks, her talent, her forceful nature, she was still a girl. I don’t think her mother or father taught her to be anything but that. When Mira was at her lowest, I wrote to her mother, who was touring the Physic Garden in Chelsea. She told me Mira was just moody. She would get over it. I wrote to her father, who was trekking through the Alps with his Himalayan Club. He never answered. Mira had no one and nowhere to go. She needed a place where she could feel secure. And paint without interruptions. I gave her money to go to India where I knew she’d blossom. Instead, you know what she did?” Josephine pointed at me with her cheroot.

I looked down at my hands.

Josephine turned her eyes on me, the pupils darker than before. “She slept with my husband. Ruined my marriage.”

“So she said.”

Josephine turned around and leaned against the wall on her elbows. “Poor Jean. He didn’t know what he was getting into.She was just playing. Testing, testing, testing, as she always did. How far could she go before someone stopped her?” She tapped ash from her cheroot into the Seine. “Did she tell you she took my money? She’d borrowed against a future commission, one of my biggest deals. Well, it would have been one of my biggest deals if she hadn’t reneged and left for Prague with no intention of completing the work.”

That I hadn’t known. Mira had told me she was broke when she went to Prague. “This may be small comfort, madame, but I believe she wanted you to know how much she regretted what she did. She wished she could undo it. One of the last things she said to me was that you and your husband had been so good to her. That you had made a name for her in the art world.”

Jo threw the cheroot into the river. “Did she tell you I fired her?”

I nodded. “How many years has it been since you represented Mira?”

“Nine.”

I thought about the timeframe. “After she had left for India?”

“Like a fool, I hung on. Because she told me what she told you. How sorry she was. How she regretted betraying me like that. She cried. I took her back. When you’re young and beautiful and charming, you can get away with so much.”

Josephine was watching my reaction with a faint smile on her lips. “She left that part out, didn’t she? She was like that. She lied or left parts of the story out when it suited her. I have a name in the art world. Artists want to be associated with me. She wanted that association, wanted people to think well of her. And you, Miss Falstaff, played right into it. We all did.”

I shook my head, trying to understand Mira the chameleon. “Have you had any contact with her since?”

“She asked me to be her dealer again.”

“When?”

“A year ago. She said she didn’t think her dealer at the time was doing justice to her work. She needed more money.”

“What did you say?”

“The first time, I hung up. She called again. I said I would do it if she would paint that mural for the Expo. She declined. I understood. I wished her luck. She called a third time, telling me how much she needed me. I didn’t even wait for her to finish her sentence. I hung up. She broke my heart once. I wasn’t going to let her do it again.”

Josephine readjusted her shoulders. “Now, I need to visit a couple of pavilions. You’re welcome to do the same. But not with me.”

I couldn’t let her leave. I still had more questions. “She came to the hospital after a miscarriage.”

Josephine’s eyebrows shot up. “Miscarriage? Mira never wanted children.”

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