“Why?” I whisper it.
This should be a simple conversation, but it isn’t, and even the why of that is beyond me. He confounds me, sets all I know of how my life works upon its head.
“Because I’m curious. I want to know.”
“I’m Spanish.”
He’s too close. Leaning in. Breath on my ear. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“What happened? With the investment?” Why the hell am I asking him this?
He laughs. “Right for the jugular. It was... complicated. Certain elements of the deal weren’t exactly legal. I knew it, but I thought I’d gone through enough layers to keep myself clean, you might say. But... I got betrayed.”
“So you’re a criminal.”
“Once upon a time, yes. Semireformed, remember. All of my current business endeavors are entirely legal.”
“You don’t seem the type.”
“Which type?”
“To be a criminal.”
“I came to a point where I had to reinvent myself.” He’s still so close I can hear him swallow, hear his breath.
He still smells faintly of cinnamon gum, but that scent is overpowered by scotch. I don’t know what he did with his gum;a strange detail to notice. He’s not touching me, though. Just standing in my space.
Why am I not pushing him away?
“Reinvention of one’s self is difficult,” I say.
“Yes. It is.” His finger now, index finger, on my chin. Just touching. Not turning me to him, just touching. “Why didyouhave to reinvent yourself, X?”
“Because I... got lost.” It is the shape of the truth, if lacking in substance.
“You’re leaving something out, X.”
“Yes, I am.”
“How about your real name?”
“I told you already. My name is Madame X.”
“That’s not even Spanish.” There’s a smile in his words, though I don’t look at him to see it. I can hear it and it is blinding enough in its beauty, even heard but unseen.
I let out a long, slow breath. “It’s the only name I have.”
I sense the smile fade. My eyes change their focus, and now I can see his reflection in the window glass. His eyes are searching, a strand of golden hair across his eye. The corners of his eyes are crinkled, as if from long hours squinting in the sun. His skin is weathered, leathery. Rugged. He is beautiful, but hard and sharp, threat seeping from his pores. Yet somehow utterly gentle. So powerful, so sure of his capacity to eliminate any threat to himself that he need not posture. A tiger in the jungle that knows he is king.
“X. Why X?”
My eyes go, of their own will, to the painting on the wall. He turns away from me, and I sigh in relief. But I trail after him to stand beside him in front ofPortrait of Madame X. He examines it. We stare at it in silence for a long, long time. I, remembering. He, perhaps, seeking clues. He will find none in the brushstrokes, nor in the composition, nor in the subject, norin the use of color, the black and the white and the browns, not in the arch of her neck or the sharpness of her nose, the paleness of her skin or the drape of her hand. The only clues lie within me.
My voice, quiet in the golden evening light. “I lost myself. I lost... who I was. Who I could be. I lost... everything. And I saw this painting. I don’t know why, but it struck me. I had nothing, no name, no past, no future. And I saw this painting, and it... it meant something to me. I saw myself in it, somehow. I don’t know. I’ll never know. But I chose this painting. Madame X. Other portraits of the time, they’re given names. But this one? Just... Madame X. She has a name, you know: Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau. But in this portrait, she is Madame X. The subject of a painting, no more, no less. Something in that meant something to me.”
I expect a comment, something deep and meaningful. Instead he turns and moves across the room to the wall opposite, to Van Gogh’sStarry Night. “And this one?”
I shrug. “I just like it.”
