Alexandre marches up to her and flashes a smile. They exchange a few hushed words. She nods—grins, even—pushes her creaky chair away from her desk, and breezes past the wall of packed shelves that reach to the top of the high ceilings, disappearing into a back room. If she’s the same archivist who blew me off, and I’m sure she is, she seems far more agreeable to Alexandre’s requests than mine. Gee, wonder why.
While we’re waiting for her to return, I snap a photo of the library for Instagram—it’s not a perfectly color-coordinated shelfie, but I could explore this place for hours. There are probably endless secrets hidden between the pages of these forgotten books. And I love that you need one of those old-timey rolling ladders to reach the highest shelves. Even with my back to him, I can feel the weight of Alexandre’s stare as he watches me. I turn to catch his eye and smile as the woman reemerges and silently hands him an archival box before returning to her work.
Alexandre motions for me to join him at a small table next to the only window in the room, overlooking a perfect little garden in full bloom. He gingerly takes the lid off the box. I know he’s been digging through these archives, but judging from some of the dust that remains undisturbed, he’s likely the only person who’s touched this box in ages. Alexandre sucks in his breath as he carefully draws out a thin, manila file folder, which I’m assuming is lignin- and acid-free. Wow. I’m standing close to a cute guy and my mind immediately goes to safe storage for archival documents. Hot. He opens the folder that contains a single sheet of paper—aged, yellowed at its edges, written in grayish-black ink. A fountain pen, judging from the blots.
I squint at the date scrawled at the top: August 18, 1844. “A letter to Dumas? That’s pretty cool.”
Alexandre nods but doesn’t lift his eyes from the page. He’s obviously seen it before, but he’s staring so intently, it’s like he’s hoping for a new clue to magically appear. I understand the feeling.
“I discovered this and a couple other letters when I began to focus on my specialization,” he says, nodding at the letter. “My uncle nearly lost his mind when I showed him. This is where I learned about the Hash Eaters Club. Here and the archives we still have at home and my uncle’s research. It’s amazing to hold this in my hands.”
He’s nerding out over history. It’s kind of adorable.
“You have letters like this between Dumas and Delacroix and—”
“Other Hash Eaters, too. Baudelaire. Hugo. Balzac.”
My heart stops for a moment at this revelation. At these names. They’re a who’s who of nineteenth-century artists. Our world is so small, interconnected. Tangled, even. On a road trip once, my mom tried to get us to play this game called Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. She fake-cried when I admitted I had no idea who that was. But then she explained it was a Hollywood riff on this old idea that any two people can be connected by six links or fewer. I was terrible at the game because apparently the pre-phone ancient rules say you can’t google anyone. But the theory stuck with me. It’s comforting in a way. We don’t have to rely on something as arbitrary as destiny in life. We’re connected. It’s like Alexandre and I would cross paths eventually. And now I’m one degree away from Dumas’s family. It’s math, but it doesn’t make it any less wild.
Alexandre whistles to get my attention. “Khayyam? Where’d you go?”
“Oh, sorry. Just mind blown that these dudes had a hashish coffee klatch. Total reality show.” I look up at Alexandre and smile. I don’t feel like a dilettante right now at all; I feel like a bona fide art history sleuthing badass.
He laughs. “I think this is one of three documents that you’ll find interesting. At least, I hope you do.”
My ears perk up. My stomach somersaults. I’m trying not to appear too eager. Breathe. “Let me see.”
He points to the slightly slanted, curled French cursive of Delacroix. “Right here he says, ‘Tonight you shall meet the lady with the raven tresses. And see the dream of the poet come to life.’”
“The lady with raven braids? Or does he mean hair? Is it the French or English? And a dream of a poet? What poet?”
“That’s what’s strange about it—it’s Franglais. And he’s using it with the English construction, the adjective before the noun. Then it’s the English, I guess? Hair? And as for the poet, I have no idea. I was thinking it was like a metaphor—a woman so beautiful she was like the dream of a poet, maybe?”
Alexandre pauses and locks eyes with me. I think this is for dramatic effect. It totally works. “But the lady, I think she’s real. Important. Dumas was notorious for affairs, but this lady intrigues me. My uncle says that this is one of the only references to a woman that we’ve found in Dumas’s letters—”
“But if he had all those affairs, there must be love letters somewhere.”
“Probably New Zealand or Texas. If letters like that even exist.”
My eyebrows knit together. “What?” It’s fair to say that New Zealand and Texas were the last places I thought Alexandre would mention.
“Ridiculous, right? A collector from New Zealand owns the largest private collection of Dumas archives. We don’t have direct access to them. Some are at a university in Texas—they’re not even all properly catalogued or available.” Alexandre sighs and runs his hands through his wavy hair.
“That sucks.”
“Tell me about it. We’ve been terrible stewards of the Dumas archives. Even his own children sold off whatever they could after his death.”
“Damn. Gold diggers.”
“In their defense, Dumas made a fortune in his life but wasted it all on lavish parties. Plus, he totally had a weakness for the ladies and showed his interest with extravagant gifts.” Alexandre sighs at this.
“So, um, does the apple fall far from the tree?” Oh God. Did I actually say that?
“What does that mean?” Alexandre asks, and it’s hard to tell if he’s annoyed or genuinely confused.
And now I have to explain myself. Idioms never translate well. Dammit. “I mean, perhaps you take after your ancestor?”
Without missing a beat, he looks into my eyes and says, “If you mean do I find beautiful, clever, dark-haired women irresistible, then yes, I am like my grand-père. But I believe there will be only one woman for me.”
Ugh. So perfect. So French. I ignore him, which I’m learning is the best way to deal with a charming Frenchman. “Tell me more about the raven-haired lady.”
“Look at this.” Alexandre begins leafing through the other folders. He delicately draws out a plastic sleeve that protects a few torn scraps of thick paper the size of Post-its with doodles of faces. No, it’s a single face. I look closer at the woman in profile with long, dark hair accented with a few scattered flowers. There are two drawings of this woman on these roughly hewn slips of paper—one sketch the size of a quarter, the other a bit bigger. The ink is a little smudged, but, especially in the larger one, I can clearly make out the pen strokes of the woman’s hair, curled lines that start wide and thin out past her undrawn shoulders as she looks off somewhere in the distance.