A Lethal Lady by Nekesa Afia

Author:Nekesa Afia [Afia, Nekesa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2024-07-30T00:00:00+00:00

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THE HOUSE WAS big enough to get lost in. Once Estelle resumed swimming, Louise got up, leaving the pool room. She knew she should leave, but there was the unavoidable itch to look around.

It was so quiet that Louise could hear a pin drop. She wondered how many people were on the staff. That was something she had considered, after moving to Paris. She could have worked in a house just like this.

She climbed the stairs, trying to be as quiet as possible. She already had a plan in her head: if anyone came up to her, she was going to ask where the bathroom was.

But there was no one around her. The halls were long and wide. Unlike the Blanchet house, there was no art to speak of. It made the house feel empty and lifeless. It was the opposite of the Blanchet house, where Louise could feel the creative spirit just from stepping inside. This house felt cold. From somewhere, there was the tinny sound of a radio, breaking some of the silence. The floors were soft and carpeted; Louise had removed her shoes and was holding them by the straps.

Estelle’s art studio was on the second floor of the house, conveniently right next to the bathroom. Louise had been poking through every other room until she found it. She had never seen a work by Estelle. None of the paintings in the Blanchet house were signed by her.

The room was small, full to the brim with easels and canvasses. Almost every canvas was half finished. Louise looked around. Estelle painted other artists. There were portraits of Iris, sitting at her own easel. There were dancers in an embrace. There was Marion, sitting with her clay, a small smile on her face. These moments, the most human of them all, were all deftly and beautifully captured.

She had never seen art like this: it had all been serious portraits, with the sitter watching the painter. Estelle’s paintings had a source of life in them that Louise had never seen before. She looked at the couple dancing. With similar hair colors and builds, the couple had to be Estelle’s parents. She stepped closer, trying to see all of the individual strokes that made up the painting. That was something she had come to appreciate as well, the work and dedication that went into a piece of art.

Louise moved to look at the one of Iris. It was painted so that Iris was mostly blocked by her easel. But Estelle had managed to capture the glint in her eye, one of determination. There was a paintbrush in her right hand, poised and ready. She wondered who or what Iris was painting. She stepped closer. It was subtle, but Iris was naked behind the easel. Louise looked away. The room was small, but there was a window where the sun filtered in.

She looked around. Like Margaux, Estelle kept her things in a men’s toolbox, big and red and stuffed to the brim with palette knives and brushes and pencils.

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