In This Hospitable Land (11 page)

After the coast was clear, André managed to pull the Buick back out onto the road. The Sauverins slowly came back to themselves, aided by the distraction of the lush, ever-changing landscape. But André kept glancing up at the sky with trepidation.

Vineyards stretched down the hillsides toward the river. Louis pointed out the orderly staked lines of grapevines shooting out from the stalks cut and pruned above the roots. The grown-ups spoke of the promise of the new growth and the vintage that might result—the distinctive smoky intense acidity of the wines for which this region was justly famous. Passing through Orléans they drove up the Loire River valley, finally arriving in the little town of Pouilly late in the afternoon. Farther on they came to a crossroads and a small sign they followed to an ancient abbey and the Tirouens’ château, Bourras L’Abbaye, which dominated the small collection of farm buildings standing to one side.

André drove through the ornate gates of the sizable estate. The château was set in the heart of a well-tended park, itself in the midst of fields of wheat and vegetables and orchards ripe with an abundance of fruit. Cattle ranged the pastures. Trees stood in small clumps as if guarding the quiet, meandering streams that burbled throughout the property.

“At last,” Denise sighed.

“Thank God,” Louis said.

“What ‘God’?” Alex demanded.

Geneviève declared, “I won’t feel right until I see Lilla.”

The long gravel drive’s red and tan stones matched the elegant château that loomed around the bend, built of shaped stones from the same quarry. An inviting terrace fronted great double doors framed by four large windows on either side, mirrored by matching windows on the upper floor. A steeply slanted roof made of soft red tiles completed the façade’s perfect symmetry.

As the Sauverins stepped stiffly out of the Buick, Lilla Tirouen appeared at the top of the broad expanse of stone steps. “Welcome!” she gushed, rushing down to Geneviève’s outstretched arms and kissing her repeatedly. “How wonderful to see you! I’ve been so worried!”

Small, trim, vivacious, enthusiastic Lilla, like Geneviève, was in her mid-twenties. Her short, soft, brown hair curled about her ears. Her cute little nose turned up. Her mouth was pert and full-lipped. Her dark eyes shone brightly against clear, light skin.

“And which of these handsome gentlemen is your husband?” she asked charmingly.

Alex stepped forward and was treated to the same affectionate reception as his wife. Then Lilla greeted each Sauverin, paying special attention to the littlest ones, who hid behind their mothers.

“What a beautiful family!” Lilla enthused. “And you all look so alike even these cousins could be siblings! But come meet my parents and refresh yourselves. Food and drink await! I’ll have our houseboy gather your bags and park your car and trailer by the garage.” She started up the steps briskly then looked back at the stragglers sympathetically. “I want you to make yourselves at home. Bourras L’Abbaye will be what it has always been: a refuge.”

The presence of the Sauverins was a relief. Even with her parents in residence Lilla needed distraction. She couldn’t stop thinking about her husband, Francis, who had been mobilized into the French army after the Germans invaded Poland. It had been many months since Lilla had heard from him. She kept visualizing in ugly detail all possible causes for his silence.

Learning of Katie’s sixth birthday, Lilla and the household staff improvised a small party for the displaced girl. Katie was very good about receiving no presents beyond some freshly cut flowers and a birthday cake everyone enjoyed, but the celebration was almost ruined by the news that the Germans had taken Antwerp and that all the territory ceded to Belgium by the Treaty of Versailles had already been reincorporated into the Fatherland.

After the children bedded down for their second night Lilla had a good long laugh with Geneviève, who reported a conversation she’d had with Katie, who had unearthed one of the few flaws in this paradise.

“‘
Maman
,’ my sweet child asked, ‘are the French really poor?’

“‘Darling,’ I replied, ‘I only wish we were well enough off to live as they do at Bourras L’Abbaye!’

“‘But I like it better at home,’ Katie whined, fighting back tears, ‘where you just flush your business away. Here it drops down a hole!’

“‘Now Katie,’ I replied, struggling to keep a straight face, knowing the children will have to get used to new experiences, ‘the customs here are different, that’s all.’

“Then she prayed, ‘I hope they’re not all so different like this!’”

Denise busied herself with the children. Louis and Rose kept company with Lilla’s parents and the two older couples found enormous pleasure in watching the little ones frolic. Lilla and Geneviève took an extended “constitutional,” overjoyed to have a chance to talk as they hadn’t since they were schoolmates. André also strolled about the grounds, musing on the war and mulling actions his family might shortly have to take. Alex joined André when he was able to tear himself away from the radio.

The progress of German attempts to overrun France was seriously worrisome. In short order German forces had reached Cambrai, vanquished Péronne, and occupied Amiens, about one hundred kilometers north of Paris. Rapidly advancing south they might soon directly threaten Pouilly and Bourras L’Abbaye.

Changes in the French government seemed hopeful. Prime Minister Reynaud appointed the much-decorated General Weygand as chief of the general staff and commander-in-chief for all theaters of operations and named Marshal Henri-Philippe Pétain, the celebrated hero of the Battle of Verdun, deputy prime minister. Everyone in the château interpreted these as good signs.

But Monday morning while everyone breakfasted at the table overlooking the park, the butler brought Lilla word that her brother-in-law—who like her husband served in the French army—had been killed defending his country.

“I need air,” Lilla gasped, turning paper-white.

Her parents and the Sauverins rose and stood silently as she rushed from the room.

“Excuse me,” Geneviève said, hurrying after her.

After several awkward moments Monsieur Thiern invited them all to sit and finish their meal.

“I hope the south of France will serve to protect you,” he told the Sauverins.

Geneviève spent hour after hour with Lilla. The two women had corresponded for a decade but Lilla wanted more detail about Geneviève’s life, particularly the way she and Alex courted and married.

“You lived in Antwerp, the Sauverins lived in Brussels,” she said. “How did you meet?”

“Suzanne Freedman—the wife of father’s younger brother Maurice—felt inspired to play matchmaker for the first and only time in her life. She alerted father to expect a call from André. To this he readily agreed—as long as I went along as a chaperone. Then André decided to bring Alex for support.”

“Were you all instantly smitten?”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Geneviève said, blushing slightly, “but Denise and I were impressed by the striking figure they cut, so well-dressed for the first of many evenings on the town.”

“Then when did you fall in love?”

“It happened gradually, but there was a definite turning point when André announced he had given up his mistress to remove any possibility of embarrassment.”

“What?”

“Lilla! Don’t pretend to be shocked! You’re French!”

“Yes, but…”

“It’s commonplace in Belgian society for young men to keep mistresses they ‘see’ once a week.”

“André seems too elevated to engage in such a practice.”

“But he is a man,” Geneviève laughed. “And at least he had the good sense to end it!”

“What about Alex?”

“He never said anything and I never asked. I just assumed he didn’t behave like that. So in September 1932 André and Denise got engaged. Everyone was surprised when Beatrice Herz, our disagreeable grandmother, insisted on throwing an elaborate engagement party. In the midst of it she hobbled over to Alex and myself on her ever-present cane and said, ‘You’re obviously in love. Since all your friends and family are already gathered don’t let me stop you from announcing your engagement too.’”

“Wait!” Lilla demanded. “You didn’t say…”

“Alex and I were already betrothed, but to this day we don’t know how Granny Beatrice guessed. Then the double wedding—a civil ceremony as per Belgian law—was held at Antwerp’s city hall on September 11, 1933. André and Alex were decked out in full formal dress complete with tails, striped pants, spats, and top hats. Denise and I wore cream silk dresses and little flowered caps bordered with heirloom antique lace of the finest Belgian workmanship. The ushers were attired as formally and attractively as the grooms, the bridesmaids looked lovely in simple silk dresses, the little girls were darling in white dresses sashed with large bows, and the little boys charmed, decked out in sailor suits with hats to match. Afterwards the entire wedding party proceeded in horse-drawn carriages to the grand
Salle du Centenaire
—the centerpiece of the 1931 celebration of Belgium’s first hundred years of nationhood—for a Jewish religious ceremony.”

“Wait wait wait!” Lilla interrupted. “A Jewish ceremony? But I thought…”

“Believe me,” Geneviève said, “it was odd, but grandfather insisted even though he’s hardly religious himself. As founder of the family fortune he has certain rights and deserves our respect, and since many others in our large extended families are observant in varying degrees he felt it was important that their feelings be acknowledged. In any event it wasn’t that bad for Denise and me, but imagine poor Alex and André who had to don yarmulkes, march around the vine-twined
chuppah
, and stomp on and shatter a glass to cries of
‘Mazel tov!’
Later Alex told me all he could think the whole time was, ‘Don’t any of you know what’s going on in the world? Don’t you realize that by publicly declaring our Judaism today we may have signed our own death warrants for tomorrow?’”

“What a horrible thought for a wedding day!”

“For any day. Happily we were distracted by immediately going on our honeymoon together to Majorca and then moving into brand-new twin apartments on the Avenue Émile Duray. I can still see the façades of the four-story apartment houses down the way with the intricate swirls of their Belle Époque molding framing green lawns, the restful ease of their rooflines and the white-gloved doormen at each entrance. Then there were the formal
jardins
of L’Abbaye de la Cambre with stone paths between clipped hedges, their flower beds precise and stark in the late fall and the uniformed man standing guard over all. In the years to come we would stroll through those same gardens every day, weather permitting, with infants of our own.