The House of Dreams (17 page)

There have been times when I wasn't sure I'd make it through one of my attacks. Annie's always been good at calming me down, but when I was younger, before the meds got better, there were days when each breath had to be torn out of the air. I had an old mirror in the studio, and I'd stare at myself, trying to still my chest, thinking over and over:
I am Gabriel Lambert
.

“Say, Gabe, I know who you are, buddy.”

“Hm? What?” I say. I look up to find Marv standing over me.

“I'm sorry, man,” he says. “I've got to close up early today. Lil wants me to take her into town.”

“Ain't that just the way,” I say. “Annie's always on at me to take her into town more. I say, ‘What do you want to go to town for when we have everything we need here?' She says she just likes to look.” I search in my pocket for some change and catch Marv watching me.

“No, you're all right, Gabe,” he says, and pats me gently on the shoulder. “It's on the tab. In fact, this is on me.”

I laugh out loud. “It must be Christmas.”

“Soon enough, Gabe,” he says, shuffling away. “Soon enough.” He pauses as he flicks out the lights in the café one by one. “You sure you're okay?”

“Never better,” I say.

“You want me to drop you back at the house?”

“No, it's a beautiful day for a walk.” The sun is sinking already, washing the windows apricot and gold.

“Gabe…”

I can see the way he's looking at me. I'm choked up suddenly. “Now, Marv, don't go getting all sentimental on me.” We slap each other on the back awkwardly, half hug, half tussle.

“Don't be a stranger, you hear?”

“I'll be around,” I say, and wink. I step aside to let Sophie walk ahead of me, out onto the deck overlooking the beach, and as I turn from Marv my face sets hard. There's no one on the beach now, it's a strip of perfect white sand arcing beneath clear sky. The sunset is seeping up into the blue like rinsing Rose Doré from your brush in a jar of cold water.

I can't see her face, but the wind is whipping the girl's blond hair free as she walks ahead of me down the wooden steps to the beach. I glance behind me. Marv's car is just pulling out of the car park, and the surfers are long gone. The cottages are deserted. We are alone.

The stick is heavy in my hand, the end round like a cudgel. For a split second, I imagine bringing it down on her head. I wouldn't be able to take her down hand on hand anymore, but if I were to catch her unawares … One blow to the temple, I think, would do it, and then I'd just set her loose in the sea. My heart is jolting in my chest, my ribs a taut xylophone beneath the skin. I've killed before, I could do it again, if I had to, to protect Annie, my children.

The guilt has never left me. I've never been able to forgive myself. I've asked myself so many times if leading a good life redeems your soul. Do thousands of ordinary days atone for one deadly act? You'd think you would forget how it feels to kill, but it is always there, tainting everything. I look down at my hands, with their long fingers and wide, full palm. They look innocent enough, but it's always there, beneath all the tenderness, the touches that have created, and healed, and aroused.

She knows too much, this girl. Why now, after all these years, so close to the end, so close to getting away with it? I will do anything to protect my family. If she pushes me … I'm just waiting for her to turn and point her finger at me and say the words I've waited sixty-odd years to hear.

But she doesn't, she just keeps on walking, her steps so light and free they barely leave a trace in the sand, just licks of wind. No matter how fast I walk, she is just out of reach. “So after Vita and your son were killed, you just upped and left for Marseille? You never looked back?”

Never look back. Like I always say, the ones in the myths who look back are the ones they turn to stone or pillars of salt. Always look forward. “Yep.” I have to shift my weight and tighten my grip on the carved wooden stick as we hit the soft sand. “Gabriel Lambert left for Marseille.”

 

TWENTY-ONE

M
ARSEILLE

1940

V
ARIAN

“Well done, Bill. These are perfect.” Varian held the visas up to the window in the artist's studio, then placed them carefully on the drawing board, peering down through a magnifying glass at the papers, one bespectacled eye magnified, blinking in the bright lamplight. Bill Freier pulled the light closer and pointed at the stamp he had forged on the document.

“Not too perfect,” he said, pointing at a smudged edge. “That would be suspicious.” Part of his skill was turning the brand-new identification cards he could still pick up in
tabacs
into convincingly battered documents. “A few thumbprints and dog-ears help to pass them off.”

Varian stood and reached into his breast pocket for his wallet. “What do I owe you?” He glanced up at the sound of quick footsteps on the wooden stairs leading to the attic room.

“Pfft,” Bill said, waving him away. “Fifty cents apiece, call it five bucks.”

“Hello, Varian,” a slender brunette said as she walked in. She slung an empty-looking basket onto the kitchen counter.

“How are you, Mina?”

“Cold, hungry…,” she said. Bill wandered over and kissed her. Varian smiled indulgently—the young couple's love was clear to see. It radiated from them, a heat that even the chill mistral couldn't destroy.
When was the last time Eileen and I looked at one another like that?
he thought. Mina gazed up at Bill, giggled as he whispered something in her ear.
Have we ever looked at one another like that?
They were still at the stage where their hands danced around each other like butterflies, never still, full of the novelty and joy of being young and in love.

Mina unpacked her basket as Varian paid Bill. He glanced over and saw a single onion, a half loaf of bread. “Thank you, Bill,” he said, slipping an extra note to him. “You are being careful?”

“Of course. Why would they be interested in a little fellow like me?” Bill tossed the roll of money onto his desk, where it landed among the brushes and inks, the piles of blank visas and passports waiting for his attention. “Do you have anything for me today?”

“As always.” Varian clicked open his polished brown leather briefcase and slipped the documents Bill had given him inside a copy of Virgil's
Aeneid
.

“Say, I just saw your friend Hermant outside the café Au Brûleur de Loups,” Mina said.

“Beamish? Did you?” Varian said, glancing at his watch. He handed Bill a file of documents, each with black-and-white passport photographs pinned to them. He shook Bill's hand. “Take care now, both of you.”

*   *   *

“There you are, Buster,” Beamish said as Varian walked toward his table. “Shall we move inside?” The café Au Brûleur de Loups was quiet at this time of the day, and Varian spotted the man they were meeting immediately. The gangster Kourillo sat at the back of the empty café, hidden from the road by a large pillar. Varian recognized him from his hand, the fluid way he reached again and again, flicking his cigarette impatiently into a rectangular yellow ceramic ashtray stamped
Ricard Pastis
. He followed Beamish in silence. Varian disliked Kourillo, distrusted him on gut instinct.
But yet again, we have little choice but to deal with men like him if we are to fund the ARC.

“Monsieur Fry,” Kourillo said, shaking his hand limply. “Monsieur Hermant.”

“Kourillo.” Varian sat opposite and folded his arms. He nodded as Beamish ordered a carafe of red wine for them.

“How is the relief business?”

Varian folded his arms. “I wouldn't call it a business.”

Beamish glanced at him, warning him.

“We are all in business, my friend.” Kourillo laughed softly. Varian noticed he had tiny teeth, like a child. “Now, I have a proposal to discuss.” He poured water from a carafe into his pastis and watched the glass grow opaque, opalescent.

“Go ahead,” Varian said, trying to conceal his impatience.

“No, no, no.” Kourillo sipped his drink. “Not here. I just wished to see if you were open to … ideas.”

Varian bit down hard on the inside of his lip. “Monsieur Kourillo—”

“Of course we are,” Beamish said smoothly. “Shall we meet you at the Dorade tomorrow? I imagine Charles is involved?”

“Naturally. Vinciléoni is involved with everything.” Kourillo rose and put his hat on his head. “Until tomorrow.”

Varian waited until Kourillo had left the café before he spoke again. “That man,” he said, his words clear and quiet. “Wasting our time like this—”

Beamish knew the signs. “Calm down.”

“Don't tell me to calm down.” Varian glanced up as a couple took a table not far from them. He lowered his voice. “What the hell do you think he is talking about?”

Beamish shrugged. “I've heard rumors about gold.”

“Gold?” Varian whispered. “Jesus, Beamish. Laundering francs is one thing, but if we get caught trading in gold, we'll all be locked up.”

“We need money, urgently. You said so yourself.”

“I know, I know. If only we didn't have to do business with men like him.”

“You don't get it yet, do you? Men like him are running this city.” Beamish drained his glass and pulled on his knitted woolen hat. “We have no choice but to do business with crooks. It's the only way we are going to get the good guys out of here.”

 

TWENTY-TWO

V
ILLA
A
IR
-B
EL
, M
ARSEILLE

1940

M
ARY
J
AYNE

“Well, our little friend has settled in,” Mary Jayne drawled. She was sitting with Miriam at the table on the terrace in the evening sun, the slatted shadows cast by the great palms shifting over them like the pelt of a wild animal. Dagobert ran across the terrace, a yapping black poodle puppy at his heels. “I can't believe you twisted my arm about Varian.”

“Clovis!” Varian yelled, racing after the dogs, a lead flapping in his hand. “Clovis!”

“Think of it as a parting gift to me,” Miriam said, laughing, pulling her coat tighter around her against the cold. “It is good to see Varian looking so relaxed. I think the puppy is good for him. Maybe he's been lonely. I've been worried about him.”

“I'm still surprised he chose a poodle,” Mary Jayne said.

“I'm not, he adores Dagobert.” Miriam nudged her.

“He likes my dog well enough. It's just me he can't stand.”

“Phooey,” Miriam said, and laughed, watching the children run after the dogs hand in hand, chattering excitedly. “Oh, I'm going to miss this place.” She closed her eyes as she turned her face to the sun. In the distance, the Mediterranean shimmered, light sparkling on the rose-gold surface like crystals on a gown. “I do hope I can bring Rudolf back from Ljubljana with me, he'd love it here.” She laughed uneasily, and her voice shook. “I don't know what I'm going to do if they won't let us back into France.”

“Don't you dare. We promised, remember? No tears,” Mary Jayne said firmly, her voice throatier than usual. She took Miriam's hand, rubbing some warmth into it. “If they won't let you back in, then you just get the hell out of Europe some other way, you hear? We all know this isn't forever. The château is just … well, it's just a wonderful adventure, that's all. And you're not leaving yet, there's still tonight,” she added, nudging her.

“You should ask one of the artists to take my room,” Miriam said. “What about that chap Lambert?”

Mary Jayne narrowed her eyes. “I don't know that I trust him. There's something ‘off' about him.”

“Do you think so? He's been through a terrible ordeal.”

“Really?”

“I found out that his wife and son were killed.”

“God, how terrible. He never talks about it.”

“My dear, we are all men and women of mystery these days.” Miriam sighed wearily. “Too many secrets, too much to hide.” She smiled at her friend. “Think about it, at least. He spends most of his time here anyway.”

“I think hoping to see Marianne Bouchard has as much to do with that as paying court to Breton and the gang.”

“I am glad you agreed to let Varian stay,” Miriam said. She smiled as she watched him tossing a red ball for the dogs, the children racing to and fro across the lawn. “He's so happy here.”

“I've certainly seen a different side to him.” Mary Jayne's gaze followed three men walking up the driveway. “Who are they?”

Miriam shielded her eyes with her hand. “More surrealists, I imagine. Now Breton has arrived, they are flocking here like homing pigeons.” Birdsong sparkling across the grounds melded on the air with music drifting from the house. The girls heard someone's fine baritone voice singing a barrack-room song, then laughter before others joined in with the chorus.

“It's more like Breton is a king, or pope and they're all coming to pay court to him.”

“That's what this place is.” Miriam laughed. “A court of miracles. I'm so glad I've had the chance to see a little of it. I'll never forget meeting men like Masson, and Breton…”

At that moment, André appeared at the French windows leading to the terrace, closely followed by Jacqueline. They were too far away for the girls to hear their conversation, but it was obvious they were arguing.

“I am thirty,” she yelled suddenly. “My life is over!” A string of curses fell from Jacqueline's lips, her hands clutching at the air. “You see in me what you want to see, but you don't see me, André, you don't see me.” Finally, she tossed her head and stalked away across the garden to where she had strung a trapeze from the branches of one of the trees. André's chin fell to his chest, and he gazed at the ground, his hands in the pockets of his green tweed jacket.