The House of Dreams (31 page)

“Naturally. The gangsters would be suspicious otherwise. It's a three-way split between Kourillo, Vinciléoni, and Beamish. What they didn't know was that Beamish gave his commission straight back to the ARC. Once we have the funds here, we tell the office in New York how much to deposit in the client's dollar account. The client then picks up the cash once they are home free in the States.” Varian paused. “It also means that any funds donated in New York can be picked up as francs here without going through the official channels. The police have no idea what is going on.”

“And you trust these guys?”

“Trust is the wrong word. These guys have a finger in every pie—white slaves, the black market, dope.” He thought of them all sitting around the stone-topped table in Vinciléoni's restaurant. Everyone was drinking cognac except Vinciléoni, who drank a glass of bicarbonate of soda. “There's little choice but to deal with gangsters in Marseille. I know this must go against the grain for you, but we need help however we can get it.” He held Danny's gaze. “Will you do it, and take care of the accounts?”

“Will I cook the books, you mean? Is that what he was doing all this time?” Danny tilted his head back and nodded. “Sure. After all, who would suspect an ex–police official?”

“Good,” Varian said. “I'll take you with me to the next meeting. Kourillo has offered to sell us some gold worth fifteen thousand dollars for eight thousand.”

“That sounds too good to be true.”

“I know. We're screwed if they catch us with gold, but we have to look at every opportunity, every crazy scheme to get our clients out of here.” Varian looked at Danny. “It's up to us, my friend, and we are running out of time.”

 

FORTY-ONE

F
LYING
P
OINT
, L
ONG
I
SLAND

2000

G
ABRIEL

Where is she? The damn fool girl has dived into the sea. She must be crazy. I can see her, just, doing a lazy crawl out toward the horizon. “She's mad,” I say, and slump back onto the sand. There's no fat on me these days, and my bony haunches ache as they hit the beach. I reach into my pocket and pull out my battered old brown leather wallet. It's worn and smooth as a stone, and over the years it's shaped itself to my hip. I open it up and flip through the photographs of all the kids, back through the years like watching the leaves of a calendar fall away. There it is: March 1941. The photographer Ylla turned up at Air-Bel, and she took photographs of the artists and the Bretons—maybe you've seen them in books about the surrealists. There's a gorgeous one of André and Jacqueline sitting with their little girl, Aube, beneath that huge old palm tree on the terrace. They look so happy and contented. It's heartbreaking when you think what was to come. Maybe the photo of them play fighting had more in it. They're standing beside a tall range of windows, opaque and dusty like the corroded silver of an antique mirror. They've both taken the stance of a boxer, fists raised, weight balanced back on their legs. Jacqueline is wearing a pair of wide-legged pants and a plaid shirt. If you glance at the photo quickly, it looks like they are dancing.

Air-Bel was a refuge for us all, and that's the feeling you get when you look at Ylla's photographs, how happy we were there. It was a place apart from time. Ylla took this photograph I have in my hand of a kid called Gabriel and his girl, Annie. There's so much love in our eyes, the photograph is radiant, even after all these years. I flip it over, and there's Annie's writing:
I love you, this much, always
.

It wasn't like real life didn't touch us there. I remember one Sunday in March, the little nanny Maria was hysterical. The Vichy government had suddenly rounded up all Spanish men and deported them to the Sahara to build the railroad. Just like that, no warning. They had taken her father, and I never did manage to find out whether she ever heard from him again. Imagine that, when the people you love most in the world could be taken from you in a heartbeat, not because they are good or bad, but just because of the chance of their blood.

I sometimes wonder why it didn't make me more bitter, all of this. The thing is if it changes you for the worse, then they've won, the fascist bastards have dehumanized you, and they've won. I never gave up, not once, not even when it looked like everything was lost.

I rub my thumb across the photograph. I remember we went into town the night that Maria's father was taken. Annie was pretty shaken up by it, and we wanted to do something defiant, however small. We heard that a bunch of the artists were meeting at the café Au Brûleur de Loups. They were planning something, and we wanted to be part of it. I remember her walking through the packed café to our table, to me, and the head of every man in there turned to watch her walk by, but she saw only me. She sat on my lap and put her arm around my neck.

“So? What are we going to do tonight?”

“Wait and see,” I said. I was playing with the silk rose the café owner had put in a vase on our table, and I offered it to her.

“We can't take that,” she said, laughing.

“When we get married, I will fill a church with roses for you.”

“Gabriel…”

“I mean it. I don't care what your parents say. I love you, Annie, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

 

FORTY-TWO

B
OULEVARD
G
ARIBALDI
, M
ARSEILLE

1941

V
ARIAN

“Is it done?” Varian said, looking up from the papers on his desk as Danny walked in.

“Yes, I buried the cases under the pine trees at the back of Air-Bel.” He slumped down on the chair in front of the table. “That artist, what's his name? Gabriel Lambert? He almost caught me. Scared the life out of me, I thought it was the cops.”

Varian smiled. “Was he out walking with a pretty blonde as usual?”

“That's right.” Danny took the glass of cognac Varian offered him. “What's been happening here?”

“Well, the good news is we have our friend Mehring safely away.”

“Baby? Thank God for that. How did you manage it?”

“As you know, our friends Breitscheid and Hilferding felt bunking down in the bowels of a ship was beneath them.”

“The fools. Even if the cabins were all sold out, they should have jumped at the chance of getting out, particularly Hilferding—he's Jewish, isn't he?” He crossed his arms. “Well, they're in trouble now. Their exit visas have been withdrawn. It's a bad sign.” He glanced at Varian. “Have you had any luck with your passport, boss?”

Varian shook his head. “I'm in exactly the same boat as many of our clients, now. Instead of renewing it, the idiots at the consulate have confiscated it until I leave.”

“It's ridiculous! They are putting you in grave danger.”

“Since Miss Palmer's hightailed it home, I have no choice but to stay, whether the U.S. government likes it or not.”

The men turned as one at the sound of fists hammering on the front door. Varian felt his heart leap to his throat. He checked his watch. “It'll just be the others,” he said.

Danny pushed back his chair and unlocked the front door. Gussie ran into the room, gasping for breath. “They got them,” he said. “They got them—”

“Slow down, Gussie,” Danny said.

“They've arrested Breitscheid and Hilferding—the Gestapo have them.”

“Oh God, I was afraid of this,” Varian said. “When?”

“I overheard two Vichy cops in the Vieux-Port crowing about it in a bar: ‘Two of Hitler's greatest opponents have been rounded up.…'”

“Damn, we were too late.” Varian took his glasses off and threw them down on his desk.
Charlie had it right about them: “Those couple ah sons ah bitches are asking for trouble.”

“It's not good.” Gussie looked down at the floor. “Hilferding is dead.”

“Oh God, no.” Varian slumped back in his chair.

“The Nazis found the poison he always carried on him, but he managed to hang himself in his cell.”

“And Breitscheid?”

“They are sending him to Buchenwald.”

Varian took off his glasses and rubbed his face with his hands. “Thank you, Gussie,” he said. “Keep your ear to the ground. We have to get as many of our people as we can out immediately. If great statesmen like them are being arrested, what hope does the ordinary man or woman have?”

 

FORTY-THREE

M
ARSEILLE

1941

G
ABRIEL

I remember that night like yesterday. The artists who met in the café Au Brûleur de Loups decided to take part in the “battle of the walls,” painting graffiti on the streets of Marseille. The BBC were putting out broadcasts, telling people to paint
VH
—
Vive l'honneur
(“Long live honor”) on the walls. Or sometimes it was
VV
—
Victoire et Vengeance
. Either way, everywhere you looked there were red and black Vs. It was a small defiance, but it annoyed the hell out of the fascists. Of course, they were clever and eventually pretended like it was their idea to paint
V
everywhere,
V
for
Viktoria,
some old Teutonic word they dug up. They started printing posters with big white Vs on a red background, even stuck a big one on the Eiffel Tower for a while. But in the early days, it was ours. Everyone was fired up. We agreed to meet the next night, at eleven o'clock in the Vieux-Port.

Annie wasn't allowed out, of course, so we had to wait until her parents were asleep. I'd half dozed off myself, waiting by the garden gate for her. “Wake up,” she said, sliding down onto my lap. She showered my face with kisses, and my hands slipped down to her hips. “Oh no, you don't,” she said, springing up. She grabbed the pot of paint at my side and hid it in her basket, then ran off across Air-Bel's lawn. “We have work to do!”

You had to be careful, of course. There were Kundt Commission and Vichy cops everywhere, but we managed to do about ten walls that night, before we ran out of paint. Just as I was doing the last
V,
I heard Annie gasp: “The flics!” She was keeping watch at the end of the road, and she ran toward me, her feet splashing in the gutter.

I slung the empty paint tin into a bin and grabbed Annie. By the time they walked past, we were in each other's arms, kissing. I heard them whistle appreciatively and flicked open an eye, watching them until they turned the corner. “That was close,” I said, giving Annie my full attention now. We hadn't managed to be together for a week or more, and my whole body hummed with desire. Every kiss, every touch, every look, lit up the night.

“Come with me, to my hotel.”

She shook her head. “What if someone sees me? My mother would ship me off to a convent if she thought we had been to a hotel together.”

“Perhaps that would be the safest place for you.”

Annie shook her head and laughed. “You're crazy.”

“Crazy with wanting you.”

“Let's go home,” she said. “We have a couple of hours before Papa wakes up.” She slipped her arm through mine and leaned into me. “I wish we didn't have to hide, Gabriel. Wouldn't it be wonderful, to be together, always?”

My stomach twisted with guilt. How could I tell her I was leaving? I looked down at her face, at the love and trust there. I'd realized something else sitting up on the hill saying my little prayer. I was going to marry her, and I had to find some way for us to be together. We rounded the street onto La Canebière to catch our tram back to La Pomme, and I summoned up all my courage. “Listen, Annie, we need to talk.…”

Her face fell, and she pulled away. “I don't believe it. Mother warned me it would be like this, that if you gave a man what he wanted, then he'd use you up and throw you away. How could I have been so stupid?” She began to run toward the tram stop.

“Wait!” I shouted, running after her. People were turning to look at us. I grabbed her arm and stopped her. “I love you,” I said, holding her tight. I kissed her then, and her spine arced back. “I love you, but I need to tell you something.…”

“Well, well, my favorite lovebirds.” Quimby strolled toward us out of the darkness. “I was just having a late supper in the café over there, when I saw you run past. Not a lover's tiff, is it?”

Annie looked at him askance. “Gabriel, who is this?”

“Has Gabriel not told you about me? I'm a dear friend of the family.”

I pleaded with him, with my gaze. She couldn't find out like this, not like this. “Quimby is an old business associate,” I said. “We'll be concluding our work together tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” He tossed his scarf over his shoulder. “Excellent. Shall we meet at the usual place?”

I couldn't get away from him quick enough. Quimby was one of those people who taint everything around him just by his presence, and I wanted Annie away from him as quickly as possible. I spotted a tram coming and bustled her onto the car.

“Who is that man?” she said.

“No one, it doesn't matter.”

“You're shaking.” She put her hand on my arm. “He's not no one. Why are you afraid of him?… Gabriel?” She refused to budge. It's something I've always loved about Annie. She's straight as a die. My whole life has been built on so many lies, I don't know what's truth anymore, but Annie always cut straight to the heart of something. “Are you in some kind of trouble?” I felt her lips against my ear. “I don't care,” she whispered, aware of all the people around us. “You can tell me.”

“I will,” I said. “But not here.” I put my arm around her, and my head sank to hers. I closed my eyes. I felt scared, suddenly, for the first time, after staggering blindly through the horrors of the last months. More than anything, I couldn't bear the thought that what I was about to tell Annie might drive her away forever.