The Keeper of the Walls (18 page)

Afterward, when they were at last alone, Lily stammered: “That girl . . . she knew, didn't she, about Jeanne Dalbret? That she and I—”

“Perhaps that wasn't it at all,” Wolf reassured her. “Maybe she was only envious of your beauty.” And then, to take her mind off the entire episode, he sighed. “She made a nasty comment about Maryse, too. Not really ‘nasty,' actually—but ungenerous. People who envy Jewish socialites tend to set them apart by their religion. It's as if they're saying: ‘She thinks she's
something,
but she's only a Jew. We'll pretend to play her game, but the truth is,
we
know that
we,
as good Christians, are better than she is.' I've tried to tell myself it doesn't matter—that I don't really care. But sometimes, you know, it still can sting.”

“I'm so sorry,” she whispered. “Sorry, and ashamed. For all the
bad
Christians who feel that way, and who have hurt you.”

He shrugged, half smiling. “You needn't apologize, Lily. It's something people like Maryse and me have had to learn to live with. And if we find ourselves reacting in spite of our common sense, then, truly, we're as much at fault as the poor fools who seek to bring us down. We should know better. Most of us, after all, have had to deal with this since early youth. I remember what my mother told me when I was five, when we went to the seaside for a summer: ‘Wolf, if you meet another child, you must first tell him that you are a Jew. Like that, should he refuse to play with you, it will hurt less than if he finds out later, and you two have already become friends.' I did what she had said, and I was lucky: most of the families we ran into were broadminded and accepting. But a few were not.”

“But Maryse never told me anything like this. And we've been like sisters, since we were both eight. Why wouldn't she have confided this sort of thing to me?”

“Because you are not Jewish, and would not have been able to understand.”

Lily stared at him, shocked. “But—why not? I'm a person! You don't have to be Jewish or not Jewish to understand a human problem!”

“Yes?” he asked, gently. “I don't think so. That's why the Jewish communities in most cities are so tightly knit. Because they share the same problems since birth. You're a wonderful girl, and Maryse and I both love you. But you know that even in your own family, there's quite a lot of anti-Semitism. You can disrespect your father, and be angry with your husband, because they feel this way—but the problem ends there. It doesn't touch you personally, and it won't affect Nicky, or the child that's going to be born now. Lily, darling, it's quite simple: anti-Semitism just
is not your problem.
And it was wrong of me to impose it on you, even now, in conversation.”

“No,” Lily said. “You weren't wrong, Wolf. We're friends.” But for the first time in twelve years, she felt that a wall had been erected between her and Maryse. It wasn't fair. She'd never been prejudiced, against anyone. She'd argued with her father, with Claude, with her husband, for Maryse. She'd even gone so far as to impose this friendship on Misha, she who was always a little afraid to face up to him and run the risk of displeasing him. And now she was being told that she didn't understand, that she was outside the problem.

Hurt, she thought: Maybe sometimes the Jews build their own ghettos, and exclude the rest of the world. That, too, had to be another kind of prejudice. Now Maryse would be more and more within this ghetto, because she was marrying Wolf, another Jew. She remembered what Misha had once explained to her, about the Rothschilds and the Gunzburgs, two of the wealthiest, titled Jewish families in Europe: that they practiced intermarriage, cousin marrying cousin, in order not to have to go either outside the faith, or outside the rank and financial circle of the family. A kind of self-imposed inbreeding, formed of their own fear and pride. . . .

There was so much, Lily thought, that she really didn't understand. For, after all, there was only one God, and everyone agreed to that. What possible difference could it make how a person chose to express his faith?

I
t was a Tuesday
, at two o'clock, that Maryse Robinson was to become the wife of Dr. Wolfgang Steiner, of Vienna. Because it was to be a grand wedding, the two janitors of the large synagogue in the Rue de la Victoire had required extra help with ushering, and the Jewish Consistory next door had to send two of their office boys, who were now dressed in black, with colored sashes and cocked hats, and were escorting the elegant guests down the aisle to their assigned places. The carpet extended outside onto the sidewalk, so that the ladies would not have to feel the November cold against the thin soles of their delicate shoes. They passed underneath the great red awning, with the initials
R
and
S,
into a lobby filled with flowers, and then into the main hall of the synagogue, also profusely decorated with flowers. Lily knew that Eliane Robinson had sent especially to Nice for blooms that were now out of season.

All the lights were on. Lily could see the choir in the back. She felt the solemnity of the occasion catching at the back of her throat, which was clasped by a choker of pearls and amethysts to match her purple dress. Misha, on one side of her, stood tall and elegant, holding her by the elbow so that she would not miss a step. How careful men are of the women who are carrying their babies, she thought. On her other side, Claire, in a light mink coat over a beige outfit, seemed expectant, absorbed in the surroundings. They sat down, on the bride's side, behind old Madame Rueff, Eliane's mother, and several aunts and uncles.

The music began. A pianist, a violinist, and a cellist were playing for the entrance of the wedding party. Lily wondered what Misha was thinking, and stole a look at his profile. He was sitting, erect and impassive, waiting. Little children, boys and girls from the Robinson, Rueff, and Steiner families, came first down the aisle, in neat pairs, the girls with long, curled tresses and flowers, whose petals they scattered ahead of them over the red carpet. A cantor began to sing. Lily saw her mother's face, her lips parted with rapt attention, as the strange sounds of the Hebrew words fell upon the room, soft, swaying, hypnotizing.

The chant ended abruptly, and Mendelssohn's nuptial march filled the temple. Eliane walked first, on her son's arm, followed by a middle-aged couple, a little plump and overdressed for Paris, he in tails, she in lamé: the Steiners, Lily supposed. From the sacristy beyond, Wolf, in a morning suit, more elegant than she had ever seen him, came up with his best man to wait for his bride. She could see the nervousness on his earnest, bespectacled face—that good face that she had learned to love. And then the music swelled, and everybody stood, turning slightly to catch Maryse with her tall, courtly father, her train flowing endlessly behind her, held up by the smallest of the little cousins. It was impossible to see the expression behind her thick tulle veil.

The entire wedding party was now lined up under the huppah. The cantor began to intone a prayer. Lily looked beyond into the crowd of guests. Most of the men were wearing small satin skullcaps, and Misha's vital crest of black hair seemed like an angry protest. She felt suddenly ashamed that she hadn't thought to ask Maryse if she would have preferred for Misha to wear one too. There were so many distinguished faces! Some, like the Baron Robert de Rothschild, she had met before. Strange: she hadn't realized that the young composer Darius Milhaud was a Jew, but his lips were moving in tune to the prayer. Marie-Laure de Noailles was there—but she was half-Jewish on her father's side. There were other important guests who were not Jewish at all, of course—she could see Hélène and Philippe Berthelot, and Paul Valéry. Her heart beat faster when she caught sight of this
paterfamilias
of French literature.

Because the words were in Hebrew, Lily lost track of what was going on. Then the Grand Rabbi of France, Israel Lévi, began to speak. He was a magnificent orator, the words falling from him with ease, with grandeur, with resonance. He spoke of Eliane's family, the RuefFs; of David's, the Robinsons; and then he went on to describe the great Steiner family of Vienna, and what humanitarian contributions had fallen from their hands. He spoke of the Jewish tradition, and how the two young people, Wolfgang and Maryse, had been brought together to carry on this tradition, to uphold the Mosaic faith, and to continue the unbroken chain. Lily forgot where she was: what he was saying mesmerized her, took her beyond this ceremony into the ancient land of Palestine, back to the Twelve Tribes of Israel. She felt, in her heart, that Wolf had told her, that afternoon
chez
Poiret, only half the story: he had left out the glorious history of the Jewish people, and their pride.

Maybe, she thought, remembering her feeling of hurt and anger, the Jews had come together in a feeling of pride, and had stuck together to make certain that no enemy, however great, would ever destroy this noble sentiment. Maybe it hadn't been prejudice, on their part—but just fear of the alien, who had to be turned away. And I am part of this alien body, Lily thought, shaken. If I can't understand the tradition, then maybe I'm not worthy of sharing the problem. Wolf had said:
It is not your problem.

She looked at Claire then, and saw that tears were brimming from her large brown eyes, and that she had made no effort to wipe them away. Lily was stupefied. She had almost never seen her mother weep, even in the worst of circumstances. But now she wept unashamed, and at the words of a rabbi that she didn't know, who was speaking of traditions that were not hers and a family that didn't include her. Lily didn't understand, and was flooded with an odd anxiety. Beside her, Misha stared at the dais, formal and attentive, manly and distant. The words hadn't touched him at all. He was on foreign ground, like a polite visitor, marking time.

Music followed. Maryse, unobtrusively, was removing her right hand from the suede glove that covered it. The rabbi was whispering words to Wolf, who repeated them in Hebrew: the marriage vow. He was placing the ring on Maryse's finger. Lily found that her eyes had moistened, too. The rabbi was giving them the benediction, was reading the act of marriage in Hebrew, and then Maryse and Wolf drank from the silver chalice. An attendant brought a small cushion with the traditional glass, which Wolf set on the floor, in his methodic fashion, then ground strongly under his foot.

Just as Wolf was gently lifting his bride's veil from her small face, Lily noticed for the first time a refined middle-aged man whose picture she had seen in the newspapers many times before. My God! she thought, her lips parting: it's Leon Blum, leader of the Socialist party ...the man who Misha had said was “a real menace” because of his intelligence. He was totally different from what she'd imagined: extremely well dressed, he might have been yet another French society man attending the wedding of a dear friend.

So the Robinsons were friends with the “real menace.” As she looked again to the nuptial dais, and caught Wolf's kiss on Maryse's lips, she couldn't help but see again the face of Leon Blum superimposed upon her mind. The music to accompany the exit march of the newlyweds toward the sacristy had begun. Claire was soundlessly wiping the tears from her cheeks with a linen handkerchief, but her face reflected absorbed serenity, and no sign of shame. Lily wondered if Misha had seen Blum.

An usher came to the row where they were sitting, and Lily felt her husband's hand on her elbow again. They followed in the train of guests toward the sacristy, where a receiving line had been set up. The sacristy, too, was filled with flowers. Lily stood in line between her husband and her mother, hearing the laughter, the jokes, and thinking again about the ceremony and her mother's tears, about Leon Blum, about Misha. He didn't like socialists, he didn't like Jews, and he had reasons for both those feelings. But—did that necessarily exonerate him? Leon Blum, in his expensive suit, hardly looked like the sort of man who—like Lenin, who had died last year, or like the new man, Joseph Stalin—started revolutions. He was just a man who thought that poor people deserved a chance.

Misha, in his office, had always treated his employees with respect and fairness. Where, then, was the difference between them?

Ahead of her, Misha was kissing Eliane's hand, congratulating Wolf and Maryse. And then it was her turn. She hugged the bride and groom, she hugged David and Eliane, and answered the perfunctory question about when the baby was due. Suddenly it was over, and she was hungry. She said to Misha: “On to the luncheon, then.”

He shook his head. “I'm afraid not. I have much business waiting for me at the office. But I've arranged for François to be waiting for you and Claire outside the temple, with the Rolls. Make my excuses to the Robinsons, and to Wolf, will you?”

She opened her mouth, but words didn't come. He kissed the top of her head, caressed her cheek. “Don't come home too late,” he whispered in her ear, affectionately. And then he was gone, his broad back disappearing among the guests, last of all his head, which always towered over other people's. She stood alone, uncertain, resentful—abandoned.