The Keeper of the Walls (43 page)

Misha's lips parted, in an ashen face. “You think
Claude
actually stole from me? That he was partners in crime with the Rabinovitches?”

Varvara yawned, and covered her mouth with the back of her hand, a sensual animal. “I'm just an actress. I can only suppose, like any half-wit, from the facts that you presented to me, years ago.”

“Then, if Claude did this, he, along with these Jews, wrecked the Aisne project and catapulted us into ruin. He ruined his own sister. I can't believe it.”

She said, firmly: “Believe it. He was envious of you, and envious of Lily. As long as you were necessary to his own success, he played your game. It's what I told you: when you ceased to be essential, he saw you as an outsider, and threw you out. He used Lily, too, to hook you with. But now he couldn't care less about her, because she's just the wife of a poor man. Go home, Misha. And tomorrow, find yourself a good solicitor to handle your affairs. Don't spare expense. There are those who will help.”

When he departed from the Dalbret house, he was conscious of a pang of hunger, and looked at the sky. It was already late afternoon. Exhausted, baffled, at his wits' end, Misha hailed a bus and got into it. But he didn't know what he would tell Lily when he got home. For what was worse? That Charles was suing him, and had labeled him a common thief, or that her only brother had helped destroy her husband.

When he walked into the room at the boardinghouse, Lily came toward him, her hair disheveled, and tears running from her eyes. His first thought, as he closed his arms around her, pressing her close, was that somehow she already knew. But then, realizing this impossibility, he stepped back, his eyes questioning.

“Léon Blum is in the hospital,” she said. “Some King's Servitors and people from the Action Française forced him from his car, beat him up, and left him for dead. Some workmen found him and took him to a clinic— but he's very bad.”

“You're weeping for Leon
Blum?” he
asked, disbelieving.

She shrugged, her face contracting, “I'm crying because I'm afraid, because people have lost their heads, because Eliane and David Robinson have packed their bags to move to the United States with their son, to join David's sister. They're
afraid
to stay here. Last year, Jacques said that he still had faith in the French—that they would never go completely mad, like the Germans and the Italians. But now, when a man can't feel safe to proclaim his ideas, when some impassioned savages can break into his car and nearly kill him—I think Jacques was wrong. And these were
your
people, Misha. People
you
paid for, to fight against normal, decent men like Blum, who wouldn't hurt a fly.”

Completely taken aback, he stammered: “I never paid anyone to hurt another human being. You know this as well as I do, Lily. You're being unfair.”

“
I'm
being unfair?
You
paid them, Misha! Enough money for us to have lived quite well on for two or three years. I heard you, on the telephone, years and years ago—giving away money to this Fascistic organization, to this man Taittinger. And now look what's happening to France!”

He shook his head, speechless. He couldn't remember ever having seen her so distraught. His cool, composed Lily, falling apart over a man like Blum—a Socialist, who could bring France to its knees.

“You hate him because he's a Jew,” she was saying, accusingly.

“I don't really
hate
him. I never wished personal harm on him. And I'd dislike him just as much if he were a Christian.”

“That isn't true. You hate all Jews.”

He cried out then, after the day he'd had, with all his rancor and desperation: “It was the Jews who did me in, Lily! The Rabinovitches! They started the whole ball rolling, and now we're here. Don't ask me to be a Jew-lover: I can't be, that's all.”

And then he left the room, slamming the door behind him, not trusting himself to keep silent about Claude's part in their downfall, and about the lawsuit. He could hear her crying in the room, but he didn't go back in. No, he hadn't wanted to hurt anyone—not even a political menace like Blum. He'd thought Taittinger would keep France from going the way of Moscow, that was all. And now, on top of Charles, on top of Claude, there was his wife, who held him responsible for all the ills that had befallen France. Where, then, might he turn? And where was the justice he'd always believed in?

O
n April 26
, in the pouring rain, the French voted the Popular Front into office. The elections had underscored the polarity now existing in French politics. The Popular Front was elected by over 5.5 million votes, while the right-wing National Front received 4.5 million. Although the French Communist party, which had doubled its membership to 1.5 million members, refused to participate in the new government, Leon Blum, who had recovered from his injuries, decided to accept the post of premier, even without the majority he had always felt he would need if he were to head a cabinet. The threat of Fascism had made him drop his earlier reservations.

Yet France still closed its eyes in the matter of Hitler. Jean Dobler, the French Consul in Cologne, repeatedly sent dispatches about the rearming of Germany, and the way its airfields were increasing. The Quai d'Orsay ignored his alarm. On March 7, Hitler's Reichswehr had penetrated into the Rhineland, which had been declared a demilitarized zone after Poincaré's troops had left in 1923. But the French, cowering behind their Maginot Line, refused to strike back at this obvious offensive. And now, with the first Socialist premier voted into office, France let loose its energies only in the matter of internal affairs.

Misha didn't comment about the election of Leon Blum. He was too preoccupied with his personal problems to be able to think about the world's. When Lily told him that Wolf and Maryse were having problems convincing his parents to leave Austria with them, he merely shrugged. He didn't care about the Steiners. Because, in the middle of April, the owner of the Hotel Carlton had told him that he would have to relinquish his post as manager. People had begun to hear about Baron Charles's allegations, and the latter were hurting business at the hotel, where a manager accused of theft was a black mark held against it.

Misha was out of a job. He went to all his old clients, trying to drum up business as a mediator between companies, and as a finder for new business. But on the whole, Parisians shunned him. He'd lost his wealth, and now he'd also lost his reputation. The afternoon when Kira ran home from recess, in tears, crying that a friend had called her father a “dirty thief,” stayed in his mind like an imprint of his shame. He felt responsible. And yet, of course, he had done nothing wrong. In fact, he had worked for many months at the Rovaro without any pay, and only free board.

He'd put off finding an attorney, despite Varvara's pleas, because, in his mind, he couldn't really believe that this matter would ever come to trial. It was so incredible—so preposterous. He'd built his reputation on his integrity. He had been forced, however, to tell Lily the truth. And she had listened, her face set, her eyes hard, unmoved by any real surprise. At thirty-one, she was already well acquainted with the perfidy of men.

But on the whole, the children were still happy. On Sundays, Lily would pack a picnic basket, and the four of them would board the bus with their games, a ball, and some books to go to the Bois de Boulogne. Near a shady bush they would spread a blanket, sit or lie on it, and remain there from noon to dusk, just like poor people. For the Brasilovs were poor now. But for the first time in their lives, the children had their Papa home every night, early, and he played with them. Lily tried to laugh and joke with her family, for brooding didn't help. And so, when they were all together, she tried to close the drawers of trouble in her brain, and to open those that were full of joy.

They owed money to the boardinghouse. Lily begged the owner to allow them not to take their meals there, which was a custom in all French boardinghouses. Kindly, the rotund little bourgeoise acquiesced. And so their debts became smaller. Whenever Misha was paid one hundred francs, Lily paid half to the landlady, and kept fifty for their food. She had made an arrangement with the Restaurant Moscou, where Misha and his cronies had been habitual patrons during the days of wine and roses. They'd eaten oysters, pheasant, and drunk champagne, and left the restaurant huge sums of money. Now she asked the owners if, in memory of those splendid times, they could help him out a little. And so, at noon, she went there with a closed pot and was given a large portion of good food for the children. In the evening they ate a light meal, but at noon, Misha and Lily frequently went without food in order to give to Kira and Nicolas whatever was left over. Lily and Misha never discussed it. But sometimes, when it was lunchtime and there wasn't anything to eat, one would look at the other and shrug, saying: “I don't think I'm hungry today. We'll have an early dinner.” And the other one would nod, and agree.

B
etween September and Christmas
, an eruption of right-wing reprisals occurred in Paris. The Secret Committees for Revolutionary Action, more commonly known as the Hood, undertook the murder of an Italian anti-Fascist newspaperman and his brother, and blew up the headquarters of the Employers' Association. And just before the holidays, Italy and Germany left the League of Nations. Lily wrote Maryse: “Things have become so ugly, I wonder now if you wouldn't be better off following your parents to America. At least there, one's civil liberties are respected, and there's no threat of war.” But Wolf replied that if his own mother and father still refused to heed the signs of danger, he would be forced to get out of Austria without them, bringing Maryse and Nanni to the South of France. For, he told Lily, many of his Jewish patients were now leaving in droves, and many had ended up on the French Riviera. A semblance of gracious living still seemed to be maintained there.

“You must understand how we feel, Lily,” he wrote. “For the Jews of Europe, it is most important to stay together at this time of fear and horror. We feel threatened in our very existence by Hitler. In Nice, we shall at least have the illusion of being in a safe enclave among our own kind.”

She'd felt a shock, reading his lines. She wondered if Claire and Jacques felt this way, too. After the summer, they had remained in Cannes, in their rented villa. She thought: Then there can be no more escape. And thought again: I am Jewish, too. For how long will Paris remain safe for me, and for my children? And in this moment,
she felt
her Jewishness. It was in her bones, in her flesh, making her identify with the thousands who, like the Steiners, were fleeing from lives of comfort and grace, in Germany and Austria, in order to keep one step ahead of the small, puffy-faced man with his toothbrush mustache.

Lily had strengthened her friendship with Rabbi Weill. Because she was no longer free to come and go as she pleased, having no one to supervise her children if she was out, her visits to the temple in the Rue de la Victoire had had to be spaced out to fit an erratic schedule. But the Grand Rabbi of Paris had taught her a great deal. Lily yearned to share her new religion with her son, who was turning thirteen—but, of course, it was impossible. And there were still many times when the tug of her old religion continued to pull her in the opposite direction: at Christmas, at Easter. She was familiar with the most minute details of Catholicism, and only with the rudiments of Judaism. Sometimes she prayed to God, the God of all religions, to give her guidance, to tell her who and what she was. But no direction came. And so she felt like a curious hybrid, a nomad in a confusing no-man's-land. She was a Jew, and yet not completely; she was still a Catholic, though without right to take the sacraments.

With the end of the year, of course, there were her children's birthdays. Claire and Jacques came home, and reintegrated their suite at the Ritz. With them in the city, Lily felt oddly relieved. She helped her mother plan a birthday dinner for Kira, whose birthday came first; and then one for Nicky. And, as they set the table and wrapped packages, the two women's eyes met, knowing without having to say the words that this boy would not have the bar mitzvah of his ancestors. He didn't even know he was a Jew.