But more of Jules, more of my husband. In that last weekend of October 1939, the train had brought them from Paris in the early morning. We’d been to the palais, the Château de Fontainebleau so deserted our steps had echoed. Jules knew the owners of Vaux-the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte-so we had gone there, too. Such beautiful things, so many of them.
Now our guests sat about two picnic tables that had been placed end to end among the pear trees so as to catch the sun. Jules was at the far end, with Janine on his left, everyone eating, drinking, endlessly discussing politics and the war. Oh, for sure, it was good to see Simone and André de Verville again, nice of Jules to have included them, Simone, in particular, for she was special to me, but the others … Apart from Marcel Clairmont, whom you know I didn’t trust and would rather not have had as a more-or-less permanent house guest, I simply didn’t know them.
In secret, from behind the parted curtains of Jean-Guy’s room, I looked down at those tables. Louis and Dominique Vuitton were thin, stiff, greying, black-haired, and from the Ministry of Culture and the Louvre, respectively, and wasn’t it nice how some couples could have their fingers in so many pies?
As is often the case with a married couple, it’s either the one or the other who is dominant. A strand of ancient Egyptian beads was held out from that long, skinny neck, those little bits of history fiddled with as if nothing. Worn in a tight ponytail, that woman’s hair had been stabbed by an antique silver barrette, which flashed in the afternoon sun. Carnelian and agate signets of spice traders had been made into bracelets, others into rings. A bitch draped in antiquity. Nefertiti? I remember thinking. The hawklike nose, pinched face, hard dark narrow eyes, pencilled-in eyebrows, mascara, rouge, and lipstick, made me wonder what she was after. Little boys or little girls, for her eyes kept returning to my children. Am I being too harsh? A Royalist if ever there was one, a Fascist anyway, and bitter enemy of the Third Republic.
Those two were friends and associates of my husband, and mustn’t business always be combined with pleasure, especially at a time of war? They were very influential, and paid servants of that same Republic.
The rest were young-friends of Janine’s. Michèle Chevalier was the baby and absolutely exquisite. Twenty years of age? Ah, no, eighteen I think. Deep brown eyes that were so serious at times, shoulder-length wavy light brown hair in which there were reddish tints. A manner of delicately tracing the tip of a forefinger under the soft, warm curve of her chin when in thought. This I found touching. Superb breasts, lovely kissing lips, an absolutely unbelievable figure-I was to see it later. Naked, you understand.
A musician, a violinist and a good one, too, or so Janine had told me. A student, of course, but when would my Jules try to seduce her? Nini’s dark flashing eyes kept flicking to Michèle who sat some distance from her on the opposite side of the tables. Had overtures already been made?
Vuitton also had an interest in Michèle, that wife of his encouraging this. She would touch the girl’s hand and say something while looking to her husband for agreement. He would then study Michèle and gravely nod or delicately knuckle his thin grey moustache then give a tight little smile or say something profound to which his wife would respond. From the room up here, he looked to be about sixty-five, she on the tired side of fifty and trying hard to hide it, and I became afraid for Michèle, something that would only increase as time went on.
Henri-Philippe Beauclair was a tall, thin, and bespectacled Socialist. He had asked me to show him the house and when confronted by the embarrassment of a marriage bed he had known was being betrayed, had confessed that though he liked restoring paintings at the Louvre, and was worried about his job, as a chemist he was probably of far more use making explosives.
Michèle had a passing interest in him; he would die for her.
And Dmitry Alexandrov, what of him? A White Russian from that quartier, he had about him the air of a closet Communist. Nini had picked him up in a bar and had felt sorry for him, but shouldn’t have. Not with that one. Dmitry probably knew every Russian waiter, chef, and plongeur in Paris, and what they didn’t steal for themselves from the kitchens, some of them would have stolen for him.
He was twenty-six, short, with the broad shoulders, strong arms, and hands typical of the Russian peasant. A stocky ox with slicked down, flaxen hair, he had invested in a barber for the weekend, had made certain the haircut would last, but was it butter he had used, or the brilliantine of someone he’d met on the street?
The faded, grey-blue eyes were seldom still, he taking in everything and giving little away. As a student of electrical engineering, the French army should have had him by now, for Paris and all the major centres had been systematically drained of tradesmen by the military. Had he ignored his call-up papers?
He looked as if eating a last meal, as if searching for a way out, the eyes widely spaced about a cart driver’s nose and hooded beneath the strong, bland forehead with its thick, fair eyebrows.
Marcel wasn’t particularly fond of him-overripe cheese on a plate of meringues-and was still in that faded blue smock he always wore, the red handkerchief knotted about that swarthy neck, the black beret looking like the drooping pancake of an angry albatross.
Yes, Marcel Clairmont was being his usual self, smoking his filthy cigarettes, coughing, hawking up wads of phlegm to be chewed, swallowed, or spat to one side, gesticulating like a fisherman, regaling any who would listen with his stories, his lies, his laughter and politics, the paintings he hadn’t sold but was going to. Merde! Some men …
Janine looked so lovely, fresh and gay. No housework, no meals to get. No children to care for or to keep you awake at night when they’re sick or there’s thunder and lightning or the distant sound of approaching guns.
‘Lily, what is it? What’s wrong?’
Simone had been watching me from the doorway for some time and I, in my bitterness, hadn’t even realized she’d left the table. Jean-Guy and Marie-Christine were with her, haunted eyes surveying their mother.
‘Nothing. I’m just worried about this war. I’ll be down in a minute.’
‘It’s Jules, isn’t it? Jules and Janine.’
I nodded. I couldn’t look at her. Even then I wasn’t worried about Jules and the Vuittons. I should have been!
‘Jean-Guy, take Marie and go downstairs to your father,’ said Simone. ‘Let me talk to your mother, just for a little.’
She kissed them both and watched as they walked to the head of the stairs until I felt myself being taken and firmly held. Simone was taller than me, with thick, wiry, dark black hair that fell to her shoulders and was worn back off her brow and teased out at the sides. Her eyes were strikingly grey, the face a smooth, if delicate oval, the slender nose turned up a little and always shiny.
‘So what can I do to help?’ she asked. ‘Smack Jules’s face or Nini’s?’
We kissed on the cheeks. She dried my eyes and somehow got me calmed down, but for a long, long time she simply held me, then we talked, just the two of us as we always did, and finally I told her what I’d done.
The wine cellar was dank, low-ceilinged, and filled with rows of dusty bottles whose sleep had been left undisturbed except for the spiders. Simone knew of the cave, of course, but even so, was aghast at the bottles of Château Lafite, Château Latour, Château Mouton … ‘Bon Dieu, de bon Dieu de merde, don’t you two ever touch these?’ she asked.
‘Not since Jules’s father died. Now the bottles just wait, and we spend our money drinking other stuff.’