Bridal Chair (9 page)

“There is Lord Somerset. And Lady Margaret, whom you met at the gallery, is dancing with the Swedish ambassador. How odd that she is not dancing with her husband, but I suppose it’s all right. Although there are rumors…” Her voice drifted and then gathered strength. “But then there are always rumors, aren’t there?”

Ida nodded. She understood that it was not a question that required an answer.

Quite suddenly, the orchestra stopped playing, the dancers stood rigidly in place, and even Lady Clerk fell silent.

“Their majesties are leaving,” Lord Clerk whispered.

The conductor waved his baton, and the strains of the national anthem filled the room. Every voice was raised as the loyal and loving subjects of King George V, the grandson of Queen Victoria, lifted their voices in reverent chorus.

“God save our gracious king,” they sang. “Long live our noble king.”

Their voices were tremulous. Their country had survived one war and they lived under the threat of another. But on this celebratory night, they willed themselves to optimism. Perhaps they might sing their way into peace. Ida stood very still and wondered why it was that tears filled her eyes. The conductor lowered his baton. The men bowed from the waist and the women curtsied. The ornate door opened, and King George and Queen Mary disappeared into the night. There was a brief moment of silence and then the band struck up an engaging tune.

Within minutes, the hall was reenergized. Once again, the Clerks strolled the room, introducing Ida to their friends and acquaintances who all pronounced themselves delighted to meet the daughter of the famous Russian painter. Sir Jacob Epstein, the distinguished sculptor whose work
Ecce
Homo
had only recently been unveiled, kissed her hand.

“Please remember me to your father. After all, we have so much in common, he and I, as do you and I,” he said and winked at her.

“Indeed,” she agreed and flashed him a brilliant smile, acknowledging her complicity. Ida Chagall and Jacob Epstein understood the anomaly of their presence in the brilliantly lit ballroom. They were both the Jewish children of Russian-born parents, who, against all odds, were welcomed and even admired by the aristocracy of England.

“Is your father making arrangements to leave Paris?” the sculptor asked, careful to keep his voice very low.

“Not yet,” she replied.

“He should. He really should. There are dark clouds on the horizon.” He shook his head sadly and moved on.

The orchestra no longer played waltzes. The rhythms of swing filled the room, a lively rendition of “Begin the Beguine.” There was a burst of enthusiastic applause as an elegant couple stepped onto the dance floor. The man wore an impeccably tailored tuxedo and the crimson sash of royalty. The woman’s dress was of silver lamé, and a necklace of tiny diamonds glittered about her very long neck. Her eyes were narrow, her features sharp and predatory. They were not young. Oddly the woman was taller than her escort, but they were both slender and graceful, their faces frozen in practiced insincere smiles. They danced with grace and ease, swinging in and out of each other’s arms in a circlet of light.

“Who are they?” Ida asked.

Lady Clerk smiled. “Ida, my dear, you are looking at the prince of Wales, who will one day be king of England. And the woman with whom he is dancing is an American divorcée, a Mrs. Wallis Simpson.”

“And will she, one day, be queen of England?” Ida asked, although she was certain that she knew the answer to her question.

“Of course not. The royal family would never condone such a marriage. The people of England would never accept it. Actually, he has no choice. He will have to break with her and do his duty. The country will insist, as will his family. He will, of course, accede to their demands, and I am sure he will not regret it. I suppose you find that hard to understand.”

“No. I understand it completely,” Ida replied.

She stared at the prince and Mrs. Simpson and thought of how she and Michel had sat opposite her parents at their dining room table and listened to Marc’s imperial edict, his demand that they marry. Like the Prince of Wales, neither she nor Michel had been offered a choice. They too had acceded to the demands of their parents and their community and done their duty. She shook her head.
Of
course, the comparison is ridiculous
, she thought reprovingly.
She
and
Michel
were
hardly
royal
personages.

She wondered if the weak-chinned Prince of Wales might actually decide to defy his family and his nation and marry the divorcée at whom he looked with such a yearning gaze. And if he capitulated and did indeed give up the throne, would he regret it? The parallel to her own life teased. Did she regret her marriage? Did Michel? She chided herself for the intrusion of such a foolish speculation, even as she realized that she had answered her own question.

The music stopped, and the future king escorted his American lover from the dance floor. Ida watched them and wondered where Michel was at this very moment. Was he lonely? Did he miss her? Did he regret their marriage? Did she? The questions came again, unbidden, and again remained unanswered.

She thought of Michel throughout her journey home to France on the small craft that ferried her across the English Channel. She read and reread the loving notes he had written her during her absence. No, she assured herself, neither of them regretted their marriage.
And
yet. And yet.
She repressed the lingering doubt and thrust the letters back into her bag.

Her fellow passengers were a somber group, absorbed in their newspapers whose stark headlines were uniformly ominous. Dark clouds haunted the continent. Adolf Hitler’s rants grew more and more bellicose. Benito Mussolini had trained his sights on Ethiopia. Hardly a country in Europe was exempt from financial instability. Three passengers in the somber uniforms of the soldiers of commerce—dark suits, expertly laundered shirts, striped ties, and bowler hats—leaned against the rail of the deck. Fragments of their conversation floated toward Ida. Chamberlain might appease the German bastard enough to prevent another war… Roosevelt was right to remain neutral… Roosevelt was wrong to remain neutral.

Ida sat on a portside deck chair, buttoned her blue cape against the chill, shook off her beret so that the wind might ruffle her hair, and removed the scrapbook of newspaper clippings from her portmanteau. She reviewed the favorable critiques of her father’s work and anticipated his pleasure as he listened to her translate them. The distinguished critics of the leading London papers had been enthusiastic, generous with their praise and honest in their acknowledgment of their bewilderment at the symbolism of some of his themes.

“Marc Chagall presents us with dazzling colors and rabbinic mysteries,” the art critic of the
Times
had observed in a not-so-veiled reference to Marc’s Jewishness. Ida had not taken offense. Marc’s Judaism vested his work with an appealing exoticism. The paintings in which the “rabbinic mysteries” were dominant had sold well, and the payment checks had been duly deposited in the account she had opened in her father’s name in the Royal Bank of Scotland. She had deposited her commission in her own account. She had certainly earned the substantial sum. She had answered endless questions, shared snippets of information about her parents’ lives, and discussed her father’s routine, his constant search for innovative techniques. Her classes at La Palette had not, after all, been a waste of time. She had learned to parrot the glib repartee of the art world. A photograph in the
Tatler
showed her standing in front of one of the larger canvases, and the accompanying caption had been flattering. “How fortunate that Ida Chagall, the artist’s beautiful and knowledgeable daughter, was on hand to explicate her father’s themes,” the generous columnist had written.

Ida smiled. She might officially be Madame Rapaport, the wife of a struggling law student, but she would always be known as Ida Chagall. She decided that she would not show that clipping to Michel but instead present him with the new bank book in her name. She was the guarantor of financial security for her parents as well as her husband.

Carefully, she replaced the scrapbook and accepted a steaming cup of broth from the tray proffered by a solicitous steward. She was wondrously content, excited by her own accomplishments. She recalled with pleasure Lady Clerk’s embrace and effusive words as she left the London town house.

“Ida, you were just superb. So independent, so competent. I have written to your father and told him how very proud we are of you. You must come back to London soon, you and your Michel,” the aristocratic Englishwoman had said.

“Of course,” Ida had agreed.

But
, she thought,
what
would
Michel
do
in
London?
Despite all her urging, he had not learned a single word of English, and he was uncomfortable in the world of art and artists. Even a year after their marriage, he sat in silence at her parents’ dinner parties, staring at his watch, impatient to leave for their own small drab apartment. Poor dear Michel, still—and perhaps forever—so ill at ease in the world that had been thrust upon him.

She wondered if he would be waiting for her at the dock. But of course he would be there. She closed her eyes and imagined how he would stride toward her, his arms outstretched, a smile igniting his angular face. He was her Michel, faithful and dependable, and he would look so handsome in the Norfolk jacket she had bought for him at a price that had caused her to gasp. But he deserved the best; of course he did.

Soothed by the rocking motion of the ship, sated with her own success, she imagined the excitement of her return, her husband’s affection, her father’s pride, her mother’s gentle approval. She would not allow the threatening headlines, the whispering of the dark-suited doomsayers, to shadow her contentment. Still smiling, she fell into a pleasant sleep, waking only when the shore of France came into view.

Michel, with a baguette tucked beneath his arm, his green book bag laden with texts and the ledgers of his parents’ small shop, trudged up the rue du Bac. He paused at the newsstand and bought a copy of the evening paper, barely glancing at the headlines. There would be no good news. He could not remember when an optimistic headline had last appeared in a Parisian journal. Still, he and Ida read the papers each morning and each evening. It was their compass, each ominous dispatch a flashing needle, pointing them toward the direction they knew they would have to take. The inevitable journey of escape was delayed by the Chagalls’ stubborn reluctance to leave Paris and Ida’s refusal to emigrate without them. Michel told her repeatedly that they were running out of time, and she assured him again and again that she would impress the gravity of the situation on her parents.

His own mother and father had registered at the British embassy for visas to Palestine. They would be safe in Tel Aviv. It was a Jewish city, and Palestine might become a Jewish homeland.

“Perhaps then we can stop running,” his mother had said ruefully as she removed the battered suitcases they had carried from Moscow to Berlin, from Berlin to Paris, from the storage closet.

His aunt and uncle had managed to get visas to the Dominican Republic and two of his fellow students had booked passage to Cuba. He thought of registering at the South American embassies. Uruguay, Brazil. They were alternatives that he knew Ida’s parents would scorn, but with the inevitable German invasion of France, they would have to seek any available refuge. It was ludicrous for Marc, who recognized the danger, to insist that his fame would protect them.

He reached the shabby apartment building he and Ida had rented when she returned from England. The rooms were small, the kitchen cramped, and the narrow balcony inaccessible, but the rent was very low.

“We’ll take it just for a few months,” Ida had assured him, implicit in her words the promise that within that brief period, they would leave Paris. But they had lived there for two years, and all that had happened was that the paint in the bedroom had peeled, the switch that ignited the hallway light had broken, and they were no closer to leaving the city.

He stared up at the narrow windows of their apartment and was not surprised to see that they were dark. Of course Ida was at her parents’ new home, their rented villa near the Trocadéro. The move was Marc’s restless and foolish defense against the ominous news that assaulted them day after day. He rationalized that the change of address would keep them safe. He spoke of a synagogue service he had attended as a boy in Vitebsk at which a man had stood before the Torah and proclaimed that he was changing the name of his ill son because Jewish superstition had it that when someone was desperately ill, the name of the invalid was changed so that the Angel of Death might be deceived and unable to find his intended victim. Perhaps, he had said with an impish smile, the German angels of death might be deceived by their move and thus unable to find them.

Michel had smiled bitterly at his father-in-law’s naïveté. Did he think that the Gestapo would rely on a phone book when they hunted for Jews?
The
great
artist
was
a
genius
, Michel thought,
but
a
naive
genius
. Unlike the Angel of Death, the Gestapo could find anyone, could kill anyone.

He mounted the dark stairwell slowly, annoyed by Ida’s absence. Still, when he opened the door, he was somewhat soothed by the delicious aroma of garlic and onions. Ida had not forgotten that she had a husband. Her note on the table informed him that she had prepared a chicken paprika stew for him. He had only to heat it up. It was, he knew, her mother’s recipe, redolent with the scent and taste of Russia. Ida’s culinary skills were the legacy of the long days of her childhood when she and Bella had played house together, cooking the robust stews and soups of Vitebsk for Marc’s pleasure and their own.

Michel knew of the loneliness of Ida’s early years. He had been witness to her girlhood timidity, her sweet innocence and docility, her playfulness in the alpine meadow where they had come together so sweetly, so tenderly, so rashly. But that innocence, that docility, had vanished. She was a forceful and assertive woman. Her body was possessed of a passion and power that too often overwhelmed him. Her magnetic personality, her animated conversation, her easy laughter attracted friends and admirers who surrounded her in cafés and at parties. Her London success, her father’s almost total reliance on her competence, invigorated her with confidence.

“
La
belle
Ida
,” the artists and writers of the Left Bank cafés called her in Michel’s hearing, many of them unaware that the shabbily dressed, angular-faced student was
la
belle
Ida
’s husband.

Michel had noted that Bella’s encroaching weakness and melancholy ignited Ida’s energy. He vaguely recalled a Russian folk tale, perhaps a Baba Yaga story, in which a daughter sucked away her mother’s health and energy and then grew wings of strength that enabled her to fly off into distant climes.

He dismissed the association, shamed by its implied disloyalty. Ida was devoted to her mother whom she resembled in so many ways. Like Bella, her moods soared and plummeted without warning. Too often she bewildered and exhausted him, but his heart beat faster when she drew close; her very presence seduced him.

He wandered into their small salon and glanced up at the painting of
The
Bridal
Chair
that hung there. It occurred to him, not for the first time, that the emptiness of the painted chair corresponded to the emptiness he felt in the room where he was so often alone.

Wearily, he tossed his jacket onto the frayed sofa and picked up the letter that the postman had slipped beneath their door. It was from Elsa Liebowitz in New York, where she and André lived. He knew that Ida had written to them asking for help and advice about emigration. He felt a surge of hope. Perhaps there was news of a visa or a mention of sponsorship.

He lit the flame on their small stove to warm the chicken stew and opened the envelope. The news was not good. Elsa had contacted various Jewish organizations and learned that there was virtually no possibility that the Chagalls would be granted visas. American law restricted immigration. The authorities adhered to a strict quota system, indifferent to the plight of the Jews of Europe. The quota for Russian immigrants was exhausted. But Elsa suggested that since Michel had French citizenship, it might extend to Ida as his wife. They could then qualify for visas under the French quota. Once in the United States, they might campaign on behalf of their parents. But she cautioned that even if they were granted visas, financial difficulties remained. Money would be needed for their passage as well as a surety of three thousand dollars for each, a guarantee that they would not be financially dependent on the American government. She regretted that she and André could not offer them funds as their combined salaries barely covered their own expenses.

Michel read and reread the letter. Money was not a problem. They had never touched Ida’s account in the Bank of Scotland. Clearly, if he and Ida managed to get to America, they would be better positioned to help their parents. But he knew that Ida would never leave without Marc and Bella. Her loyalty to them was sacrosanct. Still, he would try to convince her.

“You cannot judge him as you would judge other men,” she often reminded him. “He is a genius.”

Only once had Michel dared to assert that even geniuses had their foibles. Her father, he had insisted, was not immune to the judgment of ordinary mortals like himself. She had stared at him angrily and slammed the door as she left the room.

He replaced the letter in the envelope so that Ida might read it when she returned home. He spooned the heated stew into a dish and read his newspaper as he ate. The front page news was predictable. There was a photograph of the coronation of King George VI and a smaller photo of the Duke of Windsor and Mrs. Wallis Simpson emerging from a limousine. Michel had no doubt that the photograph of the renegade lovers would attract more attention than the coronation. It occurred to him that the duke and duchess should receive special recognition for offering the world a diversion from the grim news that emanated from Germany. Glancing at the slender royal and his American paramour, he recalled Ida’s almost casual confession that she admired the prince for his ability to resist the demands of the royal family and the prime minister. He had wondered then if she herself regretted her own submission to her parents’ demands and their marriage. It was a question he would never pose to her—or to himself.

He skimmed the news stories from Italy and the United States. Mussolini and Franklin Delano Roosevelt were of little interest to him. But his hands trembled when he turned the page and read the critique of an art show in Munich. It was titled “The Nazi Exhibition of Degenerate Art.” A single photograph illustrated the article, a black-bordered reproduction of Marc’s portrait of a rabbi that had hung for years in a Mannheim museum. Michel read the accompanying text with horror. The portrait was only one of several of Marc’s paintings selected for the exhibition that included the works of other artists. Picasso and Matisse had also offended the sensibilities of Adolf Hitler. The führer, the reporter wrote with wry incredulity, considered the artists insane and advocated their sterilization or perhaps criminal prosecution. It was Marc Chagall who was especially singled out for vitriolic condemnation. According to the Nazi curator of the exhibition, he was a Jew who saw the world through the distorted lens of Jewish perception. Goebbels himself had labeled “the Jew artist Chagall” a degenerate.

The writer, a French journalist who had attended the exhibition and observed the hatred and hysteria of the crowds, was at once indignant and horrified. “What is happening in Germany?” he asked in the conclusion of his article.

A
stupid
question
, Michel thought. Everyone knew what was happening in Germany. Barbarians ruled that nation, and those barbarians would soon be at the gates of Paris. Teutonic evil would move inexorably across one border after another until it devoured all of Europe. That same journalist would soon ask, “What is happening in France?”

No longer hungry, he pushed his plate aside, the stew half eaten. He went to the phone and called the Chagall apartment. Ida answered on the first ring, and he could hear the sound of voices and the clink of glasses in the background. It did not surprise him that the Chagalls’ home was crowded with visitors. An informal salon convened there almost every evening. Artists and poets, denizens of Left Bank cafés and Right Bank mansions, would be talking too loudly, their laughter exploding in nervous bursts. This was not a time for Parisians to be alone. They sought comfort in company, in nervous meaningless exchanges, in the relief of too much wine and gossip.

Marc basked in the admiration of his guests, the invited and the uninvited. Ida was his lively and welcoming hostess, a surrogate for her mother who was so often ill with a mysterious
affaiblissement
, an undefined weakness.

Michel imagined the array of wine bottles, the vivacious conversations in a cacophony of languages, French colliding with Russian, English spoken in one corner, German in another. Marc might suddenly break into song, a half-remembered Yiddish ditty or a long, mournful ballad. He might even dance, a spry and graceful elf, waltzing to music that only he could hear, his arms outstretched, as though in readiness to gather in his absent wife. His guests would clap; their applause was the price of admission. At such gatherings, Ida roamed the room, carrying trays of food, bottles of wine.

“Michel,” she said breathlessly into the phone. “How wonderful that it is you. Will you be coming tonight? There are so many interesting people here.”

“No,” he said, struggling to keep his tone even. “Actually, I want you to come home. It is important that we talk. At once.”

“Why?” she asked and laughed at something someone in the room had said, one of the “interesting people,” he supposed.

“Have you seen the evening paper?”

“No.”

“When I show it to you, you will understand. Please leave now.”

“My father has guests. Important guests.” She lowered her voice. “Sartre himself may be coming. And perhaps de Beauvoir.”

“And I am telling you that it is important that you come home. At once.”

There was a brief silence. He had surprised her. It was rare for him to make a demand.

“Very well, Michel. I will leave now,” she said, and he heard the fear in her voice.

Less than an hour later, she sat beside him on the sofa. He handed her the newspaper, and she read the story and leaned against him, her face pale, her hands trembling.

“We must do something at once,” she said. “If the Germans invade, which they will surely do, my father will be their immediate target. We must make him understand that. We’ll speak to him together tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” he agreed and held her close. “Everything will be all right, Ida.”

It was, he knew, a foolish and futile reassurance. They both knew that everything would not be all right. They came together that night, not in passion but in fear, seeking to comfort each other with the warmth of their bodies and the tenderness of their touch.

* * *

Michel and Ida arrived at the Trocadéro apartment early the next morning. A sullen Katya served them croissants and coffee. Madame was sleeping, she said as she slammed cups and saucers onto the table. The maître was in his studio.

“Tell him that we must see him,” Ida insisted.

Katya stared at her, hostility and resentment in her pale eyes. A friend had mentioned seeing the maid at a Croix de Feu demonstration in Montmartre waving a paper swastika flag. Ida had not told her parents that Katya was a Nazi sympathizer who should be fired. Marc and Bella feared change and disruption. Katya had long been a fixture in their lives, and they would resist replacing her. Ida anticipated their arguments. They would claim that Katya was a foolish girl, a stupid girl, but her politics did not affect her work and good maids were hard to find.