Pictures of the Past (9 page)

Sarah bent her head, then looked up. Their eyes met and locked and there was no mistaking the electricity that passed between them.

Though Sarah was powerfully attracted to Taylor, unlike him, she lacked the experience necessary to identify her feelings as love and she was often confused by her new fierce emotions. This was not the first time that a boy had fallen for her. She knew she was considered pretty. People were always remarking on how she looked like her mother, with her dramatic eyes and blond hair and curvy figure. As a schoolgirl of seventeen, fumbling schoolboys were often stuttering in her presence. But now, for the first time, she too felt the fluttering butterflies in her stomach and her heart that she had read about. She found this handsome, smart, and personable young man irresistible.

On Saturday, Taylor accompanied Sara and Emanuel for a special exposition presentation by the symphony and the ballet. Taylor waited in the lobby for them to come down from their suite at the Hôtel de Crillon. When Sarah emerged from the elevator, she took his breath away. On this night she had chosen to wear her hair pulled back in an intricately twisted knot. He missed the dazzle of the shock of blond curls that previously framed her face, but he found this new look surprisingly appealing. The depth of her eyes and her high, radiant cheekbones were accentuated.

During the concert, Emanuel sat between Sarah and Taylor and the young couple exchanged only occasional glances. At intermission, they were both careful to engage Emanuel in their conversations about the powerful music and the beautifully choreographed dances. But after the concert, as they stood in a line awaiting their car and driver, without even consulting Taylor, Sarah addressed her father. “Papa, it is such a beautiful evening and the hotel is not so far. Wouldn’t it be lovely to walk back instead?”

Her father, already showing a slight limp from negotiating the grand staircases of the Concert Hall, momentarily played with her. “What a wonderful idea, my
liebling.
I would just love a long walk.” But when he saw her eyes widen incredulously, he could not extend the joke. “No, no. I have a better idea. I am ready to retire. Why don’t the two of you go on ahead?”

Once more she kissed his cheek, and saw him give Taylor a slight wink as she did so.

Paris on that July night in 1937 was a contradiction of terms, alive with
joie de vivre,
but also shrouded by a smog of dread. The rumors, whispers, cries, and shouts of European neighbors did not go unnoticed on Parisian streets. Walking with the many attendees, tuxedo-clad gentlemen with beautifully coiffed and coutured women on their arms, enjoying a stroll on the boulevard, they were shaken by posters and graffiti that they passed.

Taylor could not read their words, but that was not even necessary. You could understand what they alluded to—an undercurrent of unrest on the continent. “The time I am spending in Europe is opening my eyes to more than just the business at hand. There is a terror here—not yet as palpable as what we have seen the Spanish are enduring, but present nonetheless. And if you can feel it here, I can only imagine that it is worse in Germany.”

“But there is so much beauty in my country—so much culture in Berlin. If only I could take you there. You would see beyond the ugliness that Hitler has been spreading. Papa says that we will still be all right.” Sarah insisted. “But I will tell you that I sometimes think my father has more in mind than just social and business objectives in providing us with our English tutor. I am thinking now that he has a master plan. There is a saying that I know in English—my tutor has told me—‘one foot out the door’—when you are planning to leave something.” She looked up to see Taylor nodding.

“My tutor told me about him and his wife—‘I tell you if she does that one more time, I will leave her. I already have one foot out the door.’ I laughed when I heard it, and I love using the expression. Well, my father and his pursuit of English, I think reflect not yet, ‘one foot out the door,’ but opening the door and peeking out.”

Taylor had been holding Sarah’s hand as they walked, but now he placed his arm around her waist and pulled her close, initially, in a protective reflex. But then after they walked a few blocks farther away from the graffitied walls, their closeness took on a romantic quality and they let the cares of the world escape them once more as they stopped for a long kiss.

Approaching the hotel, Taylor became anxious again. More than once in the past few days, he tried to broach the subject of Emily with Sarah, but she would be distracted by an intriguing exhibit or a store window and she would pull him in one direction or another.

“Sarah,” he finally said, “I am going to have to tell you something that you may not want to hear. Something about me.”

At this, she stopped and turned to him. “If I would not want to hear it, then maybe you should not tell me.”

“I wish it were that easy.” For once, he had no desire to look in her eyes, focusing instead on the pavement, his head down like a freshly disciplined schoolboy.

“What? You are a thief, a murderer—an escaped convict?”

“No, not likely,” he said, finally looking up at her with a slight grin.

“Then how bad could it be? You have a wife and three children? Should I be sitting down when I hear this?”

“No—walking is better—purposefully walking so you will listen and digest my story.”

“OK. Continue,” she said, resuming her stride. “I am walking now.”

“Before I came here, I had a girlfriend.”

She didn’t miss a beat in the pace of her step.

And so he reiterated, “A serious girlfriend.”

She stopped now and turned toward him.

“You were to marry?”

“We weren’t engaged, but it was understood we were heading in that direction.”

She considered this for a few moments, and then said, “I am not surprised.”

He didn’t know how to interpret that and so he said nothing, and just looked at her quizzically.

“Why would this surprise me? Do you think I would fall for a man with no appeal?”

But then she continued. “Would it surprise you to know that I had a boyfriend?”

He had not prepared himself for this revelation and it blindsided him. What had he been thinking, he asked himself—that she been sitting at home waiting for her prince to ride in? Finally he said, sheepishly, “If I am to be honest…that upsets me.”

“Well then, I appreciate your honesty, and I will return your trust.” She paused now and offered him the most little girlish swaying of her head from side to side. “There is no boyfriend. I was just postulating. Truly, I only know boys my age, and they are cute, but too immature. When I am older like you…”

“Twenty-two,” he interjected.

“Twenty-two, then. I will have a boyfriend for you to be jealous of.”

“Not likely,” he returned.

“You think I will be old, withered, and unappealing already.”

“No, I think you will be married and with children—ours.”

“Oh, you are quick to change your direction. And so this girlfriend…”

“She is no longer a girlfriend.”

“All right then. This girlfriend, who is no longer…her name…”

“Emily…Emily Kendall.”

They had reached the Crillon and they entered the hotel lobby. Taylor led her immediately to a secluded corner with a small couch. He took her purse and diaphanous cream shawl and placed them on the coffee table and they sat down together. He had no intention of letting the evening end too soon. Taylor loved every word of this conversation, the fact that she could tease—this young girl could turn the tables on him.

She said nothing for a while and just whispered the name “Emily” two or three times, as if that act would conjure a specific image. Finally, she said to Taylor, “Blond hair also, I am wondering?”

“No, not blond, darker, reddish actually, but very dark—auburn, we say.”

“You know, I just don’t feel that you make a good boyfriend. If I were to take someone’s boyfriend, I’d want assurance that he was worthy.”

“I was loyal and true for a long time.”

“But you come abroad and forget her immediately.”

He knew she was being dramatic and sarcastic with him, but certainly there was truth in what she said. He tried to think of a way to escape from this tangle of words, and then it came to him. “You are wrong. I did not forget her, well at least not immediately. The first day, when I arrived, I could think only of buying the perfect gift for her.”

“Now, finally you are talking like a good boyfriend,” Sarah said enthusiastically, her eyes angling up to meet his.

“As a matter of fact, I bought her a painting, the most beautiful painting I had ever seen. And I was so excited. For an hour, I was so thrilled just thinking of watching her when I gave it to her.”

“An hour only?”

“An hour only.”

“And why that short a time?”

“Because at the end of that hour…I met you …I saw your face.” He let the words float toward her and said nothing more for a moment, just held her gaze. And then, as if reacting to the sting of a bee, he jumped up and pulled her with him off the sofa. “I must show it to you. I know you will love it. It’s crazy. It’s like I was meant to give this painting to you. Now I see it perfectly.”

“You are crazy.”

“Say nothing. When you see it, you will understand. You must come with me to my room.”

“Taylor, wait. You are getting too excited. I hardly think I can go up to your room with you. I’m sure you understand that. Papa is giving me a great deal of latitude as it is. I cannot betray his trust.”

“Of course,” Taylor said. He was trying to slow down and be rational. “Of course you are right. But I am going to bring the painting down to you and you must promise to stay here.”

When he left abruptly, she retired to the ladies lounge, where she powdered her face and reapplied her lipstick, and had a brief conversation with two of the other occupants about highlights of the exposition. By the time she returned to the couch, he was back and had almost finished unwrapping the painting.

As if their moves had been synchronized, they looked at it first from two feet away and then moved back another five feet. He was silent, waiting for her response.

“It is magnificent,” she finally said. “It is everything anyone would want in a work of art.”

He knew what her reaction would be, and yet, he was ecstatic to hear it from her lips. “Go on…tell me what you are thinking.”

“It has all the beauty of the Impressionist style. All of the brush strokes, the colors, and the romantic theme as well. But there is also a story here.”

“Exactly,” he interjected. “I knew you were smart— and sensitive. Help me to understand what is going on here. There are so many ways to read this. Is this the beginning of a story? Have they just seen each other for the first time? Is this the middle of the story? He has not yet told his partner that he is in love with someone else. Or is it the end of the story? He has had to say good-bye to his true love; he had no courage to leave his girlfriend or fiancé or wife. I even asked the collection curator if there was a series of these paintings and perhaps that might clarify the story.”

“There are no others?” She was as curious as Taylor.

“Not that he was aware of. He explained that it seemed to be a solitary effort, so different from Lebasque’s other works, which were much less detailed, where rarely did faces emerge from the canvas. So we have only this painting and its little mystery, seen through the eyes of the little girl.” Taylor sucked in his lips and shook his head. He looked back at Sarah and saw her smile. The painting had been clear to her immediately. Maybe he did not understand it when he first purchased it—when he thought of it hanging in the home he would share with Emily. But now just these few days later, he could see what she saw. She studied the painting one more time and then turned to Taylor.

“I think it tells the story of the day they were born,” she said softly and slowly, but confidently.

Taylor considered her words and drew her to him. It was impossible to believe that the dim light of the hotel lobby was responsible for casting her entire face in a brilliant glow. He brazenly removed the one large clip holding her hair back in its tight chignon and he ran his fingers through the loosely falling blond locks. “I have wanted to do that all evening.”

She looked around quickly at the spirited hotel lobby, but saw that none of their group was present. With the soft pressure of his fingers along the nape of her neck, their tender touch brushing her ear so that a tingling sensation disarmed her from any ability to resist, he brought her head to his and she closed her eyes and accepted his kiss. But after only ten seconds, she pulled away and straightened her dress. She retrieved the hair clasp from the coffee table where Taylor had dropped it, nervously fumbling to reattach it so that it could once more hold her hair away from her face.

He stepped back and allowed her to compose herself.

“I spoke to your father and asked him a great favor.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Not when we were all together, but at a break this morning, during the conference. We had just signed off on the papers creating International Goods and Services. We had acknowledged the success of our conference, and so I took him aside,” Taylor said, trying to be businesslike. “I asked him if I might accompany you both back to Berlin for a stay…a brief stay, I assured him…an opportunity to see his operations firsthand.”