The House of Dreams (14 page)

“She's an artist? I thought you said—”

“She was … well, she calls herself a crafter. Maybe you've seen some of her textiles. She did beautiful work, but then her hands got bad.”

“I'm sorry.” She pauses. “I've been wondering. You two never wanted to go back—to France, I mean? A lot of the artists did.”

I shake my head. Sure, there are still days when I wake from dreaming about France and I wonder if we should have gone back. The dreams are fragments, really—the color of pale blue shutters changing chromatically with the light. Beneath a slate sky when the mistral is whipping through the olive trees, they seem gray. Beneath a cloudless blue sky they are bleached like the firmament above them, the perfect shade of old denim. I miss stone walls that radiate the heat of the day at night. I miss the smell of rosemary on a bonfire, the taste of a cold
pression,
and the soft light and shade of a plane tree in a market square. I miss great cheese, and geckos, and those mad, sun-blind dogs they have in the south of France with amber eyes. I miss, I miss … oh, avenues of lime trees like bleached bones along the roadsides, and fat asparagus and peaches. I miss the age of the place—how old villas with lime smudged onto their wall like ocher pastels look at sunset, with their rusted eau de nil gates, and deep indigo convolvulus on glorious mornings. The hardest thing of all, for many, was leaving behind family graves, of course. But I'm not going to tell her that. Too many of us had to do the same thing. Meyerhof said to me once, “You pick up your life and you don't think back.” That's the secret. Never look back. Your home, your birthright, is tied to you but lost forever.

“The thing you've got to remember is that some of us dreamed about America, even before the war.”

“Really?”

“Sure. At least I did. Jacqueline, André Breton's wife, said it was the Christmas tree of the world. Chagall worried there would be no cows here. But I wanted this my whole life, the possibility of it, this new world. I still get a kick every time I take the train into the city and see the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State.”

“But it must have been incredible, your life with Vita?”

“It's another lifetime. I was a different person.”

“That's what I want to talk to you about,” Sophie says. She slips a tape recorder from her bag of tricks and nudges it on the table. “Do you mind?”

It's on the tip of my tongue to tell her this was a mistake, but then Marv rolls over with a stack of pancakes and the coffee.

“Gabriel…,” she says.

“You can call me Mr. Lambert.”

“Well, that's kind of formal, considering how long we've been friends,” Marv says.

“I wasn't talking to you,” I say, the breath rattling in my chest, “I was talking to her.” I wave my hand at Sophie. She jumps, knocking the coffee, and I snatch at the napkins in the chrome holder, mopping at the table.

“I can't stand mess,” I snap at her.

“I'm sorry.” There it is again, that bloom in her cheeks.

“Sure,” Marv says, backing away. “Sure thing, Gabe. Enjoy your pancakes.” I watch him go out back and pick up the phone.

“Mr. Lambert,” Sophie says, “I'm sorry. We got off on the wrong foot. I'm not just a journalist. Think of me as an old family friend, like Vita.” Phooey. There's no one on earth like me and Vita, believe me. I can almost see the radiance of Sophie's halo gilding her eyelids as she looks down at the plate in front of her. I don't trust her an inch. While I'm busy watching Marv, I hear Sophie quietly click on her little mumble machine.

“Why are you kids so hung up on the old stories?” I round on her. “You should be making history, not rehashing it.”

“How can we learn if we forget the lessons of the past?”

“Listen, kid. There is only now. The past is a fabrication.” I wave my hand as if I'm sewing. “It's a patchwork quilt of so-called facts and hearsay. History is up for grabs, a fiction spun by whoever has the strongest voice.” I try to catch my breath, bunch my fist under the table. “The future is conjecture. All I want is now. The paint beneath my fingernails, to eat, to sleep, to fuck.”

“At your age?” she says without looking up from her notebook.

“Yeah. It had more effect when I used to say it.”

She settles back in the booth and folds her arms. “I've read that line in at least three of your biographies.”

“That's what happens when you get to my age. You start repeating yourself.”

“You're a walking cliché.”

“Maybe. But I'm a happy one.” I play with the coaster under my water. “So you've read them, then?”

“I need to put my article in context. If I'm honest, I'm more interested in Vita.”

How amusing. I'm just the frame, not the picture.

“To lose one wife tragically is heartbreaking,” she says quietly. “To lose more smacks of carelessness.”

I have to think for a moment or two, it's all so long ago. My life here with Annie has been everything, is everything. All that went before—it's like trying to read a letter that's been left out in the rain. I hope the expression on my face reads as tragic rather than confused. “You're wrong there. I was never married to Vita.”

“I know that.” Good, she's getting exasperated. With any luck, if I play the old, doddering fool card, she'll get frustrated and start making mistakes soon. “But she was as good as, common law and all that. I'm talking about Rachel. She was your model, too, wasn't she?” She checks her notes. “She died just after you met Vita.”

There's her first mistake. Rachel died before Vita was ever on the scene.

“Are you saying that was convenient in some way?”

“You tell me.”

“There was a car crash. She was driving.”

“Presumably heartbroken.…”

If only you knew the truth.
“People die for more stupid reasons than love all the time.” I run my hand across my brow. “Does it really matter?”

“Yes, it matters. It's part of your story, of Vita's.” She leans toward me. “In history, anonymity is the enemy. It reduces everyone to no one. It's my job to put names to the people that we have forgotten.”

“You're wrong. It's an artist's job to name.”

“Like God?” she says.

“Don't be cute. Besides, he's the greatest artist.”

She taps her pen on the table. She's nervous. Good. “You don't want to talk about Vita yet?”

“No.” I recognize that voice. Like my sons when they were toddlers, throwing their toys out of the stroller.

“Fine.” Her voice is placatory. She's going to humor me. “Then tell me about Air-Bel. Tell me about Annie.”

 

SEVENTEEN

V
ILLA
A
IR
-B
EL
, M
ARSEILLE

November 1940

G
ABRIEL

“Say, Gabriel, good to see you.” Varian shook my hand. He had been deep in thought, staring at the murals in the library, but he turned to me now and smiled warmly. “Have you come to welcome André Breton? Do you know him?”

“Of course, by reputation,” I said. “I admire him greatly.”

In my pocket I still had Fry's scribbled note with the address:
Villa Air-Bel, La Pomme
. I fingered the paper nervously. It was too much to hope for, that I should meet Breton, too. It felt like the world had tilted on its axis, and after the horror of the last months I had arrived in a place where your wildest dreams could come true. I wanted desperately to belong here, with this crazy group of nomads and artists. I felt awkward around Fry, still, his confidence awed me, and the way I'd seen him slip easily and fluently between English, French, and German as he chatted with his friends and clients. I felt tongue-tied in comparison.

“How is everything? Do you have money for food? We can give you some meal vouchers if you're having trouble with cash. You have somewhere safe to stay?” I nodded. “Good. Now you stay out of trouble, okay?” Fry shook my hand. “Don't you worry. We'll get you out of here just as quickly as we can. It may take a couple of months, but be sure we'll do our best for you.” He smiled reassuringly. “Meanwhile you're welcome at Air-Bel whenever you want. We're planning a little get-together on Sunday.” Varian glanced up at the sound of Mary Jayne's voice drifting through from the first-floor landing, the sound of her heels clicking down the staircase to the entrance hall. At her side trotted Dagobert, the poodle an ever-present shadow, his claws tapping on the wooden steps. We followed her downstairs to wait for the Bretons.

“He's a smart dog, old Dago,” Varian said. “Have you seen his party trick?”

“No.”

“If you say ‘Hitler, Hitler,' he'll bark ferociously.” Varian laughed. “Maybe I can train Clovis to do the same.”

“There you are!” Miriam skipped down the steps beside us. “The Bretons will be here any minute.”

“This place is swell, Miriam. I was just enjoying the murals,” Varian said, gesturing at the library.

“They're beautiful, aren't they?” Miriam hugged herself in delight. “I just knew you'd love this place. Do you know what they are of?”

“Sure. I'll show you later. There's even one of Aeneas, son of Venus, carrying his father, Anchises, from the flames of Troy.”

“Well, that's appropriate.”

“The original refugee,” Varian said. “When he fled Troy, carrying his father on his back, he set a precedent for us all, didn't he?”

“Listen, Varian, I'm glad I've caught you,” Miriam said. I walked on ahead, but I could still hear them.

“Is something up?”

“When I left the office tonight, I found out my visas for Yugoslavia have come through.”

“Oh.” Varian couldn't hide his shock and disappointment. “Of course, I'm delighted for you and Rudolf. Will you marry now?”

“That's the idea, and then I hope I can get us safely back here before going on to the States.”

Varian took his glasses off and polished them with his handkerchief. “It's funny. I mean, I know the deal all along was that each of you would escape yourselves just as soon as you could, but I hate to see you go.” He looked at Miriam. “You've done great work, Davenport. Thank you. People like the Bretons are safer because of you.”

“Oh, stop it. You're making me blush.”

“You will take care, won't you?”

Miriam hugged him. “I'm going to miss you, too, boss.”

“When do you leave?”

“Four days.”

“So soon?” At the sound of voices in the hallway below, he slung his arm around her, squeezing her shoulder affectionately as they caught up with me. “What a shame you're leaving just as you've found this place. I can't think of a better refuge from the center than this.…” His voice trailed off.

“I'm hoping Mary Jayne will come round,” she said as they paused on the landing and looked down into the black-and-white hallway. Mary Jayne stood at the open doorway, and Dagobert bounded out onto the terrace at the sound of tires stopping on the gravel drive. “It would do you good to live here, too.”

“I wouldn't want to put Miss Gold out,” Varian said.

“Don't be like that,” she said. “If you think I'm going off to Yugoslavia while you two are still at one another's throats—”

“We'll be fine. She thinks I'm a stubborn ass, and I think she's a highly strung little rich girl.”

“Just wait and see,” she said. “One day you two'll look back at all of this as the best of friends.”

“Like a donkey and a racehorse put out to pasture?” he said doubtfully. “Have you told her yet?”

Miriam shook her head. “I will, later. I just didn't want to spoil everything, not yet.”

I glanced downstairs as a tall man with a chestnut mane of hair strode into the hallway. A slender blond woman walked at his side, holding the hand of a young girl. The woman moved with the grace and certainty of a dancer, and her full black-and-white-striped skirt swung as she stepped into the hall. She stood with her hand on her hip, chin raised.
A woman who is used to making an entrance,
that was the first thing I thought. The lights of the chandelier gilded their hair, danced from the mirrored clips in the woman's hair.

“Monsieur and Madame Breton,” Mary Jayne said, stepping forward from the crowd gathering in the hall to greet them. “Welcome to Air-Bel.” André Breton shook her hand and introduced his wife, Jacqueline, and daughter, Aube, to the welcoming group. As they talked among themselves, André's gaze traveled around the house. I thought of photographs I had seen of lions gazing out across the plains of Africa, how they always seemed to be part of the world and yet somewhere else, too.
Perhaps they see something we don't,
I thought. Just then, André looked up at me, his hair a blazing halo above his dark green suit and red tie, and raised his hand in greeting like a blessing.

*   *   *

If you look really closely at the photos they took that night, you can see me hanging around in the shadows. I can never figure out why we all looked so much older than we were in the photographs taken at Air-Bel. Maybe it's the formal clothes—we all wore a shirt and tie every day back then. Kids of sixteen looked like old men. Perhaps it's not your calendar age but what you've experienced that shows up in a photograph. Annie says I'm an old soul. Me, I just think I went through a lot in 1940.

I was introduced to Breton and his wife but hadn't the guts to talk to him properly. I was still feeling pretty nervous when I headed out to La Pomme on the tram that Sunday. Almost turned back a few times at the thought of this house full of people I had admired my whole life. Sundays at Air-Bel became legendary in Marseille—all the young artists and writers were talking about it, and here I was waiting on La Canebière for a tram to La Pomme. The city looked beautiful in the snow. To talk to a resident of Marseille, you'd think it was never cold, never snowed, but this was the first indication of how bitterly cold that winter would be, and my feet were soaked through already. But the snow covered up the worst of the dross and the filth in the city and made everything feel brand new, including myself.