The Keeper of the Walls (15 page)

“When was your last menstrual period?” the doctor was asking.

“A little while before I was married. But I've never been very regular.”

“I think this time there's a reason for it. Princess, you're six weeks pregnant. You can expect a little prince or princess at the end of the year—about Christmastime.”

Lily sat up, her heart pounding. It couldn't be true, so quickly! She felt the thrust of joy, the incredible exhilaration. “Thank you, Doctor,” she said breathlessly. And then, to Madeleine: “Please call the chauffeur with the car for me. I'm going to the Rue de Berri right now!”

“But Madame—”

“Do it, Madeleine. I've got to tell my husband right away!”

During the drive, she thought chaotically about Varvara, and about the baby. She was happy, she was afraid. The chauffeur helped her out of the car and into the office building, and she took the elevator up, realizing for the first time that she was still in the green silk housedress. She was embarrassed, then waved away the shame. Her news had been too great for waiting, for changing, for the amenities of decorum. Misha would have to understand. . . .

“Bonjour,
Rochefort. I have to see my husband.'*

She was amused by the secretary's look of dismay, but he was quickly on his feet, knocking on the boss's door. He opened it for her, but she pushed past him, into the light room, to Misha's desk. He was looking up from a file of papers, his face displaying total astonishment, even shock. “Darling,” she cried, crossing to him. “I simply had to tell you
now!
Dr. Châtel came to the apartment, and he told me we could expect our baby at the end of the year!”

She felt his arms around her, holding her up against the light-headed feeling, against the sudden dizziness. He was sitting her down, fanning her with some papers. “Are you sure?” he was asking.

“Positive. That's why I came.”

Their eyes locked, and she could interpret his joy, his delight, his infinite pride and gratitude. In this supreme moment of intimacy, she knew that she would never ask him about the Jockey Club, that it was a closed issue. And then he rang for Rochefort, and said to him: “Call my father. And get us some champagne—the best! The line of Brasilov has been brought forward: we'll have an heir by Christmastime!”

T
he year
1925
was a memorable year:
the Exposition of Decorative Arts revolutionized the world of fashion, design, and architecture. And Maryse became engaged to a young Viennese doctor.

At the end of December, Nicky was born: smooth, strong, long-limbed—like both his parents. He was a serious child now, looking straight into people's faces with Lily's dark, pensive eyes. She'd hired a Swiss nurse, Yolande Bertrand, only a few years older than herself but already with sound references, to take care of him. And at once they'd all fallen into the Swiss pattern of calling her “Zelle,” an affectionate shortening of the more formal “Mademoiselle.” Zelle was efficient, discreet, polite—and knew what to do with a baby. Lily realized that for all their talk of matrimony and its duties, the nuns had taught her nothing about what was needed in the handling of a small infant. She'd felt shy at first—awkward—in front of this stalwart little being who had come from her, but who was still very much a stranger. She didn't understand his needs. Zelle relieved her of the immediacy of the problem, but the nagging guilt remained that somehow, she was failing as a mother. And only five months later, before he'd even developed his first secret language—when he was barely learning to push his pudgy hands down and lift his head to look around—she'd found out she was pregnant again.

She and Sudarskaya had made a lovely music room out of an unused bedroom. For the last few months of her pregnancy with Nicolas, she hadn't used it much. But after his birth, she'd found herself in it more and more, learning new pieces and practicing the old. She'd put up a magnificent oil of one of Degas's dancers on the wall, and had textured the walls with pearl gray silk, for a soothing effect. Plants with creeping tendrils finished off the decor: it was
her
room.

Misha was exuberant about Nicky, and the joy he felt in expectation of this second heir was, to Lily, touching. Lately he'd been absorbed in all sorts of complex business issues that had taken him to various parts of France, that had resulted in late-night meetings between him and somber, elegant men who greeted her when they came in, bending with understated graciousness to kiss her hand—men whose names had strange resonances, and who, she felt, wielded much more authority over the fates of Frenchmen than those poor harassed premiers, Herriot and his successor, Paul Painlevé. In drawing rooms, people laughed about the Radical cabinets, about the finance ministers who had come and gone like elusive comets in the sky, flickering but a moment before fall and extinction. But people didn't laugh about Ernest Mercier and François de Wendel. She wished she understood everything that was happening around her: her husband's affairs, the true facts about France's present situation. Maybe, she thought, she was just too stupid to sort it all out.

She didn't regret her choice, her marriage to Misha. She'd wanted fireworks and shooting stars, and sometimes she had them. When there was time. She understood, completely. He had built an empire and made her his empress, but it was his duty to make sure the colonies didn't rebel. But she realized how right she'd been during their honeymoon, when she'd supposed this would be the last time they would be alone, truly alone. Now, when she sat with him in the study, he was most often absorbed in his papers—or in his thoughts. And other times, she'd find him in the nursery bending over Nicky, crooning to him in Russian. She felt lonely.

But sometimes the mood would lift, and she would walk through the house, imagining what she could do,
she,
Lily, to turn this apartment into something special, something that she'd always dreamed of during those barren years in Brittany. She had taste, and she knew it.

When the Exposition set up its pavilions on both sides of the Seine, Misha said to her: “Go, see, feast your eyes on what delights you. I want you to have everything, Lily.”

“No, Misha, you must tell me what
you
want.”

“I've put in what I thought was essential. Money is no object.” But she knew that this was a man who had selected everything down to the last detail, and that she was expected—because this was how his mind worked—to amplify his taste, to fill in the blanks. She couldn't complain. How many women her age had been told: “Money is no object”? And so she went.

The weather was beautiful. She willed the slightly nauseous feeling of her pregnancy to go away. The metallic Rolls-Royce slid down to the Alma, where the pavilions began. They wound all the way to the Concorde, and her driver asked her where she wanted to be let out. “At the Palace of Elegance,” she said.

They drove past incredible architectural displays: a church; an entire cemetery; landscapes of gardens like veritable cities, with strangely shaped fountains. The Palace of Elegance was like a museum of all that dealt with the clothing industry. It lay, asymmetrical, behind an enormous hedge draped with white and silver silk. She secured her egret hat and walked in, breath taken.

She had never minded being alone—it was, sometimes, comforting. Now she was glad she wouldn't have to think of clever things to whisper to Maryse, for example. Under delicately carved chandeliers reflecting all the colors of the rainbow, lay the displays from all the great
couturiers:
Lanvin, Chanel, Worth, the Callot sisters, Jean Patou. The furniture was simple, clean, linear, and the dresses went with it: little bits of nothing shimmering in the refracted lights. She could feel herself blooming out below the breasts, and her breasts held firmly up by the custom made brassiere. A pang of envy went through her. She'd never be the Woman of the Twenties, who went to sleep in skin-thin pajamas like a boy: this boy-woman, this
garçonne.
Maryse had told her of the new book by that name by Victor Margueritte, illustrated by Kees van Dongen. A naughty book. Maryse read everything, and apparently under the eyes of her mother. Lily thought: But if she passes it to me, I'll not know where to put it so Misha won't see it.

She stopped in front of a display of gossamer materials, by the designer Paul Poiret. An attractive woman was rearranging some silks. Fascinated, Lily watched her. She was lithe, very thin, with eyes that might almost have been Oriental—long and narrow, gleaming a kind of amber. Her hair was short and of different shades of maroon. Not beautiful—but somehow striking. Lily felt strange, standing there, pregnant and awkward. She wanted to ask something, but felt suddenly shy in front of the efficient, sleek employee. It was she who saw Lily, and inclined her head: “Madame?”

“I was wondering . . . these materials are from the fashion house, or from the interior decorating shop?”

The woman said: “From the Atelier Martine. But, of course, if the design pleases Madame, I'm sure Monsieur Poiret could confection something beautiful at the Avenue d'Antin.”

Lily bristled. She's trying to see whether I'm a provincial who doesn't know the ins and outs. She wondered whether she'd ever seen this girl before, and decided she hadn't. She'd bought few outfits from Poiret because of her pregnancies, but she did know the famous
maison de couture
in the Avenue d'Antin. The Atelier Martine was his decorating house in the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, where those who dared all commissioned entire rooms redone as Buddhist temples or Chinese pavilions. She stared, wondering how such delicate cloth could find its place on the back of a chair or on a headboard. And the other woman continued to stare at
her,
her head cocked to the side.

“Who,” Lily asked softly, “is brave enough to put his house in the hands of the Atelier Martine?”

“The great
Spi
.”

The singer Spinelly, Lily thought, feeling an unexpected pang of envy. A woman who'd made it on her own. “There are many others. Gabrielle Dorziat, Jeanne Dalbret.”

Lily's eyes widened: Jeanne Dalbret. For a few seconds the pavilion seemed like a mausoleum, and Lily alone in the silence. Jeanne Dalbret: Varvara Trubetskaya. She never spoke about her and refused even to think of her, and avoided reading the variety section of the paper because, a year ago, it had chronicled her ascent from revue dancer to solo artist in some of the best showhouses in Paris. “Jeanne Dalbret is at the Gaîté-Lyrique right now,” the young woman added.

I should have stayed home, Lily thought unhappily. And then she said, raising her chin: “I should like to have them do something for
me.
”

“I'll be glad to relay the message of a new client to monsieur,” the maroon-haired girl said dryly. “Who may I say is interested?”

She knew it had been an impulsive mistake, that the Atelier Martine was much too avant-garde for her and Misha. But she'd wanted to jump in, to join the crowd of women who dazzled the world, who did more than have babies and play the piano for their husbands and mothers. Around her, smooth Lalique crystals beckoned near lacquered screens by Dunand: an entire world of luxury such as she had never witnessed before in her life. Misha had said: “Money is no object.”

She had been about to respond to the unmotivated arrogance of Poiret's representative by saying that she was the Princess Mikhail Brasilov. But now, suddenly she felt ashamed, and shook her head. The Carder display suddenly seemed sickening, the finely crafted silver and gold work of Christofle excessive. Many in France were still devastated by the effects of the war.

She left the Palace of Elegance lost in thought, chewing on her lip. Behind her she could hear a woman's voice asking: “Who was that, Henriette?” and the employee's reply: “Nobody.”

C
laude looked around him
. His sister had redecorated, or at least completed the decorating of, the apartment at 34
bis,
Rue Molitor. As always, when he was there, he had to admire the easy grace of his surroundings. A bare five minutes' walk from the Bois de Boulogne, it was convenient for the nurse and the baby. The Brasilovs lived on the second floor, and Lily had made the eight rooms warm and pleasant. In the immense living room, she had left the green and gilt Louis XVI chairs and the small sofa, but had intermixed them with some exquisite, larger Louis XIV furniture in crimson silk and gilt wood: a large divan, four armchairs, and six chairs. Just lately, he noticed, two
bergères
of Louis XVI style, in mauve silk and the same gilt wood, had been added. They had tall backs that curved outward at the top. Lily had told him they were called “Voltaires.” She was very proud of them and of her salon. Like her, it displayed classical refinement that was in opposition to the trends of the extravagant twenties.

It was a room that, for all its careful style, looked alive. Old books lined a full wall. On another was displayed an oil painting by Hubert Robert: a castle in ruins on a cliff, overlooking a small river. It breathed of calm—Lily's own serenity. And on another wall, the portrait of a cardinal by Philippe de Champaigne. Claude approached it, felt almost in spite of himself the rich texture of the painted robes. He knew enough about art to remember that Champaigne had executed only a few canvases; most of them were catalogued. Misha had undoubtedly paid a small fortune for this unique work.

Lily came in, smiling. Two years ago he had told her to cut her hair and modernize herself. Now he was glad she hadn't listened. Paris was full of petite, flat women with bobbed hair. His sister was different—a rare bird. She had swept her hair up, and still strode, in spite of her pregnancy. So. The Russian was going to use her as a spawning mill for dozens of little heirs—one after the other. He felt a pang of regret. It was a shame, really, to ruin a beautiful body in this fashion. Because, truly, his sister was a great beauty.

She said, kissing his cheek: “You're not at the office?”

He sat down opposite her, and watched her hands. The elongated fingers gleamed with rings. He was using her as a spawning mill, but paying for it. He couldn't help remembering the young girl who had come home from the nuns—full of hope, brimming with the most incredible naïveté. He'd thought, in his detached fashion, that they would never have a thing in common. He'd always been alone, carrying all the problems. Women, like his mother and sister, were fine in a drawing room. But what kept them in their drawing rooms were the practical, unrelenting males like himself who somehow kept the money rolling in the coffers.

He asked: “Where did you find the Champaigne, Lily? Surely it wasn't easy.”

She shrugged, simply. ‘‘It's rather a funny story. Somebody owed Misha money. A lot of it—thirty thousand francs. Misha kept waiting and waiting for the man to come to him with the money. He was a great collector. So finally, when Misha pressed him, he asked us to come to his house and choose five paintings.”

“Tell me—do a lot of Misha's associates owe him this kind of money?”

Lily raised her brows. “I don't know. Misha's business is very convoluted, and he doesn't usually tell me the details.”