The Keeper of the Walls Read online

  “It’s perfectly all right.”

  When they were alone, Lily turned to Wolf and said: “Before I had Nicky, I came here quite often. Now I feel strange. In almost two years I’ve had two pregnancies—and I haven’t been wearing anything very wonderful.”

  “But I like you very much the way you are today, my dear Lily.” She was wearing a mint-green maternity dress of the finest cashmere, and had opened the flaps of her coat because of the heat in the maison de couture.

  “I feel bad for Misha. I’m not very nice to look at, these days.”

  “Misha is a man who wants children. He can only appreciate your condition.”

  She thought: But I wonder if he does. And thought again of the day she’d learned of her first pregnancy. She’d made it a point from that day on never to ask where he had been, never to question his comings and goings. But for the past two months he hadn’t asked her to come to him. He’d been the best of husbands—kind, generous, affectionate—but he hadn’t touched her as a woman. She, who had been reared such a strict Catholic, who had always been discreet and private by nature, suddenly felt a tremendous urge to empty her mind to Wolf—a man, yes, but also a doctor, a doctor of people’s feelings and secret longings.

  An assistant had brought hot tea. Wolf had turned slightly, and half risen in his chair in polite deference to a woman who had just walked in. Lily thought there was something in this woman that would make any man take notice. She was older than Lily, but still young, and was of average height. Thick, softly curling hair of the palest red—almost a strawberry blond—aureoled her head beneath a tiny strip of black velvet topped by a single mauve feather. She wore her dark mink coat open, revealing a simple sweater set, English style, over a fitted skirt. Pearls came down to her waist, knotted over her breast. And the legs were long, strong, sensual in their silk stockings. She nodded to Lily and Wolf, and sat down on the small sofa to the right of their armchairs. She opened an alligator bag and extracted a gold cigarette case, and took from it a long, thin cigarette. For a split second in time, while Lily and Wolf watched her, mesmerized, she waited, cigarette poised—and then Wolf was lighting it for her while she smiled.

  I’ve been saved, Lily thought, somewhat regretfully, by this strange woman. Otherwise, God knows what stupidities I might have confided in Wolf. But she knew that she would never again have the courage to begin such an intimate conversation with anyone.

  “Madame la Princesse, we’ll just be another minute ...a thousand apologies ...” The premiere, confused, was back again. “Would you feel ready, in five minutes, for a quick essayage?”

  “Certainly.”

  “I’ll send Henriette to model the gown, so you can get an idea of what it’s like from all sides again. But, of course, we had to pad her a little. . . .”

  Lily didn’t remember which of the models was called Henriette. She smiled—and the redhead, near them, started to laugh. She laughed with mirth, with unsuppressed lack of restraint. The premiere turned to her, embarrassed. “I’m so sorry, Madame. I’ve been so preoccupied with the gown for the Princess, who’s been so patient and kind. I—”

  “—didn’t notice I was there. Believe me, it happens all the time.”

  For some reason, they both started to laugh, and Lily and Wolf looked at them, bewildered. The premiere turned to them, smiling: “Isn’t that something for Madame to say! Of all people . . .”

  So the woman was a personality. But no one she’d met. No. If Lily had been introduced to her, she would never have forgotten her. This wasn’t somebody that she or Misha knew. So she wasn’t a member of the Sert group, nor of that aristocratic enclave that socialized with the Murats.

  The model was coming, decked out like a pregnant woman in the most sumptuous dress of purple velvet, with fluid lines that softened the stomach. Lily stared, fascinated. Then her gaze traveled upward, and she started. The model was the same impertinent girl who had been short with her at the Palace of Elegance some months before. But that shouldn’t have been such a surprise. After all, she was an employee of the Maison Poiret.

  The woman with red hair, smoking her cigarette, raised her thin, arched brows and commented: “My, my. Quite a different look for you, my dear Rirette.” The model smiled, once, coolly ironic.

  “We’ll fit you when you’re ready, Princess,” the premiere stated.

  Lily felt overcome with self-consciousness. It was as if the première, the model, and the strange, alluring woman near her were all in on some secret that excluded her. The model, perfectly adept, was turning on her toes, her back slim and arched almost unnaturally. Everyone was looking at her. Lily thought: they are all more worldly than I. And she thought, almost jealously, of Maryse’s impending wedding: Wolf was the sort of man who would want his wife to understand all, to absorb, to question, to accept or reject in conclusion. Misha was less liberal by a long shot.

  And then there was a small commotion, and Maryse appeared, a cloud of white tulle and silk, holding up her skirt and bursting with uncontrolled exuberance: “Look! I’m a vision of nubile grace, don’t you think?”

  “Aphrodite in miniature,” Wolf said, with a smile.

  Maryse clapped a hand over her mouth: “Oh, my God! You aren’t supposed to see me in this until the wedding. I forgot!”

  Wolf said, gently: “Don’t worry about it. You know me, I’m a scientist. I don’t believe in superstitions.”

  Maryse giggled, then turned to Lily and the premiere. All at once, her eyes fell upon the elegant redhead sitting on the side, looking at her with an indulgent smile. She stayed rooted in place, her face paling. Automatically she nodded back, then made a quick motion for Wolf to join her in the opposite corner.

  “What’s wrong?” he demanded, when they could speak away from curious ears. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. But that woman over there is Misha’s ex-wife. You’ve got to get Lily away from her, as fast as you can.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “Then I’ll go change, at once, so we can all leave.”

  She left him pondering the issue. Maryse had already darted back toward the fitting room. Wolf, striding back toward Lily, overheard the premiere whispering sotto voce: “They say it’s going to be the wedding of the season among the Israelites,” and the model’s ironic retort: “She’ll be Queen for a Day in the golden ghetto.” A quick anger threaded through him, which he shoved aside, concentrating instead on Lily, looking at him in some bewilderment.

  Gently, Wolf circled her shoulders and drew her aside. “Maryse recognized the redhead,” he murmured. “It’s your husband’s first wife. Do you want—”

  But Lily had stopped listening. Her lips stood slightly parted on an intake of breath, and he felt rather than saw her dark eyes suddenly drawn to the seated woman, like magnets to steel. Lily’s entire body had gone rigid, then had started to tremble in small waves of shock. Amused, the woman who had once been married to Misha, who had shared his life, his bed, turned aside with a small, good-natured nod. Then she rose and gathered up her wrap, and began a conversation with the premiere, who gracefully maneuvered her out of the sitting room. Their voices, raised in pleasant small talk in the hallway beyond, trailed behind them. “. . . more of a physical drain to have my own revue. And the Gaîté-Lyrique isn’t always properly heated backstage. . . .” Lily shivered once, then looked into Wolf’s quiet, concerned face, and tried to smile.

  The model, Henriette, still stood in the room, staring at her. Lily brought a hand to her throat, suffused with embarrassment. Wolf half turned, and saw the strange, pointed look on the other woman’s face. It unnerved him. “Thank you, mademoiselle,’ he said to her. “The Princess has approved her outfit. But she prefers to try it on another day.”

  Afterward, when they were at last alone, Lily stammered: “That girl . . . she knew, didn’t she, about Jeanne Dalbret? That she and I—”

  “Perhaps that wasn’t it at all,” Wolf reassured her. “Maybe she was only en
vious of your beauty.” And then, to take her mind off the entire episode, he sighed. “She made a nasty comment about Maryse, too. Not really ‘nasty,’ actually—but ungenerous. People who envy Jewish socialites tend to set them apart by their religion. It’s as if they’re saying: ‘She thinks she’s something, but she’s only a Jew. We’ll pretend to play her game, but the truth is, we know that we, as good Christians, are better than she is.’ I’ve tried to tell myself it doesn’t matter—that I don’t really care. But sometimes, you know, it still can sting.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “Sorry, and ashamed. For all the bad Christians who feel that way, and who have hurt you.”

  He shrugged, half smiling. “You needn’t apologize, Lily. It’s something people like Maryse and me have had to learn to live with. And if we find ourselves reacting in spite of our common sense, then, truly, we’re as much at fault as the poor fools who seek to bring us down. We should know better. Most of us, after all, have had to deal with this since early youth. I remember what my mother told me when I was five, when we went to the seaside for a summer: ‘Wolf, if you meet another child, you must first tell him that you are a Jew. Like that, should he refuse to play with you, it will hurt less than if he finds out later, and you two have already become friends.’ I did what she had said, and I was lucky: most of the families we ran into were broadminded and accepting. But a few were not.”

  “But Maryse never told me anything like this. And we’ve been like sisters, since we were both eight. Why wouldn’t she have confided this sort of thing to me?”

  “Because you are not Jewish, and would not have been able to understand.”

  Lily stared at him, shocked. “But—why not? I’m a person! You don’t have to be Jewish or not Jewish to understand a human problem!”

  “Yes?” he asked, gently. “I don’t think so. That’s why the Jewish communities in most cities are so tightly knit. Because they share the same problems since birth. You’re a wonderful girl, and Maryse and I both love you. But you know that even in your own family, there’s quite a lot of anti-Semitism. You can disrespect your father, and be angry with your husband, because they feel this way—but the problem ends there. It doesn’t touch you personally, and it won’t affect Nicky, or the child that’s going to be born now. Lily, darling, it’s quite simple: anti-Semitism just is not your problem. And it was wrong of me to impose it on you, even now, in conversation.”

  “No,” Lily said. “You weren’t wrong, Wolf. We’re friends.” But for the first time in twelve years, she felt that a wall had been erected between her and Maryse. It wasn’t fair. She’d never been prejudiced, against anyone. She’d argued with her father, with Claude, with her husband, for Maryse. She’d even gone so far as to impose this friendship on Misha, she who was always a little afraid to face up to him and run the risk of displeasing him. And now she was being told that she didn’t understand, that she was outside the problem.

  Hurt, she thought: Maybe sometimes the Jews build their own ghettos, and exclude the rest of the world. That, too, had to be another kind of prejudice. Now Maryse would be more and more within this ghetto, because she was marrying Wolf, another Jew. She remembered what Misha had once explained to her, about the Rothschilds and the Gunzburgs, two of the wealthiest, titled Jewish families in Europe: that they practiced intermarriage, cousin marrying cousin, in order not to have to go either outside the faith, or outside the rank and financial circle of the family. A kind of self-imposed inbreeding, formed of their own fear and pride. . . .

  There was so much, Lily thought, that she really didn’t understand. For, after all, there was only one God, and everyone agreed to that. What possible difference could it make how a person chose to express his faith?

  It was a Tuesday, at two o’clock, that Maryse Robinson was to become the wife of Dr. Wolfgang Steiner, of Vienna. Because it was to be a grand wedding, the two janitors of the large synagogue in the Rue de la Victoire had required extra help with ushering, and the Jewish Consistory next door had to send two of their office boys, who were now dressed in black, with colored sashes and cocked hats, and were escorting the elegant guests down the aisle to their assigned places. The carpet extended outside onto the sidewalk, so that the ladies would not have to feel the November cold against the thin soles of their delicate shoes. They passed underneath the great red awning, with the initials R and S, into a lobby filled with flowers, and then into the main hall of the synagogue, also profusely decorated with flowers. Lily knew that Eliane Robinson had sent especially to Nice for blooms that were now out of season.

  All the lights were on. Lily could see the choir in the back. She felt the solemnity of the occasion catching at the back of her throat, which was clasped by a choker of pearls and amethysts to match her purple dress. Misha, on one side of her, stood tall and elegant, holding her by the elbow so that she would not miss a step. How careful men are of the women who are carrying their babies, she thought. On her other side, Claire, in a light mink coat over a beige outfit, seemed expectant, absorbed in the surroundings. They sat down, on the bride’s side, behind old Madame Rueff, Eliane’s mother, and several aunts and uncles.

  The music began. A pianist, a violinist, and a cellist were playing for the entrance of the wedding party. Lily wondered what Misha was thinking, and stole a look at his profile. He was sitting, erect and impassive, waiting. Little children, boys and girls from the Robinson, Rueff, and Steiner families, came first down the aisle, in neat pairs, the girls with long, curled tresses and flowers, whose petals they scattered ahead of them over the red carpet. A cantor began to sing. Lily saw her mother’s face, her lips parted with rapt attention, as the strange sounds of the Hebrew words fell upon the room, soft, swaying, hypnotizing.

  The chant ended abruptly, and Mendelssohn’s nuptial march filled the temple. Eliane walked first, on her son’s arm, followed by a middle-aged couple, a little plump and overdressed for Paris, he in tails, she in lamé: the Steiners, Lily supposed. From the sacristy beyond, Wolf, in a morning suit, more elegant than she had ever seen him, came up with his best man to wait for his bride. She could see the nervousness on his earnest, bespectacled face—that good face that she had learned to love. And then the music swelled, and everybody stood, turning slightly to catch Maryse with her tall, courtly father, her train flowing endlessly behind her, held up by the smallest of the little cousins. It was impossible to see the expression behind her thick tulle veil.

  The entire wedding party was now lined up under the huppah. The cantor began to intone a prayer. Lily looked beyond into the crowd of guests. Most of the men were wearing small satin skullcaps, and Misha’s vital crest of black hair seemed like an angry protest. She felt suddenly ashamed that she hadn’t thought to ask Maryse if she would have preferred for Misha to wear one too. There were so many distinguished faces! Some, like the Baron Robert de Rothschild, she had met before. Strange: she hadn’t realized that the young composer Darius Milhaud was a Jew, but his lips were moving in tune to the prayer. Marie-Laure de Noailles was there—but she was half-Jewish on her father’s side. There were other important guests who were not Jewish at all, of course—she could see Hélène and Philippe Berthelot, and Paul Valéry. Her heart beat faster when she caught sight of this paterfamilias of French literature.

  Because the words were in Hebrew, Lily lost track of what was going on. Then the Grand Rabbi of France, Israel Lévi, began to speak. He was a magnificent orator, the words falling from him with ease, with grandeur, with resonance. He spoke of Eliane’s family, the RuefFs; of David’s, the Robinsons; and then he went on to describe the great Steiner family of Vienna, and what humanitarian contributions had fallen from their hands. He spoke of the Jewish tradition, and how the two young people, Wolfgang and Maryse, had been brought together to carry on this tradition, to uphold the Mosaic faith, and to continue the unbroken chain. Lily forgot where she was: what he was saying mesmerized her, took her beyond this ceremony into the ancient land of Palestine, back
to the Twelve Tribes of Israel. She felt, in her heart, that Wolf had told her, that afternoon chez Poiret, only half the story: he had left out the glorious history of the Jewish people, and their pride.

  Maybe, she thought, remembering her feeling of hurt and anger, the Jews had come together in a feeling of pride, and had stuck together to make certain that no enemy, however great, would ever destroy this noble sentiment. Maybe it hadn’t been prejudice, on their part—but just fear of the alien, who had to be turned away. And I am part of this alien body, Lily thought, shaken. If I can’t understand the tradition, then maybe I’m not worthy of sharing the problem. Wolf had said: It is not your problem.

  She looked at Claire then, and saw that tears were brimming from her large brown eyes, and that she had made no effort to wipe them away. Lily was stupefied. She had almost never seen her mother weep, even in the worst of circumstances. But now she wept unashamed, and at the words of a rabbi that she didn’t know, who was speaking of traditions that were not hers and a family that didn’t include her. Lily didn’t understand, and was flooded with an odd anxiety. Beside her, Misha stared at the dais, formal and attentive, manly and distant. The words hadn’t touched him at all. He was on foreign ground, like a polite visitor, marking time.

  Music followed. Maryse, unobtrusively, was removing her right hand from the suede glove that covered it. The rabbi was whispering words to Wolf, who repeated them in Hebrew: the marriage vow. He was placing the ring on Maryse’s finger. Lily found that her eyes had moistened, too. The rabbi was giving them the benediction, was reading the act of marriage in Hebrew, and then Maryse and Wolf drank from the silver chalice. An attendant brought a small cushion with the traditional glass, which Wolf set on the floor, in his methodic fashion, then ground strongly under his foot.