The Keeper of the Walls Read online

  But Misha couldn’t concentrate on this soft image of habitual luxury. He knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep again that night. He pressed his fingertips against the sockets of his eyes, pushing out the dull, aching throb. He saw red dots on the inside of his eyelids, from the pressing of his fingers. Red dots that became swirling crimson flames rising in the air, and suddenly, a young, anonymous woman screaming as the flames engulfed her. Misha’s fist banged on the desk, and he knew that his face was wet. In his nostrils he could breathe the smell of burning flesh, a smell he would never forget. If this was Hell, then it existed, and he’d seen it, like Nebuchadnezzar.

  Like all the times before, he thought desperately: My country is no more—my past is dead. Who am I?

  He stood up, his legs shaking. In his breast pocket he found the neatly pressed linen handkerchief with his monogram. He wiped his face. Always a vain man, he carried with him, like a woman, a small hand-mirror. He glanced at his reflection and realized how much he had aged in these three years. Below his eyes, the skin was puffy. He was thirty-three.

  Abruptly, he buttoned his jacket and turned to leave the office.

  When he’d been young, and visited Paris during his university days, the place to go had been Montmartre, dominated by the white cathedral of the Sacré-Coeur. Now, in the twenties, the place to go had shifted to the Left Bank, in Montparnasse. Misha was aware that he knew almost all the bistrots and cabarets of the area; he was on first name basis—one way, of course—with all the owners of the dancings and all the eateries and bars and jazz clubs on the Left Bank. It didn’t help.

  He’d been a member of the “golden youth” of Moscow, all the young aristocracy who chose to spend their nights carousing till dawn. He’d enjoyed being young, being rich, being single. He had to answer to no one but himself. Now he thought, in his customary brutal way, that his conscience was clean. He’d had hundreds of women in his day, and if they’d suffered, it hadn’t been through any fault of his. He’d never lied. Brasilov princes never lied. They told the truth and got away with it.

  Once in a while he worried. About the possibility of a child somewhere, unknowing and unclaimed. That would have been wrong. But he didn’t think one existed. The women had been honest. He’d helped all the ones who’d been in trouble. He’d known a midwife, in Moscow, and she’d taken care of each one he’d sent, and brought him the bill. He’d always been kind, never derisive. But usually that was the last the girl had ever seen of him. He was afraid. Afraid of being trapped by a pregnant woman, the wrong woman.

  Until now he’d never been faithful: he’d had every one, the princesses, the milliners, the married women and the virgins. He’d had them all.

  As he parked the royal blue De Dion-Bouton between two Citroëns on the large Boulevard Edgar-Quinet, Misha pushed the vague guilt of the Casanova out of his mind. Next to a secondhand dealer’s was the Cossack boîte de nuit Les Djiguites. He pushed open the door and smelled shish-kebab and cheap perfume. The muscles in his neck, along his spinal cord, began to relax.

  It was dark, but he could make out familiar faces at the bar and around the tables. Cossack music made his eyelids sting, as it always did the first moment. He’d spent some years doing military service in the distinguished Division Sauvage in the Caucasus. Memories. Drinking songs. Before the end of his Russia, the mutilation of his people.

  His eyes were becoming accustomed to the darkness. He needed some vodka. He sat down at the bar, listening to the hum of human voices. Good. This way he couldn’t think. The barman said: “Your Excellency, Prince Michel! A lady was just looking for you!”

  “Looking for me here?”

  “Well, we all know you come here two or three times a week. I put her over there, in the corner. . . .”

  Misha stood up, depressed. He’d hoped not to run into anyone he knew well. He possessed too many nodding acquaintances to ever have the luxury of being alone. But maybe that was why he’d come here. Aloneness meant the recurring nightmare. He’d never told his father that. Maybe then Prince Ivan would have understood. . . . Maybe he already understood.

  He walked over to the corner table, and saw her. She was very thin, and wore her hair in a pageboy around her oval face. She’d dyed it burgundy, which shocked. Her face was dusted with white powder, and kohl rimmed the slanted amber eyes. She was pretty, in an elfin way. Her dress was a simple red sheath hiding the smallness of her bust but emphasizing the trim hips. She wasn’t alone. With her was a young man with a headful of curls, and another elegant young woman with a washed-out, exhausted face. Too much opium, he guessed, and the next instant he was enveloped in a warm, slightly moist embrace that smelled of Shalimar.

  “Chéri,” she said, and he was amused, because he hadn’t seen her for some time. “This is Mark MacDonald, of the Charlotte Clarion, and Nini, the newest model chez Lanvin. Meet my beautiful Russian prince. His name is Charming.”

  Her name was Henriette, Rirette to her intimates, and he supposed that if she’d been looking for him, he was one of the latter. He remembered they’d met some months ago. She’d been a model chez Poiret, and at night she sometimes danced naked for private parties. She had a nice, firm, strong, athletic body. They’d made love almost right away, and he’d wanted her with an urgency that had made his performance passionate. She’d wanted more. He’d taken her to Deauville and spent three days and nights locked up in the Hotel Normandie with her. Then he’d cooled off. She was too vital, and seemed too old. She wasn’t quite thirty, but looked as if she had been through it all, and had turned hard. He didn’t need that: it was too demanding.

  But still, when he’d wanted a woman to take his mind off everything, he’d often come back to her. Now she’d been looking for him. He sat down. The washed-out model from Lanvin bored him without even opening her mouth, but he wondered about the reporter. The reporter, too, was evidently wondering about him. “I don’t suppose we’d be polite to call you just ‘Charming,’” he was saying, smiling.

  Misha thought he looked intelligent, but with an American, that was hard to tell. “Mikhail Ivanovitch Brasilov,” he said, holding out his hand. In passing he thought that he had shown more familiarity to this stranger than to the two men who had been in his office that day. There was something genteel about the young man, something agreeable about his classical features in the small face.

  “Mark was telling us all about the United States. He hopes to become a great novelist one day,” Rirette said.

  “Actually, your Excellency, I was telling Rirette and Nini the dull story of my apprenticeship on the Clarion. But probably you’ve never even heard of my hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina. It’s beautiful—but it’s not that large. The city editor was a college friend of my father’s, and so he took me on as a cub reporter. Later he discovered that I am in some ways like my mother—I love gossip. So he put me in charge of the society section.”

  “And now you made the transition from town gazetteer to international novelist?”

  “Hardly that. But I wanted to get out of the South. I tried New York for a while, but it was too harsh for me. I met some good people. I found some others I already knew. I’d been at Princeton University with Scott Fitzgerald. He advised me to get out of the whole bloody country for a while, and write a book. Somehow, my mentor on the Clarion helped me. He thought it would shake up Charlotte to have a Paris correspondent to relay news of what other American artists were doing here. I’m afraid I’ve been so excited by what I’ve encountered so far, that I haven’t even begun the Great American Novel.”

  “You’re very honest. Would you like to do an interview of my father and me, to show how two destitute Russians have adjusted to life in Paris, and how we started our business from four sacks of sugar beets? We aren’t exactly American artists. But perhaps your readers would find us ... exotic.”

  Over the heads of the two young women, Misha’s green eyes pierced the darkness, keen and expectant. Mark MacDonald, younger and less experienced, me
t those eyes with his own. If you can figure out my motive, more power to you, the prince’s eyes were saying. Mark smiled. “Your Excellency wants to expand his business enterprises to the United States,” he said softly.

  “And why not? Your country is young, my country is gone. Mine was the past, France is the present, and the United States is the future. The Brasilovs cannot be stopped by a simple frontier, nor by an ocean.”

  “Then, by all means, I would be honored to come to your offices for an interview.”

  Mark took out his wallet, where a tiny gold pen lay attached to a small pad of tear-off paper. He tried to remove the pad, but it was stuck to a photograph wedged between it and the rest of the billfold. Mark removed the photograph, laying it on the table. Then he unhooked the pad and raised his eyebrows, waiting. Misha said: “Thirty-six, Rue de Berri. Second floor. Tomorrow?”

  Nini had picked up the photograph, and was holding it up to the light of the red candle on the table. “Oooh, she’s beautiful,” she sang. At once Rirette crowded near her, to take the photograph from her hand. She showed it to Misha: “She is. Who is she, Mark, darling?”

  Misha felt the muscles of his face tightening again, and the vodka rang through his body in small staccato pulsations. Haughtily, he plucked the snapshot from Rirette’s fingers, and handed it dryly back to Mark. The young journalist took it with a suddenly embarrassed smile. “You wouldn’t know her,” he said. “She’s a friend of a friend.”

  “That’s what they all say,” Rirette said coyly.

  “But it’s the truth,” Mark answered.

  In the candor of his hazel eyes, Misha saw that he’d told the truth. He could feel the relief flooding his body. All his life he’d believed that women were whores, because with him, they’d behaved this way. But somehow . . . this girl . . .

  What did it matter about the girl? he then thought. She was too young, and her background wasn’t quite right. New money, and the wrong relatives. He looked carefully at Rirette, and knew that she was far more interesting than the other, far more experienced, far more sexual. “Come on,” he whispered in her ear. “Let’s get out of here.”

  He was making a mistake, he felt it in his bones. But he couldn’t help it at that moment. He wanted the girl, and he wanted her with a poignancy that made him vulnerable. But at the same time, right now, he wanted Rirette. One was a sentimental longing and the other was a basic, primeval need.

  I’ll make it all work out, he thought desperately.

  “I think he’s in love with you!” Maryse cried. Then: “If he is, would you marry him?”

  Lily, by nature, disliked to be the center of attention. It embarrassed her. Now she clasped her hands together and stared at a spot on the carpet in Maryse’s room. “I’ve never considered it. Of course he doesn’t love me.”

  “He took the photo of you and me at the Bois, and cut me out of the picture so that he could put you in his wallet.”

  Lily looked up, her eyes widening. “He did that? But how do you know?”

  “I needed change, and we’ve become such friends that he simply told me to find it in his wallet. He’d left his jacket upstairs, and was in his shirt sleeves. We’d been playing chess and the fire was strong, so we were both hot. I ran upstairs to find the jacket, and took out the wallet. Out tumbled the picture, one-two-three.”

  Lily passed her tongue over her upper lip. “You know how to act,” she said softly. “But I really don’t. Those six years in Brittany, I simply wished ahead that I was out of the house. I imagined myself married. But—I couldn’t visualize being courted by a young man.”

  “He’s very decent, and so cute. You should consider him, Lily.”

  “He’s an American. Someday he’ll go back there. And besides, I like Mark, but I don’t love him. So I guess that’s that.”

  “You’ve never even kissed him! You can’t judge whether or not you’re in love with a man until that first kiss.”

  “I’m not going to kiss a stranger,” Lily countered.

  Maryse burst out laughing, and took her friend’s hands in her own. “Oh, Lily, Lily, you are so Victorian! You remind me of a maiden aunt I have, who turns beet red whenever somebody kisses her hand!”

  On the second floor of 13, Rue d’Anjou, Bruisson et Fils had a small suite of offices. Claude’s office, down the hall from his father’s, was furnished in a way he didn’t approve of, but which he tolerated. Paul Bruisson, who had spent a fortune on his house, felt that at the office, one should exercise restraint. This went along with the advice he had given Claude in the selection of his car. The client should never feel that those who provided a service were richer than they, nor even as rich. If they did, they would begin to suspect that the wealth had come from plumping up their customers’ bills. So the offices of Bruisson et Fils were uniformly decorated with furniture from the Galeries Lafayette: nice, clean pieces, but not of luxurious design, nor of the top quality.

  Claude always wondered, when he was alone, if his father’s customers even gave the offices a second glance. But he kept these comments to himself. Now he heard the knock on the door, said: “Come in!” and waited. It was already dark outside and the offices had, to all intents and purposes, closed down. But he’d stayed behind to receive his last appointment.

  The man who came in was small, pointed, and sharp, with a beak nose and a receding hairline. He was uncomfortably middle-aged, and equally uncomfortable in his black suit. Claude didn’t rise, but he smiled. “Marguery, you’re never late.”

  “In my business, that would be disastrous, monsieur.”

  “Sit down,” Claude said, and when he had, raising his brows with expectancy, the young man cleared his throat. “I’m going to ask you to investigate two people. Both are foreigners, so it’s rather delicate, and of course more complicated. You’ll be well remunerated, so don’t worry about your expenses.”

  The other smiled, inclining his head. “I never worry about such things when I do a job for you, Monsieur Claude.”

  “Then listen. The first is a young man, like myself—an American. I believe he’s on assignment from his hometown paper. I want to know all there is to know: character, family, and, naturally, financial disposition. The other will be more difficult. He’s a Russian aristocrat who’s made quite a fortune here, branching out into a number of unrelated businesses. I know almost nothing about him, except that he’s reputed to be a man-about-town, and all the elegant hostesses love him at their parties.”

  “And who may these two men be?” Marguery asked softly. His intelligent brown eyes were fastened to Claude’s face.

  “Mark MacDonald. I believe he rents a small apartment on the Left Bank, but I’m not sure where. He’s visited my mother once or twice, but I wouldn’t want to ask her for details. The other”—Claude pressed the palms of his hands together—“is Prince Mikhail Ivanovitch Brasilov. You can find him easily enough during the day, in his office on the Rue de Berri.”

  “But of course I shan’t look for him there,” Marguery stated, smiling. Claude laughed. This was as close to a joke as Marguery had ever reached.

  “When do you need this information?”

  Claude sucked in his lips, pushed them out again. “As soon as possible,’ he answered.

  Claude knocked on the door to Claire’s boudoir, and when he heard her reply, he opened the door and let himself in. He’d hoped to find her alone, but Lily was there, sewing. For a split second his eyes rested on the delicacy of her long, tapered fingers, with their well-shaped pink nails. Then he smiled, took his mother’s hand, kissed her on the cheek. “Good evening, Mama.”

  “This is indeed a surprise, my dear,” Claire said. She patted the seat of the small chair next to her, and her son obediently sat down. “Are you on your way out, or will you be having dinner with us?”

  “I’m tired. I have no plans for going anywhere. I thought I might speak with you for a few moments. . . .”

  Lily, blushing, stood up, but Claude said: “Don’t
go away, my dear. I didn’t mean to interrupt your tête-â-tête with Mama.”

  Lily sat down again, disquieted. He wanted something. She waited, her breath a little short. Did Mama know him as well as she did? She was never outwardly revolted by his ways. She’d say, smiling: “I am his mother, just as I am yours.” Without comment or criticism. The wisdom of Solomon.

  Claire was looking now at her son. “We rarely see you. I rarely have the pleasure of your company. I sometimes wonder what shall be my fate, when Lily marries.”

  Lily heard this with some shock. Her mother was lonely. She felt an impulse to say, But of course you will live with me! and then remembered that her mother, though so often alone, was a married woman. She said nothing.

  “I worry about all these things,” Claude said. “You, me, Lily. Lily doesn’t go out enough, but she doesn’t appreciate her evenings with me. Perhaps a woman today prefers not to go out escorted by her brother. There are so many more interesting escorts to have!”

  “It’s all very sudden for her, that’s all,” Claire replied quietly. “She’s shy—and she hasn’t been out in society for many years.”

  “Still, she’s not a nun. She must find a way to swallow her shyness, to blend in.”

  In the few moments of silence that ensued, Lily squirmed on her seat. She wondered how her relatives could speak this way about her, as if she were a small animal or an inanimate object whose character and predilections could inoffensively be discussed in front of her.

  Then Claude said: “Mama, I wonder if I might beg a favor of you. Papa and I have entered into limited partnership on a project of great importance, with a distinguished and powerful man. I’d like you to invite him to the house, for a special dinner.”