The Keeper of the Walls Page 51

  He hates the Jews, without realizing that he is one hundred percent a Jew.

  “I’m pleased to see you here,” he was telling her, a touch of warmth coming to his voice. “The Baron is a powerful man, and very rich and influential. This is exactly the sort of man you need, Lily. As beautiful as you are, it should be easy to win him, if you haven’t already done so.”

  “I’m not remotely interested in Charles de Chaynisart,” she said, in a low whisper, her eyes filling with tears. “And the only reason I’m here is that I was afraid of him ...for... Maryse . . .”

  “. . . and Jacques, our Jew stepfather.”

  “I’ll never tell Mama I saw you here! She’d be so ashamed, knowing you came of your own free will, and not like me, out of terror. I want to spare our mother that . . . and to spare her your philosophy! What have you come to, Claude?”

  “I’ve come,” he said, “to my senses. And I do wish you’d come to yours. At thirty-six, you’re hardly a girl anymore. If you’re going to strike a bargain with a powerful man, you’ll have to do it soon. You have no choice. The Germans are here to stay, little sister, and if we don’t play the game their way, we’ll end up like all those poor slobs who queue for hours for a slice of nauseating bean bread.”

  “I’m one of those,” she said quietly. “At least I sleep nights.”

  “And so do I. In a bed with satin sheets and down pillows, courtesy of our occupants. They’re not half bad, those Germans—not half!”

  Afterward, inside the royal blue Mercedes, she couldn’t resist questioning Charles de Chaynisart. “You know my brother well?”

  “Passably. He’s made quite a killing from the Occupation. He was one of the first to buy from the deserting Jews who were fleeing our country, one step ahead of Hitler’s armies. Buildings, at first, and then businesses. And naturally, the kikes were selling at ten percent of what these enterprises were worth!” He laughed, a brief, mirthless chuckle. “And now he’s set all this at the disposal of the Reich. His factories help to grind out war materiel, his fields help to yield crops to feed the Germans. And his buildings house official Nazi headquarters, and the mistresses of Nazi generals. I’d say he’s made cool millions, Liliane. A young man to admire, for his quick thinking.”

  Like a jackal, feeding off the carcasses of dead animals, she thought, wanting to cry with shame. And when he stopped in front of her boarding-house, she did burst into sudden, involuntary tears, and ran quickly past him and into the building.

  Madame Antiquet, her night bonnet astride silver curls, was waiting for her. “A man’s here to see you,” she announced, her mouth set in the cold, disapproving line it had when unexpected happenings came to disturb her. “I’ve never seen him before. A black man.”

  The tears still streaking her cheeks, Lily followed her worriedly into the parlor. And, indeed, a wiry black man, his salt-and-pepper hair closely cropped around his small head, jumped to attention. In that instant, she recognized him, though his attire was completely different from what she had seen him in previously. In a simple suit and tie, he looked absurdly normal . . . like the American jazz player he had once been. “Dragi,” she said, blinking with bewilderment. “What are you doing here, at this hour?”

  “Madame sent me,” he replied, smiling with embarrassment.

  “Madame Dalbret? I saw her tonight. We spoke, briefly. Is anything wrong?”

  Dragi looked around him, as if to make certain that Madame Antiquet had not lingered outside the door. “Madame feels that it isn’t safe for you and your daughter to remain in Paris. She thinks the only way out for you is to quietly . . . disappear. That way, the Baron will not know where you are, and won’t be able ... to hurt you.”

  One hand holding her throat, she sat down, weak-kneed. “Hurt me? How?”

  “She said: ‘The Princess has no option left, if she stays. By displaying her so obviously to all of Paris tonight, he’s made it clear that she’s his mistress.’ And, your Excellency—if I may add my opinion to that of my fair lady ... if one thwarts a man like the Baron de Chaynisart, he has a whole German Embassy to avenge his wounded pride.”

  “But . . .” Lily began. “I . . . have nowhere else to go! Does she suppose I can move in with my mother? The apartment’s too full as it is!”

  The small butler extracted a slip of paper from his vest pocket. “Madame has written an address here, in Chaumontel, near the forest of Chantilly. It’s a small village, not far from Paris. She knows a Madame Portier, who owns a small house with some rooms to let. She’ll contact this person, and you are to leave tomorrow morning, with Miss Kira.”

  It sounded like a bad scenario from a horror film, and Lily, on the verge of tears, started to laugh. Her body bent in two, she laughed silently until her face was moist from the release. Her shoulders were shaking. Then she felt the warm, comforting hand of the black butler, lightly touching her arm. “It’s not so bad,” he said to her. “Chaumontel is a very pleasant place, and this is no town for a woman like you, now.”

  “What do you mean . . . ‘like me’?”

  He shook his head, trying to decide whether it was safe to proceed. “Your son,” he finally said, “told Madame . . . about your religion. She’ll protect your secret, but if you become conspicuous, and if the German Embassy becomes curious . . . you understand that they’d have ways of finding out, too.”

  Later, in the bedroom she shared with Kira, they packed their suitcases, silently. Lily was thinking that the following morning, before leaving, she’d stop off at Mark’s to alert him to her change of address. And he’d communicate it to her family at the Boulevard Exelmans.

  Dear Mark, how long before you, too, will have to leave? she asked him in her mind.

  And she thought of her son, who had returned to Nice, and who was waiting, alone, for his American visa. Her loved ones were dispersing themselves, like scattering seeds in the winds of a storm. Kira touched her hand, and said, softly: “Let’s go to sleep, Mama. I’m very tired.”

  * * *

  Pierre Rublon consulted his directions, and decided that Montsoult was the right station for getting off the train to Chantilly. As if to confirm this, he spotted the local train to Luzarches sitting on the opposite track. The young man, now almost six feet tall, had the massive shoulders of an athlete, but his clear blue eyes brought an unexpected, candid softness to his serious face. Stepping into an empty compartment, he sat down by the window and absently fingered the signet ring on his left ring finger. Almost immediately, the little train started up, and the entrancing forest landscape hypnotized him into tranquility.

  At three months short of his eighteenth birthday, Pierre’s future loomed ahead of him, grim and full of risks. His blond hair fell over his forehead, and impatiently he brushed it aside with his hand. His freckles, so engaging two years ago in the sun and salt of Saint-Aubin, had paled in the Paris air. He knew that he was by no means handsome, and, as always, pondered his good luck to have won himself a splendid girl like Kira. But he had seldom suffered from insecurity; he’d grown up in a home where intelligence and honesty had always been prized. He’d realized, from the beginning, that his friend Nicky too came from this sort of family. Kira’s values had been fashioned in the same mold.

  If she promised not to forget him, then she would keep her word. Yet, for the first time, his youthful fears came to the surface, and he was swept with a shameful relief that this passionate, exultant, moody girl was hidden away in a small village like Chaumontel, away from the sophisticated world of her Paris peers.

  If the recent German attack on its former ally, the Soviet Union, was any indication of the future, Pierre had to feel a resurgence of confidence in a Nazi defeat. You’ve made Napoleon’s mistake, mein Fúhrer, he thought. And then, if all went well, the war would last only a few more years. He’d return man enough to marry his girl.

  The train pulled into the station of Luzarches, the last stop on its short route, and Pierre was one of the first to jump off. A ru
ral road led toward the village of Chaumontel, and Pierre, walking rapidly, noticed that the only people to cross his path were hardened French peasants—no German soldiers. He thought, with another surge of relief, that the Brasilovs were well hidden there, for the road was a mere thread through vast, cultivated fields where laborers plowed and tended the crops.

  The hamlet was composed of small houses roofed with red tiles, webbing out from the main road. Pierre had never come here, but he had been in countless other French villages like it. Every house had its back yard with long, unmowed grass, and its wooden outhouse. He stopped at the tobacco shop and asked for Madame Portier’s house. The old man behind the counter smiled a wide, toothless grin, and remarked: “You’ve come for the pretty young lady, haven’t you?”

  Pierre blushed. “Yes.”

  “They’re nice people. Here in Chaumontel, nobody asks any questions. They’re not registered, and so aren’t entitled to food cards, but the butcher, the baker, the dairyman don’t care, and the police and the priest pass over their existence. We know they’re fugitives, and probably Jews—but we’ll never give them away. It’s our village pride that we protect our own—and these ladies have become ours, too.”

  Pierre smiled his gratitude, and proceeded to the side street to which the old tobacconist had sent him. The Portier house was unprepossessing, to say the least. It stood, low, gray, and squat, dark curtains rimming its small windows. He pressed the doorbell, and waited, his heart pounding.

  The door swung open, and he saw Kira’s mother, a kerchief around her dark hair, her face clear and inviting as he remembered it. It wasn’t so difficult to imagine her as the fabled princess his parents had told him about: rich, elegant, worldly. She still carried herself, even in this old brown skirt and blouse, like a proud Athena. My girl is a princess, he thought; in many ways, she is above me, even though my family comes from old French money, and dates back to the Huguenots. Lily was holding her hands out to him, drawing him in. “Pierre! We weren’t expecting you!”

  He had to walk down a step into the corridor, which was dank and gloomy. But Lily’s animated voice cheered up the almost sordid surroundings. She led the way into a room that was at once kitchen and parlor. In the center stood a large wooden table, and welded to the back wall was an enormous cement sink for washing clothes. Next to it, an old iron stove jutted out. The only other furnishings were four battered chairs and an oak cupboard filled with kitchen utensils. Lily was sitting down, and he did the same, opposite her.

  “It’s quite nice here,” she said. “We don’t have to line up for food, and there are fresh vegetables, eggs, and milk, which were so scarce in Paris. Four hours to bring home one hundred grams of tomatoes! Here, because we didn’t dare register, they give us what’s available, and when the constable from Luzarches comes once a week to verify the ration tickets at the bakery, he overlooks our purchases. Once we passed him on the street, and he just tipped his hat and went on his way.”

  How old was the Princess Brasilova? Pierre wondered. He’d always known her this way, serene and engaging, but almost destitute. There were no creases around her eyes, which were mesmerizing pools of darkness, warm chocolate brown. “But you didn’t come all the way out here just to listen to me prattle on and on,” she declared. “Kira’s in the small wood, gathering up some dry twigs for the fire. You wouldn’t believe this: but here, in late June, the nights are still chilly, and the walls ooze moisture.”

  He realized that he was standing, horribly embarrassed, his eagerness to find Kira painted in bold red all over his face. She took his arm and walked with him through the damp corridor to the back door. “It’s not far,” she was saying. “Over there, to the right.”

  His heart hammering, he strode toward the small thicket. A light rain had begun to drizzle, but he ignored it. He passed through some sagebrush into thick foliage, then found himself lost under a dome of green leaves where the top branches of stately old trees had met and tangled. Not more than twenty steps away, she was bending down to pick up dead wood, her dark, brilliant hair falling over her shoulders and arms. He called out: “Kira! Over here!”

  She flung down her basket, and her young, pliant body sprang forward, eager and lithe like a sprinting panther’s. In a minute she was in his arms, flinging kisses all over his face, her hands messing up his hair, her tears on his cheeks. “Hey,” he said gently, “hey . . . I’ve missed you.”

  Her hand in his, she brushed off a tree stump and pulled him down beside her. “I wondered when you’d come,” she told him. “And then, I thought you’d forgotten. Your life’s so complicated, so full of plans—and I’m out here, living like a peasant. I go to the school in Luzarches, and there are only twelve girls in my class ...all daughters of laborers.”

  “At least you’re safe. Things are becoming very scary for the Jews, in Paris. The Germans have begun to round them up, during the night, going by the addresses they gave when they registered. It’s as if they signed their own death warrants, without knowing it.”

  “You know,” she said, “I used to feel angry that my grandma was Jewish. It was always different with Nicky. Maybe because he and Papa never got along so well, and Nicky was rebelling, he became quite religious at the end. But not me. I wasn’t reared in the religion, and I don’t feel the need for it. God’s in my heart ... in the forest here, with us, wherever there is life. But the Germans have made me change. I love my grandparents, and Aunt Maryse. I respect their old traditions. And so now, I understand my mother’s feelings. There’s a subtle bond that ties us all together, we, the hunted, the persecuted ...the Jews.”

  “But it’s not just the Jews . . . it’s also the others, like me, who can’t accept France’s abnegation. It’s we against them—the Boches, the Vichy cowards, and all the other collabos who have teamed up with Abetz out of cupidity or hatred. You have to hate your fellow man to become a Nazi, Kira.”

  “My uncle Claude’s a collabo,” she said.

  “Every family seems to have one. But I’m convinced the British, with the help of the Americans and their Lend Lease policy, will prove victorious. And General de Gaulle’s troops are swelling now.” He stared for a moment at his hands, then looked frankly at her. “Kira—I came to say good-bye.”

  Tears hovered on the edges of her long, curled lashes. She’d known, the moment she’d seen him here, why he had made the trip from Paris. “When?” she asked. “How?”

  “I’m going to make my way to Spain, across the Pyrenees. The Basque underground is quite organized. Every night, six or seven guides take fugitives across the mountains. It would be impossible to find one’s way without them. They know every inch of the thirteen thousand feet of sharp peaks that must be crossed, and often, there’s a thick fog that blocks all the reference points, but which doesn’t seem to bother them. Then, from neutral Spain, I’m to take a small, clandestine boat to London, with a handful of other Free French volunteers. It’s all been arranged, down to the last detail.”

  She sat, silent, reflecting. “And then? Are you going to fight in North Africa?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. They’ll tell me when I get to headquarters, in London. They might also assign me to Intelligence, and keep me there.”

  The two young people sat, hunched down by the enormity of his immediate plans, sad and speechless. Kira could feel her heart aching inside her. Her nerves were alive. Tears welled up in her eyes. In that moment, she experienced the same desolation she had felt, almost four years ago, when the first man she had ever passionately loved—her father—had abruptly ripped himself from her existence.

  But now it was different: she understood what Pierre was doing, why he was leaving. But it didn’t lessen the wrenching pain. He was suddenly kneeling in front of her, his large, strong hands on both her shoulders, and she had the absurd desire to pull herself away and hurl herself far into the thicket, to be alone with her desolation. But he wasn’t about to let her escape.

  The only sound around the
m was the rain, which was so light that they had hardly felt it, protected as they were by the limbs and leaves of the trees above. “Don’t,” he was pleading. “Don’t cry so, Kira! It makes me feel I’ve made the wrong decision, that I’m a coward, leaving you.

  “All the men I’ve loved have left me: my father, my brother, now you! How d’you expect me to feel, Pierre?”

  His voice, so tender and low, assaulted her with its own, respondent hurt: “But I’m not abandoning you. For that matter, neither did Nicky. You have to get over your father. It’s not fair to Nicky, it’s not fair to me, and, most important, it’s not fair to yourself.”

  She shook her head, her hair tumbling about her face. “I’m sorry,” she whispered contritely. “All my life, my family’s told me I was selfish. I didn’t mean that. Forgive me.”

  His hands had tightened over her shoulders, and he had drawn himself up to her level. Impulsively, she slid off the stump and into his arms, her lips seeking his, her weight pushing him down onto the summer earth. She felt his hands fumbling on her breasts, and responded with a sweep of passion, her own fingers parting the soft cambric of his shirt, nestling over the circles of his nipples. With the rain beating time to her own rush of excitement, she unfastened her cotton skirt, unbuttoned her blouse, and waited for him to lie naked beside her. And she watched him struggling with clasps and zippers, her green eyes like two blazing emeralds, holding him so that he could do nothing else but respond to this girl of fifteen whom he had loved for two years with unswerving devotion.

  His body was tight, muscled, and compact, as she’d expected. Blond, blond, the soft, curling hairs on his chest and around his unmasked erection. She held out her arms, and he nestled there, his head between her full breasts. He will remember, she thought, fervently. I won’t let him forget this day! And so when finally he pushed himself onto his elbows, above her, she lay ready, her eyes wide open, unafraid. She’d been afraid of being left, not of being filled, by this young man, and so she received him with only a silent biting of her lower lip as his manhood entered her for the first time.