The Keeper of the Walls Page 8

  “No.”

  “You shouldn’t take it so hard, Mark,” she said. “It’s only normal for her to want to think it through. She’s a devout Catholic: divorce doesn’t exist for someone like Lily. Marriage, for her, means a one-time event.”

  “But had she loved me, she’d have answered at once.”

  Claire made no comment, but her hand remained on his arm until the moment when she disembarked at the Place de la Concorde, telling the chauffeur to drive Mr. MacDonald wherever he wished to be taken. As she watched the Citroën pull away from the curb, she wondered for whom her heart ached more: for Lily, who was still blindly hoping, or for Mark, who’d gambled and seen the truth.

  In the evening, when she came home, she knocked lightly on the door to Lily’s room. She turned the knob, and entered. Her daughter was sitting quietly in the gathering darkness, leafing through a book without seeing the pages.

  “Mark told me,” she said.

  “I put him off.”

  “I know. And he’s smart enough to understand why. Lily—”

  “What, Mama?”

  “Prince Mikhail is a married man. Claude told us, but we were afraid to upset you. It was wrong of us. We should have told you.”

  Lily simply repeated: “Married? To whom?”

  “Claude didn’t say.”

  She stood up then, angry, and cried: “But you still allowed him to take us to the theater! And to send me roses—Why? Why? What does he want with me, then, Mama?”

  Claire sighed. “If I knew, I’d tell you. I don’t know any part of the story.”

  “And so you want me to accept Mark’s proposal.”

  “I don’t want you to do anything. It’s you who must decide, based on how you feel about Mark, not on your anger against Prince Mikhail. It serves no purpose to marry a man unless you’re sure of your love for him.”

  She looked at her daughter, long and hard. But Lily remained perfectly erect, although her eyes seemed suddenly bloodshot. She was courageous, and she was proud. She’d never cry in front of anyone. Claire felt helpless, and shook her head. Then she quietly left the room.

  Lily walked over to the vase of red roses, and picked one out. In the semidarkness she examined its firm perfection. She’d had a stupid, childish dream, just because he was tall, imposing, larger than life—an Ivanhoe come to lift her away, all the way from Moscow on his white horse. She’d fallen in love with a man she’d hardly spoken to—because he was the first man who’d ever picked her out of the crowd. Foolish, silly Lily. She plucked a rose petal from the bud, then another, then a third, ripping them off like the wings off a fly. Married.

  If I don’t marry Mark, maybe nobody else will ever come, she thought. Mark is the gentlest person I know, except for Mother. He could make me happy, and I’d be good to him, in gratitude.

  Mark understood her, he approved of her, he wanted her to continue with her piano studies. He’d take her away from her father, from Claude. He’d be a kind father to their children. What, really, did it matter that she’d wanted another man to hold her in his arms?

  The next morning, when the basket of out-of-season fruits was delivered from Fauchon, she said in her even, poised voice to the messenger boy: “Send it back to the person who ordered it. But wait—I have a message.” And she went to her room, returning moments later with a small envelope.

  When the boy had left, she went upstairs into her father’s study. She went to the telephone on the desk, dialed a number. When it was picked up on the other end, she said, softly: “Mark? I’ve thought it through. If you’re sure you love me, let’s get married as soon as possible.”

  Misha was sitting in his office when the messenger was ushered in from Fauchon. “What’s this?” he asked. “I ordered it delivered to Boulogne.”

  “The young lady refused it, and said to bring it directly back to you, with this note.” He laid the small envelope on the massive mahogany desk.

  “Thank you,” Misha said, but in his heart he felt a deep shock, a premonition of pain to come. The Calville apples gleamed at him, impudently, laughing at his discomfiture. After the messenger had departed, he opened the envelope. “Dear Prince Mikhail,” she’d written in her round schoolgirl hand: “This wonderful basket would be more fittingly displayed on your wife’s table.”

  He stared at the note, stunned. Such incisive, harsh words from this sweet child, this fresh young girl. What pain must have prompted her to display such uncharacteristic sarcasm! How had she found out? He was tempted to leave his office and rush over to Boulogne, to try to explain. But—to explain what? That, although he wanted to ask her to marry him, he was already bound to somebody else, someone he’d married on an impulse, someone he didn’t love? She’d have to find this yet another strike against his character, and, of course, she’d be right.

  It was the middle of the business day, and his desk was littered with folders and typed papers. But he knew he wouldn’t be able to concentrate. He buzzed Rochefort. By the time the secretary had entered the office, Misha was already standing, his jacket buttoned. “I have an appointment,” he said shortly. “I’m not sure when I’ll be back.”

  It wouldn’t do to play the buffoon to an eighteen-year-old girl, but he had to settle the issue with Varvara. At this hour she’d still be at home. He maneuvered the royal blue De Dion-Bouton through the afternoon traffic, up the Champs-Élysées, down the Avenue Wagram to Place Péreire. In that part of town all breathed of quietude, and the granite building where she rented a medium-size apartment stood behind some tall plane trees that, leafless in the winter mist, stood as skeletons beckoning to the passersby. He parked the car and went through the street door into a covered yard, past the janitor’s lodge and up a dark, winding staircase to the second-floor landing. He rang the doorbell and waited.

  Varvara Trubetskaya opened the door herself. She was a spectacular woman: of medium height, she possessed the lush figure of a courtesan, sheathed in a peignoir of yellow silk embroidered in Chinese fashion with black and red dragons. Her triangular face was of translucent pallor and great blue saucer eyes opened wide over pronounced cheekbones. She didn’t look a year over twenty-seven or twenty-eight, although she was ten years older. Her pale red hair haloed her face, and was of chin length, but thick and tousled.

  She stepped back, pinching her lips together, and he entered. The apartment was interesting, eclectic. Ming vases were set on Louis XVI tables, in front of soft, Art Nouveau sofas, two of them forming an L shape in the large living room. She motioned for him to sit, and did so herself, tucking her bare feet beneath her on one of the sofas. “I take it you received my note,” she finally said.

  “I did, and I’m baffled. You went along with all the motions to this point.”

  “But I’m a woman. I can change my mind.” She smiled then, and rang a small silver bell on the table before her. Presently a tall black man appeared, bowing from the waist. He was clothed in bright red and green satin, and wore a turban around his head. She said: “Dragi, bring us some interesting libation—like Scotch and water for me, and vodka on the rocks for his Excellency.”

  When he’d left the room, Misha raised his eyebrows. “Where did he come from, Vava?”

  “From a club in Montmartre. He played the clarinet. But when the club closed down, he lost his job. So I took him in. He makes an interesting maître d’hôtel, don’t you think, darling?”

  “Why ‘Dragi’? And why this strange African attire? If he’s a jazzman, then he must be American.”

  “But these days, that’s already passé.”

  He smiled. She’d been outrageous in Moscow already. He remembered when she’d arrived at a costume ball dressed as a lion tamer . . . with a live lion manacled to her wrist. She was afraid of nothing. But what had attracted him in those days wasn’t sufficient to hold him now. He needed to find stability, gentleness, calm. He said, as kindly as he could: “I want this divorce, Varvara. The case is coming up within two weeks, and if you play me foul,
I’ll play it your way, but by my rules.”

  She raised her head, showing off the tiny, pointed chin, without an age fold underneath. “Is that a threat, Misha?”

  He inclined his head. “Maybe.”

  At that moment Dragi reappeared, balancing a lacquered tray on which were two crystal highball glasses. Bowing in front of his mistress, he brought it first to her, and then repeated the performance in front of Mikhail. Then, with little steps, he disappeared through the swinging doors behind Varvara.

  Misha took a swallow of vodka, and said: “Five thousand a month is a small fortune. It will be written in the divorce decree.”

  “I’m not a whore,” she answered softly. “You’ve always done with me exactly what you wanted. You’re totally without shame.”

  “You knew why from the beginning. This marriage was never a real one.”

  “I’m told you send dozens of roses to a young French girl who could be your own daughter.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “It’s true, isn’t it? That there’s someone?”

  He nodded. “It’s true. Won’t you help me, Vava?”

  She slammed the crystal glass on the coffee table. “You’re really too much, Misha! I didn’t care about the marriage license until you began to pressure me about dissolving it. I’d thought—somehow—that we might have our chance, after all these years. In Moscow, in the Crimea, it was different. Why not me, Misha? Why her?”

  He said, quite coldly: “I need a lady, Vava, and you’re an Amazon, a firefly, a Fury—but not a lady. I need someone to come home to—someone whose only interest in life will be to take care of my needs, to comfort me, to listen to my problems.”

  “What you want is a nursemaid—a nanny. You’re afraid of getting too close to a real woman. Perhaps she’d be smart enough to find the chink in your armor.”

  He breathed in and out, fully, and repeated: “Five thousand a month. This is my final offer. You really should consider it, because in any event, I won’t be your man. I’m in love with this girl, and if you once get in our way, I’ll crush you, Varvara.”

  She stared back into his green eyes, and saw the steely purpose in his tiny pupils. She said: “Seven. Seven thousand, payable on the first of every month. For five years.”

  “Five. For three years. It won’t do you any good to argue with me. My lawyers will know how to make you look ridiculous in court.”

  She opened her mouth, but he’d already risen. She could feel her heart pounding, but saw no response on his face. He didn’t have a heart. She should have known that, long ago. He was saying: “Thank you, Varvara,” and turning his back on her to reach the hallway. There was nothing she could think of saying, no irony strong enough for the occasion. She couldn’t think, couldn’t react, and when he’d opened the door and let himself out, she felt only the pain of her own lost illusions, hammering at her. These five thousand francs were the only things he’d ever offered her, she knew. He’d never promised to love her, and so she couldn’t blame him for any lies, only for the cold way he chose to live his life, separate from any touching being—a selfish man, protecting his entity from the groping hands of those less strong than he.

  She took a long sip of Scotch, and thought, with a half smile, that the poor girl on whom he’d set his sights would have no way of knowing that it was useless, most of the time, to fight against him.

  Mark gave Lily a gold ring inset with a two-carat diamond, from Van Cleef and Arpels, as an engagement present. This seemed to please Paul Bruisson. He felt that the young man had proved his wealth, and so, as was customary, he spoke to him about the dowry he had put aside for his daughter when his business had begun to improve, after the war. But Mark shook his head. “I’m not marrying Lily for money,” he stated. “I can earn enough for her to live well, and besides, I have a trust fund set up in Charlotte to supplement my income.” Paul could hardly believe this good luck, and rubbed his meaty hands together, chuckling. The American had turned out to be much worthier than anyone had anticipated. Maybe he wasn’t a Russian prince, but Paul thought that on the whole, those Russian aristocrats who now flooded Paris had done very little to contribute to the French economy.

  Americans, on the other hand, were a strange breed. The women seemed to possess no sense of decency. Those who married well, like Winnie Singer de Polignac and Marie-Laure Bischoffsheim de Noailles, hid their eccentricities and sexual depravities behind the elegance of their Old World French husbands. The others—like the wife of that author Fitzgerald—were openly, shamelessly scandalous: drinking to excess and sleeping with men on the spur of the moment. But the men were strong, no-nonsense fellows, and if they drank too much, one could excuse them more because of their sex. Still, Paul Bruisson didn’t like artists, and most of the Americans in Paris purported to be artistic in one form or another. Mark, however, was a journalist. To Paul that seemed more solid.

  Thank God that Mark had promised Paul not to take Lily back to the United States. He was happy in Paris. At least, he’d said, not within the next few years. He, Paul, would have to sweeten the pot to make sure Mark and Lily never went back. And he’d agreed to a Catholic wedding, and to rear the children, when they came, as Catholics. Paul would see to it that his grandchildren grew up as decent, clean-cut French children. On the whole, Paul was pleased at the intended marriage. The wedding was set for June 6.

  One afternoon in the early part of February, Lily was in the dining room, showing the maid how to set the table for a late supper she was planning for the next evening. Paul approved. His little girl was learning how to be a hostess. She had Claire’s good taste. He thought: I’ve built my family the perfect house, and I’ve furnished it as it deserves. Now it’s up to them, the women, to work within it, to fill it with the right sorts of guests. He knew he didn’t know how to arrange a centerpiece, or how to place the crystal. For these things he’d always trusted Claire—and now Lily.

  He was reading in the living room, feeling good, as always, when he raised his bespectacled eye to appraise the furniture. How he loved the brass and gilt swans and sphinxes that adorned his chairs! He’d sent Claude to the office and, just this once, had decided to take the day off because he could feel a tickle in his throat. It was that damned Parisian winter again, chilling his bones. He heard a noise—the doorbell sounding. The maître d’hôtel was letting somebody in. He thought he heard a man’s deep voice, and was suddenly interested.

  Paul rose, setting aside his newspaper, and peered out into the hallway from the living room. And then he was really surprised. Prince Mikhail Brasilov was walking briskly behind the maître d’hôtel into the dining room. He followed, shuffling his slippered feet.

  Lily had stopped laying out the silver, and stood looking at the Russian with an air her father couldn’t describe: remote, withdrawn—the way she sometimes looked at Claude. Prince Mikhail went to her and took her hand, brought it to his lips. Still, Lily said nothing. The maître d’hôtel hovered by the entrance, waiting for a signal, and the small maid had scampered away. Paul waited, interested.

  “Please, mademoiselle, tell your servant to leave us alone,” Brasilov finally said, annoyance seeping into his voice.

  “It’s all right, you may go,” Lily said. Her own voice was completely toneless. “But my father is here, and I’d like him to be present if you have anything to tell me, your Excellency. I’m engaged to be married—and I don’t want to speak alone to any man except my fiancé.”

  Paul entered now, straightening out his tie and filling his chest with air to make it stand out. “My dear Prince,” he stated, not knowing what to add because he had no idea of the purpose of this visit in his home. He couldn’t help but feel proud of Lily—of her upright morality at a time when other young women had forgotten what decency meant. He extended his hand, and Brasilov hesitated less than before until he shook it.

  The Prince didn’t look so proud this time. He had turned a ruddy color at Lily’s words, but he didn’t re
sist. “Mademoiselle,” he said. “Your engagement—I just heard about it.”

  “Mr. MacDonald is the best of men.”

  “Indeed he is. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting him. But—still—”

  Lily said, her voice thin and clear: “Prince Mikhail, it was kind of you to take us to the theater, and to send me flowers. But you are a married man, and now I, too, shall marry. I’m afraid all contact between us must stop because of these two facts.”

  “I think,” Brasilov said, clearing his throat, “that I must explain my behavior to you. You must think me a boor—a liar and a cheat. But you were misinformed. I am no longer married. I was in the last stages of a divorce when we met last month.”

  Paul Bruisson knew then that he had the advantage, and so he said, with a little smile: “My daughter isn’t a dance-hall girl, your Excellency. You cannot treat her as you did your wife.”

  Brasilov turned around, and his eyes were cold. He said: “You, too, were misinformed, monsieur. My wife is a dancer, yes, but she is first and foremost a lady. I am a free man now—but this gives no one the right to criticize the woman I divorced.”

  “Papa,” Lily said. “I would like to hear from Prince Mikhail why he came here today.”

  “I wanted to beg you to reconsider. To propose marriage to you myself. I want you for my wife, mademoiselle.”

  Lily looked at him, her wide eyes unforgiving. “Why?”

  “I don’t know! Maybe I’m bored with the life I’ve been leading. Maybe I’m looking for some kind of peace, and you could give it to me. I can’t be more clear-cut than that!”

  “But Mr. MacDonald loves me, Prince Mikhail.”

  “If you lived with me, you would see in a thousand small ways the extent of my feelings for you. I am not, like Mr. MacDonald, a man of big words.”

  “But ‘love,’” Lily countered softly, “is a very small word. One that matters.”

  “It’s the thought that matters, Mademoiselle Liliane. I am a man of action, not of words.”