The House of Dreams (18 page)

“What do you think is going on?” Miriam whispered.

“I don't know,” Mary Jayne said. “I talked a little with her last night. She was happy, it seems, in Martigues. She loved the freedom and how beautiful it is there.”

“Is she not happy at Air-Bel?”

“I think she loves the intellectual vibrancy of the place, but…” She hesitated. “It must be hard, sharing your husband with so many people.” She slipped a pack of playing cards from their case and began to shuffle them.

Miriam thought of the line from Job:
If I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon moving in brightness
. “They both have such presence. Maybe it's inevitable they clash sometimes.”

“They are obviously in love. I overheard him calling her his little squirrel yesterday.”

“It can't be easy, being married to a man like Breton,” Miriam said quietly. “I've heard all about his reputation, the disturbances…”

“Oh, he's a pussycat,” Mary Jayne said, laying out the cards for solitaire. “Quite charming, and so charismatic when he's talking at night, or reading from Duchamp's letters…” She paused, the ace of hearts in her hand. “Don't you think he is like the magnetic core of the château? He never shows off, he's just fascinating. I love it when he produces some rare copy of
Minotaure
or one of his books from those cases of his. It's like he is presenting treasure to us. His words are enchanted.…” She smiled, glanced quickly at Miriam. “When he says,
‘Alors, on joue…'
”

“Don't go getting any ideas!” Miriam laughed. She looked over to where Jacqueline was swinging to and fro on the trapeze with the ease of a gymnast, her slender body flipping upside down, flexing in a smooth curve, arms outstretched to the ground. “I daren't think of the consequences.” Jacqueline's seductive presence seemed to permeate the house. Whether she was working on her paintings or sitting in quiet reflection with a halo of cigarette smoke around her head, there was a refinement to her, a magic.

“I'm not interested in him like that. I just wish I understood more—I mean, what are all the games the surrealists are playing? Is it some kind of catharsis? I know humor is a great antidote to fear, but I just don't get the subtleties of what they are doing.”

“I don't know. I heard André say the other night that they believe that love is a fundamental principle of moral and cultural progression.” She paused.

“Love?” Mary Jayne said, her brow furrowed. “I know Breton was extolling the importance of monogamy and exclusivity the other night. It surprised me. One tends to think artists are all at it like mad.”

Miriam laughed. “Why don't you ask him about it? I have no idea either—it all seems rather racy.”

“You need to loosen up.”

“Unlike you,” Miriam said.

“I don't know what you mean.”

“Mary Jayne, you will be careful, won't you?” Miriam turned to her.

“I know what I'm doing.”

“Do you? What do you really know about Killer?”

“I know that I adore him, I told you,” she said, smiling to herself. “I know that he makes me feel alive.…”

“He's dangerous,” Miriam said firmly. “How old is he? Twenty-eight, twenty-nine?”

“Actually, I found out the other day he's twenty.”

“Twenty! And you are?” Miriam insisted.

“Old enough to know better, I know.” Mary Jayne gave up on the game and spread the cards in her hand into a fan.

“You're thirty-one, Mary Jayne. You're nuts to be mixed up with someone like him. We don't know why he left the Foreign Legion, or what he's mixed up with here. He's trouble. Varian doesn't trust him.…”

“Varian can go to hell.”

“If Killer compromises the safety of our clients, of the ARC…”

“Not this again.” Mary Jayne threw down the cards, scattering them on the table. “He won't. You have my word. Nothing I do will reflect badly on the ARC. Just as soon as Raymond gets out of jail, I'm going to help him get to England to fight with de Gaulle, and Varian and the precious committee won't have to fret about a thing. Honestly, they're like a bunch of old women.”

“Let's not fight,” Miriam said, putting her hand on her friend's arm.

“It just drives me crazy. Here I am gladly giving thousands of dollars, and I get treated like some dumb blonde.” She scowled for a moment, then smiled as Miriam caught her eye.

“Danny says even when you stayed with his family in Paris, you liked the bad boys.”

“Oh, Danny was forever teasing me.”

“I think you just like danger. Look at the way you used to tool around Europe piloting your Vega Gull.”

“My feelings for Raymond scare me, but the plane never did. I was in control.” Mary Jayne's face clouded. “Perhaps I should have hung on to the plane. It would be rather useful down here, but I thought the French forces could make better use of it.” She gazed into the distance, imagining how it would feel to pilot herself and Killer to freedom. She pictured her plane swooping low over the dazzling sea, flying free with him at her side. They could go anywhere—west to Lisbon or London, perhaps, then on to New York.
He'd hate it,
she thought, trying to imagine Killer in America.
He'd never come. He says he loves me, but he just wants to get back in the war, to fight. I adore him, but I have to let him go. He'll be a hero one day. That'll show them. That'll show them all.
She sensed Miriam's concern and looked at her. “You know, I've always been able to have pretty much anything I wanted in the world,” she said. “But I can't have him. At least, not for long. I know that.”

“Oh, Mary Jayne.” Miriam took her hand.

“No, it's fine. I've quite come to terms with it.” Mary Jayne lifted her chin. “I've always thought that no one and nothing can contain you,” she said quietly. “Whatever stops you living your best life is your own fault—the bars are inside of ourselves, and I'm going to help set Raymond free.”

*   *   *

The next morning, as the rest of the house slept, Mary Jayne joined Miriam in the dining room. The fire's embers still glowed in the hearth from the night before, and their eyes were red with exhaustion.

“Coffee?” Mary Jayne said, pouring a cup for Miriam. She slipped on the jacket of her pink suit and perched on the edge of the table, her feet in their white ankle socks and sandals swinging above the floor.

“So-called coffee.” Her laugh was flat. Miriam gulped down her drink, scalding her mouth. “Listen, Mary Jayne, I—”

“Stop it.” Mary Jayne smiled, blinking, unable to speak for a moment. “No grand farewells. This isn't good-bye. If luck's on your side, you'll be back here with Rudolf in a couple of weeks.” She checked her watch. “We have to go, we mustn't miss your train. Varian and Beamish are going to meet us at the station to say good-bye.”

The friends walked in silence, arm in arm along the driveway. The cold gravel was wet with dew, crunching beneath their feet. Melting snow banked on the verges still, and mist rolled among the cedar trees, birds singing their dawn chorus in the branches. At the gates, Miriam turned and took a last look at the house. Her throat was tight, her eyes welling with tears. “I'm going to miss you. I'm going to miss you all so much.”

At the Gare Saint-Charles, they raced along the platform. The train was waiting, steam billowing along the roofs of the carriages. Miriam craned her head above the crowd at the sound of Beamish's whistle and saw him halfway down, holding open the door of the train, with Varian at his side.

“Thank you, Albert,” she said to him, catching her breath.

Varian embraced her. “Stay safe, Davenport.” He pressed his lips to the top of her head. “You stay safe, you hear?”

Miriam hugged him, tears brimming in her eyes as she turned to Mary Jayne. The girls stared at each other, unable to find the words. They fell into each other's arms as the whistle blew. “This damn war,” Mary Jayne said. “What if we never find one another again?”

“We will, we will,” Miriam said. She hugged her tight and whispered, “Be careful.”

“Of course.”

“I mean it.” She took Mary Jayne by the arms. “Listen, you look out for yourself, do you hear?” Beamish swung Miriam's suitcase into the packed corridor, and Varian helped her up, slamming the door behind her. Miriam lowered the window and stuck her head out as the train pulled away. “Thank you,” she said, raising her voice as the whistle blew and the train chugged out of the station. “I'll never forget any of you, any of this.” She waved. “Good-bye! Good-bye! I'll see you soon, in New York!” she cried.

 

TWENTY-THREE

F
LYING
P
OINT
, L
ONG
I
SLAND

2000

G
ABRIEL

I'm struggling to keep up with her now. The girl's walking on ahead, her blond hair tumbling down, free and loose. I remember Annie standing on the shore when she was not much older than this girl, her hair blowing in the wind just like that. After the babies were asleep, she'd come down here once in a while and just stand with the surf lapping her feet, staring out at the horizon. I know she was thinking of France and everything we had left behind, but I never did. I never looked back, not until today.

The sun's going down now and the beach is luminous and empty in the half-light, Venus gleaming above us.

“Something I've always wondered…,” the girl says, calling over her shoulder.

I stop and try to catch my breath, but it's rattling around my chest like nickels in a tumble dryer. “Yes?”

“Why was there such a huge change in your work between 1940 and the paintings you did in America?”

Here we go. “How could I not have been affected by meeting men like Breton?”

She stops and gazes out to sea, her hand shielding her eyes against the falling sun. “Is that the best you can do?” she says. “I know a whole generation of American artists like Pollock and Rothko were all deeply affected by the exiled artists over here. I know Duchamp, and Breton, and all those people made a huge difference, but you don't make any sense.”

“I'm sorry?”

“It's like you became a different person.”

My hackles rise. “That's ridiculous.…”

“Did the war really affect you that much? I mean,” she says, walking on, “your work before the war was lovely, but … well, decorative.” She says it like an insult.

“That's the line they always throw at art deco. It was a fashion, that's all. You can't deny the sheer technical skill of my early work.”

“After you arrived in America, your painting…” She throws her arms out to the sky, fingers extended. “It exploded. The anger, the clarity—”

“Like I said. It changed, because of the war.” It changed, I changed … what's the difference anymore. The blood is singing in my ears now, and I rock slightly on my feet.

“Say, are you okay?” That voice. I …

“I'm fine.”

She sits down on an old log that has washed ashore and stares out to sea. I stumble as I join her, my feet tripping in the sand. I end up sitting on the ground, my back against the smooth driftwood. Sophie's sitting behind me, so all I can hear is her voice. I feel the weightlessness of her hand on my shoulder.

“It's time. Tell me everything. What happened in Marseille, Lambert?”

 

TWENTY-FOUR

R
UE
G
RIGNAN
, M
ARSEILLE

November 13, 1940

G
ABRIEL

“Still no news after your report?” I heard Beamish ask Danny. He was shuffling through the pile of papers in front of him on the desk. “Your tour of the concentration camps has to have had some effect, surely? Tens of thousands of men, women, and children are penned up behind barbed wire like animals.” Beamish shook his head as he scanned Danny's meticulously typed document. “Look at this—dysentery, typhus. It's like the Middle Ages, not a modern European country.” Eight men sat around the meeting table in the rue Grignan office, a single lamp illuminating the files in front of them. The main office lights had been switched off, and I sat with Charlie and Gussie in silence, guarding the street door. The truth is, I didn't much enjoy my own company in those days, and when I wasn't at Air-Bel hoping to bump into Annie, I was happier around the ARC crowd. They had grown to trust me, and I made myself useful enough around the place. The hours I spent alone dragged, and I lived in fear of bumping into Alistair Quimby. I knew he was in Marseille somewhere, and he haunted me like a specter. I would be walking through the market, my stomach groaning with hunger at the smell of the food on the stalls, and I would see him walking toward me—or at least I'd think I'd seen him, and I would run, doubling back on myself, trying to lose this ghost from my past. At least at the ARC I felt safe and among good people I could trust.

“Not a word, not a damn word from Vichy. They're not budging an inch.” Beamish leaned back in his chair, his arms folded. He had his habitual pout on his lips, and though I couldn't see his face clearly in the dim light of the domed chrome lamp on Varian's desk, I knew something was wrong.

“What's up, Beamish?” Danny said.

He shrugged. “Nothing definite. I just…” He leaned forward into the lamplight and picked up the model airplane on the blotter. He spun its propeller speculatively. “I think it's time to get as many people out as quickly as we can. Things are changing, for the worse.”

“What makes you say that?”

“It's just a feeling. Up until now the Gestapo has been happy to let the Vichy lot do their dirty work, but I think—” He was interrupted by a hammering on the front door, the glass rattling in its frame. As one, we all looked up, alarmed, like a herd of deer sensing a predator.