The Keeper of the Walls (32 page)

He stood completely still, his face deeply troubled. He'd never heard her quite so positive, so adamant. He was going to lose her. The episode with Mark still seared him, yet he now realized that his attachment to his wife ran deeper than any of his doubts. And now this. Just as he'd been sensing a kind of rapprochement in their relations, which had grown tense and cold after the abortion.

This time, there'd be nothing to fight back with, nothing to keep her and his children to him. She was right: too many rumors ran around Paris concerning him and his mistresses. Only . . . what was it she had heard? About Varvara?

“I'm going to leave you,” she was saying, quietly. “If there's anything I can't stand, it's lies. And our whole marriage has been one big lie. I prefer to live alone, with Nicky and Kira, and to give piano lessons to support myself. I'm going to Vienna, Misha, to stay with Wolf and Maryse. And I don't know if, or when, I'll be back.”

All at once, he reached for her. The face that looked into hers was ravaged, the eyes full of tears. “I
beg
you, Lily,” he whispered, “not to go. I need you here. You, and the children. I—I can't survive without you! All around me, my world's falling apart. I can't go through this alone—don't leave me!”

“But I can't trust you. You never took our marriage seriously. You never respected me enough to honor your vows. I'm old-fashioned, but this matters to me.”

“Then I can change for you!” His desperation contracted his features into an expression of supplication that she suddenly could no longer stand to look at. She stood up, turning her back on him, and heard him cry: “Forgive me, Lily! For everything I've done! I'm not the strong man you've taken me for. I'm just ... a man, who's found it difficult to resist temptation ...all sorts of temptations.”

“I'm afraid that's your problem,” she replied, very quietly. “But mine is the pain and humiliation. There's been too much already that I've been forced to live with—and you know what I'm talking about. It was
our
child, Misha, and you know it! But all the while that you were threatening me, that you were accusing me of having been with Mark,
you
were the one breaking your pledge, not I!”

She turned, her beautiful face set and calm, but underneath, nerves twitched and stomach churned. She felt as if the fibers of her life had finally come undone, and yet a strength, the presence of which she had not been aware of until this moment, was growing like a new skin.

“I never gave you reason to doubt me,” she said. “And I never betrayed you. I thought you were the moon and the stars; I would have done anything for you. You know I did what no woman should ever have to do. Because of you I lost my God, and my sense of self. But at least I still have my dignity.”

All their years together, she hadn't been enough: stupid Lily, obedient Lily, patient Lily. He'd betrayed her for a common woman, hardly better than a call girl. Yes, thought Lily: my mistake was that I wasn't ever willful enough, never assertive enough. Maybe even, she thought, feeling the poignant pain, not woman enough in the raw, sexual, come-hither fashion of this Rivière girl.

“I'll write to my mother from Austria,” she told him. “And of course I won't tell her the reason for the breakup of our marriage. You're the children's father, and I don't want to say anything bad about you.”

“Then, if you feel this way, you still love me enough to put away the past.”

She smiled at him. It was the saddest smile he'd ever read on a person's face. And then she walked away, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs.

I
n Vienna
,
life was far more civilized, Lily thought. She sat in her apartment in the large, romantic old mansion at number 2, Schwindgasse, sewing a button on one of Kira's dresses. How smoothly life had flowed, since her arrival, haggard and distraught, with seven suitcases and two small children, last May. She felt as though the Steiners, senior and junior, had taken over her entire life, shifting her burdens to their more capable shoulders and making sure that she and the children would have nothing left to worry about.

She hadn't wanted to explain anything, even to Maryse. The pain had been almost unbearable. The parting—Nicky's sobbing, Kira's strange, silent tears, Misha's turning away, his chin trembling—had been like a physical wrenching. She'd kept it all in during the train voyage. But in Vienna, once the children were asleep and she sat ensconced in an overstuffed velvet armchair, facing Wolf and Maryse, the tears had come. Maryse had quietly left, so that Wolf could be alone with Lily, holding her and listening. She wasn't sure if she'd made any sense; but the next day, the healing process had already begun, and a week later, Frau Steiner—Mina, Wolf's mother—had proudly shown her the beautiful little apartment upstairs from Maryse's, and told her it was hers for as long as she wanted it.

Lily had moved in, and Maryse had sent her a maid. Wolf and Maryse had a small daughter now, Nanni, an adorable two-year-old when the Brasilovs had arrived the spring before; she had become Nicky and Kira's delight. It was Nanni, more than anything else, who had helped them to get over the separation from their father. Misha had tried to force Lily to stay until the end of the school year; but she'd known that if she stayed in the same house, pretending for the children's sake that nothing was changed, that she would become crazy. She'd left within the week, without even calling Claire and Jacques—unable to face their questions and their concern.

It was a pleasant life. She'd written Claire that the marriage had ended, that she would stay in Vienna until she felt better. But it was now six months, and she wasn't ready to return to Paris. Maryse was her best friend, and here, in the spacious old house with its sculpted balconies and trimmed garden, everybody lived together, the apartments separate for privacy but visits taking place with the informality of family. Nicky and Kira were always somewhere with Nanni, often at the home of the elder Steiners, who were, Lily thought, the warmest, gentlest people she had ever met. They had accepted her with her children without a single question. The gratitude she felt was immeasurable.

Old Herr Steiner had warned her against sending the children to school. Instead, he invited a gifted young man he knew to come to the house to tutor Nicky and Kira. In just a few months, they had both learned German. Lily's days were occupied with walks in the Prater, with matinee concerts with Maryse and Mina, and with trips to the local library to familiarize herself with German literature. She'd studied the language for a few years with the sisters, but now learned it with a diligence that won her the praise of Maryse's father-in-law. She had begun to read some Goethe, the dictionary by her side.

She'd wanted to find students, to help pay for the maintenance of her apartment and maid, and to take care of the tutor, young Herr Krapalik. But Wolf led her to understand that both he and his father would be insulted. She was their guest. She was much more: she was a part of their family. Overwhelmed, she wept. But she wrote to her mother, asking her to find out if there was a way to unlock some of the money from her dowry. Misha was sending her funds for the children: she had sent him back the first two checks for herself, and he had understood, and not continued to include them in the mailings.

Jacques Walter answered her that Brasilov Enterprises was going through a difficult period, and that Misha had been forced to liquidate the apartment in the Rue Molitor, and to let the servants go. He wrote that her dowry was somehow tied into Brasilov Enterprises, and that, because of this, he and her mother preferred to take care of her themselves. After that, every month, he sent her a thousand francs. He was a fine man, and never asked why she had left her husband so suddenly. He and Claire wrote regularly, light, pleasant letters about their activities, the people they saw, the small trips they took. They were delicate enough never to mention Misha after that first reply from Jacques concerning her dowry.

With the money from her parents, and the checks from her husband, she was able to start paying the tutor herself, as well as the maid. But when the Steiner servants went out to market, they made it a habit to buy for all the inhabitants of 2, Schwindgasse. She and the children lived in gracious luxury, all their needs met. It was almost as if she'd gone to sleep, and awakened in a world of good fairies who, by magic, had removed all the stress and heartache and replaced them with quiet, gentle kindness.

Still, it wasn't the same. Maryse's life was different from her own, because Maryse was happily married. In late afternoon, she always rushed off to get dressed for Wolf, reappearing fresh and inviting. When he came home, Lily would feel a pinch of the heart: the two would hug each other, Wolf lifting his wife into a pirouette of joy, as if he'd been gone a month and not just a day. His office lay on the other side of the enormous house, but Maryse had always respected the mental barrier that separated her husband's workplace from the rest of the apartments. Wolf received his patients through an entrance on the side of the house, and had a nurse and secretary whose rooms lay on the top floor of the building. But these women were seldom seen and never heard. When Wolf came home, he wanted to breathe freely, to let the troubled souls whom he was helping slide off his own, healthy one, for the evening. Then, in the morning, he would feel renewed by Maryse's love, and reenergized by Nanni's adoration and baby prattlings. Lily couldn't help but feel that she was an intruder in what otherwise constituted an intimate family setting; and sometimes, when she went to bed alone, in her own apartment, she yearned for a similar existence, with a man's loving caress and strong shoulder to lean on.

Lily hadn't wanted to tell Maryse too much. Her friend had always been outspoken, critical of any injustice. Especially, Maryse was loyal; if anybody hurt someone close to her, she responded with virulence against the one responsible. Lily was a little afraid that if she knew the truth, Maryse would never stop haranguing her about Misha's perfidy and unforgivable sins. Lily knew that this was one subject she couldn't bear to discuss. Yet she felt a need to speak about her pain. One day, she'd made an appointment with Wolf under an assumed name; and when she'd been the one to be ushered into the suite, Wolf had been surprised, but had immediately understood. She'd lain down on the couch and closed her eyes, and related everything that had happened over the last few years: what Claire had unveiled; the abortion; and finally, the degrading shame of learning that she had not been enough woman for her husband, and that another woman was carrying his child.

Wolf hadn't condemned Misha. He'd laced his fingers together and said: “It wasn't that you were lacking, Lily; it was he who lacked confidence. Men who feel the constant need to pursue other women, even when they are very happy with their wives, are insecure and want reaffirmation. This fits in with Misha's anti-Semitism. People who focus their animosities on a group outside their own lives, are simply afraid to face their own inadequacies. If a businessman can blame the slump on the Jews, it's because this way, he won't have to examine his own mistakes in helping to bring about economic disaster.”

She opened her eyes and asked, in a very small voice: “But I was right to leave, wasn't I?”

Wolf had smiled. “You were right to obey the signals of your own conscience. You were true to your values.”

“But ... is
that good?”

“Lily,” he had declared, “in life there is no good and no evil. There is weak and strong, fair and unfair. We are each of us a finely tuned instrument whose sounds cannot be measured in general terms. You are not the soft young girl I met years ago. There's a resiliency in you that shows how healthy you are, in spite of all the injustice to which you've been subjected. You're going to be all right, sweetheart. But it's not going to be easy.”

She'd felt the tears running onto her cheeks, and had whispered: “In a strange way, I miss him. At least I miss the life we had.”

“You miss what you thought you had. You miss what you perceive Maryse and I to have. Let's be frank, Lily: you miss a man's arms around you, and you have an unfulfilled physical need.”

“But he's the only man I've ever loved.”

“Maybe that's why, when your needs cry out, you tag them with his name. You have to realize that divorce isn't the black spot it used to be, nowadays. There are other, better-adjusted men who could make you happier—but for this, you have to accept your own actions, and not condemn yourself for leaving Misha.”

It was then that Lily had gone to a lawyer, in Vienna, to instigate divorce proceedings. She'd felt it would be better to finish with this part as quickly as possible; that any lingering would simply cause the pain to remain that much more poignant.

The Steiners, after her visit to Wolf's office, began to make it a point to include her and the children in their Friday-night ritual. The first time, Wolf simply sent their maid to her apartment, to invite her to join them for the Sabbath meal. She'd understood. He wanted to continue what Rabbi Weill had begun. And so, her heart filled with gratitude, she went. Kira had asked about the beautiful candles, and Nicky had wanted to know about the language of the prayers. Wolf had said: “Do you want to learn it? It's called Hebrew, and it has a special alphabet.”

“When I grow up, I want to speak twenty languages. I already know three: French, Russian, and German. Will you teach me Hebrew, Uncle Wolf?”

To Lily's amazement, the psychiatrist had reached over to caress Nicky's cheek, and, in the softest voice, had answered that it would be his pleasure. And now, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, when Wolf finished his work, he always stopped off for two hours at Lily's apartment, where he would closet himself with the boy and teach him about this old biblical language, which rang with the wisdom and pain of thousands of years, and of a noble people who had wandered through the earth in search of a home.

In November, Lily had received a letter from Claire. Her mother was writing to announce Claude's marriage. Lily was flabbergasted. She was sitting in Maryse's parlor when Kira had walked in with the mail. “My brother's gotten married,” she said.

“To whom?”

“I don't know! Let me read the rest of the letter.” She sat forward and proceeded aloud:

Y
ou will be as surprised
as we were by the news.

I had always hoped for a steady young woman, someone with softness and charm, to bring out the tenderness that I feel exists in Claude's heart, though he seldom expresses it. This girl isn't a “girl,” actually; she's a mature woman, a number of years older than Claude; and she's streetwise. I'm not sure yet if I like her, for we were confronted with a fait accompli: they had just returned from getting married in the country, just like that!

I won't tell you that she's a lady, but I will say that she's sophisticated. A bit hard, but then, I imagine life hasn't been very good to her until this point. She isn't pretty, but she is most fashionable. In fact, she's had a job in fashion for over ten years. She's worked . . .

L
ily had turned
an awful shade of ghastly white, and the letter had shaken in her fingers. Maryse, openmouthed, had seized the vellum paper and taken up where Lily had left off: