Villa America (16 page)

“Will you, my love?” Even more softly this time.

She was the best part of them. Of what they’d made together. So his fingers found the hem of her nightgown.

“Promise me you won’t ever fall for another woman.”

“I promise,” he said.

“You’re more than welcome tonight, you know.” Now it was Linda standing in the doorway of the music room, her body encased in a white silk gown printed with what looked like purple nightshade.

“Thank you, but I don’t think I’m actually able,” Gerald said.

The evening had grown closer, making the sounds of the city seem richer, denser, more resonant.

“You could be my date,” she said, smiling.

He knew she was trying to be kind, after Sara’s departure, after the scene at the Lido.

“I wish this poor old body would allow me. You look marvelous.”

She looked down at her dress, her aquiline nose casting a shadow like an arrow across her face in the lamplight. “Oh, thank you. Cole bought it for me.”

“He has wonderful taste.”

“Yes,” she said. “He is wonderful. Isn’t he?”

“I think so.”

Linda took a big breath, her bosom rising. “Well, I’m going. Once more into the arena.” She gazed at him, then turned away. “Good night.”

“Good night,” Gerald said.

When she’d gone, he looked back at the sketches lying before him. He and Cole had agreed on a backdrop painted to look like a huge newspaper, black and white with sensational headlines mimicking those printed in America these days: “Unknown Banker Buys Atlantic”; “Ex-Wife’s Heart Balm Love-Tangle”; “Rum Raid Liquor Ban.” It was an exciting project, but Gerald couldn’t stop his mind from wandering back to his own work, waiting patiently for him in Paris.

It had taken him a while, but he’d found his vocation. After the war, they’d moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he began studying landscape architecture at Harvard, and then to England, and finally to Paris for the same.

One bright November afternoon two years ago, however, he’d walked past Paul Rosenberg’s gallery on the rue La Boétie and his life changed. There, in front of him, were canvases the likes of which he’d never seen: fractured but strictly ordered, like muddy stained glass. He’d understood them immediately, like a language remembered from a youthful visit to a foreign country. They represented not the
thing
but the
essence
of the thing; life seen through a prism. He learned later they were cubist paintings by Juan Gris and Picasso. But all he was aware of then was the electricity of recognition: if that was painting, then that was what he wanted to do.

So he’d spent two years studying and evolving his own style, and this spring he had selected four pieces—two oil paintings, a watercolor, and a sketch—to show at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris. They’d been a mild success with critics, especially
Turbines
and
Engine Room,
the two oils. He was fascinated by the inner workings of the hard, metal hearts of machines, those huge precision instruments.

But what he was creating now excited him more. An enormous eighteen-by-twelve-foot painting he’d titled
Boatdeck.
He’d been working on the sketches for it in Antibes while the original canvas was housed in his studio in Paris. He was eager to get back to it.

He figured it would take Cole and him another two weeks to finish
Within the Quota.
He was only mildly worried about the two weeks Sara would spend without him in Antibes. Of course it was clear to him that Pablo had fallen in love with her, or was enchanted, at the very least. He sketched her constantly, took photographs, watched her admiringly with the children, when she danced, when she arranged her hair. His gaze would follow her as she went to the changing tent set up on the beach. All this under the watchful eye of Olga. But Olga, pretty, delicate, young, was no match for her husband’s sheer masculinity. Gerald wasn’t as intimidated by the man’s potent physical presence as he might have been when he was younger. Marriage to Sara created a kind of cocoon against that. But he still felt his own limitations as a man when compared to someone like the Spaniard. Would Pablo try something? he wondered. He trusted Sara, that much he knew. So the unease was a slight one, hovering just beyond his everyday thoughts, teasing the edge.

Two more weeks. Then he could return to Antibes, to Sara, to the children, to his sketches. Then autumn in Paris and
Boatdeck
and…

“First things first,” he said to himself.

He picked up his pencil and tried to fix his attention on the work in front of him. He could hear the gondoliers’ love songs rising from below, floating over him and perhaps over Cole and Linda, who were out there somewhere.

Sara had never felt as relieved as she did when the Train Bleu finally pulled into the Gare d’Antibes in the late afternoon. She couldn’t wait to see her children, to hold them, to get back to her rooms at the hotel and bathe and drink a large glass of fresh milk and generally wash Venice away.

She’d been lucky to make the right connection in Menton. The trains ran infrequently this time of year and finding one that stopped at the Antibes station was even more of a rarity, as all the English and Belgians and French aristocrats had locked up and fled north for the summer. Of course, there were no longer any Russians, their villas, long empty and haunted, dotted among the hills of the small fishing village on the Côte d’Azur.

So it was deliciously quiet when she stepped off the train; the smell of the Aleppo pines, the parasol pines, and the
pins maritimes
filled the dusty, dry air. It was like being baked in an evergreen oven.

The platform was deserted except for a few porters and Vladimir, waiting to pick her up and drive her back to the hotel. As they had Picasso, Sara and Gerald met Vladimir at Diaghilev’s atelier. His story had intrigued them: an aristocratic Russian émigré who’d fled the Bolsheviks and wound up in Paris designing scenery for the Ballets Russes. So when Gerald set up his own studio, he’d hired the Russian to teach him basic techniques of stretching and mounting canvas and to generally help out.

One evening, Gerald had brought Vladimir back to their apartment on the rue Greuze for supper. Sara had been ready to tear her hair out when they arrived. There’d been trouble getting Patrick, then one and a half, down that evening, the cook had quit two days before, and she was desperately late getting supper together. The minute he walked through the door, Vladimir had just taken over, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. He’d chopped vegetables, roasted the meat, opened wine.

At one point, after setting the table, Sara had passed by the children’s room, and sitting on the edge of Honoria’s small bed, his hands throwing shadows on the wall in the low lamplight, was Vladimir.

“Let me tell you story,” the Russian was saying, “about a rabbit I knew when I was a little boy, about your age. His name was Peter and was very bad rabbit. And he made much trouble for his mother, Mrs. Josephine Rabbit, and for the not very nice Mr. McGregor.”

“Why was Mr. McGregor not very nice?” Honoria asked.

“Ahh,” Vladimir said. “We may get to that on another evening.”

After he’d regaled the children with his stolen stories, the three adults ate supper by candlelight while Vladimir told them about St. Petersburg before the Bolsheviks. He was magic and Sara decided there and then that they couldn’t do without him. She asked, and he said yes. From then on, he was their companion.

He was supposed to have spent this summer in Paris, but while Gerald and Sara were in Venice, he’d come down south to look out for the children, who were staying with a nurse Sara wasn’t entirely certain about. The Picassos had agreed to put him up at their villa, and when he wasn’t checking up on the nurse, he was free to do as he pleased.

“Can we take the coast? I’m longing to see it,” Sara said when she’d settled into the yellow Renault that always put her in mind of a duck.

Vladimir lit a cigarette.
“Oui.”
He spoke very formal French—everyone was
vous
except the children—and a good bit of English, but he could be positively monosyllabic at times.

“How was Venise?” he asked once they’d gotten on their way.

“I didn’t care for it,” Sara said. “Not this time, anyway. I’m glad to be back. How are the children?”

“Fat.”

Sara laughed. “Good.” Through the pines, she could see the straw-colored cliffs leading down to the sea, itself brushed violet and pink in the afternoon light. Olive trees pushed out through the crags here and there. “And the nurse? She gave them the fresh milk from the farmer?”

“
Oui. La vache donne son lait avec de générosité,”
he said. “Also fat.”

The car’s roof was off, and the sun hit her face, warming her skin.

“And the Picassos?”

“He works, she sulks.”

Sara nodded. “All’s right with the world, then.” Yawning, she stretched her arms towards the sky and closed her eyes, feeling the breeze running through her fingers.

At the Hôtel du Cap, she drank her glass of milk and read her letters: one from John Dos Passos, who described himself as “slowly baking” in the Paris heat and inquired about their return date; one from the Barrys (Phil was working on a follow-up to his play
You and I,
and Ellen was going mad with boredom, so would the Murphys come to their villa in Cannes and dine with them?); and one from Fred Murphy’s wife, Noel, saying they’d found some nice apartments in Paris but that Fred’s health seemed no better.

Sara sighed. She’d wait until Gerald returned to tell him about Fred. He worried so about his brother, who’d come back from the war a hero but in shattered health, both physically and mentally.

She was about to compose a response to the Barrys when the children came streaming into the bedroom, the nurse just behind, trying in vain to corral them. Sara bent low, opened her arms, and caught them as they threw themselves at her, and she felt that peculiar gratitude at being so missed and so needed. Honoria, five, her wavy hair cut short like a boy’s, smelling of milk and salt and fresh bread; Baoth, four, his skin brown like a nut, his upturned nose crinkled with joy, his hair like a silken cap; then Patrick, her towheaded youngest, waddling, his expression as serious as always. It seemed that for him, life was a serious business.

“Well,” she said. “Have you all been good?” Three heads nodded in unison. She stood, brushing the top of Baoth’s head with her hand, feeling the fine texture of his hair against her palm. “Did you write us letters? We didn’t get anything.” She gazed at them with mock sternness.

Honoria looked pained. “We did, we wrote to you about the beach, and Vladimir’s story about the jungle boy, and about Phillip and Lily.” The last two mentioned were the dogs.

“Hmm. Well, I suppose Dow-Dow will be happy when he gets them in Venice.”

“Poor Dow-Dow,” Honoria said. “He’s all alone.”

“No, Dow-Dow’s fine. He’s with Mr. and Mrs. Porter and they’re all having a lovely time.”

“Did you bring us anything?” This was Baoth.

“No, but Dow-Dow
might
have something for you. You’ll have to be very good to find out, though.”

“All right, children,” the nurse said. What was her name? Rose. Sara was tired. “It’s time for baths, then supper.”

“Make sure you get yourselves very clean,” Sara said. “Lots of soap.” The influenza epidemic had made her careful about germs and health in general. Along with ensuring they had plenty of soap and clean bathwater, she insisted their milk—and as much of their food as possible—come directly from the local farmers, and she made sure they spent a great deal of time out in the fresh air.

When Rose had taken them off, Sara thought about Gerald “all alone” with the Porters. She did feel sorry for him. But he’d seemed less bothered by the tension with Linda and Cole.

Sara, however, hadn’t been able to stand it one more day. Not after the dreadful scene at the Lido. It had been the four of them that day, but Gerald and Cole had gone out for a swim, leaving the ladies behind on the sand.

“That’s quite a swimming outfit Gerald has,” Linda remarked when the two men had splashed into the water.

Gerald would be naked on the beach if he could; he loved the feel of the sun on his skin, and the usual woolen knitted swimming costumes irritated him. In Cannes, Sara had found him a pair of light striped shorts, which he loved, even if they did contrast sharply with the black two-piece costumes still worn by most of the gentlemen. She’d also knitted him a dove-gray cap, which he wore to protect his head from burning. She adored the overall effect: he stood tall and lean, his long muscles visible without the dense clothing. More important, it made him happy. Linda, however, didn’t seem to care for the outfit.

“Oh, I think those black heavy things look positively funereal,” Sara responded, trying to keep her tone light.

“It’s awfully camp,” Linda said, her gaze still on the men. “You wouldn’t want to give the wrong impression.”

“What impression would that be?”

Linda was quiet. Sara could see Cole and Gerald had swum out quite far.

“Well, if you don’t mind,” Linda said.

“I do not.” Sara opened her parasol and shaded Linda from her view.

As Gerald and Cole cleared one of the buoys, Sara heard shouting from off to their left. A lifeguard was standing on the shore yelling at them, waving his arms and beckoning them back in. Sara caught the word
pericoloso.

Cole and Gerald had heard him too. Gerald waved back, yelling: “So is love. Love is very
pericoloso
.” Although the two men did turn and start in.

“Oh, really. This is too much,” Linda said.

By the time Gerald and Cole reached the shore, Sara could tell Linda was spoiling for a fight. She just wasn’t sure who was going to bear the brunt of her rage.

“Did you really have to make such a scene?” she asked.

“But, darling,” Cole said, bending down to kiss Linda on the lips, “love
is
dangerous.”

“It is, the way you make it,” Linda said.