A Sudden Change of Heart (24 page)

“One day, about a week later, Jacques was told by a member of the French Resistance Movement to hide me, that the French police were looking for me, that they were convinced I was being sheltered by Phyllis and Jacques. The information had come out of the Bordeaux prefecture … the woman from the Resistance told Jacques that they were looking for the Duval girl to deport her.

“It wasn’t safe to send me to any of their friends, and so Jacques hid me. In a hole in the ground—”

“Oh, my God, no!” Laura exclaimed, her voice rising. She stared at Rosa aghast.

Rosa nodded. “It was the only thing he could do. There was no other place. The hole was actually a small cave in the side of a hillock, at the end of a field. The field abutted the garden of the house, so Jacques felt secure about putting me in the cave. It was dry, and air came in from somewhere higher up, above a ledge in the cave, and so I knew I would not suffocate. But I was always worried something would happen to Jacques and that I would be stuck in the cave forever. You see, in order to properly hide me securely, he had to roll a large stone in front of the opening. I wasn’t strong enough to move it myself. Often I panicked, and I hated being in that dark hole. Jacques would let me burn candles only in the daylight, when it didn’t matter, because the candle flame couldn’t be seen. I wasn’t allowed to light them at night. But he always brought me out at night, surreptitiously, cautiously. I was able to go to the house nearby, have a bath, eat, see Phyllis, and be comforted by her. But it was a horrendous experience. I’ve hated dark places ever since.” Again Rosa stopped talking, sipped her glass of water, endeavoring to relax.

“How long were you in the hole?” Laura ventured, her voice strained.

“For a year. Phyllis could not travel, she was sick a long time. Finally we were able to leave the area. Jacques thought we were too close to Mérignac and Dax, where many Jews were still being arrested and deported to Germany. He wanted to get closer to Switzerland, hoping one
day to cross the border. But we never did. Anyway, we kept on moving around a lot, until we finally settled in the countryside between Lyons and Bellegarde. Life was hard, we were always afraid of being caught by the police, and food was scarce. And I saw so much killing and ugliness…. However, I
was
out of the cave, I was no longer living like the troglodytes of Tunisia. But that year was the worst in my life.”

Glancing around the spacious living room awash in pale colors, Rosa added quietly, “I’ve surrounded myself with airiness, lightness ever since. Anything dark is forbidding. It reminds me of that hole.”

24
     

M
egan leaned forward and said, “Are you tired, Rosa? Oh, how silly of me to even ask that! Of course, you must be exhausted, telling this story again, reliving your early life. It must be harrowing for you. Perhaps I shouldn’t have asked you to do so.”

“No, I’m all right, I’m not tired, Megan.” Rosa glanced at Laura. “I’ve tried hard to get past the Holocaust, but it’s always there, hidden deep in my heart, because it involves my family, whom I loved, and I can never forget
them.”

“I understand,” Laura said. “It must be almost impossible … to
ever
forget.”

“Eventually you do bury most of it deep, that’s only natural. No one could live with that kind of mental anguish on a daily basis. And once it
is
truly buried, it becomes very hard to dredge up. Far too painful. But their memory lives on in my heart….” She sighed and shook her head as she continued. “Anyway, I have never wanted to force all the details of what happened to me on anyone. I’ve tried not to be bitter, to move forward always, to look to the future in a positive way. I was spared. I was given a life to live, and I’ve tried to live it … as my parents would have wanted me to, as best I could. The
Germans murdered my whole family. But there is no reason why I should allow them to ruin the rest of my life. If I did, then I would be letting them triumph over me.”

“Your spirit is indomitable, Rosa,” Megan murmured. “I’ve always admired the way you’ve managed to cope so well.”

“I’ve done my best to be …
happy,
as I just said. After all, I’m living proof that Hitler didn’t succeed, didn’t win his genocidal war against the Jews. He lost it, just as he lost the war against the Allies.”

“You’ve been through so much, Rosa, I don’t know what to say to you, how to express my feelings. There are no words to tell you how your story has affected me,” Laura began, and hesitated. “To offer you sympathy, to say I’m sorry, would be … banal in view of the enormity of what you experienced. Your suffering would be diminished somehow. Well, that’s what I think.”

Rosa simply nodded.

Laura hesitated once more, and then she said slowly, in the gentlest of voices, “You must have a brave heart, Rosa, a very brave heart.”

For a few seconds Rosa was silent, her face very still, expressionless, then she reached out, touched Laura’s arm. “That you understand it all … that is enough.” Pushing herself to her feet, Rosa got up and asked, “Shall I make some fresh coffee? I know I would like some.”

“That’d be great, Rosa,” Laura answered, and this time she did not offer to help, since she knew she would be refused.

When they were alone, Laura said, “It
is
a remarkable story, Grandma Megan, isn’t it?”

Megan nodded. “Yes. But she’s left a lot out tonight.
… Perhaps she wasn’t up to telling it, or maybe she thought you’d find it too upsetting.”

“Why? What do you mean?”

“Goodness gracious, I can’t go into it now, child!”

“I understand. Anyway, what I find strange is that Claire—”

“Not now, Laura dear,” Megan cut in quickly. “We’ll discuss everything when you take me home.”

“Yes, of course.” Laura glanced at her watch. “You know, it’s turned
eleven,
Gran! Perhaps I shouldn’t have agreed to have a cup of coffee. Isn’t it past your bedtime?”

“No, it’s not,” Megan said, sitting up straighter, giving Laura a sharp look. “And it’s not necessary for you to fuss over me as if I’m an old lady.” Megan laughed. “Well, I know I am one, but I don’t feel old. And in any case, bed is overrated. Furthermore, you die in bed, so I’m quite happy to stay up late. And most nights I do.”

“All right, all right,” Laura said, shaking her head. “There’s no one like you, Grandma.”

“I should hope not,” Megan shot back.

Within a few minutes Rosa returned with a pot of fresh coffee and a selection of cookies, and as she poured the coffee into the clean cups, Laura said, “There is something I would like to ask you, Rosa.”

Rosa lifted her head and looked over at Laura. “Please, you can ask me anything. I will answer if I can.”

“I was just wondering … was your family arrested and murdered because they were Jews or were they murdered for the art?”

Rosa did not reply. She passed the cups of coffee to Megan and Laura, and then sat down in the chair again.
“It was for both reasons. That is what I believe,” she said finally.

“What happened to all the paintings your father had shipped out of Paris?” Laura’s brow lifted questioningly.

“They disappeared. When we tried to find them at the end of the war they had vanished into thin air. Stolen, of course, by the Nazis. Jacques and Phyllis were frantic, trying to find out what had transpired, but naturally they met a wall of silence. They did manage to get some information from my father’s friend who lived at the Cháteau le Beauve. Gerard de Castellaine owned the chateau and he was an old, old friend of my father’s. It was he who had stored some of the paintings in his cellars. According to Gerard, one day a truckload of German soldiers came and took the paintings away at gunpoint. That was in the winter of 1942. They had papers that described all of the paintings he was storing, and they knew where to look.”

“But how could that be?”

“We all believed that one of the employees at my father’s gallery in Paris had alerted the Nazis about the whereabouts of the paintings my father had removed. Not everyone was as loyal as Jacques and Phyllis, and Alain Brescon.”

“So it was an act of plunder by the Nazis,” Laura stated.

“It was. Just as they confiscated the Westheim Collection, so they looted the art of Maurice Duval.”

“You read about the Westheim Collection in
The New York Times
when I had the press conference,” Laura remarked.

Rosa inclined her head. “I did, and I found it fascinating. But at least Sir Maxim has a
catalogue raisonné.
I don’t
have anything quite so comprehensive, just one record book and a couple of inventories, which Jacques managed to retrieve from my parents’ apartment in Bordeaux before we started to move around.”

“And not everything was listed?”

“No. Only about thirty paintings. Jacques couldn’t find the other record books and additional inventories,” Rosa explained. “Maybe my father had hidden them somewhere in the apartment for safety, or maybe they were taken when my family was arrested. It is hard to know exactly what happened to them.”

“But at least you have the details about thirty paintings. Are they good paintings?”

“A van Gogh, several Cézannes. Two wonderful canvases by Matisse, and a number of paintings by Picasso, Braque, and Marie Laurencin.”

“Oh, my God, they are worth a fortune!” Laura exclaimed.

“I am sure of that. But their whereabouts are unknown. I believe they are lost forever, as are all the others. I am certain they were sent to Germany during the war. As you know very well, Goring was looting art for himself and for Hitler. Many private collections similar to the Westheim Collection were taken in Germany, France, and other countries. The private collections of the Rothschilds, Paul Rosenberg, the Bernheim-Jeunes and the David-Weills were confiscated in France, as well as the collection of Maurice Duval.”

A small silence descended on the room.

Rosa sat back and looked off into the distance; a sorrowful expression settled on her face. “My father’s great
collection is lost to us. I shall never see those paintings again. Who knows on whose walls they are hanging.” There was a pause before Rosa ended quietly. “It would please me to get just one back. It would be like retrieving part of my father, a piece of his soul. And a piece of my family’s soul.”

“A
re you still annoyed with me?” Megan asked as Laura followed her down the corridor to her bedroom.

“What do you mean, Gran?”

“When we arrived at Rosa’s, you were put out with me. I don’t think you liked my surprise. In fact, I thought you were annoyed.”

“I was startled more than anything else,” Laura replied.

Megan made no comment until they had entered her bedroom, and then she murmured, “I thought you felt you shouldn’t be at Rosa’s because of Claire.”

“I guess so, Gran, but I’m glad you arranged the dinner after all. Meeting her was quite a revelation.”

“I thought it would be.”

“I fully expected her to say something about Claire though.”

“I think she’s afraid to, Laura dear. She knows how close you two are, and I believe she was being careful. She didn’t want to offend you in any way.”

“I see. But she didn’t mention Natasha either,” Laura said.

“For the same reason. She very badly wants to see Natasha, to get to know her better, eventually. And from what she’s told me, she wants to see Claire too. However,
I happen to know that Rosa is afraid of being rejected,” Megan finished.

Laura was silent as she helped her grandmother to get undressed. It was not until Megan was settled in bed that Laura said, “There’s something I don’t understand, Gran.”

“What’s that, child?”

“Claire’s attitude toward Rosa. In the past, I mean. How could anyone feel ill will toward Rosa Lavillard in view of what she’s been through?”

Megan shook her head but said nothing.

“Surely Claire must know Rosa’s story … Philippe would have told her, even if Rosa didn’t reveal it herself. Oh, I’ve just remembered something. Years ago Claire told me that Rosa had grown up alone in France, that her parents had been killed in the bombings, which I now know is wrong. So perhaps she didn’t know the truth.”

“I think she did, Laura,” Megan responded. “But she probably didn’t want to discuss it with anyone. I can’t imagine why, but there it is.”

“She told me Rosa was crazy, and that she’d been hospitalized.” Laura frowned. “Do you know if that’s true, Gran? The hospital part?”

Megan said, “It’s true, Rosa was in a hospital several times. She was treated for depression. But that’s understandable, wouldn’t you say, in view of her past? Who wouldn’t be depressed, knowing your entire family had perished in Auschwitz? But crazy, no, no.” Megan shook her head vehemently. “Perhaps Claire misunderstood something Philippe confided. Or Pierre. Rosa and Pierre had a good marriage, but volatile at times, and Claire might have misunderstood him, misunderstood a comment
Pierre made. In any case, Laura, Rosa wants to see Claire when she comes here later this month.”

“I hope Claire will see her.” Laura frowned, shook her head. “I don’t know …”

“You must arrange it, darling. It’s important to Rosa, and it will be important to Claire. You see, Rosa wants to apologize.”

Laura stared at Megan, looking surprised. “Apologize for what?”

“For always being cold to her, in the beginning, when Philippe and Claire first met. And then later, after they were married. Rosa confided recently that she never liked Claire, that she thought she was totally wrong for Philippe.”

“I told you she was possessive of him,” Laura interjected.

“Protective
is a better word,” Megan answered. “Rosa knew that Claire would not be able to handle Philippe, because he was the child of a Holocaust survivor. That he had his own problems to contend with because of Rosa’s history, and Claire would never understand him. But now she feels she should have been warmer, should have tried to like her even though she knew the marriage was doomed.”

“How could she know that?”

Megan shrugged. “She says she did. It would be helpful if you could get Claire to see Rosa. I should tell you that she’s devastated Claire is so desperately ill.”

When Laura was silent, Megan pressed, “Promise me you’ll attempt it, darling. It’s important for the future, for Natasha’s future. She ought to know her grandmother … Rosa’s the only grandmother she’s got.”

Laura went and sat on the edge of the bed. Leaning forward, she kissed Megan on the cheek and said, “I promise, Gran. I think you’re right, Natasha needs a grandmother just as Rosa needs a granddaughter. And Rosa and Claire should make their peace.”