The House of Dreams (26 page)

Less than an hour later, Fry and André walked down the gangplank, Mary Jayne between them. I watched from the shadows as Bingham clapped him on the shoulder. It shook me to see Varian in that state, filthy and unshaven.

“Thank you, Harry,” he said. “What a relief. We'd managed to get up to see the captain, but if it wasn't for you, God knows how long we would be stuck on the boat.”

“Is that all of you?”

Varian shook his head. “They've held Danny.”

“Do you know why?”

“He's done nothing,” Mary Jayne said, taking the blanket Harry passed her from the car and pulling it around her shoulders. “Those animals.” André stood at her side, pale and dignified, his face dark with stubble. “You know we've had nothing but stale bread and water for days? We've been sleeping on lice-infested straw, and pissing in—”

“Mary Jayne,” Varian said, “it's over now.”

“Jesus!” she said. “It isn't over, it's just beginning, don't you get it? They're holding Danny to get at you, Varian. They're trying to scare you into quitting. They can't hold you because they don't want to anger Harry's lot.”

“Is that right?” Varian said to Bingham.

Harry opened the car door, ushering Mary Jayne in. “They won't rest until the ARC is closed down, you know that, Fry.” He took off his hat and ran his hand through his hair. “Don't worry about Danny, I'll have a word with Dubois.”

“He's being sent to Rabat.”

“Maybe he'll be able to pull some strings one last time.” His face fell as he turned. “I don't rate Danny's chances without his help.”

 

THIRTY-TWO

V
ILLA
A
IR
-B
EL
, M
ARSEILLE

1940

V
ARIAN

“I did warn you,” Beamish said, handing Varian a large glass of Armagnac. “I make it a rule to clear out when a fascist head of state is coming to town.”

Varian raised his glass. “I'll bear that in mind, next time.”

Beamish squatted down and raked the fire in Varian's room. “They've put an effigy of Pétain on La Canebière that's eight meters high. The bloody fascists have been parading in front of it all week.” When Fry didn't respond, he looked up. “Are you okay?”

“Me? I'm fine.” Varian leaned his head against his hand. “I just … I thought…”

“What? That you were untouchable?” Beamish settled back in the chair opposite Varian. “You thought that as an American you were a superior being, beyond the local rules?”

“No,” he protested. “Not—I don't know.”

“No one is safe, not now.” Beamish swirled his glass, watching the flames of the fire through the amber liquid. “This was just a general
râfle
to clear up undesirables for Pétain's visit to Marseille. Worse will come.”

“But why did the police come all the way out here? I can understand clearing up the Vieux-Port and La Canebière, but—”

“I told you it was a bad idea to move out here, but again you wouldn't listen. La Pomme is provincial. Air-Bel's neighbors don't like the motley band of bohemians and artists coming and going—especially the girls. Other women envy people like Jacqueline at the best of times. Last time I was on a tram back into town I heard a couple of old women at the stop bitching about her. You're too conspicuous out here. You'd all be safer in town.”

“I can't ask a man like Breton to hide out in a fleabag hotel or a brothel.”

“I'm sure if you asked him nicely, he'd rather be in a
maison de passe
than a concentration camp.”

“Don't be facetious. Someone's betrayed us to the authorities, and I'm going to find out who.” Varian bit his lip.

“Do you think Couraud has something to do with this?”

Varian thought for a moment. “No. He's a crook, but he wouldn't put Mary Jayne through that.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I wish she'd listen to sense. That damn punk is going to drag her down with him, mark my words. You know he made her hide an envelope stuffed with forty thousand francs during the raid?”

Beamish whistled softly. “Where the hell did he get that kind of cash?”

“Where do you think? Stolen, no doubt.” Varian swirled the drink in his glass. “No, I reckon the person who betrayed us is a local. I'd bet my last dollar on it being that Bouchard fellow next door. He warned me as much.”

“Maybe he doesn't want his precious daughter corrupted by ‘degenerates'?” Beamish's head rolled back and he flexed his shoulders wearily.

“I'll talk to Lambert.”

“Does it really matter? It could have been anyone. People are squealing on their innocent next-door neighbors because they looked at them the wrong way in 1929. It's the perfect excuse for old prejudices and slights to get an airing.”

Varian checked his watch. “Come on. André said he had some kind of announcement.”

*   *   *

Varian and Beamish strolled into the crowded living room, and Danny nodded at them from the far corner. His wife sat at his side, and their little son hung around his neck.
The poor kid is probably worried his dad will go away again,
Varian thought. He turned as Jacqueline's sister walked in, talking to Mary Jayne.

“Those fools thought I had a suitcase full of dynamite, can you believe it? Just because Air-Bel is near the railway bridge, they thought I was going to blow up Pétain's train!” She laughed.
It's not funny,
Varian thought.
Who saw you with your suitcase? Who told the police?
He walked across to the darkening windows and looked out over the deserted grounds. The branch of a tree scraped against the glass. It felt to him like a thousand pairs of eyes were watching the house.

“Varian,” Gabriel said, joining him.

“Do you ever feel like you're being watched?”

“All the time. Do you think someone's following you?”

Varian shook his head. “I don't know. I think someone is spying on us, on the house. I don't know why, or who.” He rubbed his eyes with his thumb and index finger beneath his glasses. “Ignore me, I'm just being paranoid.”

“No, I don't think you are.”

“Look, Lambert, it's none of my business who you see, or—”

“Are you talking about Annie?”

“We have to keep a low profile, old man. I've heard talk, that's all. We're ruffling feathers in the village, and now someone has betrayed us.”

“I promise, I'll deal with it—” Gabriel started to say.

“Thank you, my friends, for joining us,” André said. Varian clapped Gabriel on the back and turned to listen to André. “These are dark days,” he went on, pacing in front of the fire.
Like a lion,
Varian thought, the flickering flames illuminating his mane of hair. Breton's voice washed over him as he talked of the war and of everything to come. “I propose,” he said finally, “that this festive season we play a game, the greatest game we have ever played.” He stopped pacing and looked slowly around the room from artist to artist. “I have studied the
Jeu de Marseille
in the library on place Carli. The original tarot deck was named for this city.” He pulled a pack of cards from his breast pocket and fanned them out like a magician. He dealt a card on the table and four cards ranged around. “As you know, I often used to consult the cards myself.” He placed his finger on the central card. “We are poised in a void, my friends. We will redo the symbols of fate and we will create a new deck that will answer our questions—what is certain, can harm, is hovering, and has been overcome.” He shuffled the cards back into the pack. “I propose that we create our own
Jeu de Marseille,
a collaborative deck, a work of art that will burn away our days of anxiety and waiting.…” The group burst into applause and excited chatter.

“I heard W. B. Yeats drew his own tarot trumps,” someone shouted from the back.

Breton raised his voice. “We will reimagine the suits. No simple hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades. I don't want to change the rules of the game, I want to change the game!” he cried, throwing the cards high into the air. The men and women gathered in the room erupted in cheers and clapping. Varian watched as the cards tumbled down in the firelight, and André cried: “To Love, Dream, Revolution, Knowledge! To the
Jeu de Marseille
!”

 

THIRTY-THREE

V
ILLA
A
IR
-B
EL
, M
ARSEILLE

1940

G
ABRIEL

I heard Breton say once that what he loved, whether he kept it or not, he would love forever. I've always been like that, passionate and true, but I've mellowed, just like everyone does with age. When I think back to the night I went storming across to the Bouchards' house, I hardly recognize myself. I was so angry, I had lights dancing in front of my eyes. It was them, the Bouchards, it had to be. Who else lived close enough to Air-Bel to spy on what was going on? And Annie's parents had made it very clear they wanted her to have nothing to do with me. Well, I wasn't about to give up so easily. I loved her—I would love her forever.

I flung the old gate back on its hinges and marched up the pathway. It was late, but I could still see a glimmer of light through the downstairs curtains. I hammered on that door so hard, my knuckles ached.

“Monsieur Bouchard,” I shouted.

“Attendez, attendez!”
I heard footsteps on the other side of the door. “Who is it?” He didn't open the door even a crack. I heard a window open above me, and I looked up. Annie looked like an angel, her blond hair falling around her shoulders, the white of her nightgown brilliant against the ink-blue star-filled sky.

“What on earth are you doing?” she whispered. “Are you drunk? Go away. This will only make things worse—”

“No.” I saw her frown at the anger in my voice. “Someone has betrayed everyone at Air-Bel to the police. Varian, André, Mary Jayne, all of them have been locked up on some goddamned prison ship for days.”

“Oh God,” she said, reaching to pull the window closed. “Stay there. I'm coming down.” I paced the frozen path, my footsteps scuffing the ice. I could hear her now, arguing with her father on the other side of the door. Then I heard her mother talking low and fast.

“Let him in,” I heard Annie say clearly.

Her mother sounded desperate. “No good will come of this, I told you. If people see him hanging around here…” The little dog chimed in, yapping and scratching at the door, trying to get at me.

“So let him in before someone sees!” Annie was exasperated. “I know Gabriel, if you don't open the door, he'll stay out there until the whole village wakes up.” At that I heard the bolts slide back, and the door opened. The damn dog shot out and growled at me, its white fangs bared. I started to walk to the door, and it went for me, biting my ankle.

“Coco!” Annie shouted as I hopped around swearing, trying to shake it off my leg. “Coco!” She grabbed the dog and pulled me into the house. I had never been inside the Bouchards' home, and I was surprised by how empty it was. From the outside it looked like a gracious old stone house, but inside the living room the furnishings were little more than a battered dark wood table and chairs and an uncomfortable-looking horsehair couch. Annie gestured that I should sit down, and sure enough, it was as lumpy as a sack of rocks. “I'll put her in the kitchen,” she said, stroking the trembling dog in her arms. I don't know if it was jealousy or my throbbing ankle, but I hated that dog at that moment.

“What do you want?” Old Bouchard stood in front of the grate and took out his pipe. “I thought I made it clear, you are to have nothing to do with our daughter, or I'll—”

“Or you'll what?” I said, cutting him off just as he started packing tobacco into the bowl of the pipe. I sprang to my feet. “Betray us? How dare you? Because of me, you betrayed all of them?” I realized at that moment that I wasn't just angry—I was guilty, and afraid, too.

“Gabriel,” Annie said. “Don't talk to my father like that.”

“Don't you see?” I rounded on her. “He threatened me, said he'd get everyone kicked out of Air-Bel.” I glared at Bouchard. “Thanks to you they were all locked up. Thank God the American consul got them released—”

“We did nothing.” Annie's mother sat in one of the wooden chairs, her back straight. “It wasn't us.”

“Gabriel, honestly, it could have been any one of the villagers. It doesn't take much for people to turn on strangers.” Annie cupped my hand in hers. “I promise, it wasn't my parents who turned them in.”

“You should hear the gossip,” Madame Bouchard said. “They are having drunken orgies there. That blond American girl nearly slapped a woman in the café, I heard, and that other one, the one with the crazy outfits and the teeth strung around her neck like some voodoo priestess, well, everyone is talking about her.” She rocked slightly as she talked. “Everyone is talking. No one is safe.”

Monsieur Bouchard walked across and laid his hand gently on his wife's shoulder, and she stilled. I felt the anger in me ebbing away. “Go,” he said. “If you care even a little for Annie, go away and never see her again.”

“I can't do that.” My fingers interlaced with hers. “I love your daughter. I intend to marry her.” I felt her squeeze my hand. When I looked at her, her eyes shone with love.

“No good will come of it. We have lived quietly here, safely.…” Bouchard was afraid, I realized. What was he hiding?

“Papa,” Annie said, “we can't hide like animals. They will find us soon enough anyway.”