The House of Dreams (37 page)

“Hush,” she said. Dry old hands pushed me back against the soft pillows. My shoulder was throbbing, and it was agony every time I breathed in. “The doctor thinks you have cracked a couple of ribs,” she said. “Try and lie still.”

“Vita…,” I said, my voice a thin rasp.

“Oh dear,” she said. I tried to follow her dark figure in the shadows of the lamplit room. I was in a single bed, the old brass frame gleaming in the firelight. The room smelled of violets—the stale, sweet air laced with the tang of cat pee.

“Where is Vita?”

“Oh dear, oh dear…” She tucked in the lace-trimmed sheet. I recognized her as the old widow who lived in the gatehouse near the entrance to the Château d'Oc. She had been a sculptor, I believe, and several figure studies were ranged along the mantelpiece, their shadows flickering up the wall like a Greek chorus in the firelight. A ginger tabby slipped unnoticed into the room and curled up on the pink chintz chair by the hearth.

“Please, I must know.” I took her hand and saw that mine was bandaged. Dark blood had dried on the ridge of my knuckles, and my nails were torn and dark. Her hand was gnarled with arthritis, twisted and bulbous as an old tree root. I remembered then that Vita told me this was how the woman had ended up in the Languedoc, unable to work any longer. She said that my father let the widow live there rent free because she had been married to one of his old teachers.

“Monsieur Lambert. I am so sorry, your wife…”

She had mistaken me for my father. “You don't understand, I am not—”

“I do wish there was someone I could call, to be with you?” I shook my head. “There are friends, perhaps? I don't feel you should be hearing this from a stranger … well, a neighbor, though we've never met.” She looked away again, blinking. “I recognize you, of course, from the newspapers. You haven't changed at all, you are just as my dear Philippe described. He always said you were a remarkable boy, such talent—his star pupil.…” I stared at the ceiling as she chattered on, trying to collect myself. “I am so grateful for your kindness,” she said finally. “After Philippe died, I didn't know what to do.”

“This house is your home for as long as you need.”

“Thank you. I am so glad to meet you at last, to say that face-to-face. Of course, I understand that artists need solitude, and I never wanted to intrude. Your wife was always quite insistent about that. I assume Vita was your wife? And your son…” She looked away. “I don't mean to pry. Vita told me your son had come to visit. I hoped to have the chance to meet him, but I know you value your privacy at the château, and I didn't want to pry. Oh dear, oh dear…”

I flinched. “Are they dead?”

“Oh dear,” she said again and again, fussing over the blanket. “My condolences, Monsieur Lambert. They took away two bodies this morning. They were too … They asked me who they were. I knew you, immediately, of course, and told the police the only other people at the château were your son and your wife. I saw Monsieur Quimby leave some time ago, that's what I told them. I knew it was just the three of you at the château. Not that I pry.” I turned my head away, tears pooling in my eyes. “By the time the fire brigade arrived from the town, the fire had swept through the lower floors of the château. They found you on the steps to the courtyard, half-dead from the smoke. Of course, I offered to take you in. The doctor said you must have complete rest—”

I pushed back the blankets and staggered to my feet. My right arm was in a sling, and my ribs were bandaged. I caught my reflection in the oval mirror over the dressing table and saw my right side was a livid purple, bruises seeping beneath the white bandages. “I have to go back,” I said.

“Are you sure that it's safe, Monsieur Lambert? The authorities will have to have reported the fire.” She lowered her voice. “If the Nazis were to hear that you have been hiding here…”

“I haven't been hiding,” I said, shrugging on my father's identity like my old jacket. “This is my home.”

“Of course, of course.” I could see she was thinking as I dressed. “Monsieur Lambert, I have heard rumors.” My breath caught in my throat. What was she talking about? Had she glimpsed my father? She knew the truth, she had just been humoring me.

“Rumors?”

“Your satirical cartoons are well known in certain circles. Why, Philippe had several framed in his study in Paris,” she said. “France is no longer safe for people who have spoken out against fascism. Of course, they were not published in your name, but people gossip. Philippe worried that you had lost your way, artistically. Success can do that, sometimes.”

“I never stopped working, he needn't have been concerned,” I said, struggling into my shirt. The woman untied the sling, and I winced as I slid my arm into the sleeve.

“You are a prominent artist, Monsieur Lambert,” she said, doing up the buttons. “It may be wise for you to leave now, if you feel you can travel.”

I was intrigued. This was a side to my father I hadn't seen. All the time he had been hidden away in his castle, he had been penning anti-Nazi cartoons. No wonder he was worried.

“I've heard many of the artists are flocking to Marseille,” she whispered, tying the bandage at the nape of my neck. “They say there is a man there, an angel from America, who is spiriting people out of the country. There is a man in Arles you can pay fifty francs to find out his name and address.” She found a scrap of paper and wrote down the name of a café. “He is there each day at twelve
P.M.,
apparently.”

“Then you must come, too, madame.” I thought of the
bidons
of gasoline Quimby and Lambert had been stockpiling in the barn and Vita's pretty little red Peugeot 202 cabriolet. “I shall drive us to Marseille,” I said with more confidence than I felt. The most I had done was drive the car around the courtyard with Vita yelling instructions.

“No, no. They will not bother me and Artus.” She beckoned to the old cat. “We have done nothing of importance.”

“Thank you, madame,” I said, and walked toward the door as weak and gangly as a newborn foal.

“Be careful!” she called. “Promise me you will rest once you are in Marseille!”

*   *   *

The house was silent in the twilight. I realized I must have slept through a whole day. The smell of burning hit me the moment I walked through the gate in the wall. Furniture had been dragged out into the courtyard, where it lay dark and sodden. Lambert's papers and journals caught at my feet, blowing limply in the wind like wet autumn leaves. I bent down, wincing, to pick up one yellowed journal, and peeled back the pages, stopping at a cartoon of Hitler as the Grim Reaper, presiding over a marching army of skeletons. The fluid line of the drawing was unmistakably my father's, but it was signed only with a cartoon of a feather—an Egyptian glyph. Years later, when I remembered this and looked it up, I discovered it was the symbol of Maat—of truth, justice, and balance.

I hadn't the maturity then to look beyond the surface of what my father had become. I saw a ruined man rather than a loyal husband, a good friend, an artist of conscience. Once in a while his drawings come up at auction, and I add them to my collection. If I had stopped then to look at the piles of journals and magazines littering my father's house, I might have seen a different side to him, but my chance had gone.

I staggered as I climbed the kitchen steps. Weak light leaked through the narrow windows of the house. I paused at the steps to the basement and listened to the silence, the slow drip of water from the ceiling. There was nothing for me here, now, I realized. In the hall mirror, I looked at myself, at my dark beard trimmed to match my father's, at the gray hair Vita had bleached at my temples.

“I am Gabriel Lambert,” I said aloud, my voice echoing through the house. It was as if by naming it, by naming the monster that stood before me, it would come alive. I padded up the staircase, wheezing. My lungs were never the same after that fire. Aside from the stench of smoke, the fire had barely touched the first floor. I went first to my own room and lit a fire in the grate. Into it I threw every last scrap of my old life—my clothes, papers, my sketchbooks, even. Gabriel Lambert Jr. was dead. The only reminder of his life was the name on a death register somewhere, together with Vita's, forever. Next, I searched my father's bedroom, found the key to his desk. I pulled down a soft leather Gladstone bag from the top of the wardrobe and tossed it onto the bed. It was filthy—my fingers were coated with dust. I remember turning them over in front of my face, the bandages black with ashes. Whose hands were they? From the desk I took everything I could find of value—cash, the deeds to the château, bankbooks, his papers and passport. Sure enough, just as Vita had said, the photograph was at least ten years old. The face that looked back at me was my own.

 

FORTY-EIGHT

M
ARSEILLE

1941

G
ABRIEL

“Who are you?” Annie said.

“I'm sorry,” I said, over and over. I'd imagined, sometimes, it would be a relief to be unmasked, for the whole story to come out, but God, the guilt was unbearable; it still is. What if it was my fault? I've asked myself that time and time again over the years since Quimby put the seed in my mind. It's funny how a single comment from someone can burrow down inside your mind like a parasite and blight your whole life.

All I cared about now was Annie. “You see?” I said to her. “I can't marry you, not while we are in France. If I did, and Quimby told the authorities who I really am, then you would be classed as Jewish, and I'm terrified what they would do to you. My father's parents were Catholic, but my mother was Jewish—if we marry, then the statute will apply to you, too.”

Annie rocked on her heels, biting her lip. “Who are you?” she said. “Who are you?”

“Please, don't leave me,” I said, hanging my head in shame. That's when she slapped me, hard.

“You lied to me.”

“I know.”

“Look at me, Gabriel.” I could see the fire in her eyes. “Give me one good reason why I should forgive you.”

“I love you, and I'll never lie to you about anything again as long as I live.” I've been true to my word, that I can tell you.

Annie pulled herself up to her full five feet two inches. She smoothed down the collar of my jacket. “Let me get this straight. I thought I had been seduced by a thirty-something-year-old successful artist, but I've really been made love to by his penniless eighteen-year-old son?”

“It sounds terrible when you say it like that.”

“At least Papa will be relieved about one thing. He said you were too old for me.”

“You mustn't tell him.”

“Why on earth not?”

“Varian and everyone at Air-Bel will know.”

“But why should they care? They are your friends. It's wartime, Gabriel, thousands of people are living under assumed identities.” She thought for a moment, and I saw her face cloud as she realized. “Oh God, you're leaving, aren't you?” She began to back away from me. “That man Fry's helping you get your papers … your father's papers. You've been planning to leave, all this time?” Her voice rose in despair. “How could you?”

I grabbed at her wrist. “You don't understand, I want you to come with me. They mustn't know who I am. They can help me get papers for you, and we can marry in America, I'm sure of it. Quimby has taken all my money, but I'm going to ask your parents to pay for your passage—”

“To America? Are you mad? As if they'd let me go, let alone marry you. And anyway, they have no money. Haven't you seen our house? Papa hasn't worked for months. They had to sell everything. If it wasn't for the pittance we make from sewing, we'd have starved.”

“I didn't know,” I said, and my head dropped. “I'm sorry.”

Annie covered her ears as another train thundered overhead. Once it had passed, she took my face in her hands. “I love you,” she said. “I will always love you, but the odds are I will be rounded up with all the other Jewish families, and who knows how long I have.”

“No,” I said, my throat thick with tears.

“It is what it is, Gabriel. I'll do everything I can to fight back, but you…” She paused and kissed my eyes, my cheeks. “You have a chance,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper. “I want you to go, and live a wonderful life, Gabriel, for both of us. I want you to go to America.”

“I won't leave you.”

“Yes, you will,” she said firmly. She stared at me in the way she's looked at all our children since when she's going to make damn sure they do what she wants. “You are Gabriel Lambert. You are going to America.”

We walked up to Air-Bel hand in hand, in silence. I felt like that fellow Varian told me about—Sisyphus, struggling under the weight of all my guilt and sorrow. The lights were on in the house, in spite of the early hour.

“Looks like they've been having a party as usual,” Annie said, and we stepped through the door. A man in a dazzling white sheepskin coat stood next to a pile of canvases strapped together. He reminded me of a bird of prey with his flash of white hair and those sparkling blue eyes of his.

“How do you do?” he said, stepping forward to shake my hand. I saw him eye Annie appreciatively as he kissed her hand. “Max Ernst.”

“Ernst?” I said. “How marvelous to meet you. I am a huge admirer of your paintings. I'm Gabriel Lambert, and this is Marianne Bouchard.”

“Ah, you are Marianne,” he said. “Yes, I can see why your father might be worried.”

“There she is!” Monsieur Bouchard marched through from the kitchen. “Where have you been hiding her? I searched the grounds, the house.” He grabbed her arm, but Annie struggled free. “Did you think I wouldn't notice you were gone? You left your window on the latch and it was banging in the wind. Your mother and I have been worried sick.”