The House of Dreams (42 page)

It's not like in the movies. The fight didn't last long. I was younger than him, and stronger, and I managed to get hold of his arm and knock the knife from his hand. Quimby backed away and put his glasses in his top pocket, then raised his fists. I told him to give up, but he said nothing would give him greater pleasure than to smash my face in. He was bluffing. I could see him peering at the floor, trying to see where the knife had gone, but he couldn't see a damn thing, and the alley was full of potholes and puddles of oily water. I hated him at that moment. I had no choice, I fought for my life, for Annie, and I thumped him with all my strength. He reeled away toward the wall, and I pushed past. I could hear him coming after me, the sound of his feet on the cobblestones, and then … then it just stopped. He fell, you see. Fell or tripped on something and hit his head on one of the sharp stone doorways jutting out into the alleyway. I went back to check, but he wasn't breathing.

“It wasn't your fault,” the girl says.

“He wouldn't have been there if I hadn't followed him from the hotel.”

“But you didn't kill him.”

“I just wanted to scare him, that's all. He'd threatened to tell Varian. They wouldn't have helped Annie.”

“Fry's team never knew who you are? Only Quimby and Annie knew the truth?”

“How could I tell them, even later? I was so ashamed.” That is the greatest punishment of all, perhaps. All this, this beautiful life with its fragile happiness, has been built on a lie. Is it your own life, if you can't claim it as your own?

“Tell me about Varian.”

“He … I lost track of him, toward the end.”

“Did you contact him again?”

I shake my head. “I gave to the International Rescue Committee, as Fry's organization became, as much … as I could.”

“Anonymously,” the girl says.

“Of course.”

“But you couldn't bring yourself to see him. Were you guilty because of what you had done?”

“Yes.”

“Good. So you should be, lying to good people like that.”

“Please don't…”

“Poor Varian. Everything that came after lived in the shadow of Air-Bel.” She sighs. “And Mary Jayne, what of her? She wrote to Fry just before he died, and do you know what she said?”

I know. She said:
We shared our finest hours, my friend
. “But there have been other fine hours since then, simple hours full of work, and love, and family.”

“Mary Jayne spent the last of her days in a villa in the south of France she christened ‘Air-Bel.'” The girl reaches out her hand and points at the house, at my home. “Just like you, Gabriel.” I think of Annie, sitting on her chair out on the deck looking out to sea, wrapped in blankets, and behind her, the old flaking sign we painted together:
Air-Bel
.

“Annie,” I gasp.

“Tell me about Annie, Gabriel. Did she make it safely to America?”

“Annie … waited. Years. Years and years.”

“You were trapped in France, weren't you?” Her voice soaks into me like sunlight. It comes from far away. “You went into hiding, fighting with the Resistance, didn't you, Gabriel, do you remember now?” I try to nod. “Just like Danny and the others.” I feel her shaking me. “Stay with me, Gabriel. Do you think you made amends, for all you did and didn't do? For Vita, and your father, and Quimby?” I whimper. “Shhh,” she murmurs, strokes my cheek. “Do you think all the years of working, all the years of loving your family and living quietly, atoned for that? How do you live a good life with such guilt?” The girl pauses. “What about the man who killed Annie's parents? Do you think he felt guilty?” I close my eyes as her voice, Vita's voice, whispers close to my ear. “All those nights Annie stood on the shore wondering what happened to her mother and father. Do you want to know what happened? They were captured, Gabriel, just like Annie always feared. Her father was shipped out to a concentration camp.” I feel her breath on my cheek. “When you were all playing games in Marseille, no one had even dreamed of the horror to come, of the Holocaust, but it swept them away. Her mother was shot on the platform as they took old Bouchard away. She tried to run past the guards, to go with him.”

“How do you … How do you know all this?”

“I'm everywhere and nowhere, Gabriel. That's what you will find.”

“Please,” I whisper. “Get Annie…”

“I'm almost done, Gabriel,” she says. “After the war, you finally reached New York, didn't you? Do you remember arriving at Ellis Island, and Annie was waiting for you?”

“Annie.” My breaths are shallow, useless.

“You were young, and penniless, but with Gabriel Lambert's name and your contacts at Air-Bel behind you, your work began to sell.” I close my eyes as she strokes the lids with her fingertips. The images come thick and fast then. Annie sitting up in bed holding our first son, the love and amazement on her face as she looked at him. The old van we parked on the spot overlooking the beach, our first night talking by a bonfire here on the shore, our dreams for the future unfurling to the stars. We lay there watching the midnight-blue velvet sky lighten and the morning star shine for us. Then I see the timbers marking out the space that we called home. Annie in dungarees, painting the walls, her stomach swollen with our second child. One after another, the images come, fragments of a simple life. Our life. And I feel such happiness, such joy.

 

FIFTY-EIGHT

F
LYING
P
OINT
, L
ONG
I
SLAND

2000

G
ABRIEL

Inside our sanctuary, our Air-Bel, my other son and daughter and their children are closing up the house for the season. Dust sheets billow like sails, falling silently across the furniture in the shadows for the last time.

“Marv? You okay?” Tom says, touching my old friend's arm.

“Oh, me, sure. Listen, like I said, Gabe was in the café just now.”

Tom slams the tailgate closed. “Damn, is that where he's got to? He said he was going for a walk. Albie was supposed to be keeping an eye on him, but Dad gave him the slip.”

“He seemed…” Marv chooses his words carefully. “Well, he seemed a little lost.”

“Just so long as he wasn't upset. He has good days and bad days. We only just convinced him to throw out the Christmas tree.”

“That was a good thing you did for your mother. I know how much he wanted her to have one last Christmas here, even if it was August.” He looks up as my second son strides over, arms laden with bags. “Hey, Albie,” he says. “How are you kids holding up?”

“Day by day.” Albie leans on the car, dumps the bags into the back. “Dad was amazing, you know, he cared for her right up to the end, would hardly let anyone near her.”

“It's good that she came home,” Marv said. “They loved it here.”

Tom looks back at the house, watching Sophie. She is talking to the kids now. She squats beside them, helps the littlest toast her marshmallows over the fire. The men wander over. “You know, we used to say we hoped they'd go together. It was impossible to imagine the one without the other.” He shakes his head. “Dad's been pushing himself too hard. The last few weeks, all he's wanted to do is work when he wasn't with Mom. He spends hours in the studio, just talking to himself.”

“Can I see him, now?” Sophie asks.

“Shame you weren't really in the café with him,” Marv says. “It was like he was pouring out his whole life story to you.” He shakes his head. “Even ordered you a stack of pancakes.”

“That's Dad for you, always did have a good heart.” Tom thinks for a moment. “He knew you were coming. His lawyers had told him about some old photographs, or something? It seemed to upset him.”

“Oh God, I'm sorry—” Sophie says.

Tom sticks his hands in his old blue jeans. “Dad's still fine if he's working, but everyday things…” He shrugs. “We normally get to the mail before he does. As long as everything is routine, he's okay.” He sorts through his bunch of keys.

“At least he's still working,” Sophie says.

“Yeah, but no one can figure out what on. The whole studio is jammed with blue canvases. He spends days just painting a single canvas blue, then moves on to the next one, just the same as the last.”

“That's it? Nothing but blue?”

Tom shrugs. “There's a tiny white dot, like an opal, on each one, but that's it.”

Venus,
Sophie thinks.
The morning star, guiding him home.

“I hate seeing Gabe like this,” Marv says. “He's always been amazing for his age.” He shrugs. “Maybe it'll be good for him to be with you kids in the city for a few months. The winters are hard.”

“I know.” Sophie glances at Harry. “My mom lives in Montauk. I grew up out here, and I'm moving back.” He holds her gaze and smiles. Impulsively, she pulls her files of research from her satchel. “In fact, my dad took this photo of Gabe and Annie, years ago, at some party.”

“They were friends?” Harry looks at the picture Sophie hands him and passes it on to his father and Marv.

“At least, Mom and Annie were,” Sophie says.

“Really?” Harry turns to her. “Your mom just mentioned that you were related to Gabe's old girlfriend during the war, Vita?”

“Yeah, Vita,” Marv says. “Gabe's been yacking away to her too, the last few days. Vita this, Vita that…”

“Aren't you full of surprises?” Harry says to Sophie. His look quickens her heart, she feels her stomach free-fall.

“Unexpected?” she says.

“Look at that.” Marv's face softens, gazing at the photo. “The image of Gabe, that's what you are, Harry. Can't be much older than you are now.”

“Keep it,” she says to Harry.

“You sure?”

Sophie nods. “I'm sorry,” she says quietly to him.
Do the right thing.
Her mother's voice comes to her. She throws the file of notes and photographs onto the fire, watches the paper buckle and hiss in the flames, the faces of Gabriel, his father, and Vita disappear. Harry stands close beside her.

“Is that your story?”

“It was.”

“I don't get it? Why…?”

“I can't do this to Gabe now. I never would have hounded him if I'd known about Annie.” She pauses. “Besides, something my mom said really hit home. I've got to let the past go and live my own life. What good would it do now, pulling apart Gabriel's life for the sake of a story? Sometimes we need to believe in fairy tales.”

“Thank you.” Harry squeezes her hand.

“I'd better be on my way, Lil's waiting on me.” Marv pulls down his cap. “See you kids in June at the start of the season?”

Tom hesitates a moment too long. “Sure.”

“You are going to bring Gabe out here again next year?”

“Marv, the doctors … they just don't know how long he's got left.”

“Damn.” Marv blinks rapidly, his yellow-tinged eyes pooling with tears. “I … Oh, damn it. This place just ain't going to be the same without Gabe and Annie.”

“Maybe you'll come and see him in town?” Tom checks his watch. “Listen, we've got to get going. Harry, why don't you and Miss Cass—”

“Dr. Cass.” He glances at her.

“Sophie,” she says. “I'm so sorry. You've lost Annie, and now Gabriel?”

“The doctors said he has a little time,” Tom says. “We just don't know how much. Harry, why don't you drive over to the diner to fetch Gabe while I get the kids in the car and the shutters bolted down before the light fades? Thanks, Marv.”

“Sure, Dad,” Harry says, and gestures to Sophie to join him. They begin to walk to his truck, his hand resting on the small of her back.

“No, that's just it,” Marv interrupts. “I tried to call you, but your phone's been cut off. He walked out of there about ten minutes ago, still talking away to … well, her.” He points at Sophie. “Damn it, you know what I mean.”

“Which way did he go?” Albie starts to run toward the coast path.

“He was heading toward the beach.…”

“Mary Jayne!” Tom calls out to his sister. “Dad's missing.”

*   *   *

They come running then, my children, Sophie among them. I honored Varian just like I said I would—the names of the good people who changed the course of my life live on in my children and in theirs. Their heels kick up the sand as they run to the crest of sea grass. My grandchildren run with them, down the steps, across the empty white sands.

“Dad!” Tom yells.

Then they see me, lying on the shore, a streak of palest blue.

 

FIFTY-NINE

F
LYING
P
OINT
, L
ONG
I
SLAND

2000

G
ABRIEL

I am here, and there, Vita is right—everywhere and nowhere. With them, and not.

“Not bad,” Vita says, looking around the walls of my studio. “A Chagall, Matisse…” She peers closer. “Duchamp? These should be in a museum.”

“They will be, soon,” I say, “when the house is cleared.” Oh, I know the kids haven't been able to tell me what I've known for weeks. My heart is giving out. Today they were going to take me away, away from my home of over fifty years. They are good kids, but I don't want to go. I take a last look at my collection, at the art that has filled my soul for years. “None of us would be here without Varian, without all of them. Sometimes I think we left our hearts at Air-Bel.…” And I think of him, walking down the drive that last time when the police came and arrested him and forced him out of France. The last time I shook his hand, he was holding the copy of
Terre des Hommes
that Danny had given him. That's what great art does—that's why these men and women counted. It shows us what makes life worth living.