The Keeper of the Walls (12 page)

He was reading in the living room, feeling good, as always, when he raised his bespectacled eye to appraise the furniture. How he loved the brass and gilt swans and sphinxes that adorned his chairs! He'd sent Claude to the office and, just this once, had decided to take the day off because he could feel a tickle in his throat. It was that damned Parisian winter again, chilling his bones. He heard a noise—the doorbell sounding. The
maître d'hôtel
was letting somebody in. He thought he heard a man's deep voice, and was suddenly interested.

Paul rose, setting aside his newspaper, and peered out into the hallway from the living room. And then he was really surprised. Prince Mikhail Brasilov was walking briskly behind the
maître d'hôtel
into the dining room. He followed, shuffling his slippered feet.

Lily had stopped laying out the silver, and stood looking at the Russian with an air her father couldn't describe: remote, withdrawn—the way she sometimes looked at Claude. Prince Mikhail went to her and took her hand, brought it to his lips. Still, Lily said nothing. The
maître d'hôtel
hovered by the entrance, waiting for a signal, and the small maid had scampered away. Paul waited, interested.

“Please, mademoiselle, tell your servant to leave us alone,” Brasilov finally said, annoyance seeping into his voice.

“It's all right, you may go,” Lily said. Her own voice was completely toneless. “But my father is here, and I'd like him to be present if you have anything to tell me, your Excellency. I'm engaged to be married—and I don't want to speak alone to any man except my fiancé.”

Paul entered now, straightening out his tie and filling his chest with air to make it stand out. “My dear Prince,” he stated, not knowing what to add because he had no idea of the purpose of this visit in his home. He couldn't help but feel proud of Lily—of her upright morality at a time when other young women had forgotten what decency meant. He extended his hand, and Brasilov hesitated less than before until he shook it.

The Prince didn't look so proud this time. He had turned a ruddy color at Lily's words, but he didn't resist. “Mademoiselle,” he said. “Your engagement—I just heard about it.”

“Mr. MacDonald is the best of men.”

“Indeed he is. I've had the pleasure of meeting him. But—still—”

Lily said, her voice thin and clear: “Prince Mikhail, it was kind of you to take us to the theater, and to send me flowers. But you are a married man, and now I, too, shall marry. I'm afraid all contact between us must stop because of these two facts.”

“I think,” Brasilov said, clearing his throat, “that I must explain my behavior to you. You must think me a boor—a liar and a cheat. But you were misinformed. I am no longer married. I was in the last stages of a divorce when we met last month.”

Paul Bruisson knew then that he had the advantage, and so he said, with a little smile: “My daughter isn't a dance-hall girl, your Excellency. You cannot treat her as you did your wife.”

Brasilov turned around, and his eyes were cold. He said: “You, too, were misinformed, monsieur. My wife is a dancer, yes, but she is first and foremost a lady. I am a free man now—but this gives no one the right to criticize the woman I divorced.”

“Papa,” Lily said. “I would like to hear from Prince Mikhail why he came here today.”

“I wanted to beg you to reconsider. To propose marriage to you myself. I want you for my wife, mademoiselle.”

Lily looked at him, her wide eyes unforgiving. “Why?”

“I don't know! Maybe I'm bored with the life I've been leading. Maybe I'm looking for some kind of peace, and you could give it to me. I can't be more clear-cut than that!”

“But Mr. MacDonald
loves
me, Prince Mikhail.”

“If you lived with me, you would see in a thousand small ways the extent of my feelings for you. I am not, like Mr. MacDonald, a man of big words.”

“But ‘love,'” Lily countered softly, “is a very small word. One that matters.”

“It's the thought that matters, Mademoiselle Liliane. I am a man of action, not of words.”

They remained staring at each other, and Paul Bruisson wondered what to do. He coughed. Lily had never spoken this way to anyone—had never sounded so sure of herself. And he? He wasn't sure what would be best: to leave well enough alone, or to encourage her to let the American go in favor of the Russian. Prince Mikhail had a much greater fortune than Mark.

“But I have pledged my faith to a good man, a man who came to me with clean hands. I can't reject him now.”

“You could, if you wanted to. You aren't married yet. I came here to beg you not to marry him, but to marry me.”

Suddenly, Lily sat down on one of the dining room chairs, and passed a weary hand over her brow. She shook her head, overcome. She didn't look so strong now, so resolved. Her eyes went to her father, and he read in them the plea: Decide for me.

He'd always made all the decisions in the family. But this one time, somehow, he couldn't. The mute appeal in Lily's eyes softened his heart. He thought he understood, and felt nervous, lest he hadn't. He didn't know his daughter very well, and wished Claire had been there, to help him read her.

He said to Lily: “And you, my girl? What do
you
want? I can only guide you, but I can't force you in this important matter.”

“And how would you guide me, Father?”

“They are both good men, good providers. But with Prince Mikhail, you would be a princess, and life would be easier. I'd never have to worry about you anymore.”

He thought that he detected a small smile on Brasilov's face, but just for a moment. The Prince was waiting, poised at attention. Lily looked at him, her eyes full of an intense, wordless feeling. Then she dropped them to the floor.

Mikhail Ivanovitch Brasilov stepped forward, took her hand, and held it until she looked up into his wide-boned face, and then he declared, gravely: “You'll have me, then. I am glad, Liliane.”

She was still staring at the floor, but her eyes had filled with tears, and so Paul said: “We'll go now into the study, your Excellency. I think my daughter wants to be alone.”

A
t the Avenue
de la Muette, Misha sat at his desk, thinking. Dawn was slowly rising, setting its pink and lilac mantle over Paris, bathing his still hands in its roseate light. He sat, still in his evening clothes, and thought.

Another night come and gone, in the arms of Rirette. Another night. He imagined Lily, kneeling by her bed, making her morning prayer. Lily's fine brown hair covering her shoulders and her back. Lily was a creature of the morning, and Rirette, a night witch. They inhabited two different worlds.

Why hadn't he learned to stay away from them, the night witches? Rirette was like Varvara, like the conflagration that had consumed his country. A night with her drained him of all his juices and his energies, but, like a moth, he was drawn to the light instinctively. Lily was quiet, sensitive, gentle: compassionate, kind. He couldn't hurt her. He'd won her away from that American reporter, who'd loved her sincerely, and therefore he owed her all the more his protection and care.

I'm getting married next month, he thought, making a fist with one of his hands. And as a wedding present to you, Liliane Bruisson, I shall give up Rirette the same way that I let Varvara go, for good.

He wanted to be faithful, welcomed the experience as a novelty in his life, a purging, a cleansing. Maybe by being faithful to his new wife, he would finally put an end to his guilt about his lifetime of infidelities.

L
ily sat on her bed
, in her silk nightgown, thinking. It felt like being on a wide river, alone in a small canoe, propelled by a tremendous current that pulled her along she knew not where. This was what was happening to her, with Mikhail. He was the current, a natural life-force that controlled her destiny, that gave her no choice.

She didn't want to fight back, but she shivered slightly, because she didn't know where the current would lead her. A waterfall could topple the canoe. And she would have no warning of its presence ahead, beyond the wide river.

She couldn't sleep, frozen by that image.

P
rince Ivan sighed
,
wondering. It hadn't been his style to involve himself in his son's life, yet he thought that it was time for grandchildren, for an end to a past era that was irrecuperable, like his wife Maria. An era that lay buried in a distant land that it was better not to regret too passionately.

On the night of the engagement dinner, he watched the Bruissons carefully, from under hooded lids. The long table gleamed with engraved crystal and with Sevres china, and the centerpiece of exotic flowers exuded its musky odor that mingled with the roast pork and the chestnut purée. He wondered why it was that the brother, Claude, seemed so ordinary. He wore perfectly tailored clothes with the ease of a gentleman; his hair was parted on the side, and his features were regular, pleasant. Then, what was it? His dark eyes were hard, expressionless, his smile automatic. He seemed to pass over his mother, his sister, in an unspoken condescension that tightened the muscles in Prince Ivan's stomach. This was the sort of man who in Russia would have been let in through the back door—a tradesman. But an opportunistic tradesman, crafty and shrewd, where the blustering father seemed only self-important and uncultured.

Claire Bruisson, he had to agree, was different. So dark and charming, like the face on an Italian cameo. Her skin, so creamy, unwrinkled. He had spoken to her of Diaghilev's ballet and found her delightfully up-to-date. She was composed but not timid.

Lily was timid. He tried to see her from the point of view of a young man, and smiled. She was like an exotic fruit, ripe and open. Her body was supple and young, but full, the way he remembered his wife's. If she'd been older, much older . . . He could understand Misha. With this girl he might erase the past.

When Misha showed him the ring he had ordered from Cartier, a large tear-shaped diamond banked by two emeralds, Prince Ivan ordered matching earrings as his own present to his son's betrothed. He approved of Lily.

L
ily stood awkwardly twisting
the ring on her left hand, and Mark's eyes, unable to withstand looking into her face, were instead drawn to that enormous diamond, so different from the smaller, daintier ring she'd worn in the weeks of their own engagement. He'd come because she'd sent him a note to meet her, wishing that he'd had the good sense to be rude and stay away. The pain was worse than he'd played it out in his mind—much worse, more searing and brutal in this confrontation.

They had her father's hideous parlor to themselves, each as uncomfortable and embarrassed as the other. But finally, thrusting her fingers through the mass of her dark hair, she spoke. “I wanted to tell you that I'll never forgive myself,” she began. “I should never have promised to marry you, then to go back on my word. You're such a good man, Mark—and I was never worthy of your love.”

He sighed, and shrugged, rather inelegantly. Ah, well, to hell with it. “Look, Lily,” he cut in. “It was probably as much my fault as yours. You weren't really in love with me, and so I had no right to push it—because I saw clearly what you felt and didn't feel.”

Her large, almond-shaped eyes rested on him then. “Oh, Mark . . .”

“I think perhaps that I can understand. My love for you, Lily, is like a fountain gushing out of me that I can't control. You cared, but your caring was like a civilized faucet whose knob could be turned on or off. And you love Brasilov. What can I do? What could I
ever
do? You have to go with your feelings, Lily. I can't challenge him to a duel, or threaten to kill myself, or—or anything. Because whatever I chose to say or do—the fact would remain that you loved
him.
”

“But what I did ... It was so irresponsible. . . . And I
do
care, Mark. I'll always care. I want us...to be friends, if that's possible.”

He smiled then, and she saw, in that tired, used smile, just how callously selfish her statement had been. “My dear,” he said, “I just told you that I still love you. I'm going to try to ease myself out of this love, because it's a hopeless case, and I've never had much admiration for literature's unrequited lovers. Most of them, if you'll pardon me, were fools.” His expression softened. “But whatever happens, I'll never want to lose the tenderness that flowed between us. You're not my girl anymore, but you'll always be Lily . . . and it's going to be hard not to wake up each morning and think of you when I open my eyes. Of course we'll be friends—but not right away. You do understand that, don't you? That I'll need to stay away for a while?”

Tears hovered on the edges of her lashes. She nodded, wordlessly. And then held out her hands, and saw him hesitate only a second before seizing them warmly in his own.

She closed her eyes, felt his lips touch the extremities of her fingers, and then he was gone, the door closing gently behind his retreating back.

She found herself hoping, fervently, that she'd done the right thing.

M
isha seemed composed
, almost distant as he spoke. “We'll be married simply, at the city hall of the Sixteenth Arrondissement. I don't want a formal wedding. I don't like pomp and ceremony. Weddings should be intimate affairs. Don't you think so, darling?”

Lily nodded. “I want whatever you want, Misha.”

“Thank you, my love.”

The truth was that she felt a bit intimidated. She'd finished school less than a year ago, and had never formulated dreams to fit her new circumstances. She'd known nothing about the Russians who had come, sixty thousand of them, to Paris after the Bolshevik Revolution. She wasn't even sure if she was prepared to get married—to anyone. What would Prince Mikhail—Misha—expect of her?

“What's wrong?” Prince Ivan was asking her, gently.

“It's just that . . . well . . .” Suddenly she was near tears, and confused.

“Don't be afraid of what's ahead,” Ivan Vassilievitch said. “You'll always be able to lean on Misha, and on me, for our experience. You'll never be alone.”

But in spite of the old man's understanding words, she was more afraid than ever of what her life would be, and was suddenly sorry she'd given in and agreed to be married to this tall, massive, self-possessed man who thought, and rightly so, that he controlled the lives and destinies of thousands of people: those who worked for him, with him, even against him; those who were his friends; and those who, to their own consternation, had come to realize that he was not their friend.

Sometime later, when Prince Ivan had left, after kissing her, she was sad to see him leave. His presence had been reassuring, benevolent. Alone with his son, she looked away. She really was at a loss for words.

“I found us a very nice apartment on the Rue Molitor,” he was saying, turning her palm over in his own, and touching the diamond on her finger. “It's exactly what we need. It's near the Bois de Boulogne, for the nurse to take our children for their daily walks. We'll have eight rooms: a master bedroom, a boudoir for you, two children's rooms and the nurse's room, a living room, dining room, and a study for me. Perhaps I should have thought of a music room for you—but you won't have two children at once, I hope, and so we can turn one of the rooms into a piano room. Upstairs, there are four servants' rooms. Papa is letting us take Arkhippe, our
maitre d'hôtel,
and Annette, our cook. Arkhippe is getting married, and his wife Madeleine will be your chambermaid. Annette's husband will be my chauffeur. And we'll have two young girls to help with the cleaning and the cooking. Six servants in all, until the nurse when our first child is born.”

She looked up, with wonder. He was really still a stranger. Locked within the outer shell, the large, well-muscled body and the strong-featured face with its unexpectedly vulnerable eyes, there lay a human being whose force magnetized her, but whose motivations were foreign to her understanding. She'd felt so comfortable with Mark. When he'd kissed her—she'd felt . . . protected? With Misha, she always felt on the edge of fear, a sensation that could be exhilarating or terrifying, depending on the circumstance.

He'd made all the decisions, like her father. But, unlike Paul Bruisson, he hadn't shouted to make himself heard. She hadn't had to tremble. Nevertheless, Lily felt a twinge of discomfort. She asked: “And the furniture?”

“The apartment has high ceilings, and the rooms are spacious. We are large people. I chose furnishings to fit our size. Besides, I'm Russian, and in my country all is built massive.”

Lily visualized sofas of cavernous proportions—something as hideous, in its own way, as the decor at the Villa Persane. Seeming to read her mind, he traced ellipses on the back of her hand, and said: “The dining room is all Chippendale. It's an elegant room. The study, however, was chosen for its comfort. The sofa and two armchairs are blue and yellow, and the desk is a beautiful rich mahogany, to match the bookcase and chairs. For our bedroom, I tried to read your mind, and so your vanity table is of light wood with charming mother-of-pearl inlays, but the mirror is large and modern. The living room is Louis XVI, light green with gilded wood. And all the rooms have Aubusson carpets to match the particular color scheme. Of course, you'll have to find everyday dishes and kitchen utensils, but I suppose that you won't have trouble, because the Rue de Paradis is lined with china stores, and the Printemps has a good kitchen-ware department.”

He'd made all the decisions, and what he'd left to her, he was telling her how to accomplish. She said, her head swirling a little: “Thank you.”

He still hadn't told her he loved her. Sitting there, so close to him, breathing the musky odor of his maleness, she thought perhaps that she was in a trance. His leg was lightly brushing against hers, and the contact was like electricity. She wasn't thinking of apartments, furniture, or dishes, but of his lips on hers, of other, more elemental mergings. In the convent, she'd been taught about sins of the flesh. But what of one's future husband? In just a few weeks he would be married to her. Just a few weeks. He didn't believe, he'd told her mother, in long engagements. He considered himself too old for that.

It's because he wants a family right away, she thought. He's made all his plans as if I were already pregnant. The thought made her strangely embarrassed, as if he'd kissed her in the most intimate way, instead of having outlined an apartment for her. If I fail him, she thought, he will not hesitate to divorce me. Like Napoleon with Josephine.

“I won't be able to get away for too long,” Misha was saying, and she realized that he had begun to speak about their honeymoon, a bit apologetically. “The Loire valley is beautiful, Lily, at this time of year.”

She nodded. It wasn't really important where they went, so long as they could be alone together. She needed time to get used to him, to feel that he was hers. Yes, the châteaux of the Loire would be a fitting decor. Kings had loved inside the thick gray walls, and had begotten heirs, legitimate and illegitimate. Maybe there, she would stop feeling intimidated by this man who had made her act dishonorably, breaking her engagement to another man—hurting Mark so, he who had covered her in a velvet mantle of love, given her security and trust. She'd let that nameless something, that dark instinct against which she had fought so many mornings on her knees, break all other commitments and all other plans.

She touched his cheek, and saw that the soft gesture had startled him. His skin was smooth, ruddy, healthy. He was smiling, but his eyes were tender, deep. She wanted him to kiss her. Slowly she moved, putting her hands on his shoulders, looking into his face, and finally he swept her to him, crushing her in a tremendous embrace. She trembled against his heartbeat for a moment, and then he found her lips and parted them with his own. She could feel everything: his tongue, his heart, his life's breath.