Five large hangings, as big as she could manage, for there were five images in her mind, and waking or sleeping they never left her. She wasn’t yet certain how she would begin—would she create smaller panels and join them together? Would she make single figures and appliqué them onto a larger backing, then further embellish the whole?
It would come to her eventually. For now, she was content to experiment, using the linen Ann had so kindly given her, scraps from the workroom, and her own tentative flights of imagination. It was hard, at times, to ignore the disquieting voices that told her she was fooling herself, that she would empty herself into this misguided project, and when she finished, it would be to find that no one was interested. That no one on earth, apart from her, cared to know what had happened to those she loved.
The doubt pushed at her, woke her in the middle of the night, curdled the food in her stomach. But she was stubborn, and it became easier, after a while, to ignore all else and continue on. Worrying about what would become of her work once it was finished was a waste of time, she told herself. The act of creation was what mattered.
If she were to set aside her ideas now, if she were to turn her back on them, she would be abandoning her parents and grandfather and the millions who had been vilified, betrayed, tortured, murdered, erased. It was unthinkable. It was impossible.
Some mornings she woke, and she had been dreaming of the panel all night, had been watching herself work at it, a mere bystander to the act of creation. It was a relief, come morning, to set it aside for a matter of hours, have her quiet breakfast with Ann, walk to the station, and go to work. And then, once there, to lose herself in the familiar motifs of the princess’s wedding gown. Yet by the end of the day, every day, she longed to continue where she had left off the night before.
“Can I not help you with the chores?” she asked Ann one evening. Her friend was doing the mending, having insisted she was happy to do so.
“No need. The house is clean, the kitchen is tidy, the garden is weeded, and I’ve almost finished turning this cuff. Why shouldn’t you work on your embroidery? Isn’t that the mark of an artist, anyway? Someone who has an idea and can’t rest until they find a way to express it?”
“I am no artist—”
“Because you aren’t carving marble sculptures or painting oil portraits of politicians? Here—I want to show you something.”
Ann set aside her mending, took down a teacup and matching saucer from the highest shelf on the dresser, and placed them on the table. They were painted with scenes of the countryside, with shaggy cows in the foreground and a misty look to the landscape, and the edges of both the cup and saucer were gilded.
“These belonged to my grandmother. I loved them because of the Highland cows. She would take them off the shelf and hold them so I could get a better look, and when Nan died and left the cup and saucer to me I started to wonder. I mean, I never had a thought of selling them, but I did worry they might be too valuable to keep out.
“So I took them down to the antiques shop on Ripple Road, and the fellow there looked at the pieces and said they were Royal Worcester, and they were worth something but not a king’s ransom, which was a relief, since I’d have hated to tuck them away. He told me they were painted by a man called Harry Stinton. He said Harry Stinton was one of the best artists of the last hundred years. And you can’t tell me the paintings on this cup and saucer aren’t art, because they are.”
“And you tell me this because . . . ?”
“Because I think this, what you are doing here—this is art.”
“If that is true, then are we not all of us artists? Everyone who works for Miss Duley?”
“I don’t know about that. What we do takes a lot of skill, and a lot of practice, but nearly anyone can figure it out with some training. This, though”—and here Ann touched a finger to the square of embroidery on Miriam’s lap—“this is different. This is the sort of thing people will line up to see, and when they do it will change the way they see the world, and when they go away they won’t forget it.”
“I wish you would not say such things.”
“Fine. Forget I said them. What does Walter think?”
“I . . . I want to tell him. But I am afraid.”
“Why?”
“I have not yet told him of what happened,” Miriam confessed. “Before. In France. I want to tell him, but there is so much to say. I do not know where to begin.”
“You mean what happened to your family?”
“That. And after, as well.”
“What do you mean? I thought you hid from the Nazis.”
“I did. But it ate at me. My parents and grandfather had been taken, and I had done nothing. I wanted to act, to resist, but I was paralyzed. For so long I did nothing . . .”
“You were in mourning,” Ann whispered, her voice fractured by anguish.
“I wasn’t sure what to do. How to begin. But there was a woman at work, Marie-Laure, and I heard that she was involved with the resistance. One day we were alone in the atelier, and I went to sit next to her, and I whispered that my loved ones had been taken, and I wanted to do something. She said nothing. She did not even look at me.”
“And?”
“And the next day, as I was washing my hands, she came over as I finished, and told me where I might meet her. I went, and she was sitting with a man. Five minutes after I had left I remembered nothing of how he looked. He had that sort of face. He asked me why I wanted to help, and I told him it was not his concern. That it would be silly of me to trust a stranger. He nodded to her, and said Marie-Laure would tell me what to do.”
“And?” Ann asked again, spellbound by the tale.
“I carried messages. I would find them in my coat, in a secret pocket in the lining, and I would hide them in my room until Marie-Laure told me the address where I was to go. A café or a shop, or a certain bench in a park. From the beginning it was always the same man who met me. I never knew his real name. If we were questioned, I was to say he was my fiancé. Robert Thibault. We would meet and I would say hello and we would talk of the weather, or what I had eaten that day. Normal things. And then he would look at his watch and say he had to go. I only had to pass the letter to him, usually under the table, or I would slip it in his pocket. And then he would kiss me good-bye. It wasn’t very often. Every few weeks, no more.”
“You were caught, weren’t you?”
“Yes. We were betrayed. Someone else must have been captured, and likely tortured. We were arrested together. They searched my room, and even though they found nothing they did not release me. They were convinced of our guilt. The next day I was sent to the prison at Fresnes, and a few weeks later, when there were enough of us to fill a truck, I was sent to Ravensbrück.”
“When was this?” Ann’s face had gone pale, and she had wound her fingers together in her lap. She always did that when she was upset.
Miriam smiled ruefully. “The middle of June in 1944.”
“After D-Day.”
“They knew what was coming. The man who questioned me certainly did. I can still see him if I close my eyes. His spectacles were so dirty, and he kept cleaning them on the cuff of his shirt, but it only made them worse. He had such dark circles under his eyes, as if he had not slept for days and days.”
“I doubt he had.”
“I said nothing, I admitted nothing, but still he condemned me. He insisted that one way or another I was guilty of something, most likely of being a whore. It was not quite enough to be shot, but it was more than enough for Ravensbrück.”
“He didn’t know you were Jewish,” Ann guessed.
“No. In that, I suppose I was lucky.”
“What was it like there? I’ve read stories, but . . .”
How to describe the indescribable? “I was young, and strong, and once they discovered I could sew I was sent to a sweatshop where we made uniforms for Nazi officers. We had an easier time of it than those in the munitions factories, or th
ose who were made to do hard labor outside. Or those who were forced to work in the brothels. That was the worst of all. Those women never lasted more than a few weeks.”
She stopped, waited until she could breathe again, until her pulse wasn’t hammering quite so loudly against her ears. “They had already begun gassing women when I got there. If you were old, or sick, or if you resisted them at all, they gassed you. At the end, the guards were panicking. They rounded us up, like farm animals being sent to market, and they shot anyone who couldn’t walk, and they made us march. Away from the Americans, away from the Soviets, away from anyone who might help us. My friends died around me as we marched, and in another few days I would have been dead, too.”
“Miriam.”
“We were liberated by some Americans. A few months later I was back in Paris, in a convalescent hospital, and once I was better, or at least well enough to get out of bed, I returned to Maison Rébé, and they gave me my job back.” She looked up and saw that her friend was crying. “Do not be sad. I am safe now. I am fine.” She very nearly believed it, too.
Ann nodded, wiping her eyes with a handkerchief she’d pulled from her sleeve. “It is an honor to call you my friend. Really, it is, and I’m sure Walter will feel the same way.”
“I know. I will tell him.”
And yet. Would it change things with him? Would he be disgusted by the months she had spent hiding away, terrified, mute, inert, after her family was taken? Or would he pity her? Nothing could be worse than his pity.
She glanced at her wristwatch; ten o’clock already, and far too late to ruin another night’s sleep with worries over her past and future. “It is late. Time for us to be in our beds.”
“You’re right.” Ann took the tea things to the sink and began to rinse them out.
“What of your Jeremy?” Miriam asked, suddenly aware that she hadn’t asked her friend a single question all evening. “Shall you see him again soon?”
“Next week. He’s quite good company, and he always has interesting stories to tell. Places he’s traveled or things that happened during the war. And he has beautiful manners, too. Never lets me pay for a thing.”
“Does he know where you work?”
“No. At least I don’t think he does. I haven’t said anything about it, and he hasn’t asked. I suppose he thinks I work in a shop or office. Not that it matters.”
“Why not?”
“This isn’t going anywhere. I mean, he’s handsome and interesting and I’ve had several nice evenings with him, but it’s never going to lead to anything more. I’d be an idiot to think otherwise. And it is fun, you know. It gives me a little peek into how the other half lives.”
“‘The other half’? Ah—one of your idioms. It does make sense, does it not? Although I doubt as many as half the people in this country live as well as he does. Do you remember the people at his table that night? There was no mistaking them for anything but aristocrats. They had that soft look about them.”
“They did at that. Right—it’s well past ten now, and we’ll both be in a state tomorrow if we don’t get to sleep soon.”
“Are you worried? About finishing on time?” Miriam asked.
“Didn’t you tell me, not even a month ago, that it was no different from any other gown? That we just had to work as we always do and we’d be fine?”
“Yes, but I had not realized how many people would care. Everyone is so anxious at work. I can tell they are.”
“We’ve survived rushes like this before. Not even a year ago the royal family was off to South Africa for weeks and weeks, and we had to turn out dozens of gowns and outfits for the queen and princesses. They needed so much that some of the work was given over to other designers. All told, we only had a month or so to get everything done, and we managed it then with time to spare.”
“How did you feel when you finished?”
“Exhausted. I could have slept for days. But I also felt so proud I thought I might burst. We’ll feel like that again when we see the princess in her wedding gown. I promise we will.”
Chapter Eighteen
Heather
August 31, 2016
The rain made everything look so pretty. The sun was winking out from behind the clouds, conjuring rainbows from puddles and burnishing the pavement until it gleamed. If there’d been time she’d have stopped to take a picture, but she was running late already. Her little umbrella had vanished, or maybe she hadn’t remembered to pack it after all, and if she paused even for a second she’d end up soaked through.
Fortunately, the French House was just around the corner from her hotel. It was impossible to miss, with a marine-blue exterior, jauntily striped awnings, and a tricolor flag above the entrance. She paused just inside, patting her face dry with a crumpled tissue and tucking her hair, now frizzing madly, behind her ears. So much for making a polished first impression.
The interior was cramped and dark, with little in the way of Gallic flair to enliven its decor. A few men stood at the bar, their conversation subdued, and most of the tables ringing the room were empty. She glanced at their occupants: a man and a woman, their hands clasped, their conversation earnest, and just beyond them was a man on his own, not much older than her, his attention fixed on a book. A Country Road, A Tree. It had been ages since she’d seen someone reading a book in a bar or restaurant; most people pulled out their phones to pass the time.
“Miss Mackenzie? Heather?” The man with the book was coming toward her. “I’m Daniel Friedman.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. I saw you, but I thought—I mean, I was imagining someone, um—”
“Older? Tweedier?” he asked with a disarmingly boyish grin. He was dressed casually, in worn-out jeans and an oxford-cloth button-down shirt, its sleeves rolled back untidily. A braided leather bracelet, the sort of thing you might buy on holiday, circled his left wrist, and half-hidden beneath it were a few lines of script. Whether they were a reminder scribbled in ink, or an actual tattoo, she couldn’t be sure.
“You’re not the slightest bit tweedy,” she said honestly, and shook his outstretched hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Dr. Friedman.”
“Daniel. Please. Why don’t you give me your coat and I’ll hang it next to mine?”
He took care of her coat and then came around to pull out her chair. No one, apart from her father, had ever done that for her. Maybe it was an English thing.
“I’m sorry I was late,” she said, still a little unnerved by how far he differed from the middle-aged, rumpled, and somewhat nerdy stereotype she’d concocted in the hours since they’d exchanged emails.
“Now I know you’re Canadian. I only just arrived myself, and it’s raining like stink. That buys you at least a quarter hour’s grace. Why don’t I fetch us something from the bar, and I’ll bring back a menu while I’m at it. What would you like to drink?”
“A cider, please. Any kind is fine.”
He returned with a half-pint of dark beer for himself and a glass of Breton cider for Heather. “They don’t serve drinks in pint measures here. Can’t remember why, but it’s probably for the best. Otherwise I’d be sure to fall asleep at my desk this afternoon.”
Heather took a sip of her cider, which was deliciously tart, and tried to focus on the menu. Soup, salads, sandwiches . . . she couldn’t decide. Not when she was sitting across the table from a man who might be able to lead her closer to Nan.
“So? What do you think?” he asked. “I’m having the charcuterie board.”
“I’ll have the carrot and parsnip soup. And a garden salad.”
At a nod from Daniel, their waitress approached and they relayed their orders. As soon as she’d walked away, he turned his attention to Heather once more, and she waited, hoping, wondering—
“So. Ann Hughes was your grandmother.”
“She was. In your email, you said that she and Miriam Dassin were friends.”
“They were. According to Mimi, they were very close.”
&nbs
p; Now she really was feeling confused. “Who is Mimi?”
“I’m sorry. That’s the name I call her.”
“You know Miriam Dassin? I thought . . . I mean, I assumed you were some kind of art history professor. That you had studied her work or something.”
“I do know her.” He took a sip of his beer, his gaze never leaving her face. His eyes were beautiful, with glacier-blue irises that faded to silver at their perimeter. In all her life she’d never seen anyone with such unusual eyes. “She’s my grandmother.”
His grandmother. “I don’t . . . I mean, I sent an email to her gallery a while ago, but they told me she was retired and they couldn’t pass anything on. And she didn’t seem to have a website or email address or anything like that.”
“I know. I’ve tried to persuade her. But she’s always been a rather shy, rather private person. Even with me. Even though my work, as an academic, has focused on the experiences of French Jews during and after the war.”
“You never talked with her about it?”
“I have, many times. But as her grandson. Never with the idea that I’d be recording her words for posterity.”
Heather’s laugh rang hollow, even to her own ears. “That’s more than Nan ever did with me or my mom. She never told us anything. Until I read your email last night, I’d pretty much given up hope that I’d ever learn more.”
“I think—I hope—I may be able to help. There’s a retrospective of my grandmother’s work coming up at the Tate, and the curators asked me to write an introduction to the official catalog. She agreed to answer my questions, and we spent a day or two looking through old photos and some scrapbooks she’d kept. At one point I asked her about the genesis of the Vél d’Hiv embroideries, and she said she began to work on them when she was living with your grandmother. It was Ann who first encouraged Miriam to think of herself as an artist.”
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