I run a thumb over her gnarled knuckles. “How did you end up—”
“On that last trip through the Pyrénées, I was captured by the Spanish at the border. They locked me up in Barcelona for a while, then turned me over to the Gestapo. That’s how I ended up in Ravensbrück. It was a concentration camp for women.” She pauses, then says, “Oh, mon dieu!”
“What?” I ask.
“I saw Rachelle Monsigny there. Do you remember her? The mother of Adrien and Yvette?”
“Yes, of course.”
“She was close to dying. I let her think we got both Adrien and Yvette to safety. That’s all she needed to hear. She died within the hour.” Élodie averts her eyes and gazes into the distance. She makes the sign of the cross. She is silent for a few moments before continuing. “All these years there is one image that never ever has left me: moonlight reflecting off barbed wire. I would stare at it from the tiny window of the barracks. Sometimes it looked like a string of Christmas lights, and I would think of you, and I would wonder if I could survive long enough for the war to end and I could find you and we could be a family. Moonlight played such a big part in our story, I thought we owned it … or it, us. There was always moonlight. Always. Those nights in Mosset. The light in the mountains.”
“I remember.”
“Seventy Christmases have come and gone,” Élodie says, her voice barely audible.
“It’s only six months to the next one,” I say.
“Can we make it?”
“We can try.”
Élodie makes another hurried sign of the cross, then says, “You frowned earlier when you saw my knuckles.” She holds both hands out to show me.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“Don’t be. These are not the hands of an old woman. They did this.”
“The Nazis?”
“First, they destroyed my violin. And when I protested, they smashed the knuckles of both hands with rifle butts.”
“Bastards!” I say. “They wanted to take away your music.”
“But, that’s one thing they never had the power to do. I taught others. I fancy my music lives through them.”
“I kept looking for your name. Some concert appearance. Something. Hoping there had been some mistake Hoping you were out there somewhere.”
“Unless you happened to come across the program notes of one of my students and that person mentioned me as his or her teacher ….” She gives a bitter laugh. “When you think about it, they didn’t destroy my music, but they did destroy us.”
“What do you mean?”
“Think about it. If my hands were whole, I would have resumed my international career. As you just said, at some time, in some place, with some orchestra, perhaps the lovely Boston Symphony, I would have received a review in a newspaper or magazine that you read, and you would have come looking for me.”
“I would have turned the world inside out to find you!”
She touches my cheek and nods. “After the war, when I was doing better but had to accept that I could not resume my music career, I joined the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration to work with displaced persons, especially children. After UNRRA, I went to medical school and became a doctor. A pediatrician. And in nineteen-seventy-two, not long after Médecins Sans Frontières was founded, I joined them. Adrienne was already twenty-eight and married, so there was no reason to stay rooted in France. They sent me first to Managua in Nicaragua where an earthquake had killed tens of thousands of people. I, of course, focused on the surviving children. A few years later, I was in Thailand where we had set up a refugee camp for the millions of Cambodians trying to escape the Khmer Rouge. After that, it was Lebanon during their civil war. Finally, I spent several years on the European lecture circuit, and then I retired.” She places the empty martini glass on the coffee table. “Now you know my history.”
I shake my head in wonder at such a woman. “Of course, I knew you were devoted to children but to such an extent? It’s extraordinary.” And then I ask the question I have no right to ask, a question Adrienne already answered for me. “You never married?”
“I was too busy. I made myself too busy.” Élodie pauses before adding, “And you wonder if it was because of you?”
“No, no,” I say. “I was just curious. And the violin?”
“I could never play again the way I did before they broke my hands.”
“Could you play at all?”
She shakes her head. “It was never satisfying. It only served to remind me ….” She reaches over and squeezes my knee. “Yes, it was.”
“It was what?”
“It was because of you I never married. I was like a turtle dove, smitten for life. I assumed it would be like the violin, never satisfying if I couldn’t play the way I wanted.” She looks over at Callie. “But you have a beautiful granddaughter. A doctor, I am told. So you did marry.” She pauses and turns back to me. “Henry, I hope you have had a happy life. Full of children.”
I loved Anna, and for a moment I feel I am betraying her—or betraying my first love. But I was honest with Anna and now I must be honest with Élodie.
“Yes. It was … different, a different life. But it was happy. We had three children, and with the grandchildren and great grandchildren, there are thirty-two of us. Anna died two years ago. Ovarian cancer.”
Again, she squeezes my knee. “I’m so sorry.”
I don’t know what to say. I never have when people express sympathy to me. In the reception line at Anna’s wake, I was lost. Callie made sure she stood beside me. Perhaps sensing my discomfort now, she steps forward with her cell phone and holds it out to Élodie.
“In addition to all the children and grandchildren, Papa adopted this wonderful little fellow. He named him Arlequin.”
Élodie gazes at the phto and gasps. My Arlequin!”
Callie nods and touches Élodie’s hand. “I thought so.”
I wasn’t going to mention Arlequin for fear of dredging up a deep hurt, but Callie can never let things be. But then Élodie turns to me.
“Henry! I’m delighted. Well done, you! You honor me. He looks just like my poor, little Arlequin.”
“Papa, I’m confused about something,” Callie says. “It’s clear why you never saw Madame Bedier’s name in a concert program, or a newspaper, but couldn’t it have worked the other way around?”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Well, given what Madame Bedier just said—”
“Élodie. Please call me Élodie.”
“Yes, of course,” Callie says. “What I mean to say is, given what you said about UNRRA and Doctors Without Borders, you probably should have seen Papa’s name in association with a popular book he published that directly related to your field. Reluctant Salvation: WWII Refugee Children and the Roosevelt Administration.”
Élodie looks to me. “When was this book published?”
“Nineteen ninety-five,” I say.
“Ah, I was already retired,” she says. “And, sadly, I could no longer hear about, or read about, suffering children. I avoided it because it hurt too very much. I’d had a lifetime of it, and when I heard about those children in America … in the Connecticut school shooting … I wanted to die.” Her eyes shine with tears and she pauses for a moment, then says, “Oh dear! I’m sorry. This has been such a shock, and I’m afraid I’ve had too much to drink. I’m not used to it.”
“We must let you rest,” I say.
She bows her head and whispers, “I need some time. I need to think.”
“Of course,” I reply. “I think we both do.”
“We have scarcely begun to say what we must. How long will you be in Paris?”
I look over at Callie. “I haven’t planned that far ahead.”
“Good. We need more time. In the meanwhile, we should have dinner together tomorrow evening after we’ve had a chance to rest and recover ourselves.”
“That would be perfect,” I say.
> “I’ll make the reservations.” Élodie squeezes my hand. “And perhaps I can arrange a pleasant surprise for you.”
“A pleasant surprise?”
“You’ll see.”
The instant Callie and I step off the elevator the following afternoon, we hear wistful violin music. It reminds me of the many times, seventy years earlier, when I delighted in listening to Élodie play. As was the case the previous day, Élodie’s door is ajar. Francesca must have heard the metallic scrape of the folding elevator gate, for she appears at the door and opens it fully. She hugs me, and says, “Hello, Pépère,” as she kisses me on each cheek, “She is waiting for you.”
As I walk into the room, the music engulfs me. It’s like falling into Élodie’s embrace again. A fire is crackling and spitting in the fireplace. Francesca has guided Callie to a seat and has taken one herself. Adrienne sits in a sofa facing the fireplace. Élodie sits with a wool Afghan draped over her knees in a quilted Chesterfield beside a small table on which sits an old gramophone with a shiny horn in the shape of a trumpet flower. The ammonia smell of metal polish stings the air. Also present is the subtle citrus aroma of wood polish, and I notice how the wood base of the gramophone gleams. There is an empty chair beside Élodie, and she pats the arm. “Come, mon chou77, sit beside me. We never sat together before a fire that wasn’t inside a cave. I can’t tell you how many Christmas eves I thought of that and pretended you were beside me. How many New Year’s eves.”
“The music is wonderful,” I say.
Élodie’s eyes brighten. “It’s a string quartet by Pavel Haas. He was a wonderful Czech composer who later was imprisoned at Theresienstadt Concentration Camp. While he was there, the Nazis made a propaganda film showing him conducting an opera with a children’s choir to ‘prove’ to the world the Jews were treated humanely. But after the film was made, he and the children were transferred to Auschwitz where they were all sent to the gas chambers. I recorded the quartet in Paris with a small chamber orchestra in nineteen thirty-nine. It was my last recording before the war, the last time I truly played the violin in public. I haven’t listened to it for years.”
“It must take courage to listen to it now.”
“Not in the least. I wanted to listen to it to honor Haas and the children.”
“No. I mean ….”
She raises an eyebrow. “Because of my broken hands?”
I nod.
She says, “It’s nothing compared to the courage it took to live with a broken heart all those years.”
I say nothing. I just gaze at her in wonder.
She continues with a smile. “The timing may seem suspicious—we made the recording the day before Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia—but I’m quite confident Haas’ music, or my playing of it, wasn’t the casus belli.”
I laugh. I turn to look at the others because they, also, are laughing. It’s then I notice a new photograph has appeared overnight on the mantel. It is the group picture of Élodie and me with the children taken in Esterri d’Àneu seventy years earlier. I point at the photo. “I remember when that picture was taken by one of the Catalan guys.”
“It was Àngel Barbera,” Élodie says.
“You can remember that far back?”
“But you know I have that kind of memory,” she says with a laugh. “Don’t you remember how I had to correct you and remind you Clark Gable said, ‘I’ve even been sucker enough—not, as you said, fool enough—to make plans.’?”
“Yes. I remember something like that. It was about that movie—”
“The movie was It Happened One Night. Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. And something about an island in the Pacific.”
“Yes, I remember now,” I say. Of course, I never did forget. I stand and lift the photograph from the mantel and hold it before Élodie. “Look how little Mitzi is clinging to me. I can’t help but wonder if she’s still alive and, if so, what she’s doing.”
Élodie gives an enigmatic smile but says nothing.
I reach into my jacket pocket and produce another photo, the one with the crease through Élodie’s face I’ve carried with me all these years. “Do you remember this picture?” I ask.
“I remember the German whose camera took it,” she says. “His name was Fritz Dürbach. He had a wife and two children, a boy and a girl, and I shot him dead.” She reaches for her drink, takes a sip.
The room has gone silent.
After a long moment, I ask, “That has stayed with you all these years?”
“I suppose one never forgets the people one kills.”
More silence until, at last, I say, “Or the people who are kind.”
“True.” Élodie says, looking into the distance. “That reminds me, I did look for Aristide Charnay after the war as I told you I would.”
“Aristide Charnay?”
“The compassionate man who helped me bury my parents. I told you about him that night in the barn when we drank wine and I told you about the evacuation from Paris.” She squeezes my hand twice and gives me a coy smile and I know it’s her way of silently adding, “the barn where we first made love.”
I squeeze back. “Of course.”
“I found his son. Monsieur Charnay had been killed by the Nazis.”
The room is still silent except for the music and the gentle hiss from the fireplace. There is a sudden eruption of sparks as a log collapses and breaks apart. Élodie closes her eyes tightly. “Fucking, goddamn Nazis!” she finally whispers.
Francesca’s eyes widen and she looks to her mother. “Shall I make more martinis?”
“Not for me,” Élodie says. “We’ll be drinking at the restaurant.”
“What restaurant?” I ask. “Is that the surprise you promised?”
“One of Hemingway’s favorites. La Closerie des Lilas. I remember how much you admired Hemingway.”
“That is a pleasant surprise!”
“Yes,” says Élodie, again with that enigmatic smile. “But now, what of us?”
“What do we do, now that we’ve rediscovered each other?” I ask.
“We can hardly go back seventy years, you know.” She places a hand under her left breast and hefts it. “This won’t ever ride high and pert again, you understand. It will never again point toward the heavens. And I can guess you are different in that way, too.”
Adrienne’s hand flies to her mouth and she cries out, “Maman!”
She is echoed by Francesca, “Mémé!”
Callie stifles a guffaw and shakes her head at me.
“You’re as beautiful as ever,” I say. “To me, you are perfect.”
“Bollocks! Look at those pictures,” Élodie says with a dismissive wave. “We were truly beautiful, then, you and I. Nevertheless, what I described are but a few of the ways—unimportant ways in the end—people change over the years. But at their core, people like us remain constant. And in a time of war, people exist almost solely at their core.”
So, you’re saying, essentially, we haven’t changed in seventy years.”
“Except for my boobs and your blessings, we knew each other mostly in the areas that don’t change. So … so welcome back, mon chou,” she says with a sudden flood of tears. “Oh, dear! I was wondering when the tears would come. It was bound to happen. Please forgive me.” Her hands are shaking as she reaches for a tissue.
I take both of her hands in mine and pull her close and embrace her and put a hand under her chin and lift it and kiss her on the lips. “Yes,” I say. “We loved the parts that were true. And I think we still do.”
“Yes, mon chou, the true parts are still true. I understand you have once again played the hero and rescued a young woman from attack. And that you paid the price with a gunshot wound, one that I was not there to help heal.” She holds my gaze. “That part of you I will never stop loving.” She leans back. “But now, I must rest before tonight’s dinner at the restaurant. You should do the same.” She chuckles. “We’re not as young as we once were.”
&nb
sp; That evening, after several hours rest and a change of clothes, the taxi drops Callie and me off at the restaurant La Closerie des Lilas on Boulevard du Montparnasse. The evening sun flares in the windows of the restaurant. Callie and I walk past the tall, intensely green bushes framing the entrance, to be greeted by an impeccably dressed man I assume is the maître d’.
“I trust you are Monsieur Henry Budge,” the man says. He turns to Callie and says, “And you must be his lovely granddaughter Callie.”
I stare incredulously at the man. “Yes. But how did you know?”
“Doctor Bedier asked me to watch for you—an elderly American with a lovely granddaughter. It wasn’t difficult. Come, I’ll escort you to your table.”
It is still early for dining in Paris, so the restaurant is not crowded. As we walk past the piano bar, I pause. The pianist has abruptly stopped midway through some show tune and has launched into “We’ll Meet Again,” played piano bar style. Callie gives me an inquisitive look. The pianist smiles at us, nods. Several people at tables in the bar turn to look at us. After a moment’s pause, we continue to follow the maître d’ and emerge into a large room with a glass ceiling of many panes, lined at each long end with dozens of lights that augment the last slants of evening sunlight. The room has many tables with spotless white table cloths and red chairs. One table is arranged for a party of ten, and it is to this table the maître d’ guides us. It is set for formal dining. Each place setting comprises four glasses—a water goblet, a champagne flute (three quarters filled) and glasses for red and white wines—three gleaming fork and knife pairings, several spoons cupping the ambient light in their upturned silver hollows, a place plate, a salad plate, a bread plate and a folded napkin. Six floating candles in votive glasses run along the center line of the table. Together, reflections of the overhead lights, the candles and the last of the sunlight create miniature dancing moons in the dozens of glasses and cutlery, a river of light at the end of which sits Élodie, head tilted in self-satisfaction and a cocktail glass held chin high. Adrienne and Francesca sit to her right and her left. “Ah, you are just on time, mon chou,” Élodie says. “Come, give me a kiss, then you must take your honorary place at the head of the table.”
The Light from the Dark Side of the Moon Page 31