I walk to the end of the table and lean down and kiss Élodie elaborately on each cheek and straighten up and ask, “What’s this all about? Why so many place settings?”
“It’s the surprise I promised,” she replies “Quickly, go to your seat. Vite! Vite!”
I walk to the other end of the table and sit. I look to Élodie expectantly. Through the windows behind her, I see the moon. It is a good moon, waxing gibbous.
Élodie says, “And now, here comes your surprise. Look behind you.”
I turn to see two distinguished-looking men walking toward me from the bar with big smiles on their faces. They look to be at least in their sixties or seventies, perhaps eighties. I rise to meet them.
One of the men looks at Élodie and says, “It’s true!”
“Yes, it’s true. Would I lie? He’s very much alive.”
The man turns to me. “Of course, you don’t recognize me after seventy years, but I am Max Jäger.”
Eyes wide, I suck in my breath. “Max?”
“Yes.”
I start to tremble. My knees become wobbly and I grab hold of the back of my chair. “My god!” I whisper.
The second man steps forward and cups my elbow to steady me. “And I am Étienne Leblanc.”
I give him a confused look and shake my head.
“But before I changed my name,” he says, “I was Stephan Weiß.”
“Stephan! It’s you?” I gasp. How can any of this be happening?
“It’s very definitely me,” he says with a broad smile.
From her end of the table, Élodie says. “Max and Étienne are members of Club Henry Budge.”
“What?”
“We meet once a year here at La Closerie des Lilas, all the survivors from that time.”
Étienne says, “My sister Rebekka is usually here, but she has business in the states. When I told her about you just an hour ago, she was both overjoyed for you and distressed she couldn’t be here.”
I am overwhelmed. Stunned. Dizzy with it all. I feel Callie beside me, supporting me, and then a short, white-haired woman appears. She gazes at me, and I say, “I should recognize you. You’re also one of the children.”
The woman says nothing. Instead, she throws her arms around me and murmurs, “Papa!”
I make a strange sound between a sob, a gasp, and a laugh. “Mitzi?”
“Yes. It’s me.”
“Dear God! I cannot tell you how happy I am to see you.”
“Not half as happy as we all were to hear the news. And now to see you in person—”
“Is truly a blessing!” says another woman who appears beside Mitzi. She double-kisses me on the cheeks and adds, “I am Renata Gottfried.”
“Renata!” I say. “I remember you and your sister Leni well.”
A flash of pain crosses Renata’s face. “Sadly, Leni succumbed to breast cancer three years ago.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry.”
“We all miss her terribly,” says Élodie. “She always attended our little soirees.” Élodie looks past my shoulder and says, “Ah, here comes Aron. We are all here now.”
“Aron Klotz?” I ask, turning to see a bald man smiling at me.
“The same,” he says. “How thrilled I was when Doctor Bedier called to let me know about you. It was a great shock, but a pleasant one, indeed.”
Now that everyone is present, we take our places at the table with a scraping of chair feet on the tiled floor. Élodie raises her champagne and offers a toast. “Here’s to our very own Lazarus.”
There comes a chorus of “Here, here.”
I take a sip of the champagne, pause, and say, “Wait a minute! It just came to me. You are all speaking English!”
“Doctor Bedier encouraged us to learn in your honor,” says Max.
Mitzi laughs. “More like insisted, I’d say. After the first year, she would allow nothing but English at the Henry Budge table.”
All at once comes a gush of conversation with everyone recounting what has happened in their lives in the intervening seventy years.
Mitzi says, “I was adopted in England and, for the first time in my life, given a last name: Peters. They told me I never spoke in those days. But after I married, my husband said I would never shut up.”
“You’re married?” I picture her as the little girl clinging to my leg.
“I was. Unfortunately, I am a widow. I married an Englishman, Vaughn Woodford, and we had a son. I bet you can’t guess what we named him.”
I can guess, but I spread my hands wide, and say, “I have no idea.”
“His name is Henry. Oh dear, I only wish Vaughn had lived to meet you. He heard so much from me.”
“And your son?” I ask.
“He’s in Canada on business. He has two children, my lovely granddaughters.”
I raise my glass toward Callie and Francesca, who are sitting next to each other. “Granddaughters are truly wonderful. Without them and our happy coincidences, I wouldn’t be here with you tonight.”
“As for me,” Étienne Leblanc says, “I changed my name from Stephan Weiß because I wanted nothing to do with Germany ever again. I have never returned there. I married a Frenchwoman, Hélène, and we have three children, two girls and a boy.”
Mitzi says, “We took a survey. Among only this small sub-group, we have twelve children, sixteen grandchildren and nine great grandchildren. That’s thirty-seven souls, not counting the five of us, that wouldn’t exist if not for you and Doctor Bedier!”
“And that’s to say nothing of the descendants they will produce,” says Max.
Renata adds, “Which will number in the hundreds, no doubt. Monsieur Henry Budge, you and Doctor Bedier have done good.”
Everyone raises glasses in a toast as Élodie and I exchange happy smiles.
And it goes on like this throughout dinner. I learn that Kamilá Brodny and her brother Józef were both killed in a suicide attack on a bus in Tel Aviv in 1994, and Jerzy Godowsky along with his sisters Elżbietá and Klará disappeared in the confusion of the post war displaced-persons crisis when they tried to return to Poland, looking for their parents. And Yvette? She was never heard from again.
It is late in the evening and the table is littered with empty wine glasses and half-empty wine bottles when suddenly, Max Jäger pushes his chair back and stands and approaches me and places a hand gently on my cheek and asks, “Do you remember that last day when you touched all our cheeks to comfort us and told us we were about to set out on a journey that would free us?”
I place my hand over Max’s. “I do.”
“Please don’t be offended if I tell you it was a mother’s touch. And I have never forgotten it. None of us have.”
He is echoed with a chorus of yeses and I once again reach for my handkerchief.
And later, as the party is breaking up and we are bidding farewell to one another, each of them, one by one, places a hand on my cheek and says, “Thank you.”
Several of them add, “We’ll be with you tomorrow,” and when I ask Élodie about it, she only smiles and says, “You’ll see.”
“Another surprise?”
“Yes. Another surprise,” says Élodie. “Tomorrow. Perhaps a journey.”
The following day, when the taxi pulls to a stop on the Quai Anatole France, I look out the window at a great, stately Beaux-Arts building I later learn had originally been a train station. A banner on a corner of the building reads, “Musée d’Orsay.”
“We’re going to the museum?” I ask.
“Not just any museum,” replies Élodie. “Inside this museum is our island in the Pacific.”
I give her a bemused look. “What do you mean?”
But Élodie doesn’t answer. Instead, she says, “Oh, there are the others.”
I turn to see all the people who were with us at the restaurant the previous night—Max, Mitzi, Étienne, Renata, Aron—walking across the large plaza of the museum. When they reach the taxi, Max opens the door and he
lps Élodie exit the taxi. Étienne comes to the opposite door and offers me an arm. Callie, Francesca and Adrienne pull up in a second taxi and join the others on the plaza.
“Long ago, you and Doctor Bedier escorted all of us to freedom,” Max says. “It’s our pleasure to return the favor.”
I am more confused than ever. I am about to ask what he means, when Élodie says, “I called ahead for tickets for all of us. We are officially a tour group led by Adrienne as part of her Sorbonne work that will allow us to hijack Salle Seventy, which is small, for ourselves.”
“What’s in Salle Seventy?” I ask.
“Your little island in the Pacific. But first, you and I need wheelchairs.”
“Why? I don’t need a wheelchair,” I say. “And where would we get them anyway?”
“The museum provides them. All we need do is go to a cloakroom and show some form of identification. And don’t argue. We’ll be here a while. You’ll be glad for the wheelchair.”
Callie says, “She’s right, you know. Your breathing is not even close to being back to normal.”
“You have a good granddaughter,” Élodie says. “Two good granddaughters, for that matter.”
An attendant brings out first one, then a second, wheelchair. When we are seated, Élodie says, “Salle Seventy is on the median level. We can take the lift.”
“The rest of us will take the stairs,” says Max Jäger. “We should meet at the statue of Hercules. I think monsieur Henry will enjoy seeing it.”
“But we came to see the Gauguins,” says Élodie.
“Please, Doctor Bedier. It’s important.”
“Very well,” replies Élodie after a pause. Looking over her shoulder at Francesca, she says, “We’ll meet the others at the Hercules sculpture, then we’ll go to the Gauguins.”
Francesca pushes Élodie’s wheelchair toward the small elevators and Callie follows with me as the others head for the stairs. When the elevator lurches to a stop, we emerge into a huge, bright tubular space with a high, arched ceiling made mostly of glass. We follow a long, open corridor and, moments later, converge with the others at the sculpture by Emile-Antoine Bourdelle called Hercules Killing the Birds of Lake Stymphalis.
Max rushes forward to greet us, his eyes sparkling. He says, “Look! Isn’t it magnificent?”
I study the sculpture. The greater than life-sized bronze figure is full of power and tension—bone, cartilage and muscle sharply rendered as the archer draws the bow with his left foot braced against a rock while he kneels on his right knee. The way the figure’s legs are positioned—the left leg stretched in a taut line from foot to hip, the right leg bent hard at the knee and trailing the foot at hip level—is exactly like a photo taken of me hurdling the water barrier before the final turn in the 3,000-meter steeplechase at a track & field event in my senior year of college. A brief thrill runs through me as I recall how alive my legs had felt during that race, how electric with energy.
“It’s impressive,” I say, “but I’m not familiar with it. What does it represent?”
“It’s the sixth labor of Hercules,” Max says. “The Stymphalian Birds were man-eating birds. They had sharp beaks made of bronze and knife-edged, metallic feathers which they could hurl at their victims. They were created by Ares, the god of war. Hercules killed them with poison arrows. Don’t you see? The birds are like the Nazis, and you are like Hercules. Ever since the Pyrénées, you have been my hero. All my adult life. When I first saw this sculpture, I thought of you. I come to see it often. I even tried to learn more about you in the last decade or so when the internet made it more doable.”
Once again, in these magical few days, I am overwhelmed. I fish out my handkerchief. “You wouldn’t have found me. Any entry would be under my author name: G. H. Budge.” I give a short laugh. “Sounds more academic.”
Élodie leans forward and looks up at the younger man. “You never told me this, Max.”
“But you must know you are my hero, too. You are Athena who helped give Hercules the power. The two of you. You saved my life.”
“And mine,” says Mitzi, wrapping an arm around my shoulders.
Max continues. “You are the reason my children are in the world. And my grandchildren. And when I heard the news you were alive I … I ….” He lowers his head and wipes his eyes.
For a long moment, everyone is silent. Finally, Francesca breaks the spell by saying, “Salle Seventy is almost empty,” pointing to a group that has just emerged. She quickly propels Élodie into the room and places her in front of the painting Élodie points to and is followed closely by Callie pushing me.
Élodie explains that the painting before us is Arearea by Paul Gauguin, also known as Joyousness. Composed in greens, yellows and reds, it depicts two Tahitian women who sit in the foreground with a red dog. One of the women is bare breasted. In the background, three other women are worshipping a larger-than-life statue of a god.
“I come here often to look at these paintings,” Élodie says. “They allow me to imagine what it might have been like.”
I look from the painting to her eyes to her face which I want to reach out to caress. “You and me on our island?”
“Yes. You and me,” she says. After studying Arearea for a while, she points to another painting and Francesca wheels her in that direction. Callie follows with me. The painting, called Le Repas, shows three children, a girl with a boy on either side of her, sitting at a table on which rests a large bunch of bananas, a bowl of coconut milk, and several oranges. Élodie says, “Perhaps we would eat like this. I’m sure we could find wine if the coconut milk doesn’t appeal.” She smiles.
Soon, we move on to a third painting called Femmes de Tahiti which shows two women sitting on the sand at the edge of a lagoon. The woman on the left wears a white blouse and a red pareau, or sarong, with large white flowers. The other woman sits cross-legged and wears a pink missionary dress. She gazes warily to her left as she plaits a basket.
At last, we come before a fourth painting. As I stare at the painting, I hear Élodie breathe a little faster and I take her hand and, with my broken finger, I caress her broken knuckles and she gives my hand a slight squeeze.
“It’s as if they are waiting for us,” I say.
“They are,” says Élodie. “The painting is called Et l’or de leur corps. It means ‘And the gold of their bodies.’”
In the painting, two women sit naked and bronzed—except for the tiny loincloth one of them wears—on a blue mat in a lush grassy area with a banana tree heavy with fruit and giant red blossoms which are probably hibiscus.
Élodie turns to me, and smiles, and asks, “Have you ever been in love, Henry?”
“You asked me that once before,” I answer with a smile.
“Yes, and I ask it again. Haven’t you ever thought about it at all? It seems to me you could make some girl wonderfully happy.”
“Sure, I’ve thought about it. If I would ever meet the right girl, somebody that’s real alive. You know, I saw an island in the Pacific once. I’ve never been able to forget it. That’s where I’d like to take this girl.”
“What sort of girl would this be?”
“The kind of girl who would jump in the surf with me.”
Élodie’s smile broadens as she says, “Our bodies would become golden and we’d play in the surf.”
“What are you two talking about?” Callie asks, with a wide grin and raised eyebrows.
“It’s a game we played back during the war,” I answer. “We promised each other if we survived, we would go to Tahiti and live there.”
“And the moon and the water would become one,” says Élodie.
Callie smiles. “It sounds beautiful”
“And all would be one with the stars,” I say. “A moment in paradise.”
“And the stars would be so close we could reach up and touch them.” Élodie squeezes my hand more tightly.
“Go!” Callie says suddenly.
“We’d drink my
sterious water and live forever,” Élodie continues, “and our bodies would become golden.”
Callie moves to stand in front of us. She crouches and places one hand on my right knee and the other on Élodie’s left knee. “Go!” she says again.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Go to Tahiti, damn it! Go!” Her eyes are shining. She glances up at Francesca and Adrienne.
I shake my head as if I haven’t heard her correctly. “What?”
“Take Élodie to Tahiti like you promised. You know you can do it. I’ll make all the arrangements for you. All you need do is … is pack up and go. Francesca will help me.”
“Of course, I will,” says Francesca. “You must do it!” She looks to her mother and Adrienne just smiles and wipes her eyes.
With even more force, Callie says, “Go, goddamnit! The kids can stay with their dad for a while, and I’ll take a leave from the hospital so you have a doctor with you.”
And suddenly I see how it might be. I continue to stroke Élodie’s broken knuckles with my broken finger as we gaze at the painting with the banana tree and the giant red hibiscus flowers and the golden bodies and, at that very moment, the chatter of a tour group around the sculpture of Hercules and the Stymphalian Birds softens to nothing, as do the microsecond clicks of camera shutters and the echoing conversations in the great open spaces of the museum, and all that is left is the soft throb of the pulse in my ears and the promise of the paintings shimmering before us, and I know somehow, later, no sound will be left but the sound of prayer and the rush of wind as we fly westward to a little island in the Pacific where, if prayer is truly made of sound, the air will be filled with the splash of waterfalls and the joyful cries of free children gamboling in the surf and with the singing of the women gathering bananas and hibiscus flowers and we will strip off our clothes and walk, holding hands, broken finger, broken knuckles, naked into the water, and sunlight will be golden on our bodies and we, too, will play and jump in the surf on nights heavy with a merciful moonlight that cools our bodies, nights when the stars are so close we feel we can reach up and stir them around, and we will kiss with wet lips, and our days will be filled with sunrises, and there will be moonlit nights overfilled with stars, until, in the fullness of time, we at last must turn our gaze to the west and the fearsome wonder of the setting sun.
The Light from the Dark Side of the Moon Page 32