The Paris Secret

by Karen Swan

  Beyond the locked door into the house, she could hear activity in the hall and she knew the family were up – or some of them anyway. Her eyes closed again in despair at the thought of going out there and telling them she was leaving, but it was unavoidable. Though she had done everything in her power to avoid running into Magda or Natascha or Xavier whilst working here, Lilian and Jacques deserved to be told to their faces that she was leaving. And if she were to see Natascha, she knew she would be able to let the barbs slide right off her now: let the girl be heard; let her be right even if she was wrong. She deserved that at the very least.

  With trepidation, Flora unlocked the door and stepped out into the hall. The French doors through to the garden were open, the breeze tickling the flowers frothing from the urns. Her footsteps were silent on the floor and she realized, as she stepped into the kitchen, she was still barefoot, still naked beneath the loose Ba&sh dress she had slipped over her head before lurching up the lawn in the dead of night to send that email and begin her escape.

  Her hands flew to her hair, smoothing it quickly, but she was too late – they were in there. At least, Xavier and Natascha were, Genevieve standing by the oven as she poured pancake mixture into a pan.

  Natascha was sitting with her feet up on the chair beside her so that her bare knees peeped over the top of the table, a bowl of chopped fruit uneaten before her, her fingers swiping listlessly on an iPad.

  Xavier was sitting beside her and staring down at the table, one arm flopped over it as though it was broken, his fingers loosely pinching the handle of a mug of espresso – short, black, strong; she supposed that was one more detail she could add to the tally of things she knew about him. Pointless now, though.

  The bandages on his hands were grubby, loosened from their bath together; tiny bloodstains had seeped through marking them like stigmata, outward testament to his devotion to his sister. His hair was wild, like Flora’s, and the rings around his eyes were so dark he looked as though he’d been punched in both. Well, he damn well should’ve been, she thought angrily. After what he’d said and done last night, he deserved it!

  She watched him for a moment, feeling that familiar rush of longing and confusion that she got any time she saw him. What a fool she’d been to think that sex – even sex as good as theirs – had brought her closer to him than any of his other women, and it was all her own fault; he’d warned her himself he was no angel. She’d allowed herself to believe she was different from the rest, that he was a better man than he made out, but they weren’t, either one of them. They were both totally and utterly ordinary.

  ‘Oh, Mam’selle Flora!’ Genevieve said in surprise, turning and spotting her standing frozen in the doorway. She frowned. ‘. . . Are you OK?’

  ‘Oh . . .’ Flora felt herself panic as both Xavier and Natascha looked up, Xavier visibly jolting at the sight of her. She remembered his last words to her and unwittingly took a step back, half in, half out of the kitchen, as though trying to obey. ‘I’m just looking for—’

  But she didn’t get a chance to finish. In the next moment, Natascha had flown across the kitchen in a tawny streak and was throwing her arms tightly round Flora’s neck. ‘Thank you,’ she repeated over and over.

  Flora stood agape, her gaze as stuck on Xavier’s as if bolted in place. She saw the disgust in his eyes for what he considered her hypocrisy, her treachery.

  ‘Really, I didn’t do anything,’ Flora said quietly as Natascha put her down.

  ‘But you did. Do you know how many people ignored what was happening? They pretended they didn’t notice. I saw them – they turned away.’

  Flora looked back, appalled. She didn’t know what to say; how could she say anything without revealing that she knew the full truth? ‘Then shame on them,’ she whispered as Natascha hugged her again, her arms tight around the girl’s slight shoulders.

  ‘I was wrong about you,’ Natascha said, tears in her eyes as they pulled apart. ‘I’ve been such a witch to you. Can you forgive me?’

  ‘There’s nothing to forgive.’

  Natascha smiled then and for a moment, Flora was struck by the flash of youth in her face, the world-weary cynicism that she usually wore replaced by an almost winsome innocence. Was this the girl she might have been? Was she now what Freddie would soon become? ‘Have you eaten? Will you have breakfast with us?’

  She took Flora’s hand and tried to tug her towards the table but absolutely nothing would make Flora take a step closer to him. ‘Actually, I was just looking for your parents. I think your father’s swimming but . . . is your mother around? I’m afraid it’s urgent.’ She felt Xavier’s eyes alight on her inquisitively at the words.

  ‘Sure. I think she’s in the library.’

  ‘OK, great. Th-thanks.’ She turned to leave.

  ‘Hey listen, we should go shopping sometime. Maybe.’ The raised inflection in her voice turned it into a question and behind the breezy demeanour, Flora could see the fear of rejection in her eyes. ‘How’s tomorrow?’

  Flora opened her mouth to reply, hesitating that she was going to have to confess her plans, here, in front of him. ‘I . . . I’d have loved to, Natascha, really I would. But I’m afraid I won’t be here.’

  Xavier’s eyes narrowed upon her.

  ‘You’re leaving?’ Natascha looked dismayed.

  She nodded, keeping her gaze on the floor. ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘You’re going back to Paris?’

  ‘London.’

  ‘But who’s going to finish the work? I thought there was months’ worth to do? Granny was making such a fuss about not having the flower room for weeks on end, wasn’t she, Xav?’

  Natascha glanced back at her brother but he was staring at his coffee.

  ‘The agency have decided to send out a provenance specialist instead. It’s not my area of expertise.’

  ‘That’s such a shame,’ Natascha said, squeezing her hand. ‘Mum and Dad are crazy about you. I know it was you they wanted.’

  ‘It’s better for them this way.’ Flora bit her lip, stoppering the words as she felt another rush of tears threaten; her bottom lip wobbled but she would not cry in front of him. She wouldn’t. ‘I’ll just see if I can catch your mother.’

  She extricated her hand quickly, stumbling back into the hall, her heart like a battering ram at the sight of Xavier so far away from her, further than he’d ever been. She made her way back into the hall and hid in a doorway, pressing her hands to her eyes as the tears began to flow again, last night’s new, wholly alien feeling of hollowness opening up in her as suddenly as a sinkhole, threatening to pull her down, bury her, crush her.

  But it was OK, she told herself. It wasn’t heartbreak. It would pass. She was fine.

  Even so, it was a few minutes before she moved, a few minutes before her breathing was steady enough to attempt a conversation. A few minutes before she felt steeled enough to get to the library.

  The door was ajar but she knocked anyway.

  She waited.

  Nothing.

  She knocked again – a little louder.

  Still nothing.

  ‘Hello? Lilian?’ she enquired softly.

  When there was, again, no reply, she put her head round the door and peered in. In comparison to the wash of sunlight rushing up the marble hall, the room was dim. Unlike the eastern aspect of the house – the side where the kitchen and flower room were situated, amongst others – the southern aspect was still in shade, and unlined linen curtains in grass green hung, half drawn, at the tall windows.

  Flora stepped in and turned in wonder. Books, books, everywhere.

  Unlike the more traditional dark mahogany or cherry-wood that she’d been expecting to find, the woodwork in the room was white – all the ladders and balustrading and shelving that spanned the four-metre height of every single wall. In the centre of the room were a couple of chairs, a large round table and on it, another bowl profuse with lime hydrangea balls and white peonies – Magda rea
lly did need that flower room, Flora thought to herself. Some of the shelving on the left wall had been cut around a nook, inside which an ivory linen sofa had been pushed.

  ‘Lilian?’ she asked again, turning slowly on the spot, her eyes scanning the walkway on the upper levels. But she was alone.

  She was about to leave when her eyes fell to an old cardboard box beside the sofa. Vienna / Paris had been written on the side in black marker pen and the taped seal sliced open, a silver letter opener still on one of the cardboard leaves, an orange suede album, it seemed, set on its side and peeping out of the top. Flora walked over and picked it up. Was this what she thought it was? She remembered how Lilian had told her there were no old family photographs from before the war: no wedding photographs, no photographs of Jacques’ father. But that had simply been Magda’s lies as she tried to keep their shameful past a secret. Only a few days ago, Jacques had stood in the flower room and confided his bittersweet optimism that he would finally see an image of his father’s face.

  The edges of the album were grubby, the peached skin flattened from use, and as she flicked it open quickly, she saw it was filled with old black-and-white photographs that were gently yellowing. The first one was a wedding photo – the bride in a long-sleeved, rather unflattering satin dress and limp full-length veil, an extravagant bouquet of dark flowers in her hands that tapered to a point around her knees. The groom was smartly dressed in a dark suit and tie, his shoes so brightly polished they shone. Their heads were inclined towards each other; neither one of them was tall and they both looked middle-aged in the picture, even though Flora knew they were nothing of the sort – for the bride was clearly Magda, her raisin-dark eyes unchanged, although here they glittered with love and not resentment.

  Flora sank into the sofa, her weight perched on the front as she brought the album onto her lap for a closer look. So then, this was Franz Von Taschelt. She stared at the man’s face, looking for traces of the monster: his hair was thick – unusually so – and very dark but with salt-and-pepper sprinkles at the temples already. He had what her mother would call a ‘strong’ nose and, if she was being mean, a slightly receding chin.

  She looked harder. There was little in his appearance or demeanour to indicate his greed, his callous disregard for humanity. Maybe the intense shine of his shoes betrayed his ambition? Perhaps that wasn’t love for Magda she saw in his eyes, his hands doubly clasping hers, but a love of money, of power? Or maybe he really was just a plain man, looking proud and happy on his wedding day.

  She sighed, not knowing anything any more, her instincts shot to hell as she remembered Xavier’s words all too clearly: ‘Monsters are masters of disguise.’

  She glanced at the cover. ‘Vienna and Paris’ had been blind-embossed on the orange suede cover. She turned the page after the wedding picture. Another photo showed Magda sitting on a picnic blanket, a small hamper by her knees as she squinted up at the camera, her hand shading her eyes; a tiny blur at the side of the shot indicated that the photographer (Franz?) had left his finger over the aperture. In the photo beside it, the two of them were leaning against a wall, both wearing hand-knitted cardigans, the wind catching their hair.

  She turned the page: Magda sitting in a small white sports car – Freddie would recognize it in a flash, he was such a petrol head – her hair covered with a silk scarf; Another at a castle or chateau with Magda in a coat leaning against a crenelated wall, an ancient forest in the background. In all the photos, she appeared somehow slightly dissatisfied, a hint of a frown on her brow, impatience in her smile.

  Flora kept turning the pages. Magda sitting outdoors at a café with two women – Flora peered closer, picking up a resemblance between Magda and one of them. Her sister? The other woman caught her attention too, though she couldn’t make out why; she didn’t think she could have seen her before.

  One of Franz standing outside a shop with another man, his hands folded behind his back, his chest puffed out proudly. Flora’s eyes picked out the bottoms of the words, framed in an oval, just visible in the top of the frame. If she hadn’t known what to look for, she couldn’t have deciphered it, but she did know; she had seen it replicated in the old stickers on the backs of the paintings and heading the ledgers still kept in the gallery in Saint-Paul: Blumka Von Taschelt, the gallery Franz had run in Vienna before the Anschluss, dating this photograph between 1934 and 1938. So then, was the other man in the photo Blumka?

  She turned the pages more quickly, noticing how their circumstances began to change: Franz filled out, his cheeks became rounder, the weight adding strength to his features. Something in his demeanour changed too, his chin pushed up, his eyes stared back at the camera with, if not quite superiority, then something like it. Was it pride? That first taste of success? Power suited him.

  Certainly his suits fitted better, his shoes shone brighter, Magda had her hair cut fashionably short, started wearing showy jewellery. Flora stopped towards the back of the album at a photo taken of both Franz and Magda at a formal event. They were standing on the steps of somewhere grand – an opera house perhaps? – Franz in tails and a hat, Magda in a pale satin dress with pleats, a fox fur over one shoulder and a feather in her hair.

  There was no doubt they had moved up in the world, but their body language had changed too. Where Magda had dominated the early snaps with her beady eyes and passive-aggressive agitation, now Franz had eclipsed her – laughing easily in the frames, his hands more often louchely stuffed in his pockets than holding his wife’s. They stood together but apart.

  Flora stared at him, willing herself to see his monstrousness now. He was well on his way – making money, hitting the big time. But at worst that only made him a vain, selfish man.

  Then she turned the page and saw it: proof in the boldest terms of what he was capable of. They were sitting in a formal drawing room with another couple – Flora recognized the other woman from the café snap.

  It was clear they were all great friends, well matched in their lifestyles – all were in evening dress, low-ball drinks in their hands, jewel-coloured Tiffany glass lamps on the tables and fringed silk shawls draped over the sofas. Magda stared straight to camera, somehow dissonant from the little group, but Franz was centrally positioned, one hand on the other man’s shoulder as the two of them stood behind their seated wives, the other woman half-turned in Franz’s direction and laughing at something he must have said.

  Which made his betrayal all the greater, his monstrosity laid as bare, with hindsight, as if he’d been standing there with two heads. Flora couldn’t take her eyes off the paintings on the back wall – the Renoirs, that portrait; even in black and white, she could detect the richness of tone in the peacock-blue dress, the ruby a rich drop of blood red on the woman’s hand.

  Suddenly she knew why the woman seemed familiar to her. She had seen her before, in another photo still kept in Vienna, in a portrait that had been found in Paris. She even knew her name: Natalya Spiegel. And her husband, Noah had told her, was Juls. They had been friends!

  Flora stared at their faces, all of them having a good time, full of vitality and high spirits, no sense yet of the horrors that were to come their way; no sense yet that the camaraderie was a sham, the friendship an illusion. That only the paintings, ergo the money, mattered.

  Flora stared at Franz, drinking his friend’s Scotch and no doubt flirting with his wife, the man who would one day soon turn them over to the Nazis and pocket his commission. The traitor in their midst.

  When had they realized, she wondered, that he had betrayed them? When they’d signed the contract he pushed before them? When they’d answered the door to those SS soldiers? As they’d been hustled onto the train, still thinking they were heading for the border? Or maybe they had never known his role in it. Perhaps he had got away with it and they had gone to their deaths thinking him the good friend he’d always been. Had that thought sustained him? Reputation was all to men of power, was it not? Hadn’t the Nazis – Hitler and G
öring themselves – even as they plundered Europe of its greatest cultural treasures, tried to present themselves to the world as aesthetes and not thieves? Art was the only currency with any value for them. They had wanted to be remembered as men of taste, of supreme civilization. The master race.

  The thought stopped her. Reputation is legacy . . .

  An idea came to her. She punched the number in her phone and dialled.

  ‘It’s me,’ she said quickly, before he could reply. ‘If I mean anything to you at all, then you’ll do exactly as I ask.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  ‘Oh, Flora, there you are!’ The voice broke through Flora’s immersion in the pictures and she looked up in surprise to see Lilian coming into the library. ‘Natascha said you were looking for me.’

  Hurriedly, Flora snapped the album shut but it was pointless trying to pretend she hadn’t been snooping. ‘I’m sorry, I—’

  ‘Fascinating, isn’t it? You know Jacques had never even seen a picture of his father until two days ago?’ she said quietly, coming to sit beside Flora on the sofa and opening up the Vienna album again. ‘Of course, he hasn’t looked at any of these other photos. He took one long look at his father in the wedding picture and then walked out . . . He’s devastated.’ She shook her head mournfully and Flora had to resist the urge to clasp her hand. Lilian was her client, that was all – not the mother of the man who’d shared her bed last night, not the wife of a good man paying for the sins of his father; not the mother of a daughter broken against the wheel of social politics.

  She closed her eyes for a moment, knowing now how right she was in leaving here. She’d been getting too close, blurring the boundaries. This family, this troubled, beleaguered, powerful family, was not her concern.

  ‘Are you OK, Flora? Genevieve said you really don’t look well and I have to say I agree with her.’

  ‘Oh, no, really, I’m fine. Just tired.’ She thought Lilian looked little better than she did, to be honest. What on earth had happened to the two of them, she wondered, remembering their poise and polish in the early meetings. Not even a month later and they were shadows of their former selves.