“Or replace the Carignan with Syrah,” said M. Bayly.
“As on the Rhône.”
“And then perhaps, bring some Mourvèdre back, for strength during shipment.”
“Ah, M. Thomas,” said M. Fauberge, pleased with his apprentice’s ambitions, however impractical. “I cannot encourage our poor Mourvèdre. Even the Spanish are giving up on it.”
“M. Murat agrees with you,” said Thomas with a slight laugh.
Xavier liked Thomas Bayly; there was a reserve about him, and from time to time after they had ended a conversation he would linger, as if there were more to say, which made Xavier feel he had missed something. Perhaps there was a touch of melancholy about him—this was M. Fauberge’s argument in his favor—but it actually seemed that during these odd pauses he was simply rethinking. There was nothing—nothing—weak about this man; even Marceline seemed to be relenting in her earlier dim view of him. He took himself seriously, but nothing made him laugh harder and more heartily than his own mistakes, his own foolish misapprehensions. Bayly was a man who did not smile so readily, but when he did, his whole face transformed: a mouth that tended downward reversed direction; eyes twinkled. How could one not enjoy the easy hours when working side by side with such a man?
And then the summer was upon them. June was too hot, too dry. Xavier and Bayly both worried about the new Terret vines—now this was an ancient grape Xavier could get completely behind—but they would be driving their roots deep, looking for moisture in the shale, and if they survived, they would be bringing the flavors of the earth into their fruit from the very first vendanges. Little Randall, just over a year old, was full of health, and if Marceline was right, Madame was early into her next pregnancy. M. Arthur was in Paris; they missed him and hoped he would be back soon. M. Bayly was still talking about Mourvèdre, but Xavier believed they would have to buy a holding on the opposite slope—he did, in fact, have one in mind—because their terrain was too dry for Mourvèdre. Pourquoi pas l’Aspiran? A fine grape not extensively replanted after the blight. Or perhaps, suggested Xavier, Morrastel-Bouschet, a crossing with our own Graciano made by M. Bouschet fils just up the coast in Mauguio? Early ripening? Fine color? Oh, said Bayly, far too much Aramon in its lineage, and Xavier had to agree.
* * *
When Arthur returned to Paris that July, he did not reenter in triumph, but he could ride in with some success. Within an hour of arriving, he went to Galignani’s and then up the avenue de l’Opéra to the new Brentano’s, where he saw displayed prominently his book of drawings, Les vignerons de St. Adelelmus. He thumbed through the book in both stores and each time was surprised by the strange warmth inherent in these line portraits of people at their trades; he wasn’t quite sure what had guided his hand to achieve such a result. As far as money was concerned, this was the first time in almost three years that he had earned anything at all. Three years with no income was scandalous to him but miraculous: it made him feel positively aristocratic, but it also showed how little you needed if you reduced your living expenses to zero. What he had spent money on—his paper, his pencils, and now, one of the reasons for this trip, his photographic equipment—was all part of a deep investment that, improbably, seemed to be paying off. Totally abandoning hope, continuing only because you had no other ideas in your head, recognizing that your youthful self had been a delusional fool: all seemed to be part of a successful artist’s career path. That afternoon he went back to the old Café Badequin with Stanley, and because Stanley had once again placed a painting in the Salon, the new crop of students barely acknowledged him. The young aspiring artist: what a motley tangle of fear and desire. As far as Arthur was concerned, this unwillingness to remark on the success of others was as it should be, as it must be: it was the true marker of victory. For little Stanley Dean from Pittsburgh, being invisible and diffident to a fault came naturally; for Arthur, it was an acquired taste, but it had been acquired all the same.
But no one in the cafés or on the promenades or in the Bois was talking about art that summer. They were talking about Jews. Even in the distant world of the Midi, Arthur had picked up word of some of this—that the unfortunate Colonel Dreyfus was a Jew had not led the story in the provinces quite as it had in Paris—but from the moment Arthur stepped off the train, he sensed that things had changed. The newspaper typesetters were simply grinding their j’s, their u’s, their i’s and f’s down to little smudges on the page; the passersby could now take in Arthur’s heavy Semitic features and all but raise their fists in anger and alarm: Spy! Traitor! Enemy of the Republic! Next stop, Devil’s Island! Arthur could almost persuade himself that he was overimagining it—this was part of his new maturity, part of his sojourn in the South—but Stanley, naive, unsuspecting Stanley, told him that earlier in the summer the three Jews at the Académie Julien—two Americans and an Austrian—had dropped their studies and gone home. “I almost told you not to come,” said Stanley in a whisper.
Arthur felt no need to lower his voice, especially not in English, and especially not to the crowd at the café. “It’s just what they’ve been thinking all along,” he said loudly, casting his glance around the other tables. “Always the Jews, eh? Now they have a scapegoat. Now they can say it aloud.”
Stanley winced. “You think Dreyfus is innocent?” The f in Dreyfus, the f in juif—the conversations overheard in the cafés that summer were fuzzy, like bees.
“I have no idea,” said Arthur. “Does it really matter to anyone but Dreyfus himself whether he is innocent or not?”
“Some people think so. The memorandum was a forgery; it was a trick to find the real spies. The cleaning lady was being paid by the Catholics. Things like that.”
“I wouldn’t expect to see him back from Guiana anytime soon.”
This was all a little worldly for Stanley, and really, so what, thought Arthur. It was always thus. They dropped this, and Arthur was pleased to spend a few moments watching the people, the ladies, passing by. Beal had asked him to tell her what was new in fashion this year, but Arthur didn’t know what had been fashionable last year, so he couldn’t really help. What he did notice was that the outfits seemed a little slimmer, a little less flouncy, sleevy, busty; in other words, they seemed to be dressing more like Beal herself, more the way she’d dressed two years earlier. Two years!
“Everyone is talking about your drawings,” said Stanley.
“Who?” asked Arthur. He couldn’t resist.
“Maître Rodolphe, for one. He says they are captivants. He means it. When I look at them, I feel I am right there in that cooper’s shop. The family scenes are almost too intimate. I had no idea you liked children and dogs so much.”
“Thank you,” Arthur said, trying not to sound too feverish with pleasure. “I think playing with photography showed me something.”
Stanley was not ready to adopt this heresy. “If you say so. But tell me about them.” He meant, of course, Thomas and Beal.
Arthur did his best to describe St. Adelelmus, Thomas the vigneron, Beal the maman. Stanley listened attentively, but Arthur knew there was little about this life that Stanley would understand, much less find appealing. He had regarded Arthur’s provincial dress with horror, which inspired Arthur to play it up. He affected his beret, which attracted attention everywhere he went. Arthur, a man of the garrigue. Imagine!
“What I don’t understand,” said Stanley, “is how you would be willing to live in a goat shed.”
“It sounds primitive, I agree.”
“Don’t they smell?”
“Stanley, I don’t share the place with goats. Calling it a goat shed is kind of a joke. I don’t think there have been goats there for centuries.”
Stanley considered this for a moment and then asked the question Arthur had been waiting for. “She’s happy there?” said Stanley. “Really?”
“Why not? She grew up on a farm.”
“They both grew up on a farm. She was just biding her time.”
“
Where? Here or there?”
“In both places, don’t you think?”
This was actually a perceptive thing for Stanley to say, and Arthur told him so. Arthur wanted to say more, but he couldn’t think of anything to add. He might have wished he had argued the point differently, but he had to let it stand.
“Tell me something,” said Stanley.
“Sure.”
“Why did Beal let you do her portrait and not me? I don’t really care. Neither of us has turned out to be a portraitist. But I’ve always wondered.”
“Well,” said Arthur, “that makes two of us. Never could figure it out.”
Arthur was staying in a horrible little hotel not far from his former studio, which was fine for him, though he realized that his life at St. Adelelmus had forever changed his thinking about city life. Light and wind, as Thomas had said once—it is unnatural to live without either. Still, in the darkness and dankness and the back alleys there were several people he wanted to catch up with, some perhaps less presentable than others. He hardly remembered the names of the girls he had once passed time with—no grandes horizontales for Arthur, just a glass of absinthe and a quick poke—but he knew where to find them. One of the former models from the Académie came back to his hotel with him, and he was almost repelled now by her scrawny body, her pale skin. Beholding her, he recalled Thomas telling him that if he didn’t have syphilis already, it was something he wanted to avoid. When the time came to enter her, he simply backed off; there was nothing here worth risking anything. She was confused but dutifully took care of him by hand; Arthur leaned back to take what pleasure he could, but he encouraged his mind to wander into a healthier and more erotic tableau, substituting the image of Jouselet, the baker’s assistant in the village, with whom he had spent several very pleasant hours in her father’s hayloft.
Though he did not want to—in the height of the Dreyfus controversy, he now had even more reason to shun the Catholic Church—Arthur had promised Thomas and Beal that he would look in on the old nun, and thus one hot morning in July he announced himself at the gatehouse at the Hôtel Biron. The porter was a broken-down, suspicious little weasel—Juif! Arthur saw the cry in his eyes—but what Arthur noticed more was his shabby suit and the general atmosphere of decay on the property. Hedges were untrimmed. The shutters on the gatehouse were peeling, and as he approached the main building, it seemed that this very morning—the slates were lying in a jumble—a small section of the roof had given way.
He was directed to the kitchen door, but he did not take immediate offense to this as he knew that Madame Bernault was now living in that wing. At length one of those terrible nuns appeared and said, in adequate English, that Mother Lucy was in her room and would be willing to see him. She seemed surprised by this. He followed her through the kitchens, through the heat of the stoves and the chill of the ice rooms, and was shown the door to Madame Bernault’s room.
She was sitting down, but even so, Arthur could see through the folds of her habit that she had lost weight, that she was doing what his beloved great-grandmother had done, which was to become more and more birdlike, until the day, it seemed, she had simply flown away.
She greeted him warmly. “Mr. Kravitz,” she said. “This is very kind of you.”
Arthur didn’t know quite how to respond. “It’s my pleasure,” he said.
“Please. Sit down,” she said. Her room was spare—her bed, a small dresser, and two stiff chairs—but it was dominated by a large window through which the sun was pouring. The chair was a spindly little thing; Arthur felt like a bear in this place, a bear trying to say and do the right thing.
“Beal was sorry to hear that you had to give up your room in the attic,” he said.
“God has taken away my sense of balance,” she answered. “Most of the time I feel as if I’m floating. It’s not totally unpleasant.”
Arthur smiled. Such unquestioning good cheer—where did it come from? None of this was in the Semitic worldview, at least what he knew of it. “But I am sure you’re more comfortable here,” he said.
“I resisted being moved, but between you and me, this is much better. I can go outside anytime I want without getting one of the lay sisters to help me downstairs.” Arthur thought he might mention that the grounds seemed a bit gone to seed, but she jumped to it herself. “Of course, nothing is quite as it was. You know the government is trying to close our schools.”
“Maybe I’d heard something about that,” he said. “I’m not sure.”
“Anytime the French get uncomfortable, they lash out at the religious. It’s been that way for a hundred years.”
Arthur had not expected to enter into politics. “We live in a time of strife, I think,” he said. “I am struck by this here in Paris. The Midi just goes along as it always has.”
She cut right to the chase. “Colonel Dreyfus is innocent,” she said. “Jews. Catholics. Forces are trying to turn us against each other, but we are all under attack.”
“That seems the way of it,” he said.
Madame Bernault retreated for a moment into her own thoughts and then came back. “I have heard about your drawings. I am so pleased for you. I want you to know that, Mr. Kravitz. Your success gives me joy.”
Arthur was a bit overcome. He thanked her; before he got too excited that his acclaim had traveled into the back halls of a convent, he realized that Thomas or Beal would have told her this news in a letter. But still, these days, this was an easy entry into Arthur’s heart. “I have been given a second chance. I am trying to make the best of it, trying to be worthy of it.” This struck him as a rather clerical way to put it, but it was how he felt.
“Tell me about our friends. Tell me everything,” she said.
Arthur did, followed the rough outlines of his conversation with Stanley. Arthur was getting a little tired of this, and as long as he had come over from the Quarter, he had planned his next stop as a call on the Richards, where he knew he would have to go over it all again, though in that case, he was promised a fine lunch. But he felt the privilege of being the bearer of the news, and he talked for perhaps ten minutes, a long spiel for him. He had brought her a gift of a photograph of Thomas and Beal and Randall, and while he talked, she held it in her tiny hand. A few times she responded to what he said by raising the photograph to her eyes and studying it, as if she were looking for clues, signs to prove or disprove his report. Which she was.
“They look well,” she said. “The baby is mignon.”
“Yes. You’d hardly recognize Thomas. So much has changed for him.”
She studied the photograph again. “I never doubted him. He has all his sister’s talents, but he’s a kinder person. He understands the world better.”
“I’m not much for wine, but his ideas seem good.”
“Yes,” she said. “And…”
And Beal, she meant. They both knew the conversation would end with Beal, that whatever their differences, they could recognize in each other one who loved her and worried about her as much as the other. “She had a dip in her mood after the baby was born, but this happens, don’t you think?”
“Certainly,” said Madame Bernault. “I’m told that happens. A few moments of adjustment must be expected.” Her mind appeared to wander a bit. “If you could have seen her that first day, three years ago, when she came off that steamer. So frightened, but so resolute. So young, so beautiful. A child not ready for any of this.”
“I have never seen her as a child. Sometimes the things she says seem to come from a much older person. Sort of a spirit trapped in a girl’s body.” Arthur tried to stop there, but knew he owed her a fuller account. “She gets confused, and sometimes she listens to the wrong person.”
“Ah,” she said, as if she knew all too well what he meant. He let her reflect on this for a moment. “Is she listening to anyone now? A wrong person?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
“But—”
“Mother Lucy,” he said, real
izing that this was the first time he’d ever presumed to, or wanted to, call her by that name, “I would be talking out of turn to say anything more.”
“She confides in you, yes?”
“We talk, she and I. I think it helps her. She loves Thomas far too much to speak her fears. But she hasn’t confided anything in me lately. Really.”
She ignored the unnecessary “really.” “I am glad you are there,” she said. She stopped, and there was a long pause. She had put the photograph on her dresser, and now she reached for it but decided not to pick it up. “There is nothing we can do but let her find the way. Find her way. I have told her all this.”
She was tired, and Arthur took his leave after promising to convey every ounce of best wishes and blessings back to St. Adelelmus. He retraced his steps down the drive to the gatehouse, and this time the porter struck him as nothing other than sad, almost sorry to see a guest, any guest, even a Jew, leave the premises. This whole edifice was crumbling, the institution collapsing in its own gravitational pull, and nothing could stop it. Arthur knew all about gravity, about being pulled down and back, and now—miracle—as he walked out the gate, he could feel himself pulling free, escaping a final demise.
He enjoyed his walk over to the Lion d’Or, recalling with disbelief that he had once, in this neighborhood, stalked Beal, that he had trailed that African who was likewise stalking Beal. Turning a corner, he trod over the precise spot where she had caught him following her. A few weeks earlier he had dragged himself over to the Louvre and into the main gallery, and finally he stood in a similar spot of shame in front of the marble bench where he had blackmailed her into sitting for him. Two American ladies were perched there, and they looked up warily as he lingered.
Thomas and Beal in the Midi Page 32