The Muralist: A Novel

by B. A. Shapiro

  “I’m not trying to change anything,” Alizée protested. “I just saw the finished image in my head and had to paint it. I’m an artist. That’s what I do. What we all do. All we can do.”

  “Well, then good. Good for you,” Lee said. “Really.”

  Turned was three feet tall and six feet wide, much smaller than Picasso’s Guernica but a similar shape. Still, it was the largest painting she’d ever attempted. Most challenging, too. After more than two months, it wasn’t close to finished. The library mural swallowed her days, the reversals her evenings, so Turned was a child of the deep night.

  The painting flowed through time from left to right, and also, both literally and metaphorically, from light to dark. On the same plane, it surged from surrealist representation to pure abstraction and back into an emotional realism all its own. The ships, the children, the families, the sea. The nos, the Neins, the turning backs. The transformation into statelessness, hopelessness, and finally, nothingness. In red, white, and blue.

  She’d hoped the project would be cathartic, a way to shift the emotions coiled in her belly to the canvas. And although she believed Turned drew its power from these feelings, there had been no dislodging, no lessening within her. If anything, as the days progressed, she was more distressed than ever. Sometimes it was a battle to get out of bed and other times it was a battle to go to sleep. Work, her usual remedy, was of little help.

  She glanced at the clock. Mark was late. Or he wasn’t coming. He’d been struggling badly over the past couple of months. The ups, the downs, the look in his eye that told her he was in there but couldn’t get out. Disappearing for days, not completing his work, refusing to talk to anyone, including her. And when he did, he was cranky and argumentative, rude, sometimes aggressive. His symptoms might be different from hers, but she recognized the underlying similarities.

  A pounding on the door. It sounded upbeat. She covered Turned and let Mark in. He had no idea she was working on a political. He’d been depressed almost the entire time she’d been painting it, and small things could set him off, so she just told him it wasn’t ready to show yet. She knew he would never look until invited.

  And indeed he was upbeat. More than upbeat. He was as vibrant and cheerful as she’d seen him in a long time. “Eureka!” he cried, gathering her up in his arms.

  “I have found it!” He kissed her hard on the mouth, let her go, and then spun himself to the other side of the room.

  She laughed. “And what exactly is it you’ve found?”

  “The compositional potential. The emotional content. It all becomes possible when your preconceptions are put away.” He grabbed one of the reversals. “Like this. Like you figured out. It’s when you’re not looking, when it comes looking for you.”

  She sat on the mattress and patted a spot next to her. “Start from the beginning.”

  He sat, nuzzled her neck, then jumped up again. “I used your idea. But instead of looking for objects, I went looking for emotions. Emotions in color and emotions in shape. But like you warned me, I couldn’t see them when I looked.” His eyes glistened with pleasure. “I had to wait for them to find me!”

  She stood and wrapped her arms around him. “A breakthrough.” He felt warm, almost feverish in his delight. She recognized élan when she saw it.

  He whirled away. “More than a breakthrough. A crossing to the other side. A seeing like I’ve never seen before. Colors conjured in space like we’re conjured in our own lives. Just like Jung says. It all grows out of our collective unconscious. Swimming within something so much larger and greater. So great it can’t be comprehended by the color or the shape or by us, yet it is us.”

  Someone else might perceive Mark’s words as nonsense, but she recognized the mania and understood exactly what he meant. That’s what she’d experienced with her reversals. Her images, like his colors and shapes, did seem to emerge from nothingness into somethingness, and the process felt both magical and purposeful. He’d just expressed it far better than she ever could. “Mark . . .”

  He stopped roaming the room and came to her, immediately apprehending what she hadn’t said. He knelt in front of her, linked his hands around her waist and pressed his face into her belly. “It’s you, Zée,” he murmured. “It’s us. We’re muse to muse.”

  His warm breath through her thin pants buckled her knees. They made love, but it was beyond the fusing of bodies. It was the fusing of artistic souls.

  She couldn’t have been more surprised when she received a note from Mrs. Roosevelt’s secretary informing her that the First Lady was sorry she’d missed her visit and wanted to reschedule. Alizée had assumed Mrs. Roosevelt had forgotten all about her, and was thrilled on many counts. Primarily because the visit might provide an opportunity to ask for help with the visas.

  “This is quite an education you’re giving me, my dear,” Mrs. Roosevelt said as they circled the flat while Alizée tried to explain what she was doing with the paintings. Although not all that much taller than Alizée, it seemed as if the First Lady towered over her, her presence as large as her standing in the world. “And quite a pleasure to see your work now that I understand it better.”

  Alizée searched for an opportunity to bring up the visas but so far had found none. “I’m thrilled you found the time to look into abstraction. John Marin’s Bryant Square is one of my favorites, too.”

  “It was a marvelous moment when I finally began to see,” the First Lady said. “When it started to crack open. If only a little.”

  “I think lots of people would like abstract art if they took the time to look at it.”

  “That’s certainly true of me. I’ll have to get my friend Harry Hopkins up here so that you can educate him, too.”

  Alizée cleared her throat. “I’d, ah, I’d hate for you to think I would ever impose on you for a special favor, but there’s something I just have to ask—”

  “And what’s this?” Mrs. Roosevelt asked, standing in front of Turned. “It looks very different.”

  “It is. Inspired by current events. Something I’ve never done before. Much larger, too.”

  Mrs. Roosevelt’s brow furrowed as she stared at the painting. She looked at Alizée, then returned her attention to the canvas.

  “I’m trying to draw the viewer into—”

  The First Lady held up her hand. “If you tell me then I won’t be discovering it for myself. And I won’t be able to really experience it.”

  Alizée fell silent, impressed by Mrs. Roosevelt’s perceptiveness.

  “It’s the St. Louis, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I know that’s a bad first question, that it’s the emotional impact you want from me, not the intellectual. And that’s there, too. ‘In spades,’ as my friend Hick would say. The St. Louis is a particular heartache for me.”

  “It’s all the horrors rolled into one. Not just guns and soldiers but families . . .” Alizée’s voice grew hoarse. “The children.”

  “And the world’s refusal to help. It breaks my heart to think we turned our backs when they asked so little of us.”

  “I’m calling it Turned.”

  Their eyes met, and Mrs. Roosevelt said, “It hurts to look at it, but I can’t stop looking.” She swept her hand over the width of the painting. “By this dreadfulness into this, this emptiness . . .”

  “My cousin and her family were on it,” Alizée blurted.

  The First Lady snapped around. “Where are they now?”

  “Antwerp. At least the Belgian government was willing to take them in. They’re working with Jewish agencies, but we don’t know how long they’ll be safe there.”

  “You’re Jewish?” Mrs. Roosevelt appeared surprised, then concerned.

  “Yes.”

  “And your family, the family who took care of you after your parents died, they’re still in France?”

  Alizée nodded.

  “Have they made plans to leave?”

  “They’d do anythin
g to come here,” she said in a rush. “I’ve been trying for months to get them visas, but so far nothing. My uncle’s on the ERC list—the Emergency Rescue Committee—but he’s far down. I’ve offered to pay them for visas for my brother, aunt, and cousin, but the director hasn’t approved it. I’ve got the money for one, saving for the second. The director hasn’t said no yet, and he’s had the opportunity, so I’m hoping he’s going to let me do it.”

  Mrs. Roosevelt’s expression told Alizée she believed this was unlikely.

  Alizée had planned to be subtler, but now it spewed out. “Is there anything you could possibly do to help them? Please. I . . . we . . . we’re all very scared.” She reached for her mother’s ring, but of course it wasn’t there. “I . . . I don’t know where else to turn.”

  “Their names are Benoit?” The First Lady took out a small notepad and pencil from her pocketbook. “What are their first names?”

  “Henri, Edouard, Chantal, and Alain Benoit. And my cousins are Monteux: Babette, Pierre, and their little girls, Sophie and Gabrielle. In Antwerp. The others are in Arles. Arles, France. Except for my uncle.” Alizée hesitated as Mrs. Roosevelt wrote the names down, gathering strength. “He was arrested and sent to a detention camp outside Paris last November.”

  “For what?”

  “For being a communist.”

  “Which he isn’t?” Mrs. Roosevelt placed a hand on Alizée’s shoulder.

  Alizée felt the First Lady’s sympathy through the warmth of her palm. This was a woman who appreciated, really appreciated, her terror of losing her family for a second time. “No,” she managed to say around the lump in her throat. “Not a communist.”

  Mrs. Roosevelt dropped her notepad into her pocketbook and clicked it shut. “Unfortunately, I know the ERC has very limited resources, but I did talk with a young congressman the other day who confided he’s getting visas to Polish Jews and secretly bringing them into the country through the port of Galveston, Texas. This is, of course, very dangerous business, and frankly I was surprised he took me into his confidence—not that my sympathies aren’t well known.”

  “Do you think he could do it in France?”

  “There are so many over there who need help . . .” The First Lady smiled sadly. “But there’s no harm in asking now, is there?”

  “No, no,” Alizée stammered, overwhelmed by Mrs. Roosevelt’s many kindnesses. “No harm.”

  “What’s the price for this one?” Mrs. Roosevelt asked.

  “Price?” Alizée was confused. “For what?”

  “Why the painting, of course.”

  “Turned? If you want it, it’s a gift. Of course, a gift. The lily pads, too. It’s the least I can do when you’re—”

  “Absolutely not,” Mrs. Roosevelt interrupted. “I won’t take either unless you allow me to buy them. Does one hundred dollars for the pair seem fair?”

  “One hundred dollars?” This was an absurd amount, a third of a visa.

  “Sold,” the First Lady declared. “I won’t be able to put Turned in the White House, it’s far too controversial for that. But I could hang it at Val-Kill . . .”

  “Val-Kill?”

  “My house in upstate New York. It’s in Hyde Park, on the Roosevelt family estate.” She paused. “Perhaps I could have a get-together. A bit out of character, but we can come up with some plausible excuse.”

  “You have your own house there?” Alizée felt like a fool for her repetitive questions, but she was having difficulty grasping the enormity of what was being offered and needed some extra time to take it all in.

  Mrs. Roosevelt stood back, studied the painting, then turned to Alizée. “I’ll invite a number of artistic types, you and your friend Miss Krasner included, and some others who share our opinions—and some who don’t. People who have the power to make things happen. Turned might be able to get them to think. To talk. Possibly raise awareness of the danger of doing nothing.”

  Although raising awareness was part of the purpose of any political painting, Alizée had created Turned as an expression of her own turmoil, not as a political device. “You think people will take it seriously?”

  The First Lady’s smile was mischievous. “That’s where I come in.”

  Alizée, for once, was speechless.

  Mrs. Roosevelt laughed merrily. It was the first time Alizée had heard her laugh, and it was a lovely, throaty sound. “It’s a remarkable work, my dear. And now we shall see if we can put it to work.”

  As if Mrs. Roosevelt’s largess wasn’t enough, the following week the WPA/FAP informed her that Light in America was not just going to be hung at the New York Public Library but officially installed on the evening of December 23 during a gala fête to kick off a six-month celebration commemorating the library’s fortieth birthday. She was dazed, bedazzled.

  “And it’s only up from here.” Mark raised his beer, and everyone at the table followed suit. “Once everyone sees what Alizée can do, there’s nowhere else for her to go.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” Jack said.

  “You’ll drink to anything,” Lee said.

  Jack grinned. “But for our wonder girl here, I’ll drink twice.” And he did.

  “Enough,” Alizée said. “You keep this up and my head’s going to get so big I won’t be able to get it through the door of my flat.”

  “Of all the damn luck,” Gorky grumbled, but everyone knew it was his way of congratulating her.

  Bill leaned over and kissed her on each cheek. “Couldn’t happen to a better person. Or to a better artist.”

  This was making her uncomfortable. “It’s seven months away. In France, there’s a saying, ‘Ne pas vendre la peau de l’ours avant de l’avoir tué,’ which roughly translates to ‘Don’t sell the bear’s fur until you’ve shot the bear.’ ”

  Mark stood and raised her arms like a winning prizefighter. “I say we sell the fur and count the eggs. That we celebrate what’s happening now.”

  She wrestled her hands from his grip but had to laugh. Their response to her good luck was touching.

  “I’ll drink to that,” Jack said.

  Lee looked up at the ceiling, and Alizée watched her carefully. After Igor moved to Florida, she’d noticed the heat between Lee and Jack increase. Although their exchanges were mostly sarcastic, and Lee claimed Jack was the most loathsome boy she’d ever met, Alizée had the feeling that Lee “doth protest too much.” As much as Alizée adored Jack, it was clear he’d make an awful boyfriend.

  Louise Bothwell, along with Becky Tomlin, who Jack referred to as Louise’s lap dog, came up to the table. “Alizée,” Louise said, “I heard a rumor that the First Lady—or should I say First Prune?—bought one of your paintings, but I wasn’t going to believe it until I heard it straight from the horse’s mouth.”

  Mark, who still stood behind Alizée, put his hands on her shoulders, gave a playful squeeze, and said to Louise, “You, as always, have your ear to the ground, don’t you? Could it be your father’s famous friends keeping you up to date? Or are they too busy making more money than Midas on the backs of the workers?”

  Louise and Becky exchanged glances. They were both from wealthy Connecticut families. “What’s eating you, Rothko?” Louise asked. “I’m just asking Alizée a question.”

  “The answer is yes,” Alizée said quickly. She didn’t think Louise was such a bad egg. Although she couldn’t understood why, given Louise’s snobbery and conservatism, she’d chosen to bamboozle her way into the WPA and spend her days with poverty-stricken socialist artists.

  “Not only did Mrs. Roosevelt buy Alizée’s painting,” Mark continued, “for a lot of money, I might add, but the First Lady’s going to throw a party for it at her house. And invite lots of art types and political powerhouses.”

  “Why, that’s fabulous.” Louise swooped down and gave Alizée a hug. “That’s just marvelous. But a party for a single painting? I never heard of such a thing.”

  “Me either,” Alizée agreed. �
��It was Mrs. Roosevelt’s idea.”

  “Turned raises interesting questions about current events,” Lee said as if she actually agreed with its underlying premise.

  “So she bought it for the politics.” Louise’s relief was obvious.

  “She bought it because it’s a masterpiece,” Mark corrected, as if he’d actually seen it.

  22

  ALIZÉE & LEE

  A month after Germany invaded France, and days after Paris fell, Alizée received the most disturbing letter to date.

  1 June 1940

  Pyrenees, Spain

  Ma petite soeur,

  I am sorry to tell you that I am on the run. This is the first opportunity I have had to write and as another may not come again for a very long time, I will tell you everything I know. I am currently hiding in a barn in northern Spain and the kind farmer here has given me paper and pen and promised to mail all the letters I write. I hope at least some arrive safely.

  I went to visit Oncle at Drancy right after the Germans invaded. I know it was foolish, but we needed to make sure he had not been shipped off to the camps. Or worse. I was led by a soldier who looked no older than Alain through the filthy prison toward the room where I had spoken with Oncle before.

  But instead of taking me there, the boy pressed a bayonet into my back and shoved me into a foul-smelling closet. “Rot like the rest of your kind, kike,” he said, and then locked me in.

  It was stiflingly hot and smelled so bad I was sure I would vomit, making it that much worse. I have no idea how long I was in there, but it was long enough that I was so thirsty I was ready to pee in the least smelly boot—if there was such a thing—and drink the urine. I was spared this additional indignity when the door was thrown open. I was yanked out and thrown onto the concrete floor.

  A lumbering German soldier with sweat running down his bloated face stood over me, gun in hand. His expression was so filled with hatred that I was sure I was a dead man.

  Instead of shooting me, the soldier started yelling. I know enough German to understand he ordering me to stand up and walk. With his gun in my back, I did, although my arms and legs were so stiff and numb from the closet, I could barely stagger in front of him. But as I pulled the comparatively fresh air into my lungs, my head began to clear. I was alive, I was not in handcuffs, and from the sound of the panting soldier behind me, I could outrun him. Of course, there was nowhere to go. And the man had a gun.