The Muralist: A Novel

by B. A. Shapiro

  Nicolas beamed at me. “A remarkable woman.”

  “I was curious if she had any other paintings,” I said, at a loss as to what exactly I was doing here, what it was I wanted from this man or his mother’s paintings.

  “There are others. Not many. And they are small. Up until the very end she is always caring for the grandchildren and the bakeries. She does not have extra hours for painting. She is strong, but she is also, how do you say? Shaky?”

  “Fragile?” I suggested.

  “Yes, yes, both at the same time. It is not a good thing to push her to do more. She pushes herself too much.” Nicolas’s eyes clouded. She once tells me if she had another life she would be an artist, but she is not sorry. This life is for her children.”

  So many reasons not to paint. “Your mother’s paintings remind me of another artist. Someone whose work I admire.”

  “I am sorry to tell you I know nothing about art.” He tilted his head to the side. “Is this artist why you are asking about my mother’s paintings?”

  Was this why I was asking about her paintings? Hell if I knew. “My aunt, great-aunt actually, is the other artist, also very good, probably around your mother’s age. I’ve been looking for her.”

  “You believe she is still alive?” Nicolas asked gently.

  “No, no, I don’t think she’s alive. I just want to know what happened to her. She was Jewish. Here during the war.”

  “You come from the museum.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Yes.”

  “And there is nothing there to help you?”

  I shook my head and tried to keep the tears at bay.

  “I am sorry for that,” Nicolas said, then perked up a bit. “We are Catholics, but my family is in the resistance. We are proud of this.”

  “As you should be.” I’d heard many more people claimed to have been in the French resistance than the actual numbers supported and hoped the Villeneuves were the real thing.

  “My father speaks of this only now. The war and before is not a discussion. It is only recently that we know what he and my grandfather did.”

  Sounded familiar. The things you needed to do to keep on living after you had seen the depths of man’s inhumanity. “Your father’s still alive?”

  “He does not move much, but he is, how do you say?” Nicolas smiled shyly. “Sharp as a nail?”

  “As a tack.” There was something very appealing about this man. “That must be nice for you.”

  “Sometime is nice. Other time it is not. Ninety-six years and he is too much with his nose in my business.”

  “My mother’s like that, too. Drives me crazy.”

  We smiled at each other, bonding over our annoying, but well-loved, parents.

  “My father,” Nicolas said. “He is Matthieu. Maman’s paintings are in his house. He would like to show them to you.”

  I checked my watch. The next bus was in fifteen minutes, and I’d wasted too much of Nicolas’s time already. Mine also. Still, I was reluctant to go. “I’ve got to catch the train back to Paris, but thank you.”

  Nicolas looked crestfallen. “This is too bad. He likes very much to talk about my mother. We children do not listen enough.”

  I hesitated. It wasn’t as if I had anything pressing in Paris. And looking at these paintings made me happy. Or at least happier. It was clear I could use more of that. I was also curious about an untrained artist this talented. What she might have been able to accomplish had she lived in a different place, in a later time.

  “You don’t think he’d mind?”

  Matthieu Villeneuves appeared to have what used to be called a clubfoot. Or was it still called that? But that probably wasn’t it anyway. More likely a war injury. Even though he was pulled into himself, more the shape of an apostrophe than a man, I saw immediately that he was, indeed, as sharp as a nail.

  “You are the American artist,” he said, speaking better English than his son. “Welcome.”

  I wanted to correct him, tell him I wasn’t an artist at all, just a cataloguer of art, but there seemed no point. “Thank you. You’re kind to let me come over and see your wife’s work.”

  “Not kind,” Mr. Villeneuves said with a sparkle in his pale blue eyes. “I am an old man and no one listens to me. Especially my children. You like to hear me talk, I let you come over.”

  Nicolas gave me a meaningful look and left to return to the bakery. A caretaker was knitting in the corner.

  “Nicolas tells me you like my Josephine’s paintings.” Mr. Villeneuves’s smile was melancholy. “She is a fine painter.”

  “Very fine. Nicolas said she never studied art. She must have been an amazing talent to do this kind of work without any training. It’s incredible.”

  Mr. Villeneuves beamed at me just as Nicolas had, and the resemblance was strong. “You wish to see her other paintings?”

  “I’d love to.” I eyed his wheelchair. “If it’s not too much for you.”

  “Renée,” he called to the caretaker. “S’il vous plaît?”

  Renée stood and pushed his wheelchair from the parlor into a wide hallway that led to the back of the house. On the wall were five paintings, which I immediately recognized as Josephine’s. As Nicolas had said, they were small and appeared unrelated to each other, unlike the six at the gallery. But they were powerful, more powerful than the others. Color and emotion and light pulsed from the canvases, and the more I looked at them, the more I saw. The more I felt. Complex. Compelling. Masterful. Beguiling.

  “In the beginning I told her to paint more,” Mr. Villeneuves was saying. “But she said she would not.”

  “How could someone who paints like this not want to do it all the time? If I had a fraction of this talent I’d never do anything but.”

  “My Josephine was not always well. She had been through much and could make things bigger in her head. Especially about anything that reminded her of before the war. Which was when she had painted. I admired her work very much, but it was best not to upset her. She was complicated.”

  I nodded. One of the paintings, a study in blues and yellows, intrigued me. I walked closer, and tears pricked at the backs of my eyes. I saw, felt, my last two days mirrored in its center. But there was more than just the sadness, although there was much of that. I stepped back to get a broader perspective, and astoundingly, I was taken over by the opposite of sadness. Optimism? It was as if Josephine had painted her way out of that darkness or, more precisely, painted herself into a place where the darkness wasn’t complete.

  “She was also a very good baker,” he added. “A very good mother. And a very good wife.”

  I studied the other paintings and realized that although they weren’t pieces of one work like those in the gallery, they were still very much related. But the relationship wasn’t physical, it was thematic. Everywhere I looked, I saw transformation. Abstracted transformation. Light into dark. In the blue and yellow one, dark into light, or at least lighter. A smaller thing into a larger thing. A tree, perhaps, returned into a seedling. A Milky Way–like spiral moving and changing, evolving, coming apart. I could almost taste the colors.

  “I wish she had done more,” I finally said, not taking my eyes from the paintings. “They’re completely magnetic.” I paused. “Life.”

  “She did do more.”

  I turned to Mr. Villeneuves. “Do you have them? Are they here?”

  “Not pictures,” he said with a smile. “A family. Josephine devoted her life to us. Once there was nothing and now there is everything.”

  An ordinary life, well lived. I rested my hand on the old man’s shoulder, grateful that I’d stumbled into these paintings, this family, at this particular moment. “Her work reminds me of another French artist. Alizée Benoit. They were probably about the same age. Josephine didn’t know her, did she? Ever mention her to you?”

  Mr. Villeneuves blinked, looked perplexed. I’d clearly startled him, bumped him out of thoughts of his beloved Josephine. He shook his
head slowly. “No. I do not believe so.”

  “I came here today, to Drancy, to try to find out what happened to Alizée. She was my great-aunt. Except for my grandfather, the rest of her—my—family were all killed. The other names are listed at the Paris Holocaust Memorial, but hers isn’t.”

  He was silent for a long moment, and I could see that my visit had tired him. “It was a terrible time,” he finally said.

  There wasn’t much more to add, so I explained that I had to get back to Paris to make arrangements to go to New York. “I’d planned to stay longer,” I surprised myself by telling him. “But the last couple of days have been difficult and, well, after my meeting tomorrow I think I’d just like to go home.”

  “Then I am even more sorry,” he said. “If Paris cannot make an artist happy, then your days must indeed have been very difficult.”

  Somehow I didn’t feel like an impostor this time, didn’t feel the need to correct him. Seeing these paintings, hearing Josephine’s story, being with this gentle man, made me feel more like I was an artist. Or maybe that I could be. “I’m staying at a hotel near the Louvre. Maybe I should stay another day or so . . .”

  “What is the name of the hotel?” he asked.

  “The Tonic Hotel on rue du Roule. Do you know it?”

  “The Tonic Hotel,” he repeated. “It is a very long time since I have been to Paris. My Josephine did not like to travel. Even such short a distance.”

  So much for her being influenced by Parisian museums. I took his gnarled hands in mine. “I can’t tell you how much this has meant to me. I’m not completely sure why, but seeing Josephine’s paintings, talking to you, well, well, it’s eased the pain. A little.”

  “I am glad to hear this.” Mr. Villeneuves squeezed my fingers. “It has also meant much to me.”

  53

  ALIZÉE, 1940

  After she’d slept for almost forty-eight hours and wolfed down a huge breakfast, Alizée found Mrs. Delahanty and told her she wanted to sign herself out.

  “I know it’s not easy to be here,” the nurse protested, “but with your symptoms, your exhaustion, it really isn’t a good idea to leave so soon.”

  But Alizée was adamant. She felt much better. Mark had exaggerated her symptoms. She’d just needed a bit of rest. She would be fine. Ultimately, there was nothing Mrs. Delahanty could do. Alizée was a voluntary admission, which meant she could request release at any time. When the nurse saw there was no persuading her, she returned Alizée’s things and even called for a taxi to take her to the train station. Alizée was a little sorry to say good-bye to her.

  She had the key to the ERC apartment in her pocketbook, and as the train bumped toward the city, she decided she would go directly there. It had only been three days since she’d left to meet Mark, although it seemed much longer, so the paint can was probably still there. And this way she’d avoid having to go to the office and talk to Mr. Fleishman, who was sure to be full of both questions and admonitions, neither of which she was anxious to hear. Although she was still being cautious, watching the taxi driver closely, staying in the shadows in the train station, scrutinizing the passengers in the car for police or anyone who looked suspicious, she wasn’t weighed down by fear. Her route had been too circuitous over the past few days. No one could be following her.

  They would have had to trail her the entire time, from her flat to the Haven, to the ERC office, to the apartment, back to her flat, to Lee’s, and then to Bloom. Even given Nathan’s arrest, it didn’t seem likely; he wasn’t the type to point fingers. Even if the police had found out about the ANL connection or that Long had been interviewed by a Sun reporter named Babette Pierre right before he was shot. How would they ever put it together? Connect it to her? And who knew, maybe the fire had just been a fire, a faulty furnace or electrical wire as Mark had suggested.

  But most tellingly, she didn’t feel the eyes. She felt free, loose, unencumbered. She was going to France. She was going to meet Varian Fry. She was going to talk to Gaston Begnaud, Oncle’s friend from university, and find Tante and Alain. Go to Drancy for Oncle. Antwerp, if necessary, for Babette and her family. Bring them all back here.

  The apartment was exactly as she’d left it. Her suitcase, the paint can, the blanket she’d huddled under in the living room corner. Her ship was scheduled to leave at 6:00 p.m. that evening. She took a quick bath, folded the blanket back in the closet, slipped the ticket and money and papers into her pocketbook, left the key on the kitchen table, and headed for the pier, suitcase in hand.

  It was brutally cold with an icy wind whipping off the river, but Alizée didn’t feel it. It was as if there was a furnace inside her, warming her, pressing her forward. Christmas lights flickered down the long avenue, and shoppers bustled by, distracted but happier than in years past. Alizée raised a hand to hail a taxi, filled with a lightness she hadn’t experienced since she’d received the letter about Oncle’s arrest.

  But when she looked down the wide street and saw nested mirrors within nested mirrors, infinity leading into infinity, the lightness vanished. All the storefronts and windows were mirrors. The cars. The streetlights. Reflective surfaces all, her image at the center of every one. Likenesses. Replications. Reproductions. But all different. All distorted. She was distorted. In black-and-white. Her arm raised. Her back turned. Walking. Running. She was Maman in one, Babette in another. Mark. Mr. Fleishman. A cop. They were coming after her.

  A cab pulled up, and she jumped in, dropped low in the back seat so none of the reflections could see her. They would think she was going to the port, but she’d outsmart them. “Times Square,” she said. Times Square was good. Busy. Lots of taxis. She’d hop out of this one, zigzag a few blocks, grab another to the ship. If they were still with her, she’d lose them in the crowd. She could do this. She would do this. They were not going to stop her.

  And they didn’t. When the ship steamed out of New York Harbor, exhilaration flooded through her, and she laughed out loud. She was watched over, protected, she saw that now. It was her parents. She could go anywhere she wanted, and they would make sure she would be safe. And once she found the family, they would be safe, too. Thank you, Maman. Thank you, Papa.

  Alizée didn’t laugh for long. She’d booked a steerage ticket in order to save her money for bribes and quickly found that it was nothing like the second-class crossings she’d enjoyed before. She was on the lowest deck, below the waterline, and a storm hit early on, the hatches battened down. No access to the upper decks, no ventilation, no light and lots of seasickness, a condition to which she was prone.

  She had no sense of time passing, only of retching and retching again until there was nothing more to retch, but still the spasms came. She slipped into sleep whenever she could, rolling and dropping with the heaving waves, sliding her way apathetically through endless days, indifferent to her own survival.

  A tiny woman force-fed her gruel. Not that Alizée cared. At first she wondered why the woman was so intent on keeping her alive, but soon she stopped wondering. As she stopped wondering about everything. She ate when the woman brought her food, drank when she brought water, used the bucket when necessary and slept the rest of the time. It was cold, then hot, then cold again, but she couldn’t feel her body anymore, so the temperature didn’t matter. She floated above herself, mindless and mute, a ghost.

  She was in France. She recognized the landscape, the trees, the smell and the angle of the sun. Southern France. She thought this was where she wanted to be, but wasn’t sure why. The tiny woman had helped her buy a ticket. To Arles, but wasn’t she supposed to stay in Marseilles? Meet someone there? She pulled herself into a fetal position and rocked herself to sleep.

  “Passport and papers!” a deep voice boomed.

  She jerked awake. The train had stopped.

  “Now!” A German soldier in full uniform. A swastika on his sleeve.

  Disoriented, she blinked, tried to clear her head. She was in France. German-occupied F
rance. She fumbled with her pocketbook, and he jabbed her in the arm. She glared at him. “I’m an American.” She was, wasn’t she?

  He spat on the floor. “I do not give a shit who you are,” he said in heavily accented French. “Passport!”

  How dare he treat her like this? She was an American. She remembered now. She glanced upward to get her parents’ attention and handed him her passport.

  “Benoit?” he said. “A Jew?”

  “An American,” she repeated. She was protected.

  “A Jew.”

  And then she was on a different train. Not really a train, although the noise and the hypnotic rocking were the same. A train with no seats, people standing so close it was impossible to sit down. She saw the tops of many heads crushed together, heard crying and vomiting and moaning, but none of it made any sense, and it wasn’t worth the bother to try to work it out. She would just sleep.

  She stumbled forward. Bright lights, very bright, on poles, but very dark where the light didn’t reach. She thought she was still in France, but why were there so many German words in the air? She was being led, along with a bedraggled throng, from an apartment building, down a slope to another train. Where had the other trains gone? Who were all these people?

  There were many angry men. With guns pointed at the people, some of whom were old, some children. Barbed wire. The angry men yelled in German and French. If only she understood the languages she would know what was happening. But the only language she knew was English. That’s how it was in America.

  Floating above, she could see into the cars, there weren’t any roofs. Maybe it was the same train as before. Everyone standing. More and more coming until there was no room but still more and more coming and climbing into the same car. She watched herself moving closer and closer. No. She couldn’t go in there. She had to sleep and there was nowhere to lie down.