The Muralist: A Novel

by B. A. Shapiro

  A pocket of darkness to her right. A break in the barbed wire. She ran.

  She was on a street. She could feel the rough sidewalk under her feet. She had no shoes, and it was hard and cold. She liked floating better. There had been a train and an apartment building, but this was somewhere else. She needed to sleep, but she couldn’t sleep in the street. All the shops were closed. It was dark. She needed to sleep.

  The aroma of almonds, pain d’amande, like a hand reaching out to her. Maman’s hand. Holding the spoon above her small one, teaching her how to stir the bubbling sugar. Home. She was nearly home. She would take her mother’s hand, go home with Maman, and she would sleep with the pain d’amande. And the challah. On the challah. It would make such a soft pillow.

  54

  DANIELLE, 2015

  I met Jordan at the Café Mollien at the Louvre. We’d planned to eat in one of the outdoor restaurants, but it was raining and we were forced inside. Not that it was a problem to eat within view of the Carrousel garden or under Charles-Louis Müller’s painted ceiling. Still, my mood matched the rain. The pleasure I’d felt at meeting Mr. Villeneuves and seeing Josephine’s paintings had receded, and I was back in a funk.

  But it was difficult to stay gloomy around Jordan, who greeted me with a large hug and steered me to a table near the garden. “Only the best for the friend of a long-lost friend coming across the ocean to ask me a favor,” he declared.

  “I already asked you the favor,” I reminded him.

  “You,” he said with a grin, “and I are going to get along just fine.”

  We shared a bottle of wine—he’d acquired the habit of lunchtime wine within a few months of moving to Paris, and I was all for getting a buzz—talked about art and gossiped about the industry. It turned out that he, too, had given up studio painting. But he’d done it due to circumstance rather than a failure of will: he and his wife had three-year-old twins.

  “The boys are the best thing that’s ever happened to me, but sometimes I wonder how it might have gone if things had been otherwise.” He cocked his head. “What about you?”

  Obviously, I’d wondered often. According to a few of my professors and art buddies, I was pretty good. Won lots of contests as a kid, a number in college, had pieces in gallery shows. Some sales. I could tell Jordan I’d quit after I lost my working-spouse-with-benefits to get a laugh, but it wasn’t true. My lifestyle didn’t preclude a return to painting. I was stopped by the fear of putting myself out there again, living for the break that never came, hope as the enemy.

  Coward that I was, I changed the subject. “How’s the show coming? Still a lot of paintings outstanding?”

  Jordan rolled his eyes. “Almost all the museum pieces are here. Like I mentioned on the phone, it’s the small collectors we’re having a tough time with. Now that they realize the value of what they have, they’re getting cold feet.”

  I nodded glumly.

  “Their paintings are the only ones that might have one of your squares, right?”

  Another glum nod. A long pull on my wine.

  “You haven’t found any more?” he asked.

  “Just another of my wild French goose chases, I guess.”

  “You’ve got more than one?”

  Another long pull on my wine. When I’d told Jordan the story of the squares, I’d omitted the part about my missing crazy great-aunt being the artist. I wanted him to take me seriously and figured it was best not to appear to be a total wacko. “Let’s stick with one failure at a time.”

  He looked at me shrewdly but didn’t press the point. “There’s a possibility my boss may be leaving—she’s taking the fall for all the screwups. If I get her job, even just temporarily, I’ll have access to the incoming paintings. I’m sure some from the small collectors will start trickling in, and I should be able to take a first crack at their derrieres for you.”

  “That would be great.” I tried to convince myself that it would be great, that it was a real possibility. “Thanks,” I added with as much enthusiasm as I could muster. “And your possible promotion. That would be great, too.”

  Jordan waved for the check. “Got a meeting in five. Are you going to be here long? Want to come over for dinner one night? Meet the boys and Robin? She’d love some American company.”

  I hesitated. Staying in Paris had seemed like the thing to do after talking to Mr. Villeneuves, but now that I was back in the city I found I just didn’t have the energy. “I’m leaving tomorrow,” I said. “But thanks. Maybe the next time I’m in town.”

  Jordan refused my offer to split the check, claiming he got a large discount, and left me to explore the museum. I halfheartedly wandered through the magnificent Cour Marly, past sculptures by Coysevox and Coustou commissioned by Louis XIV. I went to the Richelieu Wing; Le Bon, Quarton, Poussin, and Lorrain all left me cold. Rubens Hall, the Denon Wing, standing behind all the tourists ogling the Mona Lisa. Nothing. I went back to the hotel, called the airline, and booked my trip back to New York.

  55

  JOSEPHINE, 1946

  “The Nazis were an aberration, chérie,” Matthieu said. “The entire world is horrified. No one will let them gain power again. You do not need to do this.”

  How could she explain? Make him understand? The beatings, the hunger, the roofless trains. Emerging from the fog, fractured and broken. Oncle, Tante, and Alain killed at Auschwitz, Babette and her family at Breendonk in Belgium. Henri escaped from the Drancy camp and never heard of again. She was alive, but she was also dead.

  She’d searched for Henri everywhere she could think of: listened religiously to radio broadcasts of camp survivors, checked newspapers listings of those looking for family members, had Matthieu contact the UN Central Tracking Bureau, poured over concentration camp rolls of the dead. Henri had written that he was headed for Portugal, then maybe on to Argentina or the Dominican Republic or Palestine, so she tried to follow his trail to those places. Nothing. Finally she was forced to admit that he, too, was gone.

  This would be with her always, a part of her. The privilege of keeping them alive in her memory, the grief that this was the only place they now lived. She knew she must move beyond it, wanted to, but she needed to do this at her own pace, in a way that felt safe. Or safe enough.

  “I’m Josephine Villeneuves,” she told him. “I have been for almost five years, and that’s who I’m going to stay.”

  “But we don’t need to keep secrets anymore.” Matthieu looked at her with such sadness that she could have wept.

  Except she couldn’t weep anymore. Her tears had dried up. And that was good because otherwise she might have cried for the rest of her life. Breckinridge Long, recently retired after a “successful” career at the State Department, was raising Thoroughbred horses and collecting antiques in Laurel, Maryland.

  “Josephine, please,” Matthieu said. “Alizée . . .”

  “That girl isn’t here anymore,” Josephine told him. “She can’t answer you.” You must remember that our family is within you, Tante had written so many years ago, lifetimes ago, with such ghastly prescience. You will be able to carry all of us into the future.

  “This is a sacrifice you do not have to make.”

  But she did. She was the sole survivor, a single seed where there had once been an entire tree, the hope of renewal within her. And this was everything. More than her name. More than her art. Homage.

  She walked to the window. Little Nicolas was in the backyard, crouched close to the ground, gently poking a stick into an anthill, mesmerized by the fleeing insects, careful not to destroy their home. He was Henri, Oncle, Tante, Alain, Babette, Pierre, Sophie, and Gabrielle. Maman and Papa. She placed a hand to her swelling belly. This one, too. She would protect them all in every way she could. Carry them into the future.

  “Don’t you see,” Josephine said, turning to face Matthieu, “it’s not a sacrifice, it’s a choice. I’m choosing the future in the only way I can right now.” She touched his shoulder, her
kind husband. “I haven’t given up on Alizée or on humanity. We’ll let the children know the truth, teach them to be proud of their heritage. But not until I’m sure it’s safe.”

  56

  DANIELLE, 2015

  The phone rang as I was packing up the last of my things.

  “This is Nicolas Villeneuves,” he said in a rush. “I am happy you are not in America.”

  I couldn’t have been more surprised. “You are?”

  “My father wants to talk to you.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It is important.”

  “About your mother’s paintings?”

  “No,” Nicolas said, then corrected himself. “Yes. Yes, it is about the paintings.”

  “Why would—”

  “I come to Paris and bring you to him.” His voice was high-pitched, excited.

  “Today?”

  “I leave now.”

  A stirring. A flicker of hope. “What exactly is this about?”

  “My father says not to say. He will tell it to you. But I think you will like to hear.”

  And then I knew. “Alizée?” I asked, and it came out as a whisper.

  Nicolas didn’t answer, which was an answer.

  “I’m at the Tonic Hotel on—”

  He laughed. “I know you are there. I meet you in front of the hotel in thirty minutes.”

  “It has been so many years since I have heard the name Alizée,” Mr. Villeneuves began.

  We were alone at the dining room table, a spread of baked goods that could feed dozens before us, pain d’amande. I couldn’t eat a thing and didn’t want to pick up my coffee cup, afraid I’d drop it and break the fragile china. The air was thick with expectation. And, I sensed, more than a little trepidation on both sides.

  “It was such a shock,” he continued. “We believed no one was left. But after you said it, I can see the resemblance.”

  “Tell me.” Words somehow found their way around the lump in my throat. “Please.”

  He hesitated.

  “Just say it fast.”

  “My Josephine is your aunt Alizée.”

  Although I hadn’t been able to get this idea out of my mind on the ride to Drancy, Nicolas’s silence and sidelong smiles fostering my hopes, I could only gawk at Mr. Villeneuves. I hadn’t allowed myself to believe it. I wanted it too badly.

  “It is true,” he said gently. “This is a shock to you as it is a shock to me. I only wish she was alive to see this day. She searched for many years. So hard. For Henri especially, your . . .” His voice faltered. “Your grandfather. She finally had to accept that everyone was dead. This made her very sad. A sadness she did not ever lose.”

  “She survived?” I finally managed to whisper. “She lived to be old?”

  The old man’s smile was mischievous. “And now you must call me Oncle Matthieu.”

  I burst into tears.

  “I told my children and grandchildren last night,” my new uncle said when I finally pulled myself together. “They want very much to meet you, but I said this should wait.”

  Wait was good. Alizée lived. Alizée painted. Alizée had a family. How could this be happening? A random stroll to fill the time before the next bus? But then I realized there was nothing random about it. I’d followed the footsteps left by my family, by Alizée. And they had brought me here.

  “Of course they know of their mother’s background,” he continued. “She told them all when she believed it was safe for them to hear.” He chuckled. “Our second son immediately had a bar mitzvah, and our youngest ended up marrying a Jewish girl. Many of our grandchildren and great-grandchildren are Jewish, which was a special joy to my Josephine. And to me.”

  I had a slew of new cousins. Wait until Liz, Adam, and Zach heard. I had to call my mother. But first I had to understand. “Please tell me how this happened,” I begged, then added, “Oncle Matthieu.”

  He settled into his wheelchair. “It was 1941. A very bad time, but people still need bread, and my father and I worked hard in the bakery. I was twenty-two, but I was not in the army because of my bad foot, and my father was too old. Early one morning, I came out of the back door of the bakery and found what I thought was a child asleep in the alley.

  “But it is not a child. It is your aunt Alizée, and she is also twenty-two years old, but I do not think she weighs more than a ten-year-old. She is skinny and fragile and sick. I know she must be Jewish, escaped from the camp across the street, and I know if I do not turn her in, I will soon be in the camp also . . .”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “We hid her in a supply closet and nursed her back to health. My mother did most. But it took a long time. My Josephine was horribly sick, both in her body and in her mind, but we saw she was a good person, a kind person. And very strong inside. Very brave.” He pressed his hands together. “We all grew to love her, but me the most.”

  “So she was in hiding for the whole war?” I asked. While Grand-père was looking all over the world for her, writing her letters she never read, she’d been here, in a tiny supply closet in Drancy, harbored by strangers who put her life on par with theirs. Righteous Christians, they’re now called.

  My new uncle shook his head. “We told the people in Drancy she is a cousin from outside Paris come to help in the bakery. She speaks very good French and has blonde hair. No one questions this, and a few months after she ‘arrives,’ we get married.”

  I didn’t want to cry again, but it was hard not to. “Thank you,” I whispered. “Thank you for . . . for . . . for all you did for her. The risks and . . .”

  He put his hand over mine. “You do not need to thank me. Your aunt Alizée made me a truly happy man for many, many years.” He points to the photographs of the family that sit on every flat surface in the room. “Still makes me a happy man.” Again the shy smile. “And I know that even with all her sadness, I made her happy, too.”

  57

  DANIELLE, 2016

  It’s been over a year since I returned from France. Some things have changed and some haven’t. I was mostly right about the paintings in the carton: a Rothko, a Krasner, and one of the Pollocks were authenticated. The three with the envelopes on the back. But unfortunately for Christie’s, it turned out the works all belong to the federal government not the Farrell family, and the government won’t be making any decisions about selling any time soon. The squares are being litigated as we speak, and the last few rulings have gone in the Farrells’ favor, so Christie’s is happy about that. But the biggest change is that I’m painting again, an impostor no longer.

  I asked Oncle Matthieu if he knew anything about the squares, and he told me about Montage, explained how Josephine had always hoped the squares would somehow survive. She’d never been able to trace them but did—through a fluke—find out about the destruction of Light in America. She was devastated by the loss of her oeuvre and mourned her work along with her family, ultimately relinquishing her art as she’d relinquished her past in order to create another life, another family.

  So I took it as my mission to resurrect both Montage and Alizée Benoit. Jordan Washor found another square behind a Rothko sent to the Louvre, and when I told George the whole story and showed him a photo of Jordan’s square, he was forced to admit there might be more here than he’d assumed.

  With his approval, the public relations people at Christie’s went to work. As I suspected, no squares were found behind paintings in museums or major collections, but two more did show up. One from a New York gallery owner who pulled it off the back of an obscure painting that turned out to be an early Krasner. The other came from a tiny museum in Deadwood, South Dakota—of all places—where a Pollock had hung in a back room, misattributed to an unknown artist named Louise Bothwell. Jordan discovered yet another behind a last-minute entry, and the four were sent to us on loan. The authenticators rendered their decision, and even George and Anatoly couldn’t deny the truth. Pardon me for gloating.

&
nbsp; Oncle couldn’t remember how many squares there were, wasn’t sure he’d ever known, but he thought he remembered Josephine telling him the mural was made up of four separate canvases. This didn’t help much. Then I had the brilliant idea of going to the New York Public Library, where Light in America was supposed to have been hung, where now another WPA mural—about bridge repair, of all things—was in its place. Four canvases, four feet by four feet each. Sixteen two-foot squares.

  A committee was appointed, and we worked the way I suppose paleontologists and archeologists do, piecing together the squares as if they were fossilized bones or shards of clay, trying to reimagine the whole from its few parts. We devised dozens of ways the mural might have been configured, but there was no consensus on which way was the right way. I had my personal favorite, but even though I’d been responsible for creating the project, I was still low woman on the totem pole, so my theory didn’t count for much.

  That’s when I decided to repaint Montage. When I fully recognized how much of Alizée’s life had been shaped by the whims of her historical moment, how she’d been forced into impossible choices that rendered her unable to reach her artistic potential and unraveled her mind—and that I, on the other hand, had no such impediments.

  I’d given away all my art supplies, so I blew a week’s salary on canvases, paints, and brushes, then started in as if I’d never stopped. I used what I knew about Alizée’s style and incorporated that with the themes and subject matter Oncle had described. I imagined myself as Alizée, gathered her inside me, her toughness and drive to survive, envisaged her painting in her studio late at night. Mark, Lee, Jack, and Bill, too. The five of them working and laughing and arguing, bringing her vision to life, creating a new vision all their own.

  I worked like this for weeks, pushing Alizée’s talent, her passion, her desperation, into my fingers, into the brush and onto the canvas. And then, one day, I wasn’t painting as Alizée anymore. I was painting as me. I was back within the smell of turpentine, the disappearing hours, the aching shoulders, and most wondrous of all, the space in the back of my brain was brimming with ideas, empty no longer.