‘Hélène? She was called Hélène?’ Ella frowned at the sketch. ‘May I?’ She took the one held by Gutmannov and went with it to sit by her brother.
‘Hélène was not her real, I should say not her original name. That hinted how extraordinary her history was.’ Gutmannov exchanged a fleeting glance with his daughter. ‘As it came out on the day Cépin made these sketches and finally pinned down her unique quality, her true self.’ He hesitated. Ella and Peter were intent, expectant. He sipped his champagne and went on. ‘Her real name was Hodele. She was the eldest daughter of a very pious Jewish family living near Warsaw.’
‘Hasidic?’ asked Ella.
‘Not themselves, though Hodele’s – Hélène’s – mother had connections of blood to a noted Hasidic family and to a noted rabbi of the middle ages. They themselves were simply very pious: her father was regarded as an authority on the Torah in his community and regularly consulted.
‘How then did she come to be in Paris, an artist’s model … and so on?’ Peter was leaning over the sketch Ella held. Sister and brother expectant, ready, their resemblance striking. ‘Please go on.’
‘In their community, daughters were married early, at 13, 14. By the time the daughter was 11 or 12, the families had agreed on the future husband. Hodele’s time came. Somehow she knew there was a life outside the community, outside their enclosed world of study, family and ritual observance. On the morning after the marriage, she ran away, from her husband, her community, Poland. I suspect that her eldest brother who had a business in Lemberg – Lwow today – helped her. Somehow she reached Paris, determined to recreate herself as a modern woman.’
‘Lemberg?’ Ella was staring at the sketch. ‘Lemberg. How did she support herself?’
‘My dear, she told me there was nothing she would not do. She had to live her own life, be true to herself as her own woman. That was on the day Cépin drew these sketches. That terrible day.’
The anti-aircraft batteries let fly again. Like the drum roll before the final act, Peter thought. ‘Terrible day?’
The art dealer looked at his daughter – a moment of acceptance – then away, collecting himself. ‘Cépin is preparing to paint Hélène, a full-length nude study. There is a knocking at the studio door. Cépin goes. Two figures burst past him, in long black coats, bearded, with side locks and skullcaps. Her husband and one of his brothers. Speaking Yiddish, they demand she return with them. They will take her by force if necessary. Cépin asks her who these men are. She points to one. “My poor foolish husband who thinks I can be his wife.” She drops her robe, puts her arms round Cépin and kisses him on the lips.’ Gutmannov paused, looking into the past. In the silence a solitary gun banged once. ‘She shouts in Yiddish at the two men to return to the Middle Ages where they belong. Then she advances on them, naked, jeering at their lives and their piety, telling them they can see she is a woman but she can see they are not men. They turned and ran away, she told me, her husband weeping.’
‘Did they come back?’ whispered Ella.
‘They returned to Poland, I believe.’
‘But that’s not an end to the story,’ said Peter.
‘She insisted Cépin went on with her portrait. I came in as he was painting. While he worked – like a madman, as if he were being driven, a pact with the devil to finish it – she told me the whole story. She had a sense of exultation about her, of glorying in her power. When she had dressed and gone …’
He seemed to have come to a halt, lost in his memory.
Softly Rozalia said, ‘Papa, you must finish.’
‘Oh yes, before she went she insisted on a drink and proposed a toast. “To life”. She repeated it, “To life”. When she’d had dressed and gone, Cépin broke down, weeping. He knew she could never be his. He would never paint her again. It was, he said, not the husband: he was not a man. It was her smile. Her secret smile. That night he killed himself. He took prussic acid.’
Ella was in tears. Peter, wrapped in thought, held her hand.
‘I paid the landlord and cleared his studio. I took the sketches and the painting to her. She told me to keep them.’
‘Did you see her again?’ Peter and Ella spoke together.
‘Of course. Professionally. She was much in demand as a model. She haunted studios where she could learn to paint. We never spoke of Cépin. Also I would glimpse her escorted by one aristocrat or another to fashionable restaurants, cabarets and at the opera and so on. And always such life. Life itself.’
He got up. ‘Now you must view her as she was then. Cépin’s final work, his final vision of Hélène – Hodele. He saw something in her he could not bear … as demonic, perhaps.’ He lifted the painting and placed it in a chair opposite them, where the light fell on it. ‘Story-telling has made me hungry. Rozalia and I will prepare a little repast.’
They were unable to tear their eyes away. The model had turned to face the painter, the long windows casting a side light. She was looking straight at him, one arm under her breasts, the other resting on her thigh, the fingers extended as though she were contemplating perhaps touching herself, perhaps reaching out to him. The red-brown hair was carelessly piled up above her long oval face; her green eyes glowed with energy.
Demonic wasn’t the word he would use of that woman, Peter thought. Possessed, though. Possessed with knowledge, the power of knowledge, the knowledge of power. No hint of the secret smile. Were the full lips slightly pursed, narrowed? As if holding it in? Was the smile there as she slept that night?
Ella slipped her arm round him and they sat entwined, contemplating the painting.
‘Now we know, Ella.’ Peter broke the silence, spontaneously slipping into French.
Absorbed by the picture and its story, Ella too responded in French. ‘Do you think Lady V and company know? Aunt Frances?’
‘All that? Some but not all, I should think. I wonder quite how much Father knows.’
‘He won’t learn it all from us, will he?’
He smiled. ‘Our family secret.’
‘I feel much closer to her.’ She wiped her eyes. ‘All the things I didn’t understand before.’
‘Like her attachment to Madame?’
Ella nodded. ‘She must have loved Father very much—’
‘To leave her Paris life for the stuffy Anglican Hills and stuffy London society?’
‘To be so … audacious, I was going to say.’
‘Taking a chance for love?’ His eyes locked with his sister’s, questioning the same thought.
‘Letting us believe for so long she was French – because she chose France over Poland.’
‘Sending us on all those holidays with the marquis.’
‘Her devoted friend Louis.’ Ella raised her eyebrows.
‘Our godparent.’
They stared again at the picture.
Ella broke the silence. ‘Look at her. What power. What a sense of self. I wish she’d given me half that confidence.’
‘Looking back, perhaps she didn’t want us to become … like that. At some point recently, I think she …’ He thought for a moment. ‘Well, regret is wrong; she became aware of her roots.’
Had Dinah roused the past? A Jewess from the borderlands in love with her son, her flesh and blood? And he in love with her. Dark eyes in a chance meeting. Burenko? Of course, he knew. This was what it had all been about. The NKVD must have been so confident of their hold. What could Burenko have made of his response? Hard? Insouciant? Innocence had been a strange blessing. Poor mother. The long taproot was deep in the soil; but to have to face it in that way. Terrifying.
Ella broke into his thoughts. ‘She was in real danger.’
‘And now she’s free, thank God.’
‘You knew, didn’t you—that she was in real danger.’ Ella’s eyes widened. ‘It had something to do with Dinah, hadn’t it?’
He put a finger on her lips. ‘One day, I promise. I can’t now. But Mother’s free and that’s what matters.’ All that mat
tered? ‘Good thing we didn’t know till now.’
‘Where does this leave us? What will it mean?’ She turned to face him, squeezing his hand tightly, green eyes troubled, full of doubt, gauging her future. ‘Jewish. How does it feel, Peter?’
‘How it feels?’ Like a star shell. In the darkness, a moment of vivid illumination. He smiled and shrugged. ‘I’m never certain I know how it feels to be me.’ First bastards, now Jewish bastards. What being Jewish could mean was plain enough. Voices came back to him. “Our Jewish fellow citizens”. “Yids will have all the best places”. Or if Hitler did invade? Or an armistice? He heard the firm tone of a Vichy minister: “The National Revolution has no place for Jews”. But immediately, now they knew, the point was what knowing would do. For Ella, as a young woman in society? He must say something. ‘What’s important now is that at last everything about us is clear to us.’ Well, perhaps not quite everything: he and Ella had grasped that. ‘I’ll need to let it sink in, understand it more. But in the end, as to what this means, what it does for us, mustn’t that depend on us, on you and on me?’
‘I hope so. But I feel that knowing, knowing who she is, that’s bound to change me. Not just the way she lived. That woman standing there – I’m part of her. I can’t escape her.’ She pointed at the eyes. ‘Perhaps it’s not the same for you, as a man.’
He took her hand with both of his and kissed her wet cheek. ‘Let it sink in, Ella. We’re her children, but that’s her past, not yours. That’s the life she chose, her experience, her decisions. Not your life. You remain the same beautiful young woman and an artist of exceptional talent with your own life to make. You have so much to give and will go on giving. We simply look the world in the face.’ He smiled. ‘Including the cousins. They must take us as they find us.’ In his case, already marked down as a cosmopolitan, according to Amelia’s inquiring mother.
‘Come into the dining room.’ Rozalia put her head round the door, speaking to them in French. ‘We’re all starving.’
Ella replied in English. ‘I was asking Peter how it felt being Jewish.’
‘Not simply Jewish.’ Gutmannov’s voice came from inside the dining room. ‘The direct descendants of the famous Rabbi of Kutno, the wonder worker.’ He sounded relieved. ‘May I present you with your mother’s portrait?’
They answered together. ‘Certainly not.’
Peter said, ‘When the war is over, perhaps we should go to Warsaw and introduce ourselves.’
‘With Mother.’
‘The prodigal daughter?’
****
‘In the sketches I had the impression of someone so familiar, just fleetingly. It was a puzzle.’ Ella put her hand on their host’s arm. ‘You knew, didn’t you?’
‘Rozalia knew immediately. She told me. And when I met Peter, I saw she was right. The eyes unmistakable. The whole aspect of the face. Ella, you too of course, my dear. I most humbly apologise for keeping you in ignorance. I thought the complete story must be told or not at all.’
Peter took Rozalia’s hand. ‘It was the best way: to lead us to it. Rozalia, how did you know?’
‘Dear Peter, how could I not have known?’
‘So much is explained. My sister and I know who we are. We thank you both in all gratitude.’
‘A toast to Ella and Peter.’ Gutmannov raised his glass.
****
Ella had to go. She would be late for her shift. Gutmannov eagerly offered to drive her. It would be a chance to discuss her future.
Peter helped Rozalia clear away. Then they went to their rooms to get ready for the shelter if the warning came.
****
“A respectable woman must know who is her escort.” Dinah had wondered about him. Would she have shared more of her life? He was seeing her face, he realised. The dark eyes with a hint of hazel. The sickle smile. The mass of dark hair.
His anger had dissipated. If he was honest with himself, how much had it been her leaving him, how much his plan falling, his commitment futile? She had gone to the phone. He was dogged by that and by the voices sounding in the mist. He couldn’t forget them. And Robinson’s card, with the number. Asleep at the airfield, she had a secret smile. What more had she kept from him? Had her ultimate loyalty betrayed her?
For himself, at this moment, he had a sense of his life’s having got somewhere. No, really that wasn’t it. Of his having got somewhere with life. A point well beyond the old familiar map, and ready to move on. “And you, what are you good for?” Well, now he had some sort of answer. Being a flâneur had turned out a preparation after all.
To make it work, to get away with it, he’d had to learn much about himself, including the unpalatable discovery that he could kill. No—too easy. That within him a killer’s spirit had been freed, to be used or held back. And at Pornic, in the house overlooking the sea, Elisabeth Gerstina had set out to educate him, he could see that now, in the ways of her world.
The thought disturbs. He pauses in his preparations to wonder, did this mean his becoming one of them? But the air raid siren is sounding. The anti-aircraft guns in the park are banging into life. The taped windows shake. Rozalia is at the door. He takes her hand; the electric charge is there, stronger. For a moment she rests her head in the crook of his neck; it brings him a surge of happiness.
Hand in hand, he and Rozalia go out, into the dark, into the sombre night, in hope of a little safe sleep. Tomorrow he is reporting to Hendersley.
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THE END OF ANOTHER DAY
Peter Hill’s story will continue in Dinah Is Dead
Selected Bibliography
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Innocence To Die For Page 51