The kitchen has grand windows that face out onto a garden. The evening light streams in, turning the walls a deep gold and purple. He looks out at a tree. It’s been months since he’s seen a tree with its full skirt of branches. The leaves are dressed up with the same gold and purple light; he’s never seen such a beautiful tree. Its trunk, smooth and light brown, without any hatchet marks or open wounds. But that’s not true. I have seen such a tree, he thinks, a similar unscathed tree. And it takes only a moment to recall the painting, the couple standing underneath a magnificent old tree and the branches splintering the light. The leaves, a dark red-purple.
The cook walks in, a big woman with a bright yellow apron. She’s carrying a mixing bowl and a bag of flour.
Can I help you? she asks, stopping in the middle of the room.
He says he’s fine. When she sees his empty pant leg, her face softens and she brings him a chair.
Thank you, he says, placing his big bag on his lap.
She sifts the flour into the bowl and the white powder floats up, into the air, then rains into the yellow bowl. There are stacks of white china on the shelves, and the glasses are shimmering. They must be crystal, he thinks. He’ll ask double the price for his goods, maybe triple.
There you are, says Daniel, his face flushed with wine. Svensk told me you brought a little surprise. By now you have a whole room of eager, undiscriminating buyers. Genevieve is so drunk she almost fell out of her chair, and Charles is telling dreadful jokes.
Jorgen pushes himself up and follows Daniel back into the room booming with noise. Couples sit lazily around the room, their arms draped over each other.
The Great Dane returns! shouts a man, now with a red face from liquor. What do you have in your magic bag? Tell us. We are waiting!
Jorgen blushes and feels a sharp sting of anger. Svensk winks at him.
Genevieve was missing you, says a man. Weren’t you, my dear?
Oh, stop.
My wife kept commenting on your strong shoulders. I pointed out your, shall I say, condition, and she said it wouldn’t bother her a bit.
His wife places her hand on a young man’s shoulder and squeezes.
Jorgen stands stiffly in the entranceway to the room.
Show us what’s in the bag.
Yes. Do a trick for us, says one of the women.
Svensk laughs, grabs the woman next to him, and kisses her on the lips.
Jorgen grits his teeth, opens the bag, and pulls out cans of smoked salmon, caviar, wine, hard cheese from the north, a small ivory figurine of a girl from China. To each, they ooh and ahh, and there is more and more, which he snatched on his way out the front door. Gold bracelets and necklaces of pearl, a pair of small jade earrings carved into the shape of seashells. Cigars and rich chocolate and a bronze bell that rings everyone for dinner. He pulls out everything except the book, tucked in the folds of the bottom, and the painting. He’s about to reach for it, but withdraws his hand. Not these people, he thinks. It must have a proper home.
I simply must have this, says a woman with a feathery scarf around her neck grabbing a fine bottle of wine.
I feel like we’ve all gone on a treasure hunt and won, says one of the ladies, who now sports a new pair of earrings. I look ravishing, don’t I? She wiggles her ears.
Open those smoked oysters, says one of the men to the other.
Without the Danes, says Svensk, you wouldn’t be having such a good time.
The woman looks at him with bright blue eyes. Do all the men in Denmark look like you two?
No oysters for you. Not now, says the man, hugging them to his chest. The next party. Next week.
Next week? Next week? Paris might not be standing. We must devour them now. We must live and make love and eat! Let’s open those damn oysters.
Jorgen clutches his bag and moves toward the exit. Svensk saunters over to him, claps him on the back, and says he’s going to stay a while longer.
Daniel accompanies Jorgen to the front door.
Good show, my friend, says Daniel. You were a smash. A big hit. You’ll have to come again.
When? asks Jorgen. He’s standing on the porch under a yellow gas globe light. Tomorrow?
Daniel smiles. Next week. Of course the money is there, but there is nothing to buy. This damn war better end soon or we’ll all die of starvation. I haven’t had a good bottle of whiskey in a long time. Keep an eye out for that, old boy. A good one.
I will, says Jorgen, feeling gloomy and regretful. He steps away from Daniel.
Daniel pats Jorgen on the back. There’s a good man.
In the pale evening light, Jorgen walks down the stairs, watching the bats swoop above the dark towers of Notre Dame.
SHE BOUNDS UP THE front steps to the hospital, two at a time. The morning’s gray air is wet and murky, so she wears a fine coat of mist on her hair and red coat. It should be a sunny day, she thinks, with light bouncing off everything, a splash of light over there, everything tidied and perfectly well. The previous night’s target practice went better than expected, the soldiers pleased with how adept she’d become with the rifle. The officer predicted that she’d leave for the battlefield in two weeks, perhaps less. They handed her a uniform, bright red trousers, a blue overcoat, a black belt, much too large, a kepi, her regimental number, fifty-three, printed in red on a blue band. Then they gave her a bottle of champagne and told her to celebrate. She was one of the chosen.
She yanks open the hospital door. Today she will tell Edmond, and after he scolds her and warns her of danger, he will be proud of her, she’s sure of it, and she will share a glass of that champagne with him. He will look at her with gleaming eyes and tell her stories of his battles, share his secret techniques, how he snuck up on the enemy, taking a Prussian soldier by surprise. When she finishes with her visit, she’ll find Jorgen, tell him the good news, and thank him for the lessons. As she walks into the hospital, she thinks perhaps Edmond will be well enough by next week to come with her. He was so chipper yesterday and when she went and prayed in the church, she had that wonderful sign. Edmond, she sings his name to herself as she walks down the row of cots with faces bobbing above white sheets, contorted in pain. She passes a nurse in a little white cap, who looks at her, a mixture of alarm and stillness, and rapidly turns away.
As she comes down the aisle, she stops, beds on both sides of her. A new face in his cot. He is gone? Edmond is gone, risen from his cot, slipped on his trousers, and walked out? To where? Did she pass him on the street? Was he in the long line that snaked around a corner for the bakery? Or standing near the Seine, where water buckets are coming up on a makeshift pulley? Perhaps he was the man looking up at the sky wondering if it might rain. Why didn’t he wait for her to come this morning? Certainly Pierre wouldn’t have come for him. She walks down the aisle and stands bewildered in front of the bed.
Gone, says the young man with a white bandage over his ear.
What? she says.
The man who typically shouts at her is speaking to her in a normal tone. His thin pale lips moving.
Gone. Last night. After you left.
Where? Where did he go?
She grabs the arm of a nurse who is walking by.
My brother. Where is he? Where is my brother? He was here, in this cot. Yesterday, right here, and now he’s gone.
The nurse scours a chart. I’m sorry, she says, her brown eyes softening, and she lowers her head.
She doesn’t let go of the nurse’s arm; her fingers dig into the woman’s flesh.
Please, mademoiselle, says the nurse.
Natalia begins to shake the arm, and the nurse drops her tray, splattering metal and glass. A wounded soldier shouts at her and another nurse runs over, but Natalia won’t let go. The answer is hidden in there, behind the white apron of the nurse’s uniform. Where is he? she must know. Someone grabs her from behind, pins her arms to her side, a man’s smoky breath on her neck. Another nurse comes to her. She is falling, submerged in white
.
In the basement, lady, says the soldier. Packed away in a coffin.
Natalia rips out of the stronghold, runs to the back of the large room, flies down the staircase. In the dark room, everywhere, wooden coffins, rows and rows of them, stacked on top of each other. The airless room, the suffocating odor of rotting flesh. Her stomach wretches and churns. She presses her handkerchief to her nose.
You’re not allowed down here, says a nurse.
Where is my brother?
The nurse grabs her arm, and Natalia shoves her away, sending her into a stack of coffins.
Where is my brother?
A man with two protruding teeth and a long face comes up to her.
I’m sorry for the intrusion, says the nurse to the man.
It’s fine, says the man. He asks for her brother’s name.
She shouldn’t be down here, says the nurse, her voice sharp and sour. It’s against the rules.
Shut up, says Natalia. You just shut up. Shut up.
Calm down, says the man. Tell me his name.
Edmond. Edmond Blanc.
He leads her to the back of the room and points to a square wooden box. His name, painted in red on the side, in bold letters. Edmond’s name. She stares blankly at the box. Anyone could be in there. They are lying. She reaches for the lid. Nailed shut. Tugging and pulling, she tries to pry it open.
I’m sorry, mademoiselle, we cannot open it, says the man.
He’s my brother.
We cannot, says the man. We have too much to do here, and if we make an exception for you, then we will have to do so for everyone.
The nurse stands off to the side. Natalia flings herself on top of the coffin lid, pressing her lips to the crack between the lid and the bottom of the coffin. Edmond. Edmond.
Mademoiselle.
Edmond, she sobs.
Please, says the nurse. You must go. This is against the rules.
Natalia rests her cheek on the wood. Hands pull on her shoulders, lifting her limp body, dragging her upstairs. The wood coffin shut, shut, nailed shut, and the nurse pulling her, her feet dragging, up the staircase, through the thicket of moans and cries and vacant eyes, where death haunts and takes, passing his cot. She jerks away from the nurse and tries to run back to the basement.
Someone presses something against her nose, and an acrid smell fills her nostrils. The sounds elongate, dragging across the rough surface of her mind, each letter, each vowel, its own vibration in her ear. She doesn’t want to move her heavy limbs. Ever again. She will lie where he did. Find the pillow that held his head, his sweet head. Won’t ever leave here. She stretches her fingers like tendrils, and closes her eyes, finding the place behind her eyelids, the world of red and black.
Strong hands lift her deflated, flattened body, shuffle her down the aisle toward the door. Someone opens the door and leads her outside. She stands stunned on the sidewalk in the flat gray light. Everything moves around her, but she is as still as a piece of driftwood buried in the sand, the wild current rushing around. The first raindrops splatter and a wailing wind blows. Someone runs into her and she crumples to the ground, as if falling back into a great sea.
WHERE IS PIERRE? Natalia stands in the doorway of Jorgen’s office.
Jorgen pushes his palms against the edge of the desk and rises, knocking over the lit candle. Red wax splatters on his hand.
Jesus, he mumbles.
Where is Pierre? Her voice is monotone, a hard hand clamped down on it. The rims of her eyes are pinkish red; streaks of dirt pattern her skirt, and her hands are scraped raw.
Did you fall?
Pierre. Where is he?
I don’t know. Why are your hands bloody?
He died. Edmond. He died last night.
Jorgen unrolls his sleeves down to his wrists, picks up his pencil, and puts it back down.
Her eyes brim with water, and she fights back the tears. When I went to the hospital this morning, he was gone.
Jorgen looks over to the chair in the corner and shakes his head. He won’t look at her; can’t look at her. Didn’t she know this was going to happen? How could she remain so deceived? So blind? He has the strong urge to say these things to her, the anger unfurling inside. He feels a certain self-satisfaction; he was certain Edmond was going to die. The world is not the way she views it, and it’s good for her to discover this lesson now. But he can’t say these things to her. What should he say? Where is Pierre so she will leave his office? Before she entered, he felt prosperous, and for the first time in a long time, almost giddy, as he ran his fingers through the large pile of bills stuffed away in his drawer. And now, now, she is crying and a heavy shadow of despair soaks into the corners of the room.
She wraps her arms in front of her and crouches far into herself. Do you know where I found him? They put him in the basement. Stuck him in a coffin in the basement as if he were a piece of luggage or something they had to hurry and get rid of. She stops for a moment and begins to weep silently, pressing a handkerchief to her eyes.
Jorgen chews on the side of his cheek until he nicks it and draws blood. Where is Pierre? He steps toward her, wanting to find Pierre. She twitches and he stops moving.
They nailed the coffin shut. She stops again and trembles. I didn’t get to see him because they nailed it shut.
Her face quivers, and her head drops as she begins to sob. Jorgen looks down at his rows of numbers, and the wind blows in through the open window and wraps strands of her hair around her neck.
Natalia, he says, and his tone is weak and constrained. Anyone else would go to her, comfort her, but a thick, black line bars his way, something as sturdy as a wall across the room. Please stop crying, he thinks. Please, I beg you. He glances down at the musty books and stands there, stiffly, awkwardly.
Natalia, he says.
Crying softer now, she steps toward him. With her right hand, she is taking the cloth of her skirt and bunching it up into a tight ball. Over and over, her hand reaching, grabbing, releasing, and now there is blood on her skirt. He knows he should do something. But what does he have to give? He’s only a meager fistful of himself, nothing remaining for anyone and, really, barely anything for himself. Look at him, he’s missing a goddamn leg. What does she want from him? And if, by some miracle, he made it across that divide, what would he do? He presses his thigh into the edge of the desk, hard, trying to make the moment tilt another way, and when it doesn’t, he wishes again she would leave him alone. Fury surges and he clenches his jaw. He looks at his crutch.
He loved France, she says, still bunching up her skirt. He fought for his country and was such a good man. Such a good, noble man. How could this have happened?
And everything that comes to mind to say is wrong, so he stands, his hands gripped tightly together, grateful for the wide stretch of desk between him and her.
She leans against the side wall, staring out the window. Did I tell you he saved me once? It was a hot summer day. I’d taken the sailboat out on the big lake. The ducks and geese were all around. The wind picked up and the boat tipped over. I was a young girl, and I didn’t know how to swim. Have you ever come close to drowning? Felt the water go down into your nose and mouth? Choking, I remember choking and sinking. Clawing at something but there is nothing to get ahold of. There is no light underwater. Edmond heard me. She begins to cry anew and it takes a while for her to speak.
He tugs on his sleeve, waiting, listening for Pierre.
Edmond saved me, she says, her eyes filled with tears. He dove into the water and raced toward me. He swam so fast, his arms were wings.
She presses her hand to her heart. The many nights she sat beside her brother, believing he was in God’s hands. But he wasn’t and God turned his back on Edmond, on her. All those nights and days, praying, holding her brother’s hand, imagining that through her touch, he might find vitality to rise again. All the while, the man across from her brother, spewing oily vitriol at her for visiting every day. Who comes to see me? h
e shouted. No one, and then there is you. The sound of the whimpering ones, fallen into the state of boyhood, and the angry men who lashed out and attacked, like trapped animals. She remembers a young man’s fingers curling inward as he died, as if drawing in his claws. But her brother was different; he never complained or shouted or yelled about the pain. He was blessed and should have been spared. He was honest and true and courageous. Edmond should have been spared. Shouldn’t God have turned and chosen another? Why did He let her lose him? She looks at Jorgen, bewildered, and for the first time sees him standing like a rigid pole. Jorgen is still behind that desk. Why did she come here? Where is Pierre?
He steps toward her. She leans toward him, and it is more like falling, wrapping her arms around his neck; he holds her, rigidly, not smelling the lilac scent of her hair or feeling her wet tears, or her breasts rising and falling. Tries not to feel her strong back, the way she clutches him, her fingertips pressed hard into his back. A shudder ripples through her shoulders, her ribs, her hips. Natalia’s body releases its grief, and underneath, the softness of a breeze.
It’s too late, she cries. Too late.
Anything he could say would be wrong.
Too late.
It is she who releases him. Pierre, she says. I must find Pierre. Her hair falls limply around her face.
He feels helpless. Her eyes are deep blue, the color of a heavy rain. Her hair a beautiful shade of rich reddish brown, unleashed from its usual bun, wildly disheveled. She looks radiant and luminous, her cheeks flushed pink, as if something has washed away and left her in a lovely state. And in that moment, he sees all of her, the young girl and the grown woman, and it is too much, a terrible moment of utter honesty. She turns to the door. He drops his head and stares at the dust-covered floor. When he looks up again, she is gone. Her footsteps echo down the hallway, and then fade, and then they are gone.
The Painting Page 13