The Flight Portfolio

by Julie Orringer

  “What are you thinking of?” Grant asked, eyeing him carefully. The bus had stopped again, and the driver and mechanic had climbed out to examine the engine.

  “Summer,” Varian said. “High summer in Brooklyn.”

  “That’s a wise move. It’s freezing in here.”

  “Do you think we’ll still be in France in June?”

  “No way to know,” Grant said, rolling his hands over and over to warm them.

  “What about you? What were you thinking of?”

  “Gregor,” Grant said simply, and Varian’s heart constricted to a sand-sized point. “It’s been nearly three months since I’ve seen him. And do you know what I’ve been wondering?”

  “What’s that?”

  “What he would do if he found out. About what I am, I mean.”

  Varian squinted at Grant. “He doesn’t know?”

  “Well, no. No one in my life back home knows. Not one of my colleagues, certainly not my students; you can imagine how horrified some of those boys would be at the thought of being taught by a Negro. Even a college Negro.”

  “But it’s you, Grant. That wouldn’t change.”

  “You can’t pretend you think it wouldn’t matter. That my brilliant teaching and writing—and really, I’m only mediocre at both, if we’re being honest—might somehow transcend the fact that my father was a Negro and my grandmother a freed slave.”

  Varian lowered his eyes. “You’ve never mentioned your grandmother.”

  Grant sighed and turned his gaze out toward the rocky hillside. “I don’t know much about her,” he said. “As the story goes, she was owned by a family called Bolton, down in Georgia. The master was a bachelor, childless—except for the children he got on his slaves, I imagine—and he manumitted all his human property when he died. My grandmother made her way to New York. Someone had told her, I guess, that there was well-paying work there. When the weather got cold, she sheltered in a Negro church in Five Points. The pastor found her on one of the pews—she must have been about fourteen, I believe. Six years later he married her.”

  “How did you learn all this?”

  “My mother told me one night when she’d had too much to drink. My father gave her the whole story. One of the few things he left her.”

  “What happened to your grandmother after that?”

  “She did God’s work at a home for indigent women, and sang in the church choir. My father grew up playing around the organ, then playing it. Later he started on the piano—they got him lessons when they realized he had talent.”

  “And is she still alive, your grandmother? Does she live in New York?”

  “I’ll confess, I haven’t the slightest idea. It’s one of the deep griefs of my life.”

  “And you never told Gregor any of this?”

  “He knows me as the man I appear to be.”

  “And now you’re having second thoughts about that?”

  Grant put his arms around himself and sank down an inch into his seat. “I lived differently with you,” he said. “All those years ago. Even though I’d lied to Harvard, I lived honestly with you. It was part of what made me so angry when you chose Eileen. I didn’t want to give that up. But I had to. I wanted to get into school again, so I dissembled, and kept dissembling. After a while I got used to hiding again. But I can’t do it anymore. I keep thinking about writing a letter to my department chair.”

  “Could you lose your position? You’ve got tenure, haven’t you?”

  “I received my tenure under false pretenses. I’m sure they’d find a way to get me out, if they wanted to. But I hardly care. All my life I got where I did by hiding. Look around you. People are dying here because they refuse to hide what they are. You might have to lie to save their lives, but those are temporary lies. Once your clients hit free ground, they become themselves again. For me there’s only pretending, day after day.”

  He had never before heard Grant speak this way. “Have you considered how you’d live?” he said. “If you were dismissed, I mean?”

  “There are many ways to live. Other places to teach.”

  “But you’re a terrific snob, Grant,” he said, and smiled. “Harvard, Yale, Columbia. Could you bear to leave the Ivy League?”

  “Who says I’d have to? Maybe one of them would have me. But anyway, would it be so bad to teach somewhere else? Live in some leafy little town, out of the way?” Grant’s eyes met Varian’s own; was he inviting Varian to go with him? “Some town where there’s a good Negro college, and perhaps not a bad restaurant, and a cinema, and miles and miles of countryside to walk?”

  Varian’s mouth had gone dry. Though this was only fanciful speculation, it was the first he’d ever heard of Grant’s plans for afterward—what he might imagine doing, where he might go. Would leaving Columbia necessarily mean leaving Katznelson? Did he dare ask? Dare envision himself in Grant’s imagined life? All the fantasies he’d indulged of a life with Grant had involved a city, either in Europe or the States; and really, in the States, there was only one city for him. But what could any of that mean, what could locality mean, when Grant himself was his only center? Could he see himself in a leafy little town? If Grant were in that town, could he see himself anywhere else?

  “They’d be fond of us there, I’m certain,” he found himself saying, a sense of effervescent risk ascending through his chest. He waited for Grant to correct his pronoun; when he didn’t, Varian went on. “What would we be, two eccentric brothers? Cousins? Would we still say you’re my doctor?” He pressed Grant’s knee with his own.

  “I scarcely know,” Grant said. “I don’t really know what I’m going to do. But how can I ask you to give up your pretenses if I refuse to give up mine?”

  Was he asking that, truly? For Varian to give up his pretenses? He wanted to shout the question aloud, to demand an answer. But just then the bus engine groaned to life again, and a black cloud full of wood sparks chuffed past the window. “Alléluia,” someone cried, and a moment later the mechanic leapt onto the bus, clearly afraid that the engine would quit again anytime. With an oceanic roar, the charcoal burner shot the engine full of fumes, and the bus lurched forward up the rocky hillside road, leaving the conversation and all its dangers in its wake.

  They got off at Cabris and walked a treacherous uphill path toward the villa where Gide was staying. The address was La Messuguière, the house recently constructed by the writer Aline Mayrisch; she’d used her husband’s wealth to make a refuge for others who shared her political views. The house was a sand-colored villa with a tower, at the end of a banked drive shored up with limestone. At the entry Varian employed the massive knocker, and after a few moments of silence, André Gide himself opened the door. He was just as stern-looking, his features just as sharply cut, as his image on the back of Varian’s dog-eared copies of Corydon and The Counterfeiters. He wore fur slippers, an overcoat, and a broad tartan muffler; on the polished dome of his head, a moth-holed beret of russet wool. As he welcomed them into his foyer, his cool gaze sweeping from Varian to Grant, he seemed to make a swift and decisive calculation about their relationship.

  “Come in, come in,” he said, and they followed him down a few broad stairs and into a tile-floored library. “Mrs. Mayrisch’s books,” he said, indicating the ceiling-high shelves along the walls. “They’ve been helping me pass the time. But you must excuse me, it’s frigid in here. Marie-Laure!”

  A soft-footed young woman appeared in a doorway, and Gide asked her to stir up the fire and put on some extra logs. Varian glanced at the silent young woman, then at Gide.

  “Marie-Laure’s perfectly safe,” Gide insisted. “You can say anything at all. No one’s listening, up here on this crag.” He crossed one long leg over his knee and waited.

  “You’ll forgive me if my habit of caution extends everywhere,” Varian said. “Our organization, as you mig
ht imagine, can’t conduct all its work within the law. But we do what is necessary. And we need your help, Monsieur Gide. We’re assembling a comité de patronage—not donors, you understand. Official supporters, in the eyes of the world. Artists and writers of the highest order.”

  “So it’s true?” Gide said, adjusting the tartan muffler. “You’re spiriting people over the border?”

  “As frequently as we can manage it.”

  “And you’d like me to lend my name to your cause.”

  “Yes, we’d be deeply grateful. But that’s not the only reason we’re here. We want to offer our help to you.”

  “To me!” Gide said, and gave a low two-beat laugh. He removed his glasses and massaged the inner corners of his eyes. “Mr. Fry, do you mean to say you’d like to help me emigrate to America?”

  “We think it would be the safest course. And then you’d be free to spread the word about the plight of artists and writers in occupied France.”

  Gide sighed and put his glasses on again. “And what is it you think will happen if I stay?”

  “We can’t know for certain. Nothing right now, perhaps. But eventually you might be dragged off to a camp like Arthur Koestler, or placed under house arrest like Breitscheid and Hilferding. Or perhaps even killed, if the Germans feel you pose too great an ideological risk to France.”

  “But, my dear man, you can’t compare my situation to those others. Koestler is a British-Hungarian and Breitscheid and Hilferding are German. I’m a native-born Frenchman. Even under current Vichy law, I’m protected. And consider the uproar if they did kill me! The Germans understand the French relationship with my work. Don’t think me ignorant—I know what’s been happening in Paris and Alsace, the burning of books, the purging of degenerate works. But, since you’ve come to me in a spirit of protective goodwill, I must tell you, in goodwill, that your energies are better spent on others.” He paused as Marie-Laure came in again, this time carrying a tea tray laden with ceramic accoutrements, though Varian suspected that the creamer and sugar bowl would both be empty. Marie-Laure set the tray down upon a low table and Varian saw that he was correct: there was nothing to accompany the tea but some hard oat biscuits. Gide urged them to take a few.

  “I’d like to show you something now,” he said, rising from his chair with difficulty, a hand on his hip. He went to the writing desk that stood before a large plate-glass window; over the hillside below, Cabris had spread its strands of red-roofed villas like a jeweler’s display of necklaces. Gide bent to a side drawer of the desk and removed a manila folder.

  “Look here,” he said, handing the folder to Varian. “Open it. Now, there’s a reading list to bring home with you to America.”

  Inside the folder was a thick document, a table of authors’ names and book titles; many of Varian’s clients’ works appeared among them.

  “One thousand twenty-nine titles, all banned by the Boches. They must have been compiling the list for months, though it took them all of three days to hand it down to French publishers once they marched into Paris.”

  Varian scanned the list. “None of your books appear here.”

  “That’s right. The Nazis allow France to read my work, even now. Even in Alsace. Even in Paris. All of it. Even the naughtiest bits. Even the most inflammatory. And why, do you think?”

  Grant, who had been listening in silence, finally spoke. “They want to recruit you,” he said. “They want you to collaborate.”

  “Exactly. And I plan to do just that.”

  Varian and Grant exchanged a single glance.

  “You needn’t look so horrified. I don’t mean to suggest I’ll collaborate in earnest. But I’ll pretend to. I’ll write for their right-wing magazines and newspapers. I’ll write for Le Figaro. I’ll use that stage to transmit messages to the underground. Reverse propaganda, if you will.”

  “The underground isn’t likely to read Le Figaro.”

  “They will, once they hear of what I’m doing. The word will get out, I’ll see to it. And the Boches will be none the wiser. They won’t catch my meanings or recognize particular significant French phrases. They’ll think I’ve finally come around to their enlightened view. God knows I wouldn’t be the first! But shame on me, shame on me, for speaking in this grandiose fashion, Mr. Fry, when I’ve scarcely been able to lift a pen since the occupation! I don’t know how I can still call myself a writer. I sit in this chair rereading Little Dorrit and David Copperfield, not because I think they’ll yield political insight, only to escape. And meanwhile you boys are busy saving lives in Marseille.”

  “Many writers are finding it hard to work now,” Varian said. “You’re not alone. And never say you haven’t saved lives. You saved mine.”

  Gide shook his head slowly. “You exaggerate, Mr. Fry.”

  “Not at all,” Varian said. He knew he had nothing to lose; he would likely never have a private meeting with André Gide again. “As a sixteen-year-old, I thought myself an abomination. Sometimes I contemplated suicide. Then, looking for something else in the school library, I came across Corydon.”

  “Ah,” Gide said. “And what did you learn?”

  Varian swallowed. “That the unnatural desires I felt might be seen as natural, even that they might be signs of particular sensitivity or intelligence. And Mr. Grant felt the same when I gave the book to him, some years later.”

  Gide took off his horn-rimmed glasses and polished their lenses with a corner of his muffler. “Thank you, Mr. Fry,” he said. “Thank you for that. One can’t help but feel impotent, sitting alone in one’s mountain retreat, incapable of any real work. But to be reminded that we can have some small effect in the face of injustice—that’s all we want, isn’t it? You too, Mr. Fry, Mr. Grant. Am I correct?”

  It was true; that was what they wanted. They couldn’t aspire to stop the Nazi machinery from advancing across the European continent; they couldn’t hope to see Hitler stripped of power, or the triple fences of Vernet fall. But here or there, a life could be saved; and the lives they were saving might save others. Small effects multiplied. That was what kept them at the work. And whether or not the Nazis occupied southern France, whether or not the Spanish borders remained open, the work would go on, at least as long as Varian could find a way to stay in France.

  “Please, Monsieur Gide,” he said, bolder now. “Won’t you consider our offer? Others who refused on similar grounds have reconsidered by now.”

  “What would you protect me from? A government that’s trying to recruit my aid?”

  “The tables could turn against you at any time.”

  “I assure you, Mr. Fry, that will never happen. But I will gladly add my name to your comité de patronage.”

  “At least promise you’ll call upon us if you ever feel you’re in danger.” He reached into his breast pocket and brought out one of his cards. “My number at the office. My address.”

  Gide took the card, shrugging. “Certain plants don’t bear transplanting,” he said.

  “Well, we must agree to disagree about your safety, Monsieur Gide. I don’t think we’ve seen the half of what the Nazis are willing to do.”

  “Let us hope they’ll collapse under the weight of their own arrogance,” Gide said, and they all drank to that.

  ________

  10 January 1941

  Hôtel Beauvau

  Marseille

  Dear Eileen,

  This would be the moment, I suppose, to write Happy New Year. But the fact is, I’m far from happy myself. Here’s what I keep wondering, night after night: Who can it have been among the New York crowd who envisioned Jay Allen as my replacement, and trusty Margaret Palmer as his deputy? In my worst moments I’ve thought it might be you, my own wife, intent on making my life here so miserable I’d have to jump ship. But did you really think, can you really have imagined, that I�
�d give it all up to a fool like Allen, who has no interest in anything but his own journalistic career? Please remind the committee, if you will: Hundreds of lives are at stake. If I step away, people will die. It’s as simple as that. And if I let that happen, how could you look at me afterward? How could we share a dinner table, a bed?

  Not that the New Year is entirely without its gifts. Among them is the fact that I can write to you with some freedom: this letter will be carried to Casablanca by a British soldier, one of dozens who have escaped Marseille these past two weeks—by sea, no less—thanks to Charles Vinciléoni, my friend at the Dorade. Vinciléoni agreed to let some of these decommissioned officers pose as crew on his black-market boats. And this week, if all goes well, a few of our clients will leave by the same route. They’ll carry letters with them when they go, to be posted where it’s safe.

  So I can tell you, with reason to believe you’ll read my words, that we all expected the Nazis to march into Marseille as soon as the New Year broke. But no sign of them yet, and now the Spanish border is open again. With our associates at Perpignan leading clients out, and others soon to be departing via the Vinciléoni route—and a few valuable ones still hidden away in La Pomme, at the Chateau Espère-Visa, as we’ve been calling it—the New York office may soon be forced to consider me worth my salary. In fact I guarantee results, unless Jay Allen bankrupts us: just before the New Year he withdrew F152,000 from the ERC’s account, without explanation or result. What can he have done with the money? As he never shows his face at the Centre Américain, I haven’t had the chance to ask.