The Flight Portfolio

by Julie Orringer

  “What do you think he’s—doing right now?” Grant said after a while, in a low, fog-cloaked voice.

  “Who?”

  “You know who I—oh.” He shifted, and the lines on his forehead softened. A moment later they had disappeared entirely. The morphine had hit its mark. “Oh,” he said. And then, again: “What—do you think?”

  Was it Tobias he meant? Gregor? Varian went to the bed and took Grant’s feverish hand. “Try to sleep,” he said. “He’s all right. He’s going to be all right.”

  With his finger, Grant followed the pattern of tendons and blood vessels on the back of Varian’s hand, smoothed the pad of his thumb over Varian’s fingernails.

  “There are things—I could tell you,” he said, his voice waning. “But if I told you those things, then—I would have told you.”

  “What do you mean?” Varian said, prickling to attention. “What things?”

  “Things I could tell you,” Grant said, and then he closed his eyes, and in a moment he was deeply, irretrievably asleep.

  * * *

  ________

  He would remember the weeks that followed as if through a blue-green haze, one that seemed to lift at times to reveal Marseille and its surrounding countryside in a flood of vernal sun. He tended Grant morning and night, tracking his fever, and then, when the fever finally broke, trying to bring him back from the precipice Mirandeau had described. He gave Grant the carefully measured doses of his medication, helped him to the toilet, helped him eat whatever Madame Nouguet managed to prepare, changed his sweat-soaked clothes, helped him in the bath, performed all the small tasks that his excruciating chest pain rendered impossible. And between it all he carried on the business of the office, a business that, at ordinary times, consumed him entirely.

  In the first days of Grant’s illness, when he’d been sitting up with him around the clock, it had been Danny and Theo and Jean Gemähling who’d been running things on the boulevard Garibaldi. He returned to the office to find that they had been more than capable managers; they’d interviewed hundreds of refugees, identified a new slate of sensitive clients, sent two groups of ten down to the border with all their documents intact, and managed to deflect a series of increasingly persistent inquiries from de Rodellec du Porzic’s new appointees. It occurred to Varian that he’d been training Danny all along in the minutiae of his job, and that Jean Gemähling, capable and multilingual, played for Danny the role that Danny played for Varian: right-hand man, advisor, source of connections and ideas. Or at least he did ordinarily; Jean was, at present, handicapped by a devastating attraction to a new guest at Air Bel, Consuelo de Saint-Exupéry, the irreverent and adventure-seeking wife of the writer and aviator. She had returned to Marseille after some months’ absence and now spent most of her time in the villa’s garden or up one of the plane trees, writing in a tiny Japanese-silk-bound notebook or fashioning parachutes from leaves. Jean appeared at the office bearing the most obvious signs of lovesickness: dark shadows beneath the eyes, a flush around the mouth, an air of abstraction, a tendency to insert his beloved’s name into conversation at every turn.

  Jean sat now with Danny and Theo in the front room of the office while Varian addressed them on their new challenge, which, as he saw it, was to win an all-out race against the Nazis for the lives of Jews. Among their own clients, Zilberman and the Chagalls were the most directly endangered.

  “Zilberman’s time is ticking,” Varian said. “We can never get him a French exit visa. It’s too dangerous even to try. I twisted the arm of everyone I know at the consulate to get his U.S. entry visa. If the Sinaïa doesn’t return on schedule, we’ll have to start over. Just as urgently, I want to get the Chagalls out. It’s getting worse and worse.”

  “Worse than you know,” Danny said, frowning behind his small round glasses. “Last night, after Theo and I left the office, we ran into Bingham coming out of La Fémina. He’d just had a letter from a colleague in Lisbon, to the effect that the chief of the U.S. Visa Department—what was his name, darling?”

  “Avra Warren,” Theo said, with flat distaste. “May we never forget it.”

  “Yes. This Warren, chief of the U.S. Visa Department, told the staff he wouldn’t countenance Jews entering the States—‘not a single goddamned one!’—and threatened to fire any consular officer who wouldn’t comply.”

  “You must be kidding me,” Varian said.

  “If only I were!”

  “Someone must write about this for the Times.”

  “Too bad our friend Jay Allen’s out of commission,” Theo said.

  “I could write it,” Varian said, recalling the promise he’d made to Deschamps. “That’s as clear a policy statement as I’ve heard, though it’s obviously been the policy all along. And it means we can’t wait any longer on our sensitive clients. In particular, I want the Chagalls out at the first opportunity. Where does their case stand now?”

  Danny opened a dossier and looked through it. “They came down again from Gordes on the fourteenth of March. They’re staying at the Moderne. No movement on either side, though—as you said, it looks rather hopeless for the French exit visas, and the U.S. entry visas are still pending.”

  “Time to exert more pressure on both sides,” Varian said. “And what about Jacques Lipchitz?”

  “Your last letters to him were effective, apparently,” Danny said. “He came down last week from Toulouse with his wife and picked up their French exit visas. Now they’re at the Splendide, waiting for their U.S. visas. We’ve got them tentatively scheduled to depart by train for Lisbon two weeks from now. From there they’ll sail on the Saint Lucia. I believe the Committee’s already secured an apartment for them in Morningside Heights.”

  “Excellent,” Varian said. “I knew Jacques would come around. If only I could have convinced Gide! Perhaps I should write to him again.”

  “What about Ernst?” Theo asked. “Any movement on his papers?”

  “Oh, yes—he’s mine,” Jean said. “Or rather, he’s Peggy Guggenheim’s. It seems she’s finally thrown over poor Victor Brauner in his favor. Consuelo and I dined with them last night. I don’t believe he took his hands off her all evening. I don’t know how either of them managed to eat a thing.”

  Theo smiled. “Jean, dear, we all know where your mind tends these days. But we’re less interested in Mr. Ernst’s romantic dealings than in his emigration case.”

  Jean’s ears turned crimson and he lowered his eyes. “Mr. Ernst’s French exit visa has been granted,” he said. “The U.S. one hasn’t come through. Shall I go see Bingham again?”

  “I don’t see that we’ve got any other option,” Varian said. “Poor Harry. We’ve leaned and leaned on him, and he’s contravened every one of his department’s mandates on our behalf. I don’t know how much longer he can keep it up.”

  “Is there any word yet about your young German protégé?” Theo asked.

  There was, in fact. Tobias’s visa, as Bingham had expected, had materialized within a week of his arrival in Oran; now he was en route to the States on a cargo ship called the Willamette. “And how about the Fittko route?” Varian said. “Still functioning?”

  “Perfectly,” Danny said. “Another six are scheduled to depart tonight.”

  Varian folded his hands. “Bravo,” he said. “Continuons.”

  * * *

  ________

  That afternoon, on his way to the Moderne to speak to Chagall, he stopped by the American Express office for his mail. After weeks of silence there it was, finally: a letter from Eileen. A mad terror sent his heart into a gallop until he saw the postmark, dated two weeks before his letter about Grant; there seemed nothing sadder at that moment than the terrible asymmetry of the transatlantic mail, the uncommunicating letters winging back and forth across the ocean, deaf to each other’s news. He sat on the bench outside the o
ffice and tore open the envelope, experiencing a deep inward prickling at the familiar sight of Eileen’s hand, fierce and slantwise.

  19 Irving Place

  New York, New York

  Dearest Varian,

  Should you ever choose to return to the States—and will you choose that, can you still?—you’ll find that you still have a wife at No. 19 Irving Place. You’ll find that she still thinks of you once or twice daily as she goes about her teaching, her errands, her outings with friends. Do you still think of her? Or have you found yourself some distraction so pressing that it blocks out all light? Can your work, your all-important work, be the only thing, or is there, as I fear, something more?

  Yours, most ashamed,

  Eileen

  He sat a long time on that bench while rafts of clouds passed overhead and crowds of pigeons circumambulated his feet. He was, at least, relieved of the need to write a reply. His reply, the worst he could have made, was already on its way, perhaps already in her hands.

  * * *

  ________

  At the Hôtel Moderne, he entered the same narrow vestibule where he’d met the Chagalls on the night of the air raid. Here was the same doorway to the miserable-looking bar, and there, at a small round table beside a narrow window, was Bella Chagall, a book in her hand, a half-empty glass on the table before her. She wore the same black wool dress she’d worn the first time he had met her, its batiste collar starched stiff, the fabric faded now with many washings.

  “Monsieur Fry,” Bella said, her voice a low rasp. “How glad I am to see you! Sit down, please. Tell me all the news. Have our visas arrived at last?”

  Varian took the chair across from her. “No visas yet,” he said. “I’m looking for your husband. I must ask a favor of him.”

  At the news about the visas, she closed her eyes and drew a long breath. “God, what fools we were to have waited,” she said. “You must have thought us absurd. I don’t deny that I was the chief naysayer. And now perhaps I’ve doomed us.”

  “None of that talk,” Varian said. “We’ve been getting dozens out. We’ve found ways even for the most sensitive.”

  “Yes,” she said, and lowered her voice. “By now, Zilberman—”

  “Yes, soon,” Varian said. “Soon he too will be en route to the States. It’s actually on his errand that I’ve come. He’s still in France a little longer—there was an unavoidable delay. And since he’s got more time to compile his Flight Portfolio, he’s decided he wants something more from Marc. A sort of direct commission. I’d like to ask him myself, if you don’t mind.”

  Bella’s look darkened. “My husband is working now, and must not be disturbed.”

  “Working? Here at the hotel?”

  “On the roof, in fact,” she said. “He likes the light.”

  The roof. Where else? Gravity had ceased to exist in Chagall’s work decades earlier; naturally he had ascended to the hotel’s highest point. “I do need to speak to him,” Varian said. “It’s a matter of some urgency.”

  “What is so urgent?”

  “Those drawings for Zilberman’s portfolio,” Varian said. “I have to speak to him about them. Zilberman has something particular in mind.”

  Madame Chagall drained the contents of her glass and touched her mouth with the corner of her napkin. “All right,” she said, finally. “For this, I suppose, you may interrupt him.” She looked up at Varian, her gaze surprising in its intensity. Her eyes, so dark they were nearly black, seemed to drain the light from every source in the room. He had heard it said, before he’d known the Chagalls, that Bella and her husband had a single way of seeing, a unity of vision that had existed since they’d first met. But in fact they were opposites: the painter walked in the clouds, his wife on earth, or perhaps even below its surface, in the darkness of caves. It had never occurred to him before that moment to consider how beautiful she was; he’d thought of her as belonging to his mother’s generation, but in fact she was a mere two years older than Eileen.

  “Go up,” she said. “Go see Marc. And afterward, tell him to meet me in our room. To be honest, Monsieur Fry, I don’t want to sit here drinking alone any longer.” She raised her hand and beckoned the waiter.

  “I’ll do everything I can for you and Marc,” he said, rising to take his leave. “You know that, don’t you?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “I know you’ll do everything you can. Let us hope, Monsieur Fry, that it is enough.”

  * * *

  ________

  On the top floor of the hotel, a dark hallway led to a narrow stone stair, which brought Varian to a child-sized door; the door opened onto a reflective sea of zinc, interrupted here and there by periscope-like chimney pipes. Chagall stood bareheaded in the April sun, one paintbrush tucked under his arm like a baguette, another in his hand. He had set up a striped beach umbrella, affixing it to one of the stouter chimneys with two leather belts, and had arrayed his paints along a waist-high tile ridge that ran the length of the roof. His canvas sat propped on a wooden chair beside a defunct dovecote. The doves, having flown the coop long before, had come to rest on Chagall’s canvas—or if not to rest, then to soar in a rising arc from the interleaved silver architecture of the roofs. Joining the doves in their upward movement was a woman in a white dress, a woman who wore Bella’s face. And as Varian came closer, he saw that the doves were not exactly doves, or not only; they, too, had the faces of women, tiny gestural faces that suggested unearthly and uncapturable perfection. And where was Bella going with those angel-doves? A chill took him, and he found he couldn’t speak.

  “And here we are in my studio once again,” Chagall said. “Such as it is. Perhaps you’ve come to tell me that our visas have come through at last.”

  “Unfortunately not,” Varian said, recovering himself. He explained his mission: Zilberman, the Flight Portfolio, the need for the new drawings. What Zilberman wanted, he said, was something more direct, something that made the situation even more plain.

  Chagall sat down on a small high stool he must have carried up from inside the hotel. His eyebrows drew together above his deep-lined eyes. “I’m afraid I don’t understand,” he said. “Why is Zilberman still here in Marseille? I thought he was to have left two weeks ago.”

  “There was a delay. The place we thought he might take was filled.”

  Chagall’s eyes narrowed. “So how is Zilberman to get out?”

  “He’ll take the same boat, as soon as it returns to port. We expect it within the week.”

  “I understand your mission here, Monsieur Fry. I know you must calculate your moves to do the most good, and to keep your clients safe. But there are situations that require greater risk. Perhaps I’ve not impressed clearly upon you my opinion of Zilberman’s work.”

  Varian lowered his eyes. “You have, Marc.”

  “What you’ve seen of his work here in Marseille is nothing. He has no room in that greenhouse at Air Bel. That’s why he’s been making those little drawings and compiling the work of others. But in Paris I saw his atelier, and I must tell you, Monsieur Fry, I know why he’s so ardently sought by the Nazis. You’ve seen Picasso’s Guernica. Zilberman has works that make Guernica look tame and uncommunicative. He has a way of capturing the soul of a human being. I would never want to be painted by him; he sees too much, takes too much. When he paints Jewish mothers and children thrown into the streets, Jewish men kicked in the eyes or gouged by broken window glass, when he shows young girls stripped bare and made to stand in the street while Nazi youth stare and jeer and prod—Monsieur Fry, he makes the cubists and the dadaists and the vorticists look like cowards. People accuse him of having failed to follow the direction of painting into the present moment, but that’s ignorance. Zilberman represents reality. He makes things plain. The moment he reaches the outside world, Monsieur Fry, the moment he can begin making work there, he�
�ll begin to communicate the plight of Europe more effectively than anyone alive. He must get off the continent at once. He cannot wait for the Sinaïa. He’s waited too long already. There is no more powerful weapon against the Nazis.”

  Varian listened in silence as a rush of heat gathered beneath his breastbone. “There’s no single person capable of ending the war,” he said.

  “If you didn’t believe in the power of a single artist’s work,” Chagall said, “you would still be home in New York City.”

  “I’m not denying Zilberman’s importance. On the contrary, I’ve considered him among my highest priorities all along. I’ve been hiding him at the risk of everyone else at Air Bel. But I had to wait for the right moment. I couldn’t put him on that ship when I thought I could.”

  The painter gave a nod. “I know you’ve been doing all you can,” he said. “But now you must do more. Even if it means doing less for the rest of us.”

  “I mean to do my best for everyone.”

  “Monsieur Fry, you are only one person,” Chagall said. “You must, at times, acknowledge your limitations. Otherwise, you run the risk of endangering your mission. Your true mission, I mean.”

  “I do acknowledge my limitations,” Varian said, though he knew this was a lie; in fact he spent the great majority of his time denying them.

  “You must exercise your wisdom. Zilberman’s drawings may not fetch the highest price among the work he’s assembled, but he is the most valuable asset of his Flight Portfolio. He is the most valuable asset of your portfolio, your human portfolio. His most powerful work is untransportable. He must be allowed to produce it in New York, on the side of some vast building, or on the side of a steamship, or a mountain. Everyone must be made to see it. Do you understand?”

  Varian could only nod.

  “As for the additional drawings, I’ll send them to the office tomorrow. Have Gussie come by at noon.”