The Day of the Bees

by Thomas Sanchez

  Serena and I decided that I should be the one to make contact with Elouard’s heirs, since they would suspect her, as the daughter of Zermano, of intending to lay claim to Big Blue One. As a historian who had written about Zermano it was only natural that I should be conducting research on such an important work of art. There were two heirs, brothers. I traced one to Tel Aviv and the other to Brooklyn. The brother in Tel Aviv refused to speak with me, assuming I was actually working for the London museum. The other brother was a high school science teacher and knew, to my astonishment, who I was. He had read my books on Zermano and happened to agree with many of the conclusions. We talked for three hours about Zermano’s painting, and I found him a knowledgeable enthusiast. He said that of all the paintings in Elouard’s appropriated art collection, the one work he personally wanted most to see returned was Big Blue One. As far as he was concerned, his brother could sell everything else if they prevailed in the courts, but he wanted Blue. Finally I was able to slip my question in.

  “Besides his apartment in Paris, didn’t Elouard have a farm somewhere in France?”

  “Not one farm, two farms. One was sold after the war, and my mother lives at the other one. The farm in the south was the one I loved. I went there every summer until I was forced to leave France as a kid.”

  “I’m surprised, but delighted, that your mother is still alive. She must be quite old now.”

  “Old, she’s ancient! Why don’t you go see her? She complains that no one visits any more … which is true, since my brother and I rarely go to France. Too many bad memories mixed in with the good.”

  “I would like to visit her.”

  “I’ll give you her phone number. Call her and let me know how it goes. She’s quite unique.”

  “What do you mean, ‘unique’?”

  “She’s a real character. You’ll see.”

  THAT SAME DAY Serena and I took a plane to Paris, rented a car, and drove the one hundred and thirty kilometers to the city of Reims. We passed by the gothic cathedral, with its majestic towers and glinting array of stained-glass windows, looking very much as it must have when young Joan of Arc gave her famous impassioned speech that galvanized the French to rally around their Dauphin. Beyond Reims the landscape unfolded into lush champagne vineyards, then hills lazily rolled out, smoothed by fields of wheat. The church steeples of small villages pricked the distant horizon. Suddenly, as we came over a rise, a surreal apparition loomed ahead. It was a concrete spire, taller than the towers of Reims cathedral, and shaped like an artillery shell. The spire marked the center of a World War I battlefield where more than 400,000 men had died. The bodies of 130,000 of those men were so blasted apart that only their shattered bones remained to be entombed beneath the concrete spire.

  On the telephone earlier Madame Elouard had instructed me, “Go left at the Big Bullet and right at the first crossroads, then up two kilometers. You’ll see the farmhouse across from a potato field.”

  I followed her directions and we soon pulled up before a tidy little farmhouse and got out of the car.

  Madame was waiting at the front door. She leaned on a cane, in more of a jaunty pose than that of an infirm person in need of support. She wore a long beaded dress, the kind that had been fashionable in Parisian nightclubs in the thirties. Her white hair was cut short like a boy’s. Her lungs, not as sound as they once were, gave her words a distinct timbre, as if each one were another breathless step up a steep staircase.

  “You can’t get lost with the Bullet. That’s what we call that concrete monstrosity, the Bullet. Why couldn’t they just put those poor boys in the ground and grow oak trees over them?”

  I tried to look on the bright side. “I guess there are those who consider it a fitting monument.”

  “God, that’s stupid! Bullets killed them, a bullet they buried them in. They’ll need a bigger bullet next time,” she said with grim satisfaction.

  Serena smiled sympathetically. “It’s a tragedy.”

  Madame squinted at her. “Who are you? I talked to an American professor on the phone.”

  “That’s me,” I assured her.

  “So who is this? One of your students? If you’re cheating on your wife I want to know that right now.”

  Serena offered her hand in greeting. “I’m very pleased to meet you. And no, I’m not his wife.”

  Madame grabbed Serena’s hand and squeezed. “Are you married?”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “You don’t know much about life, do you? Tragedy, let me tell you about that. The real tragedy of the Bullet is that almost no one comes to visit it any more. People would rather be up the road at the fancy champagne-tasting rooms. They see the Bullet and say, ‘That’s not for me,’ and they keep driving. Well, that bullet is for them.” She studied Serena’s face closely. “Why aren’t you married? Won’t he marry you?”

  Serena tried to gently change the subject. “Thank you so much for letting us visit.”

  Madame, clearly, would change the subject when she was good and ready. She looked at me. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

  “It takes two to want to get married,” I answered.

  “That’s the problem today. Don’t get married, live together, have children—what’s everybody afraid of? It wasn’t that way with my Elouard. ‘I’m a fast girl,’ I told him. ‘If you want to slow me down you’ll have to marry me.’ People today, they’re just selfish and cynical.”

  “I couldn’t concur more,” I nodded.

  Serena tried to extract her hand from Madame’s grip as she gave her opinion. “Maybe people today don’t get married because they’re afraid.”

  Madame refused to release Serena’s hand. “To live together without being in love, that’s not being afraid, that’s just pathetic.”

  Serena pulled her hand free. “I’m not married—and I’m not cynical.”

  “You’re the last one, then.” Madame grinned. “They should put you in a wax museum right next to Joan of Arc with a sign saying, ‘the unmarried and the naive.’ ” She peered closely at Serena. “You look a little familiar. Do I know you?”

  Serena glanced at me and I shook my head no. We couldn’t take the chance of Madame thinking Serena had come to take whatever works of her father’s might be here. All we wanted was to find out if the Bearcat still existed.

  Serena purred sweetly to Madame, “I can honestly say, you don’t know me.”

  “Well, I do now.” Madame opened the door to her house. “Do you like pickled herring?”

  We followed Madame inside to a small living room, where she insisted we sit as she served herring and fruit wine, talking the whole time, so pleased to have company. As she spoke I noticed on the wall a small etching in a simple wooden frame.

  Madame caught my eye. “You know his work?”

  Clearly she had forgotten our earlier telephone conversation, that I was an art historian coming to visit her to talk about Zermano. So I reminded her.

  “Yes, I admire Zermano’s art very much. I’m particularly interested in your thoughts about him.”

  She walked over to the etching, holding a monocle up to it. “So glorious. It’s such a pity.”

  “Pardon me, what’s a pity?”

  “He’s so out of fashion in some quarters. Such a debate about him. How he used women, how he might have been a collaborator during the war, how he’s from the old school that considers beauty something to be prized and painted, ‘objectified’ as they say now. His work is worth a lot of money though, oh my, so much money! But I’ll never sell this, never. It’s the last Zermano I have.”

  “You’re lucky to have it.”

  “Oh, yes. What do I care about fashion? Art is art. The length of women’s dresses goes up and down, but the important thing is not the dress, it’s the woman. Her worth doesn’t change. It’s the same with art.”

  “That’s a refreshing notion. You should teach an art history class.”

  “Oh, they wouldn’t like me. They
wouldn’t like me at all. I’d want to dress up when I taught. I’d want to be wonderful.”

  Serena laughed. “How did you get this wonderful etching?”

  Madame touched her fingers gently to the glass protecting it. “I knew him, you know. Many people say they knew him, but really they didn’t. He saved me. That’s how I got this etching.”

  Serena went over and stood next to Madame, both of them lovingly examining the etching. Serena asked, “How did he save you?”

  Madame braced herself on her cane and took a deep breath, preparing once again to run up the steep incline of her words.

  “It was … he was … everything was confused. That’s why I moved here, not to be confused any more. The Big Bullet is my reminder; there’s no ambiguity. They destroyed my husband. You see this ring on my finger? It’s his ring. I never remarried. They can’t take your second husband away if you don’t have one. They took away everything then, and left me with nothing but this ring. We had a good life before. Elouard was a doctor, he worked hard. One day during the war the militia came to his hospital. Elouard was in the middle of surgery, can you imagine? He had the scalpel in his hand when they told him: ‘It’s now against the law for you to practice this profession. You must leave at once.’ That was it. Elouard immediately went to the bank and found that all his money, our life savings, had been ‘impounded for ideological reasons.’ All he had left of value was his art collection. So many desperate people were selling their art that there was a panic and the market dropped to nearly zero. He sold everything for a fraction of its value, but he kept Zermano’s Big Blue One. He was going to take it to the farm in the south and hide it. With the money from the sale of the collection we were able to get our children out of the country by sending them to Nice, where they were put on a Red Cross ship. Elouard and I remained behind, selling what little furniture we had left for travel money. The night before we were to leave for the south everything became horrible. Seven militia men broke down the door of the apartment and swarmed around us on our last piece of furniture, the bed. There was screaming, accusations, they pulled my husband from my arms. I was naked. I had to try something. I jumped out of bed and started to kiss Elouard passionately, rubbing my body against his. The agents were stunned. I cooed to them. ‘How can you snatch my little rooster from me just when I was cooking him?’ They grabbed my arms and threw me back down on the bed. They handcuffed Elouard. One of them pulled a knife, walked over to me on the bed, and raised the knife above his head. Elouard shouted, struggling to help me. The man stabbed the knife down, striking the mattress around me again and again, until it was completely cut open, its cotton stuffing scattered, exposing a paper packet wedged into one of the underlying spring coils. He pulled the packet out and tore it open; inside were identity papers and travel documents for Elouard and me. The man put the knife to my throat. ‘Don’t tell me you two Jews didn’t know you were fucking on top of fake documents! I’ll be back for you later. Don’t try to run!’ They left. I was terrified, more for Elouard than for myself. I called all my close friends, but everyone hung up when they heard my voice. Then I called Zermano. He didn’t hang up. I told him what happened. He shouted at me. I’ll never forget his words. ‘There is something bad happening here! It stinks!’ He hung up. Now I knew I was alone. Two days later, right before dawn, the phone rang. I was afraid to pick it up because it might be the militia calling. The phone didn’t stop ringing all morning. Then I panicked. Maybe it was Elouard! I picked up the phone. A strange voice said: ‘I’m a friend of your husband’s. Are there any more forged papers hidden in your house?’ I answered no. ‘All right then,’ he continued. ‘I want you to leave your apartment. Do not take anything with you—it must appear that you are only going to the market, not running away. Go to the first Métro stop and get in the first train headed to St.-Cloud. You’ve got to trust me. I am a friend.’ This was so suspicious, but what could I do? Everyone else had abandoned me. I had no choice. I did as I was told and left the apartment. I went down into the Métro station. The Métro for St.-Cloud came. When it stopped I started to get in but someone grabbed my arm from behind and pulled me back, then pushed me along the station platform into the crowd. It was Zermano. He kept moving us quickly through the crowd, down a busy corridor to a different platform. There a Métro stopped, headed for another destination; Zermano pulled me into it with him. We exchanged no words. There were strange men in the car, constantly taking off their hats to peer inside their hat rims where they had pinned photos of those they were hunting. The men looked up from their hats, scanning the faces around them. Several stops later Zermano took my arm and we got off at a railroad station. We boarded a train leaving Paris. Police demanded to see our identity and travel papers. Zermano opened his briefcase and presented the documents for both of us. The police looked at the papers, then looked at us. One of them said, ‘Have a pleasant journey, Mr. and Mrs. Zermano.’ Finally we stopped and got off at the biggest train station I have ever seen. There were scores of tracks with deportation trains on them, guarded by soldiers. Inside each of the cars were hundreds of people, hundreds in each car. They were shouting at the regular passengers standing on the platform. Zermano hurried me along. He spoke under his breath. ‘Elouard is here somewhere. Look for him.’ I searched frantically as we walked. Locomotive engines were starting, steam hissed, the deportation trains were beginning to move. The people inside became more hysterical, screaming out at those of us on the platform to take what they were tossing from the open windows and deliver it to their loved ones. They were throwing money, watches, rings, letters, photographs with messages written on the back…. They were screaming names and addresses. I wanted to help them all. I grabbed the bottom of my dress and held it out to catch what was being thrown. Nothing reached me, everything fell onto the tracks. The trains were rolling. I was crying so hard that if Elouard was there I couldn’t have seen him. Zermano whispered, ‘It’s okay. I promised I’d bring you, so he could see you one last time. I’m sure he saw you.’ An hour later, standing before a regular train headed south, Zermano kissed me passionately in front of the soldiers and shouted, ‘Hurry back, darling!’ He handed me his briefcase and pushed me up into the train and it pulled out. I looked back. That’s the last time I saw him, waving and blowing kisses as if I really were his beloved wife.”

  Madame stopped, out of breath, at the top of the staircase of words she had climbed.

  Serena touched her open palm tenderly to the glass protecting the etching. “It’s such a treasure.”

  Madame spoke again, her voice thin now. “It was in the briefcase he gave me, along with my false identification papers and money. No matter what happened after, how hard it got, I didn’t part with that etching. I peeled the wallpaper off the walls of the shabby rooms I stayed in and ate the bugs underneath rather than sell it.”

  I tried to offer some condolence. “I’m sorry about your husband.” She didn’t respond. I tried, clumsily, to let her know I was moved. “Perhaps it’s best if these nightmares are put in a box and buried.”

  Finally she spoke. “I don’t believe in that—in forgetting. People back then didn’t ask questions for fear of finding out everything. They were terrified that if the truth were known the consequences would be too horrible to contemplate.”

  “You are right. The suffering was immeasurable and we shouldn’t forget. I even read of a woman who had been crucified.”

  “Crucifixion.” She looked at me dismissively. “That was the least of it. Worse things happened.”

  I didn’t have anything to say to that. Serena broke the silence.

  “Thank you for the wonderful pickled herring! The most delicious I’ve ever eaten in my life!”

  Madame’s old eyes began to shine. “You liked it? I must give you the recipe. Come right into the kitchen.” She led Serena into the kitchen and I heard Madame giving her the recipe. “Now you go home right now and make this.”

  It was clear the visit was over, and al
l we had managed to get was a recipe for pickled herring. I was trying to think of a way to remind her why we were there when Serena slipped the recipe into her purse and spoke.

  “What a lovely gift. Thank you so much.”

  Madame took Serena’s hand. “You come back and visit, dear. I hope that next time you are married.”

  “Well, I might be—you never know. And if I do get married I’ll honeymoon in the south. Maybe I could visit you there, at your other farm.”

  “Other farm? Oh! I sold that years ago to have enough money to live on.”

  “What a pity. I’m so sorry you had to lose something like that.”

  “I’m lucky. I have this farm, and another barn to keep Zermano’s Bear in.”

  “His Bear?”

  “Yes, the Stutz Bearcat he traded us for Big Blue One. His man Roderigo drove the Bear to the farm in the south and hid it in the barn. The final thing Zermano shouted to me from the platform of the train station when I last saw him was, ‘Keep the Bear safe! It belongs to Louise!’ ”

  “She never came?”

  “Never. Too late now, she’s dead. But I moved it up here and haven’t touched it.”

  “It’s very valuable, a rarity. You’re a rich woman.”

  “I won’t sell it. It belongs to Zermano. He’s still alive, you know, despite the fact the newspapers say he died. He’ll come for it.”

  “May we see it?”

  “Yes, dear, but you’ll have to be very careful.”