Bridal Chair (18 page)

“Why must we go to Lisbon?” she asked plaintively. “Doesn’t Monsieur Fry realize how difficult it is for us to travel?”

“The port of Marseilles is now dangerous. Portugal is still a neutral country where ships embark for the United States,” Michel replied impatiently. “You will sail on such a ship.”

He masked his annoyance and went out to the balcony. Ida listened to Bella’s requests. There were cosmetics she needed, a particular French face cream and kohl, which she had heard was unavailable in America.

The war, Ida reflected, had not impacted her mother’s vanity.

Bella insisted that they would need food to sustain them during the journey. She had heard that shipboard food was barely edible, and Ida knew how particular her father was, how he craved dried apricots and almonds, chocolates and marzipan. And of course they would need warm coats, heavy sweaters.

“I would do all the shopping myself,” Bella said apologetically. “But your father says it is dangerous for us to leave the hotel, and I am not well, Idotchka.”

She chronicled her symptoms. Her weakness, her insomnia, her faintness when she awakened each morning, the headaches that assaulted her throughout the day. And the nausea, the terrible nausea. All foods disagreed with her. She retched after eating.

“I am sick,” she moaned. “You have a sick mother, Idotchka.”

Ida nodded. She was familiar with her mother’s illnesses, both real and imagined. “Don’t worry,
Mamochka
,” she said patiently. “Michel and I will buy whatever you need. We will go to the markets tomorrow.”

“It is dangerous,” Marc said warningly. “Jews are being arrested each day. I leave the hotel only to buy the newspapers. But you are safe, I am sure. You have papers. Of course you have papers.”

Michel turned away. He knew that Ida would not tell her parents that their papers were no longer valid. Their French citizenship had also been invalidated. They were subject to arrest at any moment. But that danger would not deter Ida. Her mother needed cosmetics, warm clothing, dried fruits and nuts, and Ida, now and forever the most dutiful of daughters, would supply them. Somehow she had managed to find the funds to pay for them. He suspected that she had sold her own few pieces of jewelry, but he had not asked her.

She insisted that they would be safe. Given her bright hair and fair complexion, she could pass as a gentile. She laughed when she spoke of the woman on the train who had assumed her to be a Christian although she had recognized that dark-eyed and dark-haired Michel was a Jew. He did not laugh. He knew himself to be vulnerable, but he had no choice. He would not allow Ida to go into the streets of Marseilles alone.

Early the next morning, they hurried to the market square. Ida raced from shop to shop while Michel remained outside, staring intently into display windows so that his face would not be seen. At last her purchases were complete. Relieved, she turned to him.

“Let’s treat ourselves,” she said. “Let’s pretend we are normal people living in normal times and go into a café for croissants and coffee.”

He nodded. The sidewalk café nearby was relatively empty, and if they sensed any danger, they could rush out and hop onto the trolley that traversed the street. He pulled the brim of his hat low and they sat at a table near the entry. As they studied the menu, another couple entered.

The woman strutted in importantly, the heels of her high black boots clicking in military rhythm. Her straw-colored hair was tightly curled and her fleshy cheeks were dotted with rouge. She wore a purple silk dress, cut low enough to reveal the rise of her ample breasts. A much shorter man, in the uniform of the Vichy police, held her arm proudly. As they walked past Ida and Michel, the careless swing of her oversized black purse grazed Ida’s arm. Ida grew very pale. She waited for them to pass and then reached for Michel’s hand.

“Did you recognize her?” she whispered. “It’s Katya. Our Polish maid.”

He nodded. “I thought I saw her when I was last in Marseilles, but I wasn’t sure. All right. Don’t look at them. I don’t think she noticed us. We will drink our coffee and eat our croissants and then leave. Quietly, slowly. See, she is not even looking at us.”

“Too busy seducing her Nazi,” Ida said bitterly.

They sipped their coffee, keeping their heads averted, and left the café. They took a circuitous route back to the hotel, but as they rounded a corner, Ida heard footsteps hurrying after her. She turned but saw no one. But as they entered the hotel, Michel swerved and saw Katya. She stood across the way staring at them, a spiteful smile on her lips.

They rushed up to the Chagalls’ room and locked the door. Marc was on the balcony, and Michel pulled him back into the room and drew the curtains. He did not bother looking down at the street. He knew that Katya would still be there.

“What are you doing?” Marc asked indignantly.

“We are in danger,” Michel replied angrily. “We must leave this place. Ida, you must go to Varian Fry at the Splendide Hôtel, tell him about Katya, and ask him to find another safe house. Quickly.”

She nodded, but even as she walked toward the door, it was forced open. Three burly Vichy police officers in bottle-green uniforms burst into the room, brandishing clubs of lacquered wood. Their leader waved a document in the air.

“We have a warrant here for the arrest of Marc Chagall, an alien in France.”

Marc trembled and Bella clung to his arm.

“Do you know who my husband is?” she shrieked. “He is a world-famous artist.”

“We know who he is,” the officer replied. “He is a world-famous degenerate Jew, an enemy of the Reich. We have been told about him.”

Ida escaped the room as Bella’s protests became wild wails of grief. She ran down the road but turned at the corner to see her father, an unresisting rag doll of a man, being thrust into a police van. A voice called mockingly after her.

“Madame Ida, run, run for your life. You and your people no longer rule the world.”

“Damn you, Katya,” she muttered.

Her heart hammering, she increased her pace, gasping for breath but never pausing until she reached the Splendide Hôtel. Crowds of refugees filled the hallways that led to offices of the American Relief Center. Their voices were a cacophony of desperation, their faces tight masks of anxiety. They congregated on landings and sat on the steps of stairwells, ferociously defending their places in the waiting line. A sallow mother changed a baby on a landing. The stench of the soiled diaper mingled with the odors of sweat, unwashed clothing, and sour breath. Ida circled past two wailing toddlers who were briefly calmed when their weary, gray-faced father handed them crusts of moldy bread to chew on. She ignored furious cries of protest.

“There is a line, madame. Wait your turn, madame!”

She did not line up; she did not wait. She raced into the Relief Center office and ran past the astonished receptionist who rose from her seat in protest. Her breath labored, her body drenched in sweat, she burst into Varian Fry’s office.

He peered at her across his desk, its surface covered with neatly arranged stacks of documents. He wore a well-tailored dark business suit, the inevitable silk handkerchief tucked neatly into his pocket, the calculated uniform of a fastidious man, intent in defying the chaos that surrounded him. He carefully moved aside the mountain of papers before him.

“What has happened, Madame Rapaport?” he asked, his voice calm and controlled.

“My father has been arrested by the Vichy police,” she said, struggling for breath. “Perhaps half an hour ago. They came to the hotel. Three men. Vichy officers.”

“Half an hour ago,” he repeated and glanced at his watch. He reached for his telephone. “Miriam, please connect me to the police department at the bishopric here in Marseilles,” he said. He set the receiver down and repositioned his papers, methodically stamping and signing document after document. Ida stared at him. Why had she placed so much faith in this nondescript businessman, this fussy bureaucrat in his Savile Row clothing? He could not arrange for her father’s release. All he could do was sign letters and stamp forged documents. They were lost. All their efforts had been in vain. Her eyes burned, but she did not weep.

He looked up from his work. “A glass of water, perhaps,” he offered.

She shook her head, and he smiled apologetically and opened yet another folder. “Visas,” he explained. “They must be completed today.”

She grimaced. She had no interest in his damn visas. All she cared about was her father, who was in a prison cell, and her mother, who lay weeping on her unmade bed. She wondered if Michel was safe. He too might have been arrested. But she was certain that it was only her father who interested those arresting officers. Katya must have told them what a prize catch the great Marc Chagall would be. She sank into a chair and wondered wildly what she could do next.

At last a voice crackled through the receiver and Varian Fry lifted it.

“Good morning,” he said cordially. “This is Varian Fry of the American Relief Center. Do I have the honor of speaking to the prefecture in charge?” A silence and then he continued. “Your honor, I speak for myself and for Mr. Harry Bingham, the American consul here in Marseilles. I understand that you have taken the world-famous painter, Monsieur Marc Chagall, into custody. My government, and indeed Eleanor Roosevelt herself, the wife of the president of the United States, are very concerned about the safety of Monsieur Chagall. I assume that you have not forgotten that the United States has given full diplomatic recognition to the Vichy regime. You would surely not want to jeopardize that recognition that is so important to Marshal Pétain by ignoring our feelings about the detention of this important artist. I must warn you that if he is not released within the hour, I will call David Anderson of the
New
York
Times
in London and tell him about the arrest. You know that such a news story will cause an international scandal that will please neither President Roosevelt nor Marshal Pétain. So you will agree that it is in your best interest to arrange for Monsieur Chagall’s release. I assume you will need to consult your superiors about this. I will wait on the line for your reply.”

He removed the cap of his gold fountain pen and resumed his work, signing the documents he had stamped. Again the receiver rested on his desk. Ida sat at the edge of her chair, fighting a wave of nausea. At last he lifted the receiver again, listened, and then spoke, his voice laconic although his hand trembled.

“Thank you. You have made a sensible decision. My government is grateful to you. A car will be at the police station within the half hour to receive Monsieur Chagall.” He turned to Ida. “As you see, all will be well, madame,” he said. “Your father is safe. You will want to go to him, of course. My car is just outside the hotel. It will take you to the police station.”

She grasped his hand. “How can we ever thank you, Mr. Fry?” she asked.

“Oh, don’t thank me,” he replied. “Thank the stupid Vichy police officer who believed that I could actually manage to reach a
New
York
Times
correspondent in London and that he would actually care enough to write about it. The
New
York
Times
, you may know, has not been a great advocate for the Jews of Europe.”

Ida paled as he laughed the mischievous laugh peculiar to confident tricksters of fate.

“I would not have had the courage to play such a dangerous game,” she admitted ruefully.

“You have courage enough, Madame Ida. You saved your father’s life today. But there is no time to waste. We were lucky today, but luck is fickle. Tell your parents that they cannot delay any longer. They must leave Marseilles for Lisbon as soon as possible. I only regret that I cannot arrange visas or funds for you and your husband. Still, I have no doubt that you will somehow manage. I will help you get the paintings to America. You are a survivor, madame, a brave and resourceful survivor.”

He rose from his desk and kissed her on both cheeks. His lips were cold and dry as they brushed against her flushed and burning skin.

Marc was safe. He and Bella sat on their narrow hotel bed, holding hands like frightened pale children. Ida repeated Varian Fry’s warning.

“There is no time to be lost. You must leave Marseilles at once,” she said.

He nodded his agreement and immediately added conditions.

“Yes,” he said. “We must leave as soon as possible. But arrangements must be made. I will not leave without my paintings.”

“Damn your paintings,” Michel hissed angrily. “Paintings do not bleed. They do not breathe. Human lives, yours, Bella’s, Ida’s, and mine, are worth more than your damn canvases.”

Marc looked at him contemptuously. “You do not understand the importance of great art, Michel. Let me explain it to you. You have perhaps heard of the Italian sculptor, Benvenuto Cellini?” he asked.

“Of course, I have,” Michel replied irritably.

“Here is a story about Cellini. It seems he was simmering a cauldron of metal for the casting of a medallion while his small son played nearby. The solution was not to his liking. It had reached the boiling point, but it lacked a sufficient amount of calcium to achieve the color he envisioned. He picked up the child and tossed him into the mixture so that his bones would provide the missing calcium. The cast was successful and the finished work exquisite. It was, supposedly, the gold medallion depicting Leda and the swan that is now in the Vienna Museum. That medallion is immortal. What was more important—the life of an insignificant child or a masterpiece that has endured through the ages? An interesting riddle,
n’est-ce pas
?” He smiled, a teasing and taunting smile.

They were silent. Marc’s question was not a question; his riddle was not a riddle. It was a statement, frightening in its certainty. He had answered Michel’s question. Yes, he was saying. His paintings were more valuable than all their lives.

Ida was pale with disbelief. “You cannot mean that you would sacrifice all of us for your work?” she asked.

“Of course not,” Marc said, shrugging mischievously. “I just told a little story. I thought it might amuse you.”

Michel frowned darkly. Marc’s “amusing story” was a statement.

“You cannot stay in Marseilles,” Ida persisted. “Michel and I promise that we will bring your paintings to America. Mr. Fry has said he will help us.”

She made plans for their departure. Michel barely listened as she spoke of her efforts to arrange for the shipment of the paintings.

He traveled to Nice to reassure his parents that he was safe and to be certain that they themselves had not been arrested in the daily
rafles
and deported to the concentration camps at Drancy or in North Africa.

“You must not worry about us, Michel,” Masha Rapaport said.

He reflected that Ida’s parents had never spoken those words to her. “You must worry about us,” was their unspoken charge.

He was relieved when Marc at last agreed to leave for Lisbon at the beginning of May. Ida, with Varian Fry’s help, had arranged for the crates of paintings to be transported to Madrid.

Dark clouds canopied the sky on the day of their departure. Bella wept in the cab on the way to the train station. “If I die in America, promise that you will bring my body back to France,” she pleaded.

“You will not die in America,” Marc said harshly.

“Promise,” she insisted.

“We promise,” Ida interceded. “But you must not think like that,
Mamochka
.”

She knew that her words were futile. Bella was death-haunted and would not be consoled.

As their cab sped through the narrow streets of Marseilles, sirens sounded and police trucks passed them. The driver cursed as he took circuitous turns, screeching to a halt and then accelerating as he drove in the wrong direction down one-way streets.

“It’s the damn Jews,” he told them. “The police are finally getting rid of all those stinking refugees. They cleaned Marseilles out this morning. No more
parfum
de
ghetto
. We’ll be able to breathe again.”

“Where are the Jews being taken?” Michel asked casually.

“A cargo ship is waiting for them in the harbor. Maybe they’ll cart them out to sea and sink the lot of them.”

Michel and Ida, Marc and Bella, looked at each other. Another day and they might have been herded onto that ship. Michel did not tip the driver who cursed them as he drove away.

At the station, their farewells were tearful. Michel was startled when Marc hugged him, shocked to see that his father-in-law’s eyes were bright with tears.

“Take care of our Ida,” he said.

They embraced her, holding her tightly in the vise of their fear and love.

“Will we ever see you again?” Bella whispered.

“Of course you will,
Maman
.” Ida’s voice was calm, although her heart raced and her hands trembled.

Michel pried her loose from their grasp as the conductor shouted the last boarding call. Marc and Bella reluctantly mounted the steps that led to their carriage.

“
Au
revoir
,” they called to each other, their voices rising above the train’s piercing whistle. Bella stood on the platform of her carriage as the train left the station. She waved a white handkerchief. It fluttered in the wind, a small flag of surrender.

* * *

Ida and Michel returned to Nice. Ida charted her parents’ progress from the postcards they sent. They had reached Spain without incident, but the crates of paintings had been impounded by Spanish customs at the insistence of the German embassy. Helpless, without friends to intercede for them, they had no choice but to continue their journey to Portugal. Marc sent Ida a frantic telegram from Lisbon, pleading with her to arrange for the Spanish government to release the paintings. She showed it to Michel, who crumpled it and tossed it away.

“We must do something,” she pleaded.

“We’ve done enough,” he retorted. “Their lives are saved. And we are still here, trapped like mice in a cage. Jewish mice. Did your father ever paint mice, Ida?” His bitterness morphed into cruelty.

Letters of complaint followed. The Portuguese capital was unwelcoming. Their hotel was dilapidated. They were exhausted. Bella was ill and mired in depression.

“I do not eat. I do not leave this hotel room,” she wrote. “Your father cannot paint here so he writes. He writes letters that he does not send and Yiddish poems that no one will read. Ah, Idotchka, it would have been better if we had never left Vitebsk, if we had died in our village.”

Her mother’s words congealed into a palpable bitterness that settled heavily on Ida’s heart. She wrote to Varian Fry and to the curator of the Prado in Madrid. She received halfhearted promises of assistance from both of them.

Marc wrote that passage had been arranged for them on the Portuguese freighter SS
Pinto
Basto
, sailing in mid-June. The ship was old, but it would not be a lonely voyage, he added sarcastically. Hundreds of other Jews would be their traveling companions, plucked from the streets of Lisbon. He recognized them. The bearded men and bewigged women had stepped out of his own paintings.

“It pains us to leave Europe,” he wrote. “But we look forward to welcoming you and Michel when you arrive in New York with my paintings. You will not forget my paintings, Idotchka.”

Ida passed the letter to Michel, who glanced at it and thrust it back at her.

“And if we come without the paintings, will he welcome us?” he asked harshly.

She did not reply. She circled June 21 on her calendar. That was the day the SS
Pinto
Basto
would arrive in New York. She would know then that her parents were safe.

Ida willed herself to optimism and breathed a sigh of relief when Varian Fry’s secretary called to report that the Chagalls were in New York and had passed through immigration without incident. The secretary had other good news to report. In a lilting voice, pleased because she so seldom had good news, she told Ida that her father’s paintings had been released and awaited her in Madrid.

The weight of months of worry slipped from Ida’s shoulders. She rushed home, kissed Michel on his forehead, and pulled him to his feet, urging him into a small dance of joy. Startled, he whirled her about the room, pleased at her pleasure.

He did not ask how they would reach Madrid or how they would lay claim to the paintings. He did not ask how they would pay for their visas or for their passage to America, if by some miracle they managed to reach an open port in Spain or Portugal. He would not darken the flash of joy that lit up his wife’s lovely face for the first time in months. He marveled at her refusal to understand the gravity of their own situation as she celebrated her parents’ escape to freedom.

“She does not see that every door is closed to us,” he told his mother that afternoon as they walked along the beach. Masha was collecting shells that she fashioned into small ornaments she sold on the streets. “Our citizenship has been revoked. We could be arrested any day,” he continued.

“Not every door is closed,” Masha replied quietly. “See what I have for you.”

She set her basket down on the damp sand and removed a cloth-wrapped packet concealed beneath the shells she handed to him. She had not dared put it in her purse because she had been stopped more than once by the Vichy police, who had searched through it and examined her documents. He opened it and gasped as he stared at two exit visas, one for him and one for Ida, their names beautifully inscribed and a gold seal affixed to each document.

“This is fantastic,” he said. “How did you get them?”

She smiled.

“Guido, the Italian soldier, the one with that fine black mustache, asked me to sew some buttons on his uniform. As I mended it, he asked me why I was so sad and I told him about you and Ida and how we feared for your lives. Guido is a good man. He hates fascism. He is a clerk to the general in charge of arranging for arrivals and departures of Italian nationals, and he managed to steal blank exit visa forms from his desk. His friend Carlos was a lithographer in Florence and he filled in your names. Guido was especially proud of the seal. He found it in a file drawer. It is meaningless, of course, but it is impressive. Which is fitting, he said, because this whole terrible war is meaningless. He asked me to promise that when the war is over, I will tell the Allies how Guido Mercurio and Carlos Mangelli helped a Jewish family. Such testimony will exempt them from any punishment. And I promised, of course.”

She bent to pick up a large, beautifully shaped nacreous shell, her eyes bright with pride in her achievement.

“Do you think it will work?” he asked, his elation suddenly diminished by doubt. “And if we do manage to get out of France, how will we manage passage to New York?”

Again she smiled.

“Your father wired money to Moshe Rapaport, our cousin in Seville, who purchased two tickets for you on a ship called the
Navemare
. It will sail from Seville to New York. You will use the exit visa to reach Madrid and then go on to Seville to Moshe’s apartment. That is how you will get to New York,” she replied.

He had known of a well-connected Rapaport cousin in Seville, but his parents, so fiercely independent, had never wanted to impose on him. Not for themselves. But they would do anything for him, their Michel, for their Michel and Ida, his wife.

“But how did you pay for the tickets?” he asked.

“My mother’s cameo. Your grandfather’s diamond tie clip. We sold them.” She shrugged. “We saved them carefully, but what use will they be to us now? The British have slammed the gates of Palestine shut. We will remain in France. But you and Ida are young. You have a future. You can save your lives.”

“Oh,
Maman
,” he moaned, overcome with love for her, for his father, awed by their selflessness and generosity. “How can I leave you?”

“But you must,” she replied. “We will survive, your father and I. We are experts at survival. We will be together again when this war, this terrible war, is over.”

He embraced her, felt the fragility of her small body, inhaled the very scent of her love, the lavender-tinged aroma of her papery skin mingled with the sweet-smelling breeze that blew in across the crashing cobalt waves of the Mediterranean.