Bridal Chair (40 page)

And Marc did not object. He was concerned only with his own role. The camera followed him as he sketched the bantams that Jean and David kept as pets. He played with the children in the olive grove, always careful to turn his face to a flattering angle, pausing to run his fingers through his gray hair. He practiced smiles and asked whether a half smile was more photogenic than openmouthed laughter. At the Madoura pottery works, Leirens photographed him as he spun a vase about on a potter’s wheel, dancing about it and waving a brush that dripped droplets of glaze. He was crafting a complete dinner service as a wedding gift for Ida and Franz.

“I will make sixty, perhaps seventy pieces,” he announced. “My daughter and her husband will do a great deal of entertaining. Collectors, art critics, even those of royal blood may well be guests in their home.” He smiled at the thought that European nobility would be hosted by his Ida. Together, he and his beautiful, vibrant daughter had triumphed over history.

Leirens trained his camera on Ida herself as she stood before the kiln and studied one plate after another. Marc was using only two colors, a fiery vermilion and a gentle blue to create charming and fanciful vignettes, images of nurturing mothers and loving couples, graceful dancers and airborne animals. Each piece was different. Each place setting told a story. She laughed at the circus scenes and puzzled over his hybrid creatures, human and animal magically melded. She imagined setting a table with those plates and platters, using a linen cloth of a deep rich blue. She would place a tall crystal vase containing long-stemmed red and white roses at its center. She was Bella’s daughter, and her mother’s loving conceits were now her own.

Tears clouded her eyes. The memory of her mother surfaced unbidden and ambushed her happiness. She hurried out of the pottery. She did not want Charles Leirens to film her sorrow.

* * *

They screened the first reels of film. Marc was an enthusiastic viewer, applauding his own antics. He congratulated Charles Leirens on his work and then followed Ida onto the terrace.

“I hope that this cinematography is over and done with. It has taken far too much of my time, and Leirens has been at Les Collines long enough. Virginia is so often with him that David is neglected,” he complained.

“David is hardly a neglected child,” Ida protested. Still, she suggested to Virginia that she concentrate more on David and spend less time with Charles Leirens. Virginia stared her down.

“It is hardly your concern as to how I spend my time,” she said.

“It becomes my concern when I must take care of the children while you learn how to photograph roosters and discuss cameras with our guest,” Ida retorted.

“Your worries about that will soon be over,” Virginia said. “Charles is going to Belgium for Christmas.”

“I see.” Ida was at once relieved that Marc’s annoyance would be abated and disappointed that Leirens, renowned for his portraiture, would not photograph her as a bride.

“Do not worry. He will return for your wedding,” Virginia added, as though intuiting her thought. “As always, Ida, your wish is a command.”

“Will my wedding be his only reason for his return to Les Collines?”

Ida’s question was loaded with sarcasm. Virginia blushed but said nothing. Their verbal duel was over, but boundaries had been drawn. Too much had been said and yet nothing had been revealed.

Days later, Ida stood on the terrace and watched Charles Leirens’s leave-taking. He shook hands with Marc and kissed Virginia on both cheeks, handing her his photograph of Jean and David, their heads bent close. She in turn gave him a sealed envelope that he tucked into the pocket of his brown velvet jacket. Ida was certain that he would open the envelope as soon as the car pulled away.

“Did you write him an affectionate billet-doux?” she asked Virginia that evening as she sat at her desk, glancing over the household accounts.

“I wrote him a note of appreciation,” Virginia replied coldly. “I told him how pleased we were with the film and how much his friendship means to us.”

“To us?”

“Yes. To us. To myself, to Marc and the children. And I assume to you as well, Ida.”

“You assume a great deal, Virginia,” Ida said.

She turned back to her work. It occurred to her that she might write to Charles Leirens and tell him that she had made other arrangements for her wedding photographs and there was no need for him to return to Les Collines, but almost immediately, she dismissed the thought. The photographer presented no danger. Virginia’s enthusiasms were transient. Her only constants were her children. David was Marc’s son. Virginia would not endanger his role, or her own, in Marc’s life. She was Marc’s buffer against a terrifying solitude, Ida’s guarantor that he would not feel himself forlorn and abandoned. No, she told herself. Her fears were foolish.

She resolved to make peace with Virginia. They had had a friendship of a kind. It could be re-created. It was in her father’s interest, and her own, that Virginia should feel herself loved and valued enough to remain with Marc at Les Collines.

Their own Christmas visitors at Les Collines were Virginia’s parents, Godfrey and Georgianna Haggard. It was a happy visit. Ida welcomed them with great exuberance and told them how fond she was of Virginia.

“Ida is so gracious,” Georgianna Haggard told her daughter. “It is rare that a stepdaughter is so welcoming.”

“Stepdaughter?” Virginia repeated, as though the word was foreign to her. But of course, if she and Marc married, she would be Ida’s stepmother, and Marc, in turn, would be Jean’s stepfather. She struggled to contain the hilarity that overcame her at the thought of such an odd configuration.

“Your mother and I assume that you will become Chagall’s wife once your divorce from John McNeil is final,” Godfrey said sternly. “This charade has gone on long enough. Do you plan to marry here or in England?”

It did not occur to either of her parents until weeks later that Virginia had not answered his question.

Their leave-taking was affectionate. The Haggards congratulated Ida on her forthcoming marriage. Georgianna asked where she and Franz would make their home.

“We will spend much of our time in Switzerland and in Paris. Virginia will be the chatelaine of Les Collines.”

“And what have I been until now?” Virginia asked sharply.

Ida shrugged. It was a question that did not require an answer.

Smiling vaguely, she kissed Georgianna and Godfrey good-bye. After all, she thought to herself with much amusement, they might soon be her step-grandparents.

Virginia and Ida stood together on the terrace and waved as the car sped away. They turned then and went their separate ways, Ida to enter her father’s studio and Virginia to stroll listlessly through the garden.

Vence was electric with energy and excitement as Ida’s wedding day grew closer.
Pensiones
prepared for the arrival of important guests from Paris and London, from Zurich and Bern, and even from the United States. The lorries of linen suppliers navigated the narrow lanes, and housewives chattered in the outdoor spice market about the bride’s apparel. The postmistress revealed that boxes had arrived from a Paris couturier, but the mayor’s wife, who frequented a boutique in Nice, told them that Ida Chagall had purchased a plum-colored satin and velvet suit. She had learned as much from the seamstress who had been summoned to Les Collines to make some small alterations on the velvet jacket.

“She won’t wear a white dress?” someone asked.

“It is not her first marriage,” the mayor’s wife said knowingly. She went to a hairdresser in Nice frequented by Françoise Gilot, who was not averse to sharing her knowledge of Ida’s past. There had been a husband; there had been lovers. She was hardly a virgin bride. Besides, she was Jewish. There was some uncertainty as to whether Jewish brides wore white.

They argued about whether or not she would wear a hat, agreeing that it would be a shame to cover her glorious hair.

Ida herself sped through the town day after day, rushing from one shop to another, beaming happily as she made her purchases and issued orders. She conferred with Madame Fevre, the greengrocer, about the menus for the wedding breakfast, and she planned an exciting buffet.

“A
salade
Niçoise
,” she decided. “The freshest greens.”

She lifted sprays of arugula, examined heads of romaine lettuce, and frowned.

“Not fresh enough,” she declared.

“But it is January,” Madame Fevre protested. “The harvest is not yet in.”

“Then you must send to the greenhouses in Nice for their produce, madame. Do not worry about the expense. It is for my wedding day, after all.”

Madame Fevre nodded. Nothing could be denied this whirling dervish of a bride who knew exactly what she wanted.

“Ah, but your little red potatoes are beautiful,” she enthused. She lifted three of the miniature spuds and laughingly juggled them, delighting the children who were even more delighted as she dove into her pockets and tossed them chocolates.

The baker promised freshly baked croissants and baguettes as well as a wedding cake that would rival the finest patisseries of Paris.

Rented trestle tables and chairs were arranged in a horseshoe in Marc’s studio.

“You have taken all my space. Where am I to do my work?” he grumbled.

“Your work can wait,
Papochka
,” she retorted. “My wedding breakfast cannot.”

She hugged him, ran her fingers through his tangled curls, kissed his cheeks, the happy bride, the playful cajoling daughter.

Virginia and the children were caught up in the frenzy. Virginia arranged the flowers. Jean, a serious child, designed the menus, laboring over each with great care.

Ida lavished praise on her.

“You are a wonderful little artist, Jean,” she said, studying one gaily decorated menu card. “Where did you learn so much about colors?”

“My father is an artist,” Jean reminded her gravely.

Ida nodded. John McNeil was a shadowy presence in their lives. David carried his name by virtue of a legal quirk that stipulated that any child born to a married woman was given her husband’s name regardless of biological paternity. Only when Virginia and Marc married would he become David Chagall. Until then, Marc had no legal claim to his own son. John McNeil had at last agreed to a divorce, but it had not yet been granted. Jean, however, would always be Jean McNeil, her name a reminder of Virginia’s past.

Virginia filled bowls with flowers and then worked on a garland of laurel leaves that would be Marc’s crown at the wedding breakfast. When Charles Leirens arrived, she busied herself arranging his photographic equipment, playfully draping his cameras with chains of flowers, a gesture that at once annoyed and amused Ida. Virginia once again trailed after Leirens, carrying his equipment, studying his techniques.

In a prewedding photograph, Charles posed Ida standing beneath Marc’s painting
Bride
and
Groom
with
Eiffel
Tower
. Marc had painted the graceful, silvery Eiffel Tower standing sentinel in the background while he and Bella embraced beneath a canopy of falling leaves. A young girl, her features clearly those of Ida, flew toward them offering a bouquet of flowers. It occurred to Ida that the painting reflected the dream in which she herself was flying, but suddenly it became clear to her that it was her dream that had been plucked from the painting.

Guests began arriving. Marc welcomed them, proudly escorting each arrival through the house and the grounds. They were witness to his achievements, his hard-earned prosperity. He changed his velvet jackets several times a day, first choosing one of peacock blue and then another of burgundy red. He knotted silk ascots around his neck with a dramatic flair and posed for numerous photographs.

Franz and his family arrived, and he moved among the guests with a shy dignity.

Claude Bourdet, the former owner of Les Collines, introduced him to his wife who was also named Ida. “Idas make wonderful wives,” he said, and both Idas clapped and laughed.

The day before the wedding, Elsa, André, and their son, Daniel, arrived from New York. Ida was overjoyed to see them.

“It is wonderful that you are here. I never thought you would come,” she said excitedly.

“When André came home after the war, he swore that he would never go back to Europe,” Elsa said. “But I promised to be here for your marriage and so he agreed. Your marriage has given us a new beginning, Ida.”

Ida embraced her friend.

“And you have not yet advised me to be careful,” she said laughingly.

“Ah, this time I think you know exactly what you are doing,” Elsa replied.

Writers and artists, curators and collectors, invaded the town, their irreverent laughter and their lively conversations echoing in bistros and cafés.

“You are marrying into artistic royalty,” Arnold Rüdlinger, the Swiss art historian who was Franz’s best man, told his friend.

“And Ida Chagall is marrying into Swiss aristocracy,” Franz’s sister observed drily.

Franz glared at her.

“We do not think in those terms. We are marrying because we love each other. Our backgrounds are irrelevant. Ida feels a great allegiance to her Jewish heritage, and I respect her for it. It will not come between us.”

“Of course not,” Arnold Rüdlinger said. He had worked with Ida in Bern and Zurich and admired her knowledge and exuberant energy. She would add laughter and excitement to the life of his too-serious scholarly friend. He thought of how he would describe her when he made his toast at the wedding breakfast. Adjectives flooded his mind.
Exuberant. Energetic. Charming. Warm. Generous. Devoted.
He shuffled them about and watched Ida cross the lawn, hand in hand with Marc. Yes,
devoted
. He hoped that her devotion to her father would be matched by her devotion to Franz.

* * *

The sky was wondrously bright on the morning of the wedding. Ida went to the window, inhaled deeply, and glanced at her bedside clock. She had awakened early and there was no need to rush. Slowly, languidly, she drew her bath, filling the tub with lavender bath salts. Her mother would approve, she thought as she lowered herself into the fragrant water and passed a soft cloth across her legs, her torso, gently caressing first one breast and then the other. She reflected that Franz would touch them carefully, tenderly, and she smiled in sensual anticipation.

Eighteen years had passed since her marriage to Michel. Then she had been a terrified child bride, but on this, her second wedding day, she was a woman, a woman who had experienced tenderness and passion, anguish and delight, and now embraced her future joyfully, zestfully.

She toweled herself dry in front of the long bathroom mirror and studied her full-figured body, her skin rosy and firm, her waist still slender, her auburn hair thick and luxurious. She swept it up and arranged it in two curling silken swaths across her high forehead, allowing teasing tendrils to curl about her ears.

She dressed with ease and swiftness, pleased with the plum-colored velvet suit she had chosen so carefully. She applied makeup sparingly, barely rouging her high soft cheeks and lightly brushing her long eyelashes.

“You look beautiful,” Franz said when she greeted him at the door. “But then you always look beautiful.”

She blushed and looked up at him.

“And you yourself look very handsome,” she said.

His fine-featured face was narrow and pale, but his eyes glinted behind his black-framed glasses. His shirt was starched and sparkling white against the well-cut jacket of his gray suit, and he wore a perfectly knotted silk tie that, oddly enough, was the same plum color as her jacket. She smoothed the lock of thick dark hair that fell so boyishly across his forehead.

Marc had abandoned his usual quasi-Bohemian garb in favor of a dark suit and a conventional shirt and tie. Virginia, as usual, wore a simple white blouse and dark skirt, but she had taken care to dress the children in their best clothes. Jean had been given a small bouquet that she clutched tightly. They drove to the Vence town hall, where Franz’s father and sister and Arnold Rüdlinger awaited them.

The civil service, performed by the mayor of Vence, was swift and simple. The portly mayor beamed as he pronounced them
mari
et
femme
, husband and wife. Franz kissed Ida’s cheek and shook hands with Marc. Their eyes locked in a silent acknowledgment that Ida was now, for each of them, the focus of their shared lives.

A small crowd had gathered outside the town hall.
“Bonne chance!” “Heureuse! Toujours heureuse!”
the excited villagers shouted. Children tossed flowers at them and laughing women pelted them with rice. They waved and hurried to the waiting cars. Ida took the bouquet from Jean, turned, and tossed it into the crowd. It was caught by a pigtailed schoolgirl, prompting a new round of laughter and gaiety.

At Les Collines, their exuberant guests awaited them in the flower-filled studio. A violinist played a triumphant and happy medley as they burst into the room. Several magnums of champagne had already been emptied and new rounds were poured. Laughter and excited chatter filled the room. Trays of food were consumed and refilled in an orgy of appetite and contentment. The children scurried about, Jean and David happily including Elsa’s son Daniel in the merriment. Virginia crowned Marc with the garland of laurel leaves she had fashioned.

“
Je
suis
le
roi
,” he shouted. “I am the king!” He stood on his chair, his crown askew, and waved his champagne flute as though it were his scepter.

“
Et
je
suis
la
princesse
,” Ida retorted. “And I am the princess!”

The violinist struck up a lively tune. Ida pulled Marc onto the floor and they danced a rollicking jig. His face flushed, his blue eyes sparkling, he turned to his friend, Jacques Prévert, and the two men whirled about in a wild hora, and then Marc crouched and, to the wild applause of the guests, he danced a Russian
kazatzka
. His crown of leaves tumbled onto the floor and small David plucked it up and placed it on his own head.

Charles Leirens darted between guests, his camera at the ready, feverishly finishing one roll of film and inserting yet another, Virginia holding his equipment. He photographed Franz and Ida as they glided across the floor in a stately waltz. Their dance ended abruptly as Marc tried to dunk Ida’s nose into a glass of champagne.

“
Papochka
,” she chastised him laughingly as she pulled away. “You must behave.”

“No. I must misbehave,” he countered, smiling impishly. He was once again the mischievous Vitebsk schoolboy who had so often provoked and amused. The toasts began. Cries of
“L’chaim!”
rang out. Franz, with his usual shy dignity, spoke of the happiness and levity Ida had brought into his life. Arnold Rüdlinger lifted his glass to the bridal couple.

“They are bound by their love of art, their love of life, their love for each other,” he said. “They provide each other with perfect balance. I drink to beautiful, generous Ida and to my dear friend, Franz.”

And Marc too rose, his garland once more in place, his tie whipped off and his blue eyes aglitter. He smiled broadly, lifted his glass high, and turned to Ida.

“I wish
l’chaim
, a long and happy life, to the best daughter in the world. Our daughter, mine and my beloved Bella’s.
Mazel
tov.
” His eyes filled with tears, but the smile never left his lips.

Virginia turned away.

The dancing resumed. Elsa and André joined other couples in a dabke, André oddly agile despite his limp. Elsa turned to Ida, who briefly danced beside her.

“André is dancing. André is smiling,” she said. “He has not danced since the war. He seldom smiles. Your happiness is contagious, Ida.”

Ida smiled and kissed her friend’s cheek lightly as Franz swept her away into another couples formation. There were impromptu bursts of song, chansons and lieder. They sang the songs of the war they had wanted to forget in all the languages of their lives.

Claude and Ida Bourdet offered a melancholy rendition of “La Vie en Rose.”

The room fell quiet as Marc sang a Yiddish lullaby.

“
Rozhinkes
mit
mandlen
, raisins and almonds,” he sang and Ida closed her eyes. It was the song Bella had sung to her throughout her childhood, the words and melody that had soothed her into sleep. She would remember the words.

I
will
one
day
sing
them
to
our
children
, she thought, suffused with happy certainty.