Jerusalem Maiden (29 page)

In the morning, the heavy overcast sky trapped the renewed heat. For the first time she fully grasped the morning blessing men recited, thanking God “
for not making me a woman.
” Esther hurried to the
mikveh
to purify herself from the visions that remained as vivid as if the indecent event had really transpired, as concrete as her insubordinate body yearned it to be.

I
magine, rain in summer! Its hammering the roof and pelting the glass panel was music. Wearing the galoshes she had fashioned from the oilcloth left over after she had sewn herself a rain cap, Esther stood at a door to a houseware shop and watched sheets of water tumbling off the gutters. How could heavy rain that flooded the streets not cool the air?

The sky had emptied its reserve when the bell tower rang the hour. The day smelled pristine, the road shimmered and the trees looked clean and satiated. But the Seine had overflowed onto Rue de Rivoli, the street that ran beside the Louvre. To reach the museum, Esther would be splashed by passing delivery wagons, trams and automobiles, and the hem of her dress would drag in the mud. Wincing at the cost, she flagged down a carriage.

The palatial Louvre with its massive wings greeted her. Her anticipation rising as it had on her first day there ten days earlier, Esther ran into the vast lobby.

“This is the kind of weather that makes me wish women wore pantaloons,” Mlle Thibaux said. She shook her skirt to brush off the drops of water.

Esther laughed. “And wear top hats and smoke cigars?”

“Possibly. Which brings me to today's lesson.” She led Esther away from the crowd of tourists. “Notice how few women artists have ever risen to the level of men? It's because the Church commissioned artists and sponsored the development of art, and it only supported men. No less than in your religion, Christianity discouraged women from all walks of public life.”

“Whether Jews or Christians,
Dieu
pre-ordained women with the same reproductive role. How can they dedicate themselves to art when their bodies are their destiny?”

“Couldn't God be satisfied if millions of women procreated while He made an exception for a select few?” Mlle Thibaux spoke with a rare heat. “How would His world be distorted if a talented artist like you were permitted to create?”

Esther reared back against the slap of blasphemy. “Your words are too grand,” she mumbled.

“Too grand, you think? It's time you face the truth about yourself. Follow me.”

Mlle Thibaux walked briskly, Esther tagging behind. Their quick steps on the polished floors echoed in corridors and display halls. One pavilion telescoped into another. The mass of visitors thinned. The two of them climbed yet another marble staircase. In the weeks of visiting Parisian museums they hadn't covered as many kilometers of passages.

In yet another wing, Esther lost her bearings. Finally, at the end of the labyrinth, Mlle Thibaux stopped in a spacious room lit by high-set chalky windows. The two dozen paintings were of different sizes and styles. In one glance, Esther grasped the theme: the Holy Land.

“Close your eyes,” Mlle Thibaux said.

Perplexed, Esther obeyed. Her teacher's hands guided her shoulders in a half circle until they came to rest. All was quiet.

“You may look now.” Mlle Thibaux's soft voice bounced from the walls.

Esther opened her eyes and gasped. On a turn of wall hung an unlikely yet familiar painting—No. Impossible. But here it was, her own work!

She stared at the sight of Mlle Thibaux against the monastery ruins. The gilded frame and cloth matting made the scene jump at the viewer, and the play of colors seemed fresh in their vibrancy. The dense blue of the sky broke the harmony. How had a twelve-year-old painted a composition so well balanced? Who was that girl she recognized, yet didn't know?

“That's how good you are,” Mlle Thibaux whispered. “That's how good.”

How had Mlle Thibaux made it happen? The skin around Esther's mouth pulled so taut she could hardly speak. Her painting exhibited in the Louvre! Hung in a home of true masterpieces! Esther looked around to verify that no tourist was in the room, as if she could be caught stealing. “I was good,” she whispered in a timorous voice.

“You're only twenty-four. You have a lifetime ahead of you to answer your calling.”

Esther's stomach contracted. How well she remembered that first day of painting outdoors, belonging to herself, feeling free from the
klal
yet close to God. Drunk on fresh air, paint fumes and dusty figs, she had been transported to a place as near as inside herself and as far as the sky. The only place she'd experienced a shade of that freedom was here, in Paris.

On that day
en plein air
, she had first met Pierre, the only man who had ever stirred her passion, the man she could never have and should have long forgotten.

Blood pumping in her head, Esther leaned closer to the painting, remembering how she had resisted signing it. There, in Hebrew letters, which few in this city could read, were the words “Jerusalem Maiden.”

P
uddles gathered in the paths of the Tuileries Gardens across from the Louvre. Esther's legs were wobbly as she and Mlle Thibaux emerged under skies painted with milk.

She couldn't sit in a café. Mlle Thibaux laid Esther's oilcloth on the bench and Esther sunk onto it while dabbing at silent tears. The damp earth smelled fresh. She didn't know where to turn her head; everywhere around her dahlias, foxgloves, hyacinths and gladiolas burst in brilliant colors, dense and rich with life and enticing her to do what she had promised herself and God she would never again do.

Mlle Thibaux touched Esther's damp cheek. It had been years since Esther had felt Shulamit's gentle hand. She wished Mlle Thibaux's would stay there.

“You've been unprepared to recognize your talent. All my art lessons didn't awaken you. I've been waiting for a long time to make you face yourself.”

Esther scraped a sprig of peppermint from a nearby plant and placed a leaf on her tongue as if the tangy flavor would convince her that this wasn't a dream. “How did you get my painting into the Louvre?” she asked.

Her teacher's hand made a gesture of dismissal. “It's not nearly as unusual as you might think. The Louvre is a big place. Not every piece of art is as famous as the
Mona Lisa.
Thousands of unknown artists are displayed because they represent something unique—time, place, technique, trend or style. Did you notice the African art? No one knows who those artists are.” She smiled. “The role of an art museum is to exhibit the best of all artistic expression, to preserve the entire spectrum of works, not just the famous names.” Her tone was soft as she spoke. “Remember I once told you that most artists who had painted Holy Land scenes had never visited the place?”

Esther let out a thin smile, recalling Mlle Thibaux's art book in Jerusalem. “I wondered why their subjects were blondes or redheads.”

“The problem went deeper than that. Those artists couldn't rid themselves of the European color palette. Even when they made the difficult pilgrimage to the Holy Land, the impressions of their home climate and training stayed with them. You were free of their restraints.”

The mint leaf stuck to the roof of Esther's mouth. She dislodged it with her tongue, and nodded miserably. None of Mlle Thibaux's arguments carried weight with God.

Mlle Thibaux turned to fully face her. “The curators to whom I showed this painting were so impressed with the genuineness of your technique—with the exuberance and youthfulness of the point of view—that they found it natural to include it in the Holy Land collection.”

Esther imagined the curators as a group of heavyset men as serious as an assembly of rabbis in suits. “Maybe it's because you're in it,” she ventured. “You were so beautifully composed.”

Her teacher went on as if she hadn't heard. “The light and air in Jerusalem create different optical conditions. In light, colors are more intense, audacious. You, with the uninfluenced eye of a child, didn't limit yourself.” She took a deep breath. “When you're ready to look at your painting again, you'll see how you showed the sun's hot rays trembling. The sky in the Holy Land is rather opaque, sometimes giving the feel of weight. Even though you saw its blueness, you captured its heaviness as well. Also, with this opaqueness, the colors are set against one another without transition; it's hard to estimate the distance between objects. All that is in your work.”

No gradations, opaque sky, trembling lines, objects abutting one another. More often than not, those were the hallmark of an amateur—not an accomplished—artist. Esther said nothing.

In a palm-sized puddle, an earthworm wriggled its way out of the earth. She watched the body contract as it gathered its back and moved forward. Where had it lived throughout the dry, hot days? How did God manage to guide this lowly creature to the wet spot that made life possible for it?

To what end had God guided her here?

“As for my own image in the painting,” Mlle Thibaux brought Esther back. “Not to sound vain—you made my younger profile so lovely, the details of my clothes so meticulous.” She waved a delicate finger. “I'm the focus physically and spatially but not spiritually. That comes from all the other elements. You may not like to hear it, but those who believe that God is everywhere think you painted Him in action.”

Esther's hands blocked her ears to the sacrilegious idea. “What am I supposed to do with this?” she cried out.

“Nothing yet. Let it ferment inside you. Maybe your God will lead you to the right path—and it may not necessarily be the one you've always believed He would choose. Just stop resisting.”

Esther glanced at the earthworm, then closed her eyes as if a voice would speak to her. Had there really been a straight line in her life—meeting Mlle Thibaux, Ima's death, her expulsion from the
klal
, her tricked marriage, Nathan inviting Hanna—leading her to discover that her work was good enough to hang in the Louvre? Was this God's way to break through her obstinate mind, to make her realize that He'd made her an artist?

She had once before made the mistake of believing He'd favored her. But she could draw no other conclusion now. Stubbornly, she had refused to read the signs until God had had no choice but to guide her to her painting here. He must wish her to finally grasp the enormity of the gift He had bestowed upon her.

Mlle Thibaux was silent. A drop of water fell from the tree onto Esther's hand, and she lifted it to the sun, staring at the way the light broke in the quivering drop. It must have been God's hand at work also in her first missing Nathan in Marseille and then his delay, allowing her to settle in this city rather than just pass through it.

Mlle Thibaux spoke. “Both your paintings are yours whenever you want them.”

“I—I don't know what to say, other than to pray,” Esther mumbled, “but I don't even know whether to thank
Dieu
, or to ask for His forgiveness.”

“How about asking for His blessing in allowing you to continue on the path you started, deserted, and have now found again?”

Esther dropped her face into her hands. “What am I supposed to do? I'm a married woman, a mother of three.” Not to mention a member of the
klal
, and a Jerusalem maiden, even if never truly a Woman of Valor.

“What are you supposed to do? Your people are making history in building a new, free nation, even if your Haredi community refuses to accept it. Don't you see? Your work is an example of the emergence of art in the old-new land.” Mlle Thibaux's hand waved in the direction of the Louvre. “When the old does not exist and the new is not yet charted, the artist can only rely upon his unsullied perceptions. He must experiment, must find the right road. That's why, when you told me that you'd engaged in micrography, I knew you'd never stop your quest for expression.” Mlle Thibaux's tone was soft as she added, “There's no history of Jewish art. You're one of the pioneers. Go home and do it.”

“Go back to Jaffa?” Even as her children's faces flashed through her head, her life there loomed before her like a mocking gargoyle. Esther shook her head. “I can't. I can't do that.”

“Go to Jerusalem, then. You are not an artist to wither on the vine.” Mlle Thibaux rose to her feet and looked down at Esther. “Do you remember the story of the Primordial Light?”

“The light that
Dieu
hadn't known where to hide during Creation, so He chose to hide it inside human souls?”

Mlle Thibaux held Esther's hand in both her palms. “The Primordial Light is found only by those who can't stop themselves from trying to find new ways of igniting it.”

Esther bit her lip. If she didn't go back to the Holy Land, her sojourn in Paris might turn into a stay. For how long? How could she act so selfishly, searching for her own Primordial Light here? The fuel for it would be her motherhood.

On her way back to Le Marais, she stopped at a shipping agent and booked a passage to Jaffa.

L
ater that week, Nathan's second letter waited at the bank.

My beloved wife Esther:

Hashem willing, this letter finds you in good health.

I was heading east when your surprise trip forced me to reconsider my plans. However, my appointments have been lined up in Prague, Budapest, Munich and Warsaw. In August, people will head to summer resorts. Postponing my meetings hasn't been feasible. Rather than travel to Paris to meet you, I must stay in central Europe. I regret that your impetuousness has caused this problem. Go home with no delay, where our abandoned children need you.

Your devoted husband,

Nathan Bloomenthal

“Abandoned children?” Nathan had been the one suggesting she travel with him for three months.