Jerusalem Maiden (31 page)

“The last time I saw your work, it was a collection of animals,” she said, pinching her fingers to indicate their diminutive size.

He threw his head back in laughter. A scar she hadn't noticed before snaked along his left jaw line, shiny brown as caramel glaze, perhaps from a flying stone chip or a misstep on a wall. She imagined tracing it with her finger, then chided herself for the immodest thought.

“Now my sculptures are larger than life-size.” He paused. “I let a stone tell me what shape wants to emerge from its confinement. The stone has lines and veins. It has a story that is crying to be released.”

Like me,
Esther thought. Her chin gestured toward the tower above. “Do you have sketches for this project?”

He gazed at her silently, and his attention sent a tremor through her. At last he said, “Sure,” and rounded the corner, disappearing into the tower.

Esther heard his heavy shoes pounding, then everything went quiet except for the distant chirping of birds in the treetops around the plaza. In the silent breeze, a reminder of God hovered about, but she wouldn't let herself think of Him. Not now. Not after He had led her to this moment.

Pierre returned a minute later, his walk sprightly. He unrolled a set of plans on the bench beside her. Still sitting, she held her end of the paper as he bent over the plans. The smell of fresh perspiration mixed with the dry scent of marble powder. If she glanced up at his face, she would be able to count the hairs in his mustache and see the upper lip half hidden behind it.

“The stone presets the dimensions of anything I can conceive,” Pierre said. “My challenge is to make the tower's design consistent with the hodgepodge of architectural features of this church. Its refurbishing is jarring to the original Greek style.”

“Could you add a Greek wreath?” Talking about art kept her wild thoughts at bay. “Like this.” She shaped a leaf motif in the air.

He pulled out a stubby pencil. “This way?” He sketched a few leaves. Dark fuzz traveled down from under the rolled-up sleeves toward his wrists. She wanted to pass the tip of her finger on the soft hair, to press her palm on the tanned muscles.

She must be losing her mind. Her thoughts were out of control. “I must leave,” she said. “I have a job.”

“You do? For pay?”

“I paint ceramic tiles for kitchens and baths for some new chalet.”

He burst out laughing. “My artist friends are starving and scrambling for jobs, and you got one in no time.”

She blushed. “I didn't mean to take food out of the mouth of a deserving artist.”

“No, no, great. You've probably introduced new themes to a tired craft.”

Esther shrugged. “I just let my fingers draw without planning.”

“My mother believes that that's how some of the best art comes about.”

“My employer likes the Middle Eastern influences in my decorations—Yemeni, Persian, Armenian, Moorish.” Esther smiled. “Not Egyptian. Their lines are too unadorned.” She brushed invisible lint off her dress. She couldn't remember having a conversation with Nathan about anything other than the trivial issues of home and children. He hadn't even responded to her Torah questions, keeping these debates for his daily synagogue study group.

Pierre cocked his head as he looked at her. “Once an artist, always an artist.”

She shook her head. “An artist is someone who paints or sculpts, not someone who dabbled with it as a child.”

“Has my Ima shown you your painting in the Louvre?”

Startled, Esther felt a rush of pride. “You know about that?”

“I was there the day you began that piece. The first time we met. Remember?” He paused. “I sometimes visit that painting.”

Esther felt heat rise to her cheeks.

“I wondered what your work would have looked like had you continued.”

There was finality in his words. Unlike his mother, he didn't challenge her choice not to paint. He spoke of her art only with regret about the past, not as though it had a future. Tears welled up in Esther's throat. Her hand rose to her face, covering her eyes. “I'm so confused.”

She felt him sit next to her on the bench. “Esther, I have a very brazen request,” he whispered. “May I say it without offending you?”

She looked at him. His face was so near, so open. “What is it?”

“If you'll find it impertinent, will you forgive me?”

“What is it?”

“Will you take off that silly hat? And that awful wig?”

Esther's stomach turned over. “The wig, too?”

“I don't care if your head is shaved—”

“It's not, but—” How could she show her hair to a man? And it looked dreadful, short and chopped unevenly.

“Forgive me. It's too much to ask, I know.”

She shouldn't think, only feel. Standing up, she looked around. The plaza was hidden below the balustrade. There was no one else up here, only she and Pierre, in a
yi'chud
under God's sky, even if this was a church. God, in His mysterious ways, had made this happen.

Slowly, she removed her hat, then her wig. She raked her fingers through the shorn strands, scratching her scalp. Air rushed in to fill the hot spots. She was more naked than she had ever been in her bedroom.

“That's better,” Pierre said, his voice hoarse. “Much better. Thank you.”

Esther's skin pulsated. Her head felt light and airy, like a sunflower given wings.

Pierre gripped the nearest column and, with his arms locked, swung around it. His feet dancing close to the column, his body tilting away from it as far as his arms allowed, he laughed.

Zapped by his delight, Esther grabbed the column on its opposite side. Her fingers laced around it and she spun across from him, blocked from his view by the column, yet hearing his laughter, then her own. As she twirled, the world blurred and her ears buzzed. She threw her head back and let the breeze rush through her short hair.

In the next turn, Pierre's body almost collided with hers. He froze, and she looked up at him, panting, her palms burning. She could feel his body heat as he turned and faced her. Her skin tingled with anticipation—

With one hand clasping the other, he stepped back away from her. “Will you be late for your job?” His voice was barely audible.

Her throat was so tight she couldn't speak. Her panting had probably scared him, as it had Nathan. She lowered her head and pressed her hands on her upper chest to still her racing heart.

But Pierre put his finger under her chin and raised her head until she had to look up first at his chapped lips, then at his scaly nose, and finally into his blue eyes. “Esther,” he whispered.

And she knew that he had said her name hundreds of times, just as she had his.

I
t was difficult to spend her morning with Mlle Thibaux, wanting to say Pierre's name, to share its sweet sound with another person close to him. Would she dare return to look for him? Pierre was a
goy
. And married, as she was. Which of the two offenses counted less as a sin in God's grand plan? Either would be breaking a prohibition of the grandest magnitude, and no reasoning could whittle away at its absolute clarity.
Hashem, what do you want from me?
Esther kept asking Him.
Have you sent My Beloved as a test? Or are you granting me something wonderful I can't yet fathom or name?

She was at work now, designing a large, multi-tiled medallion to be mounted over the kitchen stove. She forced herself to stop thinking of the previous day by tracing thousands of leaves. Hours later, an arch of twin fruit trees materialized, their tops touching like lovers' heads as they bent heavy with pomegranates, olives, figs, oranges and pears. “The Garden of Eden!” Vincent exclaimed, and Jeanne, gushing over how original the design was, proceeded to paint it. In her head, Esther saw the twinkling of approval in Pierre's blue eyes.

She left the atelier at seven, three hours before the summer-late sunset. Walking up the hill and circling the Pantheon, she tried to bask in its magnificent grandeur as she had done before, but her ears strained to hear the hammering echo from a church tower too many blocks away. She decided to enter the Luxembourg Gardens, where she often watched goldfish in the basin and children sailing their boats on the pond. Minutes later, though, her feet circumvented the entrance to the park. Today she was too vulnerable to the ache of imagining her children's delight were they to play here. Instead, she ambled in now familiar streets.

The plaza in front of Saint-Sulpice Church was awash in the golden rays of the pre-setting sun and filled with seminary students. The right tower was deserted, and pigeons perched on its protruding stones. Words from the Song of Solomon flashed through Esther's head:
In the streets and in the broad ways, I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.

A young couple walked by, the boy's arm around the girl's waist. She leaned in and nuzzled his neck. He laughed and pulled away, and the girl grabbed his arm and placed it again around her waist. There was surety in the gesture, a circle of intimacy Esther had never had with Nathan. She sat on the bench that had just yesterday witnessed the most miraculous moment of her life. No signs were left to signify the event, unlike the peach pit on the ground dropped by a mother feeding her child and the
sou
that had fallen from an old man's pocket. In her mind's eye, Esther framed them as a close-up picture of the minutia that marked people's lives.

The couple settled at the other end of her bench. Esther turned away from their open passion. What was she doing here, envying them, seeking her own Garden of Eden? God had created the biblical Eve as innocent as a baby, then placed that fruit tree in her path, enticing her to transgress, knowing she would.
What's Your purpose in placing Pierre in my path?

She rose to her feet and sent a parting glance at the right tower. Walking away from the plaza toward Le Marais, she felt a small regret at leaving Pierre's presence behind.

A block away, in Boulevard Saint-Germain, in the balmy early evening, the tables of the many cafés spilled across the sidewalk. The camaraderie of the clusters of people made Esther feel like the outsider she was. She could go back to Raysel's rooming house and enjoy the illusion of similar companionship, except that camaraderie came from people who snooped in drawers and passed malicious judgments.

“Esther,” came a call, and her heart lurched. Pierre detached himself from a large, boisterous group and approached her with a jaunty step, his clothes and shoes free of yesterday's dust. He had trimmed his mustache, and his hatless hair was wet. “Will you join us?” His blue eyes bore down on her.

She could smell his soap. She took a deeper breath to fill her lungs with the scent. Surveying the women and men sitting around a grouping of little round tables so close that their knees touched, she said, “I—I'm not sure—”

“They're all artists.” Pierre made a sweep of his hand. “You'll enjoy their conversation.”

She shifted her weight to the other foot. “I was hoping to see your completed works.”

“The biggest ones are out of town.” He paused as if considering. “Others are in private collections.”

Some must be at his atelier. What was she thinking? He knew it was inappropriate to invite her over. She clutched her bag. “I'll join you for a while.”

He rearranged chairs to make room and pulled one out for her. “Everyone! Meet Esther from the Holy Land!”

She was relieved that he didn't introduce her as “
une artiste
”; it would have brought up questions she was unprepared to answer. Some women threw double-cheek kisses, and two men extended their hands to shake hers. She tried to loosen her rigid posture but kept her hands clasped around her bag. She couldn't touch a stranger's hand, but for the first time was brazen enough to glance into the men's eyes as they regarded her with open curiosity. When she refused the handshake of one of them, he clapped Pierre's back and gestured for Esther to join the table. “Welcome. Sit down.”

The warmth of the group was as perceptible as the cigarette smoke that feathered around their heads. Men and women, like a happy, noisy family, talked, argued, shared food and laughed. Two months ago, she would have been appalled by the idea that she'd sit among them. Now it felt right, even as she'd already forgotten the string of names thrown at her. A couple of large-framed American women wore pantaloons, one man was so diminutive and delicate he looked like a girl, a beautiful gypsy in a flouncing red dress had wild, tangled black hair, and several men sported mustaches or sideburns. The tables were strewn with wineglasses, ashtrays overflowing with cigarette stubs and plates of partially eaten food. Esther could smell the minty breath of a woman on her right and, as hard as she tried to shrink away from it, could feel the thigh of the man on her left. Pierre sat angled behind her, his knee against the back of her chair, his elbow on the next table. He leaned away from her as much as the tight space would allow, but she felt as if he were hovering over her in a protective stance. If he wanted to, his fingers could stroke the nape of her neck.

A debate broke out, with people cutting into each other's sentences. They were discussing a certain newspaper reviewer, who was a
crétin
and a fool and should be replaced by an open-minded, younger man who understood the direction of modern art.

Esther tilted her head toward Pierre. “Can anyone really predict where art is heading?” she whispered in Hebrew. “First it happens, then people know. Right?”

Pierre threw back his head in laughter.

“Share the joke,” a thin young man with a bulbous nose and disheveled clothes demanded.

Blushing, Esther repeated her comment in French. “I mean, at what point does the odd work of an artist become a new trend?” she added almost in a whisper, frightened by this new woman who spoke in public.