Summer's End (2 page)

Over the years she gave up a number of dreams, but she had Marc. The man who had saved her from solitude and starvation. The man who had won her gratitude and her heart. The man of impeccable manners and exquisite taste, who rewarded her with security and sable. The man who always wore a mask.

She knew that he loved her, but now he rarely expressed it as he had done before. “Shows of affection are for children,” he explained.

But that would come too. They conceived their first child in less than a year. How Marc had wanted that baby! Enough to show her once more how much he loved her. A boy. It would be a boy. Because Marc said so. He was certain, and so was Deanna. She wanted only that. His son. It had to be; it was the one thing that would win her his respect and maybe even his passion for a lifetime. A son. And it was. A tiny baby boy with a whisper in his lungs. The priest was called only moments after the birth and christened him Philippe-Edouard. In four hours the baby was dead.

Marc took her to France for the summer and left her in the care of his mother and aunts. He spent the summer working in London, but he came back on weekends, holding her close and drying her tears, until at last she conceived again. The second baby died too, another boy. And having Marc’s child became her obsession. She dreamed only of their son. She even stopped painting. The doctor put her to bed when she became pregnant for the third time. Marc had cases in Milan and Morocco that year, but he called and sent flowers and, when he was at home, sat at her bedside. Once more he promised that she would have his son. This time he was wrong. The long-awaited heir was a girl, but a healthy baby, with a halo of blonde hair and her father’s blue eyes. The child of Deanna’s dreams. Even Marc resigned himself and quickly fell in love with the tiny blonde girl. They named her Pilar and flew to France to show her to his mother. Madame Duras bemoaned Deanna’s failure to produce a son. But Marc didn’t care. The baby was his. His child, his flesh. She would speak only French; she would spend every summer in Antibes. Deanna had felt feeble flutterings of fear, but she reveled in the joy of motherhood at last.

Marc spent every spare moment with Pilar, showing her off to his friends. She was always a child of laughter and smiles. Her first words were in French. By the time she was ten, she was more at home in Paris than the States—the books she read, the clothes she wore, the games she played had all been carefully imported by Marc. She knew who she was: a Duras, and where she belonged: in France. At twelve, she went to boarding school in Grenoble. By then the damage was done; Deanna had lost a daughter. Deanna was a foreigner to her now, an object of anger and resentment. It was
her
fault they didn’t live in France,
her
fault Pilar couldn’t be with her friends.
Her
fault Papa couldn’t be in Paris with Grand-mère who missed him so much. In the end they had won. Again.

Deanna walked softly down the steps, her bare feet a whisper on the Persian runner Marc had brought back from Iran. Out of habit she glanced into the living room. Nothing was out of place; it never was. The delicate green silk of the couch was smoothed to perfection; the Louis XV chairs stood at attention like soldiers at their posts; the Aubusson rug was as exquisite as ever in its soft celadon greens and faded raspberry-colored flowers. The silver shone; the ashtrays were immaculate; the portraits of Marc’s enviable ancestors hung at precisely the right angle; and the curtains framed a perfect view of the Golden Gate Bridge and the bay. There were no sailboats yet at this hour, and for once there was no fog. It was a perfect June day, and she stood for a moment, looking at the water. She was tempted to sit down and simply watch. But it seemed sacrilege to rumple the couch, to tread on the rug, even to breathe in that room. It was easier to simply move on, to her own little world, to the studio at the back of the house where she painted … where she fled.

She walked past the dining room without looking in, then soundlessly down a long corridor to the back of the house. A half flight of stairs led to her studio. The dark wood was cold on her feet. The door was stiff, as always. Marc had given up reminding her to have something done about it. He had come to the conclusion that she liked it that way, and he was right. It was difficult to open, and it always slammed rapidly closed, sealing her into her own bright little cocoon. The studio was her own precious world, a burst of music and flowers tenderly tucked away from the stifling sobriety of the rest of the house. No Aubussons here, no silver, no Louis XV. Here, everything was bright and alive—the paints on her palette, the canvases on her easel, the soft yellow of the walls, and the big, comfortable, white chair that embraced her the moment she relinquished herself into its arms. She smiled as she sat down and looked around. She had left a terrible mess the morning before, but it suited her; it was a happy place in which she could work. She flung back the flowered curtains and pushed open the French doors, stepping onto the tiny terrace, the bright tiles like ice beneath her feet.

She often stood here at this hour, sometimes even in the fog, breathing deeply and smiling at the specter of the bridge hanging eerily above an invisible bay, listening to the slow owl hoot of the foghorns. But not this morning. This morning the sun was so bright that she squinted as she stepped outside. It would be a perfect day to go sailing, or disappear to the beach. The very idea made her laugh. Who would tell Margaret what to polish, who would respond to the mail, who would explain to Pilar why she could not go out that night? Pilar. This was the day of Pilar’s departure. Cap d’Antibes for the summer, to visit her grandmother and her aunts, uncles, and cousins, all down from Paris. Deanna almost shuddered at the memory. After years of enduring those stifling summers, she had finally said no. The eternal charm of Marc’s family had been insufferable, politesse through clenched teeth, the invisible thorns that ripped through one’s flesh. Deanna had never won their approval. Marc’s mother made no secret of that. Deanna was, after all, an American, and far too young to be a respectable match. Worst of all, she had been the penniless daughter of an extravagant wanderer. It was a marriage that added nothing to Marc’s consequence, only to her own. His relatives assumed that was why she had snared him. And they were careful not to mention it—more than twice a year. Eventually Deanna had had enough, and had stopped making the pilgrimage to Antibes for the summer. Now, Pilar went alone, and she loved it. She was one of
them.

Deanna leaned her elbows on the terrace wall, and propped her chin on the back of one hand. A sigh escaped her unnoticed as she watched a freighter glide slowly into the bay.

“Aren’t you cold out here, Mother?” The words were as chilly as the terrace tiles. Pilar had spoken to her as though she were an oddity, standing there in her bathrobe and bare feet. Deanna cast a look at the ship and turned slowly around with a smile.

“Not really. I like it out here. And besides, I couldn’t find my slippers.” She said it with the same steady smile and looked directly into her daughter’s brilliant blue eyes. The girl was everything Deanna was not. Her hair was the palest gold, her eyes an almost iridescent blue, and her skin had the rich glow of youth. She was almost a head taller than her mother, and in almost every possible way the image of Marc-Edouard. But she did not yet have his aura of power—that would come later. And if she learned her lessons well from her grandmother and aunts, she would learn to mask it almost as viciously as they did. Marc-Edouard was not quite as artful; there was no need to be, he was a man. But the Duras women practiced a far subtler art. There was little Deanna could do to change that now, except perhaps keep Pilar away, but that would be a fruitless venture. Pilar, Marc, the old woman herself, all conspired to keep Pilar in Europe much of the time. And there was more to Pilar’s resemblance to her grandmother than mimicry. It was something that ran in her blood. There was nothing Deanna could do, other than accept it. She never ceased to marvel, though, at how acutely painful the disappointment always was. There was never a moment when she didn’t care, when it mattered less. It always mattered. She always felt Pilar’s loss. Always.

She smiled now and looked down at her daughter’s feet. She was wearing the absentee slippers. “I see you’ve found them.” Deanna’s words teased, but her eyes wore the pain of a lifetime. Tragedy constantly hidden by jokes.

“Is that supposed to be funny, Mother?” There was already warfare in Pilar’s face, at barely seven-thirty in the morning. “I can’t find any of my good sweaters, and my black skirt isn’t back from your dressmaker.” It was an accusation of major importance. Pilar flung back her long, straight, blonde hair and looked angrily at her mother.

Deanna always wondered at Pilar’s fury. Teenage rebellion? Or merely that she didn’t want to share Marc with Deanna? There was nothing Deanna could do. At least not for the moment. Maybe one day, maybe later, maybe in five years she’d get another chance to win back her daughter and become her friend. It was something she lived for. A hope that refused to die.

“The skirt came back yesterday. It’s in the hall closet. The sweaters are already in your suitcase. Margaret packed for you yesterday. Does that solve all your problems?” The words were spoken gently. Pilar would always be the child of her dreams, no matter what, no matter how badly the dreams had been shattered.

“Mother! You’re not paying attention!” For a moment Deanna’s mind had wandered, and Pilar’s eyes blazed at her. “I asked you what you did with my passport.”

Deanna’s green eyes met Pilar’s blue ones and held them for a long moment. She wanted to say something, the right thing. All she said was, “I have your passport. I’ll give it to you at the airport.”

“I’m perfectly capable of taking care of it myself.”

“I’m sure you are.” Deanna stepped carefully back into her studio, avoiding the girl’s gaze. “Are you going to have breakfast?”

“Later. I have to wash my hair.”

“I’ll have Margaret bring you a tray.”

“Fine.” Then she was gone, a bright arrow of youth that had pierced Deanna’s heart yet again. It took so little to hurt. The words were all so small, but their emptiness stung her. Surely there had to be more. Surely one did not have children merely to have it end like this? She wondered sometimes if it would have been this way with her sons. Maybe it was just Pilar. Maybe the pull between two countries, and two worlds, was too great for her.

The phone buzzed softly on her desk as she sighed and sat down. It was the house line, no doubt Margaret asking if she wanted her coffee in the studio. When Marc was away, Deanna often ate alone in this room. When he was at home, breakfast with him was a ritual, sometimes the only meal they shared.

“Yes?” Her voice had a soft, smoky quality that always lent gentleness to her words.

“Deanna, I have to call Paris. I won’t be downstairs for another fifteen minutes. Please tell Margaret that I want my eggs fried, and not burned to a crisp. Have you got the newspapers up there?”

“No, Margaret must have them waiting for you at the table.”

“Bon. À tout de suite.”

Not even “good morning,” no “how are you? How did you sleep? … I love you.” Only the papers, the black skirt, the passport, the—Deanna’s eyes filled with tears. She wiped them away with the back of her hand. They didn’t do it deliberately, they were simply that way. But why didn’t they care where
her
black skirt was, where
her
slippers were, how
her
latest painting was coming. She glanced over her shoulder wistfully as she closed the door to her studio behind her. Her day had begun.

*   *   *

Margaret heard her rustling the papers in the dining room and opened the kitchen door with her customary smile. “Morning, Mrs. Duras.”

“Good morning, Margaret.”

And so it went, as ever, with precision and grace. Orders were given with kindness and a smile; the newspapers were carefully set out in order of importance; the coffee was immediately placed on the table in the delicate Limoges pot that had belonged to Marc’s mother; the curtains were pulled back; the weather was observed; and everyone manned his station, donned his mask, and began a new day.

Deanna forgot her earlier thoughts as she glanced at the paper and sipped coffee from the flowered blue cup, rubbing her feet along the carpet to warm them from the chill of the tile on the terrace. She looked young in the morning, her dark hair loose, her eyes wide, her skin as clear as Pilar’s, and her hands as delicate and unlined as they had been twenty years before. She didn’t look her thirty-seven years, but more like someone in her late twenties. It was the way she lifted her face when she spoke, the sparkle in her eyes, the smile that appeared like a rainbow that made her seem very young. Later in the day, the consummately conservative style, the carefully knotted hair, and the regal bearing as she moved would make her seem more than her age. But in the morning she was burdened with none of the symbols—she was simply herself.

She heard him coming down the stairs before she heard him speak, calling back gaily to Pilar in French as the girl stood with wet hair on the second-floor landing. It was something about staying out of Nice and making sure she behaved herself in Antibes. Unlike Deanna, Marc would be seeing his daughter again in the course of the summer. He would be back and forth between Paris and San Francisco several times, stopping off in Antibes for a weekend, whenever he could. Old habits were too hard to break, and the lure of his daughter was too great. They had always been friends.