The Eleventh Year (8 page)

P
aul de Varenne was handsome
. His skin was ruddy, and his brown eyes ringed with curling black lashes twinkled with an ironic merriment that, even as a child, drew attention. His body was powerful. He was well aware of his virile good looks. Nature had blessed him, and he knew it. From his earliest moments, he had seen through his mother, recognizing in her a kindred spirit. But he would succeed where she had never even tried. Charlotte von Ridenour de Varenne was a charmer by temperament; early on, Paul de Varenne had resolved to become a charmer by profession. He watched his elegant mother and was amused.

He liked people, but Alexandre was a bore, his mother unpredictable, and his father…. Later he would begin to wonder. Robert-Achille was so unlike him, in every way. Except of course that he too had never much liked to study and had loved to gamble and run off to Montmartre.

At the Lycée Condorcet he was an abysmal student. Alex was always doing brilliant work, whereas Paul was lazy. He only enjoyed an occasional class or two. Things to do with art. He went to the Louvre and the Musée du Jeu de Paume with his governess, and he could hardly tear himself away. But he could not draw, oddly enough. He could only appreciate.

And then, when he was eleven, catastrophe hit. He would never forget finding his father, dead, in the study. This mass of blood and brains could not possibly be
his father.
Paul's head had reeled and he vomited, and then he screamed, screamed for someone—his mother, a servant, anyone! Later, to his own surprise, he did not feel sad, only horrified—and a little disgusted.

He failed to pass his baccalaureate examinations two years in a row. His mother shrugged the episode off. He thought he knew why: His father, his real father, the one whom everyone in Paris guessed to be his father, must not have been a very serious student either. Paul was very curious, and also embittered. To have been conceived out of wedlock, never to have met one's true father—this was unforgiveable. His mother, the elegant charmer, was also a whore. All women, Paul felt, were whores. He decided that women were like extraordinary flowers, one more lovely than her neighbor. But women were also deceitful. The world needed them; but like flowers, they should be picked with impunity, for some had poisonous blossoms. This had been Charlotte's legacy.

He was not particularly disposed to work. He was an expert in nothing save bridge, dancing, and horsemanship. Alexandre had passed his examinations, was going to law school. Paul spent his days amusing himself. His mother had made it clear that the savior of the family was to be Alex. Paul occasionally felt a sadness, an emptiness nagging at his insides. There was no center to his life—only a void.

Nothing caught his emotions. He flailed about, trying one thing after another. Life seemed boring. And then Paul made a friend. He was an older man, whom Paul met one day leafing through a book of Sem's sketches in his mother's drawing room. He was dressed in a Norfolk jacket and sported a fashionable pompadour of gray hair. He looked every inch the sportsman, and Paul said, advancing into the room: “We've never met, have we? I'm Paul de Varenne.” Yet the man looked familiar, a face out of his childhood dreams, maybe, or out of an album of photographs.

The other smiled broadly. “How do you do. Bertrand de la Paume. I've been hearing much about you from the ladies of this city, Paul. You break hearts the way another man looks through his morning paper. Fitting for the son of Charlotte von Ridenour!”

“Yes, isn't it? Mama broke quite a few hearts in her day, it would appear.”

“It would appear.” Bertrand de la Paume sat down familiarly and patted the other side of the sofa for the young man to join him. Deftly he extracted a gilt-tipped cigarette from a leather case, inserted it into an ebony holder, and lit it. Then he passed the
étui
to Paul, who took one for himself. The chevalier lit it for him with a natural ease. Paul was conscious of being covertly examined, but, oddly, he did not mind the scrutiny. The man intrigued him too.

“I have also heard of you from your mother. Our lovely Charlotte thinks that you are gifted in the arts. I wonder…”

“I can't draw worth a
sou,”
Paul stated honestly, motioning toward the book of famous sketches that the other had been looking at when he had interrupted him.

“That isn't what Charlotte meant. You see, I'm an art dealer. I go to the provinces and purchase paintings that are on sale there, and I resell them to collectors. But for years now I've been feeling the strain of all this coming and going. Tell me—how would it strike you to go to work for me?”

Totally taken by surprise, Paul felt his body go rigid, taut. “But again, I am not an expert. I couldn't tell you what to sell a Matisse for, or a Bonnard. I'd have no idea whatsoever!”

De la Paume shook his head. “No, no. I'm the expert, remember? What I need is a young runner—somebody with impeccable taste, who'd do the traveling for me. You would bring home the paintings, and I would judge their worth and sell them at the proper value.”

“Still—I might come back with something of no value at all!”

Narrowing his brown eyes, the chevalier slowly shook his head. “I very much doubt that,” he concluded.

Paul suddenly felt excited. No one had ever thought him worthy of anything—and now this stranger was offering him a job.

Looking up, he found the other still smiling at him. There was a touch of irony in his expression. “Come now,” the chevalier said. “Put on a topcoat and let's go. We'll go out to dinner, the two of us. Then I shall take you to meet Martine, my lady of the moment. You'll enjoy her company.”

“Wouldn't you rather—be alone with her?” stammered Paul.

“Heavens, no! Martine is an interesting specimen. In her day she gave pleasure to all the golden youth, to all the men of Parisian society. She made her rounds, fairly and equitably. Now she's being frightfully faithful, and it's starting to annoy me. Please—come with me. You need to meet one of the genuine charmers of the
Belle Epoque!”

Paul breathed deeply and looked away. “But I already know one,” he declared. “My mother—remember?”

There was a small silence in the Chinese sitting room. Then, casually, Bertrand de la Paume acquiesced with a nod of the head. Paul rose, his legs weak. All of this had been too much. But he would follow. He would let Bertrand, Chevalier de la Paume, form his education.

E
lena wasn't
at all surprised at what Fania had to propose. Her only question had been when the sisters were going to come round to asking her. They were once again eating, this time a fine luncheon in the hotel dining room, when the older Adler sister said:

“We'll miss you, Princess. It's been a joy to have these conversations. You're younger than we are, but Genia and I haven't had many friends of our own. Mama died when we were children, and when Papa passed away this year, he left us without human ties. Our father was very possessive. We had our governess, and later on a paid companion—another Jewish girl, of the same background as ours. Whereas you are somehow different.”

“The prince was one of the tsar's own men,” Genia reminded her. “Papa was just a businessman from Moscow. There are entire continents the Egorovs have traveled that you and I never shall. Balls at the Winter Palace, intimate teas with the grand-duchesses….”

“But lately,” Elena said sadly, “there's been nothing of that.”

“Had there been, you might not have given us a second

look,” Fania commented astutely. Elena looked at her and smiled. Had she been that obvious? But it was true, and there was a naïve but perceptive quality in Fania that was touching. Elena had lost her naïveté so many years ago that it gave her a jolt to watch a woman ten years older practicing guilelessness without embarrassment.

“I've changed,” she said. “I know where I'd like to be, and it isn't here. I shall never go back to Petersburg. My friends have all given me up as a lost cause. All my suitors and my best friends have married. Married couples have nothing in common with single women, do they?”

It was Genia who took the bait, almost eagerly. “Nothing at all! We were never permitted to encourage young men. The ones with enough money weren't Jewish; the Jewish ones were either frightfully unappealing, or anarchists, or not to Papa's liking as business partners. And now Fanny's thirty-four and I'm thirty-two. Who would want us? We're two old maids of the wrong religion.”

“But you're so beautiful—both of you! It's me no one would want. I've forgotten how to dress, I haven't been to Europe in ages, and my only companions have been a housemaid and my mother's seamstress. Widowers would look to you, as mature enough to handle the children of their first marriage, yet still young and attractive for their own pleasure. But I'm too old to be someone's first wife, and too inexperienced to be a second. So what's left? In this godforsaken town, there isn't even a dandy to keep me as his mistress!”

Fania had blushed and was saying anxiously: “Oh, Princess, you can't speak this way….If one of us were only as lovely as you, with that marvelous hair, those glorious eyes—and the proper background! Somebody's ‘mistress'! What a revolting thought.”

“One's thoughts turn very bitter after enough time alone.”

“Then come with us!” Fania's face was filled with a sudden animation. “We'd love to travel with you!”

“Have you ever been to China?” Genia was asking.

Elena opened her mouth, shook her head, appeared bewildered, shocked, joyful, and yet regretful. “But—I can't….”

“What's to prevent you? Your father?”

“Yes. Among other things. Our family assets are tied up in the capital. My passport is out of date. Thousands of valid reasons.”

“We have sufficient money for the three of us. And you wouldn't have to feel under any obligation to repay us. Your experience is something Genia and I would treasure. The two of us have never been anywhere alone, but you—you've learned the ways of the world.”

“And if we bribe the border authorities, no one will even glance at your passport.”

“Your parents would want you to go abroad, since they haven't sent you in such a long time! Unless…unless, Genia, it's the fact that we're Jews. The prince and princess might very well object to their daughter traveling with two Jewish women.”

“Don't worry,” Elena said softly, laying a hand on Fania's arm. “It will be all right. My father, as you say, will want what's best for me. And right now, at twenty-four, it's to leave with you as your paid companion. I am a very capable person, who can organize, who understands how to run the operations of a voyage. If you invite me as someone in your employ, I shall accept. But if you simply treat me as charity, you'll have to understand my refusal. It has nothing to do with your religion. It has to do with my pride. I've never taken anything without giving in return. I couldn't, now, change my principles.”

They were exclaiming with excitement, rising to kiss her, and Elena felt a burst of pleasure, a knowledge that hope still existed. It lay beyond the border, perhaps in Harbin, perhaps in Shanghai. She was somehow going to make the break, now that she'd seized the golden rod thrust at her by the two attractive Adlers. She closed her eyes for a moment, to let everything sink in. She would be going a step toward freedom, finally.

There was only her father left to stand in her way.

W
hen Alexandre returned
to the apartment on Boulevard Saint Germain, his heart was filled to the brim with inexplicable emotion. His head was swimming. The next day he would be married at the Madeleine to the sweetest girl in the world. Early that morning, Yvonne's father had signed her trust fund over to her in acknowledgment of her mature new position as Marquise Alexandre de Varenne. But for everyone, tomorrow was the ceremony that counted, and only in the legal sense had the civil wedding of that morning held any significance. Yvonne and he had signed some papers, and the professor and Charlotte had witnessed them. It had been simple, quick— and then Yvonne—his wife yet not yet his wife—had left for a final fitting of her gown, at the
maison de couture
Poiret. He had rented a flat on rue de Passy, in the select Sixteenth
Arrondissement,
not far from the Trocadéro and the Bois de Boulogne. Together they had chosen the stark fifteenth-century furniture that they both liked, had added gay touches with colorful Persian, carpets and emerald-green velvet drapery. His study was upholstered in leather, and already his legal books lined the walls. He looked forward to living there with Yvonne.

After the civil wedding, the professor had made his hospital rounds as usual. When he arrived at his penthouse flat in the evening, he saw the welcoming light in the foyer and looked for signs of Yvonne still up. She had gone to bed. There was her wrap on the small sofa, and her hat on the side table. He sighed. He wished he might have spoken to her on this eve of her marriage—might have spoken some few words of fatherly wisdom. He smiled wryly at his own sentimentality and walked into his library, to clear his mind.

The letter was on his desk, propped up by a medical encyclopedia.

The professor felt paralyzed with grief and bewilderment. But he knew that he had to notify Alex right away. In the morning there would be the Mass at the Madeleine, hundreds of guests…and the Marquise Charlotte, dressed in splendor…. He put his coat on and left at once.

In the Varenne apartment Henri de Larmont greeted Charlotte curtly and went alone into the study with Alexandre. The young man read the letter, once, twice. It made no sense. He sat down. In his bathrobe he seemed younger, more vulnerable. Henri de Larmont felt more discomfort than he had felt in a lifetime of medicine, of hospitals. Alex laid his head in his hands, numb with sickness.

His mother burst in, and Alex simply handed her the letter. She perused it rapidly. Then she began to scream.

Alex stood up, trembling. “Mama,” he said quietly, “no one has the right to pass judgment on Yvonne. Tomorrow I shall go to the Cardinal of Paris, to discuss the situation. The marriage was never…consummated, and we were never married in the eyes of the Church. Maybe we'll only need a civil annulment. Or I shall set the wheels in motion for a divorce. I'm sorry—”

He could not continue, and abruptly left the room. Charlotte de Varenne's mouth opened incongruously. The professor, who had been standing awkwardly in the corner, turned to her. “Madame—” he began, but then words failed him too. He quickly strode out of the house, grief-stricken.

Alexandre sat in his bedroom, shaking. He thought of Yvonne's story about the hat, and tears now came. He had not seen that side to her—but there were sides to him she'd failed to see too. He rose and began to pack his bags, his fingers stiff, his stomach in knots. On the morrow, while his mother dealt with the ridiculous horde of guests she had insisted upon inviting, he would quietly move, alone, into the new apartment on rue de Passy. He would face the emerald-green drapes and learn to adjust. There was no choice.

I
n the summer of 1916
, Jamie and Lesley parted after the end of their freshman year. Lady Priscilla wanted to take her younger daughter to England. Lesley could not really imagine a Europe torn by war. She only remembered the Europe of her grandparents, of other trips. But this time, Ned had been most adamant in forbidding his wife and daughter to go. Lady Priscilla had insisted: “In Yorkshire there is no conflict. And as for Paris…it is so far from the front!” Ned had finally yielded; in the United States one heard reports, but as the distant whispers of another world. He had questioned associates, been reassured. The war was being fought in the north and east sectors of France, not where his wife and daughter were going to travel. A pressing advertising campaign would keep him glued to the office all summer. Was it fair to let the holidays go by without a vacation for his family?

Lesley was eighteen. At Vassar, and in the ballrooms of Fifth Avenue, the war in Europe seemed far away. President Wilson had been speaking about the need to negotiate for a peace without victors. Yet no sooner had they arrived in Paris than the Richardson women were confronted with the nearness of the war, with what it was doing to France. Verdun had been won from the Germans, but at what cost! This was the start of a third year of battles for the French. Marshall Joffre's dictum, “To be killed rather than step back,” represented the French mentality, from the richest aristocrat to the smallest shopkeeper. And Georges Clemenceau, “the Tiger,” detested by members of all political parties, yet the most dreaded statesman in the country, had been named President of the Commission for the Army and had pushed his way into the very trenches of his soldiers, to breathe courage into each man from on high.