The Keeper of the Walls (71 page)

Maryse, numb, simply stood limply while her daughter massaged her hand, an expression of defeat painted on her elfin face. At thirty-eight, Maryse now looked older. The skin had tightened over her small features, and her golden hair no longer shone with magic luster. Wolf's departure from Compiègne had taken the last ounce of fighting spirit out of her, so that now that doom had come, she was simply yielding up to it, much in the same way that Wolf himself had given in after his experience on the
Saint Louis.

But Claire had been a survivor since her early youth. Her arm still tight around her husband's waist, she asked, defiantly: “Who turned us in?”

“It's not our business to inform the Jews.”

“But you
knew.
You came in here looking for our silver, and our jewelry. Only our family was aware of where they were—yet you knew exactly where to go!”

“It had to be Marie,” Jacques said, his voice hushed. “Who else but our family—?”

“No. Marie's brother was killed last week, in a partisan fight. She'd never collaborate.”

“You'll have to come with us now, Madame Walter. You're under arrest.”

Jacques's fingers twined in hers, Claire shook her head. “I'm never going to leave my husband. Where he goes, I go.”

“It's not so simple. We have to send Herr Walter back to Switzerland. But you and the others will be deported to a family work camp. Resettlement,” he specified, the sharp, clear word electrifying Maryse with her memories.

Nanni uttered a piercing cry, and Claire moved between her husband and her friends. “You can't take this
child
away!” she exclaimed. “She isn't of legal age, anyway. She's not fifteen yet!”

“It's for us to judge,” the first officer snapped.

“Aunt Claire, I am the only one here of legal age,” Maryse said at length, her voice toneless. “You're too old, and Nanni's too young. Take
me,
officers. I don't care what happens to me now, in any case. Without Wolf, I—” Her voice broke off, and she hunched over, hiding her face in both her hands.

“We don't intend to waste the whole day convincing you Jews to leave quietly. Madame Walter, either you come with us, without any further fuss, or I shall have to shoot you down.”

Jacques stepped back, his mouth falling open. The Gestapo officer, a captain, had placed his right hand on his holster, and was drawing a pistol out, threatening Claire. The old man cried, “No!” and positioned himself directly in front of his wife. “Darling,” he said, “when I reach Basel, I'll take all the necessary steps to have you released. You
must
do as they tell you. You
know
that I'll get you out . . . there's no question—”

“But I don't care if he shoots me down. I'm not going to be separated from you, Jacob. I can't let them take Nanni, either. There are laws . . .”

Claire was sixty-four. Still full-figured and elegant, her white hair swept into a French knot at the back of her head, she continued to hold her husband's hand. She'd lived out her life, hurting and being hurt; she'd made her sacrifices, and endured her pain. Now, the gun aimed at her, she stood unafraid, her mind clear, her heart intact. “You won't take me to a concentration camp,” she told the officer quietly. “All my adult life, I had to hide being a Jew. And now I'm proud to tell you what I am. I am not a coward, and I'll stay with Jacob, because he's old and sick, and I'm his wife. And, as long as I live, I shall not let you take an innocent Jewish girl of fourteen, when the law reads, clearly, that you can only take those between the ages of fifteen and fifty-five.”

“Then, Madame, you leave me no choice.”

In the minute that ensued, Claire's mind took in chaotic parts of a single scene, seeing Nanni running toward her, Maryse collapsing, and Jacques trying to jump in front of her. She saw the officer's finger on the trigger, watched his face as he pulled it. And then, the scene exploded into myriad red splashes, and she felt the jagged pain searing her insides, and felt her legs give beneath her. Conscious of a pungent odor, she knew, too, that she had voided her intestines, and as she fell, she saw Jacques bending toward her, this loving man; and she thought that she heard Lily's voice, and Claude's, and Paul's, all calling to her.

Jacques Walter, his face streaked with tears, the front of his shirt splattered with his wife's blood, was crying, from where he kneeled over Claire's dead body: “You didn't have to do that! She would have gone with you! She simply meant to say good-bye!”

“She was a pig Jewess, and tried to resist an officer of the Reich.”

“You don't understand,” Jacques whispered, his hand caressing Claire's white cheek. “We'd never been separated. We were married sixteen years, and she's the only woman I ever loved.”

A nervous tic twisting his face, the Gestapo captain simply turned aside, and Jacques saw him clench and unclench his hands at his sides. “Hurry up,” he called crisply to his underlings. “Clean up this mess, and let's get out of here.”

On the other side of the room, Maryse and Nanni were holding each other. Jacques could smell the gunpowder in the air, and felt as if his lungs were about to burst. His worst punishment, he thought, was in not having been allowed to be the one to die.

A sergeant was pulling him to his feet, and yet another man was throwing a sheet over Claire's body. Jacques Walter's lips formed in the kaddish, and, silently, he mouthed the words of the Hebrew prayer for the dead.

W
hen Kira stepped
off the train at the Luzarches station, the young
gendarme
moved out of the shadows into the lamplight, and she saw him approach her, surprise registering in her mind. “You're Princess Kira?” he asked, his voice low and pressing.

She nodded. “What's going on?”

“The Gestapo came to our headquarters, this morning, and sent two of us out with a German captain, to arrest you and your mother. She told me to meet you here and to tell you not to come home, because they'll return tomorrow.”

For a moment, her legs weakened. “Where's my mother?” she whispered.

“They've taken her to Paris. The captain didn't even let her pack. But apparently, he didn't know anything about the old lady—Madame Sudarskaya. She hid behind the door, and since he wasn't looking for her, he didn't pursue the search. It was you they were after.”

The young policeman, full of pity, put his arm around Kira, and led her to a bench on the platform. She was weeping softly, her head bent forward. “Do you have anywhere to go?” he insisted.

“My grandma's, in Paris. Unless . . .” Her eyes, huge and green, burned into his heart. “And Raïssa Markovna—I can't leave her here. There's my great-aunt, who isn't Jewish, and who's old and sick. I suppose I could go there, for a few days.”

“Then I'll go get Madame Sudarskaya, and bring her here. Don't move. I'll stay with you tonight, to make sure nothing happens to you. And in the morning, you'll both go to this aunt's, on the dawn train.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, feeling as if the universe had collapsed around her. She'd never been without her mother. Everyone had left her: Misha, Nicky, Pierre. But Lily . . . She'd always taken it for granted that they'd be together; she'd taken her
mother
for granted, all her life. And now . . .

“But the war's almost over,” she said, new tears forming. “Why did they have to do this
now?”

“Because somebody told the Germans about you,” the
gendarme
explained. “Somebody well placed, in Paris.” Kira nodded, at last understanding.

T
he janitress
of the Boulevard Exelmans apartment stood with an arm around Marie, the little maid, who was sobbing. “When I returned from my day off, they'd already come,” she gasped, fresh tears appearing on the edges of her lashes. “It was horrible. Poor Madame Walton . . .”

Kira's own eyes were dry, though red-rimmed. Next to her, Sudarskaya was wringing her hands, her face a mask of uncomprehending agony. She looked, Kira thought, like one's stereotype of the suffering Jew, mobile features twisted with ancestral pain. The young girl's hand reached out to grasp the gnarled, nervous fingers, to calm her old friend down. “I knew Claire before I ever met your Mama,” the old woman said. “She was thirty-seven then. She helped me obtain my first students. She was my only friend.”

“I know, Raïssa Markovna.”

“Who could have alerted the Germans? Do
you
know?” The small piano teacher searched Marie's face, anxiously.

But it was Kira who answered. “It's all right, Marie.
I
know who it was.” But her grim expression revealed nothing to the three expectant faces watching her.

R
osine opened the door
, and when she saw who it was, let out an audible sigh and stepped back to let the two women enter. “I'm so glad it's you, Mademoiselle Kira,” she cried. Her hat sat firmly planted on her head, as if she'd been caught on the verge of leaving. “If you hadn't come, I don't know
what
I'd have done!”

Her face was flushed, and she seemed curiously breathless. Kira said: “This lady is my friend. What's happening here, Rosine?”

“It's Madame Bertholet. She thinks she can treat me like a slave, putting me to wait on her day and night, with no time off and only six hours to sleep. Well . . . I've decided to quit,
right now!
I'm going to go to my brother's house, in Vaucresson. I can't take another day of this!”

“It's all right,” Kira told her. “My aunt's known to be an impossible person. I'll see what I can do to find her a replacement. You can go, Rosine.” Turning to Sudarskaya, she said: “Wait for me in the kitchen, please, Raïssa Markovna. I'll go speak to Aunt Marthe.”

In the master bedroom, confusion reigned. The old woman sat propped against the usual array of pillows, and a tray rested on the slipcovers. “Good morning, Auntie,” Kira said. She tried not to breathe the stale air of the sickroom. With the tips of her lips, she brushed the old woman's cheek.

“There's not a damned thing good about it!” Marthe Bertholet muttered. “That idiot girl says she wants to quit! Who'm I going to find in the middle of a war, will you tell me, to come work here?”

“Perhaps I can look for someone,” Kira replied.

“Everybody's abandoned me! I came here to be with my family, and I haven't set eyes on Claire since the day before yesterday. And your mother was supposed to come this morning—promised me to be here to check on the food! What have I done to deserve such a forgetful, selfish set of relations?”

Her voice calm but hard, Kira said: “My grandmother's dead, Aunt Marthe.”

Aunt Marthe blinked, horrified. “Claire?
Dead?
What happened?”

Kira twisted her hands together, and tears came. Above all, she didn't want to weep in front of this dreadful old woman. But swallowing didn't help. The tears fell. “She died of a heart attack,” she said, quickly. And then: “My mother hasn't been well, and won't be able to come to see you for a few months. But I'm here, and I can stay, if you need me.”

The round head tilted to the side, and the slitty eyes examined her circumspectly. Finally, Aunt Marthe replied. “You're too young, and I don't know you well enough. But I suppose you'll have to do. I'm tired of paying wages to a stupid servant. It's time I had a relative to do my cooking and cleaning—not some illiterate stranger!”

Stilling a gasp, Kira nodded. “All right, then.”

“But no extended visits from anyone,” the old woman ordered, her voice edgy with petulance. “You can have an occasional hour off, or a friend to sit with you. But for no longer than half an hour. I can't afford to feed anyone else—not even for a cup of tea. My resources are limited,” she whined, “and anyway, I don't like strangers in my house. Rosine was enough to last me till my death. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” Kira answered.

In the corridor, she stilled the anguish within her. Sudarskaya met her in the entrance hall. “Well?” she murmured.

“I'm to be her next servant. And she wants no ‘extended visitors.' Raíssa Markovna, you're just going to have to keep very quiet. We're the only ones left now, and it isn't right for us to separate.” Turning to the coat stand, she pulled down a small felt hat. “I don't know whose this is, though I seem to remember Grandma having one of these. But from now on, during the day, you'll keep this on your head at all times. Like this, on the off chance that she'll get out of bed, we'll tell her that you're just a friend passing by for half an hour.”

“But . . . where will I sleep?”

“With me, in Rosine's old room. It'll be more comfortable than in Chaumontel, and you'll be safe. But from now on, your name will be Madame Soudaire. ‘Sudarskaya' is Russian, and the old hen is as anticommunist as she's anti-Semitic. She can't tell the difference between a White and a Red Russian, and we can't run any new risks. I didn't tell her about Mama, and the details about Grandma. She's never to learn that we are Jews.”

Silenced by the enormity of Kira's command, the small piano teacher simply inclined her head.

Anything was better than her mother's fate, Kira thought, carrying the dirty tray to the kitchen sink. And she wondered how she'd deal with Henriette Bruisson, who came to visit every Friday. For she knew beyond a doubt that it was she who had set the Germans on her mother's trail, and who was responsible for her grandmother's death.

There had to be a way to stall her, to prevent her from coming here and learning that Kira, a fugitive from the Nazis, was now living here, with an old Russian Jewess who had miraculously escaped deportation twice, and of whose existence Aunt Marthe was totally ignorant.