Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

Kristina

Paris, May 1939

‘Not there. Up to the next floor please,’ Kristina said, directing two red-faced furniture removalists carrying a heavy walnut bookcase up the staircase. It was probably not their favourite job to furnish a six-storey house, and they would face worse troubles when the piano arrived, but they were being paid well for their efforts.

‘Kristina, come look!’ Max called from the street.

She wiped her hands on her apron and descended the stairs again. Outside the building at the gallery level, Max was watching a workman screw into place the bronze plaque for ‘Bergeret & Lavertu’. It was a proud moment and had been years in the making.

Max put his arm around her shoulders and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Rue la Boétie,’ he said proudly. ‘Remember this is where you came to look for me after I took all your paintings? You thought Serge and I were important art dealers then. Well, now we are.’

The street was elegant and calm, with the kind of spotlessness that wouldn’t be found in Montparnasse. The windows were cleaned daily, and the name plaques and doorknobs polished to a high shine each morning. Dirty puddles and horse manure had no place on the street and all the pedestrians who graced it wore clean tailored clothes that fitted exquisitely.

Kristina rolled her shoulders as if to shake off a slight tension. She could feel that all eyes were on them, the newcomers to the neighbourhood. Some of the galleries had been handed down from father to son for years in that fine tradition of succession that the French valued so much. The top art dealers of Paris were a tight-knit group but not a welcoming one. Bergeret & Lavertu still had a lot to prove. Max and Serge would have to watch their backs.

Nadia came out holding Ginette’s hand. They were sisters but looked completely different. Nadia was dark like Max, and Ginette was fair like Kristina, with a head full of fluffy curls that made her resemble a dandelion.

‘Look, Mama and Papa, I painted Tulipe,’ Ginette said, holding up a piece of paper.

Tulipe was the family’s pet rabbit, the successor to Leo who had lived to the ripe old age of eleven. Ginette’s art was as delightful as her personality. She’d painted Tulipe’s body with remarkable accuracy for a six-year-old, but the rabbit’s teeth looked like a human’s and Tulipe was grinning in a way that reminded Kristina of Max. She had to bite her lip to stop herself from laughing.

‘We should frame it for her, Papa,’ Nadia said. ‘Can we?’

Nadia was quieter and more serious than Ginette. She looked after her younger sister with all the care of someone who had been left in charge of a rare and precious diamond.

‘Of course we can,’ said Max, taking the painting from Ginette and kissing both girls on the top of their heads. ‘We shall hang it next to the Kandinsky that Uncle Serge spent a fortune on.’ Then with a wink at Kristina he added, ‘You can hardly tell the difference.’

‘Where is Serge?’ she asked. ‘I don’t know where he wants his furniture placed and he’s so particular about things.’

‘At the H?tel Drouot,’ replied Max. ‘There are two Matisses up for auction.’

‘He’ll be gone for hours,’ she said. ‘And the movers won’t be that patient. I’ll tell them where I think his furniture should go, and no doubt he’ll change his mind as soon as he sees it.’

*

Later, when Kristina was in the kitchen of the apartment above the gallery helping Colette unpack cutlery, Sonia arrived looking fashionable in a Hungarian-style silk blouse and slim black skirt. She had an assortment of fabrics over one arm and a bottle of Dom Pérignon in her free hand.

‘Today I paid your husbands the last of the loan they gave me. So we are going to celebrate.’

‘ Husband ,’ Kristina corrected her, although she knew Sonia had used the plural deliberately. Max and Serge had lent Sonia money to open her own atelier, which was now a thriving interior-design company. ‘How was Barcelona?’ she asked, taking the champagne bottle from her friend and handing it to Colette.

Sonia dropped the fabric samples on top of a box and moved a stack of cookbooks so she could sit down. ‘Full of brilliant surrealists doing incredible things. The Barcelonians are refreshingly innovative and daring. The avant-garde designs have already been a hit with my customers.’ She stopped a moment to admire the Art Deco bracelet she was wearing. ‘And how did your exhibition go? I was sorry to have missed it.’

Colette popped the cork of the champagne and handed Kristina and Sonia a glass each.

‘It was a resounding success,’ Kristina said, taking a sip of her drink. ‘Nearly three thousand people came to look at my paintings and the art critics finally proclaimed me a “genius”.’

‘And...?’

Kristina put down her champagne glass. ‘And as with my previous exhibitions, I didn’t sell anything significant. In fact this time, I didn’t sell anything.’

Sonia arched one of her perfectly groomed eyebrows at her. ‘Not even one painting?’

Kristina shook her head. She had been blessed with many good things in life – wonderful parents, good health, a happy marriage and children – but what she dearly wanted seemed to elude her. She had painted nearly every day since the time she could hold a paintbrush, and just when it seemed she was about to go somewhere with her art, she found herself back where she had started: nowhere.

‘Well, it’s not a lack of talent,’ said Sonia matter-of-factly. ‘The best of France’s art connoisseurs have bought your works – édouard and Beatrice Fould, Count étienne Beaumont, the Rothschilds.’

‘Those who love art love my work,’ she agreed. ‘But I can’t make a name for myself selling one painting a year. It doesn’t matter if the critics say I’m brilliant, art buyers still don’t see a female painter as a good investment.’

Sonia smoothed her skirt thoughtfully, then a mischievous glint came to her eye. ‘Why don’t you concentrate on flowers – or children? Something more romantic and domestic like the ones you painted when you were at art school to make some money on the side. That’s what people expect of a “lady painter”. They don’t want brilliant and daring art created by a woman.’

Kristina’s spine prickled. ‘Seriously? Is that what you would advise me? The champion of the cubists, expressionists and futurists?’

Sonia shook her head. ‘I would advise you to do what Serge is always telling you to do – to keep going. The success you want will come eventually.’

‘I’m surprised Serge hasn’t given up on me. I’m the only painter he represents who never makes him any money.’

Sonia shrugged and looked around the room. ‘So, you are seriously all going to live here together in this house? That will get the gossips talking. They already see you as a threesome.’

‘Nobody thinks like that but you, Sonia,’ Kristina said, irritated that she had brought up the subject again. ‘Serge is like the brother I never had. Nadia and Ginette think of him as their uncle. And he has his own apartment on the third floor, below ours. We’re hardly living together.’

Even as she said it, Kristina knew it was not as straightforward as that. The best times were always when it was the three of them together. After dinner, they would sit and talk for hours about everything from music to books to politics. As much as she and Max loved each other, husbands and wives could rarely keep their conversations so stimulating after years of marriage. What Kristina felt for Serge was something more than she would have felt for a brother. She had learned it was possible to love a man without being his lover.

‘Don’t you wonder why Serge has never married?’ Sonia asked.

‘Serge’s passion is for his art,’ Kristina replied, picking up her glass of champagne again and taking a sip. ‘Not everyone is suited to matrimony, something you’re always saying yourself, Sonia. Sometimes I think there was more between him and Madeleine than he ever told us, and that perhaps she broke his heart in a way that can’t be fixed.’

Sonia studied Kristina. She seemed on the verge of saying something but then thought better of it. She reached for her fabric samples and placed them on the table, holding up textured crepes, velvet and silk. ‘Come on, let’s choose the materials for your curtains and upholsteries. They aren’t going to make themselves.’

*

The following week, Kristina was playing hide and seek with Ginette and had just managed to pull her by her squirming legs from under the sofa, when the new secretary Serge had hired came upstairs to see her. Inès Bonne was well presented, with never a hair out of place. Everything about her was tidy and precise, from her tailor-made suits to her white lace blouses to her neat handwriting.

‘Madame Bergeret,’ she said, ‘there is a visitor downstairs. Monsieur Martin La Farge. I told him that Messieurs Bergeret and Lavertu are away on business for the day, but he says he came to meet you.’

Her gaze dropped to the dust and rabbit fur stuck to the front of Kristina’s blouse. Kristina brushed it off. She would have to remind Colette that she needed to clean under the furniture as well as around it.

‘Monsieur La Farge wants to meet me?’

Martin La Farge’s gallery was diagonally across the street from Bergeret & Lavertu. One couldn’t fail to notice the Fragonards and Bouchers he had displayed in the windows. He had been born into an old established family, and it was those families who made up his lucrative clientele.

‘He says he has already met Messieurs Bergeret and Lavertu and it is you he wants to welcome to the neighbourhood.’

‘He probably wants to get a look at our inventory,’ Kristina said with a rueful laugh. ‘And thinks that I will be more gullible than my husband or Serge.’

A mischievous smile danced on Inès’s perfectly made-up lips. ‘You are probably correct, Madame Bergeret, so perhaps we shouldn’t leave him alone downstairs too long on his own.’

Kristina realised Inès was not as uptight as her impeccable appearance suggested.

‘Very well,’ she said. ‘I’ll meet him. Let’s go.’

Inès nodded and reached up to take something from Kristina’s hair. ‘Permit me,’ she said, pulling out a dust ball. ‘That’s better.’

Martin La Farge was holding a bouquet of white calla lilies. He was as handsome as Michelangelo’s David . It was impossible not to notice. He was tall and blond with the glowing skin of someone who spends a great deal of time at health spas. But there was something slightly obscene about his good looks. His only physical defect was a slight bend to his nose which suggested it had once been broken.

‘Madame Bergeret,’ he said, holding out the lilies. Then suddenly looking contrite, he added, ‘Or do you prefer to go by your artist’s surname, Belova?’

‘Bergeret is quite all right. I only use Belova to sign my paintings.’

‘I must congratulate you on the success of your exhibition. Such wonderful reviews.’

‘Thank you,’ she replied, irked by the flattery in his tone.

Martin La Farge would have known that she hadn’t sold a thing, but she wasn’t going to let him make her cower. She passed the flowers to Inès who went in search of a vase.

‘Your husband and his partner have done very well,’ Martin said, looking at one of Léger’s early still-life paintings hanging on the wall. ‘Dealers rarely prosper from modern art and not everyone has the patience to nurture an artist through their early years, giving them stipends and a shoulder to cry on.’

Martin La Farge’s voice was so even and so cultivated it was almost impossible to take offence at the note of condescension in it. Perhaps he hoped that Max and Serge wouldn’t last long on Rue la Boétie. But Kristina knew they would prove him wrong.

‘The dealers on Rue la Boétie always help each other out,’ he continued. ‘Sometimes we will have a special client who will want to add a particular artist to their collection. If we have nothing available, we might do a swap with another gallery. The Wildensteins and I have always worked together this way. I hope that your husband and Serge Lavertu will work with me in the same spirit of cooperation.’

Kristina didn’t want to answer for Max and Serge, but she sensed Martin La Farge was a man who would always do what was necessary to accomplish his ends.

He glanced towards the staircase as if he hoped she might invite him to inspect the old masters exhibited on the next floor. But when she extended no such offer he continued to stalk around the lower gallery, his eager eyes travelling between the paintings and sculptures. Then he stopped and furrowed his eyebrows at her painting of Madeleine hanging above the cashier’s desk. It was the one she had painted just before Madeleine left, depicting her as Eve fleeing the Garden of Eden. Even if someone had offered her a million francs for it, Kristina would not have sold it. The first night she slept in the new apartment, Madeleine had come to her in a dream and Kristina was sure that her long-lost friend had died and had come to say goodbye. The painting reminded Kristina of Madeleine’s promise to be her guardian angel.

‘Who is the model?’ he asked.

‘A friend,’ she answered.

Martin La Farge’s brow furrowed. ‘When did you paint it?’

‘Years ago,’ she said, reminding herself that she didn’t have to tell him anything, regardless of his commanding tone. He came across as a man who expected women to do his bidding, so no doubt the depiction of a powerful Eve irked him.

Little footsteps sounded on the stairs and Ginette appeared in the doorway, cradling Tulipe securely in her arms. She must have become bored waiting for Kristina to return. At the sight of her, Martin’s eyes glazed over and he seemed to have trouble breathing.

‘Well, I mustn’t keep you any longer. I wish you all the best in the neighbourhood. Tell your husband and Monsieur Lavertu that they can call on me anytime.’

Inès returned with the lilies in a vase in time to see Martin hurry out the door. Kristina smoothed down Ginette’s hair and patted Tulipe.

‘He’s an odd man,’ Kristina said to Inès. ‘He had the strangest reaction to Ginette. He acted as if he were allergic to her.’

‘They’re all a bit eccentric on this street, Madame Bergeret,’ Inès said drolly. ‘It comes from a life of bubble baths and eating caviar for breakfast.’

Kristina laughed at Inès’s comment. But her mirth was cut short when the telegram boy arrived from the post office. Kristina opened the message, and her hand flew to her mouth when she read the words:

Come home. Papa dead.

*

The sunset sparkled on the water with such beauty it was almost painful. Summer was fading. Kristina felt it in the softening sunlight and the tinge of coolness in the evening breeze. She stood on the terrace of the Villa des Cygnes watching Nadia and Ginette playing in the garden with Tulipe, a scene that normally would have filled her with joy, but that evening her heart was laden with melancholy. It was as if she knew that their happy carefree days were coming to an end. Her father had been barely sixty-five when he died in his sleep from a heart attack.

‘Kristina,’ her mother called from inside the house. ‘I found something your father would have liked you to have.’

She turned to see Yelena holding out a blue presentation box. Kristina took it from her and opened the lid. Inside was a gold brooch set with a large ruby and a cluster of pearls. She recognised it as having once belonged to her paternal grandmother. Since her father’s death, her mother had been giving things away and it unsettled Kristina. It was as if Yelena was intending to follow him to an early grave and was divesting herself of her worldly goods. Kristina couldn’t bear to think of losing her too and reached out and grasped her mother’s hand.

‘Why don’t you come and live with us in Paris? I don’t like the idea of you being here alone.’

Yelena shook her head as if the idea was impossible.

‘We have plenty of room, and you would be near the children,’ Kristina insisted. ‘You could come back here in winter when it turns cold in Paris.’

‘No,’ Yelena said, gently releasing her hand. ‘I feel him here. He loved this place so much.’

Kristina didn’t push the matter. Her mother would have her reasons and Kristina would have to respect them. Yelena had become a stranger to her in some ways. Their relationship felt lopsided since Mikhail had died, as if Kristina was having to get to know her mother again and figure out who she was without her father. She took the brooch and pinned it to her blouse, although it was too heavy and ornate for the light fabric. It was as though the weight of her father’s death was tugging on her heart.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

Yelena smiled and looked away.

It wasn’t simply that Yelena was living alone with the aid of only Lorenzo and Suzanne that was worrying her. It was also what was happening in the world. Hitler’s army had invaded Czechoslovakia, and Poland would certainly be next. France was very likely going to be sucked up into another war with Germany.

Nobody had any idea what to do – to carry on normally and risk being taken by surprise? Or to prepare for the worst and somehow invite bad luck? Movie stars were gathering in Cannes for the film festival while extra trains had been put on to take worried tourists away from the coast. The casinos and hotels were being commandeered for use as hospitals and refugee centres, while rich American heiresses were still dancing at the nightclubs in Antibes. Max had just sold a Modigliani to a friend of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor who couldn’t see what ‘all the fuss’ was about.

‘They built the Maginot Line for a reason,’ the collector had told Max. ‘It’s France’s insurance policy against invasion by the Krauts.’

He was referring to the concrete battlements, obstacles and weapons installations that France had constructed along the border with Germany. It was considered the most advanced fortification ever built in the history of the world.

Kristina had read in the newspaper that Louvre officials were moving precious artworks out of Paris, including the Mona Lisa , and the stained-glass windows from Notre-Dame, and people were being advised to keep their children in summer camps for fear Paris would be a target for bombs and gas attacks. Max tried to ring Serge to find out what was happening in the city, but long-distance calls couldn’t be placed and there was no reply to the telegram he sent.

‘I’ll go back to Paris for a few days and see what is happening with the gallery,’ Max told Kristina. ‘I’ll collect the children’s winter clothes and return as soon as I can.’

‘I’m coming with you,’ she said. ‘The girls will be safe with my mother.’

Although she hated the idea of being separated from her daughters, at that moment it seemed even more unbearable to be without Max.

On the train back to Paris, everyone in the carriage wore an expression of utter shock.

‘How can this be happening? It’s madness,’ said one woman. ‘It’s been a beautiful summer. Why on earth go to war?’

After that came a long period of silence as the others disappeared into their own thoughts, until a ruddy-cheeked man looked over the top of his newspaper and said hopefully, ‘According to the astrologer in Le Journal , there won’t be a war because Hitler’s and Mussolini’s horoscopes show no sign of it.’

Kristina and Max arrived in Paris in the evening to find that the city of lights was shrouded in darkness. Sandbags had been stacked around statues and important buildings. At the station entrance they were handed brochures on what to do in case of gas or bomb attacks. There were no taxis to be found and they had to walk the long distance back to the apartment.

They found Serge sitting in the kitchen eating soup by candlelight.

He was relieved and apologetic when he saw them. ‘It’s been impossible to make private telephone calls out of Paris and it’s forbidden to use phones in cafés or hotels,’ he explained. ‘The postal service has gone to pieces. Nobody’s saying it, but you can see the city officials are expecting Paris will be attacked. Colette and Inès have gone to check on their families. I’ve put most of our inventory in storage at Wacker-Bondy’s but have kept a few paintings in the gallery so we can still run the business until we’re sure things are as dire as everyone believes.’

Max and Serge spent the rest of the evening looking at the paintings on the walls of the gallery by torchlight, discussing which they should take down and pack away and which ones might be safe to leave until the last moment. They spoke in whispers as if the Germans had their ears to the walls and were listening.

Kristina felt as if she was having a bad dream. All of this was too familiar to her. Surely she wouldn’t be forced to leave her home again like she had during the Russian Revolution?

The following day was balmy and the sky a translucent blue. It seemed impossible that such a perfect day could bring with it death and destruction. Kristina kept her mind from morbid thoughts by packing up the silverware and other valuables into suitcases that they could take in Serge’s car if they had to flee the city. Then she went to the stores and lined up with hundreds of other women for sugar, flour, rice and matches.

‘I’m taking the family photograph albums only,’ said the woman next to her in line. ‘It’s those you love who matter most in the end.’

The woman’s manner was cheerful. Kristina tried to match her optimism with a brave smile of her own, but she felt as if she’d swallowed a small rock and now it was stuck in the pit of her stomach.

She had only just arrived back at the gallery when Serge returned from delivering a Matisse to a customer at the Hotel Ritz. He held up a copy of the afternoon newspaper.

‘They’ve done it,’ he said. ‘Hitler has invaded Poland. France and Britain are at war with Germany.’

For the rest of the afternoon, Kristina, Max and Serge stayed glued to the radio. The announcer sounded exhausted, and Kristina imagined his hands trembling as the broadcasts were handed to him. Then what they had been dreading came: a general call-up of men aged twenty to forty-five years of age would commence at midnight.

‘Our country is in grave danger,’ the announcer said. ‘We must all do our duty with pride and dignity.’

She turned to Max and Serge. Serge was forty-six years of age and would not be required for active service, but Max was only forty-one. But out of the two men, it was Serge who looked the most distressed.

That evening, Kristina prepared supper while Max took a bath. She had a sharp ache in her temple that wouldn’t budge no matter how much she massaged the spot. It was as if she had to concentrate very hard to stop herself from shattering.

Serge continued the job of packing away the silver and other valuables in crates. He looked at her and stood up then took her hands.

She let out a sharp sob. ‘I couldn’t bear it if—’

‘Don’t think of that,’ he said, squeezing her fingers. ‘We must be brave for him, Kristina. We must both be brave for him. We cannot think of him in any other way than coming back safely to us.’

Her fear suddenly turned to outrage. ‘What are the Germans thinking! They should know what war means, the pointlessness of it all. Are the wives and mothers of the country so willing to be widows? And to see their children killed and maimed?’

Serge pulled her to his chest and held her tightly. ‘It may come to nothing,’ he said, although he didn’t seem so certain himself. ‘Surely even Hitler is not such a fool.’

In the early hours of the morning they went in the car to the Gare de l’Est, guided only by moonlight. The shop shutters were closed, and the streets were quiet and eerie. The lampposts had been fitted with padded sleeves to prevent fatalities should anyone crash into them during a blackout.

When they arrived at the station it was packed with people. Some men were already in uniform while most of the others, like Max, were still wearing their civilian clothes. Next to them were women with stricken faces. Everyone was trying to look brave, but the strain was showing in their trembling lips and the anxious twisting of hands.

Suddenly one woman let out a wail that seemed to speak for everyone gathered. ‘My husband fought in the Great War, wasn’t that enough? Now you want to take him when he has children to feed!’

Max pulled Kristina into his arms as if to shield her from the horror. ‘Keep painting,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘You must never stop painting.’

He turned to Serge. ‘Look after Kristina and the children.’

‘As if they are my own,’ Serge replied, fighting back tears.

The enlisted men were called to board the train just as sunrise began to shine through the glass ceiling of the station. The red glow made it seem as if everyone had suddenly caught on fire. Max embraced Kristina and Serge. For a moment it was as if the three of them were safe in a cocoon, shut off from the world outside. But then he released them and turned to go.

For Kristina, it was terrible to watch him moving further and further away from them, knowing they might never see him again.