Bridal Chair (26 page)

She feared that he would fall, that he would go mad, that he would drive her into madness. In desperation, she placed the carton of Bella’s notebooks and file folders on the dining room table in front of him. He lifted one notebook and then another, his hands trembling.

“I will translate them,” Ida said. “And you will illustrate them. You will see. As we work, we will hear her voice, we will see her face, her smile. She will come alive for us.”

He stared down at the page open before him, the delicate Yiddish script dancing through his tears.

“Yes. Yes. That is what we must do,” he agreed. He took Ida’s hand in his own and pressed it to his lips. “You are a good daughter, Idotchka,” he said.

“I try,” she said. “I have always tried.”

She turned away. His words and her own filled her with sadness. She had tried so very hard to be a good daughter.
Perhaps
too
hard
, she thought as she sat in a circlet of lamplight and watched Marc slowly turn one page after another, his finger clutching a pencil as though he might begin to draw at any moment.

Bella had titled her manuscript
Brenendike
Licht
,
Burning
Lights
. Ida translated it into French as
Lumières Allumées
. She studied each draft and notebook, working her way methodically through her mother’s complex literary jigsaw puzzle, re-creating the Jewish world of Vitebsk through the prism of tender memory. Marc organized each entry according to the rhythm of the Jewish calendar, and as he created the graceful line drawings for each chapter, the melancholy that had haunted him since Bella’s death dissipated. The afternoon that he completed his final sketch of Bella as a young girl reading in the Vitebsk clock tower, he walked through the apartment and turned the paintings away from the wall. His long mourning was at an end.

Eventually, the apartment once again became the scene of parties and impromptu gatherings. Their guests included the older writers and artists, the French- and Yiddish-speaking émigrés who were Marc’s friends and acolytes. Ida was the welcoming hostess; Marc, dressed in one or another of the brightly colored shirts and striped jackets he favored, sat regnant in a blue velvet easy chair beneath his painting of a nude Ida floating above the village of Vitebsk.

Michel came and went, a guest in the apartment where he still lived in a room of his own. The Voice of America, even more important now that Europe was in a state of flux, occupied all his time. He traveled back and forth to Washington, always rushing to catch a train or a plane. He worried obsessively about his parents and used every contact, however remote, in his urgent efforts to determine their fate.

He dashed in one evening, his avian face ablaze with excitement.

“I’ve finally had news of my parents, Ida,” he exclaimed. “They’re alive! They survived the war, both of them. But they were ill and disoriented and they did not know how to find me. It did not occur to them that Michel Gordey was actually Michel Rapaport. I leave for Paris tomorrow to be with them and to deal with Voice of America business. Pierre wants us to expand our operation there and in Berlin. Most probably, I will be away for some months.”

“How wonderful, Michel,” Ida said and kissed him on both his cheeks. “You know how fond I’ve always been of your parents, how grateful I am to them.”

“I do know that.” A memory teased him and blossomed into recall. “I remember how you brought my mother those wild primroses; they were rose-gold, I think. They made her so happy. That was good of you, Ida.”

“I loved her.” She lowered her head so he would not see her tears.

She helped him pack and gave him gifts for his parents, a cashmere cardigan for his mother, a long woolen scarf for his father who had always complained of the cold, a box of chocolates that a GI had given her, a bottle of cognac Marc had received from a patron. She pressed a slip of paper into his hand.

“This is the address of my mother’s brother, Isaac. We believe that it is possible that he and his family also survived. You remember that their little daughter is named Bella? We thought it strange that they would choose the name of someone who was still alive, but what a blessing it is that there may be another Bella in this world,” she said. “Please see if you can find them. They haven’t answered my letters. They may not even know that my mother is dead.”

“I will try to find them,” he promised. “And Ida, you must take care of yourself.”

He put her hand to his lips and hesitated for a moment. She thought that he might kiss her, that he might caress her face, finger tendrils of her hair, hold her close, but she knew that such gestures belonged to another time. Still, they remained bound to each other. They had shared so much, endured so much. He would bring her gifts to his parents. He would seek out her relatives. She might cease to be his wife, but she would always and forever be his Ida, just as he would always and forever be her Michel.

He left. The apartment door slammed behind him.

She sniffed a handkerchief that he had forgotten, inhaled his scent, and wondered when she would see him again. Their separation, long anticipated, had begun. She flung the window open and watched him walk down the street.

She would not grieve, she promised herself.

It was not difficult, she realized, to keep that promise, to condition herself to gaiety. The war was ending and the season of celebration was beginning. Ida drifted from one gathering to another and invited friends to her own exuberant parties. Her frenetic socializing kept loneliness at bay.

On V-E Day, Ida flung the windows open and her exultant guests tossed armloads of confetti onto Riverside Drive. Champagne bottles from a mysterious source appeared and corks were popped, glasses lifted to catch the sparkling spray. The war in Europe was over, Japan would soon be subdued, and a bright and peaceful future awaited them. They had earned their music and their laughter and the right to enjoy the bubbling drink that tickled their noses and lightened their hearts. They hugged each other in the happy certainty that theirs was the last generation that would ever have to fight a war.

* * *

Michel returned from France, sobered by the devastation he had seen, exhausted by his work and his efforts to establish his parents in a comfortable home. His father was ill, his mother fragile; their dream of Palestine would never be fulfilled. He was very thin. His sleep was restless. Elsa warned him that he would soon be very ill if he did not take a vacation.

“The free world will survive for a few weeks without Michel Rapaport,” she said wryly. “Don’t you think so, André?” she asked.

André looked up from his medical text, nodded, and limped over to the window. The heel of his right foot had been blown away during the Battle of the Bulge when his medical unit had been attacked. Unable to stand for long hours in the operation room, he had abandoned surgery and was qualifying as a pediatrician.

“We all need a vacation,” he agreed. “The whole world needs a vacation.”

Small Daniel, a handsome and playful child, rushed up to him.

“Play with me, Papa. Uncle Michel brought me a new game.”

André waved him away. He stared down at the scene on the street below, at children returning from school and women hurrying home, hugging their brown bags of groceries. The quiet patterns of daily life slowly dispelled his depression.

Elsa sighed. His war was over, but André needed time, she knew. They all needed time. Herself. Michel. Ida.

She turned to Michel.

“I’m worried about Ida,” she said. “She’s working too hard. Every housekeeper she hires quarrels with Marc. He cannot speak English and they, of course, cannot understand his French, so he shouts and the poor women storm out. So it is Ida who cleans the apartment and prepares the meals. Who does the laundry and carries the trash to the incinerator? Certainly not the great Marc Chagall. And still she continues to work at the gallery. She is heading for a collapse. You are both in need of rest.”

Michel nodded. “I know. I see that, but what can we do? Even the daily cleaning women cannot tolerate his behavior. He points and draws pictures and explodes in anger because they fail to understand what he wants. And he complains that there are holes in his socks and he’s too cheap to buy new ones. Ida has no time to darn them, but he keeps tossing the damn socks onto her bed. I suggested that she tell him to go barefoot.”

He spat the words out. He no longer bothered to conceal his anger at Marc.

“Something must be done. I am meeting Ida tomorrow. I will talk to her then,” Elsa assured him.

She and Ida met the next day in Central Park. Daniel skipped along beside them, carrying the large red ball Ida had brought him as a gift.

“You look tired, Ida,” Elsa began cautiously.

Ida shrugged, but before she could reply, Daniel rolled the red ball down a path and raced after it. A small girl, her straight brown hair draping her shoulders and neatly fringing her high pale forehead, picked it up and tossed it to him.

“Good girl, Jean,” the child’s mother said gently.

Elsa turned and looked at her.

“Virginia,” she said. “How nice to see you. Please meet my friend Ida Chagall.”

Ida held her hand out to the tall, slender young woman, intrigued by her subtle beauty.

“I met Marc Chagall, the painter, when I was an art student in Paris. Are you related to him?” she asked.

“He’s my father,” Ida replied.

“I remember him well. I am glad to hear that he is in New York.”

Ida understood that she meant that she was glad that he was alive, that he was one Jew who had not fallen into the hands of the Nazis.

“I’m taking Jean over to the swings,” she said to Elsa. “Would you like me to take your son as well?”

“Yes, thanks,” Elsa agreed. “We’ll get coffee and meet you there. A coffee for you?”

“No. No. That’s all right.” She shook her head. “Come, Jean. Come, Daniel.”

“Poor thing. She can’t afford the coffee,” Elsa said as they walked on. “We’ll buy her one.”

“How do you know her?” Ida asked.

“She came to my clinic, desperately worried that she might be pregnant. Fortunately she wasn’t. She had apparently stopped menstruating because she was malnourished. Her husband is a much older man, an impoverished Scots painter, on the verge of a mental breakdown. They get by on what she earns cleaning houses and doing some sewing. I gave her some vitamins, but there wasn’t much else I could do,” Elsa said sadly.

“If she studied in Paris, she must speak some French,” Ida said musingly.

“I know she does. We’ve spoken in French. She’s fluent,” Elsa agreed. “Ida, it occurs to me that she might solve your problem. She sews, and she keeps house. She speaks French and would understand your father. It would be a good arrangement for you and good for Virginia, who needs steady employment.”

“But will it be good for my father?” Ida asked.

“Why not?” Elsa replied indifferently.

They bought three coffees and half a dozen doughnuts, carrying them to the swings where Virginia was pushing the laughing children.

“I’ll take over,” Elsa said and handed her the coffee and a doughnut.

Virginia smiled gratefully and went to stand beside Ida.

“I was wondering,” Ida said carefully, “if you could do me a great favor. Our family, my father, my husband, and myself, are in great need of a housekeeper, someone who can clean and cook and do some mending.”

Virginia sipped her coffee. She hesitated before replying.

“I would be glad to take such a position,” she said. “But I would have to bring Jean with me. My husband is not capable of looking after her.”

“That would be fine,” Ida agreed. “Can you come to meet my father tomorrow morning?” Ida asked.

“Of course.”

Ida scrawled her address and phone number on a scrap of paper as the children bolted toward them, followed by Elsa.

Ida held the bag of pastries out to them and they munched happily and ran to the slide.

“I will see you tomorrow then,” Ida said to Virginia.

She kissed Elsa on the cheek and hurried home where she told her father about Virginia. He nodded indifferently.

“As long as she’s honest. And quiet. And as long as her child does not bother me,” he said.

“She said that she met you in Paris,” Ida added.

“Everyone says that they met Marc Chagall in Paris,” he replied sarcastically.

Virginia arrived the next morning. Ida ushered her into the studio where Marc was already at work. He wheeled about as they entered, flashed his brilliant smile at Virginia, and, to Ida’s relief, held out his hand.

“My daughter tells me that we met in Paris,” he said. “And now that I see you, I do recall you.”

Ida smiled. She was certain that her father had no memory of Virginia. She was all too familiar with his ability to charm and dissimulate.

“Yes. It was at an atelier on the rue Campagne Première, Bill Hayter’s atelier. I was studying there and you sometimes visited,” Virginia replied. “I remember you well.”

“Do you find me much changed?” Marc asked teasingly.

He pulled up his oversized trousers, fumbled with the buttons of his brightly striped, paint-streaked shirt, and, with a boyish gesture, smoothed his unruly gray curls.

Virginia blushed. “Not so very much,” she said softly.

“Ah, you are lying. I know that you are lying,” he said, his eyes bright with flirtatious pleasure.

He took her arm and escorted her from the studio, his footfalls gliding lightly in his worn slippers. Ida trailed behind, oddly disturbed by the swift attraction she sensed between them.

Small Jean waited in the dining room, turning the pages of a tattered picture book. She had the resigned patience of an only child of difficult parents, conditioned to tread lightly and speak softly. Ida felt an instinctive sympathy for the little girl. She understood isolated childhoods.

“You and Jean look so much alike. Almost like sisters,” Ida said to Virginia.

“Did you and your mother look alike?” Virginia asked.

“No, not at all.”

Ida pointed to her father’s portrait of Bella as a slender wraith of a girl that hung above the fireplace and then waved toward the painting in which she was portrayed. She had posed in the nude, her red-gold hair draping her shoulders and falling across her firm full breasts.

“As you can see, we were very different, my mother and I.” She picked up her sketchpad and a stick of charcoal. “Would you mind posing for me with Jean for just a few minutes?” she asked and Virginia nodded in agreement.

Ida worked swiftly and held her pad out to Virginia. Her drawing was skillful. She had captured the similarity of their features, their heads tenderly inclined toward each other, Virginia’s hand resting protectively on Jean’s shoulders.

“It’s very good,” Virginia said, looking at it carefully.

“I wish that I had a drawing of my mother and myself.” Ida’s voice was heavy with sadness, but almost at once, she sprang to her feet, banishing regret, racing away from memory.

The mood was broken; there was work to be done. She moved authoritatively through the apartment, showing Virginia where the cleaning supplies and linens were kept, the mending basket that overflowed with undarned socks, the kitchen with its sticky floor and counters. She advised her to clean her father’s room when he was in the studio, the studio when he ate, and then to straighten her own room and Michel’s.