Bridal Chair (5 page)

Pleased with her reflection in the shop’s mirror, she felt a surge of confidence. The cape rested lightly on her shoulders. She smiled as she remembered how often her mother bought new outfits to fend off encroaching melancholy. Bella was right. New and fashionable clothing was empowering. She felt newly confident; the fear that had haunted her since the break of dawn dissipated. She was reinvigorated. No matter what, she would cope. She was Ida Chagall, the claimant of her parents’ devotion, Michel’s love, and her own optimistic expectation of a future laced with brightness.

She hurried across the city and made her way to Elsa’s address on the Right Bank. She was elated to find Elsa at home, newly arrived from the hospital. They embraced and Ida stood at the window as Elsa changed from her white hospital coat into a shapeless gray wool dress. She knew that Elsa was a woman whose work would always take precedence over her appearance. Her mother would never approve. Bella insisted that beauty and style were key in the treacherous game of social survival. Her family’s Vitebsk values had leeched into her perception of the world.

Elsa bubbled with news of her new rotation at the women’s hospital financed by the Rothschild family.

“I have decided to specialize in gynecology,” she told Ida. “I’ll complete my residency in two years if I work double shifts. André has been promised a position at Beth Israel Hospital in New York. I will join him there when I have my visa.”

“Why would you want to work that hard?” Ida asked. “Surely, André can wait until you qualify and then you can emigrate together.”

“We are in a race against Hitler. Don’t you read the papers, Ida? The Austrian madman has expelled all Polish Jews without proper papers from Germany. My sister and brother and their families are living in a barracks in that no-man’s-land between the borders of Poland and Germany, scrambling for food. It will be our turn next. We’d be fools to believe that the Jews of France will be spared if Hitler invades, and it is almost certain that he will. So yes—we are moving as fast as we can.”

Ida sighed. “My father is worried also, but he thinks his name and his fame will protect us.”

“If Hitler does invade France, no Jew will have any protection. Not even the great Marc Chagall,” Elsa said caustically. “But surely you didn’t come here to discuss world affairs. Tell me what you’ve been doing, Ida. Are you enjoying the work at La Palette? And how is Michel?”

“The painting is difficult. I have an easier time in the drawing classes. Michel is working very hard and he seems well.”

“And you, Ida. Are you well?”

Ida averted her eyes. Her hands trembled and her voice dropped to a whisper.

“No. Actually, I’m not. I think—I think I may be pregnant.”

Her cheeks burned, but she felt a sense of relief at having finally uttered the word she had thought throughout the day.

“And what makes you think that?” Elsa asked, her tone cool and professional.

Ida sank into a chair and spoke in a monotone. “I’ve had a nocturnal bout of nausea. Vomiting. And then in the morning, I was dizzy and light-headed. I checked my calendar. I seem to have missed one or perhaps two periods. I know what that combination might mean.”

“Yes. It might indicate a pregnancy, but we can’t be sure. You should be examined. Surely your mother sees a gynecologist whom you could consult.”

“But I don’t want my parents to know. At least not until I myself am certain. Could you examine me, Elsa?” She turned away, fearful of Elsa’s reply to a request she knew she had no right to make. Theirs was not a friendship of equals.

Elsa hesitated. She removed her thick spectacles, wiped them on the hem of her dress, and replaced them.

“Ida, I am not very experienced,” she said at last. “It’s true that I’ve had some training, but I’m not yet qualified. You should go to a clinic.”

“Elsa, please. I don’t want to speak with a stranger. And I would have to fill out a form at a clinic, provide them with a
carte
d’identité
. The Chagall name is not unknown in Paris. There would surely be gossip. Can’t you help me?”

Elsa stared at her in thoughtful silence. “All right,” she said at last and sighed heavily.

Her agreement was reluctant, but her actions were swift. She took her black medical bag from the armoire and heated a pot of water on the charcoal brazier. She poured the warm water into a basin and washed her hands using a cake of noxious yellow soap.

“Please, Ida, lie on my bed. Remove your undergarments and lift your skirt up high. You understand that you will have to open your legs as wide as possible.”

Obediently, Ida did as she was told. She spread her new sky-blue cape across Elsa’s flimsy blanket. She rested her head on the thin pillow and realized that she still wore her beret. She imagined how ridiculous she must look, with her skirts hiked high, her naked thighs spread wide and exposed, the beret still perched jauntily atop her tangled curls.

Gently, Elsa examined her, probing the soft membranes of the vaginal wall with a shining steel instrument. Despite her care, Ida gasped with pain although she did not cry out.

“I’m sorry,” Elsa said. “I’m very sorry. I’m trying not to hurt you.”

She withdrew her hand, and Ida sighed with relief.

“I can’t be sure,” Elsa said hesitantly. “But I did feel something. The cells of the placenta form only days after conception. That might have been what I felt. We can only be certain when we have the results of a urine test. But I would venture to guess that you are, in fact, in a very early stage of pregnancy, just weeks into the first trimester. I worried that this might happen. I should have been more direct when I spoke to you at the encampment.”

“It’s not your fault, Elsa. You did warn me.”

Ida sat up. She dressed quickly and rushed to the bathroom, clutching the towel Elsa held out to her. She did not look at her friend when she emerged but washed her hands vigorously, using the heated water and the carbolic soap.

“What will you do?” Elsa asked softly.

Ida shrugged but did not reply.

“Does Michel know?’

“No.” She adjusted her cape, fingered the soft fabric. “Do you think this color becomes me?” she asked mischievously.

“Ida, you must be serious, you know,” Elsa said reprovingly.

“I know. Of course I know.”

“If you are indeed pregnant, it is very early, which means you have a choice. There is a procedure, a way to terminate the pregnancy. It can be done. After all, we are in Paris, not in eastern Europe.”

“
Avortement
. That is what you are suggesting.”

The word was not unfamiliar to her.
Avortement
. Abortion. She knew that her mother had arranged an abortion for Katya, their maid. Ida had overhead Bella discussing Katya with her friend Raïssa Maritain as she bent over her drawing pad in a corner of the garden. It was true that her parents had been supportive of their Polish maid, but how would they react to their own daughter who was in the same position?

The answer came to her at once. Of course they would be supportive. She was their Idotchka, their precious princess. Her father would open his arms to her and comfort her, as would her mother, as they always had. She could do no wrong in their eyes. But what was her will now? And she would not be alone in this decision. What would be Michel’s will?

“Would your parents be against an abortion?” Elsa asked.

“More to the point, would I be against it?” Ida smiled grimly. Her question floated through the quiet room, its silence broken only by the shrill siren of a tugboat laboring its way up the Seine.

“That is what you must decide,” Elsa said sadly. “Please keep in touch with me, Ida. Perhaps André and I can be of assistance to you.”

“Of course. We’ll speak soon. Thank you, Elsa.” She buttoned her cape, and Elsa put her hand out and stroked the soft wool.

“It is a beautiful color, Ida,” she said and they smiled at each other. For that brief moment, they were simply two carefree young women whose major concern was the color and texture of a garment, their lives unaffected by the ranting of a German dictator or an unplanned pregnancy.

* * *

Ida was relieved that her parents were out when she arrived home.

“They went to the theater. But they left a meal for you, mademoiselle. Shall I set it out?” Katya asked.

“No.” The very thought of food repelled her. “But thank you,” she added and looked hard at Katya, noting for the first time that the maid seemed pale and her face, always surly, was newly expressionless. But that was to be expected, Ida supposed. Katya had been expelled from innocence.

Slowly, Ida mounted the stairs to her own room. She studied her face in the mirror and saw, with relief, that her skin retained its glow, her eyes their emerald brightness.

“Everything will be all right,” she assured herself.

She closed her eyes and fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

Ida awakened late the next morning and stared out at the mist that clouded the windowpanes. Impulsively, she thrust the window open and leaned out, allowing the cool moisture to bathe her face. The door to her room was slightly ajar, and she could hear her mother discussing the chores of the day with Katya. There was laundry to be done and silver to be polished, the carpets needed airing, and the dining room floor had to be waxed. Ida listened, soothed by the cadence of Bella’s voice and by the unaltered pattern of the day’s routine. Her world might have changed, but it had not, after all, come to an end.

She dressed quickly, selecting a white woolen dress that both her parents particularly liked. She acknowledged, as she twisted her hair into a coppery coil, that she was dressing to please them, and she knew exactly why she was making such an effort. Bella and Marc, consummate actors on so many stages in so many countries, had taught her the importance of costume, the impact of appearances. She glanced at herself in the mirror, brushed a stray tendril away from her forehead, and left her room.

Bella was seated at her escritoire, pen in hand, studying the entries she had made in her copy book the previous day. Ida knew that it was her mother’s habit to reread her work each morning, often discarding much of it in her endless pursuit of perfection. Ida carried her coffee and croissant into the salon.

“
Bon
matin, Maman
,” she said, placing her hand on Bella’s shoulder.

Bella smiled and looked up at her. “It’s late. Aren’t you going to La Palette today?”

“No. I had a difficult time at the studio yesterday. My work there, at least the painting, is not going well.”

“Painting does not come easily. Nor does writing,” Bella said ruefully and glanced down at her notebook.

“It comes easily enough to
Papochka
.” Ida dipped her croissant into the milky coffee, relieved that she was able to eat without experiencing the nausea of the previous morning.

“But your father is a genius,” Bella responded reprovingly.

“Where is he this morning?” Ida asked.

“He went to an exhibition of Matisse’s work. He’s interested in Henri’s use of mirrors.”

“And I suppose he’s interested in mastering the technique himself,” Ida said, and she and Bella exchanged smiles in shared recognition of Marc’s incessant pursuit of the secrets of other artists, his unbridled determination to emulate and exceed. Like a greedy precocious child, he gobbled up new skills. He would be a ceramist, and a painter; he would work on stained glass and create intricate etchings. He would design stage sets and illustrate fables and biblical tales. His boundless energy and his capacity for work and for the acquisition of new skills aroused both their admiration and amusement.

“Actually, he thought of asking you to go with him,” Bella continued, “because Henri was always so fond of you. But I told him you would probably be too tired. Katya said you came in rather late last evening.”

“Yes. I went shopping and then I visited a friend.”

“Someone we know?” Bella asked cautiously.

“No. A friend I met at the encampment. A doctor. Elsa Liebowitz.”

“Liebowitz?” Bella’s brow was furrowed. “A Polish girl?”

“It didn’t occur to me to ask,” Ida replied coldly.

Her parents’ snobbery irritated her. Marc and Bella cultivated friendships with the intellectual and artistic elite of Paris. The Jewish refugees from Poland and Lithuania, who lived in the tenements of Le Marais, were an embarrassment to them. Marc even scorned Bella’s beloved brother, Yaakov Rosenfeld, wryly imitating his pronounced Yiddish accent.

“What didn’t it occur to you to ask?” Marc asked, and they turned as he tossed his beret onto the hat rack and clapped in celebration of his own perfect aim.

He had entered the house soundlessly, as he often did, and stood in the portico, an impish smile playing on his lips, his hair wind tousled. He had won his oft-repeated boyish game of stealing into his own dining room and surprising them with his presence. And he did look like a boy, Ida thought. An aging, graying boy.

“Oh, I was just curious about Ida’s friend,” Bella said, and she hurried to pour him a cup of coffee. “Was Henri’s new work interesting?”

“Very impressive,” Marc replied. “A real effort to integrate cubism and impressionism. I envy him his good fortune. He has the luxury to thrust himself into the future. He is not held hostage to a vanished world.”

His tone was casual, but his words were laced with bitterness. His own art reflected his past; his imagination was ignited by the Jewish experience. Like his friend, Chaim Soutine, he painted houses without foundations, rootless trees, wandering animals, and floating lovers, the landscape of a stateless people. The Judaism he rejected hobbled and encumbered him. The village of his childhood demanded his brush. Matisse, a son of France, was not impeded by lingering imagery, nor was he haunted by sad memories. His landscapes were sylvan vistas of peace, his models strangers to sorrow.

“Everyone at La Palette admires your work, Papa,” Ida said quickly. “They marvel at your themes, at your use of color. ‘Where does your father get such ideas?’ they ask me.”

“Where indeed?” Marc parried. “I myself do not know. I lift my brush and lovers and cows, clowns and violinists, dance across my canvas.” He laughed. Ida’s words had banished his despondency. He was delighted anew by the mystery of his own talent.

“But why are you not at La Palette this morning?” he asked.

“I was tired and I wanted to talk to you. To you and
Maman
.”

“I have no time to talk. I want to get to the studio. We will speak at dinner.”

“No, Papa,” she said. “We will speak now. What I have to say is very important.”

Ida’s spoon rattled against her cup and she set it down, unable to control her trembling fingers, but her voice was steady, her expression grave.

“All right then.”

He did not bother to mask his irritation as he pulled out a chair and sat beside Bella, who covered his hand with her own. Irritably, he brushed it aside. He resented this diversion from his daily routine. “Then speak,” he commanded. All playfulness had faded from his tone.

“I must tell you that I believe, that I am almost certain, that I am enceinte. Pregnant.” Ida spoke calmly, but her hands were tightly clasped and her eyes were fixed on her parents’ shocked faces.

“Enceinte?”

They stared at their daughter and spoke the word in unison, their voices rising in disbelief, as though their very doubt would nullify what she had said. Marc stared at Bella and she looked pleadingly at Ida, her face blanched of all color.

Bella gasped. “You must be mistaken. It cannot be.”

Ida did not flinch. “I’m not mistaken. All signs point to it,” she said, her voice dangerously calm.

They did not ask what the signs were. They sat opposite her, mute and immobile. A single tear pearled Bella’s pale cheek and fell unheeded into the corner of her mouth. Marc’s blue eyes glinted icily. His narrow face contorted into a mask that commingled sorrow and fury. He stared at his daughter, dressed this morning in the white he had always favored. How often he had painted her in ivory-colored dresses, frocks of snow-white silk, crowns of white lilies on her bright hair. When she was a small girl, they had dressed her in a ruffled white dress, lace fringed white socks, and white patent leather pumps. She had posed in that costume for a studio photograph they had packaged carefully and sent to their families in Russia, never knowing if it would reach them. That very daguerreotype held pride of place on the mantelpiece of their salon. He glanced at it and turned away.

He had always thought of his Ida as a vibrant and virginal child, her beauty and precocity a hard-earned legacy, a validation of the lives he and Bella had lived. She was their pride and their comfort. They had given her everything, protected her from all danger and darkness. And now that love, that indulgence, that devotion, had been betrayed. How could she so willfully, so carelessly, make a mockery of their dreams, their hopes? Their Ida, pregnant and unmarried! How could she have shamed them? He stared at her, seeking out the daughter he had coddled, the playful child, the vibrant young girl whom he had painted year after year, and then turned away, ablaze with anger.

He subdued a wild desire to tear the soft white woolen dress from her body and paint it as he had painted the costumes of the actors of the Moscow Jewish Theater. He would choose the scarlet of spilled blood, the acid yellow of disappointment and disgust. He remembered those long-ago days in Moscow, shivering in the freezing theater as he frantically moved his brush against coarse fabric scavenged by the wardrobe mistress. As he worked, Ida, then so small and innocent, had played at his feet, his Idotchka, now grown into the defiant young woman who sat opposite him, her head held high, her eyes that matched his own, staring at him unflinchingly. And unapologetically. Had she no remorse? Didn’t she understand what she had done to him, to her mother? He looked at her as though she had suddenly become a stranger, an unwelcome alien at his table. But oh, how beautiful she was! Rage and love tore at his heart.

“I’m sorry,” she said at last.

“Sorry. Of course you are sorry.” Bella’s voice broke.

Marc rose, paced the room. “And who is the father?” he asked harshly.

The question startled Ida. She had not thought of herself as a mother, much less had she thought of Michel as a father.

“Michel,” she said softly. “Michel Rapaport.”

“The law student?”

She nodded.

“You’re certain that it was he?”

Her heart sank at the iciness of his tone, at the punishing implication of his question. Had she been transformed, during these last painful moments, from his adored daughter into a promiscuous whore with multiple lovers?

“Of course I’m certain,” she said. “How could you think otherwise?”

“Perhaps because I don’t know what to think. Perhaps because I no longer know who you are.”

“How many monthlies have you missed?” Bella asked quietly.

“One. Perhaps two.”

“Then perhaps you are only late.”

“No. There are other symptoms. My friend Elsa Liebowitz, the doctor whom I visited last night, examined me. She is in training to become a gynecologist. She understands a woman’s body.”

“It is a pity she did not share her knowledge with you earlier,” Marc said bitterly.

Bella and Ida ignored him.

“Have you told Michel, Michel Rapaport?” Bella asked.

“No.”

“He must be told,” she said firmly.

“I know. I will tell him this afternoon. We are meeting at a café.” She shook her hair loose, toyed with the pins that had held the coil in place. “As we often do,” she added. She was done with deception.

“Change your dress before you see him.” Marc’s voice was harsh. He did not want Ida to wear white today, not today, perhaps never again. He turned on his heel. “I am going to my studio,” he said. “I have work to do.” He slammed the door.

Ida’s eyes burned, and her hands trembled. The optimism of early morning had faded, and she felt herself sinking into the quicksand of despair. She gasped for breath, her heart so heavy she thought that it might break. She had counted on her parents’ support, their sympathy, but she had misread their love, misunderstood their devotion. It was not unconditional after all. She had been foolish not to anticipate her father’s fierce anger, her mother’s grief. Their shared disappointment hovered over the room that grew darker as the morning mist morphed into an encroaching storm. She felt herself abandoned, alone.

A bolt of thunder shattered the silence. Bella drew the drapes against the sudden dimness and moved to sit beside her. She took Ida’s hand, her fingers ice-cold and rigid, into her own.

“How are you, my daughter?” she asked softly. She spoke in Yiddish, the tender language of her heart.

Ida answered her, her voice barely audible.

“
Ikh volt oysgeyn. Je voudrais mourir
,” she said, first in Yiddish, then in French. “I want to die.”

She swayed as though in prayerful sorrow. Bella cradled her in her arms until at last she was soothed into stillness, her head resting on her mother’s breast.

“You will not die. Everything will be all right. Rest for a while. The storm will pass. Storms always do. Then go and meet your Michel.”

“All right,
Maman
.”

Ida rose and walked stiffly, almost robotically, to her room. She, who rushed through life imbued with electric energy, felt herself in the grip of an unfamiliar inertia. She sat at her dressing table and studied her reflection in the mirror as though prepared to confront a stranger. She was surprised to see that her color was high, her green eyes strangely calm. She brushed her hair, twisted it into a bun, then into a chignon, and at last allowed it to fall to her shoulders. She smiled at herself, took note of her beauty: her rose-gold skin, high cheekbones, and generous mouth. She was still, after all, Ida Chagall.

Oddly reassured, she went to the window. A strong wind whipped the branches of the cypress tree, but the rain had ceased. After some minutes, the wind itself abated. Her mother was right. Storms passed.

She did not change her dress. She tossed her new blue cloak over her shoulders and adjusted the matching beret so that her long, loose hair framed her face in radiance. She wanted to look beautiful when she spoke with Michel. She relied on her beauty to subdue his fear and bewilderment. She left the house, closing the heavy front door very softly behind her. She did not turn back and so she did not see Bella’s face pressed to the front window, her eyes following Ida’s progress until she disappeared into the Bois de Boulogne.

* * *

Michel, as always, was on time. He waited for her at the student café, as considerate a lover as he was a son.

Still, he glanced at his watch as she slipped into the seat opposite him, a silent reprimand, meant to remind her that her lateness interfered with the demands of his schedule, his afternoon seminar, his determination to help his parents at their small shop so that they could manage a swift dinner.