Lisette's List (47 page)

Stunned, I stepped back a step and shook my head.

“Did you perhaps notice?” he asked softly. “I put the paintings in places that represented a feature of the region—the mine, the ochre canyon, a little borie in a melon field, the windmill close to your house so that you would find it. But not in any sad, dilapidated house, or derelict
cabanon
, or smelly
pigeonnier
. Nowhere ugly or depressing.”

“What about the dump? You put a Picasso in the dump!”

“No. That had to have been someone else. I would never have done that, Lisette. I put it in Moulin de Ferre.”

“Why all of these carefully chosen places?”

“In my own clumsy way, I thought that your search might lead you to appreciate what we have here, and might make you want to stay. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t begun to search for them. I would have had to return them all to you together, I supposed, but I kept putting it off. I felt sure that doing that would make you leave Roussillon forever.”

“But now? What about now? Why did you lead me to this painting?”

“Because as I began to understand your love for the paintings, I couldn’t bear the thought of you not having the one you love above all the others. I began to feel another kind of love, a better kind. I don’t know how to say it.” His mouth was drawn to the side. “I know I have ruined any chance with you.”

Then a deeper issue crossed my mind. I thought of the silk stockings, the sausages, and the chicken.

“You had another purpose at first, didn’t you? During the Occupation, before you came to know me? The paintings would be wanted by Vichy officials. You could use them to buy favor.” I felt my lips purse. Accusation lay on the tip of my tongue. “You didn’t care that the Nazis were taking over France? That meant nothing to you? You know, I could charge you not just as a thief but as a collaborator.”

His eyes revealed the grave risk he had taken today. They asked what he did not dare put into words:
I trust you not to betray me
.

“The Germans didn’t get any valuable information from me. I was able to placate the scouts with false leads, at my own peril. There was a reason I aligned myself with Vichy. If the Germans were aware that the constable of Roussillon was supporting the Occupation, that might save our village from the fates of Gordes and Saint-Saturnin-lès-Apt.”

For the first time, the possibility of an attack on Roussillon struck me as real. Two important citizens had been part of the
Résistance
—Maurice with his bus and Aimé, now the mayor. “Do you mean to say that if Maurice or Aimé were known to have caused the explosion of a German convoy—”

“The Germans would have retaliated. Maurice was not terribly secretive,” Bernard explained.

“No, I suppose not. His nature is too exuberant for stealth.”

“German scouts had their eyes on those two British women and
that Irish fellow too. One mistake by any of the five, and Roussillon would have been destroyed.”

That Bernard had risked his reputation for the safety of Roussillon settled heavily on me. But was that equal to fighting in the
Résistance
, or in the war itself? This was too big an issue for me to resolve at the moment. I thought of Héloïse saying there were degrees of collaboration. I had not judged her. With my eyes, I said what Bernard needed to know:
I don’t understand you completely and probably never will, but I do understand you enough now not to reveal any of this
.

“One more thing. I know you haven’t found the last painting.”

“How do you know?”

“You will never find it. I had to give one away. I chose the largest. I thought that would satisfy them. But you must know this. If I had not taken them from the woodpile, as André had instructed me, and if you had found them there and removed them, I am sure they would have hurt you to get them.”

The rubber bludgeon flashed across my mind.

“So if you hadn’t removed them, the Germans would have gotten them. But how did that officer know I had
any
paintings?”

“Someone told. Someone who could benefit by giving that information. Someone did that ransacking, don’t forget. It wasn’t me. I suspect Mayor Pinatel might have been the one. To ingratiate himself with the new regime, in order to keep his position or get a more important one. I’m sorry for what I’ve done, what I thought I had to do, but I thought it might be the only way to get them to leave you alone. I was praying that you would tell that lieutenant before he hurt you and that then, seeing your shock and disappointment, he would let you go.”

I needed time to sort everything out. Bernard had put me through an unjustifiable sorrow, perhaps even the loss of Maxime, though he could not have anticipated that. And yet without him, the paintings would surely have been lost. He’d collaborated to the degree he felt would do no harm and would save his village and neighbors—and
yet he had sought to appease evil, not to fight it. His motives were both honorable and dishonorable. All I could conclude was that he was thoroughly human.

I gazed down at the painting.

“I’m glad you didn’t give them this one. I have
lived
this painting, Bernard. It is my life in paint.”

My tears spilled—because of the girl’s innocent trust, because I had thought I would never see her again, because of the white goat in the painting, because of ending Geneviève’s life.

I told Bernard about having to do that. He drew me to his chest, and I didn’t resist. He was of the country, so he could understand, in a way Max never would, the sorrow of slaughtering a goat that had become a friend. What Maxime had to do to maintain his equanimity prevented him from contemplating slaughter. But Bernard knew a less complicated grief.

“It’s not just the beauty of the painting that I love. It’s more—the truth of it. See how the girl is walking along a path that curves? She can’t see where it leads, but she has to go on anyway.”

Gently, Bernard laid his hand on my head. “Like all of us, for better or worse.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

THE LETTER AND THE SONG

1948

9 MAY 1948

Dearest Maxime
,

The first acquired is home at last. And the study of heads as well. I am on fire with them. You must come. I will disclose the last mystery of Roussillon only to you. You must promise to tell no one. This has to be handled with the utmost delicacy
.

Do not berate yourself, Max, about that encounter. When I was a little girl, Sister Marie Pierre made me memorize this: To every thing there is a season. A time to kill and a time to heal; a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance
.

Take that to heart and come for the Fête de la Saint-Jean-Baptiste, Midsummer Night, and we shall dance around the bonfire at the Castrum and look over the cliffs to see the small bonfires across the countryside. Even the shepherds in their mountain bories will have their little flames, and all of Provence will feel the healing time together
.

I will host a veillée to celebrate Pascal’s paintings, and you above all will know their meaning and their worth. It will not be complete without you, so put your dark thoughts away. Forever, dear Max. They are not in accord with your true nature
.

A streak of impishness flashed through me, and I wrote,

I can’t expect you to remember how to get here after nearly five long years—oh, I mean weeks. My mistake. With no letter from you, it only seems like years. So don’t forget that mine is the last house on rue de la Porte Heureuse. Engrave that street name in your heart. In case you’ve forgotten, the house is rosy ochre
.

I will not breathe until you arrive. Bring sugar—granulated and powdered
.

Lisette Irène

I marched downhill with a purpose and strode into the post office.

“Howdy, Madame Roux!” Théo took the letter from me and peered at it. “I can read a little now. I have been practicing so I can read your story someday.”

Such a darling, eager child. “I haven’t written it yet, but when I do, it will have you in it toward the end.”

He studied my envelope.
“Oh là là!”
he exclaimed, imitating his grandmother Odette. “This goes to Paris, so it must be very important.”

“You are right, Théo. It is very important.”

Holding my breath, I watched him slide the letter into the slot of the wooden box marked
POSTE
.

“Are you sad today, madame?”

“No, Théo. You make me happy.”

“
S’il vous plaît
, will you make a promenade with me? Will you? Will you?”

“A very short one. I am only going to the cemetery.” I glanced at Sandrine for her approval.

“That’s fine,” she said. “He likes to pretend to read the names on the tombs, just like he does with letters here.”

“I do not pretend! I know how, a little.”

“And every day, you are learning more,” I said.

I took his hand in mine, smooth as an eggshell, a hand that had not known the vineyard or the mine, or the evil coolness of slick gray steel. It was a privilege to hold that hand as we climbed the incline to the graveyard. I let him open the iron gate, which squeaked on its rusty hinges. He led me to his favorite monument, the one adorned with a graceful angel.

“Anne-Marie—” he sounded out, then pinched his lips together for a
B
.

My heart took a plunge. “Blanc.” I had never noticed.

“What else does it say?”

In hardly more than a whisper, I read, “ ‘Your loving spirit enchants me still.’ ”

How hard it must be for Bernard to look down upon that angel. I wondered how he had managed his loneliness for twelve years. We had that in common, as well as an aching heart.

Théo followed me to Pascal’s tomb and helped me pick off every oleander leaf. He looked at the engraving curiously. “Pascal Édouard Roux—1852 to 1939. Is that a long life?”

“A very long life.”

“Was he your
grandpère
?”

“No. He was my husband’s
grandpère
. I wish he had been mine, but that doesn’t matter. What we are to each other is what matters.”

I gazed at Théo with what I knew to be longing.

He examined the tombs on both sides of Pascal’s, as though looking for someone’s, and then wandered through the aisles. His childlike voice sounded out a few one-syllable names, and in a few minutes I heard the squeak of the gate as he left.

“Howdy, Pascal,” I said with a chuckle. “A dear little boy taught me that American word.

“Are you listening? I have all the paintings back except the red roofs of Pontoise, even the Louveciennes painting. I know how important that one was to you. You were living in Paris then, and the family vegetable garden in the painting must have reminded you of your mother’s garden in Roussillon. The moment you noticed the yellow-ochre path and the mellow golden-ochre light bouncing off the cottages—the moment you recognized the ochre you mined—you must have felt elation, and a sense of purpose. That moment was the beginning of our story. All that has happened since then arose from that instant.

“I found some of your notes and have been writing down what you told me of your memories. An art dealer in Paris thinks they are important to the patrimony of France. That should please you.”

Saying any more than that would be a foolish fancy. He was not there. But someone else was.

From the olive trees on the cliff I heard a baritone voice singing, slow and measured.

“
J’attendrai
.

Le jour et la nuit, j’attendrai toujours

Ton retour.
”

Such longing descended delicately, and was aching in its repetition.

“I will wait.

Day and night, I will wait forever

For your return.

For the bird that flies away comes back

To search for the one it left behind

In the nest.”

He was holding the branch of an olive tree above him, as if to steady himself as he looked down at me. Again and again the refrain of desire and yearning glided slowly down the cliff. We had heard it every night on the radio in the café during the war. Rina Ketty had sung it then, and the heart of every Frenchwoman had pulsed with hope to its slow, rhythmic promise.

Now, hearing Bernard sing it to me so ardently, so sadly, I was overwhelmed beyond expression. At that fleeting moment, I thought that, under other circumstances—and without Maxime, of course—Bernard might have had a chance. As it was, all I could do was stand utterly still with my hand over my heart until he finished the song, turned, and disappeared into the orchard.

CHAPTER FORTY

TRUTH

1948

“B
ONJOUR
!”
CAME A JOYFUL CALL FROM THE STREET
. “I
S THIS
the house of Madame Lisette Irène Roux? It’s salmon-colored, what oil painters would call cadmium orange, not rosy ochre, but it’s on rue de la Porte Heureuse. She will be happy today on the Street of the Happy Door because I am standing at that very door with a special delivery.”

The voice, Maxime’s for sure, kept on talking to the closed door even though it took me a few moments to reach it.