The Obedient Assassin: A Novel (11 page)

S
ylvia received two more letters from Jacques, neither satisfactory. She crumpled up the second letter and threw it on the ground. Both had been written before her meeting with Madame Gaston. Sylvia didn't want letters; she wanted Jacques to come back. She wanted to know what was happening. She hated the feeling that he had simply disappeared, that he might have lied to her.

She considered booking her ticket to New York, but, after the heat of summer, Paris regained its old charm. The light became deeper and softer. In the mornings and evenings, a delicious chill crept into the air, the first intimation of autumn. Shops and cafés were opening, women appearing in their new outfits for the season. She was returning from an art gallery when she walked into her hotel and noticed Jacques sitting in a wing-back chair, the cigarette in his left hand, the horn-rim glasses, the elegant tweed jacket, a ribbon of smoke spiraling toward the ceiling. She hesitated when he rose to embrace her.

“Sylvia! Sylvia?” he said, coming toward her.

She shook her head.

“Sylvia?”

She turned and walked out of the hotel. She started down the street. Without thought, she walked to the Seine with Jacques at her side. He had the grace not to speak, to wait until she was ready. The chestnut and plane trees had started to turn shades of yellow and red. The river gleamed silver, etched with sinuous lines of currents beneath the surface. Beyond the booksellers' kiosks, with Notre Dame rising on the far bank, she finally stopped and asked for his handkerchief. She removed her glasses to blot her eyes, then sniffed soundly. “I felt frightened when I saw you. I don't understand but it was a sensation going up my spine.”

“A fright?” His eyes stood still behind his lenses, moving only to search her face.

“Jacques, what happened? I went to Brussels. I saw that woman, Madame Gaston.”

He nodded slightly, an all but imperceptible sign of assent.

“She said you had gone to England.”

“No, I'm sorry. She didn't tell you the truth.”

“What is the truth?”

“Sylvia, I can't explain my family to you, and I can't explain what happened. It's too complicated, too strange. It's so strange, I just can't tell you. But you have to know that you're very important to me, unlike anyone I've ever known. Being away from you, I missed you so much. I don't want to think about a future without you.”

“What about your family?”

“They know about you.”

“How?”

“They have their spies.”

“And your wife?”

He winced a bit. “Yes, that came as a surprise, painful. She's interested in another man. She's decided not to wait for me.”

“Oh, I'm sorry.”

He shook his head. “It's for the best. I want to make some changes. I can't get away from my family altogether, but I'm going to get a job. A friend says he can get me started as a correspondent for
L' Auto
, a Belgian sports journal.”

“Jacques, that's wonderful.”

“I won't make much money. We'll be poor like everyone else.”

“But it's a start.”

“But now, Sylvia, I'm back and you have to trust me.” He opened his arms, and she allowed him to fold her in. Her tears came freely, wetting the breast of his shirt. “Oh my God!” She laughed, pulling away, wiping her eyes with her fingers. “I imagined the most terrible things.”

“Sylvia, I'm in love with you,” he said, feeling the truth of the words as he said them. “I want to marry you.”

She laughed again. “Marxists don't believe in marriage.”

“If you don't believe in marriage, what do you do when you feel this way?”

“You tell your friends and the world that you are husband and wife. We don't need a judge or a rabbi to say that we are married. That's between the man and woman.”

“But I'm not a Marxist.”

“And now you tell me,” she said with a smile. “I'm proud of you. And don't worry, you'll like having a job.”

“I don't know about that, but come, let's get you something to drink. You're trembling. I think a
marc
would be appropriate.”

I
t was cold now—November, the ninth day. The limbs of chestnut and plane trees were bare. It was the blue hour; twilight slowly drenched the streets from slate to indigo. Blinking back tears, she walked away from the newsstand, pulling the fur coat closer. Looking down at the sidewalk, she expected to see shards of shattered glass, to hear it crunch beneath her feet. She didn't understand the black-and-white photographs covering the front pages of the newspapers when she first looked at them. In one photograph, a street looked so empty it might have been someplace in the American West. A merchant, too dazed to move, stood in front of a shop. Because glass is transparent, she couldn't see in the photograph that the shop windows were shattered, couldn't see the piles of glass on the sidewalks.

Skimming headlines and captions, the meaning sinking in, she felt her connection to the poor Jew whose shop windows had been shattered. There were no limits, no separation; that was the message. A seventeen-year-old Jew kills a Nazi foreign officer in Paris and a day later Nazis shatter the windows of every Jew in Germany.

She fished in her purse for keys as she approached her building, letting herself through the heavy timbered door that closed with a solid thud behind her. The flick of the blue-and-white check curtain in the concierge's window made her feel uneasy, observed. She pressed the electric switch for light and started up the cold stone stairs worn by so many footsteps. As the dim bulb went out behind her, she pressed another switch on the landing. She fumbled for a second key, letting herself into the flat, which was filled with afternoon shadows, the smell of cigarette smoke and coffee. She had been there for a little over a month, and the rooms still looked alien.

Removing her kid gloves, she went into the bedroom, where, in the long cupboard mirror, she caught a glimpse of herself, a woman in a fur coat and a felt hat, a scarf tied at her throat as Jacques liked. He'd given her the coat, apologizing that it was possum rather than beaver or mink. He'd found it at a
troc
, assuring her that fashionable women in Paris looked for bargains in the secondhand clothing shops. A rip in the silk lining had to be mended, but the furs were nicely worked, the pelts still supple. She'd brought nothing for cold weather and was now wearing the suits, sweaters, and skirts that Jacques had selected for her.

She hung the coat in the cupboard, removed her hat, and went back into the living room, where the rented typewriter stood waiting on the table. In the small kitchen, she put a match to one of the two burners that blossomed into blue flames, the familiar smells of sulfur and gas making her miss her two sisters, the big apartment they shared in Morningside Heights. She had been happy that summer in Paris, but now she was beginning to understand what it meant to be a foreigner. She became increasingly aware of how little she understood, that terrible things happened in Europe.

The water in the kettle was coming to a boil when she heard footsteps on the landing, Jacques's key in the lock. Rushing to him, she burrowed into the protection of his cashmere topcoat, wrapping her arms around him and holding tight.

“Here, here, what's this?” he said, taking her by the shoulders and holding her back.

“I just saw the news from Germany before coming in. I didn't know until just a few minutes ago.”

“Oh yes, the Jews.”

“At the kiosk on the corner, looking at the papers, I was …”

“Yes, of course, you're upset. That's what the Nazis want. I'm sorry I couldn't warn you. Did you buy a paper?”

“I couldn't stand to bring it home. It's too ghastly.”

“Sylvia, let me take off my coat.”

“Have you been smoking a cigar?”

“No, one of the fellows in the office smokes.”

She followed him as far as the bedroom door, where she poured out her feelings about Hitler until the kettle started to whistle.

“Sylvia.”

“Yes?”

“The kettle. You must try to not let this get to you. That's what they want.”

“Yes, I know.” She went to the kitchen. “I'm making tea. Do you want a cup?”

“No. I've just had coffee.”

“You stopped on the way home?”

“Yes, I had coffee with a friend.”

“Anyone I know?”

“A woman I saw in the street, someone from Brussels. An older woman.”

“You've lived here so long, I always think we'll run into some of your friends. Funny we never do.”

He turned to smile at Sylvia. “Darling, give me a few seconds to collect myself. I'll be with you in a moment.”

She made her tea. When Jacques came out of the bedroom, he was wearing a dressing gown and slippers, smelling of soap and water and fresh cologne, his thick hair still damp where he had combed it. “Don't you want to be comfortable?” he asked, lighting a cigarette.

“I thought I would work for a while. I find it reassuring when I'm upset.”

“Do you have to use the typewriter?”

“No, I can work in longhand. I'm still making notes for my article.”

“Bring your tea and sit with me on the sofa. Yes, that's much better.”

“If I were a proper French wife, I could make your supper.”

“You'll never be French, but I could teach you a recipe or two.”

“My sisters and I always had Clemmy to do the cooking. Isn't that silly for three young women. Clemmy's from Alabama and makes the most divine fried chicken and biscuits. She'll cook for you when we're in New York.” She sipped her tea, watching as he took up one of his sporting papers. “How was work today? What did you do?”

“Nothing very interesting.”

“But tell me, I'd like to know.”

He smiled at her fondly. “I pulled some stories off the wire and rewrote them to send to my chief in Brussels.”

“What were they about?”

“What was what about?”

“The stories.”

“Sports. Why do you want to know?”

“I'm just interested.”

“Really, Sylvia, I never realized having a job meant one had to talk about it constantly.”

“It's normal that a wife should want to know about her husband's work. I was thinking I might drop by your office one day—just to see. We could go to lunch.”

“It isn't in a nice sector. You might not like being there.”

“What is your office like?”

“Oh, I don't know, the usual thing. Drab and dingy.”

Watching the way he stubbed out his cigarette and picked up a magazine, she sensed that she was making him uneasy. She finished her tea, then went to the table where she had a pad and a stack of books next to the typewriter. She was reviewing a book on the uses of projection and transference in Freudian analysis, an assignment Jacques got for her when she announced that she would have to go back to New York if she didn't start making money.

“You know, this would be much easier if I could talk to the editor,” she finally said.

Jacques looked up from his journal. “I explained that to you. He thinks I'm writing the article. If he knew you were doing the work, then it's doubtful he would give me the assignment.”

“But he doesn't think you are a psychologist?”

“No.” He hesitated as if he wanted to say more, do more to make her happy.

“Then what difference does it make? Couldn't he just assign it to me?”

“He could but I don't know that he would.” He smiled, searching for more to say. “Isn't the money good?”

“Yes, the fee is extremely generous. Too generous. I can't imagine what sort of publication is paying so much.”

“A scholarly journal, don't you think?”

“No. They usually don't pay anything at all.”

“No?”

She saw that he didn't really know, that there was no reason to press him. “I would have a better idea of what they want if I knew what the journal is.”

“Just do your best, Sylvia, and let's not look fortune in the teeth.”

She sat still for a moment, then closed the book and got up from the table. She knew he wanted to protect her, but at times she felt confined. And it was hard to escape the fact that her being Jewish would make life difficult for them. And that made her terribly sad.

M
y boy, it's marvelous news,” said Eitingon in his Russian-flavored French, spreading a sliver of the foie gras on a toasted slice of bread. “She's known to be an enchantress, and if you win her over, you can dispense with Sylvia.”

“Dispense with Sylvia?”

“You find her tedious, don't you?”

Ramón recoiled inwardly. He didn't find Sylvia tedious. He found it odd and annoying that Eitingon would think so.

“Of course you're reluctant to toss aside what you've spent so much time winning.”

Ramón wanted to get up from the table and walk away, but he was there to make peace, to smooth things over.

“Go ahead.” Eitingon urged him to try the foie gras. “It's ambrosial. Be sure to get some of that lovely jelly on top.” He took a swallow of the Château Latour and watched the younger man lean forward.

“Nice, isn't it?” said Eitingon.

“Who is the enchantress?”

“Frida Rivera, the wife of Diego. She's a direct link to Trotsky in Mexico. She's arriving in Paris any day now.”

“And why do you say she's an enchantress?”

“She's famous for her conquests. Rivera is a great womanizer, sleeps with everyone. And she does the same. They're quite the pair.”

“What brings her to Paris?”

“She's Mexico's delegate to the Fourth International Conference,” Eitingon said and laughed.

“She's a militant?”

“I hardly think so. Rivera fancies himself a politician but he's an amateur. After he was kicked out of the Party, he went over to the Trotskyists and became a great hero to them when he got President Cárdenas to give Trotsky a Mexican visa. Rivera gave Trotsky and his entourage a house and made a show of embracing the old Russian.”

“And why would Rivera's wife come here as a delegate to the Fourth International?”

“She's coming for an exhibition of her paintings.”

“Is she an artist?”

“Yes, in a minor sort of way.” Eitingon helped himself to more foie gras, inadvertently transferring a bit of the duck gelatin on the back of his hand to the scar on his chin, giving it a gloss. “She's been in New York, where she captivated the press and all of high society. The newspapers and magazines wrote about her every move, calling her the surrealist woman.”

“I wonder what they meant?”

“You know about the surrealists?”

“Of course. Salvador Dali is Catalan.”

“Yes, sorry. Well, at any rate, Frida Rivera is having an exhibition here. You must attend the vernissage. That will be the perfect way for you to meet her.”