The Gypsy Madonna

by Santa Montefiore

  Joy left the door to the bathroom ajar. I could hear her moving about in there, the shadow she made falling across the doorway as she walked around the room. I lowered my eyes. I did not want to intrude on her privacy. Finally the door swung open and she stood there, dressed in pink and blue chiffon, the prettiest dress I had ever seen. “What do you think?” she said, smiling at me broadly. She knew she looked beautiful. The dress clung gently to her body as if it had been made especially to fit, like petals on a flower. It was low cut in a “V,” wrapping around her and tying in a bow at the side, falling just below the knees. The skin on her chest was smooth like cream, her breasts like peaches, her waist small, fanning out into wide hips. Her blond hair fell over her shoulders in waves and her gray eyes shone down at me warmly. I blinked at her angelic form and felt myself blush. She laughed, bent down, took my face in her hands, and planted a kiss on my cheek. It was then that I understood what my mother had talked about. My heart swelled with love to the extent that I could barely breathe. “What do you think, Diane?” she asked, walking into the bedroom.

  “I think it’s delicious, just delicious,” she said. “You’ll be the only one they see! Any of them.” Joy turned to me and placed her hands on her hips.

  “I’m so pleased you like it,” she said. “I needed the opinion of a man.” I blushed again and grinned. In my excitement I loosened my grip and the rubber ball fell to the floor, disappearing beneath the chest of drawers. I wanted to go after it but felt embarrassed to have dropped it. I would have to return with Lucie the following morning to retrieve it. My heart, however, was a different matter. Joy Springtoe had it now and I didn’t want it back. Not ever.

  The next day, after a feverish night worrying about my ball, I followed Lucie along the corridor. Joy Springtoe’s room was at the far end and, to my misfortune, we began our work at the beginning. I dreaded being called into the kitchen to grab things for Yvette before I was able to retrieve my ball. It was irreplaceable, you see. Lucie was particularly grumpy that morning, snapping at me and clicking her tongue in irritation. I was impatient to move on to the next room, while she seemed unhurried, happy to take her time. Finally we reached Joy Springtoe’s room. I was on the point of diving to the floor when the door suddenly opened and Monsieur Duval entered. He smelled of stale tobacco and sweat.

  When he saw me his face imploded into an expression of horror and disbelief. “What is he doing in here?” he barked at Lucie, pointing at me. “Get out! Go on! Get out!” He came at me with his hand raised. I ducked and ran as fast as I could out into the corridor, leaving my rubber ball lost under the chest of drawers. As I ran, their laughter rang in my ears. I hated them. I hated them both.

  I reached the safety of the stable block and threw myself onto the bed, covering my head with a pillow so I could no longer hear their laughter. But it wasn’t enough to cover my ears. Their taunts persisted in my head, in my memory, growing into the jeers of a multitude, until my head throbbed with the pressure of so many voices. My heart thumped in my chest and the love that had filled it was turned to fear. I rocked in an effort to shake them out, but still they mocked. When I thought I could bear it no longer, the pillow was prized out of my hand and my mother’s worried face gazed down upon me. She gathered me into her arms, stroking my hair and kissing me in desperation.

  “It’s all right, my love. Maman’s here. Maman won’t ever leave you. Not ever. I’ll never leave my little chevalier. I need you. There now, breathe, my love, breathe.” I felt myself grow hot in her embrace and her body stiffen against mine. This had occurred before. We both knew that a week of fever now stretched before us. “What happened?” she asked in a low voice. “What was it this time?” But I couldn’t say. My eyes filled with tears at the frustration of it. I wanted so much to tell her.

  The next week passed in a blur. I was hot, then cold, and sometimes, when I opened my eyes, the room seemed to have been stretched and the far corner was tiny and remote. I remember my mother at my side, always there, stroking my hair and telling me stories. I think I remember her crying softly into my neck: “You’re all I have in the world, Mischa. Don’t ever leave me.” But perhaps it was a dream.

  When, finally, the fever passed and I was able to sit up in bed and play, my mother came in, the gray pallor of her anxious face transformed to a radiant pink. “I have someone special here who wants to see you,” she said. I looked behind her expectantly. She stepped aside and in walked Joy Springtoe in her pretty pink and blue dress, with a small bag in her hand. “I hear that you have been ill,” she said, and sat down on the bed. I breathed in her perfume and smiled at her, my happiness complete. “I have something you lost and something I would like you to have, from me.” She handed me the bag. I gazed at it, astonished. A present, for me? I looked inside. There, to my amazement, was the little rubber ball; my favorite toy. I lifted it out and held it tightly in my hand. No one but my mother knew why it was so precious. I squeezed it, sensing the pieces of my broken world coming together once again. Then I peered into the bag a second time. My mother was smiling at the door, her arms folded, pride and affection causing her skin to glow. I pulled out a model car, a little Citroën Deux Chevaux in the most delicious lemon yellow. The wheels turned and the bonnet lifted, revealing the little silver engine. I touched it with trembling fingers and was suddenly filled with longing — that the flagstone floor in the hall hadn’t been covered in carpet, so that I could push it along the stones and watch it go. Overwhelmed with gratitude and love, I threw my arms around Joy, resting my head on her shoulder. She held me very tightly for what seemed a long time. I did not want to pull away and, I think, neither did she. “You’re a very special little boy,” she said, running a finger down my cheek. Her eyes glistened with tears. “I won’t forget you, Mischa.”

  That was the last time I saw Joy Springtoe.

  5

  Joy Springtoe had gone and the château echoed loudly with her absence. I felt heavy with sorrow. I roamed around the estate, throwing stones into the stream, not caring whether they bounced or sank. I spent countless hours staring at my yellow Citroën, lifting and shutting the bonnet, remembering Joy’s face and her smell. Even Pistou was unable to raise my spirits. I was inconsolable. People think someone so young is incapable of such depth of feeling — after all I was only six and three-quarters — but Joy Springtoe had taken my heart in her hands and treated it with kindness. She’d have it forever.

  Monsieur Duval banned me from helping Lucie. I no longer cared. There was no point hanging around the Private Side now that Joy wasn’t there and, besides, Lucie had grown increasingly moody. I liked the Pheasants, but even the afternoons spent watching them paint had lost their attraction. I wandered about with my rubber ball in my hands; now it held even greater significance because Joy had given it back to me.

  I hid in the cave beneath the château where it was damp and cold. Row upon row of bottles lay in crates like bodies in a catacomb. The walls were wet and moldy, the air musty and stale. I ran up and down the aisles, my footsteps echoing off the walls, until I came across a little room. There was something eerie about that room that made me catch my breath. It was empty but for a single chair and yet I sensed a strange warmth, as if it had once been inhabited. I wandered in, my curiosity mounting, and sat down. I looked about, wondering what the room was for, when my eye caught sight of a group of names carved into the stone wall. I got up to take a closer look: Léon, Marthe, Félix, Benjamin, Oriane. I ran my fingers over them intrigued. They looked almost new. Perhaps they had been kept prisoners down there by the wicked Monsieur Duval, I thought, my misery lifting at the idea. I found a small stone and added my name, Mischa, in big letters. I was a prisoner too, of love and silence.

  My fever had gone but I was still weak. My mother watched me anxiously and at night she held me tightly, pressed right up against her body, as if she were afraid that a demon would come in the dark and steal me away. I suffered my usual nightmares more often than before. Now my
mother’s face was transformed into Joy’s and I’d wake up in a sweat, confused and tearful. Joy had left me but my mother was still there. The relief was overwhelming.

  Then one night I awoke to the sound of the wind outside our window. It was a gale, tearing through the trees, bringing with it heavy, horizontal rain. It was extraordinary for summer. My mother woke too and we sat on the window seat watching the storm through the darkness.

  “You know, Mischa, my mother, your grandmother, always said that a summer gale was a sign of change.” She rested her head on her arm and looked at me almost childishly. “She was very superstitious. She was always right, of course. She was right about everything.” She sighed and her brown suede eyes grew dark with tears. “What would she think of me now, I wonder? Do you think she can see me, up there in Heaven? She’ll be folding her arms across her chest and clicking her tongue in disapproval, I should imagine. She’d have loved you, though, my little chevalier. Oh, yes, she’d be so proud of you.” She reached out and touched my arm. “I know you loved Joy Springtoe, Mischa. I wish she hadn’t left, too. She brought the sunshine into the house. I want you to know that I understand. Love hurts, my darling. It hurts when they’re with you and it hurts when they leave and it hurts all the more when you know you’ll never see them again. But it’s worth every moment of suffering to have enjoyed those few moments of happiness. In time you’ll remember her without it hurting, I promise. She may even come back next year. Her fiancé died liberating this town. He was a hero. She comes back to honor him. I think she’ll be missing you too.” I managed a smile, then turned to watch the gale. Reading my thoughts, she spoke them out loud. “I hope it brings change, for both of us.”

  The following day was Saturday. My mother wasn’t working so she suggested we walk into town. I immediately hunched my shoulders and pulled a face. I hated the town. It still reverberated with horror. But my mother wanted me to face my fears and to conquer them, for she said: “It is only with practice that a chevalier learns to fight and win.”

  Reluctantly I followed her down the wooden steps that led into the courtyard. Before the château became a hotel, the stable block had been full of horses. Beautiful, shiny, muscular creatures. My father had allowed me as a very small boy to sit in the saddle. I remember the exhilaration of feeling the horse walking over those stones, clip clop, clip clop, while my father held the reins. Now there were only two horses and they were big, inelegant beasts used for work in the vineyard. Jacques Reynard had trained them to walk in a straight line through the vines and to pull with just the right amount of force so that the point of the plow drove deep enough into the soil to clear the weeds but not so strongly as to damage the main roots of the vines.

  We walked down the path to the town, my stomach cramping with fear. I didn’t feel like a little chevalier at all. I wanted to turn and flee, but always the thought of my mother on her own, among so many enemies, strengthened my resolve and I remained by her side. The storm from the night before had passed. The ground was wet and the leaves glistened on the trees, a little battered by the wind, but still clinging on. I had forgotten about my grandmother’s prediction of change. I think my mother had forgotten about it too, for she didn’t mention it.

  We walked down the street, bracing ourselves for the stares, the hostility, the peering out from behind lace curtains. In the beginning there had been shouts: whore, Boche bastard, hun-head, traitor, little Nazi. Now their insults had boiled down to mutters and seething looks. I always noticed the children. Most of them copied their parents, singeing me with the hatred in their eyes. One or two frowned in confusion and to my surprise, that day, a pretty little girl smiled at me in sympathy. She had shiny brown hair and pink cheeks and her toothy smile was cautious but kind. I wanted to return it, but I couldn’t because fear had frozen my own mouth into a grimace. My mother stopped outside the boulangerie. I hated the boulangerie. I wanted what it sold, those treats in the window, but I was afraid of the big fat man who owned it. I remembered his face in my nightmares.

  My mother’s grip on my hand tightened and I noticed her take a deep breath as if about to plunge into water. Then in we went. The little bell on the door alerted the owner to our presence. He walked out from behind a veil of beads, his white coat barely large enough to encompass his belly. When he saw us his face turned gray and a frown darkened his forehead. “Bonjour, monsieur,” said my mother politely. Monsieur Cezade grunted. “What would you like, Mischa?” she asked breezily, as if we were just normal customers like everyone else. I felt his eyes upon me, his mouth twisted down at the corners as if the mere sight of me repulsed him. I hesitated in fear and moved closer to my mother. At that moment the door opened, the little bell tinkling again, distracting Monsieur Cezade who withdrew his gaze, thus releasing me from its spell.

  “Bonjour, monsieur,” he said boisterously to the new customer, emphasizing by his enthusiasm his disdain for us.

  “Bonjour,” replied the man and his accent was strong, like Joy Springtoe’s. I looked up at him and my fear left me. He was the most dazzlingly handsome man I had ever seen.

  “And hello there, Junior,” he said, smiling down at me. I liked him immediately. About him glowed an invisible aura that was warm and alluring. When he smiled, his bright blue eyes twinkled with mischief and his mouth turned right up at the corners, causing his cheeks to crease in a comical way, like an accordion. “What are you going to choose?” he said, echoing my mother’s words only a few moments before.

  “He doesn’t speak,” said Monsieur Cezade, clipping his words so they sounded hard and scornful. “He’s mute.” The American looked at my mother and smiled kindly.

  “With a handsome face like that, he doesn’t have to speak.”

  My mother’s cheeks turned as red as a pepper and she lowered her eyes. I felt her palm grow hot and damp in mine. “Coyote Magellan,” he said, extending his hand. She shook it. “Now, perhaps you can help me,” he said to her. “What’s the most delicious cake in this store?” He spoke English. My mother’s father was Irish so my mother spoke and understood English well. I hoped Monsieur Cezade couldn’t understand.

  “My son likes chocolatine,” she replied, pointing to the window display.

  “And what good taste, so do I.” He looked pleased that my mother spoke his language.

  “J’en prendrai trois, s’il vous plaît,” he said to Monsieur Cezade, who was looking on in bewilderment. With a heavy sigh he placed the pastries in a brown paper bag, guessing why the American had purchased three. Turning to my mother, Coyote said, “I invite you both to join me in the café next door. I couldn’t eat all of these on my own, even if I wanted to.” I’m sure if it hadn’t been for Monsieur Cezade, my mother would have declined. However, it boosted her morale to be invited out by this handsome, charismatic stranger in front of the man who had humiliated her. It also appealed to her sense of defiance, for it was more than a little inappropriate to accept such an offer from a man she had only just met, of whom she knew nothing.

  “We would love to,” she replied, lifting her chin. I felt my chest expand with pride. Coyote thanked Monsieur Cezade and we left, all three of us together. If I had had a sword at that moment, I would have shown my mother how I could use it.

  My mother and I did not frequent the café. It came as a shock to those in the café when we entered. Silence fell upon the place. Even the waiters stopped to look, agape with astonishment. Everyone knew about my mother; she was notorious. There was nowhere for us to hide. Some people might have found it odd that we didn’t leave the château, but my mother had married my father there and besides, it had always been home. Where else could we go? Would anybody want us?

  Coyote acted as if he hadn’t noticed the reaction to our arrival. He smiled at everyone in that disarming way of his and led us to a round table in the corner. My mother’s jaw was stiff with resolve, for she was determined not to show how much it hurt to be stared at. I was so in awe of this glamorous man, for the first ti
me since it all happened, I didn’t feel afraid.

  “What will you have, Miss Anouk?” he asked, once we had sat down. “I hope you don’t mind me calling you Miss Anouk?” My mother was taken aback. She hadn’t introduced herself. He lowered his voice. “I’m afraid I have to confess, I saw you and your boy in the street. You’re a beautiful woman, I’m a man. I asked who you were.” He shrugged and delved into the pocket of his shirt for a cigarette. “Will you have one?” My mother declined. She looked at him warily. “I found that fat oaf in the bakery giving you a hard time. I hope you don’t mind.” There was something so honest about his expression, my mother was unable to be angry. “Besides, your son looks like he needs feeding up.” He winked at me.

  “Mischa’s been ill,” my mother replied. “He’ll have a lemonade and I’ll have a cup of coffee.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Six.” And three-quarters, I added silently.

  “You’re a fine-looking boy,” he said, turning to me.

  “He looks like his father.” She watched him steadily, testing him. I knew at that point I might never see my lemonade or taste the chocolatine. I slumped with disappointment.

  “So, in the eyes of the French you’re a traitor,” he said, shaking his head. “Such is the tragedy of war.”

  “Love knows no boundaries,” she replied, her face softening. My chances of a good meal had just gotten better. He lit his cigarette, a Gauloise, and scanned the room through narrowed eyes.