This image is strangely reminiscent of a photograph of Charlotte.
In the picture, she is painting on a hillside.
Overlooking the Mediterranean.
She looks disinterestedly at the camera.
As if the photographer caught her in a moment of contemplation.
Of the life she leads in fusion with nature.
Charlotte seems to merge into the grass.
Wonder-struck by the color of the sky.
In the face of this radiance, one thinks of Goethe’s last words.
On the shore of death, he began yelling: more light!
To die, one needs a blinding light.
10
She spends hours arranging the drawings.
She must put the story in order.
Number the final paintings.
She adds the last musical indications.
The whole thing forms three parcels.
On which she writes: “Property of Mrs. Moore.”
The work must go back to Ottilie.
If she ever has to flee, if she ever has to die.
For now, the priority is to protect her work at all costs.
To find it a safe home.
Charlotte puts the parcels inside a large suitcase.
She looks around her room one last time.
Filled with a very particular emotion.
A mixture of joy and melancholy.
Her accomplishment marks a temporary end to her obsessive life.
Emerging from a work, the external world appears anew.
It is dazzling, after months of introspection.
That sudden look up when one’s eyes have been turned inward for so long.
The farewell hugs with Marthe last a long time.
Charlotte thanks her with all her heart.
It is time to leave.
So she starts her journey to Villefranche-sur-Mer.
On foot, carrying her suitcase.
Who might have seen Charlotte that day?
Walking with a life’s work.
Almost two years after her last appointment, she goes back to see Moridis.
He is the only person she knows she can trust here.
Ottilie has returned to the United States.
She left France, driven out by the imminent danger.
Taking nine children with her in a large car.
Plus two goats and a pig.
Headed for Lisbon, where she would board an ocean liner.
Charlotte had wanted to be part of this escapade.
Please, don’t leave me here, she begged.
But it was impossible.
Unlike the children, she needed a passport.
Resigned, she gave some drawings to Ottilie.
By way of goodbye.
The American lady thanked her warmly.
Telling her: they’re worth their weight in gold.
This woman was so important for her.
A mother and a patron.
So Charlotte entrusts her with Life? or Theater?, with Moridis as a go-between.
And dedicates the work to her too.
…
Charlotte stands outside Moridis’s office.
She rings the doorbell.
The doctor himself opens the door.
Ah … Charlotte, he says.
She does not respond.
She looks at him.
She hands him the suitcase.
Saying it is my whole life.
It is thanks to Moridis that we know these words.
IT IS MY WHOLE LIFE.
What does she mean exactly?
I am giving you a work that tells the whole story of my life.
Or: I am giving you a work as important as my life.
Or even: it is my whole life, because my life is over.
Does this mean she is going to die?
It is my WHOLE life.
There is something haunting about this phrase.
Every possibility seems true.
Moridis does not open the suitcase.
He carefully puts it away.
One might even say: he hides it.
His daughter showed me the place where the work was protected.
I stood motionless staring at this so-real past.
An emotion of a rare intensity.
It is my whole life.
Part Eight
1
Charlotte goes back to live at the Ermitage.
Again, she thinks of her grandmother in the garden.
This no longer exists.
Again, she sees all the children running.
This no longer exists either.
They have almost all gone.
The house itself seems like an orphan.
And the beauty too has grown sad.
A man lives here now.
Alexander Nagler.
An Austrian refugee who was Ottilie’s lover.
Though no one seems to know that.
Tall and clumsy, he doesn’t say much.
What happens when two silent people meet?
Charlotte is unsure how to act.
Ottilie has left her a friend.
More specifically: a friend I don’t know what to do with.
These are Charlotte’s words.
Gradually they become used to each other.
Nagler is almost forty.
In 1939, fleeing the Nazis, he crossed the Alps.
A long, difficult crossing, which left its mark on him.
Though he appears strong, Alexander is very fragile.
A childhood accident means he cannot walk properly.
There is a huge scar on his forehead.
He is a sort of strange combination.
The kind of man who looks like a protector.
And whom you end up protecting.
Charlotte finds him too tall.
She doesn’t like having to lift her head every time she talks to him.
Not that she does talk to him very much.
They pass each other in the garden.
Smile at each other or ignore each other.
But in November, everything changes.
Germany invades the rest of France.
So the two refugees mingle their fears.
They draw closer, and even begin to brush against each other.
2
Charlotte continues to visit her grandfather.
It’s the same old story every time.
As soon as he sees her, he screams horrors at her.
And she ends up leaving, devastated.
He is the only family that remains to her.
Alexander reassures her.
Sometimes, he goes with her.
Of course, the grandfather cannot stand this new intruder.
When he is alone with Charlotte, he interrogates her.
Don’t tell me you like that Austrian?
I forbid you to be with him!
Do you hear me?!
He’s a bum!
Don’t forget that we are Grunwalds!
You should marry someone of your own rank!
Charlotte finds him ridiculous.
He lives in the illusion of a world that no longer exists.
But she doesn’t want to upset him.
She listens, no matter what he says.
This is how she was raised: to be docile with her elders.
That bourgeois education is a relic of the past.
And relics should be treasured.
We should do all we can to preserve them.
Through this absurd submission, Charlotte is able to touch her childhood.
She says yes to her grandfather.
And anyway, she doesn’t love Alexander.
She likes him a lot.
She needs him, needs his warmth.
But that is not love.
She loves only one man.
Always the same man.
Did he even exist?
A few days later, the grandfather feels
a sharp pain.
He leaves the house and walks toward the pharmacy.
He finally reaches it, but collapses just outside.
And dies like that, in the street.
When she hears the news, Charlotte feels relieved.
It’s a weight off her shoulders.
So many times, she has wished he would die.
Would she have done something to bring forward his due date?
Later, in a letter, she will admit that she poisoned him.
Is this the truth?
Is it theater?
It is, at the same time, improbable and plausible.
If we consider all he put her through.
His incessant hostility and his contempt for her work.
And the sexual pressure too.
I exchange messages with Charlotte’s disciples.
Particularly with Dana Plays, Ottilie’s great-niece.
We discuss this option.
We fantasize about the possibility of this extreme act.
It is a novel within the novel.
Charlotte contemplates her grandfather’s gravestone.
Which is also her grandmother’s.
The two of them reunited forever.
Those connoisseurs of old rocks and dust.
The cemetery has been empty for hours.
Do people visit the dead less often during wartime?
Charlotte finally leaves, turning around one last time.
The way we do sometimes when we are walking away from the living.
3
Since November 11, 1942, France has been completely occupied.
The former free zone is now shared between Germans and Italians.
The Alpes-Maritimes department reports to Italian forces.
The Italians do not enforce the same racial policy as their allies.
Many Jews move to Nice and the region around it.
It has become almost the only accessible refuge in Europe.
Here, Charlotte and Alexander seem protected.
But for how long?
They talk constantly about the progress of the war.
Will the Americans land?
Charlotte cannot bear this speculation anymore.
Since 1933, they have been hoping for a better future.
And things have been getting worse and worse.
She desperately wants to believe in the Liberation.
But she won’t until the American flag is flying here.
Their conversations are full of silences.
Words are scattered here and there in disorder.
Is that why they kiss?
To end the silence?
Neither of them is capable of taking the first step.
So how does it happen?
Gradually.
It is not a sudden urge.
But a sort of painstaking, methodical advance.
They speak to each other, sitting closer and closer.
Until one night their lips touch.
Charlotte is now a twenty-six-year-old woman.
In April, she celebrates her birthday with Alexander.
He found a little frame in a junk store.
And put one of Charlotte’s drawings inside it.
She is moved by this gift, simple and beautiful.
It has been years since anyone touched her.
She hardly even remembers having been a woman.
The moments when Alfred would kneel down to embrace her.
When a man desired her, took her, roughly.
What has become of those instants?
Without knowing why, she is disgusted by something in her own desire.
She does not allow the advance of tender urges.
Alexander’s caresses seem almost like attacks.
She pushes him away.
What is going on?
She can’t respond.
He thinks it’s his fault, wants to disappear on the spot.
How could he suspect that she too feels desire?
Unconsciously, she forbids herself anything that feels like a longing.
This does not last, and she lets herself go.
The instant is too intoxicating.
Charlotte takes Alexander’s hand, and guides it.
His huge hand, uncertain but powerful.
She sighs immediately.
4
Making love becomes their main occupation.
The overgrown garden accompanies these sensual wanderings.
The trees, the heat and the scents.
It is the ideal theater for abandonment.
It feels, surely, like the birth of a world.
This period begins to overwhelm Charlotte.
She feels dizzy.
A different kind of dizziness.
So, is that it?
She moves her hand over her belly.
Stands there motionless, stunned.
She did not think this could happen.
She has often compared her body to a rampart.
The only weapon she has to protect herself.
And yet it seems that life has infiltrated it.
Yes, she is pregnant.
Alexander is ecstatic.
He walks on his hands in the garden.
If only the world were as simple as him.
He does not really understand Charlotte’s reaction.
She would like to tell him that it is possible to be happy and lost at the same time.
That dismay is not incompatible with delight.
She thinks constantly about her mother.
Feelings she thought she had forgotten surge back.
Isn’t it wonderful? says Alexander.
…
She just needs a little time.
The time to welcome joy.
The time to realize that she can have a happy life.
With a man and a child.
Isn’t it wonderful? says Alexander again.
Yes, it’s wonderful.
They spend hours discussing names.
Charlotte is certain it will be a girl.
Nina, Anaïs, Erika.
They anticipate life.
The future becomes a tangible space.
But for Alexander, there is something urgent they must do.
He wants them to get married.
I have my values, he says proudly.
He must wed this woman who is pregnant with his child.
5
Moridis and his wife are the witnesses to the wedding.
And here, you can feel the full force of that word, witness.
Charlotte and Alexander need witnesses to be certain that all this is real.
To make love official.
To declare it openly in a world where they must hide themselves away.
In the mayor’s office, they give their identities and their address.
In order to be able to marry Charlotte, Alexander declares himself a Jew.
Whereas before this he had fake papers.
Why do they do this?
Surely because a moment arrives when not existing becomes unbearable.
For a long time I believed that this wedding led them to their downfall.
When I reconstructed the evidence, it all seemed to fit.
But I was to discover a completely different version of the story.
In fact, this wedding did not alter their fate at all.
It cannot be considered part of a social rebellion.
The proof: Charlotte and Alexander remained at the Ermitage.
Where everyone knew they could be found.
They feel safe, protected by the Italian presence.
That must be it.
Safe to the point of marrying, and giving their address.
In reality, though, the situation is precarious.
Some people try to help Jews flee the country.
The most ambitious initiative comes from Angelo Donati.
An Italian politician who draws up rescue
plans.
He has meetings at the Vatican and with ambassadors.
And charters a fleet of ships that would be able to leave for Palestine.
The Italian consul general supports Donati.
The anti-Jewish laws are all overturned.
The Italian carabinieri protect the synagogue.
To prevent a raid by the French militia.
In Nice, Donati is also helped by Father Marie-Benoît.
Together, these forces form a protective bubble, united.
No doubt encouraging the newlyweds’ recklessness.
But, on September 8, 1943, Italy surrenders.
And the Germans take control of the region.
6
The Jews must and will pay.
To ensure this, the Germans send one of the highest-ranking SS officers.
And also perhaps the cruelest: Alois Brunner.
His biography is sickening.
He is a small man with dark, frizzy hair.
A puny specimen with a twisted-looking body.
One shoulder lower than the other.
His embarrassment at not conforming to the Aryan ideal deepens his hatred.
More than anyone else, he has to prove that his blood is pure.
Unfortunately for him, he is a thoroughly unremarkable man.
He has no charisma, his voice doesn’t carry.
And yet, once you have seen him, you cannot forget him.
The testimonies about his violence and depravity are enlightening.
Brutal and vulgar, he always wears gloves.
Because he fears physical contact with a Jew.
*
After the war, he manages to escape.
Changing his identity, he moves to Syria, where he is given protection.
The El-Assad family goes into business with him.
And makes the most of his skills as a torturer.
Finally he is unmasked.
International arrest warrants are issued.
But the Syrian regime will always refuse to extradite him.
Mossad agents dream of taking him like they took Eichmann.
Of abducting Brunner so he can be judged in Israel.
But it seems impossible to infiltrate Damas.
All they manage to do is send letter bombs.
Brunner loses an eye, and the fingers of one hand.
This does not prevent him leading a pleasant, peaceful life.
In 1987, a journalist from the Chicago Sun-Times obtains an interview.
About the exterminated Jews, Brunner declares:
“All of them deserved to die.
Because they were the Devil’s agents and human garbage.”
Before adding: “I have no regrets and I would do it again.”
Brunner probably died in the mid-1990s.
Protected until his final breath.
Charlotte Page 13
