by Sarah Jio
“Oh, Miss—Miss Anne,” Minnie stammered nervously. “You won’t tell Mrs. Calloway that I—that I told you anything, will you?”
I patted her plump hand reassuringly. “Of course not,” I said. “It will be our secret.”
An hour later, I stepped outside the apartment and onto the street. I had five hours before I needed to make my way to the dock to board the ship. I hailed a cab, unsure of my destination.
“Where to, miss?” the driver asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I only have a few hours left in the city. Do you have any suggestions?”
The driver smiled, revealing a gold tooth. “That’s funny. Everyone around here seems to know exactly where they’re going.”
I shrugged, looking up at Mother’s apartment. The shades in her bedroom window were still drawn. “I used to think I knew where I was going. I thought I had everything figured out, but . . .”
The driver’s face grew worried. “Listen, miss,” he said, “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
I shook my head. “You didn’t.”
“Hey,” he said, producing a folded brochure from his jacket pocket. “You like art?”
I thought of the painting I’d left in the bungalow. How I longed to have it in my possession just then. “Yes,” I said. “I do.”
“Then I’ll take you to the Met.”
“The Met?”
He looked at me in the way one looks at a child. “The Metropolitan Museum of Art.”
“Yes,” I said, smiling. “Perfect.”
“I hope you find what you’re looking for,” the driver said with a wink.
“Me too,” I said, handing him three crisp bills from my pocketbook.
Minutes later, I stood before the great stone building, with its enormous ivory columns flanking the entrance. I climbed the steps to the double doors, walking inside to an information booth straight ahead.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” I asked. “You don’t, by chance, have any paintings by French artists here, do you?”
The woman, about Mother’s age, nodded without looking up from her book. “Of course we do, miss. They’re all up on the east wing of the third floor.”
“Thank you,” I said, heading to a nearby elevator. It was foolish, I knew, to think that I’d find any of Gauguin’s paintings here. Yet, I longed to know if the small canvas in the bungalow bore any similarity to his other work. Could Tita have been right about the true owner of the bungalow? And its curse?
I exited the elevator on the third floor. Aside from a little boy with a red balloon clutching his mother’s hand, and a security guard standing near the west wall, the floor was empty.
I moved from painting to painting, reading the placards underneath: Monet, Cezanne, and others whose names I didn’t recognize. When I’d scoured the entire room, I sat down, defeated, on a bench by the elevator.
“Excuse me, miss.” I looked up to see the security guard walking toward me. He pulled his spectacles lower on his nose. “May I help you find something?”
I smiled. “Oh, it’s nothing. I had a silly idea that I’d find the work of a certain artist here. But I was wrong.”
He tilted his head to the right. “What artist?”
“Oh, a French painter, one who did the majority of his work in the South Pacific. I’d have better luck searching in France.”
“What’s his name?”
“Paul Gauguin,” I said, standing up and pressing the Down button for the elevator.
“Well, yes,” the man said, “we do have some of his work.”
“You do?” The elevator’s chime sounded and the door opened. I stepped back and let it close.
“Indeed,” he said, pointing to a door a few paces away. A gold padlock hung from its handle. “The wing is closed for maintenance now, but, seeing how much you’re interested, I might be able to open it up—for a special occasion.”
I beamed. “Could you?”
“I have the key right here,” he said, patting the pocket of his pants.
I followed him to the door, where he slipped a brass key into the lock and held the door open for me. “Take all the time you need,” he said proudly. “I’ll be right outside.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Thank you ever so much.”
I slipped inside the door, letting it close with a click behind me. The room was small compared to the wing outside, but the walls were crowded with paintings. At first I didn’t know where to begin—with the landscapes on the right or the portraits to my left—but then a canvas caught my eye, a beach scene on the far wall. It looked familiar, somehow. It would be too much to hope that the artist who had once lived in the bungalow could have painted this same stretch of beach, but as I walked closer, the idea didn’t seem too far-fetched.
The canvas revealed a yellow hibiscus bush near a thatched-roof bungalow. Our bungalow. The silhouette of an island woman lingered on the shore. It looked like a companion to the scene on the canvas in the bungalow—like a photograph of a scene shot right before the other.
I took a step back, searching for a placard with identifying details—anything to hint at its origin, its date, and especially its painter. But the wall was blank.
I opened the door and leaned out into the hallway, trying to capture the attention of the guard. “Excuse me, sir,” I whispered.
He nodded and walked toward me. “Yes?”
“I’m sorry to bother you, but you mentioned this room was closed for maintenance. Do you know if some of the placards near the paintings have been removed? There’s one in particular I’d like to know about.”
The man smiled. “Let me see if I can help.”
Inside, I pointed to the canvas. “This is the one.”
“I know this painting,” he said. “It’s very special.”
“Whose is it?”
“Why, Mr. Paul Gauguin,” he said, grinning. “Surely you could tell by the depiction of the island woman in the foreground, and the signature.”
I shook my head in awe. “Signature?”
“Right here,” he said, pointing to a spot on the lower left. The yellow paint he’d used to sign his name blended in with the hibiscus.
Of course it was Gauguin. If only Westry were here.
“And here’s another,” he said, pointing to a larger canvas a few feet away featuring a bare-breasted woman with a plumeria in her hair. I gasped when I realized there was a resemblance. Atea. She’s the spitting image of Atea.
I walked back to the beach scene that had captured me so. “Do you happen to know when he painted this?”
“It would have been during his time in Tahiti,” he said, “in the early 1890s.”
“Tahiti?”
“Yes, or thereabouts,” he said. “It’s rumored that he spent time all over the nearby islands. In fact, occasionally some of his work turns up from a ship captain who barters with a local. A priceless painting in exchange for a pack of cigarettes.” He shook his head. “Can you even imagine?”
I nodded, feeling the same panic I’d felt the day I left the island, knowing the painting might be lost forever. “Do you know anything more about his life on the islands?”
“Just that he was reclusive,” he said. “He lived in little hideaways, mingling with women half his age and often coming into misfortune. He died alone of a syphilitic heart attack. Not a very happy life, if you ask me.”
I nodded. It all adds up. The bungalow. The painting. Tita’s warning. The curse.
I looked at the security guard with new appreciation. “How is it that you know so much about Gauguin?” I asked.
“There aren’t many art thieves trolling these halls,” he said with a wink. “I have a lot of time on my hands here. Besides, he’s my favorite. He doesn’t deserve to be sequestered away in this room. He should be out with the Monets, the Van Goghs.”
I nodded, wishing I could transport myself back to the island and retrieve the painting Westry and I had left behind. I’d bring it to the mu
seum and request that it be hung right here, right by the other, completing the story one canvas began to tell and the other could finish.
“I’m so sorry I overslept this morning, dear,” Mother said from the couch when I returned to the apartment. An ice pack rested on her forehead. “I have a terrible headache.”
I wanted to say, Because you stayed up all night drinking with a certain Mr. Schwartz, but instead I smiled sweetly. “I kept busy, Mother.”
“Good,” she said. “I’m afraid I’m much too ill to take you to the dock today. I’ve arranged for a driver to pick you up in a half hour. You’ll get there in plenty of time.”
I nodded. “Mother.” I paused, considering my words carefully before I spoke them. “We haven’t talked about what happened, about Maxine and Papa.”
She looked away, unwilling to let her eyes meet mine.
“Mother,” I continued, “are you all right? I know it must have been so painful.”
I could sense her sadness, even when she tried to stifle it by offering me a scone from a tray Minnie had set on a side table.
“Mother?”
She sighed. “I will be, in time,” she said. “I fill my days with as much as I can. And there’s no shortage of men now.”
I looked away, embarrassed.
“The failure of my marriage was the greatest of my life.”
“Oh, Mother—”
“No,” she said, silencing me. “I want you to hear this.”
I nodded, though I wasn’t entirely certain I wanted to listen.
“I loved your father; I always did,” she went on. “But I realized, a long time ago, that he did not love me. He never had, in fact. Well, not in the way a husband should love a wife.” She sighed, and held her empty hands out before her. “So,” she continued, changing the tone of her voice from regret-filled to practical. “Let that be a lesson to you, dear. When you marry”—she paused to look deep into my eyes—“make sure he loves you, really loves you.”
“I will.”
She leaned back against a pillow. “You didn’t mention the purpose of your trip to France, dear.”
I looked at her with a new understanding. “What you said about love, Mother—that’s exactly why I’m going. I need to be certain.”
Chapter 15
The Foreign Services travel code worked just like Mary said. My hands had trembled at the dock, and a skeptical young soldier had looked me over suspiciously, but at the mention of Edward Naughton, he’d handed me a slip of paper containing my cabin assignment and waved me on.
On the final day of the grueling voyage, green from seasickness, I began to wonder whether I was making the trip in vain. Even if I did get to see Westry, would he want to see me? It had been more than a year since our strained good-bye on Bora-Bora, and he hadn’t called or written. Sure, it would have been difficult, given the intensity of fighting in Europe, but he might have tried. He didn’t even try.
“Coming ashore,” the cabin steward called out from the hallway outside my room. “All passengers secure your belongings.”
I looked out the tiny window. Through the foggy mist, the sleepy port of Le Havre waited in the distance, with Paris just a short train ride away. Doubt seeped into my heart. What am I doing here? It’s been a year. A very long year. Am I merely chasing a dream that has long since died? I reached for my bag and shook off the thought. I’ve come this far; I will see this through.
I stood on Mary’s street, Saint Germaine, looking up at the stone building above—stately, with little terraces adorned with potted flowers and plants. Candlelight flickered inside. I wondered what kind of life Mary had been living here during the city’s occupation, and I wondered about Edward and how their story had unfolded. Did the letter change everything? Did he take her back? Was it a happy ending? It was late, nearly ten, but it warmed me to see city dwellers crowding in cafes and restaurants, lovers strolling arm in arm. And yet, reminders of the horror that the city had endured were ever present. A Nazi flag lay near a Dumpster, partially burned and ripped at the center. The green awning of a bakery across the street was blackened from fire. One of its windows had been boarded up. A yellow Star of David dangled from the door.
I proceeded inside Mary’s building, checking the apartment number again before knocking quietly. Moments later, I heard footsteps approaching and then the sound of a latch opening.
“Anne!” Mary cried. “You came!”
My eyes filled with tears as I embraced my old friend. “I have to pinch myself,” I said. “It hardly seems possible that I am here.”
“You must be exhausted,” she said.
I took a deep breath. “Mary, I have to know. How’s Westry? Have you seen him recently? Is he . . . ?”
Mary looked at her feet. “I haven’t been to the hospital in a few days,” she said quietly. “But, Anne, I can tell you his injuries are serious. He was shot. Multiple times.”
The air suddenly felt thick, toxic. The tears stung. “I can’t bear to lose him, Mary.”
My old friend wrapped her arm around me. “Come, we’ll get you comfortable,” she said. “Save your tears for tomorrow.”
I followed Mary inside, where she turned on two lamps and motioned for me to sit with her on a sofa with gold-plated trim. All around were walls decorated in toile panels.
“It’s a beautiful home,” I muttered, still thinking of Westry.
Mary shrugged. She looked out of place in the apartment, like a schoolgirl dressed in her mother’s evening gown. “I won’t be here much longer,” she said, offering no further details. “Care for a sandwich? A croissant?” I looked at her left hand and noticed that her ring finger was bare. Instinctively, I covered the diamond solitaire on mine with my right hand, remembering how I’d hidden it away on the island.
“I’m fine,” I said, “thank you.” What’s different about Mary? She wore her hair, the color of tawny hay, in the same fashion. Her smile still hid the crooked teeth. But her eyes . . . yes, her eyes had changed. Deep sadness had taken up residence, and I longed to know the story.
“And Edward?” The name echoed in the night air, and the second it escaped my lips, I wished I could retract the question.
“There is no Edward,” she said blankly, turning her gaze out the window to the sparkling lights of Paris and the great river Seine in the distance. “Not anymore.” She paused again, before turning to me. “Listen, I’d rather not talk about any of that, if it’s all the same to you.”
I nodded quickly. “I can’t imagine what you’ve been through here—I mean, during the occupation.”
Mary ran her hand through her thin hair. “It was simply terrible, Anne,” she said. “I’m lucky to still be here, being American and all. Fortunately, my college French got me through. The papers Edward—” She paused, as if the mere mention of his name jarred her. “The papers he had drawn up protected my identity. It’s a miracle I wasn’t found out, given my help with the Resistance.”
“Mary, how frightening. You’re very brave.”
Her eyes looked sad, distant. “The Nazis making their sweeps,” she continued, “the fear that if you said the wrong thing, sneezed the wrong way, you’d be taken in for questioning. And the poor Jewish families, removed from their homes.” She paused, pointing toward the door. “There were three in this building. A family of four just down the hall. We tried to save them”—she held up her hands—“but, we were too late. God knows if they’ll ever return.”
I blinked hard. “Oh, Mary.”
She shook her head as if to repress another memory, one that might have been too painful to recount, then pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of her dress. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I thought I could talk about this with you, but I’m afraid—I’m afraid it’s all too painful.”
I took her hand in mine, noticing the tiny pink scar on her wrist. Memories of Bora-Bora came rushing back. “Please,” I said, “let’s not speak of the past.”
Mary sighed. “I’m afraid it
will be with me always.”
“But the city was spared,” I said, searching for a positive note.
“Yes,” Mary replied. “A miracle. For a while we thought it all might go up in flames, and us with it.”
“Mary,” I said cautiously, “how is it that you ended up here? Did you come because of... the letter I gave you before you left Bora-Bora?”
She rubbed her hands together in her lap. “If only the answer was that simple,” she said nostalgically. “No, I was a fool to come here.”
I wished, for a moment, that I’d kept the letter in my possession, to save Mary from the heartache she felt then. And yet without that letter, Mary wouldn’t have been in Paris. She wouldn’t have found Westry. She couldn’t have called. I marveled at how our stories intertwined, and I longed for hers to have a happy ending, just as I hoped mine would.
“Where will you go next?” I asked, searching her face for a sign that she would be all right—a glimmer in her eye, a half smile, anything.
But instead, she looked gravely out the window. “I haven’t decided yet.”
The lights of Paris sparkled, and my heart lightened when I thought of Westry. He was out there, somewhere.
“Will you go with me to the hospital tomorrow? I’m terribly nervous about seeing him, after . . . all this time.”
For a moment, the haze in Mary’s eyes vanished. “Of course I will,” she said. “You know, Stella’s here too.”
“She is?”
“Yes,” she continued. “She’s been here since last month.”
“And Will?”
“He’s here too. They’re getting married in a month or so.”
“That’s wonderful,” I said, grinning. “I’d love to see her.”
“She and Will took a train down south for a few days,” she said. “She’ll be disappointed to have missed you.”
“What time should we leave for the hospital in the morning?”
Mary glanced out the window again. “Visiting hours begin at nine. We can catch a cab over first thing. Now, your room is down the hall—second door on the left. You must be exhausted. Go get some rest.” She tried her best to smile, but the corners of her mouth seemed stiff and heavy, paralyzed with grief.
