The Flight Portfolio

by Julie Orringer

  “Ah, Gregor—your colleague?”

  “That’s right,” Grant said, and fell silent, swinging the book in his hand as he walked. They continued that way until they reached a turning at an iron gate.

  “Here we are,” Grant said. “Les Cyprès. And there are the cyprès.” Along the private drive that led to the house, tall, slender evergreens pointed skyward toward a nest of cloud. As they walked the lane, a profusion of birds rose from the trees like sparks from fire; at the end was a little castle. The Medieval Pile, as Grant called it, was not medieval at all. It dated merely from the seventeenth century. The material was native limestone, the design borrowed from the original villas that had clung to this hillside in imperial times, and the conveniences, such as they were, were convenient only in relation to what had existed then. The taps dispensed cold water, the heating was all by fireplace. Though electrical power had come to La Pomme years before, his colleague preferred gaslight. The gas lamps only worked, Grant said, thanks to the ministrations of an ancient caretaker who lived in a neighboring cottage. They leaked and guttered and blackened their glass housings, which had to be cleaned daily if you wanted to read at night.

  The Pile’s chief luxury was solitude—that and the view, a scoop of valley that rushed across sage-hazed scrublands toward the Marseilleveyre. And here was a tiny orchard of persimmon trees, imported from China on the professor’s whim. The trees, still in full leaf, were decked with small vermilion fruit. As they walked through the orchard, Grant reached up and picked a few, explaining that they couldn’t be eaten till they were soft and black. Then they reached the threshold, and he turned to Varian.

  “Don’t let Gregor scare you,” he said. “He’s tender underneath.”

  “Why would he scare me?”

  “He’s rather—unfiltered, I suppose you’d say. Do you remember our German philosophy professor, Brauer? With the beard and the too-short jackets, whose specialty was Schopenhauer and the insatiability of the will?”

  Varian nodded. A trapdoor of memory: Grant beside him in lecture, their legs pressed together from ankle to knee, the heat of Grant’s body obliterating Varian’s attention to Professor Brauer’s words, rendering him mute and stammering when Brauer turned to him and asked, “But what proof is there, how can we be certain beyond a doubt, that the world we inhabit exists?” At the time there had been only one certainty, as far as Varian was concerned: the molten line of contact between his leg and Grant’s. He had been silent then, as now.

  Grant opened the door and ushered him into an echoing darkness. A wind seemed to blow through the upper levels of the house, a ghost’s voice susurrating along unseen passages. Around the interior of the atrium, a stone stairway traced a hexagonal path; the stone gave off a scent like the bottom of a ravine, earthy and wet and cold. The chandelier overhead was stuffed with wax candles, none of them lit. The only light came from the deep slash windows, one at each turning of the stairs. Varian would have expected the bare stone walls to be hung with the kind of portraits whose eyes followed you when you walked.

  “Gregor’s in the solarium,” Grant said.

  “Solarium! Is there one?”

  “The place is a little vampiric, isn’t it?” Grant sent a fleeting smile over his shoulder as he led Varian into a corridor, one that ran toward the back of the house. They entered a high-ceilinged sitting room with a wall of uncurtained windows; a cushioned seat ran the length of that wall, strewn at intervals with books and pillows. On the floor lay a rug of deep marine blue, and the furniture was upholstered in kilim. In the far corner, in an armchair beside a carved mahogany table, sat a tall, broad-shouldered man with shadowed eyes and a shock of thick black hair. At the sight of Varian he removed his glasses and stood. He didn’t offer his hand; instead he gave a short gentlemanly bow and indicated the coffee service on the low table before him.

  “Won’t you sit, Mr. Fry?” he said, in a German-accented basso. He ran a hand through his unruly hair as if to arrange it. He was younger than Varian had imagined, under fifty, to be sure; his shoulders, beneath the fall of his well-cut white shirt, seemed barely to contain a tense power, as if of folded wings.

  Varian took the companion armchair, and Grant arranged himself in the window seat, kicking off his shoes and exchanging them for a pair of blue Moroccan slippers. At his right hand lay a stack of volumes of nineteenth-century verse, and beside them a leatherbound notebook. Varian understood that this was his pet place in the room, his accustomed seat. And did it bother him, could it really bother him, that Elliott Grant felt so comfortable here in his colleague’s home? Grant had chosen to live the past twelve years of his life in places that bore no reference to Varian. He had had his reasons for it, and those reasons hadn’t changed.

  Professor Katznelson leaned forward to pour the coffee, or whatever it might have been; the liquid in Varian’s cup had an amber tinge and smelled faintly of charcoal. Katznelson apologized for the lack of sugar, saying he’d already spent his ration.

  “I don’t take it anyway,” Varian said.

  Katznelson turned to Grant and said a few rapid words in German; it wasn’t the first time a German speaker assumed he wouldn’t understand. You did say he took it unadorned, was what he’d said. But he’d used the word ungeschmückt, which could also mean naked. Grant nodded and turned his attention to his coffee cup, stirring it with a tiny spoon.

  “Your friend tells me you’re in the business of rescues,” Katznelson said, in English now. “As it happens, I am in need of one.”

  “Why don’t you tell me the whole story,” Varian said. “From the beginning.”

  Katznelson raised his eyes to Varian’s, narrowing them slightly, as if in distrust. “It will not be very interesting to you, I imagine.”

  “You’ve got nothing to fear from me. Mr. Grant has vetted me thoroughly. And he’s known me a long time.”

  “So I understand,” Katznelson said. He curled his fingers around the ends of his armrests and took a breath. “I will tell my story, then. Mr. Grant will interrupt if there is something I’ve forgotten.” He shifted in his seat, crossing his legs at the knee; his cuff retracted to reveal a diamond-patterned sock. “As you know, my field of study is European political history. I’ve been a member of the faculty at Columbia for some six years now, but I returned to Europe this summer on personal business.”

  “After the occupation?” Varian said.

  “Yes, after. The business was urgent.”

  “It would have to be.”

  “I failed to comprehend the danger, I’m afraid. I am not a naturalized American citizen, but I thought my American papers would protect me. I’ve since found out they will not. I am stateless, you see, a former German. I would have done well to take Professor Grant’s advice and remain in the States. He did offer to come in my stead.” He and Grant exchanged a weighted look, as if this were a subject they’d discussed many times; then he drew a long breath. “Even if I were not a Jew, my academic work would displease the Nazis. I knew it when I lived in Berlin, I have known it for years. My specific subject is the rise of socialism in European nations. American scholars are quite interested in this work just now. Nazis, too, but for different reasons. They would like to see me made an example of to German scholars.”

  “I see,” Varian said. “But you must have known that before you came back. Why would you do that, Professor? If you don’t mind the question.”

  Another look passed between Katznelson and Grant. “As I said, I had personal matters to arrange,” Katznelson said.

  “You understand, I’ve got to know if you’ve had your hand in anything illegal. Not to put it too bluntly. And not that I’d fault you for it, under the current political circumstances.”

  “Nothing like that,” Grant said, quickly. Varian tried to meet his eye, to read his tone, but Grant had lowered his gaze to his cup again.

  “I ha
ve not yet concluded my business here,” Katznelson said. “But I’ve come to understand that I must leave the country as soon as I can. Three former colleagues of mine were apprehended in Nîmes last week. I’m sure the authorities know my whereabouts.”

  “Yes, that’s likely,” Varian said.

  “What is your counsel, then, Mr. Fry? Do you think you can help?”

  “This is precisely what we do, Professor. We’ve gotten our clients passports and visas under circumstances more precarious than yours. I’ve got a colleague who’s been conducting my people into Spain, and if he can’t get you through by rail, he knows how to get you over the mountains.”

  “And how many of your clients have been apprehended? How many have been imprisoned for breaking the law?”

  “None so far.”

  “I insist upon having a valid U.S. visa,” Katznelson said. “I’ll not risk being stranded somewhere en route.”

  “With your position at the university, you’ll have a fighting chance. My friend Harry Bingham at the consulate will know more.”

  “Professor Grant has already been to the consulate,” Katznelson said curtly, uncrossing his legs and resting his long arms on his knees. His hands, laced between them, looked like the hands of a man accustomed to hard work, not like those of an academic; Varian had a sudden vision of those sinewed fingers working at Grant’s collar, his cuffs. “He spoke to Fullerton, the consul,” Katznelson went on. “He says it’s out of the question. As a young man, I was editor of the People’s Collective. A communist newspaper in Berlin. How the consulate obtained this information is unknown to me. Nonetheless, it is a barrier. And then there’s the matter of my religion. I’ve spent enough time in America by now to know its prejudices.”

  “There are challenges,” Varian said. “The political climate makes it hard. There’s a lot of mistrust, as you know. But your case is far from hopeless.”

  “You see, Gregor, that’s just what I told you,” Grant said.

  “I’ll need to ask a few more questions,” Varian said. “Tomorrow I’ll pay a visit to the consulate. Our friend Bingham doesn’t care much what Hugh Fullerton thinks. He follows his own agenda, which is, generally speaking, friendly to ours. It may take a while, but I think we can get you your visa.”

  A cloud seemed to have descended over Katznelson; his powerful shoulders curled inward. He spoke again to Grant in German: In the meantime we’ll keep looking for him.

  We’ll talk about it later, Grant said in reply, also in German, and without a glance at Varian; he knew Varian spoke the language as fluently as he did himself.

  “Let’s begin, then,” Varian said, and took a small notebook from his pocket. He licked the tip of his pencil and began to question Katznelson, reminding himself that Katznelson was, in the end, just a client; that his association with Grant, whatever its nature, mattered not at all; that Varian’s only concern was to get his clients off the continent. They talked for half an hour, Varian taking notes, Grant occasionally finishing a sentence when Katznelson hesitated, interposing some elaboration or minor correction, or supplying a place-name or an address, as if every detail of Katznelson’s life was known to him. Once, as Grant leaned forward to ask a question, he touched Katznelson briefly upon the ankle, one slender fingertip on that diamond-patterned sock. Varian forced his attention back to the interview itself; Katznelson was giving a detail about his wife—he had a wife!—who had remained behind in Berlin. Her elderly parents lived with her, he said, and she would not think of abandoning them to join him in New York.

  When he had finished the interview, Varian tucked his notebook away and explained that he had to get back to town for another meeting. Katznelson stood to shake Varian’s hand, casting a long blue shadow over the marine-colored rug. He asked Varian to be in contact as soon as he had any news at all. Then Grant walked Varian back through the dark gaslit corridors of the house, back through that strange echoing entryway with its hexagonal staircase and its high narrow windows, and opened the door onto the dust-hazed afternoon.

  “Thanks for coming all this way,” Grant said. “I could never have persuaded Gregor to come see you in town.”

  Gregor. In the soft roll of those consonants, a history, a present.

  “Of course,” Varian said.

  “Oh, Tom, I nearly forgot,” Grant said, and disappeared into the house. A moment later he reemerged with two orange persimmons. “These are for you,” he said, and slipped their cool smooth weight into Varian’s hands, a gesture so intimate it was a long moment before Varian could speak.

  “I never thanked you,” Varian said. “For the figs, I mean. Yesterday.”

  “Yes,” Grant said, his dark eyebrows drawn together. “I saw them in the marketplace in town, and…” He shrugged.

  “Well, thank you,” Varian said. “They were—still warm when I got them. I ate them all in one sitting. I exercised no restraint.” He smiled, but found it impossible to raise his eyes to Grant’s.

  Grant shook his head. “Same old Varian. Go on, now. You’d better catch your train.”

  “Right,” Varian said, but he made no move to leave. Grant gave him the swiftest smile, and in an instant they were back at school, in the doorway of Grant’s room late at night, and he was doing just this—what Grant had pointed out, affectionately, that he did. Lingering. Now here again, on the threshold of this villa, twelve years later in the South of France. For God’s sake. Had he lost his mind? Without another word, he turned on his heel and marched down the drive, toward the station, knowing Grant was watching him walk away.

  5

  Rue Grignan

  From the Canebière it took him not five minutes to reach the address on the matchbook. 60 rue Grignan: a biscuit-colored nineteenth-century building with a men’s clothier on the street level, three floors of offices above, white shutters splayed in the southern light. Above the main doorway was an iron railing worked into the shape of two ancient oil lamps, between them an oval encircling an intertwined R and J. Marseille was full of these little architectural mysteries, coded keys to the city’s secret life.

  On the doorstep stood Miriam Davenport, having come to give her professional opinion. And she was not alone. Another woman stood beside her, athletic-looking, smoking a slender cigarette, her hair a blond halo, her skin burnished bronze. She worked the edge of the curb with the toe of her high green snakeskin sandal; she seemed almost to be cultivating a grudge against it. In a close-fitting afternoon dress of viridescent silk, the sun illuminating her corona of chaff-colored curls, she looked like nothing so much as a young Apollo in drag. And where had he seen her before, in what movie or magazine?

  Miriam introduced her friend as Mary Jayne, and Varian shook her hand, still wondering. Mary Jayne had a fierce handshake, an adventurer’s, not at all what he would have expected from someone in those shoes, smoking that kind of cigarette. And then he knew where he’d last seen her: in the society pages, thanks to the Times’s foreign social correspondent, cavorting on a beach in Monaco at a season when everyone back home was muffled up in furs and woolens. Mary Jayne Gold: a mildly famous Chicago socialite who had spent much of the past three years flying her Percival Vega Gull from one spangled playground to another. At the start of the war, the rumor went, she’d donated the plane to the French air force, and no one knew whether the Axis or the Allies had it now.

  “Mary Jayne’s here to help us inspect the office,” Miriam said, linking her arm with her friend’s.

  “What can have induced you?” Varian asked Mary Jayne. “It’s not much of a way to spend an afternoon.” In fact, he found her presence a mild annoyance; he and Miriam had business to conduct, and they didn’t need an accessory debutante, not even one with a handshake like that.

  “Miss Davenport induced me,” said Mary Jayne. “You’d be surprised what she can get me to do.”

  Miriam replied with her trumpetlik
e laugh. “Actually, Varian, I wanted you to meet Mary Jayne. She’s a bit of a legend. And I thought she might help us.”

  “I am a legend. Don’t say that lightly.”

  “I never would, Emjay.”

  “And maybe I can be of help, Mr. Fry.” She pushed an Apollonian curl behind her ear and tapped her ash onto the pavement.

  “How, exactly?”

  “I’m good at convincing people, if they need convincing. And I can pay them, too, if there’s paying to be done.”

  “There may be that,” Varian conceded.

  “Anyway, I’m here, so you’d better have me,” she said, and Varian found it impossible to argue. They rang the bell and waited. A moment later the door opened to reveal a blond gamine in a pink-stained pinafore, the heiress (apparent) of the concierge, one guilty raspberry still held between her fingers. She stared openly at Mary Jayne and Miriam, then pointed them all across the terra-cotta-tiled entryway to a winding stair.

  On the second floor stood their host, Monsieur Moreau—mustachioed, compact, a pair of dark-rimmed specs winging the apex of his nose. He ushered them up the stairs and through a pair of tall red doors, into a high-ceilinged room cluttered with wooden packing crates of pocketbooks and belts, briefcases and valises. Beneath the dusky scent of leather was the smell of black-market coffee trafficked from Cameroon. They sat down in a corner near a tidy desk, where logbooks were spread on a leather blotter and the coffee service sat nearby on a trim blue table. Moreau was clearly proud of his coffee service and the contents of the pot; he poured off three tiny cups and handed them around.

  “I trust Monsieur Hirschman has explained to you my situation,” he began in hesitant English. “I prepare to emigrate to South America, near my trade partners. My papers have arrived”—and he gave Varian a wink—“both vrai and faux. A friend will sell my goods and wire the money to Lisbon. From there I go to Argentina—or at least, this is how I plan. I depart next Tuesday. But we have still four months’ lease. And Monsieur Hirschman tells me you seek an office.”