And she suddenly knew, the same way she could sense when Yolande was sick—waking in the middle of the night to feel her little sister’s forehead—that the promise she wished for would be broken. War was coming. It was only a question of when. And whether any of them would, afterward, be able to watch Victory re-ascend the staircase intact and alive and victorious.
Monsieur Jaujard told those who had been there all night to take a break. Luc vanished to visit his latest amour and Xavier and Éliane left the museum together, hands still joined.
They walked through the Jardins des Tuileries, across the Place de la Concorde and then into the Jardins des Champs-Élysées. To their left, the Seine threaded between buildings and somewhere a broom scratched against cobblestones. Sun poured down like a blessing, the chestnut trees lifted their arms exultantly to the sky and birds serenaded, accompanied by the gentle percussion of the fountains. Even the flowers danced in time. It was the kind of autumn day that was almost too beautiful—nature showing that she could make the grandest artwork of all—and it emboldened Éliane to ask something she’d wanted to but had worried would be too intimate. But her skin touching Xavier’s, his body beside hers rather than across a table, and his eyes resting always on her face told her so much that was private and personal—and made her feel there were perhaps some pieces of Xavier that were meant only for her.
“Will you show me your paintings?” she asked. “That’s if you’re not tired of art after last night.”
“I’ll never be tired of art.” His grip on her hand tightened.
Soon they reached the Rue La Boétie and Xavier pushed open the door of a gallery named Laurent’s.
“There you are,” cried a man who looked like an older version of Xavier: tall, dark hair threaded with gray, distinguished.
“This is Éliane Dufort,” Xavier said, introducing her. “And my father, Pierre Laurent.”
“At last,” the man said, shaking her hand warmly. “I understand you appreciate art. Would you like to take a look?”
He gestured to the walls on which were hung a vivid and sensual display of semi-naked women reclining on sofas or in chairs, surrounded by vibrant wallpaper, vases blooming with flowers, rainbow patterned fabric. After the strange night of emptying a museum, seeing so much color and light was like ingesting life.
“Matisse’s Odalisques,” she said, walking toward them.
“A woman who knows her artists,” Pierre said approvingly.
And then he melted away, like turpentine into paint, allowing Xavier and Éliane to wind their way through reds and blues and vivid emerald greens.
“It’s the color of your eyes,” Xavier said to her of that last hue, glistening silkily in a pair of painted trousers. “Not always,” he amended. “Not when you’re working at the restaurant. But, right now, they are.”
“Because I’m with you.” The truth was too hard to contain.
Xavier’s own eyes shone now, gold leaf on black. The colors of the paintings seemed to leap out of the frames and sparkle in the air between them, the reds glowing in her cheeks, flushing her neck.
Xavier’s hand found hers again. “My paintings are upstairs. If you still want to see them.”
She nodded, her eyes tracing the movement of his lips as he spoke, his eyes traveling over her cheekbones and down to her mouth too.
He led her upstairs where, amongst the artworks, she saw a light-filled corner by the windows set up with paint tubes, an easel, rags streaked with pigment, a palette alive with ideas. Xavier pointed to the canvases stacked against the wall and she flipped through them, startled: Luc had said Xavier was good, but that was an understatement. And knowing how much she yearned for the joy of painting, Xavier hadn’t once boasted of his skills, had hardly mentioned his own work. Standing there, with Xavier’s art beneath her hand, she felt her heart ache over the depth of understanding his reticence implied and then blossom because of the same thing. He knew her. And he cared.
She realized she’d said not a word about his paintings and that her own reticence right now might not be so easy to read. “I especially love this one,” she said, stopping at a canvas that was even more powerful than the rest.
“Édouard de Rothschild bought that one. I’m delivering it to him tomorrow.”
“Rothschild,” Éliane repeated, awestruck. The various Rothschilds, including Édouard, owned some of the most important private art collections in the country.
“Sometimes…” Xavier hesitated and she lifted her eyes to his, letting him know that she wanted to hear whatever he had to say. “Sometimes,” he continued, “surrounded by the scale of talent on the walls downstairs it seems painfully obvious that I’m merely gifted rather than a virtuoso. That I should concentrate on the buying and selling of virtuosity instead of reaching for the impossible. But then I sell a piece to someone like Rothschild and I wonder if…
If maybe I shouldn’t be practical. If I can somehow make a life as a painter. It’s hard to stop.”
“It is,” Éliane said. “But I think it’s even harder to regret something…” You’ve given up in order to feed your family. The words sounded too much like self-pity, so she didn’t say them. “Don’t stop,” she said instead, reaching out her hand to touch the palette, to run her finger over the shiny pools of dried color.
Another hand joined hers, not touching the paint but her skin, the back of her hand, her wrist. Xavier stepped in very close to her, so close she could hear that his breath was faster than it should be.
“Éliane.” He said her name as if it were precious—as if she were precious.
He lifted his hand from hers and rested it on her face, his thumb running over her cheekbone so softly: a sable brush painting warmth onto her skin. Each movement forward seemed to take an eternity; every next moment was further away than she wanted it to be.
And then it happened. A kiss she felt in her fingertips, her toes, the ends of her hair. A kiss so beautiful that a tear fell from her eye.
Xavier swept away the tear, moving his lips to kiss the place where it had lain. She turned her head, wanting his mouth back on hers and their bodies stepped into the embrace too, her hands on his back, his cupping her face, joined like the golden, shimmering couple who knew of nothing beyond the other in Klimt’s extraordinary Kiss.
Then, from down the stairs came Xavier’s father’s voice, calling, “Hitler invaded Poland.”
Éliane burst through the door of the apartment to find her mother sitting at the table, face covered with her hands, weeping. She stared. Her mother never wept, not even when she burnt the skin off her forearm on the ovens at the brasserie.
Luc was there too. And their father. Luc picked up the letter from the middle of the table and passed it to Éliane. Her brother and her father had been called for military service.
Angélique spoke in a shaking voice. “On the radio, they said if Germany doesn’t withdraw from Poland by five o’clock tomorrow, France will declare war. And Britain too.”
“You’ll need to use your money to buy everything now,” their father said, glaring at Éliane. “And nor will our maestro be able to finally earn anything from his artistic talent.” The sarcasm in the last word had Luc glowering at his father, arm raised.