Éliane propelled her brother out of the apartment and down the stairs. They sat at the bottom beneath the mahogany portal, which bore the words 33 Escalier. Broken glass from the paneled mirrors on either side reflected a shattered world and a cherub leaned drunkenly above them as if it might fall from its perch at any moment. Éliane passed her brother a cigarette and lit one for herself.
“Military service,” Luc said bitterly. “So much for my dream of being a painter to rival Picasso.”
Why then, Éliane didn’t say, over this last year, didn’t you paint more, work harder? Why were the cafés of Montparnasse more appealing than your art?
He gave her a rueful grin. “If I’d known…”
Éliane stared at the empty shops, at the fine threads of smoke writhing into the morning, at the decaying brasserie two doors down. “I’ll have to give up art school, won’t I? I’ll work at the Louvre and the brasserie and do nothing else.”
Luc nodded. “Mother won’t be able to run the brasserie by herself.”
That night in bed, Yolande clung to Éliane. Ginette, Jacqueline, and Angélique did too. Their father and their brother were going tomorrow to fight a war and Éliane would be the one left behind to keep her family safe. She sang a lullaby to her sisters, “Au Clair de la Lune,” Yolande’s favorite. When Angélique turned dark eyes toward her, Éliane smiled as if to say, Everything will be all right.
Soon, they all slept. Except Éliane.
Luc disappeared early the next morning and returned just before it was time to report for duty. He pulled an envelope out of his pocket. “Xavier introduced me to Rothschild. I sold him a painting.”
Out of the envelope spilled more francs than Éliane had ever seen. Her father was the first to seize the money. He kissed it, then kissed his son on the forehead, wrapping an arm around his shoulder. Angélique whooped, the younger girls crowded around, looking up at Luc as if he were a king, and their mother sank into a chair and stared at both the money and her son in utter disbelief.
“You sold a painting to Rothschild?” Éliane said, then laughed. They had money. And Luc had a wealthy patron. A dream had risen out of the ashes of yesterday.
“I said you were a maestro.” Their father ruffled Luc’s hair, none of yesterday’s sarcasm apparent now.
“I bought you all something,” Luc said, presenting his sisters with wrapped packages, which they squealed over, and out of which tumbled gifts more appropriate for his artists’ models: jewelry, silk stockings, copies of Paris Vogue.
“You can look after the money,” Luc said to Éliane. “That’s your present.” He grinned and Éliane felt a twinge that he hadn’t bought her something too. But the twinge was gone almost immediately—having custody of the money was the most practical gift of all.
“Which painting was it, maestro?” she asked teasingly.
“It’s of me, with one of my artists’ models. I called it The Lovers,” he said wryly. “I suppose it’s a painting of love.”
A painting of love. The words made her remember the feel of Xavier’s lips on hers just yesterday. So much had happened since then. What would happen to her and Xavier now that France was at war? They had hardly begun, and now…
Éliane tried to recall the painting her brother had described, wanting to keep thinking of love, not war. There were many pictures of models at his studio in Montparnasse but they were usually reclined on sofas and wearing very little, which she didn’t think was to Rothschild’s taste. “I can’t remember it,” she said. “I wish I could see it.”
“The only way to do that is to find a way in to the Rothschild mansion.”
“I’m proud of you,” she told him. “I always knew you’d be famous.”
“You’ll have to bow and scrape before me when I return victorious, having routed the Germans and made my name as a painter,” Luc said, laughing.
She laughed too. “Look after yourself. And…” She hesitated, wondering for a fraction of a second if she meant it. “Look after father.”
“He can look after himself,” Luc said. And then he was gone.
That night, as Éliane’s mother took over her husband’s duties at the brasserie, Éliane’s mind was not on waitressing. Her eyes darted to the door at every tinkle of the bell.
Finally, earlier than usual, Xavier arrived. War had doused the appetites of Parisians and the restaurant was empty. Éliane felt her whole face smile as she took in the dark hair, dark eyes, late-evening stubble; the divineness that was Xavier. Before she even spoke to him, she was kissing him, for a long, long time.
Eventually, she rested her forehead against his. “I forgot to say hello,” she said, abashed at her eagerness.
He smiled. “We should always say hello like this. In fact,” he murmured against her lips, “I didn’t say hello either. So now I should.” And he kissed her again, searchingly, fiercely.
“Thank you for taking Luc to see Rothschild,” she said to him once she’d drawn back a little, only enough to be able to speak, her body still held tight against his. “He would never have bought one of Luc’s paintings without your recommendation.”
“Without Luc, I would never have met you,” Xavier said. “So I owed him something.” One of his hands moved to stroke a curl that had escaped its pins. “Did you know that I love your hair?”
They made themselves sit at a table, on opposite sides, the distance between their bodies a gap that required constant breaching: her foot touching his leg, him lighting a Gauloise for her, their fingers grazing as softly as a fine-tipped brush tracing a line on canvas and Éliane wondered how it was that a canvas did not shiver the way she did.
For many months thereafter, it was a strangely beautiful time. There wasn’t really a war. The Nazis stayed away. The French called it the drôle de guerre, mocking Hitler. Nothing changed except for the nightly blackout, the absence of Luc, and of their father, and the tumult of feelings Éliane had for Xavier.
She continued to work, even though the Louvre was now a museum with little in the way of art—just some sculptures too big to move and only about ten percent of the paintings remaining. Monsieur Jaujard kept Éliane on as he knew she needed the money. She helped him with the job of liaising with the various châteaux—the depots across France that now held the Louvre artworks.
One evening in winter, after leaving the Louvre, she approached the apartment with trepidation, knowing she needed to check on her sisters before she started at the brasserie. Their father was home on a fortnight’s furlough and it had ignited all tempers. But she could hear nothing as she climbed the staircase. Even without their father’s presence, on a normal evening at six o’clock, Angélique would be shouting at Yolande or Yolande would be cackling over some mischief she’d wreaked on Angélique. There was only blissful silence.
Éliane couldn’t believe what she saw when she opened the door. Angélique composedly stirring something in a pot, Ginette working on mathematics at the table, Jacqueline gathering up plates and cutlery for dinner—and Xavier sitting on the floor with Yolande in his lap, reading a book to her.