Mistral's Daughter (81 page)

As
the first manikin came out in an evening dress she simply had to have, Nadine
ran out of paper on which to write its number.
 
She had completely filled her tiny pad, jotting down all the wonderful
clothes she was itching to order.
 
She
raised her head to signal Madame Violette for another pad and caught her,
whispering behind her hand to two other
vendeuses.
 
All three of them were staring straight at
Nadine.
 
They averted their eyes the
instant she spied them, but, on each of their faces she caught the same look of
amusement that she had glimpsed on Jean François's face, on Peggy's face, on
Hélène's face.
 
They were laughing at
her.
 
Sneering?
 
No, laughing.

Nadine
got up, walking down the row without regard for the legs of the women she
passed. She walked faster and yet faster as she approached the exit to the
showroom.

"Madame
Dalmas?
 
Is there something wrong?
 
May I assist you?" whispered Madame
Violette, catching up with her just as she reached the door.

"It's
stifling here.
 
You can't expect anyone
to sit for hours without air conditioning on such a day."

"Ah,
Madame Dalmas, you are absolutely right.
 
I am desolate.
 
Monsieur Saint
Laurent will be desolate.
 
If you will
permit me, Madame, let me take your pad.
 
When you return I promise you the air conditioning will be on and all
the numbers you've picked out will be assembled in our largest fitting
room."

"I
saw nothing I wanted."

"Nothing?"
 
Madame Violette echoed, disbelieving.

"Not
even a blouse.
 
A disappointing
collection.
 
Albin has spoiled me for
anyone else."

Fauve
Lunel could be, if such a thing were possible, almost as stubborn as her father
had been, Adrien Avigdor told himself, as he sat in discussion with her in the
library of his house.

"I
still intend to go straight back to New York," Fauve repeated, gently
because she had deep fondness for Adrien Avigdor, but with a resolution whose
wisdom she refused to question.

"Of
course you do, but not now, not until the studio has been opened, not until you
have seen the pictures that your father left you."

"Can't
you just accept the fact that I don't want to have anything to do with
them?" she pleaded again.
 
"That I refuse?
 
I've asked
Maître
Perrin to handle everything for me and he accepted."

"I
have complete faith in Jean but there are some things you can't ask
—
can't expect
—
somebody else to do for you."

"I'm
needed back in New York," Fauve said, trying another argument.
 
"You don't fully understand, dearest
Monsieur Avigdor.
 
Imagine hundreds of
beautiful girls and three thousand prospective clients, all craving their
services.
 
How can I abandon them?"

"These
beautiful girls, you're selling them?"

"I
think you know what I do."
 
She
laughed at his grave attempt to tease.

"I
also know that there are people who can manage the agency while you're
here.
 
My old friend Maggy, I presume,
has not grown idle with the passage of time?
 
I have every faith that she will not let even one of those girls wither
on the vine."

Fauve
hesitated while she studied his face.
 
He
certainly didn't look immovable, impossible and intractable.
 
He looked as placid and relaxed as a man
milking a cow, almost asleep in the sun, but she still hadn't been able to
convince him that she was right.
 
Now
that the question of Nadine's suit had been settled, now that her mother's memory
was safe, why was Adrien Avigdor so intent on using the full force of his
authority to make her stay longer?
 
She
felt too much gratitude for his help to simply ignore his determination, but on
the other hand he had not been swayed by anything she said.

"There's
nothing left to decide," Fauve replied, summoning her, resolve.
 
"What would I want with
La
Tourrello?
 
I
only have a few
weeks' vacation every year and I wouldn't always want to spend them there,
would I?
 
Well, what happens when a house
is left unoccupied?
 
What about fire,
what about pipes that burst, what about the mistral that blows a hole in the
tiles and lets in the rain?
 
I'd have to
rent it or hire a caretaker who'd live there full-time.
 
It's just too complicated.
 
I'm going to sell it, of course."

"Your
father's will said clearly that you should do as you wished."

"Well
then?" Fauve asked.

"Nevertheless,
I believe that you must, at least, see your legacy, the
Cavaillon
series.
 
It's your duty."

"Monsieur
Avigdor," Fauve said with finality, "we could go on like this for
days.
 
But that's not the point.
 
I know...
 
I know how my father behaved during the war."

"Ah."
He managed not to show the alarming leap of surprise and shock that he felt.

"I
also know that you know, that you are aware of what he did, not just to you,
but to many others
—
no, don't say anything!
 
Now, just tell me if you still think I have a
'duty,' as you put it, to see my legacy."

"I
do," he answered firmly.

"But
why
—
how can you?"

"Because
whatever else he was or did, you cannot deny that Julien Mistral loved your
mother and that she loved him.
 
And he
loved you most dearly.
 
That was made
very plain in his will.
 
The
Cavaillon
series, whatever it may be, was painted for you, Fauve, painted because of
you.
 
You cannot turn your back on
it."

"Have
you forgiven him then?"

"Yes,
I hope I have."

"Why?"
she asked again, leaning forward to try to understand.

"Why?
 
In part, of course, because he was a
genius.
 
I know, genius is no excuse, but
surely it is an explanation, a partial explanation.
 
In the Book of Job, if I remember correctly,
my father used to tell me that somewhere it says that 'Great men are not always
wise.'
 
Nor are they always kind or
always brave, Fauve.
 
But there is
something more than that.
 
I forgave him
because he was a man and I too am a man
—
merely a man
—
not his
judge."
 
As he spoke this last word,
Eric walked into the library and stood, listening to them.
 
Fauve looked at Eric as she answered his
father.

"Perhaps
you are right, but still I want no part of the past."

"One
visit, Fauve, that's all I ask," Avigdor insisted.
 
"After that, do whatever you wish."

"I
think," Eric said, "that the two of you could be said to have reached
a Mexican standoff."

Adrien
Avigdor looked with interest at the dark blush that mounted from Fauve's
shoulders to her hairline as she nodded her reluctant assent.
 
What made that rascal of a son of his think
that he, Adrien Avigdor, needed to be told that he had reached a Mexican
standoff, whatever bizarre thing that might be?
 
He had merely won the negotiation, as he had always fully intended to,
as he had always been certain he would.
 
He was not in the habit of losing such matters.

Several
days later, in the second week of October, the three appraisers who had been
appointed by the Bureau of Estate Taxes were finally able to gather at
La
Tourrello.
 
The government had waited
until the top art experts in France were all available since the contents of
Mistral's studio were too important a source of revenue to be evaluated by any
but the most knowledgeable.

Fauve's
anxiety mounted steadily as she drove toward Félice with Eric and his
parents.
 
She found it difficult to
accept the fact that she had let herself be persuaded to come back even one
last time to the house that contained the two rooms she had once loved most in
the world:
 
her father's studio and her
pigionnier
bedroom, the house she had been trying to forget since she was sixteen.

The
horror she had felt, the scalding bitterness, the hopeless pity for those unknowns
who had been denied shelter, the abiding shame, all the emotions she had been
battered by as she left
La Tourrello
so many years ago came flooding
back as the car continued past Menèrbes and drew closer to Félice.
 
She felt chilled to the bone, apprehension
and tension made her conscious of her spine as if each individual vertebra were
a tooth that had been attacked by a sense of intense discomfort.
 
Not pain but an almost unbearable uneasiness.

Fauve's
senses were too vivid.
 
The colors of the
countryside seemed so bright that even her sunglasses gave her little relief,
she was aware of the voices of Eric and his parents as if they had been
exaggerated, distorted slightly, tuned up to a higher pitch than normal.
 
And their gestures seemed to be fragmented,
jerky, flickering.
 
She struggled to
touch reality but everything had the quality of a hallucination that grew
steadily more unendurable as they mounted the narrow road through the forest of
live oaks and she saw the ancient walls of
La Tourrello
rise beyond the
avenue of whirling cypresses.

They
parked outside on the meadow, covered with tangles of thistles and spiky
grasses, that had been drying all summer long.
 
Fauve slid reluctantly, slowly, out of the car.
 
The odor of honeysuckle hit her like a
blow.
 
She had managed to forget so many
details.
 
She had managed to forget that
the
mas
was covered in honeysuckle.
 
She had managed to forget how she could never breathe in its sweetness
deeply enough, how it never cloyed, never grew less tantalizingly fragrant,
with a scent that contained a mystery she had never captured, a scent that was
the very memory of happiness distilled.

"Look,
cars are here already.
 
The appraisers
must be inside waiting," said Adrien Avigdor, to try to get Fauve to move
forward.
 
She stood rigidly,
unwillingness plain in every tense line of her body, and something more.
 
Something that he could only call fear.
 
He felt deep and painful emotion
himself.
 
He had not stood on this spot
since the summer of 1942 when he had been refused entrance by Marte Pollison
and had looked back to see Julien Mistral letting him leave.

"Let's
go," said Eric, taking Fauve's hand unceremoniously.
 
He pulled her along, through the open doors,
into the courtyard.

A
group of five men stood smoking and chatting in the courtyard.
 
One of them was Étienne Delage, Mistral's
dealer who now represented Nadine Dalmas, three of them were the appraisers and
one a supervisor from the Department of Taxes in Avignon.
 
They all introduced themselves solemnly
shaking hands with Fauve, Eric and his parents.

"There
doesn't seem to be anyone to open the door," said one of the experts, a
bearded Parisian, tall and elegant.

"I
have the key," said the dealer.
 
"I've been informed that the old servant has retired.
 
The house is empty.
 
All the keys were left with the notary of
Apt,
Maître
Banette.
 
He asked me
to give them to Mademoiselle Lunel since he was unable to be here today.
 
He also asked me to say that he is at her
service should she need him on estate matters."
 
He took a ring of keys and handed them to
Fauve.

"If
you please, Monsieur," she said, drawing back abruptly, "would you
unlock the door?"

Étienne
Delage nodded and led the way.
 
Although
he was less familiar with the house than Fauve, she hung behind the others,
every step she took an unwilling one, as he directed the group through the
dimly lit
mas
, across rooms where an occasional shutter still stood open
and finally out the back toward the studio wing.
 
Finally they all stood in front of the doors
to the studio of Julien Mistral.