An Infinity of Mirrors by Richard Condon
Two
José Zorra, Duke of Miral, had great length, elbows like puyas, stylish thinness, and a close-cropped gray moustache. At fifty-one, his voice contained the quality of intent consideration, that element of self-sacrifice which is the essence of good manners. Gentleness came naturally to him. He smelled of lemons because of Hanford’s Vitalizing Lotion which was shipped to him from a gentlemen’s hairdresser in Jermyn Street, London; this was one result of a British education. He spoke German with a true Hanoverian accent—the result of still more education, in Germany. He preferred France to both countries, the English to the people of the three countries, and German music, German tenacity, and Trockenbeeren Auslese to anything similar in England or France. He pitied all countries because they could not be Spain, but he concealed this deepest love of his beneath a patient deference and consideration for others. He had studied women and art until, as the years had moved imperceptibly and now seemed as thin as shadows, he had become an addict of grace and a world authority on painting in general and on Spanish and Flemish masters in particular.
The Duke of Miral found himself once again in Paris in the winter of 1941 as the single member of an extraordinary delegation from the Spanish government, after he had completed successful, if delayed, exchanges of art between France and Spain. The Spanish had taken the initiative in arranging for the first exchange. The talks had started, most informally, when Murillo’s Immaculate Conception was exhibited in the Louvre at the end of 1940. It was tentatively suggested that perhaps this was the most famous painting to cross the Pyrenees following the looting of Spanish art treasures by the French forces in 1808—it had been liberated by Maréchal Soult in Seville—and that its return could effect the greatest good will between the two countries. Unofficially, and because the French evidently had listened attentively to the first suggestion, the Spaniards next suggested that the pre-Iberic bust called Woman of Eliche might also be included, and that it certainly would be worthwhile to think about returning the crowns of the Visigoth kings which were then on exhibition at the Musée de Cluny.
The discussions rose to higher levels. The French cabinet at Vichy agreed to these proposals—providing there was an exchange. The Department of Ancient Oriental Art at the Louvre began to collect the art claimed by Spain. A plenipotentiary was named and an agreement was reached: France would return the Murillo, the bust, and the six gold crowns from the Quarrazar treasure; Spain would give to France the Velázquez portrait of Marie Anne of Austria, El Greco’s Adoration of the Shepherds and his St. Benoist (or two other Grecos of equal importance and quality), and a lengthwise section of the actual tent of François I, used at Camp du drap d’or, which was in the Royal Armory of the Royal Palace of Madrid. This tent, a gift of the Sultan Suleiman to François I, had been taken from him by the Spanish on the battlefield at Pavia, in 1525, and had followed François into captivity.
The agreement was signed on December 27, 1940 and the French were so pleased with the bargain that they acted somewhat incautiously. Two weeks before the signing, the Murillo was sent to Madrid, and the other objects arrived in Spain only six weeks after the signing. The fact was that the French wanted Generalissimo Franco to visit Marshal Pétain as he crossed France on his way to meet Mussolini. Marshal Pétain had not made a really strong impression upon the Generalissimo when he had been the French Ambassador to Spain, so it was especially important that there be no outstanding sources of friction—such as slowness in returning the art objects—between the two governments.
Unfortunately, the agreement on the exchange had never been ratified by the respective governments of the two men who had signed it, and with the desired art now in hand, the Spanish government took the position that the signing of the agreement had only expressed the most unofficial wishes of two individuals. This created a crisis in the French government at Vichy which caused the resignation of the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Clearly it was necessary that negotiations begin all over again lest honor be smirched or even lost. New representatives from France and Spain renewed the talks, the Duke of Miral leading the Spanish delegation, and by April, 1941, it seemed that a solution was in sight. France needed only to agree to a compromise over two points on which the Spaniards would not yield. Before Miral would recommend ratification he insisted that Spain must have the forty missing documents of the Siramancas Archives which had been stolen by Napoleon’s generals in 1809; further, he flatly refused to surrender the piece of tent of François I, even though it had been part of the original agreement which those “two individuals” had seen fit to reach.
The French agreed to give up their claim to the entrance section of the lengthwise piece of tent of François I, and some other areas of it near the entrance, for the excellent reason that this tent was the last trace of one of France’s worst military defeats and, all things considered, it would be illogical to display it in a gallery of a French museum.
The bargaining continued until the middle of June. Instead of the piece of tent, the Duke of Miral proposed to give a tapes-try called The Brawl at the Inn, whose cartoon had been drawn by Goya, but France could not accept this because it simply was not comparable, either in age or in historical importance. Countering, the French raised the question that if by any chance they were to waive their rights and interest in the piece of tent, would the Spanish give them one Greco of major importance—such as the portrait of the humanist Covarrubias, for example? At last, the Spanish team accepted the French proposals and counterproposals; when they received the forty missing documents from the Siramancas Archives, they even gave France nineteen sketches from the story of Artenice, for good measure. The signing of the agreement took place in Madrid, on June 27, 1941, and was immediately ratified by both countries.
Miral’s government was pleased once more with his accomplishments. In November, 1941, because in the past Miral had enjoyed a close association with the Reichsmarschall in the First World War, when Miral had covered the conflict for his family’s newspapers and the Reichsmarschall had been thinner and a hero, and because the Spanish Ambassador to Berlin had confirmed the Reichsmarschall’s fond recollection of Miral as a willing sharer of women and wine, and because the Reichsmarschall had a connoisseur’s regard for Miral’s authority on painting, the Spanish government dispatched Miral on an extraordinary mission-of-one. He was to return to his sometime residence in Paris to open delicate discussions which might lead to the return of two exemplar paintings by Velázquez and Goya which had been hanging in the Louvre since they had been taken from Spain by the French in 1810. These items were of far too much value to be discussed successfully with the French government directly, but they might possibly be regained from the French by the Germans, who in turn would hand them over to the Spanish.
This was possible because Rosenberg’s unit, whose objective was nothing more or less than to loot France of as much of its fine art as it could lay its hands on, was engaged day and night in filling and refilling the Musée de Jeu de Paume with great, privately owned art collections which were the property of French Jews and which had been seized by special arrangement with the Vichy authorities. All of these acquisitions were entirely legal, because the Fuehrer was a stickler for legality; payments for all works of art were deposited with the Vichy Commission for Jewish Affairs—though it is true that the payments were at grievously lowered evaluations. Art is beauty and beauty is truth; by the war’s end twenty-six thousand railroad cars, according to efficient German statistics, had left France, Italy, Belgium, and Holland for Germany, all filled with truth and beauty.
Miral’s house stood on the steeply raked bluff over the Quai de Passy, just above the soft river. Talking into a telephone, Miral sat in a dazzlingly baroque room of eight-legged tabourets, gilt table harps, brightly colored chandeliers, fluted pedestals, and painted ceilings—the whole a gay hiccup by d’Orbais. He had arrived twenty minutes before from Le Bourget and Madrid, and had been met at the airport by a Luftwaffe escort comma
As soon as the German departed, the Duke tested the telephone by calling the working telephone which had been installed sometime before in the apartment of Madame von Rhode.
“Paule? Pepe.”
“No!”
“I am here.”
“Oh, Pepe. How wonderful.”
“Am I to see you tonight?” They spoke in German to make things simpler for the censors.
“Of course. Oh, yes.”
“Ah.”
“Where are you calling from?”
He raised his voice slightly so that the censor might register it clearly. “The Reichsmarschall has been kind enough to install a telephone in my house.”
“They gave you a telephone? My God, what are you going to be doing in Paris?”
“That will be all we will say at the moment. I called because I had to be sure about tonight. To be so near you and not see you immediately would be like dying of a bleeding wound.”
“You are so dear, Pepe.”
“And tomorrow?”
“I cannot. Tomorrow is Paul-Alain’s seventh birthday, and much celebrating is called for.”
“I have a little surprise for him. And the night after that?”
“I have been invited to the Grimaux’. Would that amuse you?”
“Grimaux?”
“The new kind of Frenchman. Very close to the SS and suddenly very rich.”
“Ah, that Grimaux. Yes, that would amuse me very much. I am told that Dr. Martin Kroner Schute is in Paris for just a few days, and it would be interesting if I just happened to run into him at the Grimaux’. How is it that you are going to such a place?”
“Curiosity. Boredom. They have succeeded in luring Europe’s greatest astrologer and they seem to be using that to invite just about everyone they don’t know. Who is Dr. Schute?”
“The art adviser to the Reichsmarschall. It’s a splendid arrangement all around. Shall I come for you at eight this evening?”
“Sooner if you can. I have missed you.”
“How I long to see you, Paule.” The Duke hung up the telephone and stared across the room assembling all of her beauty within his mind. He thought of how Euclid had cheated posterity by making the concept of space everything and the concept of time nothing. Newton had “proved” that time flowed uniformly—as though there could be anything uniform between the measurement of the centuries during which he had loved this woman and the light years of speed by which his life was carrying him away from her. He would be an old man while she was still young and beautiful. St. Augustine had said: “Before the sound begins we cannot measure the time it is going to take, nor after it has sounded can we measure the time it has taken, for it is then no more. Can we measure it then in the present, while it is being sounded? This will not be possible as the present is without duration.” How could there be time for him to find the truth she represented, or her magic, which glimmered and then concealed itself? How could she find him; how could he show himself? How could he know what his life meant until he had lived it and then could say, “I am a particle of the love that is felt for you”? He felt that he and Paule were like figures facing and reflecting each other endlessly in an infinity of mirrors, which were the past and the future.
Three
From childhood Paule had been frightened that she might be left alone. Now she discovered that the fright was over and that she might have ended it at any time by walking away from dread and leaving it behind her. On the 11th of November, 1938, twenty hours after leaving Berlin forever, she held Paul-Alain in her arms, and stared out of the train window at the outskirts of Paris. She was marveling at the death of her fear. She was free; she would never set foot in Germany again. That exalted her, but she would never see Veelee again and she could not think about that. As the train rolled into the Gare Austerlitz she felt transmigrated to another life. She was free of the helplessness and the speechlessness which her marriage had become but most of all she was free of the lifelong fear of being left behind, alone.
She and Paul-Alain raced through the halls and galleries and terraces at Cours Albert I with Clotilde and Mme. Citron running along behind them weeping. Each time they came to another side of the house they would troop out to overlook the beautiful city and Paule would point out the landmarks to her son. Over and over again Mme. Citron said that he certainly was a big boy. Paul-Alain had never seen such a big apartment. He said that he never wanted to leave it and that they could play all kinds of games with closets and fireplaces and long, open windows like these. When one of the maids rushed in with two cablegrams, one stamped from Burgos and the other from Berlin, Paule tore them in half, said there would be no reply, thank you, and threw the pieces into the fire.
While her son napped Paule called three old friends and was invited out for three nights running. She called Maître Gitlin and asked him to take her out to dinner. She called Rufin Portu and made arrangements to begin the sittings for her portrait, five years late, because her father had wanted it. She called a coiffeuse, two couturiers, an interior decorator, a toy store, and an employment agency. That afternoon she had her lustrous, long black hair cut short and dyed blond. She ordered eleven new dresses and suits; flowers for six rooms of the flat; a toy boat and a bicycle; and hired a chef de cuisine to begin work the following Monday. The next day she started to redecorate the apartment, and she installed Paul-Alain in her old room and moved herself into her father’s enormous, mirrored plantation of a bedroom.
While she was dining with Maître Gitlin, a young stage director who had been an apprentice under her father stopped at their table, and after expressing his pleasure at her return, asked if he might call her. She said that she would be in touch with him as soon as she got settled, and she took his number.
As they explored the soufflé Maître Gitlin expressed what was on his legal mind.
“Now, do you want me to begin divorce proceedings?”
No.
“Shall I seek a legal separation?”
“No, thank you, Maître.”
“Shall I petition to have a French court appoint you the legal guardian of your child?”
“No. Paul-Alain is with me and that is enough. His father has been hurt enough.”
“Will you reconcile?”
“I don’t see how we could. He doesn’t even understand why we have separated. It is a frustrating thing to have your marriage turned to stone by politicians.”
When Paule was alone at Cours Albert that night, she sat wrapped in furs on the eastern terrace, facing the hill of Montmartre, and began to think with her body again. She could feel herself shedding the anxiety about being a Jew in Germany. Her fear was moving away with the speed of a planet. She had earned the right to stay sane, and the only price seemed to be loneliness.
At a quarter to one she telephoned the young stage director who had stopped to chat with them that evening. Germany was a place of the dead, but not Paris, she thought joyously and lustfully. When she heard his voice she said that if he was alone she would like to visit him. She slept with him that night, the next, and the night after that. Then she moved on to another man.
The young director was not the second man Paule had ever been to bed with, but he was the first since she had met her husband, the first man since her husband had gone off to Spain sixteen months before; he was the first warm, quick, clean body she had held in her legs and arms since she had felt that filth in the alcove in Berlin. After him, they came to her or she went to them in endless procession. As she drowned herse
The blind abandon of her nights was tempered by the cleansing and healing serenity of her days with Paul-Alain. She never brought men home, and she never stayed with them after dawn. She rose with Paul-Alain, dressed him, petted him, played with him, loved him, and lived for him. They spent their days at the merry-go-round, on the seesaws, and at the puppet shows of the Tuileries and Luxembourg gardens. They sailed boats and rode the donkeys along the Champs-Elysées between the Concorde and the Rond-Point; they fed milk out of nursing bottles to little piglets and gave carrots to little goats in the Jardin d’Acclimatation; they rode the small train and tasted the delights of the Cirque Medrano. They knew every zoo and they strolled together happily, complimenting the flowers on their beauty in the Jardins des Plantes. They went to the seashore in the summer and they skied in the winter, and together they drew applause on figure skates. She taught Paul-Alain to count, to read, and to write before he went to school.
Like her father before her, every Friday night Paule told her son the ancient stories from the proud history of the Jews. “When the Greeks came to the Near East after Alexander the Great, they brought with them their philosophies of pleasure, which the Jews saw only as a threat of national suicide. We wanted nothing to do with their views on morals and art, but their philosophers fascinated us. We tinkered with the ancient Greek philosophies and debated them back and forth among us, subtly changing them until the Greeks became attentive to all our changes and took the renovated philosophies back to Greece. Thus we provided the world with a Jewish cloak called Christianity, and in exchange we found ourselves wearing a Greek robe called Talmudism.”