familiar with. Mélanie bought two gunnysacks of corks. The vendor drew a face on one cork and gave it to Mimi.
After leaving the sacks in Maurice’s bus, Mélanie led me down a side street where table after colorful table displayed cloths. Oh, such colors, with prints of sunflowers, lavender, grapes, olives, wheat, even cigales . Pretending her cork was a little doll, Mimi danced it across the fabrics.
“Which one shall I buy, Mimi?”
“This one. No. This one. This one with the grapes, like Papa’s vines.”
We discussed the merits of each, agonizing with delight over which one to choose. Finally I made a decision, and Mimi agreed. Yellow sunflowers, something we didn’t have in Paris. With Mélanie’s shopping recommendations, I had money left over. “Spend it all,” she advised. “You don’t know when you’ll get more.” So I bought a straw sunhat with Mimi’s approval, a pair of red espadrilles, and an issue of Modes et Travaux , which had sewing projects. There was nothing like a day of shopping to turn two women and a little girl into fast friends.
Excited to show André my purchases, I burst into the house, spread the cloth, and stood back to look. With a jolt, I saw only empty walls. No paintings. No frames. Confusion descended onme. André came in from the courtyard, and I demanded to know what he had done with them.
He pulled a chair back from the table. “Sit down, Lisette.”
“You didn’t sell them, did you?”
“No. I would never do that. I hid them.”
“Where? Why?”
“They’re not safe here. Many people in the village have seen them. Pascal talked about them to everyone. I can’t fault him. It was innocent exuberance that made him want to share them, but these aren’t innocent times. People will need food and many other things. The black market will be rampant. Need and suffering can turn a person. Friends have secret friends who may be black market dealers. Art can be traded for items no longer available. Poof! The paintings will become untraceable. I can’t trust anyone.”
“Even me? You can’t trust your wife?”
“I trust you, but it’s better that you don’t know. An inadvertent glance at a hiding place might reveal it.”
Pained by his secrecy, I scanned the empty walls and struggled not to cry.
It wasn’t just that he was keeping the hiding place a secret from me. It was a darker ache—that he was a secret to me. He had secret thoughts, secret plans. No matter what he told me, there were things unsaid. Maybe he had sold them. Maybe they had been stolen and he was just appeasing me by pretending they were hidden. Was it wise for him not to tell me? To have made his plans without consulting me?
He handed me a letter from Maxime.
27 AUGUST 1939
Comrade ,
Read this twice, then burn it. Hide your paintings. There are more than rumors here. Métro stations are being fitted out as air raid shelters. If the Germans penetrate France, God forbid, all of France’s art is endangered—the paintings still in museums and those in private hands as well. Every single museum in Paris closed its doors today. The art market here is in chaos. Every day the workers in the Louvre hear of cunning plans for quick sales to Germans and to anyone buying to save important paintings from destruction. At that auction in Lucerne, Monsieur Laforgue bid to save a Van Gogh self-portrait and Picasso’s Absinthe Drinker but was outbid on both. There was a frenzy of bidding for Matisses, Braques, Klees taken straight from Germany’s own museums, with proceeds to the Nazi Party .
This past spring one thousand oil paintings and nearly four thousand watercolors and drawings deemed of no international value or considered objectionable by the Reich Chamber of Culture were burned by the Berlin Fire Department to “purify” the art world. It’s horrifying. If any paintings are in line with Hitler’s aims, sycophants drooling over prestige positions steal them to give to Hitler, buying favor
After leaving the sacks in Maurice’s bus, Mélanie led me down a side street where table after colorful table displayed cloths. Oh, such colors, with prints of sunflowers, lavender, grapes, olives, wheat, even cigales . Pretending her cork was a little doll, Mimi danced it across the fabrics.
“Which one shall I buy, Mimi?”
“This one. No. This one. This one with the grapes, like Papa’s vines.”
We discussed the merits of each, agonizing with delight over which one to choose. Finally I made a decision, and Mimi agreed. Yellow sunflowers, something we didn’t have in Paris. With Mélanie’s shopping recommendations, I had money left over. “Spend it all,” she advised. “You don’t know when you’ll get more.” So I bought a straw sunhat with Mimi’s approval, a pair of red espadrilles, and an issue of Modes et Travaux , which had sewing projects. There was nothing like a day of shopping to turn two women and a little girl into fast friends.
Excited to show André my purchases, I burst into the house, spread the cloth, and stood back to look. With a jolt, I saw only empty walls. No paintings. No frames. Confusion descended onme. André came in from the courtyard, and I demanded to know what he had done with them.
He pulled a chair back from the table. “Sit down, Lisette.”
“You didn’t sell them, did you?”
“No. I would never do that. I hid them.”
“Where? Why?”
“They’re not safe here. Many people in the village have seen them. Pascal talked about them to everyone. I can’t fault him. It was innocent exuberance that made him want to share them, but these aren’t innocent times. People will need food and many other things. The black market will be rampant. Need and suffering can turn a person. Friends have secret friends who may be black market dealers. Art can be traded for items no longer available. Poof! The paintings will become untraceable. I can’t trust anyone.”
“Even me? You can’t trust your wife?”
“I trust you, but it’s better that you don’t know. An inadvertent glance at a hiding place might reveal it.”
Pained by his secrecy, I scanned the empty walls and struggled not to cry.
It wasn’t just that he was keeping the hiding place a secret from me. It was a darker ache—that he was a secret to me. He had secret thoughts, secret plans. No matter what he told me, there were things unsaid. Maybe he had sold them. Maybe they had been stolen and he was just appeasing me by pretending they were hidden. Was it wise for him not to tell me? To have made his plans without consulting me?
He handed me a letter from Maxime.
27 AUGUST 1939
Comrade ,
Read this twice, then burn it. Hide your paintings. There are more than rumors here. Métro stations are being fitted out as air raid shelters. If the Germans penetrate France, God forbid, all of France’s art is endangered—the paintings still in museums and those in private hands as well. Every single museum in Paris closed its doors today. The art market here is in chaos. Every day the workers in the Louvre hear of cunning plans for quick sales to Germans and to anyone buying to save important paintings from destruction. At that auction in Lucerne, Monsieur Laforgue bid to save a Van Gogh self-portrait and Picasso’s Absinthe Drinker but was outbid on both. There was a frenzy of bidding for Matisses, Braques, Klees taken straight from Germany’s own museums, with proceeds to the Nazi Party .
This past spring one thousand oil paintings and nearly four thousand watercolors and drawings deemed of no international value or considered objectionable by the Reich Chamber of Culture were burned by the Berlin Fire Department to “purify” the art world. It’s horrifying. If any paintings are in line with Hitler’s aims, sycophants drooling over prestige positions steal them to give to Hitler, buying favor
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