asking if I was injured. I said I was fine, that I had just had a bit of a shock. I wandered down the street, feeling shattered, trying not to stumble, repeating, “A bit of a shock, a bit of a shock,” like a children's nursery song.
One, two, three days passed. I felt half mad with my desire to search for Father's paintings, but some plan of his always held usback, as if he were afraid of what we would find, and then another newsreel would be released and we would again be delayed.
On the first day that the Bureau des étrangers announced it would hear cases—we qualified, unbelievably, as foreigners—I stood in line three hours before it opened and my father joined me four hours later.
“Stop scowling, please,” Father said. “You shouldn't scowl around these people.”
Rose haunted me ever more strongly. Perhaps, finding the news from the reels incomprehensible, my mind sought a familiar sorrow. I ran into the street once, sure that I could feel her presence. And yet she, too, was invisible.
Through the mire of bureaucracy for which my country is so famous, I pursued my father's paintings. One agency required a form from a second, which necessitated a stamp from the third, which had to be filed by a date that had already passed in order to make an appointment with an officer at the first, who would soon leave his post and be replaced by a younger uniformed man who demanded a whole new set of papers. None of my father's records from before the war could be found. We presumed that most of them had been burned, though that did not explain why his accounting file at Chase Bank, which dated back to 1933, had also disappeared. Neither Matisse nor Picasso kept careful books; they relied on my father and his assiduous assistants. Hence we had no documentation for any painting Father had acquired or, just as importantly, sold, in the seven years before the invasion. The works he had bought through the auction houses would be accounted for, but those were often lesser ones; masterpieces were purchased directly from the master. Since my father had had no written contracts with either Matisse or Picasso, we learned (through a newspaper article) that both had adopted new art dealers in his absence. War stopped neither production nor commerce. Picasso went to Kahnweiler, his dealer from before the Great War, and Matisse, so we heard, betrayed my father with an American.
If Father was crushed, he hid it behind the soliloquies he delivered, maddeningly, in a raised voice, to the tailors, cobblers, upholsterers,and grocers in line with us at the different refugee agencies: “The act of painting is munificent, and yet the artist himself is rarely generous. When his artwork is lauded and he is enriched, it is because of his genius. When his paintings are ignored and he has to tighten his belt a notch, it is the fault of the art dealer. And yet he can exist without me, whereas I cannot exist without him.” The agency had closed before we reached its door. We walked down to the boulevard Saint-Michel. Father shrugged and ducked into a four o'clock newsreel.
From there, I passed the Luxembourg Gardens, where, I had read, one of the final battles for the city had taken place. The dirt was churned up as if it had been chewed, and the remains of a German six-pounder gun were buried in a trench that zigzagged the length of the avenue. The bars of the park's gate stuttered alongside me. Before the war, on a rare snowfall, this section of the Luxembourg would have been closed off, so that passersby could admire how snow draped its fountains and grassy hillocks. In springtime, girls chased hoops and boys proudly carried their toy boats, still wet from the fountain, in solemn outstretched arms. Now it was unrecognizable, except for the gate.
I descended into the train station and rose again at Les Halles, intending to return to our hotel on the boulevard Sébastopol. As I climbed to the top of the Métro stairs, I had a sudden feeling
One, two, three days passed. I felt half mad with my desire to search for Father's paintings, but some plan of his always held usback, as if he were afraid of what we would find, and then another newsreel would be released and we would again be delayed.
On the first day that the Bureau des étrangers announced it would hear cases—we qualified, unbelievably, as foreigners—I stood in line three hours before it opened and my father joined me four hours later.
“Stop scowling, please,” Father said. “You shouldn't scowl around these people.”
Rose haunted me ever more strongly. Perhaps, finding the news from the reels incomprehensible, my mind sought a familiar sorrow. I ran into the street once, sure that I could feel her presence. And yet she, too, was invisible.
Through the mire of bureaucracy for which my country is so famous, I pursued my father's paintings. One agency required a form from a second, which necessitated a stamp from the third, which had to be filed by a date that had already passed in order to make an appointment with an officer at the first, who would soon leave his post and be replaced by a younger uniformed man who demanded a whole new set of papers. None of my father's records from before the war could be found. We presumed that most of them had been burned, though that did not explain why his accounting file at Chase Bank, which dated back to 1933, had also disappeared. Neither Matisse nor Picasso kept careful books; they relied on my father and his assiduous assistants. Hence we had no documentation for any painting Father had acquired or, just as importantly, sold, in the seven years before the invasion. The works he had bought through the auction houses would be accounted for, but those were often lesser ones; masterpieces were purchased directly from the master. Since my father had had no written contracts with either Matisse or Picasso, we learned (through a newspaper article) that both had adopted new art dealers in his absence. War stopped neither production nor commerce. Picasso went to Kahnweiler, his dealer from before the Great War, and Matisse, so we heard, betrayed my father with an American.
If Father was crushed, he hid it behind the soliloquies he delivered, maddeningly, in a raised voice, to the tailors, cobblers, upholsterers,and grocers in line with us at the different refugee agencies: “The act of painting is munificent, and yet the artist himself is rarely generous. When his artwork is lauded and he is enriched, it is because of his genius. When his paintings are ignored and he has to tighten his belt a notch, it is the fault of the art dealer. And yet he can exist without me, whereas I cannot exist without him.” The agency had closed before we reached its door. We walked down to the boulevard Saint-Michel. Father shrugged and ducked into a four o'clock newsreel.
From there, I passed the Luxembourg Gardens, where, I had read, one of the final battles for the city had taken place. The dirt was churned up as if it had been chewed, and the remains of a German six-pounder gun were buried in a trench that zigzagged the length of the avenue. The bars of the park's gate stuttered alongside me. Before the war, on a rare snowfall, this section of the Luxembourg would have been closed off, so that passersby could admire how snow draped its fountains and grassy hillocks. In springtime, girls chased hoops and boys proudly carried their toy boats, still wet from the fountain, in solemn outstretched arms. Now it was unrecognizable, except for the gate.
I descended into the train station and rose again at Les Halles, intending to return to our hotel on the boulevard Sébastopol. As I climbed to the top of the Métro stairs, I had a sudden feeling
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