‘And now Joseph wants it back?’ James asked, putting two and two together.
‘Wouldn’t you?’ Rose glared at him. ‘Of course he wants it back. He’d like the apartment back too, but the deeds have mysteriously disappeared deep into the depths of the Vichy filing cabinets, and though he has tried and tried, he can’t claim it. Damn weak government. He can’t find the furniture, the carpets, the furs, the jewels… but the art! There at least we can help!’ She took another cigarette out of its packet and lit it up.
‘And he’s coming to your apartment this afternoon?’ Fen gently probed.
‘Yes,’ Rose seemed deflated after her outburst. ‘Yes, they both are. Here, garçon!’ She beckoned the waiter over again. ‘Give this young man the bill, we’re leaving soon.’
‘Bien sûr, madame,’ the waiter demurred and slipped a paper stub onto the table next to James’s resting arm.
To Fen’s amusement, James mouthed the words ‘how rude’ back to her as he pulled his wallet from his pocket and thumbed out several notes. Rose hadn’t noticed as she had busied herself packing her cigarettes back into her bag. She did at least deign to thank James for lunch and, moments later, the three of them were back out into the fresh autumn air.
Fen gave an involuntary yawn; she was unused to such a heavy meal in the middle of the day and James noticed.
‘Good idea, Fen. Ladies, I shall take my leave and go and have a little nap back at the hotel. I better stay fresh for young Simone later.’
‘Come then, Fenella, it seems it is just us women who have the appetite for work, as much as for other things.’ Rose looked at James curtly and then chivvied Fen back down the road towards her apartment.
‘Cheerio, James,’ Fen waved to him. ‘Thank you for lunch!’
Unlike James, her mind wasn’t on their evening plans at all, and instead she was excited about seeing Magda and Joseph again, albeit in such tragic circumstances.
As they walked at pace back towards the apartment, Fen took in the sight of Rose, her coat flapping behind her in the wind, her turban wrapped tightly around her wayward hair, and she realised what a truly remarkable woman she was and what a very good job it would be to help the young Bernheims to regain even a fraction of their former property. A jolly good job indeed.
Eleven
The genuine joy that Fen felt as she hugged Magda Bernheim was like something she hadn’t experienced since she had been carefree and mucking around with Kitty in the fields of West Sussex. Seeing the woman who had been such a role model to her when she was a teenager, with her eye for fashion and elegant wardrobe, and who had suffered so much in the time since they last met, was almost overwhelming.
Fen’s family had moved away from Paris a few years before the rise of the Nazi party in Germany and the outbreak of the war. Back in the early 1930s, the Bernheims senior had been some of the wealthiest patrons in Paris, commissioning modern artists and collecting old masters, while curating their own collection and hosting artistic and literary salons in their beautiful apartment.
When Magda, a student at the École des Beaux-Arts, had been introduced to the Bernheims’ son Joseph at the synagogue, it had been love at first sight, much to the joy of their parents, who had orchestrated the match, and within months they were engaged and soon after married. Fen had been lucky enough to have been invited to their wedding, which had been the most joyous and sophisticated party that she, as a slightly gauche seventeen-year-old, had ever been invited to.
In the Bernheims’ apartment in the eighth arrondissement, she had first tasted champagne and, excepting the happy marriage between her own dear parents, had first witnessed true love between a newly-wed man and wife.
Pressing her cheek against Magda’s now as they held onto each other brought back all of those memories, and Fen did her best to keep her tears in check.
‘Oh Magda, how are you?’ Fen looked at her old friend and saw that time, and the war’s worries, had taken their toll on her. She had always been willowy but now she looked brittle in a way that suggested her life over the last few years had not been easy at all. Her hair was prematurely thinning, no doubt through stress and grief, but she wore it with élan and neatly swept back into a chignon at the nape of her neck. Her cardigan could have been that of a child’s in size and still it amply covered her. It was cashmere, though, and her skirt looked to be of good quality too, if a little dated and worn.
‘Much, much happier to see you, dear Fenella.’ Magda hugged her again. ‘You remember Joseph of course?’ She ushered Fen over to where Joseph was talking to Rose, who was pouring her special mint tea out into dainty little teacups.
Joseph Bernheim looked every inch the American, in his natty pinstripe suit and Homburg hat, though he too looked thin and strained. He put down his teacup and stretched out his hand to shake Fen’s.
‘So super to see you both again,’ Fen reiterated, stumped for anything more to say that could possibly bridge the gap that ten years, and one atrocity-filled war, had created.
Magda smiled at her and changed the subject. ‘I see you still have the Delance, Rose?’
‘Yes, my little Impressionist.’ Rose kept pouring the mint tea from the same silver teapot she’d used yesterday, until all four cups were full.
‘You had me copying it for weeks, do you remember?’ Magda said softly. ‘So much so, I think I managed a near-perfect replica when I was in New York.’
‘Some people say that copying something isn’t real art.’ Rose winked at Fen and handed her a steaming teacup.
Before Fen could answer,
