The Curator of Broken Things Trilogy by Corine Gantz

Author:Corine Gantz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: family saga, historical fiction, jewish fiction, coming of age history, world war two romance, world war two fiction, paris, ww2 fiction, ww2 romance, France ww2, france history fiction, second world war fiction, ww2 family saga
Publisher: Carpenter Hill Publishing
Published: 2019-08-18T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 7

The Refugee

There had been so much Lucienne needed her to organize at the Cannes house that it was an entire month before Xandra was allowed a day off. War was brewing, of that Moshe and Albano were convinced. They had liquidated their assets, sold the business, opened bank accounts in Switzerland. Moshe had left Paris and gone directly to Algiers. Albano thought that the South of France would be less traumatic on Lucienne.

So now, without Moshe’s apartment to meet at on Sundays, he and Xandra needed to find other ways to see each other in private.

Albano told Lucienne that he had business to tend to in Nice and that he’d drop off Sandra in town. Instead, he and Xandra were now driving in the direction of Théoule-sur-Mer, and then to Fréjus, where he had a plan for them to spend the day.

It was the last Sunday of May 1939. The tourist season was near, but for now, the roads and villages still had the quietness of wintertime. The cold winds had all but subsided. With each passing day, the sun shone longer and warmer, and the smells and feel of the air resembled Smyrna’s climate a little bit more. Across the Côte d’Azur, roses bloomed in every garden, birds chirped, and cicadas began their vibrating songs. The inexorable descent into another worldwide war, the uncertainty, the fear, the folly of men had no effect whatever on nature. As he drove, Albano watched Xandra from the corner of his eye. She was sitting very straight and nervous, so he took her hand. She smiled. In the South of France, they knew no one. All they needed to do was to drive a few miles from the house to experience freedom. And so, today they would authorize themselves some happiness. They drove following the coast along the jagged volcanic cliffs that plunged into the foam of the sea, past the coves and beaches, and the twisted pines shaped by the mistral, the tree roots that clung powerfully to the red earth. They drove past small restaurants by the sea, and medieval towns, and harbors filled with boats. In Agay, they parked the automobile in the street and, for the very first time since they had met as children, Xandra and Albano were able to sit on the terrace of a restaurant, together in plain sight.

It was as though by leaving Paris they had flown away from judgment and even from their own limitations. He was thirty-seven years old, and so was Xandra, but they were giddy like children at the novelty of sitting across from each other at a restaurant table, their forearms resting on the red-and-white checkered tablecloth, their fingers entwined. After lunch, they walked down to the cove and stepped on the empty beach. They found a nook under the shade of pine trees and set a blanket on the sand. They lay down on the blanket and looked up at the white clouds in the azure sky. Before them was the Mediterranean Sea.

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