The Orphan's Tale(70)

“I want to show you something.” He stands and leads me to a small door at the back of the gallery. I look back to where Theo lies, still sleeping. Surely Luc does not mean for me to leave him alone.

“What is it?” I ask, my curiosity growing as Luc opens the closet. He pulls out a painting, the oils so fresh the smell tickles my nose. It is a picture of an aerialist, I realize, midswing on the trapeze. How had he come to have it? I study her form, the familiar arc of her body on the sweep. Her hair is light and worn in a high knot like mine. Then, taking in the familiar red costume, I gasp.

It is a portrait of me.

No, not exactly me. A more beautiful version, body graceful, features flawless. Luc had painted me as he sees me, the image adoring.

“Oh, Luc!” I say with amazement. I understand now the way he takes me in with an artist’s eye, looking intently, studying detail. “It’s stunning. You have real talent.” He has captured me perfectly, from the texture of my costume to the slight look of fear in my eyes that I never quite manage to hide.

“You think so?” His face is doubtful, but a note of pride creeps into his voice.

“Absolutely marvelous,” I reply, meaning it. I try to imagine the hours and care it had taken him. “Why did you give up on studying art?”

His face clouds. “I wanted to be an artist. I used to paint in the loft of our barn, you know. But my father found what I was doing and he destroyed my work, forbade me from doing more. I begged him to let me become an art teacher at least, but he would hear none of it.” Luc’s eyes flicker as he relives the memory. He continues, “I painted in secret until he found out.” Luc held up his right hand with its twisted index finger. “He made sure I could never be a real artist.”

I recoil in horror, not at Luc’s disfigurement, but at the cruelty inflicted by a father on his own child. “Not enough to stop me from being useful. Just from being good at the really intricate details,” he adds.

I take his hand and kiss his finger, my heart weeping. None of us, it seems, not even Luc, is free from darkness and pain. “How can you stay with him?” I demand. “He’s a monster!”

Luke’s eyes widen and I wonder if he will be angry with me. “He was doing what he thought was right,” he replies.

We sit silently, neither speaking. Luc has trusted me with his awful secret. I should tell him, right now, about my own past. But then I hear Astrid’s voice: never assume that you know the mind of another. Looking into Luc’s clear blue eyes, I know he will not understand the choices I have made and the experiences that have brought me to make them.

Instead, I reach for him, cupping his face in my palms and turning it to me. I kiss him over and over again, not stopping, heedless of where we are and the fact that Theo is just feet away. Luc’s arms are around me, hands on my waist and hips. For a second, I want to pull away. My stomach has never quite returned to what it was before childbirth. My breasts droop slightly from the milk I had carried.

But then I wrap my arms around him and let myself be swept away. Luc’s hands reach under my skirt. I start to protest. We cannot possibly do this here. He lays me back gently, placing one hand under my head to protect it from the hardness of the stone floor. The German soldier, the only other man I have been with in this way, appears in my mind. I tense.

Luc cups my chin in his hand then, gently bringing my gaze to his. “I love you, Noa,” he says.

“I love you, too.” The words come out in a breathless rush. My passion grows, pushing the memories away.

When it is over, we lie in a heap of half-strewn clothes on the hard stone floor, our legs tangled together. “That was wonderful!” I declare, too loudly. My voice echoes through the rafters of the museum, sending an unseen pigeon fluttering. We both laugh softly.

He gathers me up in his arms, drawing me closer. “I’m so glad we shared our first time together,” he says, presuming that I am as innocent as he.

“I’m sorry,” he says a minute later, taking my silence for regret. “I shouldn’t have taken advantage of the situation.”

“You didn’t,” I reassure him. “I wanted it, too.”

“If we had a settled future together...” he frets.

“Or even a bed,” I joke.

But his face remains somber. “Things should be different. This damn war,” he swears. If not for this damn war, I think, we never would have met. “I’m sorry,” he says again.

I embrace him tightly. “Don’t be. I’m not.” Theo wakes then, his cry cutting through the stillness. I pull away to button my blouse. Luc stands and helps me up. I smooth my skirt as we go to Theo. Luc picks him up, more confident this time. He gazes at Theo fondly. We sink to the ground once more and the three of us huddle together in the darkness, a kind of makeshift family, listening to the sounds of the night museum, the scratching of mice and blowing of the wind outside.

“Come with me,” Luc says. “Away from here. I’ll get a car and drive us to the border.”

Us. Though Luc had spoken before about going away together, the suggestion seems more serious now, the possibility real. I try to imagine it, leaving the circus and starting a life with Luc. The idea is as terrifying as it is magnificent.

“I can’t,” I say, wanting desperately to run away with him but knowing the risks and the reality. Where would we go? And what about Astrid, and the circus and a thousand other things I cannot explain to him?