The Night Gate

Chapter Thirty-Three

With the lifting, at last, of restrictions to movement around the country, Enzo, Dominique and Laurent, with Sophie and Bertrand and the baby, made the trip to Paris in a rented people carrier. The first family get-together in more than a year, and the first opportunity for Kirsty to meet her new nephew.

There was a large gathering around the table in the salon at the back of the apartment in the Rue de Tournon. The coming of spring seemed to have imbued the pianist in the building with fresh vigour, and he or she was thumping out a stuttering rendition of Schubert’s Scherzo in B flat.

Raffin had opened champagne, and was in better form than Enzo had seen him for some years. He was still enthusing about Enzo’s exposé of the alleged existence of a Mona Lisa forgery commissioned during the war by the Louvre itself. It had fed him material for a whole series of articles in the Paris daily, Libération.

‘Dropped like a hand grenade into the world of international art,’ he said gleefully, pouring himself a second glass. ‘And of course the repeated denials of the Louvre have only fed all the claims and counterclaims of every would-be art critic and hack in Europe and America.’

Kirsty said, ‘And those excerpts you published from Wolff’s diaries last month, Roger, have just set the whole thing on fire again.’

Raffin took a long draught of champagne, bubbles breaking around his lips. ‘It’s the story that just keeps on giving.’ He raised his glass. ‘Here’s to Enzo.’ And everyone raised their glass.

Enzo blushed and took a small sip from his own. And then he leaned towards Kirsty and asked in a low voice, ‘How long till dinner?’

‘We’ll eat about seven, for the kids,’ she said. Then narrowed her eyes. ‘Why?’

‘Dominique and I have a prearranged appointment this afternoon. But seven’s fine. We’ll be back long before then.’

‘Where are you going?’

Enzo glanced at Dominique. ‘The Louvre.’

It was Dominique’s first visit to the Louvre, although Enzo had been many times. There was so much she wanted to see. David’s The Death of Marat, Arcimboldo’s Four Seasons, the Great Sphinx of Tanis. And it took them nearly two hours to reach the Salle des Etats. Enzo had indulged her and hidden his impatience, but now at last they were there, in Room 711 of the Denon Wing, gazing upon the Mona Lisa mounted behind glass on her freshly painted wall of midnight blue.

A socially distanced crowd, still wearing masks, stood gazing at her in awe. A hubbub of whispered excitement filled the room, a hushed sense of being in the presence of greatness. But Enzo was oblivious. He only had eyes for the smile beneath the eyes that wouldn’t leave his. All the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stood up. And he felt not so much in the presence of greatness, as in the presence of history. As if it were Georgette herself who sat before him. He wanted to reach out and touch her, and tell her how sorry he was. But it was all too late for that. It had all been too long ago.

Dominique whispered, ‘She looks genuine enough.’ Then, ‘She is, isn’t she?’

Enzo had difficulty speaking without his eyes filling up. ‘She is what she is,’ he said eventually. ‘And who among us could ever say that she was anything else?’