Holiday Break

The five-hundred-year-old White Stone structure known as Château Gerrod, was forty-five miles north of Paris, and one of the few old structures that had survived the French Revolution In the late seventeenth century. It was built by Gaspard Gerrod in 1697, following his return from sea. There were conflicting stories as to what his role he’d played during his years in the Caribbean, but they all shared one consensus—the role was honorable.

  David and Gabriel were on the third floor of the château, inside the impressive suite which Uncle Pierre heretofore referred to as the store room. David had envisioned the picture of a large room with stacks of cardboard boxes stacked five-high sitting against the walls and in the closets of the suite.

    However, when he and Gabriel entered, this picture was shattered. Thirteen small wooden moving crates, three feet high by four feet long and two feet wide were stacked against walls in the large suite. Each crate had a variegated plastic lid completely covering the top. It was  further secured by two wide metallic steel straps.  Three of the seven boxes were labeled Personal Effects, while the other four were labeled Accessories.

    The Great room of the suite was divided into two distinct areas, and a Grand piano sat atop a blue carpet of expensive Persian wool on the oak plank floor in the middle of the room. A lovely chandelier hung over the piano which sat upon an identical room size carpet. An identical smaller carpet covered the floor in front of an oak double dresser that was sitting between the two closet portions of a dual oak armoire-wall just west of the king-size bed.

    Several pieces of furniture was tastefully arranged around the Sitting area on the north end of the suite, a gas fireplace with a black marble mantle made up the north wall of the suite. The portrait of David's grandfather as a much younger man was leaned up against the wall to the right side of the fireplace, where it was left after it was transferred from the fireplace mantle in dining room. A gold menorah sat atop a pedestal in the middle of the mantle below the portrait niche.
   
    David and Gabriel spent the major part of the afternoon accessorizing the Great Room of the suite. They used the red satin sheets and pillowcases on the king-size bed. They covered the top of the bed with the red velvet comforter which they’d found inside another crate. They unpacked a crate of toiletries and accessorized in the Master Bath half the size of the Great room. Now each of them was going through a separate crate of personal Effects in an effort to find the wedding portrait of David's grandparents.

    David had dragged his crate into the Sitting area and was neatly laying the clothes and other possessions aside on an oak chaise in search of the portrait. His crate was nearly empty and Gabriel was already packing his crate up again, but a white linen cloth was neatly folded and lying across something in the bottom of the box.

    David pulled the cloth out of crate and put it atop the chaise. He reached inside and carefully, grasped the edges of a large rectangular object wrapped in blue Felt. He laid the object atop the chaise, gently unwrapped it, and lifted the lovely portrait of two young people on their wedding day from the lounge.

    They smiled back at him as though they’d been waiting him to discover the portrait. Their eyes were filled with the same obviously strong love that David had often witnessed between them when he was a kid. The eight-by ten oil portrait was framed in ornate antique gold, and a cedar box not unlike the one David’s mother gave to his father on their wedding day was sitting atop the portrait. David carefully picked up the box, released the catch and opened it. A white satin prayer shawl and a matching yarmulke lay atop the white leather-bound Jewish prayer book.

    David closed the cedar box again, set it atop a small stack of neatly folded clothes lying at the foot of the chaise, and turned back to his crate. He grasped the edges of the frame and held it up so he could get a better look.

    Grandma Estelle was as beautiful on their wedding day as she was the day she died, albeit that day she was much older and her black hair had long since turned gray. In the portrait however, she was wearing a lovely satin wedding gown with tiny sapphires and seed pearls accenting a full skirt and chapel train. A single strand of those tiny pearls extended from each shoulder to the point of each long satin sleeve at her wrist. Around her statuesque neck she wore a necklace of sapphires each set in a gold fleur dis lis.

    Grandpa Philippe stood beside his wife wearing a black linen tuxedo with white pinstripes knotted beneath the collar of his white silk shirt was a blue satin cravat, which highlighted his blue eyes. White teeth shone from his proud, full, smiling mouth, a smile he didn’t wear often after he came to America. The toes of his white wing-tipped shoes peeked out from beneath the legs of his trousers.

    As David moved his hand over the back of the frame, his fingers snagged on a rise. He carefully turned the portrait over, laid it face-down atop the Felt covering on the chaise, and discovered a rather large pocket from which a single folded page protruded. He removed the document and shook the page open and read. “Wow, Gabe, you have to see this,”he said.

    Gabriel placed the plastic lid over his repacked crate, secured the straps across the top and walked across the suite to David. “What have you found?” he asked.

    David handed the document to Gabriel. “It was in that envelope on the back of their wedding portrait.”

    Gabriel nodded as he slowly read the document and then handed it back to David. “It was not an unusual practice for members of the Jewish Resistance in France during the war to betray their fellows to the Germans in hopes of saving the lives of their families. Although it rarely, if ever worked out as planned. My father told me he had a close friend who did it. He and his family were later processed.”

    “Do you think Uncle Pierre knows about this?” David asked, “Let’s finish this later. I want to take this downstairs and give it to Uncle Pierre.”

♦♦♦


    In the large Salon, Uncle Pierre read the document and nodded, “The decision to leave France was made in one night,” he said. “Your grandmother brought the document to your Great grandfather before she showed it to your grandfather. 
    “Oui, my brother knew of Estelle’s betrayal and that was why he tried to convince his father to retract his oath. He did say your Great grandfather had a stroke before he could retract his proclamation of death.”
    “I know he regretted having made it, but he was unable to change it before he died, and I had my heart attack before I was able to search through their belongings in that suite. I always believed that my father wanted Estelle’s and Philippe’s wedding portrait sitting in the place of honor on the mantle over the dining room fireplace, Philippe’s portrait hanging in the niche above the mantle and the portraits of your uncles Gregg and Jeorge sitting on either side of the wedding portrait.
    “It is just too bad that we do not have a picture of your father in his youth,” Pierre said.
    “Father always said that since he was born the year after Granddad Philippe and Grandma Estelle came to America and changed their name to Jerrad, he was not an official part of the Gerrod family.” David said.

    “That is not true,” Pierre said, “Gerrod blood flowed in your father’s veins as much as it does in mine!” he said.