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NANCY HUSTON lives in Paris.

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The stunning American debut of an internationally acclaimed writer, The Mark of the Angel is a haunting and unforgettable tale of three lives woven together by fate.

The year is 1957, and the place is Paris, where the psychic wounds of World War II have barely begun to heal and the Algerian War is about to escalate. Saffie, an emotionally damaged young German woman, arrives on the doorstep of Raphael, a privileged musician who finds her reserve irresistible. But when Raphael sends Saffie on an errand to the Jewish ghetto, where she meets Andras, a Hungarian instrument maker, each of their lives will be altered in startling and unexpected ways. A mesmerizing novel of love and betrayal, The Mark of the Angel shows how long-buried memories coupled with the inexorable flow of history can create a tableau of epic tragedy.

Aus dem Klappentext

This novel marks the stuning American debut of an internationally acclaimed writer. Combining the narrative drive of Birdsong with the emotional resonance of The Reader, The Mark of the Angel is a haunting and unforgettable tale of three lives woven together by longing, fate, and the weight of history.
The year is 1957, and the place is Paris, where the psychic wounds of World War II have barely begun to heal and the Algerian war is about to escalate. Saffie, an emotionally damaged young German woman, arrives on the doorstep of Raphael, a privileged musician who finds her reserve irresistible. He hires her, and over the next few days seduces her and convinces her to marry him. But when Raphael sends Saffie on an errand to the Jewish ghetto, where she meets Andr&aacutes, a Hungarian instrument maker, each of their lives will be altered in startling and unexpected ways. As Saffie learns to feel again, her long buried memories coupled with the inexorable flow of historical forces beyond anyone's control, create a tableau of epic tragedy. The Mark of the Angel is a mesmerizing novel of love, betrayal, and the ironies of history.

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The Mark of the Angel

Vintage Books USA

Chapter One

There she is.

    Saffie.

    Standing there.

    Her face very pale. Or to be more accurate ? pallid.

    She's standing at a door in a shadowy hallway on the thirdfloor of a handsome old house on the Rue de Seine, about toknock. She knocks. Her gestures are vague, preoccupied.

    She just arrived in Paris a few days ago ? a Paris tremblingthrough raindrops on filthy windows ? a gray, foreign, leaden,dripping Paris. The Gare du Nord. Having gotten on the train atDüsseldorf.

    Twenty years old.

    Neither well nor badly dressed. Gray pleated skirt, white long-sleevedblouse, white ankle socks, black leather purse, matchingshoes ? rather ordinary clothing ? but when you look ather closely, Saffie herself is anything but ordinary. She's strange.Not easy, at first glance, to put your finger on what's strangeabout her. And then ? ah ? you see it: it's her utter lack ofhurry.

    In the apartment, on the other side of the door she's justknocked on, someone is practicing Marin Marais's Folies d'Espagneon the flute. The flutist goes over the same phrase six orseven times, trying to smooth it out, preserve the rhythm, keepfrom hitting any wrong notes ? and finally manages to play it toperfection. But Saffie isn't listening. She's doing absolutely nothingother than standing at the door. Nearly five minutes haveelapsed since she knocked on it, and no one's come to open it. Shehasn't knocked a second time, nor has she turned to leave.

    The concierge, who saw her entering the building earlier andhas just gotten to the third floor to distribute the mail (she takesthe elevator up to the top of the building then walks down floor byfloor) is taken aback to see the young stranger standing motionlessin front of Monsieur Lepage's door.

    "What! ..." she exclaims.

    She's an obese and ugly woman; her face is dotted with hairymoles; but her eyes are filled with treasures of kindness and wisdomwhere her fellow human beings are concerned.

    "But ? he's at home, Monsieur Lepage! Did you ring the bell?"

    Saffie understands French. She speaks it, too, albeit imperfectly.

    "No," she says. "I knocked."

    Her voice is soft, deep, husky ? a Marlene Dietrich sort ofvoice, minus the mannerisms. Her accent is by no means grotesque.

    "But he can't hear you!" says Mademoiselle Blanche. "Youmust ring!"

    She leans insistently on the bell and the music breaks off. Triumphantsmile from Mademoiselle Blanche.

    "There you go!"

    Bending forward with difficulty, she slips Monsieur Lepage'smail under his door and disappears into the stairwell.

    Saffie still hasn't moved. Her immobility is quite astounding.

    The door is flung open. Light floods the shadowy hallway.

    "What the hell! ..."

    Raphael Lepage isn't really angry, he's just pretending. Itseems to him a bit inappropriate to ring so aggressively when one'slooking for a job. Saffie's silence, however, strikes him with theforce of a blow. Calms him down. Shuts him up.

    And now, this man and this woman who've never met standon either side of the threshold, staring at each other. Or rather, hestares at her and she ... just stands there. Raphael is nonplussed.He's never seen anything like it in his life. A woman who can bestanding right in front of you, yet somehow not be there.

When the doorbell's strident F-natural sounded a moment earlier,he'd been in the middle of playing a high F-sharp. He'd brokenoff, nerves jangling with the dissonance. Distracted. Suspendedbetween the two worlds. Neither here, where the air rippled andstreamed with sonorous shades, nor there, where young womenanswered his advertisement in the Figaro.

    "Damn!" Carefully setting his Louis Lot on the blue velvet ofits open case, he'd walked across the living-room rugs and downthe hardwood floor of the hallway. Everything in the apartmentaround him was refined and burnished and genteel; wall tapestriesand smooth oak furnishings glistened and gleamed, whisperingaffluence and good taste; reds and browns and golds reignedand the textures cried out to be caressed. A million motes of dust,however, danced in the shafts of sunlight ? the whole thing didneed to be kept up.

    His mother had given him careful instructions on this subjectthe previous week before she packed up ? lock, stock, barrel, andmaid ? to leave for their house in Burgundy, handing over theParis apartment to him. First, she'd told him, he'd have to composea proper ad for the Figaro, and second, handpick the prospectiveemployees. "Watch out for the quick-fingered ones!" she'dwarned him. "They're easy to spot; their eyes move in zigzags."

    "Seek maid for light housework. Room and board. Culinaryskills required."

    A text reduced to the bare essentials, chosen by Raphael becausehe hated playing the role of the bourgeois, and by Saffie becauseit didn't contain the phrases "references required" or "goodmorality."

    When she'd called an hour ago, Raphael had noticed she hadan accent. He couldn't have said from what country, but herFrench seemed a bit shaky. This was actually an asset, as far as hewas concerned. The last thing he wanted was a chatterbox likeMaria-Felice, the Portuguese maid who'd been his mother'sconfidante for as long as he could remember. He intended to explainto his future employee that he was ultrasensitive to sound.That it would be out of the question for her to do the vacuumingwhen he was at home. That she mustn't dream of humming whileshe dusted the furniture. That dropping a pot or pan in thekitchen during his practice hours would be cause for dismissal.

    Now he yanks the door open, feigning anger ?

    "What the hell! ..."

    Blinks, as his eyes adjust to the darkness in the hallway. Triesto check out her expression for shiftiness, and is brought up short.

    Because.

    A smile that looks painted on. Arms hanging loosely at hersides. A slender body. This is all he has time to notice before hefalls headlong into the well of her eyes. Green and opaque, liketwo fragments of jade. Placid pools, unshimmering, unmoving.

    Yes ? from the beginning, it is Saffie's indifference that fascinatesRaphael. Captivates him. Bewitches him. From the beginning,even before he learns her name, he can see that this youngwoman doesn't give a damn whether she gets the job or not.Whether she's alive or dead. She seems to have been somehowthrown out into the world, dispassionate and unfearing. She displaysneither the hypocritical, calculating modesty of well-brought-upgirls nor the equally calculating impudence of whores. She's justthere. He's never seen anything like it.

    "Please come in," he says at last, in a totally different voice,gentle and filled with respect.

    As Saffie crosses the threshold, he sees that her movements arejust as motionless and indifferent as her eyes. His stomach leapswildly when he closes the door behind her, and he has to stop tocatch his breath, his eyes riveted to the wooden doorjamb, beforehe can turn around.

    He then precedes her down the hallway, feeling her emptygreen gaze on the back of his head.

    In the living room, he sits down on the couch and motions forher to take a seat in the armchair across from him. She obeys,wordlessly. Seeing her eyes glued to the rug, he rapidly surveysher appearance. Longish hair held back in a ponytail by a plainrubber band. High forehead, prominent cheekbones, lipstick-coatedlips, ears like perfect seashells studded with false pearl earrings,finely sculpted nose and carefully arched eyebrows ? awell-modeled face, on which it's impossible to read anything.There's no shyness in it, no simpering, nothing. The makeup andjewelry clash with the spectacular neutrality of her features.Raphael stares at her in a daze.

    Stupidly, he reaches out a hand and grabs the little bronze bellto summon the maid, ask her to bring them some coffee ? thenshakes his head, laughing inwardly: there is no maid, she's themaid, where are we, who are you, my dear ...

    "You are Mademoiselle ? ..."

    "My name is Zaffie," she says ? and, when he asks her to repeatit, then to spell it, it turns out that it begins with an S; her name isSaffie but she pronounces it "Zaffie," because she's German.

German. The word itself virtually taboo in this apartment on theRue de Seine. His mother called them neither Krauts nor Bochesnor Jerries nor even Germans, she simply said they, in fact more oftenthan not she didn't say anything at all, merely pressed her lips togetheruntil all you could see was a red horizontal line in the middleof her narrow bony face ? because, even if her husband hadn't exactlydied fighting them, it was still the Germans' fault that MadameTrala-Lepage had found herself widowed at the age of forty, with somany years left to live and practically no hope of finding anotherman to love her, cherish her, shower her with gifts. Raphael's father,a professor of history at the Sorbonne whose specialty had been thesecular and humanist tradition in France, had met his end in thequarter of Les Halles in the fateful month of January 1942, when apack of frenzied housewives had hurled themselves upon a truck ofpotatoes, overturning it with him underneath. (What the great professorhad been doing in the Rue Quincampoix at six in the morningbefore perishing under the truck is another question....)

    Two years later, the Occupation army had massacred four Resistancefighters right in front of their house and Raphael, hishands gripping the wrought-iron railing of the balcony, hadleaned out the living-room window to see the pool of blood ? theshots had ceased a full minute earlier, it was all over, the youngmen were no longer young men but corpses, a heap of inert flesh,and how not to stare at that?, so Raphael had stuck out his lovelyhead covered with soft black curls as far as possible, craning hisneck, widening his gentle brown eyes to see ? not death, but thetruth behind death, behind the messy mass of arms and legs, thebloody embrace of four comrades fallen together ? and then ?Hortense's hysterical scream piercing the eardrum of her musicaloffspring ? "What are you doing? Have you gone berserk? Shutthe window, for God's sake! You're all I have left in the world, Idon't want them to take everything from me! ..."

    Raphael is certain that, had it not been for his mother's explicitand unshakable opposition, he would have joined the Resistancemovement at the end of '43 (he could have then, he was fifteen andlonged to be part of the romantic ranks of the Forces Françaises del'Intérieur), but, his father being dead and his mother having noone left but him, he'd had to support the struggle against the Germansin purely moral and spiritual ways. It was for the same reason,namely the semi-glorious death of his father while fighting (inthe broad sense of the term) for his country, that Raphael hadn'tbeen called up to serve in Algeria. Instead, he'd gone on to theConservatory. And done brilliantly there. Which was just as well,for his political convictions would probably have led him to favorindependence for Algeria. With the least possible damage, naturally,to the image of France....

And now Saffie, a German, was sitting right in front of that sameliving-room window. And no one had sat in this living room inquite the way she was sitting there since it had first been built inthe middle of the seventeenth century. No one.

    Her thick painted lips smile fixedly; her large green eyes reston Raphael in calm expectancy.

    Raphael is so overwhelmed by her presence that he's almost forgottenthe reason for it. Rising, he starts to pace the room, runninghis left hand over and over through his hair, backward from foreheadto crown, with fingers spread. This feverish artistic gesturehas been a habit with him since adolescence, but it's growingfaintly ludicrous because his black curls are receding farther andfarther on his forehead ? yes, the fact of the matter is that at agetwenty-eight Raphael Lepage is prematurely bald, so that now, forfully three quarters of its trajectory, his left hand meets nothingbut naked skin.

    Even as he thus paces the room and runs his hand over hisbalding head, Raphael is holding forth. He describes the tasks andresponsibilities that will be those of the young woman he hires as amaid. To tell the truth, he's not particularly conversant in domesticmatters and is spouting information virtually at random, graspingat whatever memories of Maria-Felice come to mind ? Maria-Felicestanding on a stepladder to wash the windowpanes,Maria-Felice bringing him his mail and breakfast at nine in themorning and his tea at five in the afternoon, Maria-Felice goingout to do the food shopping, serving bowls of soup, struggling upthe back staircase with a heavy bag of logs for the fireplace....Raphael summarizes all this as best he can, illustrating with gesturesand pantomime, glancing at the young woman now and thento make certain she is following. She appears to be. Yes, she seemsto know what he means, but then ... it would seem she knowseverything about the world there is to know, and always has.

    He tells her he's a professional flutist, a member of an orchestra(he articulates the orchestra's name with care but Saffie doesn'tblink, her eyebrows don't go up, her mouth doesn't drop open ? clearlyshe's never heard of it). He adds that he's frequently awayon trips, that his absences are sometimes short (concerts in theprovinces) and sometimes long (tours abroad); that Saffie's dutiesduring these periods will naturally be fewer, but that she can takeadvantage of her free time (does she understand the word "advantage"?)to ? oh ? to polish the silver, for example.

    Her room's on the seventh floor. Visitors strictly forbidden. Herealizes that he's now speaking in the indicative, as if they'd alreadyreached an agreement on the subject of her working hours,her wages, the very fact that it is she, Saffie, who will be takingthis job ? that, starting tomorrow morning and for the foreseeablefuture, it is she, this strange and silent young Germanwoman, who will be looking after him, Raphael Lepage, a flutiston the verge of becoming famous, in his large apartment on theRue de Seine, dusting his books, putting sugar in his tea, ironinghis shirts, washing his underwear, and changing the sheets afterhis lovers leave his bed.

    "Do we have an agreement?"

    Slowly, she nods her head.

    "Where are your things?"

    "Not many things. Two suitcases only. I go get them now?"

    Good Lord, her voice. He hadn't noticed it before. A devastatinglyfragile voice. It paralyzes him. He needs to make a consciouseffort to stop standing there staring at her like an idiot. And anothereffort to grasp, in an inward echo, the meaning of the wordsshe's just spoken.

Continues...

Excerpted from The Mark of the Angelby Nancy Huston Copyright © 2000 by Nancy Huston. Excerpted by permission.
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