Klavdia Alexandrovna had other talents. She could read tarot cards. She knew all sorts of superstitions and strange rituals … On the eve of Twelfth Night she would slip mirrors under young girls’ pillows so that in their dreams they would see the man with whom they would fall in love. On the same evening she would shut herself away with Lola and my aunt, and they would throw burning wax into a basin of water: the wax would take on the shapes of rings, crowns, rubles, or crosses, and these would predict the future. Sometimes she would teach them how to do table-turning. A saucer was placed on a sheet of paper covered in letters, signs, and numbers; you touched the edge of the saucer with your fingertips and it would race across the table, forming words and sentences, sometimes skidding about so quickly you had to catch hold of it with both hands to stop it from falling off. Nina and I, the youngest of the children, would watch these séances, and I was never able to discover their secret. Klavdia would recite incantations that, she said, were for the dead, or to make thunder go away. I wondered how much she believed in them herself, but for us she was surrounded by an aura of mysterious charm. We respected her; children were drawn to her. At her age, and in her position as a poor relation dependent on others, she could have been despised; but, on the contrary, there was no fun without Klavdia.
“She knows a spell to attract love,” Lola said to my aunt.
“She knows a spell to attract love,” little Nina repeated, mimicking the grown-ups even though love held no interest for an eight-year-old child.
My half-French education saved me from believing in the supernatural, and I was the only one to respond skeptically. “That’s what you think! If she really knows the secret of finding love, then why isn’t she married?”
I will leave you to guess how many times young girls tried to persuade Klavdia to reveal the secret of her spell. But she shook her head. “Later, my little ones, when you’re older.”
It was winter. The garden was buried under deep snow. A lamp on the terrace lit up the lower branches of the trees with a soft, white, shimmering glow.
The dogs would come in covered with snow. In the drawing room people played cards, drank tea, or played music. I remember a tall lamp on a bronze base with a red shade. Klavdia would read the cards, a large, fringed silk shawl draped over her shoulders. This shawl was almost the same color as the lamp shade and, to my eyes smarting for lack of sleep—for at home I was not used to going to bed so late—the drawing room ended up seeming a dark, rather frightening place, with two burning flames. I would doze off, then wake up, and surreptitiously play with the crimson silk, holding it up to my eyes so that the light in the room took on the delicious color of raspberries and wine!
All this time Klavdia would shuffle the cards, muttering, “What is in the mind, what is in the heart, what happens in the house, what was, what will be …”
Another regular visitor was a man we called the doctor; thin and fair, he had a short, pointed ginger beard that he would stroke with a distracted, dreamy air. He had a peculiar but attractive gaze: his heavy eyelids were always half-lowered and the expression in his eyes was thoughtful, ironic, and sad.
I wondered when he went to see his patients. One saw him at the house at all hours of the day and night; in fact, we saw him more often than we did the master of the house, whose seat at the dining table was often left empty. Nina called the doctor “Uncle” or “Uncle Serge,” although I knew they were not related in any way; but he was an old family friend and, in any case, Russian children called the adults they met at their parents’ house “Uncle” and “Aunt.” And, it is true, I would not have suspected anything about the doctor’s constant presence at Sofia Andreïevna’s side, their long conversations, their silences, had it not been for my aunt’s stifled laughter when she mentioned it, or Mademoiselle’s frown as she discreetly gestured in my direction, saying, “Oh for goodness’ sake, be quiet, that’s ridiculous.”
Poor Mademoiselle! She was curious, as well as being scandalized and, above all, she was astonished: this mature woman trailing around all day in a rumpled housecoat, this courteous, silent man, absorbed in his thoughts, were not, it seemed to her, a likely pair for an adulterous liaison. And then there was the husband, so clearly in the know yet resigned to it! Ah! Where were the Parisian bachelor flats, afternoon assignations, the suitably elegant setting for civilized love affairs? The most virtuous of women, Mademoiselle searched for descriptions of such scenes in novels, much as an exile listens to songs of his homeland. These people, in this part of Russia, were uncivilized. In fact, I think she and my aunt were wrong and that the doctor and Sofia Andreïevna had never had an affair. Though it’s certainly true that these people were uncivilized. Perhaps through laziness, or realism, or an innate coolness, or some other reason, they were perfectly content with platonic relationships; yet it was clear that there was real love between Sofia Andreïevna and the doctor. Even as a child, once I was aware of it, I recognized it. Sofia Andreïevna’s voice would crack, then become higher and more resonant when she saw the doctor. It was customary in the Russian provinces for a man to kiss the hostess’s hand after a meal, whereupon she would lightly put her lips to the man’s bowed head. When the doctor approached Sofia Andreïevna, she would look at him with … oh! I can’t describe that look … An inexpressible tenderness was mingled with a sorrow that I guessed at without understanding, but she did not kiss him. She would smile and he would move away from her. My aunt would observe the performance with great curiosity, while Lola seemed to see nothing; her magnificent green eyes were bright and indifferent.
So the winter passed and spring arrived. How lovely spring was in that part of the world! The streets were lined with gardens and the air smelled of lime and lilac blossoms; a soft dampness rose from all those lawns and from the trees that grew close together, their sweet perfume filling the evening air. Slowly the sun would set. Out in the open the heat was intense, and in May there were frequent thunderstorms. How good it was to run around in the wet garden afterward! Nina would take her shoes and stockings off, flattening the soaking wet grass with her bare feet. We would shake the branches of the syringa so that our hair was sprayed in a shower of water.
Sometimes a storm broke out at night, and then we ran out onto the terrace to watch the sulfurous lightning as it suddenly lit up the garden. Once we were out there when it was almost dark, and we happened to be just outside the drawing room; the rain had stopped but we could still hear a gentle rumble of distant thunder, moving away toward the river Dnieper. I heard my aunt saying to Klavdia, “Klavdia Alexandrovna, didn’t you say that the spell works the night following a storm in May?”
All the girls, all the young people who were there, surrounded Klavdia, laughing and pleading with her. Sofia Andreïevna had stayed in the drawing room, but the doctor followed us outside.
“And the moon has to be out,” cried Lola. “Look, there it is!”
A glimmer of moonlight could be seen through the clouds.
“You also need a river or a spring,” said Klavdia.
Someone called out, “There’s a stream at the bottom of the garden!”
“But it’s always dry.”
“Not after a storm like this one.”
“Well …” began Klavdia Alexandrovna.
She wasn’t allowed to finish. Everyone dragged her off, and we little ones ran behind them, shrieking.
The garden was in deep shadow. We slid about on the wet grass, holding on to tree trunks; the girls were all laughing. The stream flowed through a clearing. Sometimes the clouds parted and the moon could be seen clearly.
“We must wait until it’s shining brightly,” said Klavdia.
She knelt down at the edge of the stream. I was right next to her and watched curiously. She looked worried, and her nostrils were pinched. She was obviously caught up in her own game.
“Look, little ones, here’s the spell,” she said, as the last of the clouds dispersed and we were bathed in a greenish light from the moon. �
��Watch carefully.”
From her finger she took a little ring that she always wore and that I had often noticed. It was a simple silver circle decorated with a dark red stone from the Caucasus. She turned it around so that it gleamed faintly in the moonlight. She hesitated for a moment, then murmured a few words I didn’t hear and briskly plunged the ring three times into the stream, each time breaking the moon’s reflection. A small frog hidden in the grass started croaking and others answered it. I saw Lola shiver suddenly.
“Oh, how noisy those frogs are; they scared me! Is that your spell, Klavdia? Give me the ring, I want to try. How does it go?”
Klavdia whispered something in her ear. Lola took the ring, at first repeating the incantation so quietly that nobody could hear it. Then, at my aunt’s insistence, she recited out loud:
Flower of the lime, wild oats, and black mandrake
Thrice, thrice, thrice,
Joy, I reject you,
Innocent happiness, I reject you,
May blind passion bind me forever to …
She stopped.
“To whom, Klavdia?” she asked, laughing.
And in a strange, cold voice, Klavdia answered, “Oh, to whomever you like. You know it’s only a bit of fun. Choose anyone. The one you cannot love, for example: the doctor.”
She was silent, and everyone went quiet, holding their breath. The doctor suddenly threw the cigarette he was holding into the water.
“What are you doing?” cried Klavdia sharply, close to tears.
“The only thing missing was fire. Water, fire, and moonlight are the three vital elements. Finish the spell, Lola.”
After a silence, the young girl’s voice could be heard again: “May blind passion bind me forever to Serge.”
“Go to him and put the ring on his finger,” ordered Klavdia.
Serge gently pushed her away.
“Leave me alone, Lola.”
But Nina and I danced around the couple like devils possessed. “Yes, yes, Uncle Serge, let her put the ring on your finger. Are you scared of spells? Are you scared of witchcraft, Uncle Serge?”
He shrugged and held out his hand. Of course the ring was too small. All the same, Lola managed to slide it as far as the joint of his little finger. But the doctor immediately tore it off as if it had burned him.
“Oh, give it to me now!” cried my aunt. “Let me have a go.”
Then in a faint voice, Klavdia answered, “There’s no point. The spell only works once.”
After this scene, she refused to have anything to do with any magic games. But we hadn’t forgotten the incantation, and ten times a day Nina and I would plunge a ring made out of woven grass into the stream, laughing wildly as we repeated, “Flower of the lime, wild oats, and black mandrake …”
Then, “May blind passion bind me forever to …”
And we would finish with the most ridiculous names: old Stefan, the dvornik who swept the courtyard; Ivan Ivanich, my mathematics tutor; or Jouk, the black dog.
But one day, Lola heard us. She rushed at us, grabbing Nina by the shoulders. “I won’t allow it, do you hear, you horrible child! I … forbid you …”
She was stammering; her face was convulsed; she pulled her sister’s ears and burst into tears. Nina was reduced to silence, her eyes wide with astonishment.
“Is she mad?” she asked me, when Lola had fled. “What’s the matter with her?”
I had no idea. I suggested a game of hide-and-seek.
Time passed. I cannot remember if it was two months, or six months, or more. One evening, we needed some material to make dolls’ clothes: we usually got some from Klavdia Alexandrovna. I went running into her room. She was standing by the window, her hands clasped to her breast, looking out at the dark garden. The lamps had not been lit. I saw Lola and Uncle Serge sitting next to each other on the sofa, not speaking. Lola was repeatedly rearranging a stray lock of hair that fell over her eyes.
When she saw me, Klavdia Alexandrovna seemed all at once mad with rage; she had these sudden, inexplicable moments of fury.
“What are you doing here? Go away!” she shouted, stamping her foot. “Do you always come into someone’s room without knocking?”
I had in fact tapped on the door, but they hadn’t heard me. I tried to say so. Then Lola got up. “Leave her alone, Klavdia,” she said.
She lit the lamp. I saw that she was a bit unsteady on her feet, in the way you are if you’re woken suddenly in the middle of the night. There was a red mark on her neck. I saw it clearly: it looked like the mark of a bite. However, fearing another rebuff, I said nothing and slipped away. Behind me, the door was banged shut and then locked.
After that I don’t remember anything until an evening when we all met as usual in the drawing room. Sofia Andreïevna, Uncle Serge, and some other friends were playing cards; Klavdia was at the piano making Nina and me practice a duet. The door opened and Lola appeared. How pale she was! She crossed the room, stopped by the table of cardplayers, watched them for a few moments without saying anything, then at last spoke to her mother and said, “I’m going to a friend’s house.”
It was nine o’clock in the evening. Her mother made no objection, asking neither who the friend was nor when her daughter would return. I told you that everyone in that house did as they pleased. She replied calmly, “Well, go with God.”
Those simple words—an everyday expression in Russian—had an extraordinary effect on Lola. She kept twisting and untwisting her hands, looking at us all in despair. Nobody noticed anything. Our duet came to an end. Klavdia played a few bars of “The Happy Farmer,” and then immediately switched to a gentle, sensuous tune, which, as you listened to it, made you want to cry, laugh, then hide in a dark corner and stay there the whole night long without moving. Lola left the room. A little later Uncle Serge threw down his cards. “I have to visit a patient this evening,” he said.
He bowed to Sofia Andreïevna, let his lips linger a long time on the hand she held out to him, and left. Klavdia Alexandrovna stopped playing and disappeared to her room.
Uncle Serge’s departure brought the game to an end. Sofia Andreïevna was soon left on her own and began to play patience. Mademoiselle, in her severe black dress with its little white collar and a gold chain hanging on her thin chest, was sitting very straight in the armchair opposite embroidering a fine linen handkerchief. I could hear Sofia Andreïevna: “… Well, that’s youth, my dear Mademoiselle. You wait, you search, you make a mistake, you weep, you get over it … How can we help them? Parents can only pray to God.”
“God helps those who help themselves,” said Mademoiselle.
That night I slept in Nina’s room. I was woken by footsteps and slamming doors. I opened my eyes, saw that it was barely light, and went back to sleep.
Nina and I had planned to build a hut out of branches at the end of the garden, first thing in the morning. We left the house very early without seeing anyone, taking our breakfast with us. At lunchtime, as we were coming back, happy and messy, the first person I met was Mademoiselle.
“I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” she said. “We’re going home.”
“What, now! Why?”
She didn’t reply, but dragged me off to the hallway. I could see Sofia Andreïevna through the open door, sitting in an armchair, her head thrown back, tears coursing down her pale, ravaged face and an opened letter on her lap. Then I suddenly heard Klavdia Alexandrovna laughing: it was a sharp, false, convulsive sound, which ended in sobs and curses. Sofia Andreïevna sat up.
“Help! Help!” Klavdia exclaimed, distraught.
Mademoiselle, who always had a little flask of English smelling salts on her—I had often amused myself by unscrewing the silver stopper, breathing in the smell, and making myself sneeze—rushed to Klavdia and, delighted by the drama, I followed her.
Klavdia’s arms were flailing about: this wasn’t a pretend collapse. At least, I don’t think so. She seemed to be suffocating. She kept repeating, �
�It’s my fault, all my fault! May God punish me!”
“What could you do, my dear friend,” said Sofia Andreïevna, stroking her hair. “What even a mother couldn’t see or guess, how could you be expected to know?”
Still, Klavdia repeated, “It’s my fault, mine alone. I shall die.”
After administering the smelling salts, Mademoiselle was now standing next to her, gazing at her coldly.
“I fear for her,” Sofia Andreïevna said to Mademoiselle.
“If I were you, Madame, I wouldn’t be too worried.”
“Ah, but she’s so devoted, so warmhearted … This tragedy will kill her … as it will me,” said Sofia Andreïevna, in an exhausted voice.
I caught sight of Nina in the hall, making signs at me through the half-open door. I went to join her. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t understand. Apparently Lola has run away with Uncle Serge. Maybe they will get married? I don’t understand why Mother is crying. If it were me, I’d be very happy.”
We discussed it for a moment and concluded that Sofia Andreïevna was angry because it had been done in secret, without consulting her.
Then, as all this really did not concern us, and as we were actually a bit embarrassed by it, we took advantage of the upset to carry out a plan we had been hatching for a long time and endlessly putting off. We crept into the kitchen to put a few changes in place: we swapped the sugar for salt, put coal in the icebox, and the cat and her kittens into the big casserole dish.
“Cook will lift the lid and the cats will jump out at her, she’ll put fish in the icebox and it will come out all black. She’ll think someone has put a curse on her. She’s always accusing Klavdia of witchcraft.”
That suddenly made me remember the spell with fire, water, and moonlight. I did not say anything then, but later on, in the tram on the way home, I slid closer to Mademoiselle and whispered, “I know why Klavdia Alexandrovna was in such a state.”
“Why?” asked Mademoiselle, no doubt too interested to remember to give her standard reply: “Irène, you pry too much into the grown-ups’ business.”
Dimanche and Other Stories (Vintage International) Page 14