The child inched her way into the room. Sometimes Bella stopped playing and fell silent; with her hands resting on the keyboard, she seemed to be waiting, listening, her heart full of hope. But from outside came nothing but the indifferent silence of the spring evening and the sound of the impatient wind pushing along the endless yellow dust from Asia.
‘When – it’s – all – over,’ sighed Madame Karol. Hélène watched the way she clamped her teeth together; it was as if she were eating a piece of fruit; her wide, bright eyes that seemed so harsh, so empty, beneath the curve of her slim eyebrows, were full of tears: sparkling water that welled up but never spilled over.
Hélène went and stood against the window, looking out into the street. Occasionally she would see an old carriage pulled by two slow-moving horses, driven by a coachman dressed in the Polish fashion: velvet waistcoat, puffy red sleeves and peacock feathers in his hat; it was Bella’s aunt, a Safronov from the older generation, a branch of the family that had kept its wealth, that hadn’t squandered its fortune, that didn’t need to marry off its daughters to insignificant little Jews who managed factories in the poor part of town. Lydia Safronov was thin and stiff with dried-out yellowish skin and shining dark eyes; her chest was ravaged by cancer, which she suffered with a sort of aggressive resignation; always cold, she wrapped herself in an ample, regal fur coat. On seeing her niece, Lydia Safronov would barely deign to nod in icy acknowledgement, her mouth pinched close and her face wearing an expression that was impenetrable, distant and full of bitter, cruel scorn. Sometimes her son Max sat next to her; he was still a thin young boy dressed in the grey uniform worn in secondary school; his cap bore the symbol of the Imperial eagle; he held his little head very high atop his long, fragile neck, with the same harsh and haughty attitude as his mother; he had a delicate hooked nose and seemed aware of its fine quality, just as he was aware of the lush richness of the horses, the carriage, and the quality of the expensive English rug covering his knees; his eyes were cold with a faraway look in them. Whenever they ran into each other in the street, Mademoiselle Rose would give Hélène a little nudge, and she would curtsey, lowering her head in a sullen manner; her cousin would briefly acknowledge her before turning away, and her aunt looked at her with pity through a gold lorgnette that sparkled in the sunlight.
But on this day, only one carriage passed slowly beneath the window; a woman was inside; she was holding a child’s coffin tightly to her breast, as if it were a bundle of clothing; this was how the poor people avoided paying for funerals. The woman’s face looked peaceful; she was chewing some sunflower seeds; she was smiling, doubtless happy to have one less mouth to feed, one less cry to break the silence of the night.
Suddenly the door opened and Hélène’s father came into the room.
Bella shuddered, quickly closing the piano, and looked anxiously at her husband. He never came home this early from the factory. For the first time in her life, Hélène saw her father’s face twitch slightly, a twitch that pulled his hollow cheeks to the side and which would come to represent for her the first sign of disaster, the mark of defeat on a man’s face, for Boris Karol never knew any other way to show he was upset, not then and not later, when he became old and ill.
He walked into the middle of the room, seemed to hesitate, then said with a little harsh, forced laugh, ‘Bella, I’ve lost my job.’
‘What?’ she cried.
He shrugged his shoulders and answered curtly, ‘You heard me.’
‘You’ve been let go?’
Karol pursed his lips. ‘That’s right,’ he said after a pause.
‘But why? Why? What did you do?’
‘Nothing,’ he said in a hoarse, weary voice, and Hélène felt a strange sense of pity as she heard the irritated little sigh that escaped through his clenched teeth. He lowered himself into a chair, the one nearest to him, and sat there motionless, his back hunched and arms dangling, looking down at the ground and whistling without realising it.
‘Nothing!’ Bella shouted, making him jump. ‘You must be mad! What did he say? What happened? But we’ll be penniless!’
She twisted her arms together with a sudden, supple movement that reminded Hélène of the serpents on the Medusa’s head she was drawing for her art teacher. From the delicate, convulsed mouth words, sighs and curses came flooding out: ‘What did you do, Boris? You have no right to hide anything from me! You have a family, a child! You weren’t let go for no reason! Did you play the stock market? I knew it! Admit it, go on, admit it! No? Well, then, did you lose money playing cards? At least say something, admit what happened, say something! Ah, you’re killing me!’
Hélène had slipped out through the open door. She went back to her room and sat down on the floor. She had heard them fighting so many times in her short life that she wasn’t overly concerned. They would shout, then they would stop. Nevertheless, her heart was heavy and tight in her chest.
‘The director called me in to see him,’ she heard him continue, ‘and since you want to know, Bella, he wanted to talk to me about you. Wait a moment. He told me you spent too much money. Just wait. You can have your say afterwards. He talked about your dresses, your trips abroad, which, according to him, I couldn’t possibly pay for on my salary. He told me that the money I had easy access to was a temptation he didn’t want to inflict on me. I asked him if a single penny had disappeared. “No,” he said, but it was inevitable that one day it would, if your lifestyle didn’t change. I warned you, Bella, remember? Every time you bought a new dress or fur coat, every time you left for Paris, I said it over and over again: “Be careful, we live in a small town. People talk. I’ll be accused of stealing.” The director of the factory lives in Moscow. It’s natural that he must be able to trust me, and he can’t trust me. I would have done the same if I were in his shoes. I can’t refuse you anything. I can’t bear it when a woman nags and cries. I’d rather give in; I’d rather people take me for a coward, a thief, a hen-pecked husband, because, in the end, another man might suspect that … Be quiet,’ he shouted suddenly, and his rough, wild voice drowned out what Bella was saying. ‘Be quiet! I know exactly what you’re going to tell me. Yes, I trust you. Don’t say a word! I don’t want to know. You are my wife. My wife, my child, my house … When all is said and done, you’re all I have. Of course I have to take care of you,’ he said softly.
‘But Boris, what are you saying? Do you realise what you’re implying? Boris, my darling …’
‘Be quiet …’
‘I have nothing to hide …’
‘Be quiet!’
‘Ah! You don’t love me any more; you would never have spoken to me like this a few years ago. Remember? I was a Safronov; I could have married anyone I liked. Then you came along. Remember the scandal our marriage caused? All those people saying to me, “You! You marrying that little Jew who came out of nowhere, who wandered around Lord knows where, whose family you don’t even know! You!?” But I loved you, Boris.’
‘You didn’t have a penny and all your other boyfriends wanted a dowry,’ he said bitterly. ‘And I’m the one who feeds your mother and father, and puts a roof over their heads, me, the little Jew who came out of nowhere: I’m the one who pays for all the Safronovs, me, me … To hell with all of you!’
‘But I loved you, Boris, I loved you! I still love you! I’m faithful to you, I …’
‘Enough!’ he said in despair. ‘I don’t want to talk about that. It’s got nothing to do with it. You’re my wife and I have to believe in my wife. Otherwise there would be nothing left that was decent, nothing, nothing at all. Not another word about it, Bella, not another word!’
‘It’s those jealous women, those envious old women all around us who can’t forgive me because I’m happy, because they know that I’m happy! They can’t forgive me for having a husband like you, for being young and attractive! They’re the ones who’ve caused all this trouble!’
‘Perhaps,’ Karol said weakly.
She could tel
l he was weakening by the tone of his voice and immediately dissolved into floods of tears.
‘I would never have believed you could speak so harshly to me, say such hurtful things to me … I’ll never forgive you, never! I do everything possible to make you happy … You’re the only one I have in the world, after all, and I’m the only one you have!’
‘What’s the point in talking about that?’ Karol said once more, his voice weary and tinged with pain and embarrassment. ‘You know that I love you.’
In spite of the closed door, Hélène could hear every word. But she pretended not to be listening: she was building a fortress for her toy soldiers out of a stack of old books. Her grandmother crossed the room without making a sound; she was sighing and tears ran down her elderly face, but Hélène thought nothing of it: her grandmother was always crying; her eyes were constantly red, her lips trembling. Mademoiselle Rose was sewing in silence; Hélène gave her a mischievous look.
‘They’re shouting … Can you hear? What’s going on?’
Mademoiselle Rose said nothing at first; she pursed her lips and pushed her needle hard through the hem that sat across her knee. ‘You shouldn’t listen, Lili,’ she said finally.
‘I’m not listening. I just can’t help hearing them.’
‘Those hideous women,’ Bella shouted through her tears, ‘those old, fat, ugly creatures who can’t forgive me for having hats and dresses from Paris. They all have lovers, you know they do, Boris. And to think of all the men who chase after me and whom I turn away …’
‘Get up from the floor,’ said Mademoiselle Rose.
When her parents fell silent, for their quarrel was constantly interrupted by sudden moments of calm when they paused to gather their strength in order better to rip each other apart, Hélène could hear the servants singing as they ironed at the back of the kitchen, and it occurred to her that she could sense with more acuity than usual the strange, luminous silence of the evening. But what most interested her at that moment was her fortress. Despite the fact that the wooden soldiers had been chewed by the dogs, and their red tunics stained Hélène’s dress and fingers, she loved to arrange them; to her, they were the Grenadiers of the Imperial Army, Napoleon’s Guards. Bent over, her curls brushing the ground, she breathed in the musty odour of the dusty old wooden floor. Several large books, their pages open, had been set up to create a dark, threatening gorge between the mountains where the army was hiding out among fallen rocks. She placed two sentries at the entrance. She quickly piled the remaining books one on top of the other and started reciting sentences to herself from the Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène, her favourite book; she knew it almost by heart.
Mademoiselle Rose had gone to sit by the window to sew in the fading daylight. How sleepy and calm the world seemed with the peaceful cooing of the ringdoves on the rooftop, while from the room next door she could hear her mother’s tears, sobs, sighs and curses …
Hélène stood up and put her hand into the opening of her dress: ‘Field Marshals, officers, soldiers …’ She was standing in the Wagram battlefield, surrounded by the dead. She pictured the scene so clearly that she could have drawn the field covered in yellowing grass cropped by the horses. A dream of bloodshed, of glory held her motionless, transfixed, a little girl with her mouth wide open, her lower lip drooping, her dishevelled hair falling over her damp forehead; her painful tonsils made it difficult to breathe, but nevertheless, each of her hoarse breaths echoed her deepest thoughts. She revelled in imagining the small green hilltop in the setting sun where she was both the Emperor (soundlessly her lips formed the words, ‘Soldiers, you have earned everlasting glory!’) and at the same time the young lieutenant who lay dying while pressing his lips to the golden fringes of the French flag. Blood trickled from his pierced breast. In the mirror of the wardrobe she could see a little eight-year-old girl in a blue dress and a large white smock; her pale face wore a dazed expression that reflected the turbulence of her inner life; her fingers were stained with ink, and she had strong, solid legs in thick tights and heavy lace-up boots. But Hélène didn’t recognise her. In order better to hide her secret dream, better to throw anyone who might discover it off the scent, she began singing quietly through half-open lips: ‘There was a little ship …’
Outside, a woman leaned over the low wall of the courtyard and shouted, ‘Hey! Aren’t you ashamed to be chasing after women at your age, you old scoundrel?’
In the distance, the bells from the monastery rang loudly, solemnly, through the clear evening air.
‘… That had ne-ne-never sailed …’
The soldiers attacked; the sky was crimson; the drums were beating.
‘When you get back home, your children will say, “He was a soldier in Napoleon’s Army.” ’
‘What’s going to happen to us, Boris? What’s going to happen to us?’
‘Why are you feeling sorry for yourself?’ her father asked, his voice soft and weary. ‘Have you ever wanted for anything? Do you think I’m worried about earning a living? I’m not a layabout like your father. Ever since I was old enough to work, I’ve never asked anything of anyone …’
‘No woman is more unhappy than me!’
This time, mysteriously, the words seeped into Hélène’s consciousness, filling her heart with bitter resentment. ‘Why does she always have to make such a scene,’ she thought.
‘Unhappy, really?’ shouted Karol. ‘And what about me? Do you think I’m happy? Why didn’t I just bash my skull in on our wedding day, instead of marrying you? I wanted to have a peaceful home, a child. And all I have is you and your shouting and not even a son.’
‘Oh, stop it,’ thought Hélène. This fight was going on too long, and it seemed more serious and bitter than usual. She kicked the soldiers away and they rolled underneath the furniture.
But she could still hear her mother’s fearful, cajoling voice. Usually when Karol shouted at her she would remain quiet, or simply weep and moan.
‘Come on now, don’t be angry. I’m not blaming you for anything. Here we are fighting with each other … Let’s try to think instead. What are you going to do?’
They were speaking more quietly; she couldn’t hear any more.
The woman leaning over the wall ran off, laughing: ‘You’re too old, my dear, too old …’
Hélène went over to Mademoiselle Rose and absent-mindedly tugged at her sewing.
Mademoiselle Rose sighed and fixed the bow that was falling over Hélène’s forehead: ‘You’re so hot, Lili. Have a rest now, don’t start reading, you read too much; play with your puzzle or your pick-up-sticks …’
The servant brought in a lamp and, with the doors and windows shut, a sweet, safe little universe once more encircled the child and her governess, a world that was like a seashell, and just as fragile.
3
Mademoiselle Rose was thin and delicate, with a sweet face and fine features; she must have been rather beautiful when she was young, graceful and cheerful, but now she looked thin and worn out; her small mouth was full of the kind of wrinkles caused by bitterness and suffering that mark the lips of women over thirty; she had the beautiful, lively dark eyes of Frenchwomen from the Midi, chestnut hair that was frizzy and as light as smoke and that she wore, in the fashion of the time, in a high crown on top of her smooth forehead; her skin was soft and she smelled of fine soap and violets. She wore a narrow velvet ribbon round her neck, short-sleeved tops of white linen or fine black wool, straight skirts and button-up boots with long, pointy tips. She was rather vain when it came to her small feet and her shapely waist that she pulled tightly in with a suede belt decorated with a dull silver buckle. She was calm and wise, very sensible and modest; for many years she had retained an innocent cheerfulness, despite the apprehension and sadness she felt about Hélène’s strange, wild nature, about this chaotic household in this untamed country. Hélène loved only her, no one else. In the evening, when the lamp was lit, Hélène would sit at her little desk and draw or cut out pi
ctures, while Mademoiselle Rose talked about her childhood, her brothers and sisters, the games they had played and the Ursuline convent where she had been raised.
‘When I was little I was called Rosette …’
‘Were you good?’
‘Not always.’
‘Better than me?’
‘You’re very good, Hélène, except now and again. You’d think you sometimes had a demon in you.’
‘Am I intelligent?’
‘Yes, but you think you’re more intelligent than you are … which won’t make you any better or any happier. You must be good and brave. Not to do extraordinary things, you’re just an ordinary little girl. But to accept God’s will.’
‘Yes. But Mama’s evil, isn’t she?’
‘What an idea, Hélène … She’s not evil; it’s just that she has always been spoiled – by her mother, then by your father, who loves her so much, and also spoiled by life. She has never had to work or give in to anyone … Come, now, try to draw my picture …’
‘I can’t. Sing, won’t you, Mademoiselle Rose, please.’
‘You know all my songs.’
‘That doesn’t matter. Sing “You may have taken Alsace and Lorraine but in spite of you we will always be French”.’
Mademoiselle Rose sang often; her voice wasn’t very strong but it was clear and melodious. She would sing ‘Marlbrough is off to war’, ‘Love’s pleasures last but a moment’ and ‘I sigh beneath your window, day will soon be here’ … When she said the word ‘love’, she, too, sometimes sighed and stroked Hélène’s hair. Had she ever been in love? Had she lost the man she’d loved? Had she been happy once? Why had she come to Russia to look after other people’s children? Hélène was never to know the answer to these questions. As a little girl she didn’t dare ask and, later on, she wished to keep intact within her heart the memory of the only pure, peaceful woman she had ever known, a woman free from the stain of desire, whose eyes seemed only to have looked upon smiling, innocent faces.
The Wine of Solitude Page 2