The Wine of Solitude

by Irene Nemirovsky

  ‘Didn’t I say that?’ murmured the elderly Madame Haas with deep satisfaction.

  ‘Fred,’ asked Zenia Reuss, ‘should we wake the children?’

  ‘Of course. And be sure to dress them very warmly. Who wants to go with me to get the horses?’

  ‘Wait until morning,’ Madame Haas advised anxiously. ‘It’s too dark out. You might get caught in the crossfire. And besides, where would you go in the middle of the night, in this cold, with women and children?’

  All the mothers had appeared by now, each holding a child in her arms. They weren’t crying but stared in wide-eyed surprise. Reuss suggested they play cards to make the time pass more quickly, so they set up the bridge tables as they did every night. Hélène looked around her; all the children, big or little, were sitting next to their mothers, and each mother had placed a trembling hand on their bent shoulders and foreheads, as if their delicate hands had the power to stop bullets.

  Reuss went over to his wife and tenderly placed his hand on her arm. ‘Don’t be afraid, my darling, you mustn’t be afraid, we’re together,’ he whispered, and Hélène felt an invisible vice tightening round her heart.

  ‘He loves her so very much … But of course he loves her: she’s his wife,’ she thought with stifled anger. ‘What’s got into me? But all the same, I’m so very alone …’

  She walked away, sat down on the window ledge and absent-mindedly watched the snow as it fell.

  ‘The way he looks at her!’ she thought, tortured by a kind of suffering she’d never felt before. ‘The way he takes his sons’ hands! He loves his children so much. Oh, look how much he cares about me now, me whom he kissed and caressed so tenderly just five minutes ago. I’m so glad I didn’t say “I love you”. But do I love him? I don’t know. I’m in pain, it’s not fair, I wasn’t meant to suffer like this, I’m too young …’

  She looked at her mother and Max with hatred.

  ‘It’s because of them …’ She turned towards Max. ‘I hate him, I could kill him,’ she thought, but then, as the pathetic childish curses rose to her lips, she had an idea.

  ‘How stupid I am! Vengeance is within my grasp. I knew how to get Fred Reuss when all the women were after him. Max is just a man. If I wanted to … Oh, my God, don’t tempt me. But … she deserves it. My poor Mademoiselle Rose. How they made her suffer. Forgive them? Why? Why should I? Yes, I know. God said: “Vengeance is mine …” Well, too bad. I’m not a saint; I can’t forgive her. Wait, just you wait and you’ll see. I’ll make you cry the way you made me cry. You never taught me goodness, forgiveness. It’s very simple: you never taught me anything but to be afraid of you and how to behave at mealtimes. Everything is hateful, I’m suffering, the world is evil. Wait, just you wait, you old …!’

  The lamp flickered one last time and went out. The men swore and waved their lit cigarettes about.

  ‘Well! There’s not a drop of petrol, of course, and there’s no one in the kitchen …’

  ‘I know where the candles are,’ said Hélène.

  She found two candles; one was placed among the men playing cards and the other on the piano, the only light in the shabby little room that Hélène was never to see again.

  The children fell asleep. Every now and again one of the men said, ‘Really, we’d be better off going to bed to get some rest. It’s ridiculous sitting here. What good are we doing?’

  But the women said over and over again, nervously, ‘Let’s stay together, we feel better when we’re all together …’

  It was nearly midnight when they heard the first gunshots. The men turned white and dropped their cards. Sometimes the shooting came closer, then sounded far away.

  ‘Put out the lights,’ someone cried anxiously.

  They rushed to the candles and blew them out. In the darkness, Hélène could hear the sound of panicked breathlessness and murmurs of ‘My God, my God, dear Lord God …’

  Hélène laughed to herself; she liked the sound of the gunfire; a wild exhilaration made her shudder and quiver with joy.

  ‘They’re so afraid. They’re so upset, all of them! I’m not afraid. I won’t let anyone frighten me. I’m enjoying myself, I’m enjoying this,’ she mused; and to her the battle, the danger, the risk were all transformed into a terrible but exciting game; she suddenly felt herself stronger, more mockingly detached than she had ever felt before or would ever feel again. She was eager to enjoy the feeling, as if she had a premonition that from this moment on, everyone she loved in the future, every child she might love, would steal a little bit of this strength, this cold-blooded courage from her, leaving her just like everyone else, part of the herd, pressing their families, their own flesh and blood, tightly against them in the darkness. No one spoke. Every mother covered her children with her skirts to protect them from the cold night, all the while convinced that none of them would live to see the dawn. She could hear belts full of gold creaking in the darkness; a child was crying softly. Old Haas’s shawl slipped to the ground; he moaned and sighed pleadingly; his elderly wife worried that anxiety and the freezing cold night would kill him: he had a heart condition. Tears of irritation fell down her face.

  ‘My God! You can be such a nuisance,’ she said, sounding angry yet loving, ‘My poor husband …’

  Max and Fred Reuss had gone to the village to try to find some horses. The night passed by. They still hadn’t returned.

  ‘Does anyone have any spirits?’ asked Madame Reuss. ‘We must give them something to drink when they get back. It’s such a cold night.’

  She spoke in a soft, calm voice, as if she were talking about a peaceful stroll on the plains.

  Hélène shrugged her shoulders. ‘Poor woman,’ she thought. ‘Doesn’t she realise they might never make it back?’

  Madame Haas went into her room, clattering the keys that swung from her belt; she soon returned with a flask of alcohol. Madame Reuss took the bottle and thanked her. It was only when someone used his cigarette lighter that Hélène could see how deathly pale the young woman’s face was.

  ‘She loves him too much to give up hope,’ she thought, as regret – regret she felt too late – rose up in her soul. ‘When you love someone as much as that, you don’t believe they can die. You think your love protects them. Even if he doesn’t come back, even if he gets lost in the snow or is hit by a stray bullet, she’ll wait for him … faithfully. Is it possible she hasn’t noticed anything? Oh, quite the opposite, she has known for a long time, but she must be used to it. She says nothing. She’s right. Her Fred really does belong to her.’

  She looked at her mother, who was trembling and anxiously trying to find a light in the dark night.

  ‘But why are you so anxious, my dear?’ Madame Haas said to her. ‘Your daughter is with you.’ Her voice was soft and malicious.

  It seemed to Hélène that all the people gathered there were opening up their hearts to her, without intending to; she was sitting on the window ledge, swinging her legs towards the shapeless mass huddled in the darkness, listening to the sound of incessant gunfire; it was low-pitched and intense. A few minutes later they all left the room and climbed up the stairs, for they were afraid that stray bullets might come in through the windows. Hélène alone remained there with the young woman with tuberculosis; she had silently come in, sat down on the piano stool and started to play, feeling her way across the keyboard, separating herself from the families who were as warm and loving as cattle in a stable. Hélène pulled back a shutter; at once the moonlight shimmered on to the keyboard and the thin hands that played such passionate, impish music.

  ‘Mozart,’ said the young woman.

  Then they fell silent. They had never exchanged a single word; they would never see each other again. Hélène held her head in her hands and listened to the tender, delicate, mocking harmonies, the clear, light chords, the laughter that scoffed at darkness and death, and she felt the dizzying, proud exhilaration of being herself, Hélène Karol, ‘stronger, freer than all of them …’
.

  In the morning someone called her: the horses were there.

  ‘There might not be enough room for everyone,’ said Reuss. ‘Women and children first.’

  But everyone said, ‘No. We all go together.’

  Bella took Max’s hand. ‘All together …’

  Only then did she remember that Hélène was there. ‘Do you have your coat? And a shawl?’ she asked quickly. ‘I still have to think of everything for a girl your age.’

  Hélène made her way over to Reuss. ‘Where are you going? Can’t we go together?’

  ‘No. We have to go our separate ways at the edge of the forest so we don’t attract attention, and everyone will go with his own family.’

  ‘I understand,’ she murmured.

  Their carriages were waiting, lined up outside the door, just as when they were going to dance with the Red Guard, all now dead and buried.

  The horizon was lit up with distant fires, and the pine trees covered in snow looked pink beneath the soft grey sky of the early dawn.

  ‘This is goodbye,’ said Fred. He secretly pressed his lips against Hélène’s cold cheek.

  ‘Goodbye,’ he said softly, ‘my poor darling …’

  They walked away from each other.

  5

  After a long, exhausting journey the Karols ended up in Helsinki in the spring; it was a bright, peaceful, happy little town. Lilac bushes were in blossom in every street. It was the time of year when the sky is never dark, but keeps a milky light until morning, like the soft transparency of dusk in May.

  Hélène was sent to board with Fru Martens, the widow of a Finnish minister, a respectable person with many virtues and many children. She was a short, thin, supple woman with blond hair, dry skin and a pinkish nose that had been frozen some time in the past and was now chapped and purplish in the middle. She taught Hélène German and read her Mutter Sorge out loud. While she read, Hélène watched a little pointy bone move around beneath the yellowish skin of her old neck, as prominent as an Adam’s apple; she didn’t listen to a word, daydreaming instead.

  She wasn’t unhappy, just bored to tears. It wasn’t only Fred Reuss she missed. Quite the opposite, she had forgotten Fred Reuss strangely quickly. But she missed the freedom, the open spaces, the danger, the full life she had led that she couldn’t erase from her memory.

  In the evening, when the little Martenses sang ‘Tannenbaum, oh, Tannenbaum, wie grün sind deine Blätter!’ she listened with pleasure to their soft, sonorous voices, but at the same time she would think, ‘Oh, for the sound of cannons! For danger, anything just to feel alive! To live! Or to be a child like the others … But no, it’s too late for that. I’m only sixteen, but my heart is filled with poison.’

  The autumn moon spread its cool, clear light over the little sitting room and its ornamental green pot plants; she walked over to the window and looked at the bay shimmering in the darkness.

  ‘I want my revenge. Will I have to die without ever getting back at them?’

  Ever since the night when the idea first crossed her mind she continually embellished it, enjoyed it.

  ‘To take her Max away from her! To make both of them suffer the way they made me suffer! I didn’t ask to be born. Oh, how I would have preferred never to have been born. No one gave a thought to me, that’s for sure. They brought me into this world and left me to grow up alone. Well, that’s not enough! It’s a crime to have children and not give them an atom, a crumb of love. I can’t give up the idea of revenge. Don’t make me, Lord! I think I would rather die than give up that idea. To take her lover away from her! Me, little Hélène!’

  Only on Sundays did Hélène see her mother and Max. They would arrive together, stay a short time, then leave. Sometimes Max would place a few marks on the table: ‘You can buy yourself some sweets …’

  After he left she would give the money to the servants and it would take a very long time to stop her entire body from quivering with hatred.

  In the meantime she noticed that something had changed between her mother and Max: it was a subtle change and difficult to define. But the way they spoke to one another was different and so were their silences. They had always quarrelled, but now the tone of their arguments was more bitter, full of impatience and anger.

  ‘They’re becoming a married couple!’ Hélène mused.

  She cruelly studied her mother’s face for a long time; she could watch her as much as she liked: her mother’s harsh eyes never fell on her; Bella seemed completely transfixed by Max; she would eagerly scrutinise every change in his features, while he looked away, as if he could barely stand her looking at him.

  Bella’s face was beginning to age; its muscles were slackening; Hélène could see wrinkles beneath the powder and rouge that the make-up filled in without being able to hide; they stood out as deep, fine lines at the corners of her eyes, her lips and on her temples. The painted surface of her skin was cracking, losing its smooth, creamy texture, becoming coarser, rougher. On her neck appeared the triple creases that meant she was in her forties.

  One day they arrived after a longer, more serious quarrel than usual: Hélène could tell immediately by the sad, annoyed expression on her mother’s face, by the quivering of her tense mouth.

  Bella angrily took off her fur coat and threw it on to the bed. ‘It’s so hot in here. Are you working hard, Hélène? You did nothing all last year. Look at what a mess your hair is. You look five years older than you are with your hair pulled back like that, I have no desire to be burdened with a daughter to marry off. Oh, Max, stop turning round in circles like a caged animal! Hélène, ask them to bring us some tea.’

  ‘At this hour?’

  ‘Well, what time is it, then?’

  ‘Seven o’clock. I was expecting you earlier.’

  ‘You can surely wait an hour for your mother. Ah, how ungrateful children are. Just like everyone else in the world. There’s not a single soul who loves you, who feels sorry for you! Not one …’

  ‘Are you really someone we should feel sorry for?’ Hélène asked softly.

  ‘I’m dying of thirst,’ said Bella. She got a glass of water and drank it quickly. Her eyes were full of tears. When she put down the glass, Hélène saw her secretly shape her eyebrows with her finger and look anxiously at her face in the mirror: the tears were damaging her make-up.

  ‘This is becoming unbearable!’ Max muttered through tight lips.

  ‘Oh, really, is that what you think? And what about the night I spent waiting for you, while your friends and those women …’

  ‘What women?’ he said with a weary sigh. ‘You’d like to lock me behind closed doors so that I see, hear and live for nothing but you.’

  ‘Before …’

  ‘Yes, exactly, that was before! How can you not understand? We’re only young once, only free once. It might be all right to throw everything out of the window, your family, your past, your future, once … at twenty-four. But life goes on, people change, become more serious, wiser. Whereas you … you … You’re tyrannical, egotistical, demanding. You make yourself unbearable to others and to yourself. I’ve been unhappy recently, you can see that very well. I’m sad, tired of it all, irritable. You take no pity on me. Yet all I ask of you is one thing. Leave me alone! Don’t have me trailing behind you like a dog on a leash. Let me breathe!’

  ‘But what on earth is wrong with you? Imagine, Hélène. He hasn’t had any letters from his mother, no letters from his beloved mother. But is that my fault? I’m asking you, is that my fault?’

  Max struck his fist angrily against the table. ‘Is this any business of the child’s? Oh, enough, enough of your tears! I swear to you, Bella, if you start crying again I’m going to leave and you’ll never see me again as long as I live. At least, in the past, you were as hard on yourself as you were on everyone else. That was rather attractive,’ he said more quietly. ‘In my heart I called you Medea. But now …’

  ‘Yes,’ mused Hélène, silent and invisible in t
he dark room, ‘you’re getting old. Every day that passes robs you of a weapon and adds one to my armoury. I’m young; I’m only sixteen, I’ll steal your lover from you and, sadly, it won’t take very long or need much cunning. It won’t be very difficult. And when I’ve made you really suffer, I’ll send him packing, because, to me, he’ll always be the Max I hated from my childhood, the enemy of that poor dead woman. Oh, how I will avenge her. But I still need to wait a while longer …’

  She had vague memories of those childhood evenings: coming home from the park, dying of thirst as she walked beneath the shady lime trees, breathing in their perfume and dreaming of the cold milk that was waiting for her in a blue bowl; she remembered how she would half close her eyes to quench the thirst within her by imagining the sweet, cool liquid and the feeling of ice-cold milk flowing down her throat; how, once inside her room, she would hold the bowl in her hands for a long time, then bring it close to her face and moisten her lips with the milk before greedily drinking it down.

  Suddenly the telephone rang. Hélène picked up the receiver; someone wanted to speak to Max. ‘It’s for you, Max,’ she said. ‘Some news from Constantinople. They’re calling from your house.’

  Max grabbed the phone from her. She saw his face contort with pain. He listened for a moment without saying a word, then hung up and turned towards Bella. ‘Well,’ he said quietly, ‘you can be happy now. I’m all yours. I have nothing left, nothing apart from you. My mother has died. All alone, just as she predicted. Oh, I’ll be punished, terribly punished! That’s what it was, then, this weight that was suffocating me. She died in the hospital in Constantinople; strangers had to tell me she’d died. She was alone. But what about my sisters? What happened to them during that journey when I wasn’t at their side to protect them, to help them, while I was with you, with you and your family? I’ll never forgive you for this!’

  ‘But you’re mad!’ cried Bella in tears, leaning towards him, her face distorted as her make-up ran. ‘Is this my fault? Don’t be so cruel. Don’t push me away! You’re punishing me for your own mistakes. Is that fair? Yes, I wanted you to stay, to keep you with me. What woman would have done anything different? Is it my fault?’