But she was not sad. Neither sad nor frightened. After all, she was to forget all about her past life. Indeed, she no longer thought about any of it. She never thought about Paris, or about her brother, or about Andrei. She never thought about that time: she never thought it through, she never really understood what had happened.
Maybe nothing had happened.
Nothing of her past life remained. She was different now, she was new. She wasn’t even called Liza any more; she was Betsy. Why should Betsy have anything to cry over?
But the tears kept coming. They coursed down her face, cold and salty, and there was nothing she could do to stop them. Liza held the puppy closer. This puppy was the only thing in the world that she loved. She pressed her cheek into its soft fur.
What was he thinking about? What would he say if he could talk?
“I love grilled meat but I never get any.”
No, he would say:
“I like being with you.”
Liza smiled to herself and dried her eyes. “I wonder what he sees—does he see the same world as we do, or does he see everything differently?” She got up.
Back at the lodge, she went to her room and opened a book. “Mary has grey eyes,” she read, “but John has blue eyes.”
She repeated it aloud several times. Then she turned the page.
She studied one lesson a day, as set by Leslie, and in the evenings he would test her. In addition to this, they always spoke English to one another. Liza’s English was still quite poor, but sufficient for conversations with Leslie.
Rain drummed against the window. Smoke billowed out of the fireplace. “What is the cabby doing with his handkerchief? He is sweating and using it to dry his face,” read Liza. She closed her eyes.
This is it. This is her life now. It was never going to change. In six months’ time, when she is fifteen and a half, Leslie will marry her and take her to England. But nothing will change. There will be twenty bedrooms in that house instead of the lodge’s five, and the help will be a maid in black stockings and white gloves instead of the caretaker’s wife. And there will be many more dogs there, and lots of horses. But it will all be the same. It will rain there, too, and Leslie will go out shooting there as well. And she will have to get up every morning, and she will have to make it through each day, and she will have to sleep through each night, until the morning. How many more such days and nights would there be?
She wasn’t a girl any more, she was a grown-up. Her childhood had been unhappy, but being a grown-up was harder still. She was a grown-up now. It no longer mattered how old she was—fifteen, twenty or forty. Not now, not since that was how it was all going to be and there was no hope. But she wasn’t complaining. What was there to complain about? So be it.
“What is the cabby doing with his handkerchief? He is sweating and using it to dry his face.”
Outside, beyond the drizzle, the pond gleamed and the black branches swayed as the wide springtime sky stretched out above them.
II
UPON ARRIVING back from the shoot, Leslie Grey would go straight through to see Liza. His muddy boots left dirty prints on the floor.
“Look at the size of this one, Betsy!” he would say, brandishing a dead hare in front of Liza’s face.
Blood dripped from the dead hare’s face.
“Beautiful, isn’t he? He’ll be delicious with some beetroot salad!”
Liza would agree politely.
“Yes, beautiful. Yes, delicious.”
After that, it was time to wash and change for dinner. Liza would put on her other grey dress. Leslie would exchange his shooting jacket for a dinner jacket and wait for Liza in the drawing room with its calico armchairs and peeling walls.
Liza would come in, her hair brushed straight.
He would get up to kiss her hand.
“Darling, you look most handsome tonight,” he would say in a rather official tone.
“Dinner is served,” the gardener would intone and throw the narrow door wide open.
That was his only job in the evenings.
Leslie would walk Liza in to dinner. She found it all quite ridiculous.
The caretaker’s wife, wearing a white pinafore, would serve them onion soup.
At dinner they did not discuss shooting. Shooting was to be discussed over breakfast.
At dinner they would talk about their wedding and their future life together.
Leslie would pour himself some cider.
“You know, of course, that I’m a captain in the Scottish Rifles. We’ll walk to the altar with my regiment’s swords crossed above our heads. It’s a grand and beautiful ceremony. They stand in a row, two men deep, and draw their swords high over their heads and the swords cross.”
“Yes, that must be very beautiful.”
“We’ve six months left in hiding. You know, sometimes I feel like a criminal who’s kidnapped you. But what wouldn’t one do for love?”
Liza nodded. He was speaking English and she didn’t understand everything, but it was still good practice.
After dinner they would retire to the drawing room. Leslie would make himself comfortable by the fire.
“Let’s have a little music,” he would suggest.
Liza would obediently go over to the old, out-of-tune piano and sing ‘Ol’ Man River’, which Leslie had taught her.
Her sad, gentle voice floated effortlessly up to the ceiling.
Leslie would smile in satisfaction.
“Excellent, my dear. You have a Negro’s accent. And your singing’s so melancholy, as if you’d spent your whole life on a plantation. Come to me, Betsy.”
He would sit her on his lap and kiss the back of her head.
“Once we’re married, it won’t even take a year for you to forget that you were ever Russian, to forget your language. You’ll be perfectly English.”
Liza would nod. Yes, she had already forgotten everything. She was already English.
He would stroke her head.
“Your hair is growing out quite marvellously. Mother will approve. I do hope she won’t object to our wedding. You’re such a well-brought-up, demure girl; she’ll like you. Yes, you’re Russian, but your father was an officer in the Navy, wasn’t he? And your grandfather was a general? Yes, I hope Mother won’t have any objections.”
He leant over her and kissed her neck. His cheeks blushed; his breathing grew heavy.
“Go over and sit on the chair please, Betsy. You’re getting me too worked up, my darling.”
He lit a cigar. In silence Liza watched the logs burning in the fire.
“It must run in the family—running away and hiding. Cromwell ran away, then I did. Maybe they’ve found him by now. I don’t get any letters here after all. What do you think, Betsy? Do you suppose they’ll have found him?”
Liza shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
It was possible that he had come back. She didn’t know. She refused to think about it.
“If Cromwell’s been found, he can be the best man at our wedding.”
“Of course,” Liza agreed.
There was nothing else to talk about. Leslie smoked in silence, stretching out his long legs in front of the fire.
The wind gently rustled the trees in the garden. The shutters creaked monotonously. A kerosene lamp with a green shade cast a pale light over the room.
The logs in the fireplace had almost burnt out. A blue flame danced over the embers.
Liza was too hot.
“I could go to bed now,” she thought, looking at the door. But she couldn’t find the strength to move. Her hands rested on her lap, and her eyes kept closing as she looked towards the door.
“It’s going to rain tomorrow.” The thought ran through her sleepy head. “The barometer dropped again today.”
Quite unexpectedly, the door slowly and silently drew open, and Cromwell silently and slowly entered the room.
He walked in and stopped.
He looked j
ust the same as he did in Paris, the last time she saw him. He was wearing the same blue blazer and yellow shoes. He was carrying a brass candlestick in his hand.
A draught made the flame on top of the tall candle flicker, casting a yellow glow over his pink cheeks.
He was tilting his head slightly to the side, looking cheerfully at Liza with his bright, pale eyes. His lips moved, as if he were about to speak, but he didn’t say anything.
He just nodded at Liza, turned on his heels and, still smiling, walked out into the corridor holding the candle in front of him.
The door still lay open and a strong gust of air blew into the room.
“It’s freezing!” exclaimed Leslie, turning around. “It’s that damned door again!”
He jumped up and slammed the door angrily.
“It’s so draughty here, the roof is bound to go flying off one of these days!”
He leant over Liza.
“Why are you staring at the door like that, Betsy? What’s made you turn so pale?”
Liza transferred her gaze to him. Surely he’d seen Cromwell?
“What is it, Betsy? Did the draught frighten you?”
“No,” Liza stuttered. “No, I’m not frightened.”
“Go to bed, darling, you’re practically asleep already.”
At that, he lit a candle that was standing ready on the mantelpiece. A tall white candle in a brass candlestick, just like the one Cromwell had been holding.
“Come, Betsy, I’ll see you to your room.”
At the door to her room, he handed her the candle, kissed her hand, just as he always did, and, just as he always did, said: “Goodnight, Betsy. Lock the door and don’t open it, even if I knock.”
In reply, she said what she said every night: “Goodnight, Leslie. You know you’ll never knock.”
Then she walked into her room and ran her hand over her eyes.
“Crom’s here. It must be true.”
There could be no room for doubt. No longer could she fail to understand, fail to think it through. Everything was clear.
The gap in time disappeared. These never-ending two months, this new English life without any memories.
Time had suddenly shifted. The past had caught up with the present. It was yesterday. It was today. She heard the sound of a brush scrubbing the bathroom floor, she saw the heavy suitcases.
How could she have forgotten it, even for a minute? How could she pretend not to remember?
She was still holding the candle. Hot wax dripped onto her hand.
“I must go back at once. I must go back to Paris at once.”
She placed the candle on top of the dresser and trained her ears. All was still in the lodge. Leslie must have gone to bed already.
She put on her hat and coat. In her coat pocket was a purse with one hundred francs. They were the hundred francs that Leslie had given her on the first day, so she should always have money on her. She hadn’t broken the note. There was nothing to spend it on around here.
“That’ll be enough for the journey.”
She blew out the candle, opened the window, pushed open the shutters and jumped down into the garden.
The window wasn’t very high up. Her dress snagged on a bush.
A large, round green moon was swimming across the sky. Liza lifted her face to look at it.
“Like the lamp in the drawing room.” The vague thought crossed her mind.
The black shadows of trees danced across the grass. The clouds condensed and scattered as they drifted across the moon.
Liza walked over to the pond. The moon swam out from behind a thick black cloud and came to a standstill over the tall tops of the fir trees, right above the pond. The moon’s reflection fell into the pond—round, shimmering, bright. It made everything brighter. Much brighter. So much brighter and completely silent.
Liza passed under the black arch of the gateway. She knew that it was made of red brick, but right now it seemed black. The cold, bright moonlight drained the colour from everything, leaving just black and white. Everything was either black or white.
White signs with black traffic markings. Black rocks lining the sides of a straight, wide white road. And on top of the hill, by the junction, a tall black cross—a monument to those who fell in the war.
Everything was so far, yet so clearly visible. As if it were daytime. Clearer than in daytime.
Liza wasn’t afraid. She felt as if someone’s guiding hand were carrying the round green lamp through the clouds, so that she, Liza, should have light. So that she should not lose her way.
In the distance she saw black-and-white buildings.
Here was the town, here was the railway station.
III
LIZA WAS SITTING in a third-class carriage.
Across from her were three peasants, and beside them a parish priest who in a quiet whisper was reading prayers from a small black prayer book.
Liza stared at the darkness through the window. She’d made it just in time, she wasn’t too late. Tomorrow morning she was going to be in Paris.
She could hear a clucking coming from a basket on the top shelf.
“I’ve got a hen in there,” a fat peasant woman explained to her neighbours. “I’m taking it to Paris as a gift for my son. They don’t know what a real plump hen is in Paris!”
The hen captured everyone’s attention.
“Why don’t you let her out for a walk,” said the old man who was smoking a pipe. “She doesn’t want cooping up in that basket.”
The peasant woman readily agreed. The hen came down from the shelf.
“See how plump she is! Go on, pinch her breast. I’ve brought her up on nuts!” the peasant woman fussed.
The feathers on top of her colourful hat shook.
Her round eyes looked about with a proud gaze. Her aquiline nose seemed ready to peck.
“Here, pinch my hen!”
A multitude of hands reached out towards the hen. Even the curé momentarily lifted his eyes from his prayer book.
The peasant woman politely offered her hen to Liza, as if it were a box of chocolates.
“Would you like to pinch her, mademoiselle?”
Liza looked at the peasant woman.
“No, thank you.” She turned back to the window.
The carriage was hot and filled with smoke. One by one the passengers fell asleep. Loud snoring joined the beating of the wheels. The hen, its legs tied, jumped helplessly around the floor, flapping its wings.
Liza closed her eyes. Three hours to Paris.
IV
IT WAS A COLD and windy morning in Paris. Porters were busy, carrying luggage. Taxis were coming and going. Passengers stood on the steps, peering around with that baffled provincial look with which even those who leave Paris for only a short while inevitably return.
Liza left the station, crossed the square and descended into the metro. She didn’t lift her head or look around once. She had no interest in the motor cars, the people or the buildings. It was as if she hadn’t been away for two months, but rather had just stepped out to buy some bread for breakfast and was now hurrying home.
Liza rushed along the quiet streets of Auteuil. Here was their local creamery on the corner, and here was the pharmacy. Her head was empty. She was almost running. Through the bright green trees, a pink house suddenly came into view, almost unexpectedly. Liza stopped and placed her hand on the garden gate. The garden was overgrown. The garden paths hadn’t been swept. The shutters were closed. They were still asleep. The garden gate creaked as it always did, like a cat meowing.
Liza climbed the porch steps and rang the doorbell.
Nobody opened the door. Her heart skipped a beat. They’ve left. She rang again. The ringing was urgent and shrill. They’ve left.
She lifted her head and looked up at the windows. The curtains were drawn. In the far window, she saw a curtain twitch, just as it had done that night, and she caught a glimpse of a pale face on the other side of the windowpane. The
curtain quickly drew shut again, and soon she heard the sound of familiar footsteps. The key turned in the lock twice, the chain fell with a clank and the door opened.
“Andrei!”
“Liza, is that you?”
He grabbed her by the hand, pulled her into the hallway and locked the door after her.
“Liza, you’ve come back?”
It was very dark in the hallway. Andrei leant over her, staring at her intently.
It was as if he didn’t believe that it was really her. His hand squeezed hers tightly.
His eyes shone feverishly.
“Is that you, Liza? Have you come back?”
He gave a sharp laugh. The sound echoed in the silence.
Liza started. For some reason she felt uneasy. She turned to look at the locked door behind her.
“It’s locked, I can’t get away now. Like a mouse in a mousetrap,” she thought. “But even if it were open, I would never leave.”
Andrei helped her to take off her coat and led her through into the dining room.
The shutters were closed. The light was on, casting a yellow circle on the tablecloth. Everything was in disarray. Nobody had cleaned the place for a long time.
Andrei had a new manner of walking—a careful, prowling step; he never used to walk like that. He was still holding Liza’s hand.
Liza looked at him without saying a word. Why had she come here? She wanted to find something out, but what? Not a single question came to mind. She had no thoughts. Her head was empty.
“Sit down, have some coffee.” Andrei placed a cup in front of her. “It’s still hot, I’ve only just brewed it.”
Without thinking she sat down and took a sip of coffee. It seemed to her that she couldn’t taste it at all, but for some reason she said:
“It’s too sweet.”
“I’ll make another cup,” he fussed. “Hold on, I’ll be right back.”
“Never mind, it doesn’t matter.”
“But it’ll only take a minute.”
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