The Betrayals

by Bridget Collins

  They pause for a few final words with Dettler. Then the van drives out of the courtyard, leaving nothing but petrol fumes dispersing quickly in the clear morning air. There is a smear on the tiles where Emile lay; it looks brownish, dirty. Dettler is staring at it. He jerks his head away as if he’s trying to break his train of thought, and says something to the Magister. Or perhaps it’s intended for the porters, who swap a glance and hurry away. A few moments later Dettler and the Magister move across the court, towards the Magisters’ Entrance, and out of sight.

  She’s at a loss: even the smallest decision of whether to sit down or stay on her feet seems beyond her. Last night she wanted Emile dead. When she went to confront Léo, yesterday – after she’d sat in the courtyard, trying to gather her thoughts – she heard Emile’s voice, and it stopped her in her tracks. Until he said, We’re making you Magister Ludi … and she couldn’t bear to listen any more. When she stumbled down the stairs again, she would have killed him with a click of her fingers, if she could have. She should have been pleased to see him spread out on the tiles, bleeding. But now it’s real, and he’s dead … And now there will be police asking questions. When Aimé died there was an inspector who looked at her sidelong and asked questions about where she’d been. She was lucky that it was so clear what had happened, that people had seen her arrive at the railway station – and lucky too that Aimé’s telegram had been addressed to DE COURCY, with no forename. She’d changed into a dress on the train – a little crumpled from being hidden under her mattress all term – and no one guessed that she hadn’t been with Aunt Frances, no one checked her ticket. Otherwise it might have been awkward. She was too tired and numb to be frightened; it was only later that she had nightmares about imprisonment and nooses and being naked in front of a mob. This time … She doesn’t have an alibi for last night. She couldn’t bear to be in her room, or in the Biblioteca Ludi; she was here all night, where Léo wouldn’t find her.

  She has to get away. Run. Catch a train today. There’s nothing to stay for. No job, no grand jeu, no friends among the Magisters. Simon Charpentier probably left long ago.

  She hurries down the stairs and along the passage towards the Magisters’ corridor. She turns the corner and Léo is outside her room, on the floor, his knees up. He sees her and scrambles to his feet.

  They look at each other. There is nothing to say.

  She steps around him and opens the door. He follows her in, but she ignores him and goes up the stairs. She fills a haversack with trousers and shirts, pyjamas, underwear, her washing gear. When she looks up, Léo is sitting on the bed, almost within touching distance.

  ‘Were you going to say goodbye?’ he says.

  She swings round to stare at him. He looks back at her as though she’s the one in the wrong.

  ‘I don’t owe you anything,’ she says.

  ‘Not even a goodbye? Tell me I won’t hear about your death in a couple of days, at least.’ It’s a joke, and not a joke. Unbelievably, after everything he’s done, he sounds hurt.

  She wants to pick up her bag and fling it at him. Instead she looks around. She could take a few of her books, but which ones? To go from whole libraries full, to two or three … Better not to take any. As she turns, Léo catches hold of her wrist.

  ‘I heard they’re sacking you,’ he says. ‘It’s not fair. But don’t blame me.’

  She jerks away from him. ‘What?’

  ‘I could come with you. Wherever you’re going. They’re bastards, but now you’re free, and … I was serious, about … Please, Claire. Let’s leave now, together.’

  Of everything he could have said … She presses her fingers against her eyelids. She doesn’t know where to start. If only she weren’t so tired. ‘You’re crazy.’

  ‘Possibly. Yes. Does it matter?’

  She drops her hands and opens her eyes. ‘You really think I’d go anywhere with you?’

  He frowns. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because …’ How can he ask? Why should she even bother to answer? ‘Leave me alone, Léo. I mean it. Leave.’ He doesn’t move. She has to resist the urge to kick his legs out of the way. She wants to see him flinch.

  ‘Why are you so angry with me?’

  She doesn’t know where to start. What does he want? A list of all the ways in which he’s destroyed her life? The cheek of it, to turn up and demand that she explain … But when she looks at him, there is a flicker of something in his face that – for a second, a split second – makes her certainty waver. He really doesn’t know that she knows.

  It would be something – the only victory left to her – if at least he understood. She wants to see his self-love shaken to the foundations; his conviction that he is a reasonable, upstanding human being shattered. If only – for once – he could see himself through her eyes.

  She says, ‘I thought you’d changed since we were scholars. Yesterday, I thought … I’m a fool, to fall for the same thing again. I thought you were sorry, that you understood, that you loved me. But you’ve done exactly the same thing, haven’t you? You betrayed me without even thinking twice. You’ll always be that person, Léo. The one who only cares about winning, and doesn’t care how he does it. What’s it to you, if you lie or cheat, as long as you get what you want?’

  He catches his breath. ‘I didn’t—’

  ‘All this time you were spying on me. Writing to Emile about me, about my politics, stupid things I said that weren’t meant to be repeated.’

  ‘Yes, I wrote him letters, but they weren’t – I didn’t mean—’

  ‘And then you interrupt my Midsummer Game. Oh, you weren’t trying to sabotage it. The way you submitted the Red game – that wasn’t sabotage either. Right? And then—’ Her voice wobbles, threatening to let her down. ‘Then you sleep with me. Then I find out that I’m not Magister Ludi any more – the only thing I’ve ever done, ever wanted.’ She stops, closing her mouth before she says something she can’t call back. Or starts to cry again. She’s had enough of that.

  ‘I only heard yesterday – after you did. I promise.’

  ‘Don’t,’ she says, and something in her voice shuts him up. ‘Don’t promise. Please.’ There’s a silence. Is he beginning to understand? At least he’s paying attention.

  He’s staring at his hands. Without looking up, he says, ‘The Red game was brilliant. I submitted it because it was better than anything I’d ever seen. I was sure you’d win the Gold Medal.’

  ‘Really?’ She waits for him to meet her eyes, but he doesn’t. He looks like a scholar, with hunched shoulders and bowed head. Not a Magister; not even a grown-up. ‘Well,’ she says, ‘now you can award the Gold Medal to whomever you please. I expect the Capitulum will listen to you.’

  His chin jerks up. ‘What?’

  ‘I overheard, yesterday. I came to find you, after they’d told me … But Emile was there. I heard him, Léo. You’re the next Magister Ludi. My replacement. Finally. You don’t have to pretend. You’ve beaten me. Again. Congratulations.’

  ‘You heard?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then …’ He frowns.

  ‘There’s nothing left to say, Léo. I’m going. You’re staying. I never want to see you again.’ She slings her rucksack on to one shoulder. Then she realises she’s still wearing her gown. She dumps the rucksack and pulls the heavy white cloth over her head. When she drops it in a heap at her feet she feels lighter, colder, naked. She picks up her bag again. It’s time to say goodbye, but the word won’t come.

  ‘I said no.’ Léo reaches out, although he doesn’t touch her. It isn’t a grand jeu gesture, and yet it could be: an urgent transition, deliberately awkward, his fingers splayed. ‘I said no, Claire. I told Emile I wasn’t doing it. I’m not going to be Magister Ludi. Didn’t you hear that part?’

  She looks at his fingers, stretching towards her, and the space between his skin and hers feels heavy, like before a storm.

  ‘Did you hear what I said? I’m not replacing you. I turne
d him down. I told him he could find someone else.’ He follows her gaze and drops his hand. ‘He wasn’t too happy. Suffice to say, I think I’ve ruined my chances of getting an Order of the Empire in the next year’s Honours.’

  She doesn’t move. She doesn’t believe him. Yes, she does.

  ‘I swear to you. Claire, I said no.’

  Silence. She can hear him breathing.

  At last she says, ‘Why? Don’t you want to be Magister Ludi?’

  She sees him wonder whether to lie. Then he takes a deep breath. ‘Of course I do,’ he says. ‘Of course. I’ve wanted it all my life. But there are other things I want more.’

  She nods, slowly. ‘And now,’ she says, ‘you expect me to be grateful.’

  ‘No, that isn’t … I never said that.’

  ‘It doesn’t change anything. They sacked me because they could. And they could because of your letters. Emile threatened me, too. With evidence that you’d given him.’

  ‘I was naïve – I never meant for those letters to be used like that. At all. I wasn’t thinking when I wrote them.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Léo. That’s what I’m saying.’ She leans against the wall, so weary suddenly that she isn’t sure her knees will hold her up. ‘You did one honourable thing, and you think that makes everything all right. Love conquers all. But it doesn’t. I’ve lost everything. Why should I care whether you’ve made a noble sacrifice?’

  ‘I thought …’ He has gone white. Whatever he says, he did think it would make everything all right; he thought that she would forgive him and they’d go off into the sunset, hand in hand. A quick, saccharine fermeture, a resolution on the major chord.

  ‘You turned down something you wanted. What do you expect, a medal?’

  ‘I did it for you.’

  ‘Then I’m sorry it was wasted.’

  He mutters, ‘You’re very hard.’

  ‘I don’t have any reason to be kind to you, Léo. That’s what you think women should do, isn’t it? Make you feel better. Help you live with your mistakes. Drop a veil over the mirror. Well, too bad. I don’t have anything left to lose, so I can tell the truth.’

  ‘I thought the truth was that you loved me.’

  ‘The truth is that it’s too late.’ She wasn’t sure, before she said it, whether it was the truth; but the act of saying it seems to make it so. It sends a shiver of pain down her spine: dulled by fatigue, but unmistakable. It’s also true that she loves him.

  Léo says slowly, ‘I was afraid, so I gave Emile what he wanted. It was cowardly. But I didn’t realise he’d use my letters to hurt you. Don’t you believe me?’

  In a way it’s a relief that she doesn’t have to decide, that it doesn’t make a difference. ‘I’m leaving now,’ she says. ‘Goodbye, Léo.’

  She doesn’t assume he will fight for her – doesn’t want him to – but all the same it registers like a bruise when all he says is, ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I’m not sure. The capital, probably. A hotel somewhere.’

  ‘Not back to your château to start a grand jeu?’ For a second she doesn’t know what he means, and then she remembers: a summer day, the cavernous space above the Great Hall, a moment when they might have touched. Her old fantasy-terror, of Montverre in ruins – and her old arrogance, to think that, whatever happened, the grand jeu would be enough.

  ‘I’m not twenty any more,’ she says, ‘neither of us is,’ and he winces. ‘And I sold the château.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Maybe I’ll see you again.’

  ‘Maybe …’ he says, and she doesn’t know if he’s agreeing or merely echoing what she’s said. Now he looks old. He glances at her and perhaps he sees something in her face, because all of a sudden he straightens his shoulders and the spark comes back into his eyes. He says, faintly self-mocking, ‘I don’t know what to do. If I can’t come with you.’

  She holds his gaze, determined not to speak. It isn’t her problem to solve; it isn’t fair to ask her to imagine how much it will hurt, later, to know that he might have been at her side.

  ‘I’m still afraid,’ he says. After a moment he gives her a wry smile. ‘I can’t go back to politics, and even if I wanted to run my dad’s old scrapyard business, someone else is looking after that now. It’s going to be very empty … But not just that. After what I said to Emile, he’s got it in for me. He threatened me and I told him to do his worst. I’ll be lucky if I don’t have to leave the country.’

  Doesn’t he know? But perhaps he’s been here all night, waiting, and the sound of the police bells didn’t reach this corridor … ‘Emile’s dead.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It looks as though he fell. They found his body this morning. The police came.’

  Léo’s expression doesn’t change, but she has the impression of things moving behind his eyes, like a whirlwind beyond a stone wall. ‘Are you sure?’

  She doesn’t bother to answer that. ‘Did you say those things to anyone else?’

  ‘No,’ he says.

  ‘So you haven’t burnt your bridges,’ she says, and abruptly the theme of the Bridges of Königsberg asserts itself in her head, jaunty and smug and insoluble. She can remember how they laughed at it together, united in their dislike; how she used it to mimic the other scholars, and Léo begged her to stop, holding his sides. It brings a sudden ache into her throat, piercing and sharp-edged. After everything he’s done, he’s still the only person who’s seen her like that.

  She catches her breath. ‘Goodbye, then.’

  ‘Goodbye.’ He gets to his feet, stumbling slightly as though the floor isn’t where he thought it would be. He leans towards her. But if she kisses him, she will never be able to leave. She steps back. It’s not enough, though: she can’t not look at him.

  He holds her gaze. There is nothing on his face, no mask. If he can carry all of himself into a grand jeu this is what it will look like. It takes her breath away.

  He says, ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘No. Listen.’ He raises his hand to cut her off, a quick short movement like a reversed stramazon. That sense of the grand jeu comes and goes at the edge of her mind, like the sound of the sea. He bites his lower lip and steps towards the window. ‘You’re right. I was always jealous of you. Even when we were friends, I wanted to be better than you. I wanted to be more intelligent. I wanted the Gold Medal. When I submitted the Red game …’ He draws in a breath. ‘It was brilliant. But I knew they might hate it. If you’d won, then I would have been glad. Honestly. But … I took the risk, knowing that it might go wrong. I never admitted it to myself, that part of me wanted to beat you. Wanted to see you fail. Because I did love you. I still love you. But I can’t – get rid of …’ He clenches his fist over his breastbone, as if he’s dragging something out of his chest. ‘I’m sorry. I wanted to be the best. I did.’

  There’s a silence. She wishes she didn’t understand, but she does. This is the game they have always played, full of desire and hostility, reflections and shadows. At least now he’s being honest.

  ‘I never even met your brother,’ he says, at last. ‘I’m sorry for your sake that he died. But to know you’re alive, you … Even if you leave like this, even if I never see you again. It wasn’t you that came back to life, it was me.’

  He smiles at her. She smiles back. She can feel the walls of regret and loss closing in: but for now they’re in the space between them, still with room to breathe.

  She says, ‘Be Magister Ludi.’

  ‘But – Claire.’

  ‘I’d rather it was you than anyone else,’ she says. ‘You’ll be good at it. Better than me. And who knows? Maybe one day you’ll be a better grand jeu player, too. As long as you stop trying to be so bloody clever.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘I mean it, Léo. Stay here. Be a thorn in their sides. Write grands jeux that make people think you’re a lunatic. Have the life you should have had.’

&
nbsp; ‘The life I should have had has you in it.’

  She reaches out for him and he comes to her arms so quickly it makes her stagger. He kisses her forehead and then without moving – so that she feels his voice vibrate in her skull – he says, ‘You don’t have to leave.’

  She shakes her head. And he doesn’t insist; when he bends to kiss her mouth she can tell that he understands, even if he doesn’t want to. Of course she can’t stay here, now she’s been sacked. Even if the other Magisters agreed. There isn’t room for both of them and the grand jeu; maybe there never was. Maybe there never will be.

  She doesn’t know how long they stay like that. The clock chimes. She pulls away, and he lets her go. ‘All right,’ he says.

  ‘Yes.’ She reaches into her pocket for the keys to the Biblioteca Ludi and drops them on to the bed. ‘You’d better have these.’ She hesitates. ‘There are some things in there that belong to you already. Some games from the archive. Your diary. A letter I wrote you and never sent. You’ll find them.’

  Slowly he bends and picks up the keys. She nods and swings her bag on to her shoulder. He follows her down the stairs into her study, but when she walks out into the corridor his footsteps stop. She looks over her shoulder. He touches his forehead and his heart. It’s a gesture that’s half familiar and half strange, but she doesn’t stop to think about what it means. It’s only when she’s hurried unseen along the passageways, through a servant’s door and out on to the road, into the cover of the trees, that she gives herself time to pause; and then she wonders whether she’s seen that move before somewhere, in a diagram or an old-fashioned illustration. It might be the rendry, the old gesture of surrender in an adversarial game, when one player concedes untimely defeat, and truncates a game that might have gone on for ever.