by Frank Wynne
‘So, your officers have gone, have they?’ he asked her. ‘It must have been worrying for you.’
‘They’re gone, but since yesterday there’s been a’ – she wanted to say ‘chap’ but couldn’t – ‘man sleeping, staying in the annexe. He’s still asleep. He must have come the seventy-five miles on foot.’
‘My God, you’ve been staying here alone with my idiot and you’re not afraid to let in strangers,’ he exclaimed, never mincing words when it concerned Kiryusha. And catching her hand, scratching himself on her sharp nails, he kissed it several times.
Towards the end of the day Kiryusha told them in his incoherent way that the man staying in the annexe had gone. An hour later Maria Leonidovna heard him return and lock himself in again.
‘That man came back. He must be sleeping again. Don’t you go bothering him,’ she told Kiryusha.
All the next day was the same: the visitor either lay or sat by the window and neither moved nor spoke. It was as if he were waiting for something. Or else he walked to the village for a little while, walked down the lane, across the square, down the avenue of plane trees, bought himself something to eat, and came back quietly.
Strange thoughts occurred to Maria Leonidovna. Sometimes she thought that the man was bound to be arrested. Why hadn’t he told her his name? Why was he wearing clothes that didn’t belong to him? If he wasn’t a spy, then he was a deserter. Maybe he was Russian? In many years of living abroad, Maria Leonidovna had grown used to the fact that there were no half-mad Frenchmen. Did he have a passport or had he thrown everything away, lost it? Had he run out of the house in his underwear and then received clothes from good-hearted people on the way? But perhaps there was nothing wrong and he was just a lonely musician who had been turned out from where he sawed away at his fiddle or gave lessons to young ladies or composed just for himself, dreaming of world acclaim?
But these thoughts came and went, and life went on without interruption. This Sunday was nothing at all like the last, when they had sat in the garden over the samovar with the Kreins. No one came from town. Chabarov and Daunou arrived at five o’clock on bicycles. The three of them sat in Vassily Georgievich’s study for a long time and talked, about the war, of course, but in a different way than they had the week before: they were talking about their hopes. Daunou talked about his own hopes, about how they could still put a stop to this insane, iron advance at the Seine and the Marne. Each time Maria Leonidovna looked in on them she had the feeling that the Frenchman wanted to tell her something. He got up and spoke to her in particular, and for some reason she found that unpleasant. He gave her the impression (only her, though) of being an hysteric, and when she left the room she was afraid of running into him later in the dining room, the yard, the garden.
She couldn’t have explained her feeling, but Daunou’s serious, determined, overly expressive face was before her all the time. She started to make tea, and he came out into the dining room, closing the door behind him as if in despair, and Maria Leonidovna felt that he was about to tell her something she would remember the rest of her life.
‘Nous sommes perdus, madame,’ he said quietly, looking into her face with his small eyes of indeterminate colour. ‘Even the Emperor Napoleon himself, whom I wanted to resurrect last Sunday, couldn’t do anything now. I’m telling only you this. You make your own decision about where and when you should leave. Paris est sacrifié.’
He turned white. His face contorted. But he coughed awkwardly, and everything fell into place again. She was left, frozen, holding the porcelain sugar bowl.
‘There will not be a battle on the Loire. The Maginot Line will be taken from the west. Nothing at all is going to happen. It’s all over. They’ll go all the way to Bordeaux, to the Pyrénées. And then we’ll sue for peace.’
At that moment Vassily Georgievich and Chabarov walked out into the dining room, and everyone sat down at the table.
She believed Daunou, but not completely, and for that reason when she and Vassily Georgievich were alone again she was unable to convince him that everything would be as Daunou had said. She said, ‘You know, I think it would be best if you didn’t go back to Paris again. Let’s pack up tomorrow and move to the South, all three of us, Tuesday at the latest. We can spend a month or two in Provence, until things calm down. Like everyone else.’
He listened to her thoughtfully, but couldn’t agree.
‘What would they say about me at the office? They’d call me a coward. Tomorrow I’m going to Paris, and I give you my word of honour, I’ll be back on Wednesday. Even if all’s well, I’ll be back. Haven’t we seen plenty in our time? For them this is terrible, but we’ve seen a lot worse … “Nothing happens at a pace like that, a pace like that,”’ he sang brightly.
The next day she was left alone again with Kiryusha. The traveller was still in the annexe.
He continued to get up late, sit by the window, and look out at the yard, at the trees, at the sky. Sitting erect, his hands placed on the windowsill, he looked and listened with a sad and equal attention both to the birds moving about in the lilac bushes and to the distant gunfire and the human talk beyond the gates and in the house. Once or twice he got up, put on his faded, outsize hat, or picked it up, and went out, softly shutting the gate. He walked through the village, taking a good look at what was going on, since every day the people got more and more worried, agitated, and grim. In the evenings he sat for a long time, no longer at the window but on the threshold to the annexe, his eyes half closed, his hand lazily resting on the head of the old dog, who came to sit next to him.
Night fell, the moon glimmered. There was something menacing about the clear sky, the quiet fields, the roads running to and fro, this summer, this world where fate had compelled him to live. When he rested his head on his hand, it seemed he was trying to remember something and that was why he was so quiet, that he couldn’t do it. Where was he from? And where should he go, and did he have to go any farther? And what was life, this pulse, this breathing, this waiting, what was this ecstasy, this grief, this war? He was so weak, but he had a powerful harmony in his heart, a melody in his head. Why was he here among all this, among the now incessant noise of the gunfire, among these preparations for departure in village families, where they led out horses, tied up cows, where they sewed up gold into the lining of clothes? He had nothing. Not even a pack. No family, no lover to sew him a shirt, cook him soup, rumple and warm his bed. All he had was music. That’s how he had grown up, that’s how it had been since he was a child. Feet to carry him, hands to fend off people, and music, and that was it. But there was no point coming, no, no point coming into a world where he would always go unrecognised and unheard, where he was weaker than a shadow, poorer than a bird, as guileless as the simplest flower of the field.
When Kiryusha saw that the dog was sitting beside him and wasn’t afraid, he came and sat as well, not daring to sit on the porch, but close by, on a stone. And so all three of them sat for a long time, in silence, until it got dark, and then Kiryusha, taking a deep breath, let out a long, idiotic laugh and went into the house.
IV
On Wednesday morning Vassily Georgievich did not come back. There had been no telephone communication with Paris for two days, and Maria Leonidovna had absolutely no idea what to think. People were saying that there weren’t any trains, that the papers hadn’t come out, that travel across Paris was impossible, and that people had been deserting Paris for two days. The entire village was packing up and leaving. Those who only the night before had criticised people fleeing from fear were themselves loading things onto carts, cars and perambulators. A swarm of little boys and girls sped around on bicycles. Three rows of small trucks and cars filed down the main road, which passed less than a mile from the village. During the day rumours had been flying around, the gunfire went on constantly, growing ever nearer, and silver aeroplanes sailed high in the sky. Several cars, trying to take a short cut, wound up on the avenue of plane trees and couldn’t fig
ure out how to get out, so they looped back and returned to the main road, nosing into the endless chain and continuing southward.
There were artillery, gypsy caravans, trucks loaded with ledgers (and on them sat pale bookkeepers, evacuating the bank, the foundation of the state); people on foot, on bicycles, broken-rank cavalrymen on light horses interspersed with percherons harnessed to long wagons carrying sewing machines, kitchen utensils, furniture, barrels. And high above all the goods and chattels were perched old women, deathly pale and bare-headed; some old women sat in cars, while others went on foot, alone or supported by the arm. Troops hauled decrepit cannons and an empty van surmounted by a magnificent red cross followed behind a sports car out of which leaned a lop-eared dog that looked like a soft toy. Then came the wounded, some of them sitting despondently, holding on to their own leg or arm, a stump that dripped blood on the road. Others vomited air and saliva. People carried hay, unthreshed wheat, factory lathes, tanks of oil. And this odd stream could be seen all the way to the horizon, living and yet already dead.
Up until nightfall Maria Leonidovna cleaned and packed, fully aware that Vassily Georgievich couldn’t come by train, just as they couldn’t leave by train. From the house she could see the main road, and since morning she had watched the relentless, slowly flowing, sometimes pausing, river of fugitives. The thought that she might be left alone after everyone was gone worried her, and above all the thought that Vassily Georgievich might not return. She was worried as well about Kiryusha, who in the rising panic had suddenly become grotesquely incoherent. In the middle of the day she saw her silent guest a few times, and even greeted him from a distance. She resolved to have a chat with him, find out about him, maybe help him out, and that decision preoccupied her for a few minutes. The evening came, she prepared supper, and just as they were sitting down she heard the sound of a motor, a comforting, familiar sound. Two cars drove into the Sushkovs’ yard: in one sat the three Kreins; in the other, Edouard Zontag, Vassily Georgievich, and old Mrs Sushkova. Both cars had left Paris the previous evening. They had been on the road all night and all day.
Manyura Krein broke down in tears when she walked into the house. ‘This is too much! Simply too much!’ she said with her large mouth. ‘This is not to be endured. Children are being led along on foot, old people are hobbling on crutches. I’ll never forget this as long as I live.’
But Maria Leonidovna scarcely got to hug her because she had to say hello to Zontag and to Magdalena and follow her husband into the next room and listen to his agitated story about how yesterday afternoon he had realised that she was right, that they should have left on Sunday, that now they might not make it.
‘Kiryusha’s not too good,’ she told him, since even today she considered that that was the most important thing.
Edouard Zontag had longstanding business ties with Vassily Georgievich, and relations between them, for some reason only they understood, were rather strained. He kept aloof, apparently looking on the Kreins as relatives of Maria Leonidovna, and smoked a fat cigar. He was short and used to say that the shorter the man, the fatter the cigar he smoked.
An omelette, cold meat, salad, cheese, an apple tart, just appeared on the table, all at once, and they launched into it haphazardly and greedily, letting the abundance of that house fill them with contentment, fully aware that tomorrow it would all be gone. They drank a lot and talked a lot. They discussed how and when the decision had been made to surrender Paris, the bombing of its northern and western suburbs, and especially how everyone had dropped everything and fled, not only those who had been preparing for it but also those who had had no desire whatsoever to budge; how that night, in total darkness, it took them five hours to get from their apartment to the city limits. How they had been surrounded by thousands upon thousands of others like themselves, how the engine died on them, the radiator boiled over, and they took turns sleeping.
Then they had a conference: what time tomorrow should they go and which road was best? They bent over the map for a long time, sketched something, drew it out, and then drank again and even had another bite to eat, especially the men. In the yard an old lady slaughtered two hens, and Manyura cleaned them on the big kitchen table, lowered her fingers, covered in rings, with varnished nails, down into it, and drew out something slippery. Magdalena and Maria Leonidovna, sitting on their heels by the linen closet, looked for one more pillowcase for Edouard. The men were trying to decide whether or not to drive over to pick up Chabarov, and old Mrs Sushkova wanted to express her opinion too, but no one was listening to her.
She went to her room, that is, to Kiryusha’s room, where she was supposed to spend the night, and it immediately began to reek of her perfume in there. Room was found for the Kreins in the house, but Edouard Zontag had to be put in the annexe.
‘Wait for me, I’ll be back in a minute,’ said Maria Leonidovna, and she ran across the yard.
She knocked on the door. He was lying on the bed but not sleeping, and when she came in he raised himself and slowly lowered his long legs in their torn boots and ran his hand over his hair, as if he wanted to smooth it, comb it, give it some semblance of order. She started speaking softly, scarcely glancing in his direction.
‘Excuse me, but something’s come up. We have a full house. People didn’t sleep last night, and there’s nowhere to put them. Please, we have a small shed by the garage. Move over there. I feel bad disturbing you, but you understand, there’s nothing else I can do. And then, in any case, we’ll be leaving early tomorrow morning and you’ll have to leave too because we’ll be locking up and taking the keys with us. You won’t be able to stay.’
He stood up and in the semi-dark (a cold bleak light fell from the entryway where a small lamp was lit) started pacing around the room, evidently at a loss how best to answer her.
‘Tomorrow morning? Then why move to the shed? I’ll leave tonight.’
She couldn’t help feeling glad that he’d said this.
‘I feel that I’m chasing you away, practically in the middle of the night. Please stay. There’s a folding bed in there. And tomorrow—’
‘No, I’ll go right now. After all, everyone else seems to be leaving, don’t they?’
‘Yes, if they haven’t already.’
‘So I think I’d better go as well. Thank you for letting me spend so many days with you. Really, I’m most grateful to you. There are many people who wouldn’t have done it, you know. I’ll remember it for a long time, a very long time.’
He turned out to have a thick stick, which he must have cut in the forest the day before. His eyes met Maria Leonidovna’s, and his look confused her.
‘Wait a moment, I’ll bring you something.’ She turned around and lightly stepped out.
‘That’s not necessary. I don’t need anything,’ he shouted firmly. ‘Don’t worry, please. Goodbye.’
In the yard the men were tying something to the roof of the Kreins’ car. She ran into the house, pulled fifty francs out of her purse, wrapped the remains of the roast beef and two rolls in a napkin, and went back to the annexe. The little lamp was still burning inside the door, but there was no one there now. He had left quietly, so that no one would notice, and very quickly. In the room it was as if he had never even stayed there; not a single object was out of place.
She looked around, as if he might still be standing somewhere in a corner. She walked out, went back in again, and then walked to the gate and opened it. Someone was walking alone down the lane – already quite a way away. She watched him for a moment, and suddenly, for no reason, tears came to her eyes, and she couldn’t see anything.
‘He’s leaving, he’s leaving,’ she said very quietly but distinctly, the way people sometimes utter a meaningless word, and burst into tears. And without understanding what was wrong, or why she had suddenly been overcome by such weakness, she closed the gate gently and went into the house.
In the morning a life began that had nothing to do either with the departed guest or
with Maria Leonidovna’s secret thoughts. They loaded up the cars so that the spare tyre bumped along behind them on the ground. They locked up the house and sat Kiryusha between his father and grandmother – that day he had exhibited the early signs of rebellion, and they were trying to conceal it. Edouard Zontag, in good form after a night’s sleep, was worried that they hadn’t taken enough petrol. He took one more long look at the map before setting off. In the first car rode the Kreins and Maria Leonidovna. Manyura rattled on incessantly.
They drove through the deserted village slowly, with difficulty, the spare tyre constantly bumping against the road. When they reached the forest, they started taking country lanes heading in the direction of Blois. They stopped by the château where Chabarov worked as a groundsman. The iron gates were wide open, and horses, still saddled, grazed on the English lawn between young cedars. A French squadron had been stationed there since the previous day. Soldiers were lying on the grass in front of the house and on the ground floor a vast hall, with two rows of windows, and its candelabra, mirrors and bronzes, could be glimpsed through the broken panes.
Chabarov came out wearing corduroy trousers and a matching jacket. The lower half of his face was covered with grey whiskers. Without even saying good morning, he said that he couldn’t leave, that he had to stay behind: the night before Daunou (who lived in a nearby hamlet) had been found dead. He had shot himself, and since there was no one left in the area to bury him, Chabarov had decided to bury the body in his garden.
‘If these brave lads,’ he said gloomily, pointing to the soldiers, ‘stay until evening and I manage to dig a suitable hole, then they’ll be my witnesses, and that’s the best I can hope for. But if they set off before then I’ll have to wait for the new authorities to get here. There’s no civilian population left.’