The Birds Fall Down

by Rebecca West

  “A pity,” said Kamensky, still polite but awkwardly so, as if he did not wish to correct a superior, but he still thought that there was a misunderstanding here which had to be put right. “You must understand, this Requiem has an overwhelming religious significance for us. We have three supremely important Requiems for our dead which we think correspond with three stages in the soul’s journey towards judgment. On the third day after our beloved’s death we bury him, and help him with our prayers and rejoice with him because he has broken his bond with life and has been guided by his angels into the presence of God. There he is shown the wonders of Paradise and the beauty of righteousness—”

  “Let me get this clear. You are now talking of a Requiem?”

  “Yes, the first of the major Requiems.”

  “Good God, is this an extra service, in addition to the funeral service?”

  “No, it is the same. Or rather it is part of the funeral service.” He cleared his throat. Laura saw that he was going to make the whole thing even longer and more boring than it was just out of spite against her father. She tapped her foot with impatience at his malice. “I can explain how it fits into that—”

  “No, no, continue about the Requiems.”

  “As I was saying, on the third day after death God shows the soul the wonders of Paradise and the beauty of righteousness and he is allowed to contemplate them for six days. It is then that we gather together to celebrate the second Requiem, for the soul is about to face a fearful ordeal, since it is to be conducted to Hell, to watch the torments of the damned for thirty days—”

  “The proportions are familiar,” said Edward Rowan: “six days in Paradise, thirty in Hell. But do you really believe all this?”

  “Yes, we believe it, no, we do not believe it. Not all of us take the story literally, but it is sixteen hundred years since it was told to Saint Macarius by his angels, and it has been repeated and believed ever since, and now it is embedded in our minds and fulfils some function there, and so we don’t think about it very much any more. The question of belief hardly arises. We simply feel that when we attend the Requiem of the Ninth Day we are supporting our loved one in a time of anguish, and discharging an obligation which it would be shameful to repudiate—I don’t know if I’m making myself clear—”

  “I understand perfectly.”

  “No, Mr. Rowan, I don’t think you do. Not the whole of what I’m trying to say. You can’t understand it fully until you realize that the people who attend the Requiem will not be the ones you expect.”

  “Well, I suppose that my wife’s brothers and sisters might manage to get to this second great Requiem. They certainly won’t be able to get here in time for the funeral.”

  “They will attend neither the funeral nor any of the Requiems. They will not be allowed to leave Russia.” Kamensky forgot and spoke with naked authority. Also with hatred. He was glad these people were not allowed to bury their dead. Laura felt a prick of contempt for her father, because he did not notice this lightning flash of tyranny. Immediately Kamensky corrected himself. “At least,” he said, mildly and sadly, “I don’t think so. Though of course one doesn’t know. But we can take it that they will not come, nor will any of his old friends, whether they be in Russia, or outside it.”

  “I hardly see why this can be relevant, I simply want to get back to London, which is very important for me, but I believe there are some friends of his in much the same state of unmerited disgrace, a family living at Pau, a general at Nice—”

  “They will not come to any of the Requiems. The Countess has spoken of what she meant to do if this tragedy befell her, and now Madame Rowan will do it for her. She will write to these friends and beg them to stay at home so that their loyalty to her father will not be remarked by the authorities and the lives of their relatives still in Russia be clouded by suspicion. These people will therefore mourn at home before their own icons. They will not mind it very much. It has been the Tsar’s will to alienate them from all that is dear to them, and it has been God’s will that the Tsar’s will shall be so, and they will submit, even with gladness—”

  “Yes, yes. You are telling me that some people would like to come to the services and will not be able to but for some obscure reason will be satisfied as much as if they did. But what has this to do with me? Who will in fact attend the Requiem?”

  “The Ambassador and all the senior members of his staff,” said Kamensky, with relish her father ought to have recognized. “Yes, and all the most distinguished Russians resident in France or visiting it. They will not attend the funeral, they won’t hear of it in time, but the Requiem, yes.”

  “The damned hypocrites,” said Edward Rowan. “I am sorry, Laura. I shouldn’t use such language in front of you, but they hounded the old man to his death.”

  Kamensky gaped for an instant. “I may get away from him, he’s not so clever as I imagined,” Laura thought, “anybody who takes it that Daddy will be impressed by a bunch of diplomats can’t be very bright.” She wondered why Kamensky was working to keep her father in Paris till the Requiem of the ninth day. Perhaps he had not planned her murder till after that date.

  Kamensky started again: “If I may say so, Mr. Rowan, since England is a monarchy you should be more sympathetic in your view of the situation. The Tsar has destroyed the Count, true. But it’s also true that the Tsar could not destroy the Count, since he was part of the Tsarist structure sanctified by God and immutable during time. The Count was born in honour and he must die in honour. Also, it must be concealed that it was necessary to destroy the Count, because public opinion does not understand that the Tsar, as the protector of the Russian people, has sometimes to commit acts which would be culpable if committed by a private person. Therefore the Russian Ambassador to France and his staff will attend the Requiem of the Ninth Day after the Count’s death just as if the Count had died in full enjoyment of the imperial favour.”

  “Good God,” Edward Rowan exploded, “what has the fact that England is a monarchy to do with this sort of thing? And why, because these vultures convince themselves in Double Dutch that they’re justified in holding a religious service over the bones of my father-in-law after they themselves have picked them clean, why should I lend myself to the occasion?”

  Again Kamensky was at a loss and had to feel about and had something up his sleeve for a fresh start. But she had a feeling that he was convulsed by secret laughter. “Well, it’s as I said, difficult to explain—but the service, being considered so important by us Russians—if you were absent—I don’t know how to put it, people might think, they might think—”

  “What is it that they might think?”

  “Well, I’m afraid that—I’m unfortunately quite sure that—though your family life is of course ideal—I understand that those who have the privilege of visiting your home feel positive awe—nevertheless, it would be thought among us Russians, who are simple people, not at all sophisticated, really, compared to Westerners—it would be bound to be thought if a wife appeared at a Requiem held for her dead father, and her husband was absent, that all could not be well with her marriage.” In the silence which followed he took out his handkerchief and passed it over his forehead. “And you know how it is with diplomats, if a story starts among them, it runs like wildfire.”

  Laura looked downwards at her lap and braced herself against one of her father’s rare fits of fury. But it did not come, and she raised her eyes again. On his face there was a shocking expression of prudence. “I know the sort of thing you mean,” he said, easily, “and we can’t have that for one moment. So embarrassing for my wife. I’ll certainly attend the Requiem.”

  Kamensky was cleverer than she had judged him, or perhaps only very well informed. He had known exactly what it was her father feared. Herself, she never would have guessed it. When Kamensky had begun to hint at a family scandal, she had expected her father to order him to leave the room. It might be that Kamensky would get her after all. For the first time sh
e doubted her father’s capacity to defend her. When she came to tell him about the plot to murder her, and how Kamensky was Gorin, he might not believe her, so thoroughly was he convinced that in Kamensky he had his hand where it had lain through his life, on a useful underling. She felt so frightened, and so tired of being frightened that it occurred to her she might be looking plain, and she got up and looked at a mirror on the wall beside the fireplace. It was not much use as a mirror. The glass was the colour of a pond overhung by trees on a dull day, it made her face geeenish-white like a Christmas-rose. But the thing was pretty in itself. Two little gilt sphinxes supported the oval shagreen frame, and she stood fingering their tiny periwigs, the twists in their tails, pretending that there was nothing else in the world. Then Kamensky’s voice caught her ear, eager and young for his age, as it always was when he was turning the stalk of an apple ripe for falling.

  “No, Mr. Rowan, I’m afraid I can’t tell you with certainty if a letter you write in the train and post when you get to Paris will reach London tomorrow. My poor correspondence is so unimportant that I’ve never made any close inquiries as to the time it gets delivered. But as it happens, I think you needn’t bother yourself with the problem. I have friends in the town, and when I called on them this morning I heard that their young son is going to London by the night train. A priest, he’s going to attend some sort of congress in London. If you should sit down and write your letter here, I’ll take it to him later in the day and he’ll post it in London tomorrow morning. He’s a reliable young man, he won’t forget. They are a good family, very responsible people. You have some writing paper in front of you, haven’t you? See, here’s a better pen. And let me clear away some of this astonishing salmagundi of papers to give you some space. Now write at your leisure, and as soon as you’ve gone I’ll take it straight down to my young friend, who’ll feel himself honoured by the commission. An English Member of Parliament will seem very grand to him.”

  Laura whirled about and faced her father. “You can’t write a letter. Not now. We haven’t time.”

  “Never mind about that. I must write this letter.”

  “But we’ve got to catch the train.”

  “There is another in an hour or two,” said Kamensky. “A slow train, but that does not matter now.”

  “But we should get back to Paris as soon as possible—” She was shaking from head to foot, she would never get him alone. But her father’s rage was a hot blast in her face. Now his fury was breaking over her, as it should have broken over Kamensky, once he dared speak of what was private, hidden, black. “Sit down and be quiet. I must write this letter. I knew nothing of this endless dragging out of ceremonies. I’ll have to change my plans for days ahead, put back engagements that involve other people. I’ll have to write and warn them, don’t you see? This is the last straw. Do you want to drive me mad?”

  Her answering rage streamed out of her. She choked because she could not say, “You idiot, don’t you see this animal has got your letter in his pocket before you’ve even written it?” Kamensky’s hand was gentle on her arm as he led her back to her chair and sat down beside her, closer than anybody could wish her prospective murderer. In her ear, irritatingly hard to hear, he murmured, “Don’t be so disturbed, Miss Laura, I can’t bear you to be disturbed. And how terribly disturbed you are! It’s natural, I suppose, with all that happened to you yesterday, and those horrible people who came into your room last night, they must have frightened you.”

  “I’m frightened of a lot of things, but not of them.”

  “But I can’t bear anything evil to come near you. You should be taken care of properly. I would not wish to do anything in the world so much as to protect you, so it is dreadful what I have to say to you. Though I will be in Paris tomorrow, I can’t be with you in the morning. Or, indeed, in the afternoon, until four o’clock. I will simply perform my sad mission very early in the morning, and then leave. Then I will be with you. I will come on the hour.”

  It might be, of course, that her father was simply going to write to his secretary or to the Party Whip, and that would be just male stuff which would take only a moment or two. But it was not so. He was going to take his time. Slowly he wrote the beginning of the letter, Dear Whoever-it-was, frowning slightly, and then he raised his head and stared straight at her, straight through her. She was simply part of the space between him and the image of another person.

  “I feel it a betrayal of trust,” said Kamensky, “that I won’t be with you. But, dear Miss Laura, I have prepared everything I can for the arrival of our dear one. The Metropolitan will be there to receive him, and what your mother does not know about the ritual he and the servants will recall to her. This morning when I telephoned your mother she and I agreed that the most fitting person to recite the Psalms over your grandfather’s body, you know, we call them in our Church the candlebearers, would be a very devout woman well known to us both, who’s very grateful to the Count for the charity he bestowed on her for many years. So there will be nothing for you to do except strengthen his soul with your prayers.”

  “I shall be praying to God to tell me why He allowed so good a man to be persecuted to the very edge of his grave.” Now her father was writing, writing quickly, smiling down at what he wrote, dipping his pen in the inkwell and writing again. He looked happy to the point of deafness and absent-mindedness, as he used to do when there had been an election and he and her mother had just come back from the constituency, and his majority was bigger than ever. It always was.

  “Ah,” Kamensky exclaimed, “if any of us could be vouchsafed the explanation of that mystery! But don’t you want to know why, feeling as I do, I’m not going to be at your side tomorrow morning?”

  Her father had raised his eyes from the paper and was again looking at the person he saw behind her face. He could scarcely credit that there existed such perfection. He had to stare and stare at the remembered image, to make sure it was so perfect. The crinkles round his eyes showed how amused he felt that the perfect object would walk, and talk, and laugh, and all that perfectly too. Her father must be writing to Susie Staunton.

  “Of all people,” Kamensky was assuring her, “you have the most right to know what I’m going to do tomorrow. I’m quite simply,” he said, gravely and smugly, “going to secure my future.” She nearly laughed aloud at the ferocious irony of his words. They were so true nobody could accuse him now of lying. By killing her he would do just that, secure his future. He evidently felt he had to explain away what he had said, for he went on, “You see, I’m not without means. Professionally I’ve always been very lucky, largely through your grandfather’s influence. But now I must find more lucrative employment if I’m to enjoy what’s every man’s birthright. You know very well what I mean by that, Miss Laura.”

  “I know what I’d mean by it. The right to live.”

  “Yes, indeed. The right to live. To live fully. To have a home. To have a wife. Whom I would love and cherish. The right to have—”

  She could no longer hear what he was saying. “The right to have what?”

  “The right to have my children growing up around me.”

  Well, snakes and bats could reproduce their kind, so she supposed he could, and she was glad that she had a good chance of preventing it.

  “Oh, forgive me. Please forgive me, Miss Laura. I didn’t want to embarrass you. I feel quite ashamed—”

  Her father had taken a second sheet of writing paper. What could he possibly find to write about at such length, if he were writing to Susie? “You are very beautiful you are very beautiful you are very beautiful you have marvellous hair you have marvellous hair you have marvellous hair you have a curious mouth you have a curious mouth you have a curious mouth.” That was all there was to say about Susie, except that she looked poor and was not, and that one would hardly be able to tell her. Anything else would be rubbish. She was glad that Kamensky would certainly read the letter and that Susie might never get it. For once she was g
rateful to Kamensky because he was evil, and she turned to him in thankfulness.

  He bewildered her by saying, “I’m happy that that makes you happy.” She must have missed some essential part of his twaddle. Apparently he was telling her about the business which had kept him running about Paris all the day before, between the time she and her grandfather had left him at the chemist’s shop and his arrival at the apartment in the Avenue Kléber. “Well, I can assure you that the salary the French company offers me is beyond anything I had expected. It wouldn’t mean riches, of course. There’s no way by which a man like me can acquire a fortune such as comes automatically to those who have pillaged the people for many generations—” Too late he checked himself.

  “That’s not the way we used to talk in the drawing-room in the Avenue Kléber,” she said to herself, “you slipped there.” Again she told herself that her chances of escape were good because Kamensky was not as clever as she had thought, again she rebuked herself for overconfidence, because her father was stupider than she had thought. If he could go on and on writing to Susie Staunton, he had changed into someone else, someone else too obtuse to understand in time that Kamensky was Gorin. Again she wished that Chubinov was sitting beside her, the one man who knew the whole story, who was kind.

  “That sounded as if I were a liberal! Don’t misunderstand me. What I meant was that it is God’s will that some should be rich and some should be poor, and it is not for us to kick against the pricks. But if I take this post abroad I shall have enough. Enough to make plans which intoxicate me.” He stopped and drew his handkerchief across his lips. “You must not mind if I draw nearer to you. I don’t wish to distract your father’s attention while he is trying to write his letter.”

  “You couldn’t,” said Laura, bitterly. She would have liked to go back to the salon upstairs and lie down on the camp-bed and bury her face in the pillow. It was terrible to sit so close to one’s murderer, while one’s father went on and on making a fool of himself.