“Oh? So?”
“It seems she has insomnia these days—or rather, nights—and she couldn’t wait to tell me she’d seen you leaving around four in the morning.”
“And you let the malicious tongue of a vicious village gossip upset you? I’m surprised at you, Gertrude.”
“Why were you there at four o’clock in the morning?” Gertrude asked.
“If Emily wanted you to know I imagine she’d have told you.”
“Emily—” Gertrude said. “You call me Gertrude as though I were a child, an idiot, but you call Emily Emily as though she were a human being, as though she were really there. Are you honestly not going to tell me why you were at the villa?”
“Is it that important?”
“I don’t think Courtney would like the idea of Emily’s receiving nocturnal visitors. Neither do I.” And did he know that she was skirting around the story, talking about him only in order not to mention, not to think of Kaarlo?
“Courtney knew I was there.”
“Was Connie sick or something?”
“No.”
“Were you there in a professional capacity?”
“No.”
“What then?”
He got up from the chair and came to the bed. “Gertrude, Gertrude, what is this to get so excited about? Emily and Courtney were at the hotel having a drink. I happened to be there, too. I walked home with them. Emily gave me a cup of coffee and I left and came home. That is all.”
“Oh, so Courtney was drunk and you helped Emily get him home.”
“This is your day for jumping to conclusions, isn’t it? First because of a congenital busybody you decide Emily and I are having a rendezvous, and then, when you realize that that is hardly likely to be true, you decide Courtney has to be drunk. Why can’t you just accept my simple explanation?”
“Because I know Courtney and he’d never have been out that late in the first place if he hadn’t been stewed to the gills. He goes on a bat occasionally, not a real one, he’s no alcoholic, but he doesn’t always know when he’s had enough. I know, because Court and I have staggered home under the influence more than once, much to Emily’s horror. Anyhow it’s very nice of you to try to protect her feelings. She’d be much happier if she thought I didn’t know Courtney’d ever touched anything stronger than tea, but since, as I’ve said, several of Courtney’s bats have been with me, that’s hardly possible. Okay, I won’t let her know Pedroti’s vile insinuations.”
“That sounds a little better,” Clément said, “Are you somewhat calmer now?”
She did not answer that question. Instead, she said, “You weren’t the only one Pedroti was trying to put Emily to bed with.”
“Oh?”
“Kaarlo and Abe Fielding, too. What do you think of that?”
“What should I think of it? Typical malicious, vicious gossip made up to provide titillation when there isn’t anything happening to keep wagging tongues busy. You certainly wouldn’t have me take it seriously, would you?”
Gertrude shrugged. “I suppose not.”—But did a faint ambiguous flicker come to his eyes at Kaarlo’s mention?
“Is this what has upset you to the point of actually making you ill?” Clément asked sternly.
Gertrude sighed heavily. “I don’t really know, Clément. I don’t know what’s upset me.”
“Gertrude—” his face was serious, his tone severe—“something is happening to you that I expected never to have to worry about with you.”
“What?”
“You’ve always lived such a full personal life of your own that I thought it would stand you in good stead during your time of enforced withdrawal from your usual activities. Some of my patients develop a morbid curiosity about other people’s affairs and a tendency to meddle that can be dangerous. I don’t expect you to fall into that category, but I can see that we are going to have to watch it.”
“Is it morbid curiosity about other people’s affairs that I’m upset when Pedroti tells me my best friend is having affairs with three different men, including my doctor and my—and Kaarlo?”
“Of course you are upset and angry at vicious gossip told you solely with intent to hurt. But, knowing Emily as you do, it is not sensible of you to take it seriously, and I am disappointed in you. Now I would like you to rest very quietly this morning and not have any more visitors until this afternoon. You don’t want to give Madame Pedroti the satisfaction of having caused you a setback.… Now I am going to do something I do not often do; I am going to give you something to help you get quiet and then I am going to leave you to rest. I will look in on you again later on and I want you to have forgotten everything Madame Pedroti said to you. And you may rest assured that the next time I see her I will give her what you Americans call a piece of my mind. And I will see to it that these disturbing visits cease.”
She lay quietly while he prepared the hypodermic. She knew that her cheeks were flushed, that the physical manifestations of her anger still showed, the dilated eyes, the too rapid pulse. She lay quietly, but she was still angry, angry with Madame Pedroti, angry with Emily, angry with Clément.
For a while Gertrude slept, the effects of Clément’s injection soothing her; but soon her slumber became fitful, and her mind, tossed halfway between sleep and waking, churned restlessly.
—All those pretty little fillies learning how to ski had better keep their hands off Kaarlo, and their eyes, too. I don’t mind so much when he goes off in the mountains; I don’t even mind when he takes a party up Mont Blanc though I can’t eat till he gets home and I waste every centime I have looking for him through those lousy telescopes and imagining he’s buried in an avalanche or fallen into a crevasse. That I can take. It’s the nice safe jobs with the little slitches learning how to ski that really scare me. My God, I was one of them once myself.…
She dozed. She was skiing with Kaarlo through a world of snow. No houses. No trees. Nothing but snow. White. Blinding. And they themselves in white ski clothes fading into the snow, only the dark ash of their skis marking dark lines on the snow to prove that they existed at all.…
She wakened again, stirring restlessly on the couch, her skin dry and burning.
—I couldn’t tell Clément about Kaarlo and Emily, not the way things really are. He’d have been angry with me. He’d have said it wasn’t true. He’d have said it was all Pedroti.
—But is it?
—How do I know? How do I know?
She crawled into the kitchen, reaching with trembling fingers into her hiding place under the sink. She drew out the bottle, poured herself a tumblerful and dragged herself back to the big room. She knew that she had worked herself up to a fever and perhaps the brandy would help calm her down. She sat by the fire because, although her skin was raging hot, inside her body she was freezing, and stared fiercely into the flames so that she was half-hypnotized by their flickering. When she seemed a little warmer in her shivering core she set the brandy on the hearth and went to the phonograph to put on a record, any record, to bring herself closer to Kaarlo. The first thing she touched was the Rachmaninoff Second Symphony and the music poured warm and sensual into the cold, ascetic room. She poured herself more brandy and started walking around the room.
—I’m in a mood. Old Gert de C.’s in a lousy, filthy, dirty mood. Abe and the kid are leaving tomorrow. We can discount Abe. That leaves Kaarlo and Clément.
—You’re crazy, Gert. If there’d been anything you’d have noticed it.
—Would I?
—Sure you would. You’re not in the habit of not noticing things like that.
—But I did notice it. About Emily and Kaarlo.
—Yes, but you didn’t take it seriously. Why are you taking it seriously now? Don’t give Pedroti the satisfaction. And anyhow wouldn’t you find out something like that before Pedroti?
—How the hell would I find out anything stuck up here in this chalet?
—You live with Kaarlo, don’t you? And Emily’s yo
ur friend, isn’t she? She comes to see you every day.
—If Emily were having an affair with Kaarlo do you think she’d be likely to tell me? Gert dear, I’ve just become Kaarlo’s mistress. I’m keeping him happy for you like Pedroti said. Isn’t that nice?
—Turn the record, Gert you old fool. How many times has Kaarlo told you it’s bad for the needle to let it go round and round?
She turned the record, carefully, had some more brandy, pulled up the heavy, white cable-stitched socks she was wearing. Then she spoke to herself severely again.
—Gertrude de Croisenois, this is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.
—Why’s it so crazy?
—But Emily!
—Sure, I thought Pedroti was making it up when she first told me. But why would anybody, even Pedroti, make up a story like that about Emily? If it weren’t true?
—But you said Pedroti had her cavorting with half the town.
—Oh, you know Pedroti. That was just her way of leading into it. She always has to make a good story better. Clément and Abe are hardly likely.
—And Emily herself is hardly likely.
—What did Pedroti say about the quiet ones? You heard her. I’m not at all sure that she wasn’t right. And Courtney can’t be very exciting to live with day in, day out.
—Is Emily looking for excitement?
—Maybe she’s not looking for it, but maybe she wouldn’t turn it down if it were offered to her.
—Why would it be offered to her?
—I don’t make it any too easy for Kaarlo, let’s face that. I’ve always known he’d throw me over some day. Though I didn’t think it would be for Emily.
—Exactly. Why Emily, when every day he sees so many women who’re—who’re—much more his type?
—Who knows what anybody’s type is? Maybe he’s tired of the obvious ones. And he’s seen a lot of Emily this winter. Always making excuses to have talks with her or ask her here to listen to records. I thought it was for me. Now I’m not so sure.
—Oh, Gert, Gert, Pedroti’s a bitch with ruffles, but don’t give her the satisfaction of letting her do this to you.
—But she has, damn her, she has. Oh, lord, I’ve just had a ghastly idea. Do you suppose Pedroti’s gone to Courtney with her pretty tales?
—That’s a happy thought. I don’t think Courtney’d take kindly to Emily’s two-timing him. Courtney’s one of those people who doesn’t get angry easily but when he does he does a good thorough job of it.
—Now look here, Gert. None of that.
—Well! I hardly mink it’s my place to tell him in any event. It just seems to me he shouldn’t hear it from Pedroti.
—Or from you. Okay, forget it. Change the record, Gert. You’re letting it just go round and round again.
She went to the phonograph, took the record off carefully, put it in the album, took the next record out and put it on the turntable. Accidentally she brushed against the volume control and the rich music roared out into the room. She flung up her arm against it, then rushed out, leaving the record to continue its circling unheeded on the turntable, the music crashing through the loudspeaker, grabbed her white parka from its hook in the shed, and started as fast as she could down to the Bowens’ villa.
When Gertrude had left, the door to the villa slipped out of her feeble grip and slammed violently in the wind. Courtney could not go on with his work. She had said nothing, but she had depressed and disturbed him and he did not know why she had come.
She had appeared, rather wild-eyed, in the doorway to his office, and her speech was just perceptibly thickened from brandy. She had demanded without preamble if he were all right, if he were happy, and then she had said, quite loudly and clearly, “Oh, no you don’t, Gert de C. This you do not do. This kind of a bitch you are not going to be.”
“What’s the matter, Gert?” he had asked her.
And she had responded vaguely, swaying a little. “A gesture. That’s it. I must make a gesture,” and without a word of farewell she had left.
He thought now that perhaps it was not only that she had had too much to drink. Her cheeks had been hectically flushed and her eyes had the bright glitter of fever. He should have kept her there. He should not have allowed her to go off into the cold dank air alone and ill.
He put his head down on the desk.
—I have failed again, he thought. Even in the littlest things I am a failure.
—Where is Emily?
—She had gone out again and she has not told me where.
—Why?
—What am I going to do about Emily? Oh, God, what am I going to do?
He raised his head from the desk and shook it like a swimmer coming out of water, but he could not clear it of the evil buzzing that was congesting it so that it felt huge, and too heavy to support.
—The glacier, he thought, and the crevasse, and I cannot jump across and save her before she steps backwards into it. I have neither the courage nor the strength.
—But I did it once!
No, it was not Emily, it was he who had fallen into the crevasse, down into the ice blue depths, the walls of ice closing in on him, pressing the life out of him, crushing him deep into the center of the earth where the ice would turn to flame and he would be lost forever in the molten fires, absorbed into the inferno.…
Suddenly he was aware that there had been a tapping at the door and a voice saying something and there in the shadow of the partly open door stood a darker shadow (was it Gertrude come back to tell him whatever dreadful thing it was she had not had the courage to say?) and he shouted something at the shadow and his words blurred in his mind like ink on blotting paper and the shadow disappeared and he put his head down on the desk again.
He should have gone after Gertrude. How could he save Emily from the crevasse if he let Gertrude go off into the snow when it was obvious that she was so drunk—or so ill—or both—that she could scarcely stand?
He got up from the desk, moving heavily, as though he were old and tired. He went into the hall and pulled on his boots and without telling the girls that he was going out he left the villa and went to look for Gertrude. When he had found Gertrude he would look for Emily. What he would do or say when he found her he did not know.
He climbed slowly up to Kaarlo’s chalet. He knocked but there was no answer so he pushed open the door and went in, calling out, “Gertrude? Hi, Gert?”
There was a light on in the kitchen, and in the living room the fire was just beginning to fade. He heard a low, humming noise and noticed the record still going round and round on the phonograph with the needle scratching on it, and he moved the needle arm gently and turned the machine off. He looked all around and realized that the chalet was empty.
He saw the three-quarters empty bottle of brandy by the fireplace and picked it up and stood looking at it, thinking—She shouldn’t have any more of that when she comes back.
He picked the cork up off the floor where it had rolled and rammed it into the bottle, and again held the bottle out to the firelight so that it shone like amber, holding it and thinking. Finally he pushed it into the big pocket of his overcoat where it made an unwieldy bulge and the neck of the bottle stuck out through the flap.
He went back outdoors, looking about. Below him lay the sanatorium and the hotel, both bright wtih lights at this time of day, almost all the windows illuminated. Above him the snow stretched up to the pines, up to the snow fields beyond, and to the peaks towering above all.
—Now what? he demanded. Where do we go from here?
Once Gertrude had passed Kaarlo’s chalet, her own chalet, the climbing became easier. It was as though her burning flesh had dissolved and now it was the phoenix risen from the ashes climbing up towards the pines. No, not the phoenix after all, for it seemed as though she had no body; these were not legs pushing her forwards and higher with each thrust; she had no physical sensation except for an enormous airiness as though the damp night air were flowing throu
gh her as well as around her.
—A gesture, she thought again. A gesture for Kaarlo, for Emily, for Clément, for them all.
She moved through the trees and she thought that if she wanted to, she could do this literally, move her disembodied self right through one of the dark pines.
When she came out into the snow fields and when she sighted the first hut she veered to the left because she must not meet Kaarlo and Abe and Sam coming down the mountain.
Coming hungrily down the mountain towards warmth and light and dinner.
Perhaps hunger was part of the disembodied feeling. She had had nothing to eat since the coffee with Kaarlo early that morning and the brandy in the afternoon. Yet she did not feel hungry.
She kept on climbing. Or rather one foot continued to move in front of the other and her body followed her footsteps. Upwards and to the left. She felt that she was listing like an unseaworthy ship, but she kept going. Now her mind was becoming as numb as her body and it seemed to float above her like a pale moon, beckoning her on. The landscape, too, was like the surface of the moon, snow and shadows and snow-filled sky joining the snow-covered earth and no atmosphere between, for there is no atmosphere on the moon; one does not have to breathe for there is nothing to breathe. And if her mind was pale and cold like the moon, then it was her mind she was walking on; tread softly on the snows of the mind for who knows what is underneath the snow?
When the snow shifted under her feet and she felt herself falling there was hardly any sensation to her descent until her leg doubled under her and she lay on it on a ledge of rock and her body came back to her again in a sudden violent shock of pain.
The extraordinary thing about time, Emily thought, walking at last towards the Splendide, is that it does pass; one does eventually move through it. In her ski clothes she walked through the village and it was as though she were pushing through time, as though with each step time opened and then closed in behind her. It was still too early to meet Abe, so she would stop at Madame Berigot’s to pick up a paper, and then she would have dislodged another chunk of time. There had been walking and then some blank, gaping minutes at the church, and again no help was given her, no sigh to indicate her way, the whole question was thrust back at her, and she had walked again, up through the pines, up looking for help from the hills, and then back to the church again, to say, kneeling there in the candlelight—No, I was wrong to be angry with You, of course it is my own problem. And then at last there was no place to go but the village, the Spendide, nothing else to do with time but to take it with her into the Splendide and spin it out there.
A Winter's Love Page 28