The Steppes of Paris
Page 30
Still, I sensed something was afoot. I knew, by unmistakable signs, what wicked mischief my Irochka had embarked upon this time. It took Elena much longer to see what was under her nose, of course. I had to persuade her that it is just as misguided to imagine all English people are devoid of sexual appetites as it is to imagine that for all Italians and Hungarians, it is their foremost hobby.
I kept watch. Sometimes Irina would bring the boy to eat here with us and, I will admit, his table manners were adequate. Unlike certain of his predecessors, he could be relied upon to give one a civil greeting. But I wasn’t taken in by his winning ways. I hope I made my disapproval plain. Because, apart from the obvious scandalous imbalance between the two of them, I saw, as that winter passed, how my Irochka was growing steadily fonder of the boy, and I feared for her.
Despite my wearing nightly patrols, Irina managed to hide all proof from me for a regrettably long time. Like her mother, she is cunning when it comes to getting what she has set her heart on. It was only when we were faced with such immodestly incontrovertible evidence that my benighted sister at last capitulated and then, of course, we had to act.
My feelings were a medley when I heard, not long afterwards, that the boy was leaving. Elena’s reaction was juvenile rejoicing. But I, who had after all seen this whole sorry business at closer quarters than my silly sister, I had dark doubts which shadowed my delight. For I knew how much the boy mattered to Irochka and I worried what would become of her when he was gone.
I never imagined anything this terrible though. I never imagined Irina having to take leave from the lycée on health grounds and sitting here in the apartment month after month in a state of stupefaction. I thought for a short while after the boy left that she had weathered his departure. She seemed to carry on as usual; eating, sleeping, going to school. But, in the autumn, I noticed the first signs of the coming calamity and I realised that her appearance of normality had been only that, an appearance, and, inside, something awful was astir.
I noticed there was something indefinably dubious about the way Irina was looking; so pale, too pale, so dismal, too dismal, and yet eating, as the saying goes, for two. I feared that she might have allowed something unthinkable to happen. And maybe it would even be better if she had. For look at her now, sitting in the kitchen and singing a lullaby to her belly:
“Il était un petit navire,
II était un petit navire,
Qui n’avait ja-ja-jamais navigué,
Qui n’avait ja-ja-jamais navigué,
O hé, O hé.”
“There was a little ship,
There was a little ship,
Which had ne-e-ever sailed away,
Which had ne-e-ever sailed away,
O hé, O hé.”
It breaks my heart. For I know now it is not a baby Irina is producing but a ghost, one more to add to our family of ghosts. I was not certain for a long time. I didn’t even dare mention my suspicions to Elena for fear of being berated yet again. I wondered how we might manage with our new offspring. It would not be the first time, of course. The man has fled, and the devil take him! So we give the child our name and we produce another one of us.
That would have been in its own way an undying shame, a scandal and a tragedy. But would it not have been, after all, more healthily straightforward than this? Elena and I are distraught. How are we supposed to confront this calamity? It is more than nine months now since the boy left.
About the Author
Helen Harris was born in Oxford, where she later studied French and Russian. On graduating, she spent a year in Paris before moving to London.
She has travelled very widely, visiting much of Western Europe as well as the USSR, the USA, the Middle East, India, Australia and Japan.
She has published two previous novels, Playing Fields in Winter, which won the Authors’ Club First Novel Award and was short-listed for the first Betty Trask Award, and Angel Cake. Her short stories have appeared in a wide variety of magazines and anthologies, ranging from Punch, Encounter and London Magazine to Penguin and Faber collections.
Copyright
This ebook published in Great Britain by
Halban Publishers Ltd.
22 Golden Square
London W1F 9JW
2014
www.halbanpublishers.com
First published in Great Britain in 1990 by
Hodder and Stoughton Ltd
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the Publishers.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978–1–905559–74–9
Copyright © 1990 by Helen Harris
Helen Harris has asserted her right under the Copyright,
Design and Patents Act,1988 to be identified
as the author of this work.