One late afternoon as he strode past her in the corridor, and she reached out to take him by the hand, he did not notice it or would not permit it; and she caught hold of his dear sleeve and clung to it until he jerked it impatiently out of her grubby fingers. Then she sank down in a dejected position on the floor, hiding her face in her hands, quivering from head to foot, until her mother found her and carried her to bed. Helianos had a hard time removing her smudgy, sweaty fingerprints from the major’s sleeve before he went to the officers' club that night.
Upon his return he called Helianos out of the kitchen, with something to say about Leda that Mrs. Helianos might not care to hear. “I wish you to know, Helianos, that I have not been thoughtless about your little girl, or needlessly brusque and short with her. It is for your sake as much as anything!
“She seems to prefer me to anyone, as you may have noticed. But a child of that age ought to love her father best. Therefore I have decided to be somewhat more severe, do you understand?
“I may have been at fault in this, perhaps. It would have been easier to discourage her in the first place; it didn’t occur to me then. I’m sorry.”
Helianos grimaced and blushed and drew a quick deep breath. Oh, could a great foreigner with careless power, victorious uniform, really steal away his dull little one’s affection and then in his magnanimous fit restore it to him as it were on a platter? . . . He gave a slight grunt deep in his throat.
“I beg pardon, Helianos, I didn’t hear you.”
“Oh, sir, I said nothing.”
“There’s another point,” the major continued, “I scarcely expect you to understand it very well. I dare say you do not know modern child-psychology. It is one of our German sciences, I happen to have read two or three of the authoritative books on the subject.
“Children of Leda’s age often develop sudden attachments like this, and they are extremely important, and very passionate and physiological. Now I don’t want her to get into a habit of clinging to me; trembling when I come anywhere near her; feasting her eyes on me. I tell you, I don’t like it. Groping toward me, and plucking me by the sleeve, and fondling my hand! Now that it has occurred to me, I find it offensive.”
Once more Helianos started to protest but stopped it because he did not know what he was saying or he did not dare say it, substituting an inarticulate cough or grunt. He was ashamed of Leda, ashamed for Leda; and he remembered things he had said about her himself, in fantasy of compassion and stoic humor, and he was ashamed of every word.
No, no, not ashamed; for he had spoken only in secret, to himself and alter ego, his wife, in interpretation to himself of this latest poorest fruit of their lives, remnant of their old marriage; and Leda belonged to them, to interpret as they liked; Leda belonged to them in a way that none but the parents of a shameful child could ever understand. . .
“As you are a man of the world, I knew you would appreciate my mentioning this,” said Kalter, taking no notice of Helianos' burning face and speechless breath and resentful glances.
“You know, I feel a certain friendliness toward you, Helianos. In many ways I look back quite pleasantly upon the year we have spent together.”
Helianos also looked back upon the year but with a look like a lightning-flash, recalling the other insults and injuries that he had endured with more or less good grace, comparing them with this; and then gave Kalter a look of lead, coming to the conclusion that nothing in the past had been so insulting as this nonsense about Leda; whereupon he grimaced again and exhaled another wild breath.
“Are you listening to me, Helianos? Listen! Perhaps something could be done for Leda. There is a young German physician here, who, they say, is a great genius. He has published a great treatise, endocrinology as it is connected with psychotherapy. My friend Lieutenant-Colonel Sertz introduced him to me one evening last spring.
“He is attached to one of the special services of our army, my friend’s bureau in fact; interrogating political prisoners and so on, not very pleasant work, I suppose. But you know how science is, all things to all men! The same great discoveries serve both for good and evil, for punishing criminals and for healing sick children. . .
“I think I should speak to this young scientist about Leda. Perhaps we can work a miracle for the poor little thing.”
The sciences in this proposal were something that as it happened Helianos knew little about; not to mention the ghastly mysteries of the interrogation of political prisoners. But in spite of his confusion and temper, he could tell that it was intended to be an overwhelming benefaction. What he ought to do, probably, was to fall on his knees and kiss his benefactor’s hand. For he had no right to be proud, nor to be too delicate in the matter of good and evil, nor to be cowardly with regard to the special services of their army, Kalter’s friend Sertz’s bureau—if there was any question of making sick Leda well. Leda who had everything to gain, nothing to lose. . .
Meanwhile Kalter sat down at his desk and began writing a letter, dismissing the problem of the child from his mind.
Helianos stood behind him and gazed at him, with his fists clenched, and his blush so hot that his cheeks prickled, and tears streaming from his eyes because he wanted to kill him. He wanted to express his feeling in some way, and it was inexpressible.
There was no great range of attitudes for him to choose from; only the alternatives, violence or softness. Therefore he decided that he would have to take the German’s remarks in the spirit in which they were intended. He set his chin firmly; he straightened his mouth tight shut; he drew his sloping, somewhat stooped shoulders back as far as he could and as square as he could; he set one foot firmly beside the other, as if he stood in the fear of God or in the presence of death, with an extreme self-consciousness. As Kalter sat there writing with his back turned toward him, he stood for a moment like that, facing Kalter’s back, with all his will power forgiving him.
For he felt that it was a great decision, this forgiveness, not at all forced or against his will, but simply against his every instinct. It is a grave decision, when you take the good will for the deed; when you yield to the mistaken inhuman brain or the harmful tongue because there is a kind heart behind it—accepting things that you hate, with nothing to make them acceptable except that riddle of the spirit which has prompted them, contenting yourself with good intentions whether they are according to your morality or not, whether they are to your advantage or not.
Then Helianos started to go out of the room, and so passed beside Kalter, who looked up from his letter; and Helianos really could see shining in his tired flushed eyes the fact that he meant well. He seemed not to observe that Helianos had been shedding tears. The look he gave Helianos was one of perfect candor, a little unsure of himself, a little sentimental, seeming to hope that kindness would be repaid with kindness. He bestowed upon Helianos a short warm smile; a smile like a schoolboy’s. It was obvious and unmistakable that he could not have intended to hurt Helianos' feelings by his remarks about Leda. Without a doubt he was sincere; and that, to Helianos' way of thinking, lifelong, was what you looked for above all in judging other men!
Therefore he relaxed and let it pass, smiled back as well as he could, said good night and went to bed. It was a turning-point in his relationship with the major, and also seemed to have altered something in the balance of his own mind and heart from then on, half unknown to him. No anger had ever troubled him so much as this; but on the other hand this pardon was more wholehearted, deeper, softer, than anything of the kind in his life before. He felt the forgiving spirit through and through him as a passion, with a greater involvement than ever before of all that part of his being which went on in secret and in shadow, unaware.
He relaxed, he smiled again, he forgave, he stayed his impulse to kill, such as it was, he voided his indignation. It was an event in his soul. As a rule the soul cannot relax by halves; one way of yielding gradually induces another. It is a kind of goodness that may act as a weakness. If you forgive
more than you can afford, you may find yourself impoverished in emotion afterward, with a lowered resistance to whatever happens after that.
Naturally Helianos determined not to say a word to his wife about the insult to Leda. She had not his capacity for forgiveness; and he so wanted her to live easily and calmly with Kalter, to spare her temper and rest her unhealthy heart.
But to his surprise a day or two later—it was a day of Leda’s strangest incapacity, when even Alex could not imagine what possessed her—Mrs. Helianos said, “You don’t suppose, do you, that the major really will do what he promised, about taking this poor child of ours to his famous specialist?”
“How do you know about that? Who told you? Oh, my poor wife, did he speak to you about it?”
No, what happened was this:—That night, after Helianos had followed Kalter into the sitting room for the consultation about Leda, Mrs. Helianos, thinking she heard the children’s voices very softly, perhaps Alex whispering or laughing, perhaps the little one weeping again, tiptoed into their room to tell them to hush and go to sleep. Their closet-door happened not to be shut. The major’s voice mentioning Leda by name came through the flimsy partition, and she found that by stepping inside the closet she could follow the entire conversation in the sitting room.
Helianos was greatly surprised at her not seeming to take offense at Kalter’s opinion of their wretched infant. Somehow her maternal feeling was not like his paternal feeling; not so proud or so easily hurt.
When Helianos tried to explain what a tragic conversation it had been for him—his shame, his resentment, Kalter’s evident sincerity, his decision of forgiveness—she smiled at the inconsistency of his feeling and reproved him for his false pride.
“My poor Helianos, you are the strangest man on earth. With all your appreciation of the major, when at last he does express a little sympathy and offers some help, you resent it, you lose your temper!
“Helianos, try to be reasonable about Leda. What can we do ourselves to improve her condition? Nothing. We feed her what food there is; we get her out of bed in the morning, and put her back to bed in the evening; we wash her, when we have time. She gets a little exercise with Alex; that is all her life. We do not understand her, we have no notion of her health or her real welfare.
“It is like keeping some little animal for a pet. Or like a bird in a cage. She is both bird and cage, and forever shut!” Mrs. Helianos' face as she said this lit up with a peculiar smile, as if she knew the answer to everything in the world.
“Now, if these fantastic Germans wanted to try some treatment to help her,” she went on, “oh, let them try, for pity’s sake! It is the least they can do. For they are to blame for her condition, their war frightened her into it!
“But, Helianos, try not to take things so seriously. Your blessed major talks and talks; naturally he wants to impress you, with the goodness of his heart, and now with his great knowledge of science; and perhaps he means it all. But nothing happens; he has too much on his mind now, whatever it is.
“I must say, this plan about Leda is the kindest thought that has come into his head so far. But I am afraid he’ll not do anything about it. It is pleasant to have him at least try to behave like a reasonable human being. But we shall have to take the will for the deed.”
Because this was what Helianos had said to himself in the very act of indulgence, it made him shiver to hear her say it.
So the weeks passed, with Kalter maintaining an entirely correct and friendly attitude, toward Mrs. Helianos especially, overlooking anything that seemed not to fit into his scheme of friendliness, perhaps making allowances for her as a woman in poor health. This was the cleverest thing he did to convince and conciliate Helianos.
She was still very alien with him, still afraid, or indignant or proud; who could tell? Whatever he said to her, the tone of her voice always shifted key a little in reaction to his voice. Her eyes pinched together somewhat at his glance. There was still a distinct withdrawal, a sudden straightening somewhere about her thick small raggedy person, if he made a gesture; evidently it was a habit she would never overcome.
Naturally all this had some chilling, discouraging effect on him, but he appeared not to hold it against her. Not once since he came back from Germany had he really reproved her for anything. He rarely asked her to do any hard or disagreeable task. When she had done something well enough, he appreciated it and complimented her. Sometimes a day would pass without his speaking to her at all, but that too may have been with friendly intention, as she had a way of showing that she preferred not to be spoken to.
“She is not well, is she?” he inquired of Helianos one evening. “I have been noticing it, perhaps you have not, you’re too accustomed to the way she is. I think you must insist on her seeing a doctor. You know, it’s a serious matter. . .”
It was in one of his genial moods, when he paid little attention to anything Helianos replied to him. “Now, Helianos, don’t argue about it. Do as I tell you!
“Another thing, Helianos. There is, as you may have heard, a shortage of all kinds of medicine in Athens. Ask your doctor about that when you take your wife to see him. If he can’t get what he thinks she ought to have, tell him it can be arranged, in her case. Bring his prescription to me, I will see what can be done about it.”
He had forgotten all about Leda and the psychiatrist, Helianos reminded himself. How true Mrs. Helianos' intuition was now and then! Perhaps now he was talking just to make a friendly effect; but he had to be listened to in any case.
Dr. Vlakos happened to be absent from Athens that week. The physician’s daughter whispered to Helianos where he was: somewhere in the mountains where some leader of the secret Greek army lay in a fever. Helianos inquired anxiously whether it was his heroic cousin Petros; it was not.
Mrs. Helianos was unwilling to change doctors. Furthermore, she said, her health at the moment was better than it had been for months. “Tell your blessed major to look at himself in the mirror,” she snapped, “and he will see which of us most needs medical attention. And tell him, if you please, to compare what he has eaten and what I have eaten in the past year, and his work and my work, and his victoriousness and our defeat!”
Helianos argued with her in vain. His anxiety about her health never ceased; as a rule she too was anxious enough. What a willful creature she was! Probably there would not be another opportunity for her to get proper medication while the war lasted. Furthermore Helianos was afraid that the proud German might resent their not taking his advice; but he did not, he forgot it.
His friendly concern expressed itself in another way. “Helianos, I think our work is too hard for your wife now. Can’t you help her a little more than you do? Can’t you get that old servant back to help her, the one you had when I first came? Old Euridice, Evridiki. . .”
“Oh, but,” Helianos stammered, “we understood, Major Kalter, that you didn’t like that old servant.”
“It’s true, I didn’t, but now it doesn’t matter. It will be easier to have her than to train a new one. Don’t you know where she lives? Send word to her, do it right away, so Mrs. Helianos can get some rest.”
With a certain misgiving Helianos did try to get in touch with Evridiki but word came back from her village near Eleusis that she was dead.
Kalter still had not recovered his old hearty appetite, and one evening Helianos asked him to suggest some improvement of their meals, or change of menu. “If I knew what would tempt you, sir, perhaps I could find it in the market; and Mrs. Helianos likes to attempt new dishes.”
“Thank you, no,” Kalter answered, “I can’t be bothered. No appetite; no matter. Why should you complain of it, Helianos, if I may ask? There is a little left for you, as it is now, and you need it, you poor devils!”
Helianos blushed, asking himself for an instant whether this might be the beginning of a scolding in the old manner, the change again, the change back. When they had first begun profiting by his abstemiousness, reveling in
the leftovers—at the thought of his temper if and when he found them out, they had held their breaths as they reveled. Then they forgot and took it all for granted. As there were four of them the little extra was soon eaten.
Helianos blushed, but the tone of Kalter’s remark was so good-natured, he almost thought it might be safe to smile or to make a jest. . . Then he caught his breath, suddenly reminded of something else he had forgotten: the decrepit greedy old dog, the other major’s dog, the dog of the Macedonian couple. Not once since Kalter’s return had he ordered anything wrapped up and taken down the street to their apartment! What a strange thing; and stranger still, his never having given it a thought: he who had done the wrapping and the taking, night after night.
He served the rest of the major’s dinner, he cleared the table, without knowing what he was about; amazed at himself, with that slight streak of oblivion running back through the month past, as if it were amnesia, a tiny dark hole in his good-for-nothing brain. It worried him; he wondered what else he might have forgotten, all the while he had been flattering himself that everything was going well, what worse amazement might be in store.
He could scarcely wait to get away from the major, away to his wife in the kitchen, to ask why she had never mentioned it. She said that it had slipped her mind too. What a spell the German had cast on them! It was as if they had lost some of their capacity for knowing what happened, even their own everyday existence with its slight ups and downs, unless and until it happened to be revealed to them by the major. The assuagement of their hunger by a few more mouthfuls than usual had distracted them. Night after night they had consumed the dog’s portion without stopping to think what little turn of fortune entitled them to it.
Apartment in Athens Page 8