Orsinian Tales

by Ursula K. Le Guin

  Yet be just and constant still,

  Love may beget a wonder…

  “Stefan,” she said in the afternoon light of the fourteenth day as she sat, and he lay with his head on her lap, on a green bank above the river-marshes south of the house. He opened his eyes: “Must we go?”

  “No.”

  He closed his eyes again, saying, “Bruna.” He sat up and sat beside her, staring at her. “Bruna, oh God! I wish you weren’t a virgin.” She laughed and watched him, wary, curious, defenseless. “If only—here, now—I’ve got to go away day after tomorrow!”—“But not right under the kitchen windows,” she said tenderly. The house stood thirty yards from them. He collapsed by her burying his head in the angle of her arm, against her side, his lips on the very soft skin of her forearm. She stroked his hair and the nape of his neck.

  “Can we get married? Do you want to get married?”

  “Yes, I want to marry you, Stefan.”

  He lay still awhile longer, then sat up again, slowly this time, and looked across the reeds and choked, sunlit river to the hills and the mountains behind them.

  “I’ll have my degree next year.”

  “I’ll have my teaching certificate in a year and a half,”

  They were silent awhile.

  “I could quit school and work. We’ll have to apply for a place…” The walls of the one rented room facing a courtyard strung with sooty washing rose up around them, indestructible. “All right,” he said. “Only I hate to waste this.” He looked from the sunlit water up to the mountains. The warm wind of evening blew past them. “All right. But Bruna, do you understand…” that all this is new to me, that I have never waked before at dawn in a high-windowed room and lain hearing the perfect silence, never walked out over fields in a bright October morning, never sat down at table with fair, laughing brothers and sisters, never spoken in early evening by a river with a girl who loved me, that I have known that order, peace, and tenderness must exist but never hoped even to witness them, let alone possess them? And day after tomorrow I must go back. No, she did not understand. She was only the country silence and the blessed dark, the bright stream, the wind, the hills, the cool house; all that was hers and her; she could not understand. But she took him in, the stranger in the rainy night, who would destroy her. She sat beside him and said softly, “I think it’s worth it, Stefan, it’s worthwhile.”

  “It is. We’ll borrow. We’ll beg, we’ll steal, we’ll filch. I’ll be a great scientist, you know. I’ll create life in a test-tube. After a squalid early career Fabbre rose to sudden prominence. We’ll go to meetings in Vienna. In Paris. The hell with life in a test-tube! I’ll do better than that, I’ll get you pregnant within five minutes, oh you beauty, laugh, do you? I’ll show you, you filly, you little trout, oh you darling—” There under the windows of the house and under the mountains still in sunlight, while the boys shouted playing tennis up beside the house, she lay soft, fair, heavy in his arms under his weight, absolutely pure, flesh and spirit one pure will: to let him come in, let him come in.

  Not now, not here. His will was mixed, and obdurate. He rolled away and lay face up in the grass, a black flicker in his eyes looking at the sky. She sat with her hand on his hand. Peace had never left her. When he sat up she looked at him as she had looked at Bendika’s baby, steadily, with pondering recognition. She had no praise for him, no reservation, no judgment. Here he is; this is he.

  “It’ll be meager, Bruna. Meager and unprofitable.”

  “I expect so,” she said, watching him.

  He stood up and brushed grass off his trousers. “I love Bruna!” he shouted, lifting his hand; and from the sunlit slopes across the river-marshes where dusk was rising came a vague short sound, not her name, not his voice. “You see?” he said standing over her, smiling. “Echoes, even. Get up, the sun’s going, do you want me to get pneumonia again?” She reached out her hand, he took it and pulled her up to him. “I’ll be very loyal, Bruna,” he said. He was a small man and when they stood together she did not look up to him but straight at him at eyelevel. “That’s what I have to give,” he said, “that’s all I have to give. You may get sick of it, you know.” Her eyes, grey-brown or grey, unclear, watched him steadily. In silence he raised his hand to touch for a moment, with reserve and tenderness, her fair parted hair. They went back up to the house, past the tennis court where Kasimir on one side of the net and the two boys on the other swung, missed, leapt and shouted. Under the oaks Bret sat practicing a guitar-tune. “What language is that one?” Bruna asked, standing light in the shadow, utterly happy. Bret cocked his head to answer, his misshapen right hand lying across the strings. “Greek; I got it from a book; it means, ‘O young lovers who pass beneath my window, can’t you see it’s raining?’” She laughed aloud, standing by Stefan who had turned to watch the three run and poise on the tennis court in rising shadow, the ball soar up from moment to moment into the level gold light.

  He walked into Prevne next day to buy their tickets with Kasimir, who wanted to see the weekly market there; Kasimir took joy in markets, fairs, auctions, the noise of people getting and selling, the barrows of white and purple turnips, racks of old shoes, mounds of print cotton, stacks of bluecoated cheese, the smell of onions, fresh lavender, sweat, dust The road that had been long the night they came was brief in the warm morning. “Still looking for that get-em-out-alive fellow, Bret says,” said Kasimir. Tall, frail, calm, he moseyed along beside his friend, his bare head bright in the sunlight. “Bruna and I want to get married,” Stefan said.

  “You do?”

  “Yes.”

  Kasimir hesitated a moment in his longlegged amble, went on, hands in his pockets. Slowly on his face appeared a smile. “Do you really?”

  “Yes.”

  Kasimir stopped, took his right hand out of his pocket, shook Stefan’s. “Good work,” he said, “well done.” He was blushing a little. “Now that’s something real,” he said, going on, hands in his pockets; Stefan glanced at his long, quiet young face. “That’s absolute,” Kasimir said, “that’s real.” After a while he said, “That beats Schubert.”

  “Main problem is finding a place to live, of course, but if I can borrow something to get started on, Metor still wants me for that project—we’d like to do it straight off—if it’s all right with your parents, of course.” Kasimir listened fascinated to these chances and circumstances confirming the central fact, just as he watched fascinated the buyers and sellers, shoes and turnips, racks and carts of a market-fair that confirmed men’s need of food and of communion. “It’ll work out,” he said. “You’ll find a place.”—“I expect so,” said Stefan never doubting it. He picked up a rock, tossed it up and caught it, hurled it white through sunlight far into the furrows to their left. “If you knew how happy I am, Kasimir—” His friend answered, “I have some notion. Here, shake hands again.” They stopped again to shake hands. “Move in with us, eh, Kasi?”—“All right, get me a truckle-bed.” They were coming into town. A khaki-colored truck crawled down Prevne’s main street between flyblown shops, old houses painted with garlands long faded; over the roofs rose high yellow hills. Under lindens the market square was dusty and sun-dappled: a few racks, a few stands and carts, a noseless man selling sugarcandy, three dogs cringingly, unwearingly following a white bitch, old women in black shawls, old men in black vests, the lanky keeper of the Post-Telephone Bar leaning in his doorway and spitting, two fat men dickering in a mumble over a pack of cigarettes. “Used to be more to it,” Kasimir said. “When I was a kid here. Lots of cheese from Portacheyka, vegetables, mounds of ’em. Everybody turned out for it.” They wandered between the stalls, content, aware of brotherhood. Stefan wanted to buy Bruna something, anything, a scarf; there were buttonless mud-colored overalls, cracked shoes. “Buy her a cabbage,” Kasimir said, and Stefan bought a large red cabbage. They went into the Post-Telephone Bar to buy their tickets to Aisnar. “Two on the S.W. to Aisnar, Mr Praspayets.”—“Back to work, eh?�
�—“Right.” Three men came up to the counter, two on Kasimir’s side one on Stefan’s. They handed over. “Fabbre Stefan, domicile 136 Tome Street, Krasnoy, student, MR 64100282A. Augeskar Kasimir, domicile 4 Sorden Street, Krasnoy, student, MR 80104944A. Business in Aisnar?”—“Catching the train to Krasnoy.” The men returned to a table. “In here all day, past ten days,” the innkeeper said in a thready mumble, “kills my business. I need another hundred kroner, Mr Kasimir; trying to short-change me?” Two of the men, one thickset, the other slim and wearing an army gunbelt under his jacket, were by them again. The smiling innkeeper went blank like a television set clicked off. He watched the agents go through the young men’s pockets and feel up and down their bodies; when they had gone back to the table he handed Kasimir his change, silent. They went out in silence. Kasimir stopped and stood looking at the golden lindens, the golden light dappling dust where three dogs still trotted abased and eager after the white bitch, a fat housewife laughed with an old cackling man, two boys dodged yelling among the carts, a donkey hung his grey head and twitched one ear. “Oh well,” Stefan said. Kasimir said nothing. “I’ve budded off,” Stefan said, “come on, Kasi.” They set off slowly. “Right,” Kasimir said straightening up a little. “It’s not relevant, you know,” said Stefan. “Is the innkeeper really named Praspayets?”—“Evander Praspayets. Has a brother runs the winery here, Belisarius Praspayets.” Stefan grinned, Kasimir smiled a little vaguely. They were at the edge of the market-place about to cross the street. “Damn, I forgot my cabbage in the bar,” Stefan said, turning, and saw some men running across the market-place between the carts and stalls. There was a loud clapping noise. Kasimir grabbed at Stefan’s shoulder for some reason, but missed, and stood there with his arms spread out, making a coughing, retching sound in his throat. His arms jerked wider and he fell down, backwards, and lay at Stefan’s feet, his eyes open, his mouth open and full of blood. Stefan stood there. He looked around. He dropped on his knees by Kasimir who did not look at him. Then he was pulled up and held by the arm; there were men around him and one of them was waving something, a paper, saying loudly, “This is him, the traitor, this is what happens to traitors. These are his forged papers. This is him.” Stefan wanted to get to Kasimir, but was held back; he saw men’s backs, a dog, a woman’s red staring face in the background under golden trees. He thought they were helping him to stand, for his knees had given under him, but as they forced him to turn and walk he tried to pull free, crying out, “Kasimir!”

  He was lying on his face on a bed, which was not the bed in the high-windowed room in the Augeskar house. He knew it was not but kept thinking it was, hearing the boys calling down on the tennis court. Then understanding that it was his room in Krasnoy and his roommates were asleep he lay still for a long time, despite a fierce headache. Finally he sat up and looked around at the pine-plank walls, the grating in the door, the stone floor with cigarette butts and dried urine on it. The guard who brought his breakfast was the thickset agent from the Post-Telephone Bar, and did not speak. There were pine splinters in the quicks of his nails on both his hands; he spent a long time getting them out.

  On the third day a different guard came, a fat dark-jowled fellow reeking of sweat and onions like the market under the lindens. “What town am I in?”—“Prevne.” The guard locked the door, offered a cigarette through the grating, held a lighted match through. “Is my friend dead? Why did they shoot him?”—“Man they wanted got away,” said the guard. “Need anything in there? You’ll be out tomorrow.”—“Did they kill him?” The guard grunted yes and went off. After a while a half-full pack of cigarettes and a box of matches dropped in through the grating near Stefan’s feet where he sat on the cot. He was released next day, seeing no one but the dark-jowled guard who led him to the door of the village lock-up. He stood on the main street of Prevne half a block down from the market-place. Sunset was over, it was cold, the sky clear and dark above the lindens, the roofs, the hills.

  His ticket to Aisnar was still in his pocket. He walked slowly and carefully to the market-place and across it under dark trees to the Post-Telephone Bar. No bus was waiting. He had no idea when they ran. He went in and sat down, hunched over, shaking with cold, at one of the three tables. Presently the owner came out from a back room.

  “When’s the next bus?” He could not think of the man’s name, Praspets, Prayespets, something like that. “Aisnar, eight-twenty in the morning,” the man said.—“To Portacheyka?” Stefan asked after a pause.—“Local to Portacheyka at ten.”—“Tonight?”—“Ten tonight.”—“Can you change this for a…ticket to Portacheyka?” He held out his ticket for Aisnar. The man took it and after a moment said, “Wait, I’ll see.” He went off again to the back. Stefan got change ready for a cup of coffee, and sat hunched over. It was seven-ten by the white-faced alarm clock on the bar. At seven-thirty when three big townsmen came in for a beer he moved as far back as he could, by the pool table, and sat there facing the wall, only glancing round quickly now and then to check the time on the alarm clock. He was still shaking, and so cold that after a while he put his head down on his arms and shut his eyes. Bruna said, “Stefan.”

  She had sat down at the table with him. Her hair looked pale as cotton round her face. His head still hunched forward, his arms on the table, he looked at her and then looked down.

  “Mr Praspayets telephoned us. Where were you going?”

  He did not answer.

  “Did they tell you to get out of town?”

  He shook his head.

  “They just let you go? Come on. I brought your coat, here, you must be cold. Come on home.” She rose, and at this he sat up; he took his coat from her and said, “No. I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Dangerous for you. Can’t face it, anyway.”

  “Can’t face us? Come on. I want to get out of here. We’re driving back to Krasnoy tomorrow, we were waiting for you. Come on, Stefan.” He got up and followed her out. It was night now. They set off across the street and up the country road, Bruna holding a flashlight beamed before them. She took his arm; they walked in silence. Around them were dark fields, stars.

  “Do you know what they did with…”

  “They took him off in the truck, we were told.”

  “I don’t—When everybody in the town knew who he was—” He felt her shrug. They kept walking. The road was long again as when he and Kasimir had walked it the first time without light. They came to the hill where the lights had appeared, the laughter and calling all round them in the rain. “Come faster, Stefan,” the girl beside him said timidly, “you’re cold.” He had to stop soon, and breaking away from her went blind to the roadside seeking anything, a fencepost or tree, anything to lean against till he could stop crying; but there was nothing. He stood there in the darkness and she stood near him. At last he turned and they went on together. Rocks and weeds showed white in the ragged circle of light from her flashlight. As they crossed the hillcrest she said with the same timidity and stubbornness, “1 told mother we want to marry. When we heard they had you in jail here I told her. Not father, yet. This was—this was what he couldn’t stand, he can’t take it. But mother’s all right, and so I told her. I’d like to be married quite soon, if you would, Stefan.” He walked beside her, silent. “Right,” he said finally. “No good letting go, is there.” The lights of the house below them were yellow through the trees; above them stars and a few thin clouds drifted through the sky. “No good at all.”

  1962

  AN DIE

  MUSIK

  “A person asking to see you, sir. Mr. Gaye.”

  Otto Egorin nodded. This being his only free afternoon in Foranoy, it was inevitable that some young hopeful would find him out and waste it. He knew from the way his man said “person” that it was no one important. Still, he had been buried so long in managing his wife’s concert tour that it was refreshing to receive a postulant of his own. “Show him in,” he said, turning again to the letter he was
writing, and did not look up till the visitor was well into the room and had had time to be impressed by the large, bald head of Otto Egorin engrossed in writing a letter. That first impression, Otto knew, would keep all but the brashest ones down. This one did not look brash: a short, shabby man leading a small boy by the hand and stammering about the great liberty—valuable time—great privilege—“Well, well,” said the impressario, moderately genial, since if not put at ease the timid often wasted more time than the brash, “playing chords since he could sit up, and the Appassionata since he was three? Or do you write your own sonatas, eh, my man?” The child stared at him with cold dark eyes. The man stammered and halted, “I’m very sorry, Mr. Egorin, I wouldn’t have—my wife’s not well, I take the boy out Sunday afternoons, so she doesn’t have to look after him—” It was really painful to see him going red, then pale, then red. “He’ll be no trouble,” he blundered on.

  “What is it about then, Mr. Gaye?” asked Otto rather dryly.

  “I write music,” Gaye said, and Otto saw then what he had missed in supposing the child to be yet another prodigy: the small roll of music-paper under the visitor’s arm.

  “All right, good. Let me see it, please,” he said, putting out his hand. This was the point he dreaded with the shy ones. But Gaye did not explain for twenty minutes what he had tried to do and why and how, all the time clutching his compositions and sweating. He gave the roll of music to Egorin without a word, and at Egorin’s gesture sat down on the stiff hotel sofa, the little boy beside him, both of them nervous, submissive, with their strange, steady, dark eyes. “You see, Mr. Gaye, this is all that matters, after all, eh? This music you bring me. You bring it to me to look at: I want to look at it: so, please excuse me while I do so.” It was his usual speech after he had pried the manuscript away from a shy-talkative one. This one merely nodded. “It’s four songs and p-part of a Mass,” he said in his barely audible voice.