The Small Rain

by Madeleine L'engle

  “Perhaps it was not altogether bad for you to dissipate a little. It is not entirely good to be too serious. But you have enjoyed yourself long enough. It is time to stop the fun and settle down to some serious work. You are engaged to the most wonderful young man in the world, and that is very fine. In some ways your music has a quality now that it didn’t have before, a quality that is approaching what your mother had at your age. But, my dear child, you must give it more uninterrupted concentration—unless you want to give it up altogether. I know you have practiced five hours a day, but those five hours have been whenever you could fit them in, and in order to fit them in, many times you have gone without sleep and food. You are too thin; there are deep purple circles under your eyes; and your fingers are nervous, they never stop moving, playing a bit of this and a bit of that on the chair arm or the table. You are so happy, and your face is so radiant, that most of the time one doesn’t see how worn and tired it is; but whenever you relax and look thoughtful, you seem so tired as to be almost ill, and I have noticed that sometimes you limp. It will not do. If you still want to be a musician, you must mend your ways.”

  “Why didn’t you play me Mother’s records before? Why didn’t you let me know you had them?” Katherine demanded.

  Albert Peytz’s voice was ominously calm. “Didn’t you hear anything I said to you?”

  “Yes,” Katherine answered quickly. “I heard. I know. You’re quite right. I’ll do anything you say. I promise you … But why didn’t you play me Mother’s records before? You know—you know what it would have meant to me.”

  “It would have meant too much to you,” Albert Peytz said. “And you have your own personality, your own style. I don’t want you to become a second-rate imitation of your mother, when you can be a musician in your own right. But I’ll make you a promise, too, child. If you work hard for the next few months, I’ll give you the record I played you. The rest you’ll have, of course, after I die, which I hope won’t be for some time. Go home now, and work. In two weeks we’ll make a recording of you doing the Chromatic Fantasy. You have that long to prepare it. If you don’t dillydally, it will be long enough. I’m tired now. We won’t go on with this lesson. Go home. And if you’re not going to work, don’t ever come back here again.”

  When she got back to Eleventh Street, where the ailanthus and the ginko trees were beginning to show small shoots of delicate green, she had the same feeling of exhaustion and weakness that she got when she had drunk too much the night before. As she put her latchkey in the lock, she noticed that there was a letter in the mailbox and she drew it out, not glancing at it until she got upstairs. When she looked at the envelope and saw that it was postmarked Paris, she began to tremble violently.

  —It’s from Charlot or Pauline—she said to herself, slitting the letter open carefully. The signature, “Anne Desmoulins,” puzzled her, until she remembered the organist. Inside the two sheets of blue note paper was a single white one. The signature read “Justin.”

  She read Anne’s letter first.

  They had meant to write at Christmas, but there had been Anne’s marriage. She was very happy. Justin still had the attic apartment. They had bumped into Pauline and Charlot once and gone out and had a cognac together. Everyone had said wonderful things about Katherine. How was she?

  With shaking fingers she unfolded Justin’s letter. Justin had not been in her mind for a long time.—It’s like God-she thought.—When you’re happy and have everything you want, you don’t need Him, you forget to pray. But when He reminds you of Himself, you fall pale and tremble before His glory.—

  “Why haven’t you written?” Justin demanded. “I thought I told you to write. How is your music coming? With whom are you studying? Did your mother’s old teacher suggest someone satisfactory? I miss you. Katherine, if ever you betray me by becoming mediocre, if ever you dishonor your work, I will come to America and strangle you with my own hands.”

  There was an excitement about plunging into work again that made her wake up feeling fresh and energetic at six when she had gone to bed at three the night before. She forgot to eat unless Sarah or Pete forcibly dragged her away from the piano. Sarah bought earplugs, and fortunately there were an oboist and a cellist in the house, as well as several people who kept their radios on loudly all day, so there were no complaints when Katherine practiced one finger-exercise for hours at a time. She made her recording of the Chromatic Fantasy for Mr. Peytz, who was pleased. She felt renewed life and strength pouring into her fingers and arms. Only in the evening after the show did she see Pete. Sometimes they stayed in the apartment with Sarah and Felix. Sometimes they went for long walks together, in the Square, in St. Luke’s Place, in their old haunts of early winter. Katherine walked leaning close against Pete, exhausted but completely happy, not talking much, just knowing the comforting nearness of Pete, watching the slow glow of his cigarette, feeling her own strong hands suddenly lost and small in the strength of his, while the moon waxed and waned, stars blossomed and faded in the sky, and window boxes seemed to unfold outside the Eleventh Street houses like the fan-shaped leaves of the ginko trees.

  On Sarah’s birthday they gave a party. Katherine suddenly felt so tired that cold sweat broke out on her forehead and upper lip as she stood in the kitchen making blini. As she came in with a trayful, she heard Sarah saying to a dark man whom Felix had brought, “… next winter when the show’s on the road …”

  Quickly she turned to Pete. “Are you going on the road next winter, Pete?”

  “I wanted to talk to you about that,” he said. “Come on downstairs for a minute.”

  They walked slowly down the sleeping street; the stars were already beginning to dim out. “The announcement of the tour just came tonight,” he said. “I didn’t think there’d be one.”

  “Do you have to go?”

  “They’re raising my salary. Twenty-five dollars more a week. That’s a good sum. I can save a lot out of that. We have to think of such things, you know, sweetheart.”

  “Yes, I know … But couldn’t you get something here in town? You’ve had quite a lot of publicity out of this show, you’re quite important now. And you’ve been on the road so much. Do you have to go, Pete?”

  “I don’t know. I think so,” he said. “I’ve never had much respect for people who sign up for a show, play it in New York, and then refuse to go on the road. And then, aside from that, there’s the money. If it weren’t for you, sure, I might stay in New York. I know I’d get something. But I wouldn’t have the salary LeStrade offered me, though why in hell he wants me I don’t know, except maybe he thinks I’m less of a menace to him in his own show than going into a lead in something here in town. Then, if I did get something here, it mightn’t run. I might be out of work all winter. I’m not the only man in New York, no matter what my notices were. One hit doesn’t necessarily mean anything. I’ve seen people make a tremendous hit and never do anything again. This part is very right for me, and I’ve still got a lot to learn from it. But the most important thing is you. If I didn’t have you to think of, I’d probably chuck the show and take my chances on something else. But there is you.”

  “I thought one of the wonderful things about us was that we were never, in any way, going to interfere with each other’s careers.”

  “You’re not interfering with my career. It just swings the balance. Anyhow, you’d be interfering in my career if I didn’t go on the road because of you.”

  “That’s logic nohow contrariwise,” Katherine said, as they turned up the street again.

  Pete dropped his cigarette and ground it out with his heel. “The show closes the end of June. We don’t leave till the first of September. We’ll have all July and August together.”

  “How long will you be gone?” Dropping her cigarette, she buried her hand in Pete’s pocket the way she had done in Julie’s.

  “All season, I expect.”

  “Oh. Is Sarah going?”

  “Sure. Why?”


  “I just wondered … I’ll be awfully lonely.”

  “You’ll have Felix. Maybe it’ll be very good for you, anyhow. You can go to bed at night instead of sitting up with me. And you’ll never notice we’re gone all day while you’re at your piano. Just don’t forget to eat once in a while.”

  At the corner Katherine leaned suddenly very heavily against Pete. “I’m terribly tired. Dear God, I’m so tired.”

  Pete put his arm around her and half-carried her back up the street. This time he stopped in front of the door. “Sweetheart—”

  “What, Pete?”

  “So I don’t think we should marry until I get back from the road. Because God knows where I’ll be in November.”

  “Oh.”

  “It’s damnable, but it’s only sensible.”

  “That’s putting it off almost a whole year.”

  “Does it matter very much to you?”

  “Yes. It does.”

  “I wasn’t sure.”

  “Sure of what?”

  “How much it would matter.”

  “Oh, Pete!”

  “But it really isn’t a whole year, precious. Only spring instead of winter.”

  “It seems like a whole year.”

  “We’d better go upstairs.”

  “I know.”

  Pete kissed her gently, as he would kiss a tired child. She leaned against him, completely limp and exhausted, and he picked her up and carried her up the four flights of stairs.

  Sarah was playing Strauss waltzes on the victrola, and Felix was joining in with his violin. Katherine stood in the doorway, and the room went around and around with the dancers. Past her, caught up in the whirlpool, revolved Sarah and Pete, and suddenly she was being whirled about by the dark man Felix had brought. Around and around like the moon and earth and sun and stars, like the hands of the clock, the days of the year, the merry-go-round at Thônon. Everything swirled around until it resolved itself in blackness and she was lying on the bed in the tiny bedroom, with Sarah, Pete, and Felix clutching his violin to his chest, looking down at her with anxious eyes. She sat up quickly, then fell back again as the room began to revolve. “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “You passed out cold,” Sarah said.

  Pete went out and came back a moment later with a cup. “Here’s some black coffee, darling.”

  She drank it down quickly, then sat up again, tentatively. “I’m all right now,” she said. A Noel Coward record was on the victrola in the other room, sounding quite loud because the voices were subdued.

  “I’m going to tell the crowd to go home,” Sarah said.

  “Don’t be silly. I’m all right now.”

  “You ought to get to bed. I’m going to get them to go.”

  “It’ll spoil your birthday party.”

  “It’s practically morning. They’ve been here long enough. You stay here and I’ll get rid of everybody and clean up and fix your bed. Pete will help me.”

  “No.” Katherine said. “Let Pete stay here. Felix will help you. And don’t bother about cleaning up. I’ll do it in the morning. You shouldn’t have to clean up after your own birthday party.”

  “We’ll do it,” Sarah said. “Come on, Felix.”

  They went out. The light bulb from the bed lamp was bright in her eyes, but she felt too tired to reach out to turn it off. “Turn out the light, please, Pete,” she said.

  For the first moment after he switched off the lamp the room was completely dark. Then the light resolved itself in a thin square around the closed door, and settled, paler, gray instead of golden, in the rectangle of the window.

  Pete began to rub his fingers gently against the nape of her neck. “You’ve been working too hard.”

  “Yes. I guess so.”

  “You’ll have to stop.”

  “I can’t very well.”

  “I’m not going to have you bullied by that slave driver Peytz.”

  “No,” she said. “It isn’t his fault. It’s not too much work. It’s not enough sleep.”

  “No matter what it is,” Pete said, “we’ve got to put an end to it.”

  “Um,” Katherine said vaguely, thinking that would satisfy him.

  But it didn’t. She was practicing the next morning, when the doorbell rang. She pushed the buzzer and shouted, “Who is it?” crossly down the stairs. Manya came hurrying up. “Oh, hello, Aunt Manya. I didn’t mean to snarl. I was working.”

  Manya kissed her; Katherine sat down on the sofa; Manya stood by the fireplace, frowning at her. “Pete phoned me this morning, Katya.”

  “Oh, did he? What about?” she asked guardedly.

  “What do you mean by fainting?”

  “Oh—I don’t know.”

  “We’re going to find out. Put on your coat and hat.”

  “I have to work.”

  “You are coming to the doctor with me. I’ve made your appointment with your precious Dr. Bradley instead of Leonid, so just be thankful. Get your coat and hat.”

  Katherine knew that when Manya used that tone of voice there was no use arguing with her. She got up.

  There was nothing wrong with her but exhaustion and undernourishment. With some irritation Dr. Bradley ordered her to spend two weeks at Manya’s place in the country. Manya would speak to Mr. Peytz.

  Now that they were making her give in, she felt relieved. It would be good to go to the country to the small blue-paneled room, to go to bed early and sleep late in a bed that was a bed and not a sofa that had to be put together and taken apart night and morning (it had seemed the simplest thing for Sarah to remain in the bedroom and Katherine in the living room; Katherine was the smaller of the two and fitted the sofa better); to eat good meals slowly and without nervously feeling that she must rush. It would be a relief to have no conflict for a short time in her mind between her piano and Pete. There was the necessity of doing justice, of doing more than justice, to her music, so that she would not betray Julie or Justin or Albert Peytz—or herself; and there was the necessity of time to be with Pete, partly because of Pete, but mostly because of herself, since Pete had become as much an integral essential part of her life as breathing and music.

  It was a quiet and peaceful two weeks. Manya pampered her over the week ends, read to her, rubbed her head, kneaded the tense muscles in her back. She slept and ate and walked in the fresh spring air, transplanted bulbs from the house to the garden, fed Manya’s chickens, the Leghorns, the Cochin Chinas, the Orpingtons. At night there were the clear myriads of country stars to look at or Manya’s record collection to listen to in front of the wood fire that was so fresh and fragrant and clean-smelling after the cannel coal.

  She went back to the city feeling newly alive and on her toes with energy, her battery recharged, her nerves calm, her body fresh and strong. But when Sarah and Pete came hurrying to the door when she got back to the apartment, she knew that something was wrong. Pete’s face was drawn, and there was a stubborn set to his mouth. Sarah put her arms around Katherine and kissed her very tenderly, very lovingly, easy tears coming quickly to her eyes.

  “What on earth’s the matter?” Katherine asked. “Has something awful happened since I was away?” Pete shook his head. “Felix hasn’t gone and committed suicide or anything, has he?” Again Pete shook his head. “Well, for heaven’s sake, you two! I come back looking as healthy as a young Greek god, and you both look at me as though you’d just learned I’d been stricken with an incurable disease.” As she saw the tears spill over in Sarah’s eyes, she suddenly felt panic. “I haven’t, have I?”

  Again Sarah put her arms about her, “Oh, my God, darling, of course not.”

  Katherine looked hard into Sarah’s eyes and felt that they were bright with more than tears. She pulled away and turned automatically toward the piano.

  “Mr. Peytz called to see if you were back and how you were,” Sarah said.

  “Oh.”

  “You do look well, Kat.”

  “Yes. I’m fi
ne. But there’s something the matter. What is it?”

  “Nothing’s the matter. Honestly.”

  “Look,” Pete said. “We’re all acting stupidly about nothing. We’re going to take you out tonight, kitten. Good French food and wine. Come for us after the show.”

  “O.K.” Katherine said. “I think I’ll come and see it tonight.” Then, looking at them, she changed her mind, she wasn’t quite sure why. “No. I guess I’ll go and see Aunt Manya’s. I haven’t seen it in a long time.”

  Manya’s play was a long one and broke almost half an hour later than Paul LeStrade’s. Pete and Sarah had their make-up off and were waiting for her when she went around to their stage door. They each took her arm, very affectionately. Katherine thought—I wish Pete and I could have been alone tonight.—

  They hadn’t been in the restaurant very long when Katherine saw Felix in the doorway, looking over the tables, fingering his bow tie. She waved at him. “There’s Felix.”

  Pete looked annoyed. “I didn’t tell Felix where we were going on purpose. I wanted to be alone with you.”

  —But, my God—Katherine thought—we aren’t alone. I love Sarah, I always will, but when it’s Pete and me, even Sarah makes someone else.—

  Felix’s eyes lit up as he saw them, and he hurried over to their table.

  “How did you know we were here?” Pete asked, not concealing his irritation.

  “Oh, I have my little F.B.I. men,” Felix said, and ordered a Scotch and soda.

  Sarah looked at him across the table. “Felix, you’ve been drinking.”

  “Not so much. But I’m going to have to, to keep my spirits up, aren’t I? The unwanted guest, or words to that effect. But if you don’t mind, or rather, even though you do, because I know you do, I’m going to stick around. I’m very fond of Katherine Forrester, and I don’t like to see her get a dirty deal.”

  “What are you talking about?” Katherine asked sharply.

  “Look,” Pete said. “I know you mean well, Felix, but this thing is between the three of us, and if you want to help Katherine, the best thing for you to do is to leave us alone.”