The Summer of Katya

by Trevanian

  “No,” she said simply, as though it were a matter of little concern. “Aren’t you going to eat those brioches?”

  “I haven’t much appetite.”

  “I’m sorry. May I have them? I’m ravenous.”

  “By all means.”

  When the waiter had departed, leaving a fresh cup and pots of coffee and hot milk, I pursued, “I’m sure Paul would be furious if he knew you were here.”

  She took her first long sip of café au lait thirstily, looking into the cup as a child does. “Hmm, that’s good. Yes, I’m sure he would be. But let’s not talk about that. It’s too perfect a morning.”

  “No, Katya. I want to talk about it. I’ve passed a dreadful night, and I want to talk about what is happening to me . . . to us.”

  “You know, Jean-Marc, you’re not the only one who has passed a terrible night,” she said with a note of remonstration in her voice.

  I could not believe, from the freshness in her face and the clear sparkle of her eye, that she had suffered through a white night.

  As it turned out, she was not speaking of herself. “When I came down this morning I found Paul asleep on the floor of the salon. He had been drinking and he looked ghastly and somehow pitiful, lying there under the hearth rug he had pulled over himself. I felt quite perfidious, leaving him in that state. But I had to be away from the house. Out into this glorious morning. And too . . .” She glanced away. “. . . I wanted to be with you, I suppose.”

  It was difficult for me to picture the cool, self-possessed Paul Treville drinking his way through a night of suffering, but the image gave me an odd sense of fellow-feeling with him, not unmixed, I must confess, with a certain satisfaction at his having shared in the pain his high-handedness had caused. But overriding this mixture of sympathy and callous satisfaction was the warming effect of that phrase, “. . . I wanted to be with you.”

  I placed my hand over hers, and she did not withdraw it for a full minute before confessing with a little laugh, “I really don’t know how to drink coffee with my left hand, and I’d feel a fool to spill it.”

  I lifted my hand. “Katya, let me be frank with you.”

  “That always means you intend to say something unpleasant.”

  “No, not at all. Well . . . perhaps. I don’t understand how you can be in such good spirits while I—and Paul, evidently—am suffering so.”

  “It’s something one learns, Jean-Marc. One must learn to empty one’s mind and seek . . . not joy, exactly . . . peace, perhaps. How else could one go on?”

  “But, for God’s sake, what in your life—in your family—brings you such pain that you have to build barricades against it?”

  She sat still for a moment, her eyes lowered as though she was thinking something out. Then she shook her head. “No. It’s not a thing I can talk about. Not even with you.”

  “But you can talk about it with me, Katya. You know that I—”

  “Hush!” Then, more softly. “Hush, please.”

  “Well, you will at least let me say that I am fond of you, won’t you?”

  “Yes,” she said, smiling at me with a wistful sadness. “I know you are. And I take pleasure in it.”

  “But you are not willing to share this—whatever it is—with me?”

  “I’ll share other things with you. When I’m happy, or when I think of a particularly good pun . . . I’ll share those things with you. That will have to be enough.”

  “It’s not enough at all. Good Lord, Katya, we share our happiness with anybody . . . with total strangers. It’s sharing the sadnesses and pain that matters. Surely you know that.”

  “Yes, I know that. It’s one of those truisms that has the misfortune of being true.”

  “Well then?”

  Her eyes searched mine for a moment. Then she smiled. “You know, Jean-Marc, your eyes are so dark they’re almost black. It must take a tremendous amount of light to fill them.”

  I turned away from her, displeased at having the subject changed in that obvious way.

  “Please don’t pout, Jean-Marc.”

  “I am not pouting.” Unfortunately, there is no way to say that without sounding petulant.

  “Listen to me, dear.” This word of affection touched me even through my frustration and despair, particularly as she used the intimate tu form for the first time. “I am sure I shall be able to patch things up with Paul. He is quick to anger, but quick to forgive.”

  “That’s because he feels nothing deeply.”

  “That is untrue. And it’s unfair. I’ll talk to Paul, and I’m sure he’ll reconsider and allow you to visit Etcheverria. Then we can take our little walks in the garden. And we can chat. And I’ll permit you to applaud my puns. And from time to time I’ll ride my bicycle into Salies and eat up all your brioches. Everything will be all right. You’ll see.”

  I shook my head, disconsolate.

  “But you must promise to join Paul and me in our little subterfuge. Father must not have the slightest hint that you and I are fond of each other. It won’t be all that difficult. As you know, Papa’s interest in the world around him is rather slight. So smile for me, won’t you? We shall have lots of things to share.”

  “But we only have a week!”

  She frowned, bewildered. “Only a week? Why? Are you going somewhere?”

  “It’s you who are going, Katya! Your family is leaving Etcheverria. Your brother was in town yesterday making the arrangements.”

  “Oh,” she said softly. Her fingers found a wisp of hair at her temple and twisted it absently. “Oh, I see.” Her voice was vacant and distant.

  “I was sure Paul hadn’t told you.”

  “What?” she asked, tugging herself from her thoughts. “Oh, no. No, he didn’t tell me.”

  We sat in silence for a time before I asked, “You don’t want to go away, do you?”

  “No, of course not. But that’s not the point. If Paul was making arrangements, then we must go.”

  “Why, in the name of God?”

  “It has happened before. When we had to leave Paris to come here.”

  “What happened in Paris?”

  She frowned and shook her head curtly.

  “What is your family running from?”

  She looked at me, then smiled faintly. “Oh, like most families, we have skeletons in our closet. I make no bones about that. Oh, come now, that wasn’t such a bad pun. If it didn’t merit a laugh, it was at least worth a smile. Or, at very least, a groan.”

  “I don’t feel like smiling.”

  “Don’t take things so seriously, Jean-Marc.” She rose. “Now I must return home. I’m sure Paul will need help with all the details of moving. But you must come take tea with us this afternoon. Please. If we have only a week together, it would be stupid of us not to use it well.”

  I sighed and nodded. “Yes, you’re right. I’d be pleased to take tea with you.”

  “Good. Until soon?”

  “Yes. Until soon.”

  She wheeled her bicycle across the square, pausing to bestow a warm smile and a nod of greeting to a brace of ladies who had obviously been gossiping about us and who were flustered at the familiarity of this hatless girl who was clearly no better than she ought to be, with her public morning assignations, the seeming openness of which did not fool them in the least.

  AT tea, Monsieur Treville was in a cheerful and loquacious mood, which was the salvation of the small talk, as my thoughts were elsewhere, Paul was so icy and withdrawn that he forsook even his habitual baiting of his father’s mental obliquity, and Katya was content to sit back and smile on the three men in turn, rather maternally and distantly, it seemed to me.

  “So this is what my children do every afternoon while I toil in the service of Clio, is it? Sit about and drink tea. Prodigal. Well, I suppose it’s harmless enough. But you mustn’t let my ne’er-do-well offspring seduce you away from your studies of the plague, Dr. Marque.” He chuckled at the very idea of any devotee of medieval stu
dies being vulnerable to such temptation.

  “Dr. Montjean, Papa,” Katya corrected.

  “Montjean? But I am quite sure you referred to him as Dr. Marque last night during supper. I remember quite clearly. Dr. Jean Marque, you said.”

  Paul sighed. “It was the night before last, Father. And the doctor was referred to by his first name, Jean-Marc. Jean-Marc Montjean. It’s a hard name to forget . . . try though one may.”

  Monsieur Treville frowned and shook his head in doubt. The possibility that Katya might have used my given name on such short acquaintance did not occur to him. “My children think me a muddy-minded dotterer, Doctor, because I seldom bother to pay attention to their chatter. But my memory is sound as the gold franc—not that the franc’s all that sound just now! Eh?”

  “May I ask,” Paul said, “why we are dwelling at such length on the good doctor’s name? Surely we are not that impoverished of conversation.”

  Monsieur Treville waved his hand at him. “Ah, but names can be confounding. And important too. We deal with things, not as they are, but as we apprehend them to be. Therefore, to a rather frightening degree, things are what we call them. Take my daughter here, Doctor. Baptized and presented to God under the perfectly satisfactory nomen Hortense—my own mother’s name. Then one day I looked up from my work and there was a Katya living with me. Just like that, overnight, my Hortense disappeared and was replaced by a Katya.” He reached over and took his daughter’s hand. “But I’ve got used to this changeling who replaced my Hortense. She’s a good enough girl in her own way. Image of her mother, Doctor—well, both of them are, in fact. They had the good fortune to get their features from their mother. A woman of exceptional beauty.” Monsieur Treville’s voice softened and grew distant. “. . . An exceptional woman . . . exceptional woman . . .”

  Katya spoke in a bantering tone designed to tug him back from melancholy. “I wish we’d got our brains from you, Papa.”

  “What? Oh, you’re both intelligent enough. A little lazy-minded, perhaps. Victims of acedia, perhaps. But perfectly intelligent. Yes, yes, mistakes like this one of the doctor’s name are common enough, even in academics. One scholar makes a mistake—a wrong spelling, perhaps, or something even more egregious—then other scholars copy it, then the next fellow sees it three or four times in different sources, and the error takes on the weight of fact. That’s why one must do his own primary research, as I am sure you have found in your own studies of the Black Death, Doctor.” The bit in his mouth, Monsieur Treville leaned forward and spoke to me confidentially, as an academic ally. “I recall a case involving a noted scholar—member of the Academy, no less, so I’ll withhold his name to avoid scandal. He quoted the population of the village of Alos in 1250 as ‘three thousand souls.’ Three thousand! As everyone knows, Alos had no more than three hundred at the time. But there it was—print upon a page and therefore truth irrefutable! Three thousand! How many future studies will be ruined by that careless extra zero? For instance, if some scholar were to note that a hundred eighty-five residents of Alos were killed by your Great Plague, he would assume that the village had got off lightly. When in fact more than half of the population perished!”

  “You really must write an article on the evils of the stray zero, Papa,” Paul said.

  “Oh, I have. Not precisely by that title; but I have. And it was well received, if I do say so myself.”

  I smiled. “It is difficult for me, sir, to imagine anyone devoting study to Alos.”

  “Do you know the village?”

  “I know it well. It is one of the three villages that constitute the commune in which I was born.”

  “How fascinating,” Paul said without energy.

  “Indeed it is,” Monsieur Treville said. “Alos is one of the few places where the pageant of Robert le Diable is still performed.”

  “That’s correct, sir. It’s performed each year during the fête. Just about this time of year, come to think of it.”

  “No, really?” Paul said. “Just about this time of year? The famous fête d’Alos? My, my, my.”

  “I’d give a great deal to witness it,” Monsieur Treville said. “Last vestige of that particularly Basque integration of pagan rite with Christian intrusions. I’ve often thought that—hello! What in the world is this?” He indicated an object on the tea tray that had just caught his eye.

  “Oh, that’s mine,” Katya said. “A gift from Doctor Montjean. I must have set it on the tray absent-mindedly.”

  “But . . . it looks like an ordinary pebble!”

  Katya glanced at me. “Well, one might say that, Papa. But it could also be thought of as a bit of the universe.”

  As Monsieur Treville examined the poor pebble closely, I studiously avoided Paul’s eyes, where I knew I would find sarcastic amusement.

  “Yes, I suppose it could be thought of that way,” Monsieur Treville mused, returning the pebble to Katya, who slipped it into her reticule unobtrusively. “I had no idea you were also interested in geology, Doctor. Odd mixture of pursuits: geology and medieval plagues. Beware the attraction of the pure sciences. They are pure only in the way an ancient nun is—bloodless, without passion. No, no. Stick to the humanistic studies where, though the truth is more difficult to establish and the proofs are more fragile, yet there is the breath of living man in them.”

  “Dr. Marque,” Paul said. “Oh, excuse me. I meant to say, Dr. Montjean. Damn that stray zero! Doctor, don’t you think it’s time you checked my bandages, or whatever it is you do to earn your fee? That is what you came for, isn’t it?”

  “Ah . . . certainly. You will excuse us?”

  When I rose, Monsieur Treville rose too, saying that he really must get back to his work. Tea was good enough in its own way, and the conversation had been delightful and informative, but work was work. “You don’t mind being left alone, darling?” he asked Katya.

  “Not at all. I’ll just go down to my library and read a little.”

  “Library?” Monsieur Treville blinked. “What library?”

  “I call the summerhouse at the bottom of the garden my library.”

  Monsieur Treville shook his head and let his arms flap against his sides. “There you are, Doctor. A perfect example of the source of error in scholarship. Ten thousand years from now some scholar will read her diaries and make the erroneous conclusion that the ancient word for ‘summerhouse’ was ‘library.’ Then he’ll learn that scholars of our era passed most of their time in their libraries, and he’ll deduce that back in the early part of the twentieth century the climate in Europe was semitropical!” He returned to the house muttering, “Thus error breeds error, which breeds error, which breeds . . .”

  Katya looked after him, smiling. “Isn’t he a darling? Don’t you envy him, living as he does on the gentle rim of reality?”

  “I like him very much,” I said. “I can’t understand why the two of you think it necessary to pretend that Katya and I are nearly strangers. It isn’t as though your father were some sort of monster.”

  Katya glanced at me with a frown.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  Paul rose languidly. “I do hope you never consider surgery, Doctor. There’s something lethal in the mindless way you wield a scalpel. Shall we see to these bandages?”

  “I doubt your bandages need attention.”

  “Nevertheless . . .” With a gesture he conducted me back into the salon, and I followed him after touching Katya’s shoulder lightly in au revoir. She did not respond.

  AS I explored the slightly puffy area around Paul’s clavicle with my fingertips I was surprised that he did not wince with pain. “You seem to be a good healer,” I said.

  “I’ve always been that. I’ve had ribs broken and still been able to fight within a week.”

  “Fight?”

  “Yes, fight. Did I fail to mention that I was once amateur kick-boxing champion of Paris?”

  “No, you mentioned it. And I was appropriately impressed
.”

  “I excelled at the sport, not so much because of my physical attributes as because of my absolute will to win and my capacity for pressing home the attack while others were bungling about with considerations of sportsmanship and fair play.”

  “Which considerations never hampered you?”

  “Not in the least,” he said with slight emphasis.

  “I suppose I’m expected to receive that information on its parabolic level?”

  “That would be wise.”

  “I see. Well, for all your remarkable recuperative abilities, you’ll have to favor this arm for another week or so.”

  Paul slipped back into his shirt without help, managing to rebutton it with some awkwardness.

  “Of course, I didn’t ask you here merely to have the benefit of your professional negligence.”

  “I assumed as much.”

  He stood before me for a moment as though uncertain how to start; then he turned away to a small table from which he took up a handsomely engraved pistol from the barrel of which protruded a metal cleaning rod. Rather clumsily, he held the pistol in his captured right hand and worked the rod in and out slowly, as though his mind were elsewhere.

  After a full minute of heavy silence I said, “Well?”

  “You know, back in Paris target shooting was a passion of mine. I only gave it up because I had collected all the medals and awards available at my shooting club.”

  “I am delighted on your behalf that you found a useful avocation.”

  Paul set the pistol down carefully and turned to me, his eyelids heavy with contempt. Once again, I was caught off guard by the astonishing way in which his features, individually considered so like Katya’s, could produce so totally different an effect. Although his cheeks were grey, his eyes sunken from his night of drinking, and his mouth was pressed thin and flat, their faces were like the same melody played on different instruments—indeed, in different keys. What in her was a lively and interested intelligence was, in him, bitter wit. What in her was dreamy distance was, in him, cold withdrawal. Yet, although his were the darker tones and hers the more pastel, it was she, not he, who seemed transposed into a minor key; it was her melody that had been taken up by the melancholy split reeds.