Apartment in Athens (7 page)

She confided to him that she was tempted to kill herself; her health was going from bad to worse anyway. He answered very roughly, “My poor dear, you have always exaggerated your illnesses. Anyway, you know, with your passive womanly nature, you're incapable of suicide.”

Then there were reproaches on both sides, especially for that disregard of their poor helpless children which these temptations indicated. Which brought their minds suddenly to the strange fact that neither of them felt any great love for Alex and Leda. They had tried to, but they were unable to. They blamed each other for it, but with a sense of guilt so sharp in them both that they had to stop. They saw eye to eye as to what small excuse there was for their lack of love. Peculiar little bodies of their children, morbid little minds of their children: what was there lovable about them? Even if they lived to maturity they would not be normal. Their shortcomings were irremediable and their future of no interest; and irremediability in the lives of children—being a contradiction of terms, and against nature—seems worse than what happens to their elders.

It brought these elders, Helianos and Mrs. Helianos, to a clearer realization than ever of what they had to live for, all they had: each other. With almost no surcease of sleep all that night, clinging together, as they were obliged to do, to keep from falling out of the folding cot on to the grimy floor—even in the captain's absence they were afraid to move into his room, lest he return unexpectedly—they both wept together, so that there was no consolation, no consoler. Even in their early married life which had been difficult at first, infatuated, jealous, disappointed, they had not fallen into any such waste emotion.

Next day, returning to the subject of suicide, Helianos made one of his little formal discourses: “Undernourished people almost never take their own lives,” he said. “It has been a good while since we have heard of a case. Those of our acquaintance all did it at the start, in violent imagination, before they were weakened too much in reality. It is a general rule, a platitude: hunger binds one to life. You might call it a philosophy. Stop and think how it is, even with us: we live fascinated, like animals under a spell, from meal to meal.”

There was another platitude applicable to their situation of which he did not think: to wit, one can never tell from what direction betterment may come; what little change will mend matters, for a while. It is never too late for a little happiness even in the shadow of death; and death itself may come and go with fascination like a spell.

A
T THE END OF APRIL CAPTAIN KALTER RETURNED FROM
Germany, on a Monday morning. Next day, when all four Helianos' happened to be gathered in his presence, he made a formal announcement and request, with some sarcasm in his tone, not much: “May I call your attention to the fact that I have been promoted, with a gratifying citation for the work I have been doing in Athens? Hereafter, will you try to remember to call me Major Kalter?”

Their hearts sank, realizing that a glance at his insignia should have informed them of this; they had not glanced. They were very sorry for themselves: to think that in mere near-sightedness they should have begun to give offense again, so soon!

But the erstwhile captain, unnoticed major, did not appear to resent it especially. Nor, as it impressed them, did he feel any great gratification in his advancement. Probably, Helianos thought, this was the Prussian etiquette, cheerless and perfunctory whatever the turn of events.

Or perhaps it was because he happened not to be in his usual good health. His naturally ruddy cheeks had a drained, faded aspect. The whites of his eyes were yellowish, the tiny veins in them irritated, as if the entire two weeks had been one sleepless night, a hundred hours without a wink. His thin straight mouth was thinner than ever but less straight, with chapped lips, chafed lips. There was an unfamiliar pitch to his voice, a pinched tone and sometimes a sudden flatness, like a leak in his throat. He had grown very thin. His uniform looked loose and his neck did not quite fill his collar.

At first Helianos commented on this excitedly, hopefully, the matter of the thinness in particular. He wondered if it might not mean something, as to the course of the war. The great German minus ten pounds, perhaps more, in less than two weeks; the German with a hungry look like other people, the German in a decline. . .Was it possible that he had not had enough to eat in his absence? Could it have begun to be hard to get enough to eat even in great Germany? Now and then that day Helianos heaved a sigh, wanting to believe it but unable to.

Mrs. Helianos did not approve of this kind of self-indulgence in vain speculation. Also she pointed out that the major with his healthy, indeed greedy appetite, if by any chance he had fared badly upon his journey, would have returned to them as hungry as a wolf. Whereas in fact he had lost his appetite.

Once more Helianos set out all over Athens in search of food fit for an officer; once more painstakingly Mrs. Helianos prepared the simple soups and stews Major Kalter liked best. He only pretended to eat them, tried and failed to eat them, and sent them back to the kitchen almost untouched. Which troubled her, partly in her pride of housewifery and partly in suspense, expecting an outburst of his criticism sooner or later, when he got around to it. However, the hours passed, and days passed, without criticism.

Mrs. Helianos' theory about it at first was the opposite of her husband's. The major, the major! his bloodshot eyes and sallow color, his mouth turned down, so sorry for himself, and no appetite: what it looked like to her was biliousness, over-indulgence, indigestion.

“Perhaps he found the food in the fatherland so rich and copious that our wretched Athenian meals disgust him,” she said. Her envy and hungriness flashed in her eyes as she said it.

Furthermore, she wondered, were there not in the tradition and usage of German officers on leave worse excesses than over-eating? Perhaps when the major was not constrained to work, he drank. Presumably in every German city there was a superfluity of young women eager for their conquering heroes such as Kalter to come home, to ensnare and demoralize and exhaust them. Now perhaps this particular conquering hero was disgusted with himself.

She had in mind a type of German womanhood to be seen occasionally even in Athens, sauntering in and out of the
Hotel de Grande Bretagne
as if they owned it; young or youngish ones with breathless mouths and flickering eyes, wearing ugly, new, sometimes French-looking dresses, escorted by fond and as a rule elderly military men. And giving Major Kalter her sideways glance, scornful of his ill appearance, she would indulge in that very natural imagination of respectable women, which is, to blame other women. She said that he reminded her of a tomcat in the morning, the worse for wear.

Helianos did not agree with any of this, and somewhat humorously reproved her. Here Major Kalter had been living under their roof for more than a year, and still she misunderstood him and underestimated him, with her talk of wine, women and song! Fancy her having to be reminded of his German strength of character, his methodical Spartan habit!

He, Helianos, did not believe that there was a soft spot in this German, or the least vice, or any quarrel with himself about anything. Though all of Germany were a banquet table, a carnival and an orgy, he thought, still Kalter would not indulge. Though the wide world became a German property and playground, Kalter would not play, or relax or rest upon his laurels. “As I understand him,” said Helianos, “he doesn't know how.”

In that first week of his return, they saw very little of him and he rarely spoke to them. He put in longer hours at his headquarters than ever, doubtless with arrears of work to make up, and new responsibilities as a major. At the end of the day he seemed tired out, and twice threw himself down on his bed before dinner and took a nap, or at least lay motionless with his eyes shut for an hour.

On the Wednesday or Thursday after dinner he went out, presumably for his usual game of cards with fellow-officers; but as it appeared next morning it had not distracted him or cheered him up. That night he would not even attempt to eat anything, and went to bed at seven o'clock; but complained the next day of not having been able to sleep. Morose and listless, yawning, breathing hard, more or less sighing, still he would not or could not spare himself. Saturday night he stayed at his headquarters at work until daybreak.

On Sunday, after dinner, when Helianos came to his room to remove the half-empty dishes, and Mrs. Helianos followed to put away one of his shirts that she had washed and ironed, he looked up at them with so abrupt a movement of his head and shoulders, and cleared his throat so loudly, that they came to attention side by side, facing him. And they saw that his eyes, instead of snapping or blazing at them as usual, were blinking uncertainly, almost anxiously; his thin lips were drawn up as if in a deliberate attempt to make a kindly expression. Whereupon he asked them, “How have things been going for you in my absence?”

It was a strange, embarrassing experience. They wanted to answer, but he had trained them so long to shrink and apologize, they did not know how, they gaped like children. They tried to make amiable faces to match his, and to look him in the eye, but their glances kept veering aside toward each other, in astonishment.

Having addressed them in German, now evidently he fancied that they had not understood him. He repeated the friendly inquiry in his difficult Greek, and still they did not succeed in speaking up.

It must have appeared to him that they were afraid. A curious mixed expression, somewhat smug, somewhat sentimental, passed over his hard face; and to relieve their embarrassment he rose and brusquely announced that he had another hour's work to do at his headquarters, and left them.

Then it dawned on them that he was a different man, a changed character. It was not only poor health, loss of weight, loss of appetite. Some part of the change evidently was between him and them, a merely human matter, an attitude of mind, a change of heart. For the first time in a year he had spoken civilly to them. It was a small matter but a miracle.

In the night they blamed themselves for not being pleasanter about it, more responsive, more forthcoming, upon this great occasion. They were afraid he might have resented their bad manners, tied tongues, startled glances. It could not be helped, he had surprised them too much. They were half in dread of their next encounter with him, next day, lest the civil inquiry turn out to have been a mere slip of his tongue, or their own ears deluding them. They tried to recall the exact German wording, syntax and inflection, and argued it back and forth until they could agree about it.

Next morning Mrs. Helianos, finding some pretext, insisted on accompanying Helianos with the breakfast tray; and then promptly enough, the anxious or uncertain look still in the major's eyes, the respectful way he said good morning, and his subsequent remarks, reassured them. It was not a delusion, it had happened.

Tranquilly he inquired what brought Mrs. Helianos to his bedroom so early in the morning; and once more they were tongue-tied. But as it seemed, he seriously intended to be friendly with them, he would not be put off.

“Welcome, welcome, in any case,” he said, “for after all, you are the housewife, aren't you? Worrying about something, somewhere in the house, from morning to night!”

Mrs. Helianos stood blushing as if it were over-whelming praise.

After that there was some slight amazement for them every day; and day and night a continuous gossip and analysis of things he said and did. Whatever it meant, whatever had changed him, it had begun the very day he returned from Germany, when they had noticed nothing but his thinness, weariness, biliousness, without understanding. So now they went back over every slight evidence and minute incident; but still they did not understand, nor did they entirely agree.

Helianos wanted to accept everything as it appeared on the surface; at least to interpret everything as favorably as he could, as mere kindliness, a wonderful improvement and a great blessing. Mrs. Helianos, poor bereaved creature, was never sure. Instinctively she stood on guard against the mystery of the German. It was her nature to be mistrustful.

He was a naturally pacific, sociable man; he liked to think well of his fellow men, even an occupying German officer. It was his life-long habit to make the best of everything from day to day. Now she did not trust his judgment. She lived in dread of their making some mistake or falling into some trap. Every now and then, in the closeness of their hearts, he felt twinges of her emotion. She kept him in uncertainty about everything.

The day of Major Kalter's return, for example, that Monday evening: he sank on the edge of his bed, sighing, gritting his teeth with weariness, although he had worked only half the day. Helianos knelt as usual to remove his boots; he would not allow it. “It is a ridiculous thing for one man to have to do for another,” he said, in his altered tone of voice, “a humiliating thing!”

After that there was no more boot-removing, and very little valeting or intimate waiting-on of any kind. Helianos would begin something of that sort, something he had always done; Kalter would interrupt him, saying, “No, it's not necessary, let it go, I don't want it done.”

Perhaps, Mrs. Helianos suggested, it was because Helianos was not good at this work. It was her way now, pointing out every obscurity and dubiety.

No, it was to make things easier for him, or to show him due respect; Major Kalter made that clear. “After all, you're a man of the world, aren't you?” he said, “a man of some distinction, as things went in your little backwater of Athens. . .”

Pausing and fixing Helianos with a look of some cordiality he added, “It must be hard to be reduced to domestic service.”

He seemed to have no sense of how all this contradicted his attitude and his remarks of the previous fourteen months, fifteen months. Apparently he had forgotten the martinet, the humiliator, that he had been. Somehow he had grown indifferent to the little domestic comforts, servitudes of man to man. Something had disabused him of that pride and thrill of petty overlordship which had meant more to him than comfort.