The Birds Fall Down (12 page)

“You’re always talking about God,” said Laura. “What does He say about this? What about caring when a swallow falls?”

“He may care for each individual woodcock,” said Nikolai, “but for the destruction of one system by another, that is part of His plan. There is such war between nations, between empires. And take heed of what this little war, this woodcock shoot, really is. Men who are threatened with a thousand perils go out with guns against birds who enjoy almost complete safety in the forest. Men, who at any moment may be displaced in the favour of God by another species. Have you never thought that may be the punishment our sinfulness brings upon us? Our system may be destroyed by another system, and perhaps it will be the system of our own sins.”

“But why would a merciful God do that?” asked Laura, feeling no mercy towards him.

“Oh, there is pity for the individual man, the individual woodcock. But not for the system. I have sometimes thought there might be such catastrophes among the stars. Galaxies might defeat each other, not by action, but by being simply what they are, by their mass, their momentum. The great may perish as the small. But why do I use such words as ‘great’ and ‘small’? The galaxies may be only birds, whom we think fixed in the sky but which are falling through it at the slow pace of a larger time, while hunters to whom the universe is not knee-high level at them guns that were loaded outside infinity. But again galaxies and such hunters may be small, simply corpuscles within the blood-stream of a vaster being, which would be small itself, being itself some part of another still vaster being. Not that any of that would alter what I am telling you, that Datchina was beautiful, and the woodcock shoot one of the most beautiful things that happened there. Wasn’t it so, Alexander Gregorievitch?”

“You forget that I never had the opportunity to learn to shoot,” said Monsieur Kamensky, “and I’m rather of the opinion which I read on Miss Laura’s face, that what breathes should be allowed to go on breathing. But, Excellency, the Countess has come to say good-bye to you.”

She was leaning on the arm of Tania, who said, “Papa, it’s time you went.” Sofia echoed, “Time you went,” and turned on them a strong, piercing glance and a weak smile. Her hair had been carefully marcelled, and she had changed into a dress too elaborate for morning wear, and perhaps too young for her, made of honey-coloured ottoman silk with a fichu of heavy lace. She had put on rouge, not without cunning, but too much.

She held out both hands to Laura and said, “Dear child, remember your grandmother.”

“I won’t have the chance,” answered Laura. “Grandfather talks about you all the time, just as Mummie does when we’re at home.”

“Your mother’s brought you up to have good manners,” said Sofia, and regarded her steadily, even staring at her.

“I only wish you were better, Grandmamma,” said Laura, to break the silence.

“You’ve got your wish already,” Sofia said with sudden vivacity, “I’ve been much better, much, much better, for the last three days. And now good-bye.”

The girl curtsied deeply and raised her lips, but the old woman shook her head and simply laid the hot, dry cloth of her cheek against the young face. Straightening herself, she remarked to nobody in particular, “What’s happening to me is like—what is it like? Like being on a horse that’s bolted.” She moved to Nikolai and ran her fingertips over his sleeves. “My dear one, the carriage is ready. You must go, we’re no longer in Russia, you can’t keep trains waiting for you here, you know.”

“I’m quite ready,” he said, patting his pockets. “Yes, the tickets are in that envelope, my notes in the red wallet, my papers in the black, but where’s my little money? And are those tickets really in that envelope? Laura, I must tell you about this other shoot we had at Datchina, better at Datchina than anywhere else—”

“Say good-bye,” said Sofia. “Say good-bye to me.” She nuzzled in the breadth of his chest.

“Good-bye, my dear little one,” he said, kissing her while his hands were busy with the things he had taken out of his pocket. “Why, what a sad face! Be sensible and remember that our separation is to be a short one.”

“You’re right,” said Sofia. “It can’t, in any case, be a very long one.”

Nikolai gently pushed her away and, breaking into a little laugh, said to the others over her head, “Do you know, just because I’ve travelled with secretaries all my life and had the business of tickets and baggage and passports taken out of my hands, I feel as helpless as a little child now I have to look after myself, though it was precisely because I was less helpless than other people that others were deputed to take such things out of my hands. But really I won’t be happy starting till I’ve made sure all over again that everything’s in order.”

Shaking his head at his own silliness, he sat down again and checked on everything he had taken out of his pockets. Sofia stood beside him, her great sunken eyes losing not one of his movements. “Nikolai,” she said softly, “Nikolai. Pay attention to me, are you paying attention to me? Nikolai, you must always remember that what is broken here on earth will be made whole in heaven.”

He replied, “My dear, I give you my word that I need no such advice. I have forgotten everything about my disgrace for the last half hour or so, telling our dear Alexander Gregorievitch and this child here of the good times we used to have at Datchina.”

Tania uttered a sharp cry of irritation, but Sofia laughed and for a second looked well and young and mischievous. As the mischief faded from her face she raised her hand and rubbed her knuckles against her lips, watching him as he replaced in his pockets the wallet, the coin-case, the envelope, the unnecessary passport which he was carrying just as if he were still in Russia, where they cared for such things.

“Now it’s really good-bye,” he said happily.

“Now it’s really good-bye,” she echoed.

“A malediction on those cursed teeth, my little darling. We must be off.”

“Mummie,” said Laura, “good-bye, Mummie. Dear Mummie. I wish I wasn’t going.”

Tania looked at her with abstracted eyes. “Nothing can happen to you,” she said. “Monsieur Kamensky is putting you on this train that takes you all the way to Mûres, and at the other end Pyotr and perhaps Aunt Florence will be on the platform to meet you. You’ll be all right. Anyway you’re a pussycat. You always fall on your feet.”

IV

The little footman shut the door of the carriage, and Laura and Nikolai settled back in their seats. “What I was trying to tell you, Laura,” said Nikolai, “was that many people whose judgment on sport I respect think that a woodcock shoot is as nothing compared to a capercailzie shoot.” But as he spoke they heard a deep sigh from Monsieur Kamensky, and another which was more than that, a choked moan, and they saw that he was holding his left hand in the fingers of his right hand, and that his face was contorted with pain.

“Dear Sasha, what is it?” cried Nikolai. Laura had never before heard him call Monsieur Kamensky by the affectionate diminutive. Perhaps it was for the first time. The younger man, even in his agony, had to smile with pleasure, before he faintly answered, “It’s nothing. Really it’s nothing. Only when the door was shut … my hand was foolishly in the way.”

Nikolai roared like a lion. He threw open the carriage door and shouted to the little footman who was just climbing up to the box. “Here you, Jean, Claude! Tell Vissarion we won’t start yet, and you come back here. Here. Look into the carriage. See what you’ve done, Claude, René!”

“I am called Louison,” said the little footman sadly. He was not a proper footman, he was only a houseboy whom the Diakonovs had taken on from the previous tenants of the apartment. Tania said that it was because her parents had never acquired the habit of dismissing servants, they thought of them as serfs bound to them by an unbreakable bond, and a boy without employment seemed to them a serf whose owners had disgracefully repudiated their obligations towards him. The boy was hidden under layer after layer of unreality by his benefactors, for not only were they wrong about his state, Nikolai always called him by the names of footmen he had employed nearly forty years ago, at the time when the family had a villa in Nice. “What have I done, Excellency?” asked Louison.

“When you slammed the door you were a blundering little idiot,” said Nikolai. “You hurt the gentleman’s hand, you imbecile lout.”

“No, no,” protested Monsieur Kamensky, “poor Louison was as careful as could be. It wasn’t his fault, it was mine.”

The little footman drew back from the door, as if the incident were finished.

“You impudent little ass,” shouted Nikolai, “are you not even going to say you are sorry?”

“But, Excellency, I’ve not done anything,” said the little footman. “The gentleman says it wasn’t my fault, and indeed it can’t have been, for I didn’t shut the door until I’d made sure there was nothing in the way. Vissarion has taught me to do that, we practise it in the stables.”

“You lie, you little wretch,” said Nikolai.

“Don’t, don’t,” said Monsieur Kamensky, and Laura said, “Grandfather, please, let’s do something for Alexander Gregorievitch’s hand. Let’s go back upstairs and then Mamma’s maid can put on a fomentation. She’s good at that sort of thing. There must be lots of other trains.” She said to Louison, “Tell Vissarion not to start. We’re going back to the apartment to have Monsieur’s hand attended to.”

Horror came into the little footman’s face. “But is the gentleman really hurt?” It was plain that till then he had attached no meaning to what Nikolai said, confident that employers were maniacs, always making trouble for trouble’s sake. “That I should have hurt Monsieur Kamensky! Monsieur Kamensky! Why, I wouldn’t hurt him for anything in the world.”

“Oh, I know that, Louison,” said Monsieur Kamensky, and managed to laugh affectionately. He laid his injured hand on Nikolai’s arm and said, “Please, dear Count, let us forget this. I have a good reason for asking this. If I go back to the apartment now, the Countess would probably refuse to set out for the clinic, which she should do in a few minutes. If you came up with me, she’d be worried because you’d missed your train and would excite herself over all the plans which would have to be altered, the messages which would have to go to Mûres-sur-Mer, and if you didn’t, she’d distress herself because you’d have trouble in going unattended to the train. In either case—” he paused and looked steadily at Laura—“it would add greatly to Tania Nikolaievna’s anxieties.” They exchanged wise little nods, and he turned to the window, biting his lips as he shifted his position, and called out gaily to the little footman, who was staring in with appalled round eyes, “My child, it wasn’t your fault. My hand was very low down on the window, you couldn’t possibly have seen it. Don’t think of it again, and now ask Vissarion to drive quickly to the station.”

They were all silent as the carriage turned into the Champs Elysées. Then Nikolai broke out, “Do you know what I am thinking of, Alexander Gregorievitch? I am thinking of the day when we drove to the station at Kiev.”

“You shouldn’t think of that,” said Monsieur Kamensky, vigorously, almost as if he could bear no more of Nikolai’s reminiscences, of any kind whatsoever. “There is nothing,” he added more patiently, “to be gained by such thoughts. Evil men have created confusion, but God will one day make all things plain.”

The old man would never leave go of his bitterness. “How did they know that it was the 10:05 and not the 11:15?” he grumbled. “Tell me that. If you could tell me that, I could die in peace.”

Monsieur Kamensky, who was rocking himself and pressing his injured hand to his mouth, made a faint sound of dissent. “You will die in peace, whatever you know or don’t know. God is your friend. With such a friend, you have no need to know who is your enemy.” He spoke with mild censure, and the old man was for an instant abashed. But he got back into the saddle again. “Yes, but my enemy was the enemy also of the Tsar, of God’s anointed. Of God.” His voice was strong now he had re-established the importance of his grief. “Do you remember how the sunshine beat down on us that accursed day, when they stole on us, those who love neither the law of God nor eternity because it discloses the will of God, but rejoice only in fleeting time, which being incomplete tells lies. How hot it was. It was so stifling that when we heard the first bomb I thought it was thunder, and I said to Miliukov—”

Monsieur Kamensky was forced to interrupt. “Count, Count,” he said faintly, “I am afraid I can’t go on. Please stop the carriage and I’ll get out.”

“You can’t go on?” inquired Nikolai, mystified. “You want to get out?”

“It’s his hand,” said Laura, leaning across the carriage and tapping on the glass.

“His hand,” repeated Nikolai. “His hand? Ah, I remember. Poor Sasha, I am so sorry! But this is nonsense, we must take you to a doctor.”

“Most warm-hearted of friends and patrons,” said Monsieur Kamensky, “that’s very kind of you, but if you stop at the next corner I’ll go to a pharmacy near by. I know the proprietor very well, and he’s a clever man who’ll deal with me for the moment and send me to a doctor if he thinks I need one.” The carriage had stopped, and the door had been opened, but Nikolai caught at his jacket as he got out.

“Nonsense, no pharmacist is good enough,” he growled. “Let me take you to Dr. Alanov. Though his consulting-room is sure to be crowded with duchesses and Jews, he’ll drive them out and see you at once for my sake, his grandfather was a serf on my father’s estate.”

“This morning,” said Monsieur Kamensky gravely, swaying a little as he stood on the curb, “you wouldn’t find Dr. Alanov at home. He’ll already have arrived at your home in the Avenue Kléber, to take the Countess to her clinic. Good-bye, Excellency. Good-bye, dear Miss Laura.” His face was twisted by a sudden spasm of pain, and the little footman, who stood gaping at him, blubbered, “Oh, Monsieur, Monsieur, what have I done?”

Monsieur Kamensky compelled himself to laughter. “My dear little Louison,” he said, “I’ve told you it wasn’t your fault, and even if it were, it’s nothing serious. I shall come up to the apartment tomorrow morning, at quarter past eleven, to take Madame Rowan to the clinic, and before I leave I’ll box your ears very hard, and that with both hands, just to show you how little serious it was. Now, get up beside Vissarion as fast as you can, and off to the station.” As they drove off he stood in an attitude of courteous farewell, hat in hand, his feet at attention, and his mouth set in a smile which, as Laura craned from the window to see the last of him, faded suddenly.