The Wine of Solitude (12 page)

He pushed her away angrily and spoke as quietly as she had: ‘No.’

Then, softly, his mouth clenched shut like hers (by which she understood that he didn’t want to know anything, that he preferred to continue loving this woman and this caricature of a home, preferred to keep the only illusion he had left on this earth), he said, ‘Go away! You’re a very bad girl.’

As she did every evening, Mademoiselle Rose stood at Hélène’s bedside and picked up the candle. As she did every evening, she said calmly, ‘Go to sleep quickly now and try not to think about anything.’

She gently stroked Hélène’s forehead with her warm hand, as she’d done for the past eleven years, using the same instinctive gesture; then she sighed and got into her own bed.

Hélène’s heart was breaking. For a long time she looked in despair at Mademoiselle Rose’s calm face in the candlelight; yet she wasn’t asleep. Like Hélène, she was undoubtedly listening to the clock chime the hours; she was breathing in the smell of smoke that filtered into the room from under the door; in the next room Hélène’s parents were talking quietly. From her bed, the little girl could hear an occasional outburst.

‘It isn’t true, Boris, I swear to you, it isn’t true.’

She was such a good liar …

‘You can see how ungrateful children are,’ Hélène heard her continue. ‘She cares more about a foreigner, a scheming
woman, than she does about us. It’s that Frenchwoman who’s driving her away from us.’

Then she could only make out some vague whispering, the sound of crying, the weary voice of her father. ‘Calm down now, Bella, my darling …’

‘I swear to you that he’s just a child, a child who loves me. Is that my fault? You know me, come on … I like being attractive, it’s true, but as far as I’m concerned, he’s just a child. You can understand that it sometimes amuses me to tease him, but you’d have to have the dirty mind of a young girl or an old woman to think … I love you, Boris. You do believe me, don’t you?’

Hélène heard Karol sigh deeply. ‘Of course I do, of course …’

‘Then kiss me, don’t look at me like that.’

The sound of kisses. The candle went out.

‘She’ll die,’ Hélène thought in despair. ‘She can’t live without me. She’s alone, all alone. How can they not understand what they’re doing? How can they not see that they’re killing a human being? Oh, I hate them,’ she said, meaning her mother and Max. ‘How I hate them …’ She wrung her weak, trembling hands. ‘I’d like to kill them,’ she murmured.

Outside, a group of anarchist terrorists in an old Ford decorated with a skeleton’s head drove past her room, making the little white bookcase and the silly statuettes that decorated it shake. They fired a machine gun into the empty streets. But no one was listening to them. Behind closed windows exhausted men, reluctantly resigned to everything, were sleeping.

All next day Bella refused to say a word in Hélène’s presence. Karol wasn’t at home. An innate sense of propriety
prevented Hélène from saying a word about Mademoiselle Rose. Another day passed. Mademoiselle Rose was packing her trunks. Yet life carried on so normally, just as in certain delirious dreams when terror merges with familiar details. Hélène learned her lessons; she sat opposite her mother for meals; the electricity had been cut off for weeks; the dim flame of a candle flickered at the back of the enormous dark room. Between noon and two o’clock Hélène and Mademoiselle Rose went out. It was rare for shots to be fired at that time of day, so the streets were quiet.

They could see a lamp that had accidentally been left on at the back of an abandoned house whose windows were nailed shut with planks of wood. The fog filled Hélène’s mouth and slipped down into her throat; it tasted heavy and sickly. That day, as they walked along, Hélène suddenly took hold of Mademoiselle Rose’s hand, shyly squeezed it and held on to her slim fingers in their black wool gloves.

‘Mademoiselle Rose …’

Mademoiselle Rose shuddered, but said nothing and let go of Hélène’s hand, as if that physical contact had interrupted some faraway sound, a sound that she, and she alone, could hear. Hélène sighed and fell silent. The air was ashen and grew thicker with every passing moment. At times, the street was so dark that Mademoiselle Rose became a shadowy figure lost in the mist; Hélène stretched out her hand in anguish and felt for her coat; then they continued walking, in silence. Every now and again a street lamp, lit as if by some miracle, cast its cloudy light over them, and in the opaque air, beneath a flickering mist, she could see Mademoiselle Rose’s thin face, her pursed little mouth, her black velvet hat. In the darkness they could smell the rancid
odour of the canals; no one had bothered to clean them since the February Revolution; no one bothered to repair their stones; the city was crumbling beneath the weight of the water, slowly disintegrating, becoming a city of smoke, illusions and fog, retreating into a void.

‘I’m tired,’ said Hélène. ‘I want to go home.’

Mademoiselle Rose said nothing. Yet even though she let out no sound, it seemed as if her lips had moved. In any case the fog muffled everyone’s voices.

They continued walking.

‘It must be late,’ thought Hélène.

She was hungry.

‘What time is it?’ she asked.

No reply. She wanted to look at her wristwatch but it was too dark. They passed by the large clock at the Winter Palace; Hélène slowed down to try to hear it ringing, but Mademoiselle Rose kept on walking; Hélène had to run to catch up with her. She later remembered that the clock was broken and no longer chimed.

The fog had suddenly become so thick that she was finding it difficult to keep up with Mademoiselle Rose. But the street was very narrow; she soon caught hold of the familiar woollen coat. ‘Wait for me, won’t you; you’re walking so fast … I’m tired; I want to go home.’

She waited for a reply, in vain.

‘I want to go home,’ she said again, sounding frightened and upset.

Then, suddenly, she stopped, frozen, as Mademoiselle Rose started talking to herself, quietly, sensibly. ‘It’s late, but the house is quite close by. Why haven’t they lit the lamps? Mama never forgets to put a lamp on the window ledge when
it starts getting dark. That’s where we sit, my sisters and I, to sew and read. Did you know that Marcel is back?’ she said, turning to Hélène. ‘He’ll find you’ve grown so much. Do you remember the day that he carried you on his back to climb the tower of Notre-Dame? You laughed and laughed … You don’t laugh very often any more, you poor little thing. Listen, I knew I shouldn’t get attached to you, I was warned about it. By whom? I forget. You should never get attached to other people’s children. I could have had a child of my own. He’d be your age now, I wanted to throw myself into the Seine. It was love, you see … but no, I’m old … You do understand that I have to go home, Hélène. I’m very tired … My sisters are waiting for me. I’ll see my little Marcel …’

She gave a mocking laugh that turned into a painful sigh. Then she said a few disjointed words, but she sounded calmer, more matter-of-fact. She had taken Hélène’s hand again and squeezed it tightly. Hélène followed her; all of this seemed so strange to her that she had the feeling of being in a deep trance. They crossed one of the bridges over the Neva decorated by leaping horses; their bronze backs were covered in fine, light snow. Hélène’s hand brushed against the statue’s pedestal as she walked by and the snow fell down on her, covering her coat; once again she heard the mad little laugh that ended in a sigh. The fog descended suddenly once more.

Mademoiselle Rose hurried on. ‘Keep up,’ she kept saying impatiently, ‘walk faster …’

The street was empty. A lone sailor emerged from the shadows at the corner of a grand building; he had a gold snuffbox in his hand that he pushed under Hélène’s nose; she could clearly see the dark stains of blackish blood he had
neglected to wipe off, so they remained on the gold cover; the man seemed to have only half a body, to be floating in the fog that hid his legs and the top of his head; then a cloud of smoke rose between him and Hélène and he disappeared into the night.

‘Stop!’ Hélène cried in despair. ‘Let go of me. I want to go home!’

Mademoiselle Rose shuddered and lessened her grip. Hélène could hear her give a quiet sigh. When she next spoke her delirium seemed to have passed. ‘Don’t be afraid, Lili,’ she said softly. ‘We’re going home now. I haven’t been able to remember things for quite a while now. There was a light over there, at the end of the street that reminded me of the house. You wouldn’t understand … But now, alas, I remember that was all in the past. I wonder if it’s the sound of gunfire that’s doing this to me. You can hear it all night long outside our windows. You’re asleep, but at my age the nights are long.’

She fell silent, then said anxiously, ‘Can’t you hear the cries?’

‘No, no … let’s go home, faster. You’re ill.’

They weren’t sure where they were. Hélène was shivering with the cold; every now and again she thought she recognised a street or a monument through the fog; a tall statue on its pedestal appeared in the mist; they were drawing closer to the Neva, but the fog was getting heavier and heavier; they had to hold on to the walls as they walked.

‘If only you’d listened to me,’ Hélène said angrily. ‘Now we’re lost …’

But Mademoiselle Rose walked with strange rapidity and blind confidence; out of habit Hélène held on to her
governess’s otter-skin muff with its artificial violets sewn on to the fur.

‘Do you recognise this road? I can’t see a thing. Mademoiselle Rose! Answer me! What are you thinking about?’

‘What are you saying, Lili? Talk louder, I can’t hear you …’

‘The fog is muffling our voices …’

‘The fog and the cries. It’s funny that you can’t hear the cries … They’re far away, very far away, but so clear … Are you tired, my poor darling? But that doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, let’s hurry up, hurry up,’ she said again anxiously.

‘Oh, but why?’ Hélène said bitterly. ‘It’s not as if anyone is waiting for us.
They
couldn’t care less.
She’s
with her Max. Oh, how I hate her …’

‘Now, now!’ Mademoiselle Rose said quietly. ‘You mustn’t say that. It isn’t nice …’

She started walking again extremely quickly.

‘But where are you going?’ Hélène asked. ‘Think for a moment. You can’t even see. I’m sure we’re getting further and further away from the house.’

‘I know where I’m going,’ Mademoiselle Rose said impatiently. ‘Don’t worry about it. Follow me. We’ll soon be able to rest.’

Suddenly she pulled her hand free, leaving Hélène holding the muff; she took a few steps forward, must have turned at the corner of the street and was immediately engulfed by the fog; she disappeared like a ghost, like a dream.

Hélène rushed after her, shouting, ‘Wait for me, I’m begging you! Where are you going? You’ll get yourself killed!
There’s gunfire on that side of the road! Oh, wait for me, wait for me, I beg you. I’m afraid! You’re going to get hurt!’

She could see nothing; the fog was all around her; she thought she could make out a shape in the distance; she rushed towards it, but it was a soldier who pushed her aside.

‘Help!’ she cried. ‘Help me! Did you see a woman go by here?’

But the soldier was drunk and a child’s voice begging for help was common in those times. He walked away, holding on to the walls. Then she thought she had perhaps run too fast, that Mademoiselle Rose’s weak legs wouldn’t have been able to take her this far; she retraced her steps; she was walking through a thick fog that rolled in as slowly as smoke, every now and again revealing the outline of a large house set high on a hill, a street lamp or the arch of a bridge before immediately hiding them again.

‘I’ll never find her,’ she thought in despair, ‘never.’

Her own voice sounded weak, muffled by the mist. ‘Mademoiselle Rose, oh dear, dear Mademoiselle Rose. Wait for me, answer me. Where are you?’

She could see a light faintly glimmering; she leaned forward; some men were standing around a dead horse; they were cutting it up in silence, bit by bit; a hand held up a lantern; right in front of her, the man’s long, yellowish teeth stood out in the darkness as he gave a hollow laugh. Hélène let out a cry and rushed down a strange street that ran between some large houses. She was panting; with each step she could feel the sharp pain that accompanied her every breath; she had no idea where she was; she recognised nothing; she was lost, terrified amid the clouds of fog; she fled far away from the men, from the sinister lamplight, from the long jaws of
death. Every now and again she would cry out, ‘Help, help me! Mademoiselle Rose!’

But her weak, breathless voice immediately faded away. Besides, calling for help in those days only made the rare passers-by rush faster towards their homes. She was still running. She spotted a street lamp in the distance, for there was one in every road; it gave off a pale light, surrounded by a reddish halo and only lit up a bit of dark ground and the rolling fog; she ran towards it, leaping through the darkness; she leaned against the street lamp, panting, hugging its bronze column covered in damp snow as if it were the living body of a friend. She held some snow in her hands; the icy contact calmed her down. She looked around desperately for another human being, but there was no one. The street was deserted. She turned in circles round the same tall houses, lost in the fog, always ending up back at the same place. At one point she bumped into a passer-by, but when she smelled his breath against her face, saw his strange, wild eyes looking her up and down, she felt as if her heart would stop beating out of terror; it took all her strength to free herself from his grip and run away again, far away, clenching her teeth and calling out, ‘Mademoiselle Rose! Where are you, where are you? Mademoiselle Rose!’

But deep down inside she was certain that she would never see her again. She finally stopped, whispering in despair, ‘I have to get home now, try to get home … Perhaps she’s at the house?’

She then remembered that, in any case, Mademoiselle Rose would soon be leaving.

‘If she has to die,’ she said out loud, hearing the words coming from her lips with painful surprise, ‘if it’s her time … My God, perhaps it’s better this way …’