The night before, Laurence had asked Harry if he would agree to accept an invitation to go with her on a cruise. He had said no.
They hadn’t spoken of Ada since their first argument, and Harry now realised that his wife had not given up hope of seeing him and Ada separate.
What Harry didn’t understand was the fierceness of Laurence’s hope. She did not beat her fists against a locked door the way Ada did, but instead behaved like her provincial ancestors, patiently mending lace, refusing to give up, even though others might think the lace irreparable. Those ancestors of hers knew that with hard work and long, sleepless nights, anything could be mended, cleaned, made to look like new: all it took was time and effort. Laurence thought he would either end the affair or become more indifferent, but the truth was, as she bitterly admitted to herself, that Ada had taken her place. Laurence was not afraid of Harry having a mistress; she was afraid that Ada had become his friend. When Harry came home to her, it was not as an exhausted man who had spent his passion and sought the bland tranquillity of married life. She could have forgiven him that: hadn’t she seen her mother welcome home her father the same way? But Harry returned as if he had left his haven of peace to be thrown into a stormy sea. That was what she could not understand. Hadn’t she done her very best after the first and only scene never to raise her voice, never complain she was being neglected, never ask for promises or reassurance? But whenever he was with Laurence, he seemed to be afraid he’d be the victim of some blow, some injury. Even his face, which was paler and calmer when he’d just left Ada, turned weary and gloomy after he’d been in the family home for only a few moments.
Her only salvation was to believe in her own victory, but that was impossible.
An incident that happened that very day, and which had nothing to do with Harry’s affair, suddenly put an end to her long, patient, but ultimately fruitless efforts. On the first Thursday of every month, their child was taken to see the elderly Madame Sinner. Laurence would sometimes go to collect the child herself, for she had a very strong sense of duty. Today, she found the old woman in a state: the child had fallen, his knee was bleeding and the Swiss governess had refused to do anything but clean his knee with a bit of cold water, laughing scornfully at all the disinfectants, powders and creams that the panicky grandmother had offered. Laurence’s little boy had ended up panicking himself, and becoming hysterical.
‘Wash his hands and face and take him home,’ Laurence told the Swiss nanny. ‘And he’s not to have any dessert tonight to teach him not to cry over nothing.’
Once the child had gone, the two women remained alone in the room, staring at each other in silence.
‘I would be very grateful, Madame,’ Laurence finally said, coldly, ‘if you would not encourage the child’s tendency to think he is worse off than he is. He is already too sensitive.’
‘You are a terrible mother,’ thought the old woman, trembling with fury and looking daggers at Laurence. ‘You horrible creature! Oh, if only I could take my beloved grandson from you and never set eyes on you again!’
Out loud, however, in the sweet tone of voice that drove Laurence mad, she said, ‘Don’t you think he’s a little young to be brought up so strictly?’
‘No, I do not,’ Laurence replied curtly.
‘His father, at his age . . .’
‘You brought him up according to the customs of your country and your race, but . . .’
Her mother-in-law’s long, powdered face, too pale for her dark eyes, became distorted with rage.
‘He was brought up to be happy! And he isn’t happy!’
‘Yes, but I want to raise my son,’ Laurence said quietly, ‘to be strong, to make sacrifices, to be master of his body and soul, do you understand?’
‘It’s easy for her to talk that way,’ thought the old woman, ‘to imagine that kind of future for your children when you know that nothing and no one can harm them. But I . . . I had to make sure my child survived at all costs, and before me thousands of women of my race had to protect their children from being abused, from hunger, from unjust hatred, epidemics, poverty . . . We have been terrified by that, scarred by that, and for ever. But how can this foreigner, this young woman from a fortunate background possibly understand me?’
A strange weakness had overwhelmed Laurence. Afterwards, she would never understand why it was to this woman, whom she hated with all her heart, that she admitted what up until now she had not even been able to confide to her own mother:
‘Madame, I do not know whether what I am about to tell you will pain you or on the contrary bring you joy, for you have never liked me. I wish to leave Harry.’
Madame Sinner affected surprise, but in so obviously false a way, so dramatically, that Laurence turned pale.
‘You aren’t surprised then?’ she asked. ‘Did you already know? Did your son tell you?’
‘No, no, I swear to you!’ protested the old lady, sincerely this time. ‘May God strike me down where I stand! May I never again see my son if I am lying . . .’
‘But you did know, didn’t you?’
‘Yes,’ she murmured. ‘Don’t you see?’ she said even more quietly. ‘He’s my son . . . How can he hide anything from me? However hard he tries, I can read everything in his face.’
‘So you also know that he . . . that . . . that woman . . .’
‘Yes, I know . . .’
‘You must be happy,’ cried Laurence, ‘happy finally to see him with one of your own . . .’
‘Me? Happy?’
This time there was no doubting her sincerity; she was shaking with fury.
‘A simple girl from the slums! It’s the worst thing that could possibly happen. It’s what I’ve feared all my life. I wanted to save him from that poverty, that misery, that curse! But it was all in vain! And now, he’s sunk down to their level . . .’
‘Whose level?’
‘Those people . . . those opportunists. They’re bad luck, I’m telling you, but you can’t get away from them. They’re going to drag us down with them.’
Laurence recalled those words while she was talking to Harry. After her visit to her mother-in-law, she clearly saw that it was useless to keep on fighting: if Harry was not attracted to the woman out of passion or because of his family, then it was because of some obscure blood tie against which she was powerless. She could do everything in her power to try to win back her husband, but it would all be in vain. Despite all the civil and religious rites, he was not really her husband: he belonged to another woman, a woman whose destiny was linked to his for all eternity.
‘There’s nothing I can do,’ she thought.
That was when she said, ‘We’d be better off apart.’
The servants heard nothing from behind the double doors and thick curtains. But given the particularly impenetrable and mournful silence that suddenly fell, they understood the separation was definite, and silently, they withdrew.
27
Ben’s departure had made little difference to Ada’s life. She refused to leave her lodgings, which Harry considered a hovel. She refused to take any money from her lover.
She had sold a few paintings. She drew caricatures for some newspapers. There was quite a bit of curiosity about her, but she discouraged the snobs, the prying, the professional enthusiasts and those who speculated on new talent. She would have found it disgraceful to profit from her relationship with Harry, to become accepted into high society, make contacts or earn money. In reality, she had remained, and would always remain, a timid child who was only comfortable when completely alone. Laurence was right: Ada wasn’t a woman. She had no feminine failings or virtues; she did not know how to decorate her shabby room to make it warm and welcoming, or create an attractive, peaceful atmosphere. On the contrary: the air around her seemed heavy with silent passion and, strange as it might seem, it was this, above all else, which bound Harry to her. She gave him something that, until now, had been missing in his life, but which he needed, without even
realising it: deeply rooted passion, a burning within him that made the smallest of pleasures more intense, and managed to distil a wild, bitter happiness even from disappointments and sorrows.
He admired her deliberate asceticism, her disdain for the outside world, which was so unlike anything he had experienced up until now. In her, he scarcely recognised the rich, heavy blood that flowed through the veins of his family; although it was the same blood, it had the swift fluidity of an animal’s blood, he thought, smiling to himself, a wild animal who had not yet been tamed.
Like Ben, she could happily go without food and sleep. She had no need of the kind of relationships, clothing or perfect surroundings that Laurence so loved.
‘You live as if you’re on a desert island,’ he said.
‘I’ve never lived any other way. What’s the point of becoming attached to something you have to give up?’
‘But why would you have to give it up, Ada?’
‘I don’t know. It’s our destiny. Everything has always been taken away from me.’
‘Well, what about me? You love me; you belong with me, don’t you?’
‘It’s different with you. I grew up without ever seeing you, almost without knowing you, yet you belonged to me then just as you do now. I’m the kind of person who constantly fears something terrible will happen, yet I’m not afraid of losing you. You can forget me, desert me, leave me, but you’ll always be mine and mine alone. I invented you, my love. You are much more than my lover. You are my creation. And that’s why you belong to me, almost in spite of yourself.’
They were stretched out on the small grey-twill sofa in Ada’s bedroom. On the table sat a heavy earthenware bowl of fruit, the subject of a still life that Ada had just painted. In this austere, almost bare room, Harry’s few possessions seemed to have dropped in from another world: books with expensive bindings, a brown English travelling rug with silver threads, an American radio the size of a cigarette case, and the beautiful flowers that Harry sent her every day, but which were arranged in ordinary glass bottles. Everything else looked the same: the plain wooden table, a broken chair, Ben’s old trunk which had made the journey from Russia to Europe; it had an arched lid with ornamental hinges and, inside, there were pictures of flowers, butterflies and birds that Ada and Ben used to decorate it when they were children.
Ada had wrapped herself in the travelling rug and was resting, her cheek against her bare arm. Both of them spoke quietly; the bedroom was cold, but the heavy blanket and warmth of their bodies against each other created a soft, almost sensual heat that nothing could equal, thought Harry, in its peaceful tranquillity. They reminisced about sleigh rides in the icy cold when, huddled beneath furs, they’d felt safe and drowsy, and the warmth had reached right to their hearts.
‘When we go travelling together . . .’ he said.
‘Together?’ Ada broke in. ‘But could we do that?’
‘Would you like to?’
Ada’s dark eyes were shining, flames rose to her cheeks.
‘No, no, it isn’t possible! . . . Oh, why didn’t I go to your house, your expensive house, as I’d so often dreamed of doing, before you were married? You would have liked me . . . You would have gone with me . . . But no, no, even then it was too late! Why weren’t you like Ben, like us? Why were you born rich? Why were you tied down by furniture and paintings and books and bank accounts, by a thousand chains? But I’m also spoiled now,’ she said, after a moment’s silence. ‘I’ve been tainted by the scent of happiness you breathe in this country. Give me a few more years and I’ll start wishing for a set of pots and pans or a wardrobe, as if that was the greatest possible joy on earth! Even now, I already wish . . .’
‘What do you wish?’
She smiled but didn’t answer. He slid his arm beneath her neck.
‘How shy you are, Ada! Shy and solitary, in body and soul . . .’
‘You know,’ she said timidly, ‘it’s not so strong a feeling now that spring has come, but last winter . . . There’s that time of year when it gets dark so early . . . Sometimes, at four o’clock, because I’d been working since early morning and I knew I was seeing you later on, I would rest here for a while so I wouldn’t look too tired and dishevelled . . . But it was the time of day when children come out of school, and I’d think, I couldn’t help myself thinking about all the women rushing about in the rain, at dusk, going to collect their little girls. You can’t imagine what I would have given to be in their place . . . You can’t imagine,’ she said again, in anguish, ‘and just as I dreamed of loving you when I was a child, dreamed of my life with you, just as it is now, I imagined that, at four o’clock. I had to hurry, that I mustn’t forget the jam sandwiches for the tea or the hooded raincoat if the weather was bad. Then I’d dream of walking back home, holding my child by the hand. But I don’t think such a thing is possible. God did not intend that for me. He created me to live cut off from the true life of a woman, to find my joy and my pain in different ways from other women.’
‘That isn’t true! You’ve waited for me and now I’m yours,’ he said quietly, ‘and if you want, we can go away together.’
She understood what he meant and started trembling.
‘She knows, doesn’t she?’
‘She’s known for a long time.’
‘Oh, Harry! . . . Is she leaving you?’
‘We’re separating, without arguments and without tears.’
‘But what about your son?’
‘She doesn’t wish to take my son away from me. I’ll see him often and have him with me during the holidays.’
‘Are you going to get a divorce?’
‘Yes. And then I’ll marry you.’
She pulled back in terror:
‘Can you see me hosting your dinner parties, receiving your friends, listening to your aunts talk to me about painting? Can you picture me wearing one of those ridiculous little hats that look like a saucer, decorated with flowers?’
‘You can still go out without a hat, if you want to,’ he said, laughing. ‘There’s no law that says a woman must wear a hat.’
But she wasn’t laughing; her lips were trembling and her eyes welled up with tears.
‘I’m afraid . . . afraid of dragging you down with me . . .’
‘What do you mean?’ he asked softly.
She hid her face in her hands.
‘I used to dream about going into your house. You would be sitting with your mother and your aunts, surrounded by them, protected by them. But I came up from behind. No one saw me. I grabbed you by your long hair – you had curls like a little girl, Harry . . .’
‘Oh, have pity,’ he said, smiling, ‘don’t drag up that terrible memory . . .’
‘I would take you by the hair, like Delilah took Samson, and I’d say, “Come with me!” and you would leave everything to go with me. But where would I take you? That was what I never knew. I would wake up quivering with joy. But I know the answer now. It wasn’t that I was climbing up to your level: I was dragging you down, pulling you down, by force, to mine!’
‘Ada, I belonged to you before anyone else. Laurence wasn’t wrong about that. She would have forgiven me an affair with a woman like her, but it is you that she cannot forgive me. It is not within our power to change what someone else has decided.’
28
It was an evening at the end of August, and Ada was alone. The divorce proceedings were about to begin. It was almost impossible to believe that life was going to change this way, that she was going to become Harry’s legal wife . . . and yet . . . Hadn’t everything in her life fallen upon her like lightning from above? Everything: both happiness and misfortune. God grants some people a peaceful, secure path, thought Ada, but for others an abyss awaits every step they take. From the depths of her memory, her father’s words came to her, and his sad, mocking voice:
‘God knows what He is doing and so He gives these unfortunate people a light, agile tread that saves them from the edge of the precipice; th
e storm rains down on them but they survive. He also grants them moments of great happiness, which are just as unexpected and almost as terrifying as their disasters.’
The bell rang. It couldn’t be Harry; he had only just gone. She opened the door and saw Ben, the same Ben, or so it seemed, as the one who had left a few years before. He looked untouched by work or weariness or time. It had always seemed as if he was ruled by different laws to those of other mortals: disappointment made him look older; a glimmer of hope made him seem young again. He slipped into the room rather than entering it, sliding furtively through the door, as silent as a shadow. ‘But of course he’s just the same as ever,’ Ada thought wryly. It was in exactly this way that he used to come back from one of his errands in the lower town, or from a secret fishing trip to the river, at night.
Just as she used to, Ada leapt towards him, grabbed him by the arm and shook him.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’ve come to say goodbye,’ he replied.
‘You’re going away?’
‘Yes.’
‘Tonight?’
‘Yes.’
‘What have you done?’
He had gone to sit on the bed.
‘There’s a warrant out for me,’ he said, leaning against the pillow and closing his eyes for a moment.
‘Just one?’ she asked.
‘You’ve always had a great sense of humour, my girl,’ he said, smiling.
She took his hand in hers.
‘Well, then! You should go, get away; what are you waiting for?’
‘They never arrest anyone at night. And besides, by the time it all gets going, all their complicated legal, bureaucratic, police procedures, I’ll be far away . . .’