Once, Mademoiselle Rose, lost in a daydream, had murmured, ‘When I was twenty I was so unhappy that one day I almost threw myself into the Seine.’ Her eyes had gone dark and impenetrable, and Hélène sensed that Mademoiselle Rose was so lost in memory that it had become possible to talk of such sad things from the past even to a child, especially to a child. A strange, primitive sense of embarrassment filled the young girl’s heart. She could make out all the words she hated on Mademoiselle Rose’s trembling lips: ‘love’, ‘kisses’, ‘fiancé’ …
Abruptly she had pushed her chair away and begun singing at the top of her voice, swaying backwards and forwards while stamping her feet against the floor. Mademoiselle Rose had looked at her with surprise and melancholy resignation; she had sighed and fallen silent.
‘Do sing, Mademoiselle Rose, please. Sing the “Marseillaise”. You know, the couplet about the little children: “We shall enter into the fray / when our elders have passed away …” Oh, how I long to be French!’
‘You’re right, Lili. It’s the most beautiful country in the world …’
Hélène had often gone to bed during her parents’ quarrels, to the sound of china being broken, but thanks to Mademoiselle Rose, she could detach herself from the noise of the faraway storm, knowing that she had a peaceful refuge beside this calm young woman who sewed in the lamplight. It was like hearing the sound of the wind in a warm house whose windows are closed.
She could hear Bella’s voice: ‘If it weren’t for the child, I’d leave you! I’d leave right now!’
She would often say this when her husband got annoyed. Occasionally Karol got irritated if he found the house in a mess, or when she had bought a new hat with a pink feather, and it was sitting in its box on the table while the roast was burning or the tablecloth needed mending. But Bella said she had never claimed to be a good housekeeper; she hated everything to do with housework and only lived to enjoy herself. ‘That’s how I am. You’ll just have to take me as I am,’ she would say.
Boris Karol would shout, and then stop shouting, for quarrelling made the burden of this marriage, balanced painfully on his shoulders, fall off and roll on to the ground, and it was easier to avoid this: to resign himself to bearing it, rather than having to bend down and heave it back up on to his shoulders once more. He also vaguely feared her threat: ‘I’ll leave you.’ He knew men chased after her, that men found her attractive. He loved her …
‘Good Lord,’ thought Hélène, half asleep, her long legs pushing against the end of the small wooden bed that got no bigger even though she did, and which every year they forgot to replace. She snuggled up under a satin quilt with delicate stitching which, despite the fact that Mademoiselle Rose mended it almost every day, was losing its stuffing. ‘Good Lord, I wish she would just hurry up and leave so they stop talking about it! If only she would die!’
Every night when she said her prayers (‘Dear God, please keep Papa and Mama safe and sound …’), she replaced, in murderous hope, her mother’s name with that of Mademoiselle Rose.
‘What’s the point of shouting and making useless threats?’ she thought. ‘Why talk just for the sake of it? That woman is impossible; she’s the cross I have to bear.’
When she was talking to herself, Hélène used words that grown-ups used, words that were mature and wise, and came naturally to her, but she would have been too embarrassed to say them aloud, just as she would have found it ridiculous to walk around in grown-up finery; when she spoke, she had to translate her words into simpler, less elegant sentences, which made her sound rather hesitant and gave her a slight stutter that irritated her mother.
‘Sometimes this child seems like an idiot. You’d think she had landed on earth from the moon!’
When she was asleep, though, sleep, merciful sleep brought her back to her true age: her dreams were full of movement, energy and cries of joy.
Some while later, Karol went away and the evenings became peaceful once more. He had found a job managing a group of gold mines deep in the Siberian forest. It was the beginning of a road that would lead him to wealth. Meanwhile the house was empty. Only Grandmother stayed at home, silently wandering from one room to another, while her husband and daughter each went their own way as soon as dinner was over. Hélène enjoyed the kind of sweet, exhilarating sleep of childhood that immerses you in a pool of invigorating peace. When she woke up, the room was filled with sunshine. Mademoiselle Rose was dusting the chipped old furniture. She wore a pleated black sateen apron that protected her clothing, but underneath she was already neatly dressed in the corset and short boots she wore to town, the collar of her blouse held closed by a little gold brooch and her hair done. Never was her hair dishevelled, nor did she ever wear a loose-fitting dressing gown or those shapeless skirts that hung from the fat Russian women. She was tidy, precise, meticulous, a little ‘aloof’, somewhat scornful: a Frenchwoman through and through. She never fussed; she rarely kissed anyone. ‘Do I love you? Of course, I love you, when you’re a good girl.’ But her life revolved around Hélène; the curling of her hair, the dresses she made for her, the meals, games and walks she supervised. She never moralised; she gave only the simplest, most ordinary advice: ‘Hélène, don’t read while you’re putting on your socks. One thing at a time.’
‘Hélène, tidy up your things: you must learn how to be an organised woman, my darling. Keep your things in order and later on you will have order in your life, and the people who have to live with you will love you for it.’
And so the mornings passed; but little by little, as lunchtime approached, Hélène’s heart began to grow heavier and heavier.
Mademoiselle Rose would brush Hélène’s curls while saying quietly, ‘Make sure you behave during the meal. Your mother is in a bad mood.’
Karol had been gone for such a long time that Hélène was beginning to forget what he looked like; she didn’t even know where he was exactly. She had been left in her mother’s hands.
How Hélène hated these lunches. How many meals had ended in tears … Much later, when she recalled the dingy, dusty dining room, she would also remember the salty taste of the tears that welled up in her eyes and spilled down her face to fall in drops on to her plate, blending with the taste of the food. For a long time, meat had a slight taste of salt to her and bread was moist with bitterness.
The balcony blocked out the sad winter’s day; its light barely filtered through into the dining room. She would stare at the old imitation tapestries nailed to the walls, her eyes clouded over with tears that she held back out of pride, tears that made her voice quiver with sadness. When she was older she could never manage to recall her childhood days without also feeling those old tears filling her heart once more.
‘Sit up straight … Close your mouth … Just look at you … You look as if you’ve just been slapped with your mouth open and your bottom lip drooping … I do believe this child is turning into an idiot!… Pay attention; you’re going to knock over your glass! See, what did I tell you?… Now you’ve broken it … Here come the tears again … Yes, of course, you always make excuses for her!… Very well then, that’s just fine; I’ll no longer concern myself with Mademoiselle Hélène’s education, let Mademoiselle Hélène have the table manners of a peasant if that’s what she wants; I won’t get involved any more … Look at your mother when she’s talking to you … Look at me, will you?… And it’s for this, for this that I make sacrifices, for this that I gave up my youth, the best time of my life!…’ said Madame Karol, thinking with bitterness of this little girl she was forced to drag with her all over Europe, because otherwise you could be sure that she would barely reach Berlin before she would get an hysterical telegram from Grandmother – ‘Come back. The child is ill.’ – a cold or a sore throat forcing her to retrace the steps she’d only made the night before, and with so much pleasure. The child … The child … It was all they ever talked about, all of them: her husband, her parents, her friends: ‘You have to make sacrifices for your ch
ild … Think of your child, Bella …’
A child, a living reproach, an embarrassment … She was well cared for. What else did she need? Later on, wouldn’t even she be better off having a young mother who understood life? ‘My own mother spent her whole life complaining. Was that any better?’ she thought, remembering with bitterness the gloomy house, a woman who was old before her time, her eyes red from crying, who said nothing but ‘Eat. Don’t wear yourself out. Don’t run …’ A drooling old woman who stifled all joy and love, who prevented the young from enjoying life … ‘I wasn’t happy,’ she mused, ‘so they can at least let me be happy now; I’m not hurting anyone. When I’m old I’ll be calm and wise,’ she said, for old age was still so far away …
They had finished lunch. But for Hélène the hardest part was still to come: she had to kiss the pale face she so hated, and which always felt cold to her burning lips; she had to place her closed mouth against the cheek she wanted to lacerate with her nails, then perhaps say, ‘I’m sorry, Mama.’
She could feel a strange sense of self-pride shudder and bleed within her, as if a more mature soul was trapped within her child’s body, and this offended soul was suffering.
‘You won’t even say sorry, will you? Oh! Please, for heaven’s sake, don’t bother. I don’t want an apology that comes from your lips but not from your heart. Go away.’
But sometimes the scene finished with an inexplicable surge of maternal affection in Bella. ‘This child … After all, she’s all I have … Men are so egotistical … Later on she’ll be my friend, my little companion …’
‘Come on now, Hélène, don’t make such a face. You shouldn’t be so resentful. I scolded you, you cried, it’s all over now, forgotten. Come and kiss your mother.’
Normally she wasn’t at home for the evening meal. Before going to bed, Grandfather Safronov would walk slowly round the sombre sitting room, lit up only by the cold winter moon; he dragged his leg along as he walked, leaning on Hélène’s shoulder; he would stroke the fresh rose he wore in his buttonhole, both winter and summer. The piano with its closed lid shone in a pool of light, and the same ray of light made the handsome old man’s bald head shine like an egg. He taught Hélène poetry by Victor Hugo, recited pages from Chateaubriand to her. Certain phrases, his solemn, melancholy rhythm, were to remain inexorably linked in her mind to the memory of his heavy, irregular walk, the weight of his bony hand, still delicate and beautiful, as it sat on her shoulder.
Then, once again, to end the long day – a child’s day passes so slowly – she would say her prayers and go to bed. Late in the night the front door would slam; she could hear her mother’s voice and laughter and the jingling spurs of the officer who accompanied her home. The noise of the spurs was like some pleasing music, a fanfare of silvery sounds that faded away into the distance; then she would fall asleep. Sometimes she would dream about the time, long ago, when she was a very little girl, when Mademoiselle Rose hadn’t come yet; and if Mademoiselle Rose had gone into the kitchen to get a drink, leaving her alone in her room, she would wake up and call out in anguish, ‘Mademoiselle Rose, are you there?’
A moment later a white light, a long nightdress with a white bodice would appear in the dark room. ‘Of course I’m here.’
‘Can I have a drink, please?’
Hélène would drink, then murmur, half asleep, carelessly pushing away the glass that she knew would be safe in the caring hands, ‘You … you do love me, don’t you?’
‘Yes, I do. Go back to sleep.’
No kisses: Hélène hated them. No affection either, not in her gestures, not in the sound of her voice; Hélène scorned such things. But in the darkness that surrounded her she needed to hear those reassuring words, that warm tone of voice: ‘Yes, I do. Go back to sleep.’ She asked for nothing more. She breathed into her pillow and placed her cheek against the warm patch it had left, feeling peaceful, sinking into a calm forgetfulness.
4
Hélène walked beside Mademoiselle Rose, holding on to the Frenchwoman’s sleeve and basking in the sweet warmth that spread from the scrap of material in her hand through her whole body. It was three o’clock on a winter’s day. Night fell quickly at this time of year; lanterns were placed along the streets and they made the shops look mysterious, supernatural and a bit frightening, their little flames swaying beneath the shop signs: a rusty boot that creaked in the wind, a large golden loaf of bread with a thick crust made of ice, or an enormous pair of scissors, gaping half-open, ready to slice off a piece of the dark sky. Caretakers sat in the entrance-ways to buildings, shiny icicles hanging from their clothes. Both sides of the street were piled high with snow as tall as a man; it was hard, compact and sparkled beneath the flames of the lanterns.
They were going to visit the Grossmanns, whose children were friends of Hélène’s. The Grossmanns were a well-established, wealthy, middle-class family and they despised Madame Karol. The housekeeper showed them in.
From the next room, they heard a woman’s voice: ‘Not all at once, my darlings,’ she said, laughing. ‘You’re messing up my hair, you’re killing me!’ Then joyful children shouting, ‘Mama! Mama!’ Their voices rose and fell like the virtuoso scales that flow from one end of the keyboard to the other. Then came a man’s voice: ‘Come now, calm down; leave your mother in peace, my darlings …’
Hélène stood in silence, eyes lowered; Mademoiselle Rose took her hand and led her into the room.
The laughter stopped. The sitting room looked the same as the Karols’. It had the same golden torchère, the same black piano and velvet stool: all the newly married couples ordered these things while on honeymoon in Paris. But to Hélène everything seemed brighter and prettier than at home. In the middle of the room a woman was stretched out on a sofa upholstered in flowered fabric.
It was Madame Grossmann. Hélène knew her, but she had never seen her like this before, in a light-pink dressing gown with a tangle of children hanging from her arms. Her husband, a bald young man with a fat cigar in his mouth, was standing beside the sofa, leaning towards his wife; he looked bored to death and his eyes wandered a little impatiently from his family in front of him to the door, through which he would clearly have liked to escape. But Hélène wasn’t looking at him; she was eagerly studying the young woman with her three children whose impatient little hands tugged at her dishevelled black hair; the youngest child, nestled in his mother’s arm, gently nipped at her exposed cheek and neck like a little puppy.
‘She isn’t wearing any make-up,’ Hélène thought bitterly.
The two older children sat at their mother’s feet; the eldest girl was pale and sickly, her dark curls coiled round her ears, but the second-eldest had great pink cheeks that looked as if you could eat them; you could imagine them melting in your mouth when you kissed her, like ripe fruit.
‘I don’t have such beautiful cheeks,’ thought Hélène. ‘No, I don’t.’ Then she noticed Grossmann’s face, his tense, controlled smile, his eyes fixed on the door. ‘He’s bored,’ she mused with malicious satisfaction; sometimes, thanks to some mysterious power in her soul, she seemed able to sense the thoughts and feelings of others.
‘Hélène, hello,’ Madame Grossmann said sweetly.
She was a thin, unattractive woman, but with the liveliness and grace of a bird; there had been a slight note of pity in her voice.
Hélène lowered her head; her heavy fur-lined coat was making her feel unbearably hot; she paid little attention to the conversation going on above her head.
‘I’ve brought a pattern for a collar for Nathalie …’
‘Oh, Mademoiselle Rose, you are so very kind. Hélène can take off her coat and play with my girls for a bit, can’t you, Hélène?’
‘Oh, no! Thank you, Madame, but it’s late …’
‘Very well. Another time, then.’
The pink lamp cast such a soft, warm light … Hélène looked at the gossamer dressing gown, decorated with chiffon flounces; the three girls presse
d against it, cocooned themselves into its fold, without being afraid of crumpling it. Their mother stroked the three dark heads, one after the other, as she spoke.
‘They’re all ugly,’ Hélène thought in despair. ‘They’re all stupid. Clinging on to their mother’s skirts as if they were babies, how shameful! And that Nathalie who’s a head taller than me …’
Hélène looked at the children and they looked back in silence. Nathalie, who seemed to understand Hélène’s discomfort and enjoy it, played hide and seek with her fat, malicious face, covering it with the folds of her mother’s dressing gown and then, when she was sure her mother couldn’t see her, coming out again to puff up her cheeks, stick out her tongue, squint and pull horrible faces, until Madame Grossmann looked towards her, when she suddenly put on the expression of a sweet, smiling, chubby-cheeked little angel.
‘Monsieur Karol has gone away’, Hélène heard someone say, ‘for two years, I believe?’
‘Working in the gold mines,’ said Mademoiselle Rose.
‘In Siberia, how awful …’
‘He’s not complaining; I think he likes the climate.’
‘But two years away! The poor little girl …’
Mademoiselle Rose held Hélène’s face close to her and stroked it. The child pulled away angrily. For the first time in her life she was ashamed of being abandoned: she didn’t want these people to see her governess consoling her.
They left. Hélène now walked on ahead and every time Mademoiselle Rose took her hand, she slowly pulled away, not harshly, but with the sly determination of a dog who wishes to pull free from a lead that is annoying him. At the street corners a biting wind lashed her face, causing tears to well up in her eyes; she furtively wiped her nose and eyes with the end of her fur glove where little flakes of ice were beginning to form.