‘You know what they say: “Luck of the …” ’
‘Come now, do be quiet. You’re as bad as some gossipy old woman. Don’t judge and you won’t be judged,’ said Madame Manassé. She pulled Hélène to her bosom and kissed her.
Hélène was repulsed; she felt as if she were drowning between those warm, heavy, quivering breasts. ‘May I go and play now, Madame?’
‘Of course you can. Run off and play, my darling Hélène; have a really wonderful time while you’re here, my poor dear. Look at how nicely she does her curtsey. She’s such a charming little girl …’
Hélène ran back out into the garden where the boys greeted her with shouts of joy, wild gestures and by pulling faces, just as children do when they are overexcited and tired at the end of the weekend.
‘Forward march!’ she said swiftly. ‘To the right! Battle formation!’
The autumn snow sprinkled a shiny, dry, white powder over them in the early night. Carrying a stick over her shoulder, her long cape billowing behind her, Hélène led the weary, shivering, panting boys around the bushes and through the woods, delighting in the feel of the wind and the damp, bitter smell of the air.
But her heart felt heavy in her chest, weighed down by an inexplicable pain.
7
In summer, when it started getting hot, Hélène would go out to play in the public gardens. The air was thick with dust and smelled of dung and roses. As soon as they crossed the avenue the noise of the city faded away; here the street was bordered with gardens and old, sprawling lime trees; the houses were barely visible at the end of the pathways; every now and again you could just make out through the branches the pink walls of a little church or a golden clock tower. There were never any cars and few passers-by. The leaves that had fallen to the ground muffled the sound of footsteps. Hélène ran on ahead, happy, impatient, always circling back to Mademoiselle Rose in the thousand ways children and dogs do when out for a walk. She felt free, joyful and strong. She wore a white broderie anglaise dress with three layers, a silk belt, and two large, delicate wide bows, securely fixed by two pins to the outer skirt of starched taffeta, a straw hat with lace trim, a white bow in her hair, patent leather shoes and black silk socks. In spite of this, she managed to run and jump and climb on to every bench, crushing and scattering the green leaves, while Mademoiselle Rose said, ‘You’re going to tear your dress, Lili …’
But she wasn’t listening. She was ten years old; she felt the harsh, intense joy of being alive with a kind of intoxicating satisfaction.
Opposite the public gardens was a short, steep street, and where old women sold strawberries and miniature roses; they were hunched over and barefoot in the dust, their hair covered by white kerchiefs to protect them from the sun; hard, green little apples sat in buckets full of water.
Processions of pilgrims often passed along the road, on their way to the famous Dnieper monasteries. Their arrival was heralded by a horrible stench of filth and open wounds; singing hymns at the top of their voices, they marched past, followed by a cloud of yellow dust. The pale, translucent flowers from the lime trees fell on to their bare heads and clung to their bushy beards. The obese prelates, with their long, straight, dark hair, held up heavy gold icons that shot beams of fire when struck by the bright sun. The dust, the military music coming from the park, the shouts of the pilgrims, the sunflower seeds swirling in the air, all created the atmosphere of a wild, drunken party that entranced Hélène, making her head spin so she felt mildly queasy.
‘Come on, now, quickly!’ said Mademoiselle Rose, taking the child by the hand and pulling her along. ‘They’re dirty … they’re bringing all sorts of diseases with them. Come on, Hélène!’
Every year, during the same period, soon after the pilgrims arrived, epidemics raged through the city. The children suffered most. The year before, the Grossmanns’ eldest daughter had died.
Hélène obeyed and ran on ahead, but for a long time she heard the echo of the chants carried by the wind as they faded away into the distance towards the Dnieper.
In the park the military band of brass instruments and drums played at full blast while university students circled slowly round the fountain one way, and the secondary school students linked arms and circled in the opposite direction. High above the crowd, sunbeams struck the statue of Emperor Nicholas I, sending out brilliant rays of light.
All the students smiled as they passed each other, whispering and exchanging flowers, love letters, promises. The flirting, the game-playing went right over Hélène’s head; not that she was ignorant of them, but she wasn’t yet curious about ‘that’, as she scornfully called it to herself.
‘How stupid they look the way they wink and giggle and shriek!’
Games, races with the other children, she was happy doing those things. Was there any pleasure equal to running, her hair whipping her face, her cheeks burning like two flames, her heart pounding? The breathlessness, the wild spinning of the park around her, the shouts she let out almost without noticing, what pleasures could compete with those?
Faster, ever faster … They bumped into the legs of passers-by, slipped near the edge of the fountain, fell on to the soft, cool grass …
It was forbidden to go down the dark paths where couples kissed on benches in the shadows. Yet Hélène and the boys she played with always ended up there, racing on ahead; their indifferent childlike eyes saw, without really seeing, pale faces glued to one another, held in place by two soft, quivering mouths.
One day – it was the summer she turned ten – Hélène jumped over the railings on to one of these paths – tearing the lace of her dress as she did so – and hid in the grass; on a bench opposite her two young lovers were embracing; the fairground music that filled the gardens faded away as night fell; there was only a distant, delightful murmur: the sound of water flowing from the fountain, of birds singing and muffled voices. The sun’s rays could not penetrate the vault created by the oaks and lime trees; lying on her back and looking up, Hélène watched the early evening light as it shimmered at the tops of the trees; it was six o’clock. Sweat ran down her burning face and was dried by the wind, leaving her skin feeling soft and cool; she closed her eyes. The boys could look for her … She was bored by them … Golden, translucent insects flew down, perching on the tall grass; she enjoyed blowing gently on their motionless wings: they would slowly unfold, then let the wind lift them upwards to disappear into the blue sky. She imagined she was helping them fly. She loved to roll around in the grass, to feel it beneath her warm little palms, to rub her cheek against the fragrant earth. Through the railings, she could see the wide, empty street. A dog sat on the stony ground licking its wounds, groaning and howling loudly; church bells rang softly, lazily; some time later a lone group of weary pilgrims passed by; they were no longer singing but walked silently through the dust in their bare feet while the ribbons from the icon they were holding out in front of them barely billowed in the calm air.
On the bench sat a young girl; she was wearing the uniform of the town’s secondary school: brown dress, black smock, hair pulled back in a little round bun beneath a straw hat; Posnansky, the son of a Polish lawyer, was kissing her in silence.
‘She’s a fool,’ mused Hélène. She looked mockingly at the pink cheeks that turned fiery scarlet beneath the girl’s coil of black hair.
Like a conqueror, the boy threw off his grey schoolboy’s cap, decorated with the Imperial eagle. ‘You have really silly ideas, Tonia, if you don’t mind me saying so,’ he said in his uneven, hoarse young boy’s voice that was starting to change; it still had some of the soft, feminine intonation of a child.
‘If you like,’ he said, ‘we could go to the edge of the Dnieper tonight, in the moonlight. If you only knew how nice it is. You light a big fire on the grass and lie down. It’s as comfortable as a bed and you can hear the nightingales singing …’
‘Oh, do be quiet!’ murmured the young girl, blushing as she weakly pushed away the hands t
hat were unbuttoning her blouse. ‘Absolutely not. If my family found out … and I’m afraid; I don’t want you to look down on me. You boys are all the same …’
‘Chérie!’ said the boy, pulling her face towards his.
‘Poor little fool,’ thought Hélène. ‘What kind of pleasure or enjoyment could she possibly get out of rubbing her cheek against those hard metal buttons, or feeling the rough material of his uniform against her chest, or his mouth, dripping wet no doubt, against hers … ugh … Is that what they call love?’
The boy’s impatient hand pulled the shoulder strap of the schoolgirl’s smock so hard that the material gave way; Hélène saw two little breasts emerge; they were barely formed, tender and white, grasped by the eager fingers of her sweetheart. ‘How horrible!’ she whispered.
She quickly looked away, buried herself deep in the gently billowing grass, for the wind had risen as night fell; the breeze held the scent of the nearby river and the rushes and reeds that lined it. For a moment she imagined the slow-moving river beneath the moon, the fires lit along its banks. The year she’d had whooping cough, the doctor had recommended a change of air, so her father had taken her on boat rides, sometimes at dusk after he got home from the office. They would stop for the night in one of the white monasteries dotted across the little islands. That was so long ago … Her thoughts drifted to how different her house had seemed back then, more like everyone else’s, more ‘normal’ … She tried to find another word to describe it, but in vain.
‘… More normal … They used to fight, but … it wasn’t the same … Everyone fights … whereas now, she’s never there … Where on earth could she be going, I wonder, all night long?’
As she followed her train of thought, she remembered that her mother sometimes talked about the Dnieper at night and how the nightingales sang in the old lime trees along the riverbank …
She started whistling, picking up the fallen branch of a tree that lay on the grass and slowly peeling off the bark.
‘The Dnieper in the moonlight, at night … Love, people in love,’ she murmured. ‘Love.’ She hesitated for a moment and quietly spoke the word her mother sighed when reading French romantic novels: ‘Lover … A lover, that’s what it’s called …’
Yet there was something else she was trying hard to remember and couldn’t, something that made her feel uneasy … But it was time to go home; the first jets of water from the sprinklers sprayed on to the lilacs, and their strong, powerful scent rose into the air. She stood up and walked past the bench, with her head turned in the other direction.
But in spite of herself, as soon as she had reached the end of the path she secretly glanced back at the amorous couple with a vague feeling of repulsion, shame and fascination; their silent kiss was so long and sweet that for a second a feeling of painful tenderness shot through her like an arrow. She shrugged her shoulders and, like an indulgent old woman, thought, ‘Let them get on with it if it makes them happy.’
She climbed over the railings, undeterred by the brambles that covered them and scratched her calves, and took the long way back to the place where Mademoiselle Rose sat finishing some Irish embroidery on a collar.
They went home; Hélène was silent, resting her head against Mademoiselle Rose. In the dusk, you could still clearly see the statue of Nicholas I on his pedestal, his silent face menacing above the drowsy city; but the streets were now nothing more than fragrant shadowy shapes full of whispers, the last sleepy chirping of birds, the pale silhouettes of bats against the moon, the beautiful round, pink moon …
At this time of day the house was empty. ‘She’ was roaming about, Lord knows where. Her grandfather was eating an ice cream on the terrace of the Café François, thinking with nostalgia of Paris and the Café Tortoni. The fragrant ice cream melted in the heat of the early night air. The French newspapers he was reading flapped merrily on their poles in the light wind. Hélène may not have been thinking about him, but he was thinking about her with kindness and affection. She was the only one in the world he loved. Bella was egotistical, a bad mother. ‘As for her behaviour, well, that’s nothing to do with me any more, thank the Lord. Besides, she’s right: the only good thing in life is love. But the little girl … She’s so intelligent. The child will suffer … she already understands, she can sense it.’ Ah, well. What could he do about it? He hated confrontations, lectures, quarrels …
At his age he deserved to be left in peace. And then there was the money, the money … The money didn’t belong to Bella, but she knew only too well how to make sure he didn’t forget that it was thanks to her and her husband they were able to survive. And she always reminded him of how he’d squandered his fortune. His darling daughter … And yet, she loved him; she was proud of him, of how young he still looked, of his fine clothes, of his perfect French accent. They got along rather well living together, without annoying each other, without spying on each other. Everything will work out eventually. She’ll get older. She’ll be like the other women, keeping herself busy with gossip and card games, and she might even develop some affection for her daughter …
Anything was possible. Nothing was really that important. He ordered one last pistachio ice cream and ate it slowly to savour it, looking up at the stars.
Back at home, Hélène’s grandmother was pacing back and forth between the windows: ‘Hésslène … Hélène isn’t home yet. It rained this morning. But Mademoiselle Rose is bringing her up like a French child … French,’ she thought with hatred. ‘Exposing the child to risks with open windows and draughts …’
Oh, how she hated Mademoiselle Rose. It was a shy hatred, but a profound one. It filled her heart, yet she hid it even from herself, thinking only, ‘They couldn’t possibly love the child like we do, those governesses, those foreigners …’
Hélène walked in silence; she was thirsty. She thought longingly of the taste of the cold milk that was waiting for her in the old blue bowl that sat on the washstand in her bedroom. How she would throw back her head and drink it, how she would feel the sweet, icy milk flow past her lips and run down her throat … She even imagined the brilliant moon shining behind the windowpane, as if its cool light added even more to the delicious sensation of satisfied thirst.
Then, suddenly, when she was nearly home, she remembered the nightdress she ’d discovered in her mother’s bedroom, the nightdress, torn like the schoolgirl’s black smock … She let out a little ‘ah’ of surprise, experiencing the intense pleasure of intellectual satisfaction at understanding something; she grabbed Mademoiselle Rose’s hand and smiled, staring up at her with an intense, malicious expression in her brown eyes. ‘I understand now,’ she said. ‘She has lovers, doesn’t she?’
‘Be quiet, Hélène, be quiet,’ whispered Mademoiselle Rose.
But Hélène thought to herself, ‘She knew who I meant right away.’
She let out a happy, birdlike little cry, jumped up on to an old stone boundary marker while cooing, ‘A lover … a lover! She has a lover!’ Then, suddenly weary and seeing the lamp being lit in her room, she remembered how thirsty she was. ‘Oh, Mademoiselle Rose, dearest Mademoiselle Rose,’ she said. ‘Why aren’t I allowed to eat ice cream?’
But Mademoiselle Rose was lost in thought and so said nothing.
8
Hélène’s life, like everyone else’s, had its own haven of light. Every year she returned to France with her mother and Mademoiselle Rose. How happy she was to see Paris again. She loved it so much. Now that Karol was getting rich, his wife stayed at the Grand Hotel in Paris, but Hélène stayed in a grim, sordid little guest house behind Notre-Dame-de-Lorette. Hélène was growing up; it was necessary to keep her as far away as possible from the life her mother enjoyed. Madame Karol paid for Hélène’s and Mademoiselle Rose’s accommodation out of her personal allowance, thus reconciling her own self-interest with the demands of morality. But Hélène was perfectly happy. For a few months she could mingle with French children of her own age.
H
ow she envied them! She never grew tired of studying them. To be born in these ordinary, peaceful neighbourhoods where all the houses looked alike – how wonderful that would be. To be born and grow up here. To have Paris as her home. Not to have to see her mother every morning when they met at the Bois de Boulogne, walking slowly beside her down the Allée des Acacias (and having fulfilled this duty, Bella Karol believed she had done what was necessary and had no need to think about her daughter until the next day, unless she fell seriously ill), not to see her mother, with her Irish tweed jacket, her polka-dot veil, her skirt sweeping across the dead leaves, as she walked with all the plumed aplomb of, according to the popular expression of the day, a ‘horse pulling a hearse’ to meet an Argentinian with cigar-coloured skin. Not to have to travel by train for five days to return to a barbaric country where she didn’t really feel at home either, because she spoke French better than Russian, because her hair was done in curls rather than tightly pulled back into shiny little plaits, because her dresses were based on Parisian fashion … Even, if necessary, to be the daughter of one of the shopkeepers near the Gare de Lyon. To wear a black smock and have cheeks as pink as radishes. To be able to ask her mother (a different mother), ‘Mama, where are the penny notebooks?’
To be that little girl …
‘Hélène, stand up straight.’
‘Oh, damn!’
To be called Jeanne Fournier or Loulou Massard or Henriette Durand, a name that was easy to understand, easy to remember … But no. She wasn’t like the others. Not completely. It was such a shame! And yet … She had a richer and fuller life than other children. She had experienced so many things. She had seen so many different places. She sometimes felt that two distinct souls inhabited her body. She was only a little girl, yet she already had so many memories that she had no trouble understanding that word that grown-ups used: ‘experience’. Sometimes, when she thought about this, she was filled with an intoxicating feeling of joy. She would walk around Paris in the pinkish dusk, at six o’clock in the evening, when a flood of light filtered down on to the streets; she would hold Mademoiselle Rose’s hand and look at all the faces as they passed by, imagining for each one of them a name, a past, their different loves and hates. She would think with pride: ‘In Russia, they wouldn’t understand the native language. They wouldn’t understand the thoughts of a merchant or a coachman or a farmer. But I know. And, what’s more, I understand them too. They may push me. They may kick my ball out of the way. They may think, “What a pain these little girls are.” But I’m craftier than they are. Even though I’m a little girl, I’ve seen more things than they have in all their long, boring lives.’