A Love Like Blood

  The moment seemed to stretch on, but was broken as someone clattered past in the corridor heading for the stairwell. The footsteps receded.

  ‘Can we eat?’ Marian asked.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  It was the closest we ever were.

  Chapter 15

  The following evening, I took her to meet Hunter and of course they got along famously.

  They spoke about Dante Alighieri, and his work. They spoke about things I had little or no understanding of, and as they spoke on, it was as if I grew invisible, so forgotten had I become.

  We sat in Hunter’s rooms in Sidney, and as he poured generous libations for his guests, he peppered Marian with questions.

  ‘Charles tells me you want to write on blood in Dante. What on earth possesses you to do such a thing?’

  The question seemed impertinent, challenging, but Marian was not intimidated, or if she was, she did not show it. While she gave a long and reasoned and somewhat passionate explanation of what it was she wanted to do, Hunter sat and listened. Even I, knowing him so well, could not tell for a moment what he was thinking. When she was finished, Marian leaned back slightly in her chair and at last I saw a trace of nerves. So, she did care what the great Hunter Wilson thought, and what he thought was this:

  ‘Brilliant,’ he said. ‘Quite a brilliant notion. To show that for Dante, blood is not simply a metaphor, but that it is, at times, literally the seat of love, or of fear, or of bravery. Wonderful. As far as I know, there is no one else in the world working in this way.’

  He looked up and sideways slightly, something he always did when quoting from memory.

  ‘Vedi la bestia per cu’ io mi volsi

  aiutami da lei, famoso saggio,

  ch’ ella mi fa tremar le vene e i polsi.’

  ‘From the Inferno. “She makes me tremble, and the veins in my wrists.” So beautiful,’ Marian said, nodding enthusiastically. ‘Or consider when he sees Beatrice, miraculously alive, the first time after her death. “Men che dramma, di sangue m’è rimaso che non tremi: conosco i segni de l’antica fiamma.”’

  Even I could understand the thrust of that without Hunter saying, ‘“What drama! There remains blood in me that does not tremble. I recognise the signs of an ancient flame.”’

  And if I understood it, I understood it because it made clear what I’d felt at the station when I saw Marian again: a stillness amongst the trembling of my blood. And that, I thought, is why we turn to the great poets of our world, because they simply say these things better than we do.

  Their conversation deepened, and I faded more and more into the background of the room, but I was not jealous, because Hunter in full flow was always a thing to behold, and it gave me more of a chance to look at Marian without fear of censure.

  They spoke in greater detail about what it was that Marian wanted to do, which, as far as I understood, was to link Dante’s work to his understanding of Aristotelian medicine, to show how his use of blood went far beyond the metaphorical.

  ‘He has this concept, sangue perfetto, and I believe it lies at the heart of everything he does, that it links everything from the creation of a human being to their development and nourishment, to the relationship between body and soul, to their relationship with God.’

  Hunter agreed.

  ‘That’s true. Sangue perfetto. According to Aristotle, this perfect blood was the source of all the body’s fluids, from mother’s milk to semen. They are just distillations – mere purifications – of that blood. He even supposed there was a vein of love, the vena amoris, that ran all the way from the heart to the fourth finger . . .’

  ‘Which is why we wear a wedding band there even today,’ Marian said.

  If I’d thought before that she was not beautiful, I was wrong. That evening, as she lost herself in what was for her a thrilling conversation with Hunter, she had a beauty deeper than some surface show. She loved what she spoke about, and she loved that Hunter knew as much as she did, more in fact. It gave her a kind of honesty, an openness. A kind of innocence, as she forgot to pretend to be the cool American girl who had been tough enough to leave home and lose her parents in doing so, and instead became a young soul marvelling at what the world had put in front of her. And that was beautiful.

  ‘But,’ said Hunter, after a while, ‘you still haven’t answered my first question.’

  Marian didn’t reply. She seemed as mystified as I was; wasn’t that what they’d been talking about for hours?

  ‘My original question was why? Why do you want to study this thing about blood? Not what do you want to study . . .’

  Still Marian didn’t reply, and I could see that the question had hit home.

  ‘I . . . I have no idea,’ she said in such a serious way that a moment later all three of us burst out laughing. ‘Really, no one’s ever asked me that. Not even me.’

  ‘Is it something you’ve always been interested in?’ I suggested.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘No. Not really. I just enjoyed reading Dante and . . .’

  ‘And you came up with an idea that no one else ever has,’ Hunter proffered. That was one of the things I admired in him: he was generous, intellectually generous, in a way that so few people are, and even fewer academics.

  The evening wore on and the conversation drifted away from Dante and to other things. I told Hunter about the veiled ultimatum Downey had given me.

  ‘What do you think?’ he asked. ‘Is there anything which grabs you?’

  ‘One or two things. There’ve been big advances in the use of plasma since the war. Improving its synthesis would be something. Or I might do something with clotting abnormalities. There’s still a cure to be found.’

  ‘For haemophilia? It always seemed such a stupid word. Literally: the love of blood.’

  ‘You’re not alone in that view,’ I told him. ‘It used to have many names, of course, before it was understood. Our modern name comes from haemorrhaphilia, which makes more sense.’

  Marian leaned forward.

  ‘The love of bleeding . . . ?’ she queried.

  ‘The tendency to bleed would be more accurate, but yes, that would be a direct translation.’

  ‘Well, you’d better do something quickly,’ Hunter said. ‘Or you’ll end up a fusty old academic like me. And no one wants that.’

  We both protested and I could see that Marian and Hunter liked each other a lot. It made me happy to see that he thought she was as wonderful as I did.

  ‘Come on,’ she said, ‘you seem to have a pretty nice set-up here.’

  ‘College life? Yes, it’s one way of being. But what have I seen of the world? I spent two months in France at the end of the war in 1918, and apart from that every summer I sit on a balcony in Florence watching the young people fall in love. I’ve no children, I’ve never married. Those are the things one ought to do with one’s life, aren’t they?’

  He wasn’t bleating; he just had a way of being very matter of fact about his private life. He didn’t mention it often, but when he did, it was as if he was discussing a problematic passage in a text; fascinating yet ultimately of no great worth.

  Maybe he was just one of those people who put all their emotional energy into their work, and it made me wonder where I was heading in my own career, what that future would hold. It did not then occur to me to extend that thought to my life in general.

  Marian was having none of Hunter’s self-deprecation, though, and began to tell him just how much she wanted a life like his, of study and of books, but though he did it politely, I saw him move the direction of the conversation away from himself and back to her.

  ‘And what of your home?’ he said. ‘The United States? Don’t you want to return? See your family?’

  Hunter’s openness must have infected all of us that night, because Marian didn’t seem to mind telling him what she’d told me about the way she’d had to leave, the rift with her parents.

  ‘And you have siblings? Are there any mor
e like you at home?’ he said, winking.

  ‘Hunter!’ I said, pretending to chastise him.

  He wagged a finger at me.

  ‘Come on, old boy, it’s a fair question.’

  Marian laughed.

  ‘I have a sister. I miss her, but we write from time to time.’

  ‘A younger sister, eh?’ said Hunter, continuing his attempt to be comically lecherous.

  ‘She’s older actually,’ Marian said, and suddenly stopped. Her face changed, and then she said, ‘And I had a younger brother, too. But he died when we were very young.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ I said. And without thinking it might not be the best thing to say, I added, ‘How did it happen?’

  ‘It was an accident. He found a knife in the kitchen and cut himself. Badly. Well, that goes without saying, doesn’t it? My mother was upstairs, sleeping. Two young children in the house, you know . . . My sister was at school. I found him screaming on the kitchen floor in a pool of his own blood. He died on the way to the hospital.’

  She stopped, looking down, unable to go on, unable to meet our gaze.

  We were both speechless, because there weren’t the words, any words at all, that would be worth uttering. She looked up, brightly.

  ‘I wonder, Hunter, if I could use your bathroom?’

  ‘What? Yes, oh yes, down the hall there. On the right.’

  Marian stood, and we watched in silence as she slipped out of the room, gently.

  We turned to look at each other, and we knew that the same thought was on both our minds. I was the one who said it.

  ‘And she says she doesn’t know why she wants to write about blood.’

  Chapter 16

  I only saw Marian twice more after she left Cambridge that Easter.

  I couldn’t bear to let her go without arranging to see her again, and yet I couldn’t bring myself to say aloud what I was feeling. Of course, I thought about it. But the more time I spent in her company, and the more I liked her, the more unreal my suspicions about Verovkin seemed. Marian, Hunter and I ate together every night, but the time I loved the best was the short walk back to her room when we were alone. These walks were mostly silent, which seemed strange after the flowing conversations of Hunter’s rooms, and yet I cherished those brief moments more than anything.

  The day I set her on the London train, and handed her her bag, I hesitated. Once again I thought about warning her, and once again I failed to do so. I’m not sure why. By then I thought I’d established enough trust for her not to just laugh in my face, or refuse ever to talk to me again. I think it was because of Marian herself. In Cambridge, she seemed so well. We’d eaten good meals every night, thanks to Hunter and the dining hall at Sidney. We’d drunk well too, and she could handle it. She was full of life and had been working with Verovkin for months. If he were a monster of some kind, he would have already taken his chance with her. So I dismissed my fears.

  We made arrangements that I would come to Paris when I could, which she seemed happy enough about, if not as excited as I wished she might be.

  As things fell out, it was the beginning of the summer before I was able to travel again, this time by train and ferry since I was paying for my own tickets.

  The heat had returned to Paris, the heat I’d found on my very first visit, which had been so notably absent that spring. But if heat had returned to the city, what little heat there had been between Marian and me seemed to have vanished.

  We had been writing intermittently, and her letters were friendly, talking about her work, both at the Sorbonne and, from time to time, as a waitress. She never spoke about the pupil to whom she gave English lessons, and I never asked. Instead she asked after Hunter, asked me how I was, said she was looking forward to seeing me, but I saw no sign of that when we were reunited.

  One sunny Friday afternoon in June we met near Saint-Lazare.

  In retrospect, she didn’t seem herself, but at the time, I was too wrapped up in my own selfish feelings to notice anything much beyond the fact that she didn’t appear to want to spend too long with me any more.

  I tried to take her to the theatre or the cinema that evening, but she said she had to go home early. She was tired, and that I couldn’t argue with. You could see it on her face, a great tiredness, as if everything was taking twice as much energy from her as usual. She was paler than before, by which I mean, paler than the last time I’d seen her in Paris, because in Cambridge she had seemed full of life, and in good health.

  So she went home, but I managed to get her to meet me in Saint-Germain the next morning.

  The town was humming that morning with a market in the square; the trees in the park were in full and fresh leaf; the sun was strong; and everyone seemed in good spirits – everyone but Marian, who barely smiled when we met, who talked little, and who cut short our meeting, saying she had to go earlier than expected to her English lesson. It was the only time that she mentioned him, and even then she didn’t name him. It was merely by implication that he stood between us.

  She was about to leave, and then I did something stupid.

  I couldn’t bear the way she was, and in a moment of rashness I decided that the only thing was to tell her how I felt, to show her. I put my hand on hers, and she turned to me.

  ‘What is it, Charles?’

  By way of answer I leaned in towards her quickly and clumsily tried to kiss her. She lurched away and my lips just brushed her cheek. She looked at me, glaring.

  ‘I have to go,’ she muttered, and turned.

  ‘Wait!’ I cried out, loud enough to stop her. She turned back, her face impatient, perhaps even angry.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s him,’ I said. And then I said the rest, without thinking, because my desperation had made me careless. ‘He’s dangerous. You’re in danger, Marian. I’m sure of it.’

  I wasn’t sure of that at all, but I needed to convince her, and of course I needed to convince myself too.

  ‘Dangerous? Who’s dangerous?’

  ‘Verovkin.’

  ‘Anton?’ She laughed. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

  ‘I saw him. It was years ago. He killed someone, I think.’

  ‘You think?’

  The outrage outweighed the impatience now.

  ‘You think? What are you talking about, Charles? No, wait, I’ll tell you – you’re talking nonsense. That’s what. I have to go.’

  ‘Marian, please. Wait, please, I—’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘just leave me alone.’ Then she turned on her heel, and walked quickly away. I sat as if she’d slapped me across the face, doing nothing but watching her go. Watching her hurrying back to him.

  As she reached the edge of the square, I stood up, way too late . . . way too late. I took a step, but she was gone, and I had let her go.

  On Sunday I returned home, a long and tiring journey, during which I brooded, feeling forlorn, feeling that I’d lost something, though I wasn’t sure what. Marian had not once spoken of any feelings for me, and I realised what a fool I’d been.

  Nevertheless, I was worried about her, and when I got back to Cambridge, and my own selfish pain lessened, I saw that perhaps she was genuinely unwell, or something worse, something that I couldn’t even put into words.

  I spoke to Hunter about it one evening, and he could put it into words.

  ‘My boy, are you trying to tell me you think this man is a damn vampire? You really are too much of a dreamer!’

  ‘No,’ I said, defending myself, ‘I’m not suggesting that at all. I . . . I don’t know what I’m suggesting. Just that she seems pale and ill and she seemed worse in Paris than she was when she was here.’

  I could see Hunter was being patient with me.

  ‘Charles, you’re the scientist here. You know better than me not to judge by coincidence. You’ve only met her a handful of times, perhaps she is generally unwell.’

  I nodded. He was right. I was thinking of fantastical things, an
d I knew that she’d been energised by her trip to Cambridge simply because of Hunter, her idol, and maybe some more regular meals than she was used to.

  I had to wait a little while, but I had the proof of what Hunter said later that summer.

  I’d written a couple of times to Marian, and she’d written back.

  In my first letter I’d tried to apologise, but I was careful not to make any mention of Verovkin. I merely said I was sorry for being so forward and so clumsy and when she replied Marian ignored everything I’d said and enquired after my health, and Hunter’s, as if she was an aged aunt. I got a couple more letters from her like that, both equally dry and dead. It was almost more frustrating than if she had been silent.

  Then that was what she became. I wrote, and wrote again, and as the weeks went by and I still heard nothing, I grew worried, and then desperate. Finally, in August, I cleared a weekend, and made the rail trip to Paris once more, booking the cheapest hotel I could find near Saint-Lazare.

  As soon as I’d dumped my bag in my tiny, dirty room, I set off towards her flat, somewhere I’d never been, having only ever written to her there. Her address was an apartment on the top floor in Rue Ballu, grand on the outside, but I guessed run-down on the inside. There was no answer to the bell, and deciding to return later, I sloped back to my hotel.

  On the way, another possibility occurred to me, and I headed to the bar in Rue de Parme. I recognised the barman at once, and dug to remember what Marian had called him. I failed, but I could see he recognised me, and I took my chance.

  ‘Bonjour, monsieur,’ I said. ‘Un pastis, s’il vous plaît.’