The Secret Life of Violet Grant

  “Naturally. I’m a soldier, aren’t I?”

  “Yes, you are. You enjoy it, don’t you? Fighting and killing.”

  “No, I don’t enjoy it. But I don’t mind it, if that’s what you mean. It’s elemental. It slices right through all the rubbish, it erases your thoughts, it erases everything else but the essential struggle. You’re never closer to nature than when you’re out hunting, when you’re nothing but an animal yourself. Better and purer than your civilized self.”

  “You don’t have a civilized self.”

  “Yes, I do. Look at me now, quite calm and under control, while you stand right there, a few feet away from me, and the light glows against your skin. Turning you to gold. I don’t think there’s any higher proof of the power of civilization, that I’m not kissing you senseless.”

  Violet stares at the vase in her hands, the intersecting whorls of virgin blue and white, the soft bleeding of color at the edges, the curve that shapes itself perfectly beneath her palm. At the edge of her vision, Lionel stands waiting by the window. She doesn’t look at his face, but she imagines, in absolute clarity, the expression it wears now: eyes silver and watchful beneath the furrows of his patient forehead. The predatory angle of his cheekbones, perfectly still.

  “How is your knee?” she asks, still staring at the vase.

  He turns to the window and braces his hands against the sill. “Splendid. These German surgeons are the wonder of the world. I should have headed home a week ago.”

  “Perhaps you should head home. Go back to England, to your regiment. Killing things.”

  “Do you really mean that?”

  Violet cannot say yes. She cannot tell an outright lie. She puts the vase down and wanders to the other side of the room. “You could always take up with the comtesse.”

  “I understand she’s otherwise occupied.”

  “I’m sure there’s room for one more. She strikes me as the accommodating sort.”

  “Don’t, Violet.”

  Her palms are damp. She presses them against the side of her dress. Why doesn’t she just leave? Why can’t she say good evening and walk back through the door? Or—a better question perhaps, more to the point—why can’t she simply give in and lie secretly down on the sofa with Lionel Richardson and lose herself, as everyone else in Berlin loses themselves? Is it some vestige of loyalty to Walter himself, some superstitious reluctance to profane her marriage vows? Or the more practical fear of discovery and its consequences?

  Or something else, something worse: the hypothesis, still unproven, that if she laid herself on the sofa in Lionel Richardson’s embrace, she would never rise again.

  “Don’t what?” she asks mechanically, because anything is better than this screaming silence between them.

  “Don’t pretend this is something simple, between us.”

  “Of course it’s not simple. My husband is a friend of yours. That’s what I mean. You’re much better off with someone like the comtesse. It suits you.”

  “As it happens, I have already had that honor, and we didn’t suit at all.”

  Violet feels his words like a bad fall: one moment jogging comfortably along, a little breathless, and the next landing shocked against the pavement without any breath at all. “Oh? When was this?” she asks lightly, fingering the edge of the sofa as if his answer means nothing at all.

  “A year or two ago, when I was on leave in London, right after her latest divorce.”

  “But you’re still friends.”

  “Why not? That’s what happens when things are simple, you see. You meet, you flirt, you engage in a spot of fucking to pass the excruciating bloody time, to forget yourself for a single godforsaken moment. You head back to your regiment when your leave is over.” He takes the Berlin evening deeply into his lungs and turns around. “I’m not at all certain I could remain friends with you afterward.”

  “There won’t be an afterward with us.”

  “No, you’re right about that. If I had you, I wouldn’t let you go.”

  “Then we had better not start at all.”

  “No, we’d better not.” He picks up his glass, examines the remains against the light, and tilts it up to his mouth. “Your husband has invited me along to Wittenberg with you.”

  “Oh? What did you say?”

  He takes out another cigarette and lights it swiftly. “I said yes, of course. Fresh air, sunshine, tennis in abundance. Who could refuse?”

  “I won’t go. I’ll stay here in Berlin. I’ll tell him I want to keep working.”

  “Look at you. You’re dead frightened, aren’t you?”

  “What about your regiment? I suppose they need you.”

  “Let me worry about my regiment.”

  She grips the sofa edge and pictures Wittenberg, the charming villa Walter has rented for the month of July, the sky and the clean water and the pungent sunshine. She pictures Lionel dropped in the center of this bucolic idyll, dazzling in tennis whites, shedding restless energy into the shimmering air. “He’s your friend, Lionel. Don’t do this.”

  “Ah, loyal Violet. I can’t imagine what the good doctor has done to earn this violent fidelity of yours. Still, I suppose I’ve only to wait. The chap’s twenty-eight years older than you—”

  “Thirty.”

  “Thirty, of course. But anything might happen at that age. A heart attack, a fall, an accidental poisoning, that sort of thing. I’m a patient man.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t joke.”

  “God damn it, Violet.” Lionel springs from the window and tosses his empty glass into the empty fireplace. The shattering crystal makes her jump. He follows the sound to the mantel and curls his hands around the edge, on either side of his bowed head. “I wish to God I were joking.”

  A peal of laughter trills through the walls, unnervingly close, perhaps just outside the closed library door. Lionel doesn’t move. The smoke trails delicately from the cigarette in his right hand, winding around his ear.

  Violet whispers, “Perhaps you should just leave Berlin altogether.”

  “If I could leave, Violet, I would. Believe me.”

  Another burst of laughter, which clarifies suddenly as the library door swings open. Violet turns in a jolt. The Comtesse de Saint-Honoré illuminates the room, resplendent in red silk, her chin tilted back to expose her long neck.

  “Oh!” she exclaims, looking first at Violet and then at Lionel, who now stands facing the room, one arm still slung on the mantel, one ankle crossed before the other, smiling mysteriously. “There you are! We were looking for you.”

  Only then does Violet notice her husband standing next to the comtesse. His necktie has come unraveled, and his elbow forms a convenient nook for her arm.

  “Violet, my dear,” he says. “Have you been hiding yourself away all this time?”

  “You know I dislike parties.”

  “Yes, I wondered why you insisted on coming.” He glances at Lionel and takes a drink from the glass that dangles from his other hand. “But I see you haven’t suffered alone.”

  Lionel shrugs his broad shoulders. “We were discussing this wretched tragedy in Sarajevo.”

  “Shocking affair,” says Walter.

  “Why, what’s happened in Sarajevo?” asks the comtesse.

  “Oh, only the assassination of the Austrian heir and his wife,” says Lionel. “Nothing for the ladies to bother themselves about.”

  Violet boils over. She opens her mouth to object, but the comtesse’s gravelly laughter already crowds the air.

  “Oh, really, Lionel. You’re impossible. But poor Sophie. I really am upset. I met her in Vienna last year. She was charming, not a snob at all, as these Austrian aristocrats usually are. What happened?”

  “Shot in their motorcar on a state visit. Some damned Serbian nationalist, I’m sure. Not that the Hapsburgs
are fit to govern a village sheep run any longer, but what the devil good does regicide do? Only provokes Austria to kick them with booted heel.” Lionel tosses the end of his cigarette into the fireplace, amid the shards of his whiskey.

  “No doubt the diplomats will sort it all out,” says Walter blandly.

  The silence in the room contrasts with the merriment outside, as if the four of them are attending some secret rite in the middle of a wedding feast. Lionel drums his fingers against the mantel and trades inscrutable glances with the comtesse.

  She turns to Violet. “My dear, do come along with me. I’ve got so many people to introduce you to. You don’t know what a divine novelty you are.”

  Violet protests, but the Comtesse de Saint-Honoré takes her arm. “It’s not that hard, really. They’re all good and tight. Quite harmless. Just put one word in front of the other.”

  Later, after Violet has made the rounds with the comtesse, has met a thousand cosmopolitan drunks and become silly herself with champagne and ragtime and male admiration, she lies sprawled on the sofa in the library while Jane strokes her hair. Neither Walter nor Lionel can be found.

  “You’ve got to sleep here tonight, I guess,” says Jane. “There’s nobody respectable to see you home.”

  “There was nobody respectable here to begin with.” The gentle stroke of Jane’s fingers, the rustle of red silk as she moves her arm, is lulling Violet to sleep.

  “What a bad influence I am. But I can’t help it, you know. It’s how I’m made; I’ve given up trying to reform. I just like it.”

  “Like what? Having parties? Having affairs?”

  “Yes, all of it. There’s nothing more exciting than a new lover, or the chance of one. I’m addicted to it. You should try it yourself. Or I suppose you already have, when you started with Walter.” She giggles softly. She’s matched champagne with Violet that evening, glass for glass. “So try it again.”

  “No, I won’t.” Violet yawns. “I can’t.”

  “Yes, you can. Why not? Lionel’s dotty for you.”

  “I’m married.”

  Jane laughs outright and gives Violet a squeeze with her other arm. “What does that mean anymore? I’ve been married three times already.”

  “I don’t know how you managed all that. Where did you find the time?”

  “I started early, of course. That’s the trick, start early. I ran away with my first husband when I was only fifteen. He was twenty-seven and a beast, but he was rich enough, the richest man in Rapid City, and I had to get away. Out of the house.” Her fingers find a few stray ends of Violet’s hair and rub them together.

  “I don’t suppose I can argue with that.”

  “I divorced him the year after that. That nice old judge awarded me plenty of money, once he saw the photographs. Always get evidence, Violet, that’s my advice.”

  “I’ll try to remember that.”

  “No, I really mean it. The deck is stacked against us, you know. I have no patience for women who won’t look after themselves. I suppose that’s why women don’t like me very much.”

  “Don’t they?”

  “Well, I don’t guess I’d like me, if I were them. No, they’re right. I’m not one of them, I’m the enemy. You see, I don’t need all this business about cuddles and fidelity and love everlasting. I don’t believe in it. I like flirting; I like making love. I don’t mind sleeping with someone’s husband, if the opportunity arises. Why should I? It’s just a physical transaction that gives pleasure on both sides, if it’s done right. I’ve never understood why women make such a fuss about . . .” She waves her hand. “Well, all of it. Love and babies.”

  “But you’ve had three husbands. And a child.”

  The sofa cushions move beneath Violet’s shoulders. Both of Jane’s hands insert themselves in Violet’s hair to gather up the waves and lift them from her neck. “Do you wear it loose at night, or do you braid it?”

  “Loose. I can’t be bothered.”

  Jane begins to braid Violet’s hair. Violet closes her eyes. The little tugs and twists of Jane’s manicured fingers electrify her scalp; Jane’s exotic perfume drifts against the haze of champagne surrounding her brain. She loves the unfamiliar female intimacy of lying here, listening to Jane’s secrets while Jane braids her hair.

  “Listen, Violet. I love three things: money, myself, and my son. Not in that order. I’d do anything for them, especially Henry.”

  “That’s all? Not your family? Any of your husbands?” She searches for something else, some other possible object for Jane’s worship, and hazards—of all things—“God?”

  “God?” Jane laughs mightily. “Really? What about Him? He’s done nothing for me, I can tell you. I’ve done it all by myself, tooth and nail. I don’t see why He should get any credit. And you don’t, either, I’ll bet. That’s why I like you, Violet. I don’t like many women, but I like you.” She’s finished the braid. She wraps her fingers around the paintbrush end and gives it a gentle pull.

  “Are you sleeping with my husband?” Violet asks drowsily.

  “Would you be angry if I were? Would you even care?”

  Violet doesn’t reply. She doesn’t know how.

  Jane pulls the braid apart and combs it out with her fingers. Violet opens her eyes. The apartment is quiet now, the guests shooed away, the servants in the scullery with the acres of glassware. It must be past four o’clock in the morning.

  “You have the loveliest hair, Violet. I’ll bet Walter loves your hair.”

  Violet stares up at the creamy library ceiling, and her mind turns back to another sofa and another ceiling, another body pressed against hers on an Oxford winter afternoon.

  “Yes, he does. Walter loves my hair.”

  Vivian

  November! They say time flies when you’re having a tawdry affair.

  “Lionel arrived in her life on the same day as this Jane Johnson,” I said. “Don’t you think that’s a funny coincidence?”

  “Hmm,” said the man lying next to me, meaning, I’m half asleep and I’ve no idea what you’ve just said, but even while semi-conscious I know better than to ignore you, Vivian Schuyler.

  I nudged his ribs. “Violet and Lionel.”

  “Violet. Sweetheart.” He turned his face into my neck and went still.

  “Just listen to this. It’s in the second letter, dated May twenty-first: ‘The most extraordinary character walked into my laboratory yesterday, an old student of Walter’s. His name is Lionel Richardson and he’s some sort of soldier, about six feet tall with one of those large and brutal bodies, like something you might see on safari, thickly muscled, with straight black hair. He’s rather alarming to sit next to; one feels as if one will be swallowed up at any instant. We took him to a café later, where we were accosted by an American woman who wants Walter to take her son into the laboratory for the summer. The son, by the way, is not yet twenty. Altogether an extraordinary evening.’ Amazing, isn’t it? And he sounds like a dreamboat.”

  “Mmm.”

  “And I checked it against the Metropolitan archives, and it’s the same day as the correspondent mentioned seeing the Comtesse de Saint-Honoré—that’s Jane, she’s a real husband-hunter—with her son at the Bluebird café.” I leaned my head back in the pillow and sighed to charm the angels. “It’s the best feeling in the world, isn’t it? When your research fits together like that, and all of a sudden you realize these were real people, living real lives, and . . . Are you listening?”

  This time, no sound at all emerged from Doctor Paul’s body, which lay heavy and slack against mine, one arm thrown across my middle. And really, who could blame him? His shift last night was supposed to end at ten o’clock, and I’d gone to the hospital to meet him there, but no—some sort of emergency surgery, a kid hit by a car—he would be out in an hour, in another hour, and at about midnight I’d realized th
at the huddled couple at the other corner of the antiseptic waiting room must be the child’s parents, because they kept lifting their reddened eyes hopefully to the door whenever it moved, and the man’s hand was locked so hard with the woman’s that the bones of his knuckles shone white through his skin. I had sat there in a cold lump, no idea what to do. Couldn’t just walk up to them and say, Hello there, dearies, I’m Dr. Salisbury’s lover, and I can assure you those clever old hands can perform all kinds of miracles, or even I know Dr. Salisbury personally, and he’s the best new resident surgeon in years, and if anyone can save your darling angel, he will.

  And just as I’d made up my mind to do just that—the second greeting, not the first—the door had opened and Doctor Paul himself walked through in his stained blue scrubs, and from the weight of grief on his face I knew the news was as bad as news could be. I had felt an instant compulsion to run to him, to toss my cashmere arms around him and give him the unrestrained Vivian, but he didn’t even see me. He walked right past my crossed and shapely legs and pulled up a chair next to the parents. He took the woman’s hand like a sandwich between his own, and I thought, Oh my God, oh my sweet twinkling stars, I love you so much, I can’t even breathe, I think my heart just stopped, somebody save me.

  When I brought him back to my apartment an hour later, I’d thought he would want to go right to sleep, maybe accept a little comfort of the strictly platonic sort—look, a girl could take a rain check once in a while, in a good cause—but instead he threw me into the bedroom and engaged me like a lion, like a beast of the wild, in such a speechless frenzy of erotic energy that I, Vivian Schuyler, could hardly keep up. And I thought, as he lay sleeping and senseless the next instant, trusting and comatose along the length of my back, well, that makes sense, doesn’t it? To combat death with life. To fight back.