David Golder, The Ball, Snow in Autumn & The Courilof Affair (2008) (28 page)

“You should be ashamed,” murmured the old woman, sounding pained and disgusted. “You should be ashamed! And with your parents asleep right next door…”

“So what? Oh, so that’s it, are you crazy, Niania? We weren’t doing anything wrong. We have a few drinks, a few kisses, why is that so wrong? Do you think my parents didn’t do the same thing when they were young?”

“No, my girl.”

“Ah, so that’s what you think, do you?”

“I was young once too, Lulitchka. It was a very long time ago, but I can still remember how my young blood burned through my body. Do you think anyone forgets that? And I remember your aunts when they were twenty, like you. It was in Karinova, in the spring… Oh! What beautiful weather we had that year. Every day we would go for walks through the forest, take boat rides on the little lake… And at night, there were always balls to go to, at home or at the neighbours’ houses. Each young woman had someone they were in love with, and many times, they would all go out together, in the moonlight, in a troika. Your dead grandmother used to say: ‘When
we
were young…’ So what? They knew very well that certain things were allowed and others forbidden… Sometimes, in the morning, they would come into my room and tell me all about what this one or that one had said. And still, they got engaged one day, got married, lived their lives honestly, with their fair share of happiness and sorrow, until the day when God took them. They died young, as you know, one in childbirth, and the other five years later
after a nasty fever. Oh, yes, I can remember… We had the most beautiful horses of all, and sometimes they would all ride out together, in a long line. Your father was a young man then; he and his friends, and your aunts, and some other young people, would ride into the forest, and the servants would carry the torches to light the way ahead…”

“Yes,” said Loulou bitterly, pointing to the dingy little sitting room and the crude vodka that she was absent-mindedly swirling around at the bottom of her glass. “The decor has obviously changed.”

“That’s not all that’s changed,” grumbled the old woman. She looked sadly at Loulou.

“Forgive me, my darling…You shouldn’t be ashamed, I’ve known you since you were born. You haven’t sinned, have you? You’re still innocent?”

“Of course I am, my poor old dear,” said Loulou. She thought back to a night in Odessa, during the bombings, when she had slept in the home of Baron Rosenkranz, the former governor of the city; he was in prison and his son lived there, alone. The cannon fire had started so suddenly that she hadn’t had time to get home, and she had spent the night in the empty palace, with Serge Rosenkranz. What had happened to him, to Serge? Dead, no doubt… Of typhus, starvation, a stray bullet, in prison… Take your pick. What a night that had been… The docks were in flames… They could see, from the bed where they were making love, walls of burning petrol engulfing the port…

She remembered the house, on the other side of the street, with its run-down facade and tulle curtains fluttering in the dark… That night… Death had come so close.

“Of course I am, Nianiouchka,” she repeated automatically.

But Tatiana Ivanovna knew her only too well: she shook her head, silently pursed her lips.

Georges Andronikof groaned, turned over clumsily, then half woke up. “I’m utterly drunk,” he said quietly.

He stumbled over to an armchair, hid his face in its cushions, and sat motionless.

“He works all day in a garage now, and he’s starving. If he
couldn’t drink… and enjoy other things, well, what would be the point of living?”

“You’re offending God, Loulou.”

Suddenly the young girl hid her face in her hands and started sobbing violently.

“Nianiouchka… I want to go home! Home, home!” she kept saying, twisting her fingers in a strange and nervous way that the old woman had never seen before. “Why have we been punished like this? We didn’t do anythingwrong!”

Tatiana Ivanovna gently stroked her dishevelled hair, heavy with the odour ofwine and smoke. “It is God’s holy will.”

“Oh, you do irritate me, that’s your answer to everything!”

She dried her eyes, angrily shrugging her shoulders.

“Go away, leave me alone! Just go … I’m tired and upset. Don’t say anything to my parents. What good would it do? You’d only upset them for nothing, and believe me, it wouldn’t change anything. You’re too old, you don’t understand.”

ONE
SUNDAY IN
August, when Cyrille came home, the Karines paid for a Mass to be said for Youri’s soul. They walked together to the Rue Daru. It was a beautiful day; the blue sky was sparkling. There was an outdoor fair on the Avenue des Ternes, frenzied music and clouds of dust; the passers-by looked curiously at Tatiana Ivanovna, with her long skirt and her black shawl covering her head.

On the Rue Daru, Mass was celebrated in the crypt of the church; the candles crackled softly. You could hear burning wax dripping on the flagstones during the silences between the responses. “May the soul of God’s servant, Youri, rest in peace…” The priest, an old man with long trembling hands, spoke quietly, his voice sweet and muted. The Karines prayed in silence; they were no longer thinking of Youri, Youri was at peace, but for them, there was still such a long road to travel, a long, dark road. “My God, protect me… My God, forgive me …” they said. But Tatiana Ivanovna, kneeling in front of the icon that burned faintly in the darkness, touched her head to the cold flagstones and thought only of Youri, prayed only for him, for his salvation and eternal rest.

Once Mass was over, they started for home. They bought some baby roses from a young girl they passed; she had dishevelled hair and looked cheerful. They were beginning to like this city and its people. Once the sun came out, you could forget all your troubles on these streets, you felt light-hearted without quite understanding why …

Sunday was the servant’s day off. The cold meal was laid out on the table. They ate hardly anything, then Loulou put the roses in front of an old picture of Youri, when he was a child.

“He had such a strange expression,” said Loulou. “I’d never noticed before… It’s an almost indifferent, weary look.”

“I always saw the same look in pictures of people destined to die young or tragically,” murmured Cyrille uncomfortably, “as if they somehow knew in advance and couldn’t care less… Poor Youri, he was the best of all of us.”

They silently studied the little picture; it had faded. “He’s at peace now, free forever.”

Loulou carefully arranged his flowers, lit two candles, placing one at each side of the picture, and they all stood motionless, forcing themselves to remember Youri. Now they felt only a kind of icy sadness, as if many long years had passed since his death. But it had been just two …

Helene Vassilievna gently wiped the dust off the glass picture frame, without thinking, as if she were wiping tears from someone’s face. Of all her children, Youri was the one she had understood the least, loved the least… “He is with God,” she thought. “He is happier than the others.”

They could hear the noise from the fair in the street.

“It’s hot in here,” said Loulou.

Helene Vassilievna turned around. “Well, go out, my darlings, what can we do? Go and get some fresh air and look around the fair; when I was your age, I preferred the fairs in Moscow, on Palm Sunday, to the parties at court.”

“I liked them too,” said Loulou.

“Well, go on then,” their mother said again, sounding weary.

Loulou and Cyrille went out. Nicolas Alexandrovitch stood in front of the window, looking at the white walls, seeing nothing. Helene Vassilievna sighed. How he had changed… He hadn’t shaved… He was wearing an old waistcoat, covered in stains… How handsome and charming he had been, before… And what about her? She secretly glanced at herself in the mirror; her face was pale, her skin sickly and puffy, her flannel dressing-gown old and worn. She was old, an old woman, my God!

“Nianiouchka,” she said suddenly. She had never called her that. Tatiana Ivanovna, who was wandering silently between the furniture to tidy up wherever necessary, turned and looked at her with a strange, confused expression.

“Barinia?”

“We’ve grown old, my dear, haven’t we? But you, you haven’t
changed at all. It makes me feel better to look at you … No, really, you’re the same.”

“The only time people change at my age is in the coffin,” said Tatiana Ivanovna with a wry smile.

Helene Vassilievna hesitated, then whispered softly, “You remember what it was like at home, don’t you?”

The old woman blushed suddenly, raising her trembling hands to heaven. “Do I remember! My God! I could tell you where each and every thing was placed! I could walk through that house with my eyes shut! I remember every dress you ever wore, and the children’s outfits, and the furniture, and the grounds, my God!”

“The sitting room with all the mirrors, my little pink sitting room…”

“The settee, where you used to sit on winter evenings, when the children were brought down.”

“And before that? Our wedding?”

“I can still see the dress you wore, the diamonds in your hair… The dress was made of moire silk, and the antique lace from the late princess … Oh, my God, Lulitchka won’t have anything to compare…”

They both fell silent. Nicolas Alexandrovitch was staring out at the sombre courtyard; he could picture his wife, the way she looked the first time he’d seen her, at the ball, when she was still the Countess Eletzka?a, in her white satin evening gown, and her golden hair… He had loved her so much… They were still together at the end of their lives … That was something. If only these women would stop talking … If only he didn’t have all these memories in his heart, life would be bearable.

“What’s the point?” he said, gritting his teethwithout turning around. “What’s the point? All that is over. We’ll never get it back. Let other people hope if they want to … It’s over, over,” he repeated angrily.

Helene Vassilievna took his hand, raising his pale fingers to her lips, as she had done so often in the past.

“Sometimes it all surges up from the depths of my soul… But there’s nothing we can do … It’s God’s will… Kolia… My dear… My beloved… We’re together, and as for the rest…”

She made a vague gesture; they looked at each other in silence, trying to find other features, other smiles on their aged faces, from long ago.

The room was dark and hot. “Why don’t we take a taxi and go out tonight?” asked Helene Vassilievna. “Would you like that? There used to be a little restaurant, near Ville d’Avray, by the lake; we went there in 1908, do you remember?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe it’s still there?”

“Maybe,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “We always assume that everything is being destroyed along with us, don’t we? Let’s go and see.”

They stood up and switched on the lights. Tatiana Ivanovna was standing in the middle of the room, muttering something they couldn’t make out.

“Are you staying here, Nianiouchka?” Nicolas Alexandro-vitch asked her automatically.

She seemed to wake up; her trembling lips moved for a long time as if she were having difficulty speaking.

“And where would I go?” she finally said.

When she was alone, she went and sat down in front of Youri’s picture. She stared at it, but other images arose from her memory, from long ago, forgotten by everyone else. The faces of the dead, dresses from fifty years before, empty rooms… She remembered the first sharp, plaintive little cry Youri made when he was born. “As if he knew what would happen to him,” she thought. “The others didn’t cry like that.”

Then she sat down in front of the window and started to mend the stockings.

DURING
THOSE FIRST
months in Paris, the Karines led a calm life. It was only in the autumn, when little Andre came back from Brittany, that they had to think about earning a living, as they were short of money. The last of the jewellery had been sold long ago. They had a little capital left, that might last two, maybe three years… And then? Some Russians had opened restaurants, night clubs, small shops. The Karines, like many others, used their remaining money to buy and furnish a boutique, at the back of a courtyard. They began selling lace, icons, whatever remained of the antique china they’d managed to bring with them.

At first no one bought anything. In October they had to pay the rent. Then they had to send Andre to Nice. The air in Paris was giving him asthma attacks. They thought about moving. They were offered an apartment near the Porte de Versailles that was brighter and less expensive, but it had only three rooms and a kitchen as narrow as a cupboard. Where would they put poor old Tatiana? It was out of the question to make her climb up six flights of stairs, with her bad legs. Meanwhile, each month was becoming more difficult than the previous one. A succession of maids came and went, unable to get used to these foreigners who slept during the day and—at night—ate, drank, and left their dirty dishes everywhere in the sitting room, scattered about the furniture until the next morning.

Tatiana Ivanovna tried to do bits and pieces, like the laundry, but she was getting weak, and her old arms were no longer strong enough to turn the heavy French mattresses or lift the wet washing.

The children, constantly weary and irritable now, bullied her, chased her away: “Leave it. Go away. You’re getting everything mixed up. You ruin everything.” She would go without saying
a word. Actually, she didn’t seem even to hear them. She sat for hours on end, motionless, her hands on her knees, silently staring into space. She was hunched over, nearly doubled up; her skin was white, like a corpse, with swollen blue veins at the corners of her eyes. Often when she was called, she didn’t reply, content with shutting her hollow little mouth even more tightly. She wasn’t deaf, though. Every time any one of them said the name of a place, even if they spoke quietly, or whispered, she would shudder and suddenly say in a weak, low voice: “Yes… on Easter Sunday, when the clock tower in Temna?a burnt down, I remember that… ” or “The pavilion … after you’d gone, the wind had already blown out the windows… I wonder what’s happened to it all…”