David Golder, The Ball, Snow in Autumn & The Courilof Affair (2008) (29 page)

She would fall silent again and look out the window at the white walls and the sky above the rooftops.

“When will winter finally come?” she would ask. “My God, it’s been so long since we had any cold weather or frost. Autumn is very long here … In Karinova, it’s already all white, of course, and the river will be frozen over… Do you remember, Nicolas Alexandrovitch, when you were three or four years old, and I, even I was young, and your poor late mother would say, ‘Tatiana, you can tell you’re from the north, my girl… The first time it snows, you go wild.’ Do you remember?”

“No,” murmured Nicolas Alexandrovitch wearily.

“Well, /remember,” she grumbled, “and soon there won’t be anyone but me who does.”

The Karines didn’t reply. Each one of them had enough of their own memories, their own fears and sadness. One day Nicolas Alexandrovitch said, “The winters here aren’t like the ones at home.”

She shuddered. “What do you mean, Nicolas Alexandrovitch?”

“You’ll see soon enough,” he murmured.

She stared at him for a moment in silence. The haggard, defiant, strange look in her eyes struck him for the first time.

“What’s wrong, my poor old dear?” he asked softly.

She didn’t reply. What was the point?

Every day, she looked at the calendar that told her it was the
beginning of October, then stared at the rooftops for a long time, but still there was no snow. All she saw were dingy tiles, the rain, the withered autumn leaves, carried along by the wind.

She was alone all day long now. Nicolas Alexandrovitch scoured the city for antiques or jewellery for their little shop; he managed to sell a few old things and buy some others.

In the past, Nicolas Alexandrovitch owned a collection of precious porcelain china and ornate silver platters. Now, as he walked home along the Champs-Elysees at dusk, carrying a package under his arm, he would sometimes manage to forget that he had to work for his family, for himself. He walked quickly, breathing in the smells of Paris, watching the lights shining at dusk, almost happy, his heart sad yet peaceful.

Loulou was working as a model in a fashion house. Ever so gradually, life took shape. They got home late, tired, returning home with a kind of excitement from the streets, from their work. It spilled over into discussions, laughter, for a while, but the solemn attitude of the silent old woman gradually wore them down. They would eat supper quickly, go to their rooms, and fall into a dreamless sleep, exhausted by their gruelling day.

OCTOBER CAME AND
went, and the November rains began. From morning until night, they could hear the downpour pounding the cobblestones in the courtyard. In the apartment, the air was warm, heavy. When the heaters were switched off, at night, the humidity from outside seeped in through the grooves in the floors. The harsh wind howled behind the iron covers of the cold fireplace.

For hours on end, Tatiana Ivanovna sat in the empty apartment, in front of the window, watching the rain fall. Its heavy drops flowed down the glass like a river of tears. In all the kitchens, above the identical little pantries with their washing lines nailed up between the walls, where the dust cloths were hung to dry, the servants exchanged pleasantries, or complained, in this language they spoke so quickly that she couldn’t understand a word. Around four o’clock, the children came home from school. She could hear the noise of pianos all being played at the same time; and, on each table, in the dining rooms, identical lamps were switched on. They pulled the curtains closed, and then she would hear only the sound of the rain and muffled noises from the street.

How could they all live like this, shut up in these dark houses? When would the snows come?

November passed, then the first weeks of December, barely any colder. There were heavy fogs, smoke coming out of the chimneys, the last dead leaves, crushed, carried along by the wind. Then Christmas. On 24 December, after a light meal, eaten quickly at one end of the table, the Karines left to celebrate Christmas Eve at the home of some friends. Tatiana Ivanovna helped them dress. When they said good-bye to her, she felt a spark of joy seeing them all dressed up, as in the past, Nicolas Alexandrovitch in a tuxedo. She smiled as she looked at Loulou in her white dress, her long hair in curls over her neck.

“Go on, Lulitchka, you’ll meet your fiance tonight, God willing.”

Loulou silently shrugged her shoulders, let herself be kissed without saying a word. They all left. Andre was spending the Christmas holidays in Paris. He was wearing the uniform from his school in Nice: a coat, short blue trousers, and cap; he looked taller and stronger. He had a quick, lively way of talking, the accent, gestures, and slang of a boy who’d been born and raised in France. That night he was going out in the evening with his parents for the first time. He was laughing, humming. Tatiana Ivanovna leaned out the window, watched him walk ahead, jumping over the puddles. The heavy doors of the courtyard slammed shut with a dull thud. Once again Tatiana Ivanovna was alone. She sighed. The wind, mild for the time of year, full of fine raindrops, blew against her face. She raised her head, looked blankly up at the sky. Between the rooftops she could barely make out the shadowy horizon; it was coloured an extraordinary red, as if burning with an internal fire. In the apartment building, gramophones were playing on the different floors, merging to form a discordant music.

“At home,” Tatiana Ivanovna murmured, then fell silent. Why even think about it? That was over a long time ago … Everything was finished, dead.

She closed the window, went back into the apartment. She raised her head, breathed in the air with great effort, an irritated, worried look on her face. These low ceilings were suffocating her. Karinova … The large house with its immense windows, where the light and air washed over the terraces, the sitting rooms, the entrance halls, where fifty musicians could fit comfortably when they held balls in the evenings. She recalled the Christmas when Cyrille and Youri had left… She could almost hear the waltz they’d played that night… Four years had passed… She could picture the columns shimmeringwith ice in the moonlight. “If Iweren’t so old,” she thought, “I’d be happy to make the journey back… But it wouldn’t be the same. No, no,” she muttered vaguely. “It wouldn’t be the same.” The snow… As soon as she saw the snow start to fall, she would be at peace … She would forget everything. She would go to bed
and close her eyes, forever. “Will I live to see the snow?” she whispered.

She automatically picked up the clothing from the chairs and started folding it. For some time now, she thought she could see a very even, fine sprinkling of dust that fell from the ceiling and settled everywhere. It had begun in autumn, when it got dark earlier but they lit the street-lamps later, to save on electricity. She brushed and shook the fabric endlessly; the dust flew off, but only fell back down again a bit further away, like a cloud of fine ash.

She picked up the clothing, brushed it off, muttering, “What is this? What on earth is this?” with a painful, surprised look on her face.

Suddenly she stopped, looking around her. Sometimes she didn’t understand why she was there, wandering through these narrow rooms. She placed her hands on her chest, sighed. The airwas heavy, warm, and, unusually, the heaters were on, because it was a holiday; they gave off a smell of fresh paint. She wanted to switch them off, but she had never understood how to work them. She turned the little handle for a while in vain, then stopped. Once again she opened the window. The apartment on the other side of the courtyard was lit up and cast a rectangular swathe of bright light into the room.

“At home,” she thought, “at home, at this time of year…” The forest would be frozen. She closed her eyes, pictured in extraordinary detail the deep snow, the fires in the village, shimmering in the distance; and the river and the grounds, sparkling and hard, like steel.

She stood motionless, leaning against the window-frame, pulling her shawl over her dishevelled hair, the way she always did. A fine, warm rain was falling; the bright raindrops, swept up in the sudden bursts of wind, wet her face. She shivered, pulled her old black shawl more tightly around her. Her ears were ringing; she felt as if a violent noise were beating through them, like a furious bell. Her head, her entire body, was aching.

She left the sitting room, made her way to her little room at the end of the hallway, and prepared for bed.

Before getting into bed, she knelt to say her prayers. She made
the sign of the cross, then lowered her head to touch the wooden floor, as she did every night. But this evening her words were all confused; she stopped, stared at the little flame burning at the foot of the icon, almost in a trance.

She got into bed, closed her eyes. She couldn’t fall asleep, so she just listened, in spite of herself, to the creaking furniture, the sound of the clock in the dining room, like a human sigh that announced the hour striking in the silence; and, above her, below her, the gramophones playing, this Christmas Eve. People were rushing up and down the stairs, crossing the courtyard, going out for the evening. She could hear people shouting constantly: “Open the door, please!” the muffled echo of the courtyard door opening then closing again, and footsteps disappearing into the empty street. Taxis sped by. A hoarse voice called out to the concierge in the courtyard.

Tatiana Ivanovna sighed and turned her heavy head over to the other side of the pillow. She heard the bells chime eleven o’clock, then midnight. She fell asleep several times, woke up again. Every time she dozed off, she dreamed of the house in Karinova, but the image kept fading, so she hurried to close her eyes again to try to recapture it. Each time it happened, some detail disappeared. Sometimes, the delicate yellow of the stone changed into the reddish colour of dried blood; or the house was solid, walled over, the windows gone. But still she heard the faint echo of the frozen branches on the pine trees, whipped by the wind, like the sound of shattered glass.

Suddenly the dream changed. She saw herself standing in front of the open, empty house. It was in autumn, at the time of day when the servants lit the wood-burning stoves. She was standing downstairs, alone. In her dream, she saw the abandoned house, the bare rooms, just as she had left them, with the carpets rolled up against the walls. She went upstairs, and all the doors slammed in the wind, with a strange, groaning noise. She walked quickly, hurrying, as if she were afraid of being late for something. She saw all the enormous rooms, wide open, empty, with bits of wrapping paper and old newspapers scattered about the floor, swept up now and again, hovering in the wind.

Finally she entered the nursery. It was bare like all the other
rooms, even Andre’s bed was gone, and, in her dream, she felt a kind of astonishment: she remembered having rolled up his mattress and pushed it into a corner of the room herself. In front of the window, sitting on the floor, was Youri: in his soldier’s uniform, pale and thin, just as he had been that last day, playing with some old jacks, like he had as a child. She knew he was dead, but still she felt such extraordinary joy at seeing him that her aged, weary heart began to beat violently, almost painfully; its deep, muffled rhythm pounded against her chest. She could see herself running towards him, crossing the dusty wooden floor that creaked beneath her weight, as it had in the past, but just as she was about to reach out and touch him, she woke up. It was late. Day was breaking.

SHE
WOKE WITH
a moan and lay there motionless, stretched out on her back, staring at the bright windows, as if in a trance. A thick, white fog filled the courtyard; to her tired eyes, it looked like snow, like the first snows of autumn, thick and blinding, covering everything in a kind of mournful light, a harsh white glare.

She clasped her hands together. “The first snow…” she whispered.

She looked at it for a long time, an expression of delight on her face that was both childlike and frightening, a little deranged. The apartment was silent. No one would be home yet, of course. She got out of bed and dressed without taking her eyes from the window, imagining the snow falling, ever faster, streaking the sky with a feathery trail. At one point, she thought she heard a door closing. Perhaps the Karines were already back and had gone to bed? But she wasn’t thinking about them. She imagined she could feel the snowflakes on her face, could taste their fire and ice. She took her coat, quickly tied her scarf around her head and fastened it under her chin with a pin. Automatically she felt around on the table, looking for the keys that she always took with her in Karinova, when she went out, her hand stretched out as if she were blind. She found nothing, but kept feeling around anxiously, forgetting exactly what she was looking for, impatiently sweeping away her spectacle case, the knitting she had just started, the picture of Youri as a child…

She felt as if someone was waiting for her. A strange fever burned in her soul.

She opened the wardrobe, leaving its door and the drawer open. A clothes hanger fell to the floor. She hesitated for a moment, then shrugged her shoulders, as if she had no time to
lose, and quickly left the room. She crossed the apartment and hurried silently down the stairs.

Once outside, she stopped. The freezing fog covered the courtyard in a dense, white blanket that slowly rose from the ground, like smoke. Fine drops of rain stung her face, like the tips of snowflakes when they fall amidst a September rain, half-melted.

Behind her, two men in tuxedos came out of the building and looked at her oddly. She followed them, slipping through the half-open door, which slammed shut behind her back with a dull thud.

She was in the street, a dark, deserted street; a gas-lamp shone through the rain. The fog was clearing and a cold sharp drizzle had started to fall. The cobblestones and walls shimmered faintly. A man passed by, his soaked shoes leaking water; a dog rushed across the road, came up to the old woman, and sniffed her, then followed her, whimpering and moaning miserably. It stayed with her for a while, then wandered off.