The Summer of Katya (10 page)

“I hope you don’t feel compromised by the enormous value of the gift.”

“Oh, it isn’t the value of the gift that compromises. It’s the intent behind it. Are your intentions of a compromising nature?”

“Very nearly.”

She laughed. “I must warn you that my integrity is so firm that mere pebbles cannot rock it.”

“That, my dear young lady, was a horrible, horrible pun.” I spoke with an avuncular sternness that allowed me to get away with calling her “dear.”

She frowned and pulled a sour face. “I fear that you lack a proper appreciation for the fine art of punning. It indicates a distasteful seriousness of mind. What are words made for, if not to play with?”

I placed my hand lightly over hers. “It is rumored that some people use them to express feelings of affection.”

Her eyes searched mine with troubled uncertainty. “Ah well… you can’t put much faith in rumors.” Then she slipped her hand from beneath mine and turned aside to look out over the garden, her gaze distant, her attention adrift. The sunlight dappling through the lattice warmed the cupric tones of her hair and reflected from the bodice of her white dress to radiate her face in a diffuse glow. I stood close beside her. The delicate silken down on her cheek… the sweet smell of her hair… the line of her throat… the curve of her breast…

She sighed as though returning reluctantly from some pleasant vision and turned to me. “You know, it was cruel and thoughtless of you to tell my brother and father about the spirit in this garden. Why did you do that?”

The question took me off balance. “I… for no reason at all. Just… you know… small talk. Conversation. Surely you know I would never intentionally do anything to pain you, Katya.”

She looked at me levelly for a moment, measuring, evaluating. Then a faint smile touched the corners of her eyes. “No, of course you wouldn’t. But just the same I do wish you hadn’t mentioned her.”

“I didn’t know she was a secret.”

“Not a secret, exactly. Just something of my own that I wasn’t prepared to share with anyone.”

“But you shared her with me.”

She considered that for a second, as though realizing it for the first time. “That’s true, I did, didn’t I?” She shrugged. “Ah well, there’s no point dwelling on it. The harm’s done.”

“What harm?”

“You saw how Paul reacted to the mention of the spirit, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I did. He seemed quite shaken.”

She nodded. “I knew he would be.”

“But why? Surely someone so cynical as your brother doesn’t believe in spirits. Why should he be shaken by the mention of one?”

She frowned and shook her head. “I really don’t know, Jean-Marc. But I knew instinctively that he would be.”

I sighed and broke off a twig from an overhanging bush and began to strip the leaves from it. “Katya? Is it a real spirit?”

“Real spirit? Isn’t that a contradiction of terms?”

“You know perfectly well what I mean. You and Paul delight in making up tales and playing on other peoples credulity. That’s why I ask if this spirit of yours is real.”

“Oh, she’s real enough.”

“Have you actually seen it?”

“Yes. Well… not quite. I’ve almost seen her out of the tail of my eye… a blur of white that vanishes when I focus on it, the way very dim stars do. But I am quite sure she’s here. I can sense her presence in a most palpable way. And it’s not the least a frightening or uncomfortable experience. She’s a gentle spirit… and so terribly sad. So terribly sad.”

“Sad? Why sad?”

“I don’t know. I suppose it was having it all come to an end when she was still so young.”

“Oh? How young is she?”

“Just fifteen and a half.”

I smiled. “Are you sure she’s not fifteen years, five months, and eleven days old? After all, you do have this particular gift for precise measurements.”

She looked at me with operatic seriousness. “Surely you know that it’s very difficult to judge age down to the number of days.”

I chuckled and let the game go, tossing away my stripped twig. “You know, Katya, I understand Paul’s discomfort with the idea of ghosts… spirits. Daydreamer and incurable romantic though you accuse me of being, my grip on reality is mundanely logical. I feel lost and a little uneasy when I consider forces and events that ignore such relationships as cause and effect, deduction and reason. Do you understand what I mean?”

“Are you saying that you don’t believe in the supernatural?”

“I choose not to. I don’t want to. The irrational frightens me. I would feel more at ease in the presence of a brutal and cruel man than I would in the presence of an insane one.”

She frowned. “Paul’s not insane.”

“Oh, no, you misunderstand me. I wasn’t suggesting he is. I was only saying that I share his discomfort with the idea of the supernatural. I’m suggesting that he’s rigidly sane, like me. Inflexibly rational.”

“And you think that’s best?”

“Well… it’s safe.”

She considered this for a moment. “Yes, it’s safe… but limiting.”

We were silent for a time, as I sought a way to phrase the question that had been lurking in my mind all that day. “Katya? It is obvious that there’s something wrong. Something troubling you and your family.”

She responded with surprising frankness. “Yes, of course there is. I would have been surprised if someone as sensitive as you had failed to feel it.”

“Is it something I can help with? Would it be useful to talk about it?”

“Useful? That’s an odd way to express it. But, yes, it might be… useful.” She seemed to struggle with herself, on the verge of sharing something with me, but not quite daring to.

To make it easier for her I said, “You know that you have a sympathetic and… caring… friend in me. Surely you can sense what I feel for you, Katya.”

She shook her head and turned away, as though to arrest my words.

But I pursued the inertia of the moment, fearing it might not come again. “I haven’t dared to give a name to the feelings I have for you… feelings that stir in me at even the most fleeting thought of you—”

“Please, Jean-Marc…”

“—But if I were to give them a name, I know it would be what they call… love.”

“Please…” She rose from the wicker chair as though to flee, but I caught her hand and drew her to me and held her in my arms.

“Katya…”

“No.” She sought to pull away.

“Katya.” A slight shudder passed through her body, then she stiffened and settled her eyes calmly, but distantly, on mine. She did not struggle to escape, but her passive resistance, her immobile indifference, had the effect of chilling my ardor and making me feel quite stupid and boorish to be holding her, not exactly against her will, but against her lack of will. I wanted both to release her and to kiss her, and I didn’t know which to do.

I was young. I kissed her.

Her lips were soft and warm, but totally unresponsive, and when I opened my eyes after the long kiss, she was staring past me… through me.

I dropped my arms to my sides, but she did not move, so it was I who had to step back, disconcerted, miserable.

“I’m sorry, Katya. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s all right.”

“No. It is not all right. It’s just that… I love you so.”

“It’s all right, Jean-Marc.”

But I shook my head and turned away—

–to find myself looking into the eyes of Paul.

He had evidently come down the path silently and had been witness to my embarrassment.

“Part of your bedside manner, Doctor?” His unmodulated voice was chill.

Humiliated, angry, frustrated, I stammered, “I don’t know why I did that. It was stupid of me. I’ll leave immediately, of course.”

“No, Jean-Paul. Don’t leave,” Katya said, a mixture of compassion and anxiety in her voice.

“No, Katya,” Paul said. “Let the good doctor leave. It’s the noblest impulse he’s had in years.”

“Treville,” I said, focusing my anger on him. “If it weren’t for Katya, I should be delighted to bash that insipid smile from your face!”

“I’m sure you would at least try,” he said in an arch, bored voice.

My jaw tight, the veins throbbing in my temples, my fist knotted, I stood before him, detesting with all my soul the calm indifference in his eyes, but at the same time recognizing it as akin to Katya’s vacant expression when I had kissed her. I drew several long breaths in an effort to rein in my passion, then I closed my eyes and let my fist relax. Turning to Katya, who was watching us with apprehension, I spoke with all the control I could bring to bear. “I regret any distress I have caused you, Katya. The simple… if undesirable… fact is that I love you. And I shall never regret that love, no matter how much I regret my unfortunate way of expressing it.” Even as I spoke, I could have killed myself for the artificial, precious wording derived from my practice of rehearsing “clever” expressions in my daydream life. I was sure I was ruining any chance I might have had to win Katya’s affection, but youthful dignity punctured is a terrible thing, capable of thrashing about in an agony of ego and harming that which it most loves.

With a formal—and I am sure buffoonish—bow, I strode up the path, my spine stiff, my mind a chaos of anger and despair.

As I had been brought to Etcheverria in Paul’s surry, I had to walk all the way back to Salies, my misery contrasting bitterly with the beauty of the evening, my pace and anger ebbing with each step until, by the time I reached the village square, my anger was gone, and my emotions were drained and numb.

* * *

The last thing in the world I felt prepared to face was a conversation with Doctor Gros, but when he hailed me from his customary table under the yellow electric light of arcades I could think of no way to avoid joining him without advertising my misery and making myself a target of his jests.

“Come, sit here, Montjean,” he commanded at full voice, slapping the seat of the chair beside him. “Take a little glass with me by way of consolation.”

“Consolation?”

“Well, perhaps relief, then. It depends on how your little affair with La Treville was getting on, I suppose. At all events, you have staked fair claim on the local record for brevity in romantic episodes—save, perhaps, for a little matter last summer involving our village priest.”

“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I’ll confess some pleasure at seeing this business over. Your comings and goings had quite captured the imaginations and tongues of the town, totally eclipsing my own reputation for romantic agility, which reputation I have always cherished and promoted.”

As he was expertly clouding my Oxygn with a few drops of water, I wondered how news of my contretemps at Etcheverria could have preceded me to Salies, even granting the celerity of rumor for which the village was justly renowned.

“I haven’t the vaguest notion of what you’re talking about, Dr. Gros. But, if you don’t mind, I’d just as soon let the matter rest where it is.”

“Mind? Why should I mind?” Doctor Gros was silent for a moment; then he muttered, “At all events, you still have a week.”

“A week?”

“And prodigious things can be accomplished in a week. God, it is rumored, made everyone in the world in seven days. What an extraordinary sexual feat! True, there was a notably thinner population at the time. Still, if one includes the angels, it was a prodigious feat. You know, I’ve often pondered on the sexual character of the angels, haven’t you? Boys? Girls? Hermaphrodites? Or perhaps they were constructed with no plumbing at all. In which case, their rudimentary functions become something of a miracle. Aha. Anus mirabilis! How’s that? And to think I considered my years of Latin study a waste!”

“What’s all this about a week?”

“Oh, come now, don’t be coy with me. The whole village knows that the Trevilles are moving away one week hence. The young man, the brother, was in town this morning making arrangements. There’s no point in your—” His eyes widened and his voice suddenly lowered. “Oh, my. You didn’t know, did you? I can see it in your face.”

I cleared my throat. “No. In fact, I didn’t know.”

“But, my boy, naturally I assumed… That is, you left town in the company of young Treville this afternoon, so naturally I assumed that he told you of their intention to depart from this tarnished paradise of ours. I am genuinely sorry to be the bearer of sad tidings. Can you forgive me for all that prattle about angels? (Although that bit about anus mirabilis wasn’t half bad.) Here, have another drink at my expense. Punish me economically.”

“Thank you, no. Ah… did young Treville mention where they were going?”

“He did not. And by failing to do so he equipped the village with an infinity of suppositions. Tunis? Martinique? Paris? Pau?—this last destination suggested, as you might suspect, by our banker, a man of uniquely narrow imagination. Is it possible that your young woman withheld this event from you?”

“I’d rather not discuss it further, if you don’t mind.”

“As you wish. It’s up to you, of course. None of my affair.” Doctor Gros sipped his drink and looked across the square with studied indifference. Then suddenly he leaned forward. “You know, it’s possible that she didn’t tell you because she didn’t want to hurt you. It’s even possible that she didn’t know.”

As soon as Gros suggested it, I was convinced this was the case. Katya didn’t know of Paul’s preparations to leave Salies. If she had, she would surely have told me, for of all her qualities none was more characteristic than an open honesty which could amount, at times, to painful frankness. And if she didn’t know, why was Paul keeping it from her? Could it be she would not wish to go? Was she to be taken away against her will?

I excused myself and returned to my room where I sat on the edge of my bed pondering what to do. By the time I fell into a hot, troubled sleep, still fully dressed, I had decided to confront Paul. I would go to Etcheverria and speak to him, however unwelcome I might be. Proper form was of little matter when I was fighting for my happiness and perhaps… I dared to hope… Katya’s as well.

* * *

The following morning, I was taking coffee at my usual table beneath the arcades, my brioches lying untouched on the plate as I was still slightly nauseated by a night of wrenching nightmares. I was surprised to look up and see Katya pushing her bicycle across the square towards me. Hatless as usual, wisps of hair dislodged by the wind of her ride, her smile cheerful and radiant, she accepted the chair I pulled out for her.