The Wine of Solitude (16 page)

‘What’s that?’ Hélène asked absent-mindedly.

Reuss didn’t reply; leaning out of the window, he watched the lights as they moved, for there were many now; they had sprung up all over, flickering, disappearing, reappearing, criss-crossing like dancers in a ballet. He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I don’t understand … I can see one, two, three, women’s cloaks,’ he said, pressing his face to the window, ‘but what can they be looking for here? They’re looking for something in the snow,’ he said again, counting each of the little flames that encircled the house, until gradually they disappeared.

He walked back over to Hélène, who sat motionless; she smiled, finding it hard to keep her eyes open: from dawn until dusk they’d played on sledges, skied, raced through the countryside, and these endless kisses … When night fell all she dreamed of was her bed and the long, wonderful hours of sleep until morning.

He sat down beside her and began kissing her again without worrying about the open door. Feeling eager excitement, she basked in these slow, silent kisses, in the reddish glow of the lamp that flickered and smoked, in this perfect security, this lightness, this feeling that the entire world could crumble around them and that nothing would ever be as wonderful as the taste of his moist mouth that she clung to with hers, the way he caressed her with his strong, supple hands. Sometimes she would stretch out her arms and push him away.

‘What’s the matter?’ he would say. ‘Am I frightening you?’

‘No. Why?’ she would reply. And her childlike innocence, as she allowed herself to be kissed like a woman, aroused his desire even more.

‘Hélène,’ he whispered.

‘Yes?’

He murmured something; his words tailed away as if by some mysterious intoxication; his pale skin, his dishevelled hair, his trembling lips terrified her, but what she felt most was the sensation of wild, proud pleasure.

‘Do you love me?’

‘No,’ she said, smiling.

He would never hear a word of affection from her, a confession of love.

‘He doesn’t love me,’ she thought. ‘He’s getting pleasure out of this and it’s only because I don’t act like a docile, silly little girl in love that he still wants me and doesn’t get bored with me.’

She thought she was so wise, so mature, so womanly …

‘I don’t love you, my darling, but I like you,’ she said.

He pushed her away angrily. ‘You little hag, get away, I hate you!’

Madame Haas came into the room. ‘Have you seen what’s going on?’ she exclaimed, upset.

‘No, what is it?’

She didn’t reply, just picked up the lamp, held it up to the window and used the flames to melt the ice that covered the glass. ‘I’m sure I saw the servants leave, an hour ago. They were running towards the forest and they haven’t come back.’

She pressed her face against the window, but it was pitch dark outside; she opened the window a bit; her grey hair flew about in the wind.

‘Where were they going? It’s impossible to see anything. This will all end badly. The White Army is getting closer every day. Do you think they’ll come and warn us when they intend to take over the village? But who listens to an old woman? You’ll see, though, you’ll see! I hope to God I’m wrong, but I can feel something bad is happening,’ she cried, her voice shrill and plaintive, shaking her head like an elderly Cassandra.

Hélène stood up, walked over to the kitchen door and opened it; they saw that the fire was lit and continued to burn in the empty room, lighting up the table that had been laid with crockery and the food for dinner. But not a single soul was in the large room, normally full of the sound of voices and footsteps. The laundry room next door was also deserted, but the ironing boards had been left open with damp sheets carefully hanging over them: it looked as if someone had come to fetch the servants and they had immediately run away.

Hélène went outside and stood on the steps; she called out, but no one replied.

‘They took the dogs!’ she said, going back inside as she shook the snow from her bare head. ‘I can’t hear them, yet they know my voice very well …’

A woman appeared. ‘The White Army is surrounding the village!’ she shouted.

Doors opened; everyone held a lit candle, for it was the only way to light the house and these little flickering flames flew from room to room; the children woke up and started crying.

Hélène went back into the sitting room; it had gradually filled up with people. The women pressed their faces to the windows; they spoke to each other quietly.

‘But it isn’t possible … we would have heard them …’

‘Why? Do you think they make announcements?’ asked Madame Haas sarcastically.

‘Get that woman out of here,’ Reuss whispered in Hélène’s ear. ‘If I have to listen to her any more I’ll wring the old crow’s neck.’

‘Listen!’ cried Hélène.

The kitchen door banged violently in the silence. Everyone stopped talking.

One of the servants appeared at the door; she was an elderly Russian cook whose son was in the Red Guard; her cloak was covered in snow and her face looked exhausted and defeated; her dishevelled white hair fell over her forehead.

She looked at the women all around her, crossed herself and said, ‘Pray for the souls of Hjalmar, Ivan, Olaf and Eric. They were taken prisoner tonight by the White Army, along with some other boys from the village. They were taken and shot, then their bodies were just thrown somewhere in the
forest. We women went to look for the bodies to bury them, but the priest refused to let us into the cemetery, saying that Communist dogs didn’t deserve any graves on Christian soil. We’re going to bury them in the forest ourselves. God help us!’

She slowly walked away and closed the door. Hélène opened the window and watched them disappear into the night, each one carrying a shovel and a lantern that lit up the snow.

‘But what about us? Us!’ yelled Levy. ‘What’s going to happen to us in all this?’

Behind Hélène, a mass of buzzing voices rose up.

‘We have nothing to fear from the White Army, that’s for sure, but we’ve landed right in the middle of a battlefield. The best thing would be to leave right now.’

‘Didn’t I say that?’ murmured the elderly Madame Haas with deep satisfaction.

‘Fred,’ asked Zenia Reuss, ‘should we wake the children?’

‘Of course. And be sure to dress them very warmly. Who wants to go with me to get the horses?’

‘Wait until morning,’ Madame Haas advised anxiously. ‘It’s too dark out. You might get caught in the crossfire. And besides, where would you go in the middle of the night, in this cold, with women and children?’

All the mothers had appeared by now, each holding a child in her arms. They weren’t crying but stared in wide-eyed surprise. Reuss suggested they play cards to make the time pass more quickly, so they set up the bridge tables as they did every night. Hélène looked around her; all the children, big or little, were sitting next to their mothers, and each
mother had placed a trembling hand on their bent shoulders and foreheads, as if their delicate hands had the power to stop bullets.

Reuss went over to his wife and tenderly placed his hand on her arm. ‘Don’t be afraid, my darling, you mustn’t be afraid, we’re together,’ he whispered, and Hélène felt an invisible vice tightening round her heart.

‘He loves her so very much … But of course he loves her: she’s his wife,’ she thought with stifled anger. ‘What’s got into me? But all the same, I’m so very alone …’

She walked away, sat down on the window ledge and absent-mindedly watched the snow as it fell.

‘The way he looks at her!’ she thought, tortured by a kind of suffering she’d never felt before. ‘The way he takes his sons’ hands! He loves his children so much. Oh, look how much he cares about me now, me whom he kissed and caressed so tenderly just five minutes ago. I’m so glad I didn’t say “I love you”. But do I love him? I don’t know. I’m in pain, it’s not fair, I wasn’t meant to suffer like this, I’m too young …’

She looked at her mother and Max with hatred.

‘It’s because of them …’ She turned towards Max. ‘I hate him, I could kill him,’ she thought, but then, as the pathetic childish curses rose to her lips, she had an idea.

‘How stupid I am! Vengeance is within my grasp. I knew how to get Fred Reuss when all the women were after him. Max is just a man. If I wanted to … Oh, my God, don’t tempt me. But … she deserves it. My poor Mademoiselle Rose. How they made her suffer. Forgive them? Why? Why should I? Yes, I know. God said: “Vengeance is mine …” Well, too bad. I’m not a saint; I can’t forgive her. Wait, just
you wait and you’ll see. I’ll make you cry the way you made me cry. You never taught me goodness, forgiveness. It’s very simple: you never taught me anything but to be afraid of you and how to behave at mealtimes. Everything is hateful, I’m suffering, the world is evil. Wait, just you wait, you old …!’

The lamp flickered one last time and went out. The men swore and waved their lit cigarettes about.

‘Well! There’s not a drop of petrol, of course, and there’s no one in the kitchen …’

‘I know where the candles are,’ said Hélène.

She found two candles; one was placed among the men playing cards and the other on the piano, the only light in the shabby little room that Hélène was never to see again.

The children fell asleep. Every now and again one of the men said, ‘Really, we’d be better off going to bed to get some rest. It’s ridiculous sitting here. What good are we doing?’

But the women said over and over again, nervously, ‘Let’s stay together, we feel better when we’re all together …’

It was nearly midnight when they heard the first gunshots. The men turned white and dropped their cards. Sometimes the shooting came closer, then sounded far away.

‘Put out the lights,’ someone cried anxiously.

They rushed to the candles and blew them out. In the darkness, Hélène could hear the sound of panicked breathlessness and murmurs of ‘My God, my God, dear Lord God …’

Hélène laughed to herself; she liked the sound of the gunfire; a wild exhilaration made her shudder and quiver with joy.

‘They’re so afraid. They’re so upset, all of them!
I’m
not afraid. I won’t let anyone frighten me. I’m enjoying myself, I’m enjoying this,’ she mused; and to her the battle, the danger, the risk were all transformed into a terrible but exciting game; she suddenly felt herself stronger, more mockingly detached than she had ever felt before or would ever feel again. She was eager to enjoy the feeling, as if she had a premonition that from this moment on, everyone she loved in the future, every child she might love, would steal a little bit of this strength, this cold-blooded courage from her, leaving her just like everyone else, part of the herd, pressing their families, their own flesh and blood, tightly against them in the darkness. No one spoke. Every mother covered her children with her skirts to protect them from the cold night, all the while convinced that none of them would live to see the dawn. She could hear belts full of gold creaking in the darkness; a child was crying softly. Old Haas’s shawl slipped to the ground; he moaned and sighed pleadingly; his elderly wife worried that anxiety and the freezing cold night would kill him: he had a heart condition. Tears of irritation fell down her face.

‘My God! You can be such a nuisance,’ she said, sounding angry yet loving, ‘My poor husband …’

Max and Fred Reuss had gone to the village to try to find some horses. The night passed by. They still hadn’t returned.

‘Does anyone have any spirits?’ asked Madame Reuss. ‘We must give them something to drink when they get back. It’s such a cold night.’

She spoke in a soft, calm voice, as if she were talking about a peaceful stroll on the plains.

Hélène shrugged her shoulders. ‘Poor woman,’ she thought. ‘Doesn’t she realise they might never make it back?’

Madame Haas went into her room, clattering the keys that swung from her belt; she soon returned with a flask of alcohol. Madame Reuss took the bottle and thanked her. It was only when someone used his cigarette lighter that Hélène could see how deathly pale the young woman’s face was.

‘She loves him too much to give up hope,’ she thought, as regret – regret she felt too late – rose up in her soul. ‘When you love someone as much as that, you don’t believe they can die. You think your love protects them. Even if he doesn’t come back, even if he gets lost in the snow or is hit by a stray bullet, she’ll wait for him … faithfully. Is it possible she hasn’t noticed anything? Oh, quite the opposite, she has known for a long time, but she must be used to it. She says nothing. She’s right. Her Fred really does belong to her.’

She looked at her mother, who was trembling and anxiously trying to find a light in the dark night.

‘But why are you so anxious, my dear?’ Madame Haas said to her. ‘Your daughter is with you.’ Her voice was soft and malicious.

It seemed to Hélène that all the people gathered there were opening up their hearts to her, without intending to; she was sitting on the window ledge, swinging her legs towards the shapeless mass huddled in the darkness, listening to the sound of incessant gunfire; it was low-pitched and intense. A few minutes later they all left the room and climbed up the stairs, for they were afraid that stray bullets might come in through the windows. Hélène alone remained there with the young woman with tuberculosis; she had silently come in, sat down
on the piano stool and started to play, feeling her way across the keyboard, separating herself from the families who were as warm and loving as cattle in a stable. Hélène pulled back a shutter; at once the moonlight shimmered on to the keyboard and the thin hands that played such passionate, impish music.

‘Mozart,’ said the young woman.

Then they fell silent. They had never exchanged a single word; they would never see each other again. Hélène held her head in her hands and listened to the tender, delicate, mocking harmonies, the clear, light chords, the laughter that scoffed at darkness and death, and she felt the dizzying, proud exhilaration of being herself, Hélène Karol, ‘stronger, freer than all of them …’.

In the morning someone called her: the horses were there.