David Golder, The Ball, Snow in Autumn & The Courilof Affair (2008) (24 page)

“What a farce!” Kampf hissed through clenched teeth, his face ashen. “Will you just shut up!”

“Now, now, Alfred, don’t shout, you should be cuddling her…”

“Well, if she insists on making herself look ridiculous…”

He turned sharply on his heels and called out to the musicians, “What are you still doing here? How much do we owe you? Now get the hell out of here, for God’s sake …”

Mademoiselle Isabelle slowly picked up her feather boa, her lorgnette, her handbag.

“It would be better if I left, Alfred, unless I can be of some help in any way, my poor dear…”

As he did not reply, she leant forward and kissed Rosine on the forehead, who remained motionless, her eyes dry and unblinking.

“Good-bye, my dear, please believe how sorry I am; I do feel foryou,” she whispered, mechanically, as if she were at a funeral. “No, Alfred, no, don’t bother seeing me out; I’m going, I’m leaving, I’m already gone. Cry as much as you like, my poor Rosine, you’ll feel better,” she called out again at the top of her voice from the empty reception room.

As she walked through the dining room, Alfred and Rosine could hear her say to the servants, “Be careful not to make any noise. Madame is very upset, very distressed.”

Then, finally, there was the hum of the lift and the dull thud of the doors in the courtyard opening and closing again.

“Horrible old bitch,” murmured Kampf “If at least…”

He stopped short. Rosine suddenly leapt to her feet, her face wet with tears, and shook her fist at him.

“It’s all because of you,” she shouted. “It’s all your fault, you fool! You and your filthy vanity, wanting to show off… It’s all because of you! The gentleman wishes to give a ball! To play host! What a farce! Do you think people don’t know who you
are, where you come from?
Nouveau riche!
They really screwed you, didn’t they, your friends, your so-called friends. Thieves, crooks, the lot of them!”

“And what about yours? Your counts, your marquises, your pimps!”

They continued to shout at each other, a surge of angry, heated words that poured out like a flood. Then Kampf said more quietly, through clenched teeth, “When I picked you up out of the gutter, you’d already been around… God knows where! You think I was blind, that I didn’t know? But I thought you were pretty and intelligent—that if one day I got rich, you’d make me proud of you…Well, I’ve been lucky, haven’t I! Look where it’s landed me: you’ve got the manners of a fishwife. You’re nothing but an old woman with the manners of a fishwife!”

“Other men were happy with me …”

“I’m sure they were. But don’t give me any details. You’ll regret it tomorrow if you do … “

“Tomorrow? And what makes you think I’d spend another minute with you after the way you’ve spoken to me? You brute!”

“Leave then! Go to hell!”

He walked out, slamming the door.

“Alfred, come back!” Rosine called after him.

She waited, breathless, her face turned towards the reception room, but he was already long gone … He was taking the stairs. She could hear his furious voice in the street shouting, “Taxi, taxi…” then it grew fainter, disappearing around the corner.

The servants had gone upstairs, banging the doors and leaving all the lights on. Rosine, in her dazzling dress and pearls, collapsed into an armchair and sat there, motionless.

Suddenly she made a violent movement that was so abrupt and unexpected that Antoinette jumped and banged her head against the wall. Trembling, she made herself as small as she could; but her mother hadn’t heard anything. She was pulling off her bracelets one by one and throwing them on to the floor. One of the bracelets was heavy and beautiful, decorated with enormous diamonds; it rolled under the settee and landed at Antoinette’s feet. Antoinette, frozen to the spot, just stared.

She saw her mother’s face—the tears streaming down her
cheeks, streaking her make-up. It was a wrinkled face, a face so distorted and scarlet, it looked childish, comical, pitiful… But Antoinette felt no pity; she felt nothing but a kind of contempt, a scornful indifference. One day, she would say to some young man, “Oh, I was a horrible little girl, you know. Why once I even …” Suddenly, she felt blessed because her future was full of promise, because she had all the strength of youth, because she was able to think, “How could anyone cry like that, just because of something like this… What about love, what about death? She’s going to die one day. Has she forgotten about that?”

So, grown-ups also suffered over trivial things, did they? And she, Antoinette, had been afraid of them, had trembled because of their shouting, their anger, their vain, absurd threats … Ever so quietly, she slipped out of her hiding place. For a moment longer, still hidden in the shadows, she looked at her mother: she had stopped sobbing but remained huddled over, letting the tears flow down to her mouth without bothering to wipe them away. Then Antoinette stood up.

“Mother.”

Madame Kampf leapt out of her chair.

“What are you doing here?” she shouted nervously. “Get out, get out at once! Leave me the hell alone! I can’t even have a moment’s peace in my own house any more!”

Antoinette, her face pale, stayed where she was, her head lowered. The shrill voice was still ringing in her ears, but it was distant and stripped of all its force, like the sound of false thunder in the theatre. One day, and soon, she would say to some young man, “Mother will make a fuss, but never mind…”

Slowly she stretched out her hand and began gently stroking her mother’s hair with trembling fingers.

“Poor Mama, never mind…”

For a while, Rosine automatically continued to protest, pushing her away and shaking her contorted features. “Go away, I tell you. Leave me alone …”

Then a weak, defeated expression came over her face.

“Oh, my poor darling, my poor little Antoinette…You’re so very lucky—yes, you really are—not to have yet seen how underhanded, how malicious, how unfair people can be … All
those people who smiled at me, sent me invitations… They were just laughing at me behind my back! They despised me because I wasn’t one of them. Nasty bitches… But you wouldn’t understand, my poor darling. And your father! Oh, you’re all I have! You’re all I have, my poor darling…”

She threw her arms around her. Since Antoinette’s silent face was pressed against her pearls, she couldn’t see that her daughter was smiling.

“You’re a good girl, Antoinette…” she said.

It was at this moment, this fleeting moment that their paths crossed “on life’s journey.” One of them was about to ascend, and the other to plunge downwards into darkness. But neither of them realised it.

“Poor Mama,” Antoinette said softly. “Poor Mama…”.

SHE
NODDED.
“So we say good-bye, Yourotchka… Take good care of yourself, my darling boy,” she said, as she had so often in the past.

How quickly time passed… When he was a child, leaving for school in Moscow in the autumn, he would come to say goodbye to her like this, in the very same room. That had been ten, twelve years ago.

She looked at his officer’s uniform almost with surprise, a kind of sorrowful pride.

“Ah, Yourotchka, my boy, it seems like it was just yesterday.”

She fell silent, gesturing wearily. She had been with the Karine family for fifty-one years. She was the nanny to Nicolas Alex-androvitch, Youri’s father; after him, she had brought up his brothers and sisters, his children. She still remembered Alexandre Kirilovitch, killed in 1877 at thirty-nine in the war with Turkey. And now it was the children’s turn: Cyrille, Youri, it was their turn to go off to war …

She sighed, making the sign of the cross over Youri.

“Go, and may God protect you, my darling boy.”

“Of course, my dear.”

He smiled, a resigned, mocking look on his face. He had the heavy, youthful features of a serf. He didn’t look like the other Karines. He took the old woman’s small hands in his own; they were as hard as bark, almost black. When he started to raise them to his lips, she blushed and quickly pulled them away.

“Are you mad? You don’t think I’m some beautiful young lady, do you? Go on now, Yourotchka, go downstairs… They’re still dancing down there.”

“Good-bye, Nianiouchka, Tatiana Ivanovna,” he said, sounding a bit lazy and slightly ironic. “Good-bye. I’ll bring you back a silk shawl from Berlin, though I’d be surprised if I ended up
there; but, in the meantime, I’ll send you some nice fabric from Moscow as a New Year’s present.”

She forced herself to smile, pinching her lips even more; they had remained delicate, but were now tighter and pulled inwards, as if sucked into her mouth by her ageing jaw. She was seventy years old, very small and fragile-looking, with a smiling, lively face; her eyes were still piercing at times, and at others, calm and weary. She shook her head.

“You make many promises, and your brother’s just the same. But you’ll forget us once you’re gone. Well, may it be God’s will that it all ends soon, and that you’ll both come back home. Do you think this wretched war will soon be over?”

“Definitely. It will end quickly and badly.”

“You mustn’t joke like that,” she said crossly. “Everything is in the hands of God.”

She walked away, kneeling down in front of the open trunk.

“You can tell Platochka and Piotre to come up and take whatever they want. Everything is ready. The fur coats are on the bottom with the tartan rugs. When are you leaving? It’s midnight.”

“We’ll be all right as long as we get to Moscow by morning. The train leaves tomorrow at eleven o’clock.”

She sighed, shaking her head in that familiar way.

“Ah, Lord Jesus, what a sad Christmas.”

Downstairs someone was playing a light, lively waltz on the piano; she could hear the dancers moving across the old wooden floors and the metallic sound of the men’s boots.

Youri waved. “Good-bye, I’m going downstairs, Nianiouchka.”

“Go, my dear.”

She was alone. “The boots… the things for the old overnight bag…” she mumbled as she folded the clothing, “they could still be useful at war… Have I forgotten anything? The fur coats are at the bottom…”

Thirty-nine years before, when Alexandre Kirilovitch had gone, she had packed his uniforms the very same way. Dear Lord, she remembered it well. The old chambermaid, Agafia, was still alive then… She herself was young… She closed her eyes, let out a deep sigh, clumsily got up.

“I’d really like to know where Platochka and Petka are, the scoundrels,” she grumbled. “May God forgive me. Everyone’s drunk today.” She picked up the shawl that had fallen on the floor, wrapped it around her head and face, went downstairs. The children’s wing had been built in the old part of the house. It was beautiful, with fine architecture and a large Greek pediment decorated with columns; the grounds stretched all the way to the next village, Soukharevo. Tatiana Ivanovna hadn’t lived anywhere else in fifty-one years. She alone knew every cupboard, all the cellars, and the dark, deserted rooms on the ground floor that, in the past, had been the grand reception rooms, home to many generations.

She walked quickly through the sitting room. Cyrille saw her, laughingly called out: “Well, Tatiana Ivanovna. So your dear boys are leaving, are they?”

She frowned and smiled at the same time. “Now, now, it won’t do you any harm to rough it a little, Kirilouchka …”

He and his sister Loulou had the beauty, the sparkling eyes, the contented and cruel features of the Karines before them. Loulou was waltzing in the arms of her younger cousin, Tcher-nichef, a schoolboy of fifteen. She was dazzling, with rosy cheeks, fiery red from the dancing; her thick, long black hair coiled around her small head, like a dark crown.

“Time,” mused Tatiana Ivanovna. “Time… Ah, my God, you don’t notice how quickly it goes, and then one day you realise that these little children are taller than you… Lulitchka, even she’s become a young lady … My God, and it was only yesterday that I was telling her father: ‘Don’t cry, Kolinka, you’ll feel better soon, my treasure.’ He’s an old man now.”

He was standing in front of her with Helene Vassilievna. He saw her, started, whispered: “Already, Tatianouchka? Are the horses ready?”

“Yes, it’s time, Nicolas Alexandrovitch. I’ll have the baggage put on the sleigh.”

He lowered his head, gently biting his wide, pale lips.

“My God, already? Very well. What can you do? Come on then, come on.”

He turned towards his wife, smiling faintly. “Children will
grow, and old people will fret,” he said, his voice as weary and controlled as ever. “Isn’t that so, Nelly? Come along, my dear, I really think it’s time now.”

They looked at each other without saying a word. She nervously threw her black lace scarf over her long, supple neck, the only part of her that had remained as beautiful as it had been in her youth, that and her green eyes that shimmered, like water.

“I’m coming with you, Tatiana.”

“What for?” said the old woman, shrugging her shoulders. “You’ll only get cold.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she murmured impatiently.

Tatiana Ivanovna followed her in silence. They crossed an empty little room. In the past, Helene Vassilievna was known as the Countess Eletzka?a. On those summer nights, she would come to see Nicolas Karine, and they would walk through this little door to go into the sleeping house… It was here that she would sometimes run into the old nanny, Tatiana, in the morning. She could still picture her, pressed against the wall to let her pass as she made the sign of the cross. That all seemed long gone and past, like an eerie dream. When Eletzki died, she’d married Karine. At the beginning, Tatiana Ivanovna’s hostility had upset and annoyed her, and often … She was young then. Now it was different. Now she took a kind of sad, ironic pleasure in watching the way the old woman looked at her, how she recoiled from her, how prudish she was, as if she was still that young adulteress running to meet her lover beneath the old lime trees… That, at least, she retained from her youth.

“You didn’t forget anything, did you?” she asked out loud.