The Wine of Solitude Read online

  Hélène rushed into the garden. She ran around it, panting and breathing in the snow. The frozen white path beneath her feet glistened faintly, lit up by a lamp near the steps. What a joy it was to run like this. Her legs were already womanly but had lost none of their agility. The dinner bell rang. The simple fact of this delightful, calming routine filled Hélène with extraordinary pleasure. The shabby little piano sent the notes of the ballad ringing into the still night while the tender voice rose effortlessly, like the song of a bird, like an arrow, up towards the icy sky.

  A big yellow dog came out of the darkness and put his wet nose in Hélène’s hand. She hugged him and gave him a kiss. She could smell hot soup and cakes made of the potato flour they had to use instead of ordinary flour.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ she thought and ran back towards the house. Even this hunger was a new sensation for her, different from the nagging, odious need to eat she’d felt in St Petersburg when food, though still available, was getting harder and harder to come by. She walked around the house, looked at the glowing stove, the lit lamp, a woman in a white apron standing by the light of the fire … How peaceful everything was! Once again she thought of Mademoiselle Rose, but the memory of her, despite being so recent, had already begun to fade. This was surely because it was so tragic: in Hélène’s mind it was transformed into a kind of mournful, poetic dream. In spite of herself she felt carefree, distant, light, free; she was ashamed, but thought, ‘Now that the poor woman is gone, nothing they can do will ever be able to hurt me.’

  She went back to stand beneath the windows of the little sitting room, enjoying the sensation of wading through the hard, thick snow that crunched softly. A lamp covered in a piece of red cloth lit up the room. The woman in black who had called out ‘Fred!’ was now quietly playing a waltz. Her young husband leaned in towards her and kissed her shoulder. A feeling of mysterious poetry, of sweet exhilaration, rushed through Hélène. She jumped off the pile of snow where she sat perched, and they must have seen her little silhouette disappear into the night. The woman leaned forward and smiled; the young man laughed, then shook his finger at her. She ran away, her heart pounding joyously, laughing quietly, for no reason, simply out of pleasure at hearing the forgotten sound of laughter echo through the night.

  2

  The border had not yet been closed, but every train seemed as if it would be the last. Each trip to St Petersburg was an amazing feat, an act of madness and courage. Yet Bella Karol and Max went back every week on some different pretext, for they were never as happy anywhere as in the empty house in St Petersburg: Boris Karol was stuck in Moscow, unable to get away. The Safronovs had left the Caucasus, but Max didn’t know whether they had managed to reach Persia or Constantinople. At the beginning of December he received a letter from his mother begging him to come to her, saying she was alone, old and ill, complaining that he had abandoned her ‘for that horrible woman’. ‘She’ll be your undoing,’ she wrote. ‘Be careful. I’ll die without ever seeing you again. You love me, Max. You won’t forgive yourself for ignoring how I’m begging you. Come back to me, do everything you can to come back to me.’

  But he had delayed his departure until finally it was impossible to cross southern Russia, as it was occupied by the White Army. The day he learned this he had gone into Bella’s room. Ignoring Hélène, who was also there, he said, ‘I have a feeling that I’m never going to see my family again. You’re all I have left in the world.’

  When they went to St Petersburg, Max and Bella left Hélène behind, vaguely relying on others to look after her, in particular Zenia Reuss, the young woman she’d seen that first evening, and an elderly woman named Madame Haas, who said, when talking about Bella, ‘That creature a mother? The caricature of a mother more like!’

  Several different groups of people lived together in Finland; they were on good terms with each other, like passengers caught in a storm, bonding regardless of social class or wealth: Russians, Jews who came from ‘good families’ (the ones who spoke English together and followed the rites of their religion with proud humility), and the nouveaux riches, sceptics, free thinkers with masses of money.

  In the evening they all gathered in the shabby little sitting room. The card players sat round a bridge table; they were always the same people: the fat Salomon Levy with his pot belly and scarlet neck, the Baron and Baroness Lennart, Russians of Swedish origin who were both tall, thin, pale and half hidden in a cloud of their own cigarette smoke. The Baron had a soft, hushed voice and the affected, gentle laugh of a young girl, while his wife spoke with the harshness of a grenadier; she told risqué stories, drank a small decanter of brandy every night, but automatically crossed herself every time the Lord’s name was spoken, without pausing for breath.

  Madame Haas’s elderly husband was also there, a blanket thrown over his shoulders: a fragile man with a weak heart, he had a bluish puffy swelling under his eyes, the sign of the slow death eating away at his flesh. He played cards while his wife sat next to him, gazing at him with the look of anxiety, hope and bad temper unique to people responsible for caring for someone they love who is terminally ill; occasionally she would look away, briskly lifting her head above her pearl ‘dog collar’ and aiming her lorgnette at anyone in sight. The servants lit the gas lamps. The young women sat on uncomfortable little bamboo settees, flimsy and creaky, embroidering doilies. Madame Reuss was one of them. When the other women talked about her they said, ‘She’s beautiful …’

  After a moment of silence they added, ‘She has a charming husband …’

  Then they would slowly shake their heads and with a spontaneous, indulgent smile hovering on their lips and the secretive, proud, scandalised, hypocritical expression of women who know more than they are saying, they would murmur, ‘That Fred, he’s such a devil …’

  Fred Reuss was thirty years old yet looked extraordinarily young; he had shining, playful dark eyes, a lively, mischievous expression and white teeth. Just like the children, he never sat still, always ready to leap up, skip away, never able simply to walk round a chair if he could jump over it, running and playing in the snow with his sons, while his calm, serious, beautiful wife watched him and smiled with maternal tenderness. Fred Reuss only seemed serious when he looked at his eldest son, his one love. He attended to no one’s needs, dodged all his responsibilities, avoided any type of suffering by making light of the situation, or laughing, or doing a little dance. His laughter burst forth, as irresistible as a child’s. His teasing was subtle and mischievous. With all women, and especially his wife, he played at being the spoiled child; even Madame Haas liked him. Joy followed him wherever he went. He was one of those men who seem eternally young, who don’t know how to mature, but who will suddenly grow old, become bitter, spiteful and tyrannical. But for now he was still young.

  And so the evenings passed. The children hung on to the maids’ arms and aprons as they took them up to bed. A damp mist gradually covered the icy windows; the lamp glimmered, giving off smoke.

  The Jews talked about business and, either to amuse themselves or to keep in practice, sold each other land, mines and houses even though the Bolsheviks had confiscated them months earlier. But to consider this type of government as here to stay would have been a sign of bad faith. They thought it would only last for two or three months. The pessimists conceded it might last through the winter. They also speculated on the rouble, the Finnish mark and the Swedish crown. The rates were so unpredictable that in the space of a week, the dark, shabby little sitting room with its soft velvet and bamboo furniture saw fortunes made and lost, while outside the snow continued to fall.

  The Russians would listen, haughty, defiant, then intrigued, interested; they moved their chairs in a bit closer. At the end of the evening they would affectionately put their arms round the necks of the men they had, until then, referred to as ‘Israelites’.

  Among themselves they would even say, ‘Really, they’ve been maligned. Some of them are charming.’

>   The Jews would say, ‘They’re far from being as stupid as people make out. The prince would have made an excellent stockbroker if he’d needed to earn his living.’

  And so the two opposing races lived side by side, thrown together by the hardship of the times. And because they were linked by self-interest, habit and adversity, they were all part of the same little society, united and happy.

  The smoke from the fat cigars rose slowly into the air; stacks of banknotes, whose value fell every day, were scattered around the floor; no one bothered to pick them up and they were often ripped up by the dogs. Sometimes people would go outside to stand on the terrace covered in crunchy snow and watch the faint light of fires burning in the distance.

  ‘Terrioki is burning,’ they would say indifferently, then go back inside, shaking off the snow that in an instant had covered their shoulders and backs.

  Meanwhile, music from the little black piano rang out beneath the fingers of a tall, thin young girl with flaxen hair; she had tuberculosis and looked fragile and worn out; she spent every day on the terrace, motionless in her fur wrap and, when evening fell, she would walk across it, without stopping, without answering the friendly questions she was asked, as if she were a night owl, both attracted and frightened by the light from the living room; sitting herself down on the small green velvet piano stool, she would play continuously, moving from a Chopin nocturne to a rondo by Handel to a Ta-ra-ra-boom-diay, her cheeks burning from the fever she had every night.

  The young women taught Hélène how to sew and embroider; she felt content, happy; she rediscovered the health and vigour of her childhood; the snow, the wind, the long races through the forest had returned the passionate pink glow to her cheeks; she sometimes cast a furtive, shy glance at herself in the mirror and smiled.

  ‘How that little girl is changing!’ the women said, looking at her affectionately. ‘She looks so healthy.’

  For the moment Hélène preferred the company of this group of wise women who listened with pursed lips to Baroness Lennart, talked among themselves about their children and exchanged recipes for jam; while the glow of fires burning in the distance grew brighter through the windows, they bent their heads under the lamplight and cut delicate holes in linen doilies with little gold scissors.

  On Saturday evenings they would go to the village to watch the servants and the Red Guards dance. They climbed into wide, rural sleighs lined with furs or sheepskins. It was impossible to sit up; they stretched out, leaning on one elbow, and fell on top of one another every time they hit a bump.

  Madame Reuss stayed at home with the younger children, but her husband wouldn’t have missed one of the ‘balls’ for the world. He brought his eldest son George with him, but would then leave him in the care of the elderly Madame Haas in order to come and lie beside Hélène. Smiling, he tried to hold her hand in the darkness; he would gently slip off her rough wool glove and squeeze her thin fingers that trembled imperceptibly. Hélène, her heart pounding, looked at the face leaning in towards hers, lit up by the moonlight and the misty, flickering flame of the smoking lantern that hung at the side of the sleigh. An ironic, affectionate little smile hovered on Fred’s lips, on his feminine, quivering mouth; the snow settled on the fur blanket like sequins, bright little sparkling stars. Hélène closed her eyes; she was tired; she had run and played all day in the snow; when they had no toboggans, they used a sleigh with no brakes to hurtle down the hill at great speed; it always seemed to hit some frozen rock, throwing everyone into the thick, soft snow in the deep undergrowth of the forest. Hélène had rediscovered her love of dangerous games, the tomboy rough and tumble.

  The dances on Saturday evenings took place in a barn whose roof was poorly constructed so you could see the dark sky dimly illuminated by the faint flickering of the stars, just like in a Christmas Nativity scene. The musicians straddled benches and played noisy fanfares on drums and brass instruments; the boys danced with loaded guns and large hunting knives with wide flat blades sheathed in stag skin that rattled in their belts as they stamped their boots on the floor. Every now and again a strong-smelling cloud of dust flew up, made of bits of hay, for the storerooms were below the floor; the girls wore red smocks and, to emphasise they were Loyalists, scarlet ribbons in their blond hair and red petticoats beneath their dresses that showed when they danced.

  Sometimes the door would open and an icy wind would rush through the room. From the doorstep they could see the pine trees lit up by the moon; they were tall, still, silvery, and every branch was frozen, as hard and sparkling as steel, glimmering through the darkness. The wood-burning stove hummed; they fed it with newly cut logs, still damp and coated with snow. Thick smoke filled the room, mingling with the mist formed by the dancers’ breath and the steam that rose from the greatcoats and fur hats. Hélène sat on a wooden table, swinging her feet; Fred Reuss stood opposite her and squeezed her leg hard. Hélène pulled away, but behind her a couple was kissing so passionately that they were almost lying on the table. She sat forward again, leaning towards the young man; silently she drank in this new joy, the peace and warmth in her heart that came from the feel of Fred’s body as he gently caressed her ankle. She basked in the new, confusing pleasure of holding her face in such a way that the light fell on to her cheek, for she knew that it was smooth and flawless, aflame with the burning, passionate blood of youth. She laughed in order to show off her white, shiny teeth; she let Fred press her swarthy, thin little hand between his body and the table. The gas lamps hanging from the roof were filled with yellow oil; they swung about when the dancing started up again; it was a kind of French folk dance that finished with some fast turns, which made the floorboards creak and groan. In Reuss’s arms, Hélène skipped and spun round; her face was pale, her lips pinched; she felt her soul fill with gentle dizziness. All around her the ribbons and long hair of the girls flew by, whipping their cheeks, lashing Hélène’s face when the dancing couples hurtled into one another.

  When the men had danced enough and had their fill of contraband alcohol, they picked up their Mausers and shot bullets into the roof. Standing on the table, both hands holding on to Reuss’s shoulders, digging her nails into his back in excitement without even realising it, Hélène watched this game, breathing in the smell of gunpowder that she already knew so well. Reuss’s eldest son, his head as closely shaven as a lawn in spring, jumped joyously up and down on the spot in his coat and twill shirt. It was only when there were no more bullets left that the scuffles began.

  ‘Come on, we have to go now,’ Fred Reuss said with regret. ‘Whatever will my wife say? It’s nearly midnight, come quickly now …’

  They left; outside, the horses were waiting, sniffing the frozen earth, every now and again shaking the snow from their heads; the little bells they wore round their necks would swing, and a sweet, mysterious ringing sound swept through the forest and over the river in its icy shell. Hélène and Reuss, half asleep, swayed gently to the rhythm of the horses’ gait as they climbed the hill. Hélène felt her cheeks burning as if they were on fire; the long day, her tiredness and the smoke made her eyelids feel heavy; she looked lazily up at the pink moon as it slowly rose in the winter sky.

  3

  Hélène whistled for the dogs, silently opened the gate and went out into the garden. The sky was pale and bright; not a single bird could be heard singing in the countryside; between the sparse pine trees, tracks in the shape of stars marked the thick snow where animals had passed by; the dogs sniffed the ground; then they ran off towards the woods where, every day for more than a week, Hélène and Reuss had been meeting.

  At first he had come with his sons, then alone. At the edge of the woods stood an abandoned house; it was a former dacha, a holiday home made of wood, painted eau-de-nil, with entrance steps guarded by two stone griffons; it looked as if it had been set on fire, but then the fire had been put out: one entire section of wall was blackened by smoke. Stones thrown at the windows had shattered them: standing on tiptoe,
you could see into a dark sitting room full of furniture. One day Reuss had reached in through one of the windows and pulled out a photograph in a frame that had been hanging on the wall. The picture was all crinkly and yellow beneath the glass, probably because of the dampness of the long autumn and winter with no fire lit. It was a photograph of a woman. They studied it for a long time, feeling uneasy; the features of the mysterious woman evoked a vague, sombre sense of the poetic. Then they buried the photograph in the snow, beneath a fir tree. The doors of the house had come loose and swayed on their half-broken hinges.

  On that day, while waiting for Hélène, Reuss had gone into the barn and taken a few lightweight Finnish sledges from among the heap of things there. They were made of simple garden chairs set on to blades. The backs of the chairs still bore children’s names carved into the wood with a penknife in large, clumsy letters. Whenever anyone asked the farmers in the area what had happened to the people who’d lived in the house, they suddenly seemed not to understand Russian, or any other language. They would screw up their cruel narrow eyes and turn away without replying.