Rodney Whitaker - The Summer of Katya

“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.

“Isn’t it a beautiful morning!” she said. “I was awake with the first light and the dew on the meadows sparkled like… well, like diamonds, I suppose. It’s a great pity that certain clichйs are such exact descriptions that they’re difficult to avoid, unless one is willing to sacrifice clarity for originality. Would you order me a cup of coffee?”

Petty though it must seem, I was annoyed that the events that had tortured me all night long seemed not to have touched her at all. I could not help feeling there was something insensitive in her buoyancy, so there was an edge to my voice when I asked, “Does your brother know you’ve come to town?”

“No,” she said simply, as though it were a matter of little concern. “Aren’t you going to eat those brioches?”

“I haven’t much appetite.”

“I’m sorry. May I have them? I’m ravenous.”

“By all means.”

When the waiter had departed, leaving a fresh cup and pots of coffee and hot milk, I pursued, “I’m sure Paul would be furious if he knew you were here.”

She took her first long sip of cafй au lait thirstily, looking into the cup as a child does. “Hmm, that’s good. Yes, I’m sure he would be. But let’s not talk about that. It’s too perfect a morning.”

“No, Katya. I want to talk about it. I’ve passed a dreadful night, and I want to talk about what is happening to me… to us.”

“You know, Jean-Marc, you’re not the only one who has passed a terrible night,” she said with a note of remonstration in her voice.

I could not believe, from the freshness in her face and the clear sparkle of her eye that she had suffered through a white night.

As it turned out, she was not speaking of herself. “When I came down this morning I found Paul asleep on the floor of the salon. He had been drinking and he looked ghastly and somehow pitiful, lying there under the hearth rug he had pulled over himself. I felt quite perfidious, leaving him in that state. But I had to be away from the house. Out into this glorious morning. And too…” She glanced away. “…I wanted to be with you, I suppose.”

It was difficult for me to picture the cool, self-possessed Paul Treville drinking his way through a night of suffering, but the image gave me an odd sense of fellow-feeling with him, not unmixed, I must confess, with a certain satisfaction at his having shared in the pain his high-handedness had caused. But overriding this mixture of sympathy and callous satisfaction was the warming effect of that phrase, “…I wanted to be with you.”

I placed my hand over hers, and she did not withdraw it for a full minute before confessing with a little laugh, “I really don’t know how to drink coffee with my left hand, and I’d feel a fool to spill it.”

I lifted my hand. “Katya, let me be frank with you.”

“That always means you intend to say something unpleasant.”

“No, not at all. Well… perhaps. I don’t understand how you can be in such good spirits while I—and Paul, evidently—am suffering so.”

“It’s something one learns, Jean-Marc. One must learn to empty one’s mind and seek… not joy, exactly… peace, perhaps. How else could one go on?”

“But, for God’s sake, what in your life—in your family-brings you such pain that you have to build barricades against it?”

She sat still for a moment, her eyes lowered as though she were thinking something out. Then she shook her head. “No. It’s not a thing I can talk about. Not even with you.”

“But you can talk about it with me, Katya. You know that I—”

“Hush!” Then, more softly. “Hush, please.”

“Well, you will at least let me say that I am fond of you, won’t you?”

“Yes,” she said, smiling at me with a wistful sadness. “I know you are. And I take pleasure in it.”

“But you are not willing to share this—whatever it is—with me?”

“I’ll share other things with you. When I’m happy, or when I think of a particularly good pun… I’ll share those things with you. That will have to be enough.”

“It’s not enough at all. Good Lord, Katya, we share our happiness with anybody… with total strangers. It’s sharing the sadnesses and pain that matters. Surely you know that.”

“Yes, I know that. It’s one of those truisms that has the misfortune of being true.”

“Well then?”

Her eyes searched mine for a moment. Then she smiled. “You know, Jean-Marc, your eyes are so dark they’re almost black. It must take a tremendous amount of light to fill them.”

I turned away from her, displeased at having the subject changed in that obvious way.

“Please don’t pout, Jean-Marc.”

“I am not pouting.” Unfortunately, there is no way to say that without sounding petulant.

“Listen to me, dear.” This word of affection touched me even through my frustration and despair, particularly as she used the intimate tu form for the first time. “I am sure I shall be able to patch things up with Paul. He is quick to anger, but quick to forgive.”