Rodney Whitaker - The Summer of Katya

I can’t say how long I sat in her wicker chair. Ten minutes? An hour? Impossible to know. My knees tight together, my eyes focused unseeing on the floor of the summerhouse, I felt infinitely alone, and I had a premonition that I would be alone forever. There was no bitterness in this realization, only a kind of calm hopelessness.

And even now, as I pen this description years later, my heart goes out to the lost and empty young man I picture sitting there. I no longer feel the pain. But I remember his… vividly.

Logic tells me that what I shall now relate could not have happened as I remember it. I cannot re-create the events and sensations objectively. All I can do is to describe what I recall to the limits of my skill, accepting that the memory retains only a distorted record of traumatic experiences.

I was sitting there—how long does not matter, for my distress was beyond time—until at last the floor of the summerhouse came back into focus and I found myself shivering with the late-night damp. I drew a long, shuddering sigh that stung my lungs. I had better return to Salies. Why not? What was to be gained by sitting there? I pushed myself out of the wicker chair numbly and started down the steps. I felt a shock, as though I had walked into a solid wall, and there was a blaze of pain in my right side. I think I remember a flash of red light, but I believe it was behind, not in front of, my eyes. I recall no sound, no explosion, but I knew—as one knows things in a nightmare—that I had been shot. The garden lurched to one side, and I was clutching at the doorframe of the summerhouse. My lips must have been pressed against the frame, because I remember the grit of flakes of paint in my mouth. Ice spread through my stomach. Ice in my legs. A tingling weakness down my spine. And the ground rushed up at me as I fell, not to the ground, but through it. Through it… and down, down, tumbling in an echoing chaos of blackness. I can feel the nausea as I write this, and my fingers weaken around the pen. Down and down. Splotches of dim light appeared below me and rushed upwards past me. And there was a sound, like a single bass note of an organ, droning in my ears. I realized with a dreadful calm that I was dying. I am dying. I was faintly surprised to be dying, but quite serene. I am dying. Don’t struggle. Don’t fight it. Let it come.

But no! The animal in me cried out. Live! Live!

I rushed towards another blotch of dim light, and I knew with a sureness beyond reason that this would be the last of the light and everything beneath would be blackness. The glow swelled as I yearned myself towards it. It smeared and swam, then came into focus. Moonlight. A tree of grass close before my eyes. A boot. The toe of a man’s boot. I reached out and grasped the boot to arrest my endless fall. But the boot was tugged from my hold. With all my strength, I looked up, and there, far above me, bulging and rippling like a reflection in water, was Monsieur Treville’s face.

“Please… please…” I muttered through a thick tongue.

His face registered horror, and he recoiled from me.

I heard his voice, hollow and distant. “Oh, my God! My God!”

The blackness was rising inside me again. I could feel its chill shadow swell from within. “Please?…”

And I fell back into the void. An endless blackness… no sound… no light… tumbling… floating…

… floating… towards something white… with lines in it… bars… squares… a window. A window that widened into a wall, all white.

The white walls of the clinic at Salies? What? The clinic?

“Well, well. Lazarus-like, he returns from, if not the dead exactly, at least the thoroughly damaged. Here, drink this down.” Doctor Gros held up my head and set a glass to my lips. “Bottoms up, as the cancan girls say.” The last swallow caught in my throat, making me cough, and the convulsion seared my right side with pain. “Nasty-tasting stuff, I know. But my patients wouldn’t think it efficacious if it were palatable. Something to do with the Christian assumption that pleasure is evil and pain redeeming, I shouldn’t wonder. No, no, don’t try to talk. You’ve lost a lot of blood, and you’ve undergone a general somatic shock. But no vital organ was hit. You’ll live to a ripe old age—not that the medical profession has much cause to rejoice at that prospect.”

“What… what happened to… where?… where?…” I couldn’t think clearly.

“You really should try to polish up your skills as a conversationalist, Montjean. Babbling is for politicians and priests. But I’d rather you didn’t talk for a while. I’ll explain a bit to set your mind at rest. Young Treville brought you here in their cariole. He said something about an accident while he was showing you his target pistols. Considering what we know of the history of that family, I assume that was a lie. Naturally, I considered contacting the gendarmerie, but in view of your relations with the family, I thought I’d better wait until you regained consciousness. And you certainly took your time about that. It’s early morning. I’ve been sitting up with you all night. You’ll doubtless have a relapse when you see my bill. Well? Is it a matter for the gendarmerie?”

I shook my head weakly.

“Hm-m-m. I don’t know how wise that is. But I’m willing to concede that it’s your affair. I’ve been pondering this most of the night—nothing much else to occupy my mind, you understand. I assume it was the old man who shot you?”

“I don’t… I couldn’t see.”

“Well, it stands to reason, doesn’t it? After all, he has earned a reputation for that sort of social excess.”

I resented his trivially joking tone, but I was too limp and empty to admonish him.

“It couldn’t have been the brother who shot you. If he is the expert shot he’s reputed to be, you would be out of your misery—administering to the medical needs of the Heavenly Host, whatever those needs might be. Palliatives for boredom, probably. Or restoratives after the shock of meeting up with friends and family you’d thought you were finally rid of forever.”

I turned my head to the window. “It’s morning?”

“Yes. You’ve been unconscious all night. I stood at the window and watched dawn come—a thing I haven’t done in years, and one I hope I shall be able to avoid in the future. It threatens to be another beautiful day, for all the good that does you.”

“Please… please help me get up.”

“Don’t be stupid! You know, something just occurred to me. I wonder just how good a shot the Treville boy would be, considering that he would have to shoot with his left hand. Something to ponder, eh? Food for thought.”

“Dr. Gros? I must go to Etcheverria. Katya…”

“Listen to me, son. Your wound is still fresh. The bullet just clipped your side. You’re luckier than you deserve. You’ve benefited from God’s peculiar affection for fools, drunks, and lovers. But you’ve lost a lot of blood.”

“I must go!”

“Don’t be an ass, Montjean. That was laudanum I gave you just now. In a few minutes you’ll be unconscious and out of harm’s way. There’s no point in fighting it.”

I could already feel a velvet numbness rising in my brain. Although I knew it was futile, I could not help struggling against it. Katya needed me. When the opiate finally overwhelmed me, I went under in a nauseating turmoil of resistance and terror.

When I emerged again into consciousness, I was alone in the room, bathed in sweat and so weak that it took concentrated effort to lift my head and look towards the window. From the quality of the light I knew it was midafternoon. With trembling effort, I sat up and gingerly slipped my legs over the side of the bed. A wave of giddiness passed off, leaving me with a throbbing headache. I tugged up my nightdress and pulled off the plaster to examine my wound. It was tender and raw, and two ugly black threads merged with the redness where Doctor Gros had stitched it closed, but the wound was quite superficial and there was no bleeding. I redressed it; then I ventured to stand beside the bed. There was dizziness and a swim of pain, but I could stay on my feet. My clothes were hanging on a peg on the far wall, and I got dressed, moving cautiously, leaning against the wall each time a wave of light-headedness overcame me. My clothes were soiled, and the shirt was stiff with blood on the right, but I did not dare return to my boardinghouse for a change lest Doctor Gros discover my absence and make a commotion. Slipping unnoticed out the back door, I made my way to the stable where I found the boy drowsing on a pile of loose hay. He harnessed up the mare for me, and soon I was out of Salies and on the road to Etcheverria.