Rodney Whitaker - The Summer of Katya

The tears flowed down her cheeks. I took her into my arms and held her tightly, my eyes squeezed shut, my cheek pressed against hers, as her body racked with painful sobs.

In her final struggle to remember as Katya and to understand as Paul she had spoken an unearthly dialogue, her voice shifting in and out of the ugly guttural rasp that was Paul. The effort had sapped her strength, and now she rested her weight against me as the sobs resided and her panicked breathing slowed and calmed. I held her and rocked her gently in my arms. One of her tears found its way to the corner of my mouth. I can taste the warm salt to this day.

Then she stiffened in my arms and pulled away, and when I looked into her amused, metallic eyes, I knew she was Paul now… and forever.

She turned from me and smoothed down her hair with the palm of her hand. She wiped the tears from her cheeks with quick, impatient gestures; then she laughed three mirthless notes and turned to settle her cool, superior eyes on me. “Taken all in all, old fellow, we’ve had quite an exciting couple of hours around here. Pity you missed it.”

The hoarse voice, the smirking tone, the sardonic shallow smile in the eyes. Yes, Katya was quite, quite gone.

I took a deep breath and spoke, my voice husky with tears. “What… what are you going to do now, Paul?”

“Oh, come, old fellow, what options have I? It’s obvious that Katya’s suicide will be set to my account. After all, let’s face it, it’s not the most believable story in the world. And it wouldn’t be the guillotine for me. Nothing that tidy.” She chuckled. “I’m sure that if Katya were here she’d be unable to resist a pun about ‘losing one’s head.’ No, it wouldn’t be the guillotine for me. And the prospect of my wallowing in the filth of some asylum is beneath consideration. Imagine the quality of the conversation—to say nothing of the food!” She chuckled again. “No, no, it won’t do at all.” She mounted the two steps to the summerhouse, took up the pistol from the wicker chair, then sat in Paul’s sprawling, careless way. “Fortunately, gentlemen of my class have prescribed responses to awkward situations of this kind. Katya was right about the advantages of being a man in this society. Now I really think you should be on your way, Doctor. You’re looking a little pallid. Loss of blood will do that, you know, even to the notoriously full-blooded Basques.”

I knew that she—he was right. There was no other way. Katya living on as a spectacle in some asylum? Like Mlle M.? No. Oh, no. And the fact was, Katya was already dead, lying on her bed up in the house.

Drained, adrift in a vertigo of hopelessness, I turned to leave.

But I was arrested by Paul’s lazy drawl. “Oh, by the way, here’s a little something Katya wanted me to give you.” He tugged a small silk drawstring bag from his coat pocket. “They’re yours, I believe.”

“No, not mine. They were gifts to Katya.”

“Oh, really?” He examined one of the pebbles with mild disrelish. “Well, no one could ever accuse you of being a mad spendthrift when it comes to gift-giving.”

“No, I suppose not. Paul? Would you do me a favor?”

“So long as it’s something slight, old fellow.”

“Would you keep those pebbles for me? Just hold them in your hand… for remembrance?”

His metallic eyes softened for just a second; then he grinned. “If that would amuse you… why not?”

“Thank you.” I turned and walked up the overgrown path.

The sun was setting in a russet flush along the horizon as I drove the trap down past the ruined garden wall. The poplars lining the lane were suffused with an amber afterglow that seemed to rise from the earth. The mare’s ears flickered at the sound of the shot.

Envoi

I remember once describing the Basques to Katya as men who never forgive. Never.

During the course of my medical practice, fate delivered a slightly wounded rapist into my hands.

He did not survive treatment.

Salies-les-Bains

August 1938