Donna Tartt - The Secret History

In a certain sense, this was why I felt so close to the others in the Greek class. They, too, knew this beautiful and harrowing landscape, centuries dead; they'd had the same experience of looking up from their books with fifth-century eyes and finding the world disconcertingly sluggish and alien, as if it were not their home. It was why I admired Julian, and Henry in particular.

Their reason, their very eyes and ears were fixed irrevocably in the confines of those stern and ancient rhythms – the world, in fact, was not their home, at least not the world as I knew it – and far from being occasional visitors to this land which I myself knew only as an admiring tourist, they were pretty much its permanent residents, as permanent as I suppose it was possible for them to be. Ancient Greek is a difficult language, a very difficult language indeed, and it is eminently possible to study it all one's life and never be able to speak a word; but it makes me smile, even today, to think of Henry's calculated, formal English, the English of a welleducated foreigner, as compared with the marvelous fluency and self-assurance of his Greek – quick, eloquent, remarkably witty. It was always a wonder to me when I happened to hear him and Julian conversing in Greek, arguing and joking, as I never once heard either of them do in English; many times, I've seen Henry pick up the telephone with an irritable, cautious 'Hello,' and may I never forget the harsh and irresistible delight of his 'Khairei!' when Julian happened to be at the other end.

1 was a bit uncomfortable – after the story I'd just heard – with the Callimachean epigrams having to do with flushed cheeks, and wine, and the kisses of fair-limbed youths by torchlight. I'd chosen instead a rather sad one, which in English runs as follows: 'At morn we buried Melanippus; as the sun set the maiden Basilo died by her own hand, as she could not endure to lay her brother on the pyre and live; and the house beheld a twofold woe, and all Gyrene bowed her head, to see the home of happy children made desolate.'

I finished my composition in less than an hour. After I'd gone through it and checked the endings, I washed my face and changed my shirt and went, with my books, over to Bunny's room.

Of the six of us, Bunny and I were the only two who lived on campus, and his house was across the lawn on the opposite end of Commons. He had a room on the ground floor, which I am sure was inconvenient for him since he spent most of his time upstairs in the house kitchen: ironing his pants, rummaging through the refrigerator, leaning out the window in his shirtsleeves to yell at passers-by. When he didn't answer his door I I went to look for him there, and I found him sitting in the ^ windowsill in his undershirt, drinking a cup of coffee and leafing through a magazine. I was a little surprised to see the twins there, too: Charles, standing with his left ankle crossed over his right, stirring moodily at his coffee and looking out the window; Camilla – and this surprised me, because Camilla wasn't much of one for domestic tasks – ironing one of Bunny's shirts.

'Oh, hello, old man,' said Bunny. 'Come on in. Having a little kaffeeklatsch. Yes, women are good for one or two things,' he added, when he saw me looking at Camilla and the ironing board, 'though, being a gentleman' – he winked broadly – 'I don't like to say what the other thing is, mixed company and all.

Charles, get him a cup of coffee, would you? No need to wash it, it's clean enough,' he said stridently, as Charles got a dirty cup from the drain board and turned on the tap. 'Do your prose composition?'

'Yeah.'

'Which epigram?'

'Twenty-two.'

'Hmn. Sounds like everybody went for the tearjerkers. Charles did that one about the girl who died, and all her friends missed her, and you, Camilla, you picked '

'Fourteen,' said Camilla, without looking up, pressing rather savagely on the collar band with the tip of the iron.

'Hah. I picked one of the racy ones myself. Ever been to France, Richard?'

'No,' I said.

'Then you better come with us this summer.'

'Us? Who?'

'Henry and me.'

I was so taken aback that all I could do was blink at him.

'France?' I said.

'May wee. Two-month tour. A real doozy. Have a look.' He tossed me the magazine, which I now saw was a glossy brochure.

I glanced through it. It was a lollapalooza of a tour, all right a 'luxury hotel harge cruise' which began in the Champagne country and then went, via hot air balloon, to Burgundy for more barging, through Beaujolais, to the Riviera and Cannes and Monte Carlo – it was lavishly illustrated, full of brightly colored pictures of gourmet meals, flower-decked barges, happy tourists popping champagne corks and waving from the basket of their balloon at the disgruntled old peasants in the fields below.

'Looks great, doesn't it?' said Bunny.

'Fabulous.'

'Rome was all right but actually it was kind of a sinkhole when you get right down to it. Besides, I like to gad about a little more myself. Stay on the move, see a few of the native customs. Just between you and me, I bet Henry's going to have a ball with this.'

I bet he will, too, I thought, staring at a picture of a woman holding up a stick of French bread at the camera and grinning like a maniac.

The twins were studiously avoiding my eye, Camilla bent over Bunny's shirt, Charles with his back to me and his elbows on the sideboard, looking out the kitchen window.

'Of course, this balloon thing's great,' Bunny said conversationally, 'but you know, I've been wondering, where do you go to the bathroom? Off the side or something?'

'Look here, I think this is going to take several minutes,' said Camilla abruptly. 'It's almost nine. Why don't you go ahead with Richard, Charles. Tell Julian not to wait.'

'Well, it's not going to take you that much longer, is it?' said Bunny crossly, craning over to see. 'What's the big problem?

Where'd you learn how to iron, anyway?'

'I never did. We send our shirts to the laundry.'

Charles followed me out the door, a few paces behind. We walked through the hall and down the stairs without a word, but once downstairs he stepped close behind me and, catching my arm, pulled me into an empty card room. In the twenties and thirties, rhere had been a hridge fad at Hampden; when the enthusiasm faded, the rooms were never subsequently put to any function and no one used them now except for drug deals, or typing, or illicit romantic trysts.

He shut the door. I found myself looking at the ancient card table – inlaid at its four corners with a diamond, a heart, a club and a spade.

'Henry called us,' said Charles. He was scratching at the raised edge of the diamond with his thumb, his head studiously down.

'When?'

'Early this morning.'

Neither of us said anything for a moment.

'I'm sorry,' said Charles, glancing up.

'Sorry for what?'

'Sorry he told you. Sorry for everything. Camilla's all upset.'

He seemed calm enough, tired but calm, and his intelligent eyes met mine with a sad, quiet candor. All of a sudden I felt terribly upset. I was fond of Francis and Henry but it was unthinkable that anything should happen to the twins. I thought, with a pang, of how kind they had always been; of how sweet Camilla was in those first awkward weeks and how Charles had always had a way of showing up in my room, or turning to me in a crowd with a tranquil assumption – heartwarming to me that he and I were particular friends; of walks and car trips and dinners at their house; of their letters – frequently unacknowledged on my part – which had come so faithfully over the long winter months.

From somewhere overhead I heard the shriek and groan of water pipes. We looked at each other.

'What are you going to do?' I said. It seemed the only question I had asked of anyone for the last twenty-four hours, and yet no one had given me a satisfactory answer.