The Summer of Katya

“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.”

“That’s because he feels nothing deeply.”

“That is untrue. And it’s unfair. I’ll talk to Paul, and I’m sure he’ll reconsider and allow you to visit Etcheverria. Then we can take our little walks in the garden. And we can chat. And I’ll permit you to applaud my puns. And from time to time I’ll ride my bicycle into Salies and eat up all your brioches. Everything will be all right. You’ll see.”

I shook my head, disconsolate.

“But you must promise to join Paul and me in our little subterfuge. Father must not have the slightest hint that you and I are fond of each other. It won’t be all that difficult. As you know, Papa’s interest in the world around him is rather slight. So smile for me, won’t you? We shall have lots of things to share.”

“But we only have a week!”

She frowned, bewildered. “Only a week? Why? Are you going somewhere?”

“It’s you who are going, Katya! Your family is leaving Etcheverria. Your brother was in town yesterday making the arrangements.”

“Oh,” she said softly. Her fingers found a wisp of hair at her temple and twisted it absently. “Oh, I see.” Her voice was vacant and distant.

“I was sure Paul hadn’t told you.”

“What?” she asked, tugging herself from her thoughts. “Oh, no. No, he didn’t tell me.”

We sat in silence for a time before I asked, “You don’t want to go away, do you?”

“No, of course not. But that’s not the point. If Paul was making arrangements, then we must go.”

“Why, in the name of God?”

“It has happened before. When we had to leave Paris to come here.”

“What happened in Paris?”

She frowned and shook her head curtly.

“What is your family running from?”

She looked at me, then smiled faintly. “Oh, like most families, we have skeletons in our closet. I make no bones about that. Oh, come now, that wasn’t such a bad pun. If it didn’t merit a laugh, it was at least worth a smile. Or, at very least, a groan.”

“I don’t feel like smiling.”

“Don’t take things so seriously, Jean-Marc.” She rose. “Now I must return home. I’m sure Paul will need help with all the details of moving. But you must come take tea with us this afternoon. Please. If we have only a week together, it would be stupid of us not to use it well.”

I sighed and nodded. “Yes, you’re right. I’d be pleased to take tea with you.”

“Good. Until soon?”

“Yes. Until soon.”

She wheeled her bicycle across the square, pausing to bestow a warm smile and a nod of greeting to a brace of ladies who had obviously been gossiping about us and who were flustered at the familiarity of this hatless girl who was clearly no better than she ought to be, with her public morning assignations, the seeming openness of which did not fool them in the least.

* * *

At tea, Monsieur Treville was in a cheerful and loquacious mood, which was the salvation of the small talk, as my thoughts were elsewhere, Paul was so icy and withdrawn that he forsook even his habitual baiting of his father’s mental obliquity, and Katya was content to sit back and smile on the three men in turn, rather maternally and distantly, it seemed to me.

“So this is what my children do every afternoon while I toil in the service of Clio, is it? Sit about and drink tea. Prodigal. Well, I suppose it’s harmless enough. But you mustn’t let my ne’er-do-well offspring seduce you away from your studies of the plague, Dr. Marque.” He chuckled at the very idea of any devotee of medieval studies being vulnerable to such temptation.

“Dr. Montjean, Papa,” Katya corrected.

“Montjean? But I am quite sure you referred to him as Dr. Marque last night during supper. I remember quite clearly. Dr. Jean Marque, you said.”

Paul sighed. “It was the night before last, Father. And the doctor was referred to by his first name, Jean-Marc. Jean-Marc Montjean. It’s a hard name to forget… try though one may.”

Monsieur Treville frowned and shook his head in doubt. The possibility that Katya might have used my given name on such short acquaintance did not occur to him. “My children think me a muddy-minded dotterer, Doctor, because I seldom bother to pay attention to their chatter. But my memory is sound as the gold franc—not that the franc’s all that sound just now! Eh?”

“May I ask,” Paul said, “why we are dwelling at such length on the good doctor’s name? Surely we are not that impoverished of conversation.”

Monsieur Treville waved his hand at him. “Ah, but names can be confounding. And important too. We deal with things, not as they are, but as we apprehend them to be. Therefore, to a rather frightening degree, things are what we call them. Take my daughter here, Doctor. Baptized and presented to God under the perfectly satisfactory nomen, Hortense—my own mother’s name. Then one day I looked up from my work and there was a Katya living with me. Just like that, overnight, my Hortense disappeared and was replaced by a Katya.” He reached over and took his daughter’s hand. “But I’ve got used to this changeling who replaced my Hortense. She’s a good enough girl in her own way. Image of her mother, Doctor—well, both of them are, in fact. They had the good fortune to get their features from their mother. A woman of exceptional beauty.” Monsieur Treville’s voice softened and grew distant. “…An exceptional woman… exceptional woman…”

Katya spoke in a bantering tone designed to tug him back from melancholy. “I wish we’d got our brains from you, Papa.”

“What? Oh, you’re both intelligent enough. A little lazy-minded, perhaps. Victims of acedia, perhaps. But perfectly intelligent. Yes, yes, mistakes like this one of the doctor’s name are common enough, even in academics. One scholar makes a mistake—a wrong spelling, perhaps, or something even more egregious—then other scholars copy it, then the next fellow sees it three or four times in different sources, and the error takes on the weight of fact. That’s why one must do his own primary research, as I am sure you have found in your own studies of the Black Death, Doctor.” The bit in his mouth, Monsieur Treville leaned forward and spoke to me confidentially, as an academic ally. “I recall a case involving a noted scholar—member of the Academy, no less, so I’ll withhold his name to avoid scandal. He quoted the population of the village of Alos in 1250 as ‘three thousand souls.’ Three thousand! As everyone knows, Alos had no more than three hundred at the time. But there it was—print upon a page and therefore truth irrefutable! Three thousand! How many future studies will be ruined by that careless extra zero? For instance, if some scholar were to note that a hundred eighty-five residents of Alos were killed by your Great Plague, he would assume that the village had got off lightly. When in fact more than half of the population perished!”

“You really must write an article on the evils of the stray zero, Papa,” Paul said.

“Oh, I have. Not precisely by that title; but I have. And it was well received, if I do say so myself.”

I smiled. “It is difficult for me, sir, to imagine anyone devoting study to Alos.”

“Do you know the village?”

“I know it well. It is one of the three villages that constitute the commune in which I was born.”

“How fascinating,” Paul said without energy.

“Indeed it is,” Monsieur Treville said. “Alos is one of the few places where the pageant of Robert le Diable is still performed.”

“That’s correct, sir. It’s performed each year during the fкte. Just about this time of year, come to think of it.”

“No, really?” Paul said. “Just about this time of year? The famous fкte d’Alos? My, my, my.”

“I’d give a great deal to witness it,” Monsieur Treville said. “Last vestige of that particularly Basque integration of pagan rite with Christian intrusions. I’ve often thought that—hello! What in the world is this?” He indicated an object on the tea tray that had just caught his eye.

“Oh, that’s mine,” Katya said. “A gift from Doctor Montjean. I must have set it on the tray absent-mindedly.”

“But… it looks like an ordinary pebble!”

Katya glanced at me. “Well, one might say that, Papa. But it could also be thought of as a bit of the universe.”

As Monsieur Treville examined the poor pebble closely, I studiously avoided Paul’s eyes, where I knew I would find sarcastic amusement.

“Yes, I suppose it could be thought of that way,” Monsieur Treville mused, returning the pebble to Katya, who slipped it into her reticule unobtrusively. “I had no idea you were also interested in geology, Doctor. Odd mixture of pursuits: geology and medieval plagues. Beware the attraction of the pure sciences. They are pure only in the way an ancient nun is—bloodless, without passion. No, no. Stick to the humanistic studies where, though the truth is more difficult to establish and the proofs are more fragile, yet there is the breath of living man in them.”

“Dr. Marque,” Paul said. “Oh, excuse me. I meant to say, Dr. Montjean. Damn that stray zero! Doctor, don’t you think it’s time you checked my bandages, or whatever it is you do to earn your fee? That is what you came for, isn’t it?”

“Ah… certainly. You will excuse us?”

When I rose, Monsieur Treville rose too, saying that he really must get back to his work. Tea was good enough in its own way, and the conversation had been delightful and informative, but work was work. “You don’t mind being left alone, darling?” he asked Katya.

“Not at all. I’ll just go down to my library and read a little.”

“Library?” Monsieur Treville blinked. “What library?”

“I call the summerhouse at the bottom of the garden my library.”

Monsieur Treville shook his head and let his arms flap against his sides. “There you are, Doctor. A perfect example of the source of error in scholarship. Ten thousand years from now some scholar will read her diaries and make the erroneous conclusion that the ancient word for ‘summerhouse’ was ‘library.’ Then he’ll learn that scholars of our era passed most of their time in their libraries, and he’ll deduce that back in the early part of the twentieth century the climate in Europe was semitropical!” He returned to the house muttering, “Thus error breeds error, which breeds error, which breeds…”

Katya looked after him, smiling. “Isn’t he a darling? Don’t you envy him, living as he does on the gentle rim of reality?”

“I like him very much,” I said. “I can’t understand why the two of you think it necessary to pretend that Katya and I are nearly strangers. It isn’t as though your father were some sort of monster.”

Katya glanced at me with a frown.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

Paul rose languidly. “I do hope you never consider surgery, Doctor. There’s something lethal in the mindless way you wield a scalpel. Shall we see to these bandages?”

“I doubt your bandages need attention.”

“Nevertheless…” With a gesture he conducted me back into the salon, and I followed him after touching Katya’s shoulder lightly in au revoir. She did not respond.

* * *

As I explored the slightly puffy area around Paul’s clavicle with my fingertips I was surprised that he did not wince with pain. “You seem to be a good healer,” I said.

“I’ve always been that. I’ve had ribs broken and still been able to fight within a week.”

“Fight?”

“Yes, fight. Did I fail to mention that I was once amateur kick-boxing champion of Paris?”

“No, you mentioned it. And I was appropriately impressed.”

“I excelled at the sport, not so much because of my physical attributes as because of my absolute will to win and my capacity for pressing home the attack while others were bungling about with considerations of sportsmanship and fair play.”

“Which considerations never hampered you?”

“Not in the least,” he said with slight emphasis.

“I suppose I’m expected to receive that information on its parabolic level?”

“That would be wise.”

“I see. Well, for all your remarkable recuperative abilities, you’ll have to favor this arm for another week or so.”

Paul slipped back into his shirt without help, managing to rebutton it with some awkwardness.

“Of course, I didn’t ask you here merely to have the benefit of your professional negligence.”

“I assumed as much.”

He stood before me for a moment as though uncertain how to start; then he turned away to a small table from which he took up a handsomely engraved pistol from the barrel of which protruded a metal cleaning rod. Rather clumsily, he held the pistol in his captured right hand and worked the rod in and out slowly, as though his mind were elsewhere.

After a full minute of heavy silence I said, “Well?”

“You know, back in Paris target shooting was a passion of mine. I only gave it up because I had collected all the medals and awards available at my shooting club.”

“I am delighted on your behalf that you found a useful avocation.”

Paul set the pistol down carefully and turned to me, his eyelids heavy with contempt. Once again, I was caught off guard by the astonishing way in which his features, individually considered so like Katya’s, could produce so totally different an effect. Although his cheeks were grey his eyes sunken from his night of drinking, and his mouth was pressed thin and flat, their faces were like the same melody played on different instruments—indeed, in different keys. What in her was a lively and interested intelligence was, in him, bitter wit. What in her was dreamy distance was, in him, cold withdrawal. Yet, although his were the darker tones and hers the more pastel, it was she, not he, who seemed transposed into a minor key; it was her melody that had been taken up by the melancholy split reeds.

He smiled wanly. “I suppose my attitude towards you is revealed by my finding reason to inform you that I am both an expert kick-boxer and an excellent shot.”

“The implications had not escaped me.”

“Good. Let me tell you at the outset that I am furious with you, Montjean. You have acted selfishly, and irresponsibly, and perfidiously.”

“Perfidiously? I resent—”

He held up his hand in an annoyed way, waving away my defense. “Yes, perfidiously. Damn it, man! Although I feared you would bring nothing but pain and trouble, I allowed you to visit here, to be with Katya, to enjoy her company. Then I left you alone for a few minutes yesterday and I returned to find you clutching at her!”

“I would not term it ‘clutching at her.’ “

“I don’t give a damn how you would term it! The fact is, against my better judgment I permitted you to visit the house in the hope that you would be satisfied to be in her company within our family setting—properly. And the next thing I know she’s sneaking off to Salies, and you’re having a tawdry little rendezvous at some cheap cafй.”

“Just a moment! I can assure you that—”

“I’m not interested in your assurances! I’m telling you that—”

“You needn’t tell me anything, Treville! It is wrong of you—and cheap—to characterize our having a cup of coffee together as sneaking off for a tawdry little rendezvous. I won’t have it!”

He glared at me. Then he lowered his eyes and drew a long breath. “Yes. Yes, of course. That was stupid phrasing on my part.”

“Indeed it was.” Although I was surprised to hear Paul Treville apologize for anything, I did not intend to let it go at that. “Furthermore, for what it’s worth, I had no idea that Katya intended to come to Salies this morning. It was not a rendezvous. But in all candor I can tell you that if I had known she was coming, I would have been delighted.”

“Very well, let’s pass that point. I am sure you’re right. Katya is an independent and willful woman, and it would be just like her to go to town to see you, even though I had specifically told her not to. But what is even more contemptible than meeting with her in secret away from her home was your meddling in our affairs, scratching around the village for information concerning my activities, then—worst of all—blurting out to Katya my intention to leave this Godforsaken bled, without the slightest concern for the effect such news might have on her! She returned quite shaken, you know.”

“She has a right to know your intentions. Good Lord, it’s her life you’re playing with, not only your own, with all this running from place to place each time the whim takes you!”

“I am not playing with her life. I am not playing at all. I am in deadly earnest. It’s you who are playing, Montjean. Playing the role of the daring lover—the bungling Quixote who doesn’t give a damn who is hurt, so long as his desires are gratified, so long as he can run about scaling walls and rescuing maidens—maidens who do not require and do not desire rescuing!”

“That is still to be seen!”

His eyebrows flashed up. “Oh? Is it really? Has she ever given you the slightest indication that she did not want to stay with her family? That she was unwilling to accept my opinion of what was best for us?”

“Well… not in those words.” Indeed, she had seemed committed to doing whatever Paul thought best. “But I am not sure she knows her own mind in this,” I added weakly.

“But you do? You know her mind? You know what’s best for her? Jesus, man! What gives you the right to interfere in this way?”

“I love her,” I said simply.

Paul did not sneer, as I thought he would. His reaction was yet more devastating. He sighed deeply, closed his eyes, and shook his head with fatigue. “You love her. You love her. God protect us from the well-intentioned!” He slumped into a chair across from me and spoke almost to himself. “Because you love her, you assume you have a right to blunder into our lives, causing hurt and harm you cannot even imagine. Because you love her, you are prepared to expose her to pain and shame. You love her! Christ, man, do you imagine I do not love her? Do you think her father doesn’t love her in his vague way?”

“I’m sure you do.”

“Well then?”

“But I am not sure you are considering the effect it has on a young woman, this packing her up and running off whenever the impulse is upon you. What is it you’re running from?”

“That’s not your affair.”

“My feelings for Katya make it my affair.”

His eyebrows lifted. “Your feelings—? Tell me, Montjean, how old do you think Katya is?”

“How old?” The non sequitur question seemed to me to be totally irrelevant.

“Yes. How old.”

“I don’t see that it matters.”

“There’s much you don’t see. I’ll tell you then: Katya is twenty-six.” He smiled faintly. “I’m in a particularly good position to know her age, as I am only fifteen minutes her junior. I am quite sure you took her to be much younger—nineteen or twenty. Everyone does. We inherited from our mother, if I may say it without appearing vain, both our physical beauty and a tendency to remain young-looking.”

“All right, I confess that I thought her to be younger than twenty-six. But I still don’t see—”

“The point is this: At twenty-six, do you suppose that Katya has not attracted the attentions of other young men than you? Can you imagine that you are the first person to be touched by her charm, her spirit, her freshness?”

“Could it be you are jealous of these men?”

His expression hardened. “My dear fellow, if you cannot avoid being stupid, do at least try to conceal it!” He looked away and collected his thoughts. “The point I was attempting to make is that these young men considered themselves to be in love too. They would rather have died than hurt Katya. And yet, they became the agents for great pain and suffering on her part. But of course, you assume you are unique. There is nothing more commonplace than the assumption that one is unique. But believe me when I tell you that you have already caused great pain, and you are in a position to cause even more.”

“I assure you that—”

“You are forever assuring me of something, Montjean! I have no interest in your assurances. I realize that your intentions are of the best. You lack the imagination required to be genuinely evil. Still, you are not going to tell me that your romantic daydreams have not included anticipations of physical delight, are you? Surely you have pictured Katya alone with you and willing, probably in some romantic setting, perhaps in your rooms?”

“That’s an outrage!” I said, recalling with mortification just such imaginings while awaiting Katya in Salies that first rainy afternoon when she came to collect her bicycle.

“It’s not an outrage at all. You’re a healthy young animal. And certainly you weren’t clutching at her yesterday in the garden in order to achieve a more intellectual level of conversation.”

“It is perfectly natural for love between a man and a woman to have its physical manifestations.”

“I am not denying that. I am only pointing out that somewhere in all your noble impulses to save Katya from the machinations of her evil brother, there is an element of desire and self-gratification that may be clouding your ability to judge what is best for her.”

My jaw tightened and I refused to respond.

“And—damn it, man!—the tragicomedy of all this is that you don’t know—could have no way to know—that it isn’t only a matter of your inflicting pain on Katya. You are yourself in considerable danger!”

“Danger of what kind?”

He drew a deep breath and turned away, and I had the impression that he had said more than he intended to.

“Danger from you and your pistol?” I pursued.

He shrugged. “That is a possibility, I suppose. But let us seek a more civilized means of moderating your nuisance. Are you willing to hear my proposals?”

“By all means. But I don’t consider myself in any way bound to accept them.”

“Pity. Well, naturally I considered forbidding you to come again to this house, and forbidding Katya to go into town to see you. But I don’t fancy the image of myself standing guard at the bottom of the lane, my pistol at the half-cock. And furthermore, it might not be effective. Katya is an independent spirit, both imaginative and resourceful. Worse yet, I shouldn’t be surprised if she imagined herself to be in love with you. Oh, do try to keep that insipid smile off your face, Montjean. After all, she fancied herself in love with those other fellows, too. So here is what I suggest. Let us return—and this time with fidelity—to our original arrangement. For the next week, you may visit us—every afternoon, if you must. For my part, I shall do my best to convince Father that your visits have to do with our newfound friendship, and you will cooperate in that deception. Most important, you will not seek to be alone with Katya. I shall have the delicacy to remain out of earshot as much as possible, so you two may exchange thoughts, memories, and cooings—even witticisms, if you’re up to it. But you must promise not to sneak off by yourselves as you did yesterday, and, above all, you must promise to keep your hands off her.”

“I resent phrases like ‘sneak off’ and ‘keep your hands off her.’ They do not describe what happened yesterday accurately, and they are repulsive insinuations.”

He waved my objections aside impatiently. “At all events, you know what I mean. If you agree to these conditions, then Katya will have your company—which, for reasons that escape understanding, she seems to take pleasure in—and you will have seven whole days of her charm and gentleness. I realize of course that you have dreamt of a lifetime of Katya, and I can’t really blame you. The lowly moth dreams of possessing the moon. But seven days is better than nothing. And, believe me,” he enunciated each word clearly, “nothing is your only alternative.” He sat back and pressed his thumb and forefinger into his eye sockets to relieve his fatigue.

“Are you finished?” I asked.

“Not quite.” He spoke without opening his eyes. “You must also undertake to assist me in keeping Father in his accustomed state of ignorance as to events around him.”

“Are you through now?”

“Probably not. But you have been good enough to hear me out with few interruptions. I suppose I must offer you the same consideration.”

“First, it is unjust of you to imply that I pried into your affairs to learn that you were making arrangements to leave Etcheverria. You must know that everything immediately becomes public knowledge in a provincial village. I learned of it quite by accident from my colleague, Dr. Gros.”

“Very well. How you found out is of little importance. My real objection is to your blurting it out to Katya with no concern about the shock it must have been to her.”

“I had no way to know that you were withholding your plans from her. I naturally assumed that something affecting her life so intensely would not be done behind her back.”

“Pain delayed is pain lessened.”

“Then you admit that she does not want to go? That leaving here will be painful for her?”

“I have never denied that. But the pain of leaving is nothing to the danger of staying.”

“So you tell me. But you refuse to explain what this great danger is.”

“You have no right to an explanation.”

“I believe that my feelings for Katya give me that right.”

“You are quite mistaken in that belief.”

“That’s your view.”

“My view is the only one that matters.”

“That, too, is merely your view.”

“Would I be correct in assuming that we have reached an impasse?”

I hated the lazy, nasal tone of his voice and the half-closed eyes settled on me as though I were an inanimate thing. But after a short pause I continued, “You obviously sought to hurt me by mentioning other men who have loved Katya. And I’ll confess that you succeeded to a degree. I had indeed thought she was somewhat younger than I, rather than somewhat older, and if the question of other loves before me had entered my mind—and it did not—I suppose I would have assumed that I was her first love, as she is mine.”

He looked at me with distant curiosity. “You really assume that Katya loves you? Have you any evidence for that?—beyond, of course, the heart having reasons the mind knows not of, and all that trash?”

I chose not to respond because, in fact, I had no evidence at all that she was more than fond of me. Describing more what I wished I felt than what I did, I said, “A man who loves a woman should feel a certain… gratitude, I suppose… towards anyone who has also loved and brought pleasure to her. You and I, in different ways, both love her. We ought not to be at odds with each other. I accept the fact that you think you’re doing what’s best for her. I think you’re terribly wrong, but I don’t doubt your motives. Whatever it is that you’re running away from, I am sure it’s wrong of you to deny Katya a chance to make a life for herself. But I don’t doubt your love for her.”

His customary expression of weary hauteur relaxed, and there was a trace of compassion in his voice when he said, “Perhaps I was cruelly vague when I spoke of the ‘men’ who had loved her. There was only one. In Paris. And I never meant to imply that she loved him in return. She was kind to him. She doubtless took pleasure in his company. But love? I rather doubt it.”

I tried to conceal the relief and comfort I found in this suggestion that I was her first love. “And what happened to this young man in Paris?”

Paul settled his metallic eyes on me for a moment. Then he rose from his chair. “All this is a bit oblique to the point. The question is: Do you intend to accept the conditions I have made? Or would you rather not see Katya again.”

“Before I answer, let me… Paul, obviously there is something here, some terrible thing, that you think you must flee from. Perhaps I could help in some way, if you would share the problem with me.”

“That is out of the question. There’s nothing you could possibly do—save perhaps make things worse.”

“Let me try!”

“There’s nothing you could do, I tell you! And I cannot discuss this further with you. Now… what about my conditions?”

“What choice have I, other than to accept them?”

“You could choose not to see Katya again. But I don’t expect you to make that nobler choice.”

“As indeed I shall not. Very well. I accept your conditions.” I rose. “Now I shall join Katya at the bottom of the garden, if that does not fall within your definition of ‘sneaking off.’ “

He waved me away listlessly. “Just so you remember your promise to keep your hands off her.”

I remembered the promise; but I had no intention of keeping it. I was convinced that I must do whatever I could to save Katya from a shattered life wasted in running from place to place each time Paul was frightened by shadowy dreads.

“You know, Montjean…” Paul’s bored drawl stopped me just as I reached the terrace door.