Nothing That Meets the Eye (41 page)

By eleven o'clock, they had become nine, including an Italian couple from Milan. They were to have played a card game in the bar, but they only talked, and Helene quite to her surprise found herself the center of interest, though—as usual—she felt she had nothing of importance to say, and in truth said nothing of importance, yet everyone seemed to hang on her words. They asked her about her life in Munich, and she told them about the book and stationery shop which she owned with two other women, and how they took turns clerking in it, so that each of them could have considerable vacation during the year, while still being partners in a successful business. Helene did not say she was not going to see the shop again. She thought of this, but it did not trouble her. Esther and Henriette could and would carry on quite well without her. Everything that was her responsibility was in order. Esther, who had no furniture of her own and a rather expensive rented room just now, would be happy to move into Helene's apartment, and Helene had left a note in her closed apartment saying she could. But of this Helene did not speak, nor of her son. When they asked, Helene said she had no children. All seemed to think what little she said was quite fascinating, even when she spoke of the little snow flowers which she loved.

It's as if I have on some bewitching perfume, Helene thought, something even the women are charmed by. It's very strange.

And in the next days, it was impossible for Helene to have any moment alone outside her room. Resentment showed in the men when they were joined by others, then disappeared when they all decided to go on a walk, to take a trip in the ski lift to the lodge (Helene did not ski and did not wish to) or to have tea in the village. Only Gert showed a resentment that did not die down, and one morning he darted from a chair in the lobby to join her before anyone else could, and as soon as they were outside the door, he told her that he was in love with her.

“Why, Gert, I'm old enough to be your mother,” Helene blurted out. “And then some!”

“Oh, don't laugh, Helene, please,” he said desperately. For the last couple of days, he called her Helene with her permission. “I can't stand seeing you with all these men around you, these men who don't care half as much as I do. Ich kann es nicht mehr ertragen!” He pressed his bare fist to his temple as if his fist were a pistol.

“But—” Helene gestured, then didn't know what to say. She was amused, yet she knew she should not be amused, because the young man was deadly serious. She had never had appropriate comments ready for emotional situations, and now she regretted that she hadn't.

“How can I live without you, Helene? I can't!”

“Gert, what nonsense! Really, in a week—”

“Not in a year, not ever, I swear it. This is forever. Für immer und ewig!”

“Let's go for a walk.”

They walked up the path on which he had first spoken to her.

“You see, I'm going away soon, and I won't be able to see you,” Helene said.

“Where are you going?—And why can't I see you again?”

Back to Munich, Helene thought automatically, but since she wasn't, she couldn't say it. “You'll be in Graz soon.”

“But I would go anywhere to see you,” he declared. “Australia, China, anywhere!”

But not where she was going, she thought with a faint and impatient smile. “I told you I was married, Gert.”

“Yes, but—I noticed you didn't mention your husband when you spoke about Munich. Where is he?”

“He's in Vienna. But I'm not divorced.”

“Ah, what do I care about marriage and divorce? I love you quite apart from all that. Above and beyond and apart.” His mittened hand waved toward the mountain in front of them. His other hand, bare, held Helene's gloved hand.

“I'll be here perhaps four more days, and then we'll see how you feel.” She said it gently and casually as she could, but with some misgiving as to how he would take it.

He took it with grim calm, and said, “I'll feel the same forever, and if I can't see you again, my life is not worth living. I know.”

“Hallo!” cried a voice, and the mountain echoed it twice.

Below them on the path stood the two Frenchmen, André waving an arm.

Gert groaned.

There were flowers in Helene's room when she returned that morning, but no card with them. The maid had put them into a vase for her. They were large red roses, a few small white roses, and a single bird of paradise that must have been flown from Nice, she thought. A knock came at the door. She went to answer it and found not the donor of the flowers, not a messenger with the forgotten card, but the small boy who had brought her luggage up. He was holding a red candy box.

“For you, gnädige Frau,” said the boy.

“Thank you,” she said, taking it. Again there was no card. “From whom?”

The boy smiled shyly and backed away. “I am not to say, gnädige Frau.”

Gert, Helene supposed. There was a wild, romantic youth. Goethe would have appreciated him. But Helene did not think Gert's passion would last as long as Werther's. She lunched with Gert and his mother and sister, but Gert made no reference to the flowers or the candy, and as Helene looked around the dining room, her eye attracted by the Italian couple who saluted her with smiles and a nod, by the two Frenchmen who smiled at her also, by four or five other men and women who seemed to be looking at her every time she looked at them—Helene found she really could not guess who might have sent her the flowers and the candy, but now she did not think it was Gert. Gert would think of something more expensive and important.

Later that afternoon, when Helene had changed into skirt and sweater to lounge on her bed with a book, Gert rang up and asked if he could see her for a moment. Helene hadn't the heart to refuse him. He came up and promptly presented her with a large ruby brooch which he said had belonged to his grandmother, and which he wanted her to have.

“Oh, Gert, I'm sure you're supposed to give this to your bride!” Helene said, smiling with surprise at him.

“You are my bride,” Gert said solemnly.

“Your mother would be very displeased, dear boy, if she knew you wanted to give this to me.”

“The pin is mine, to do what I like with. I always have it with me, even at school.—Don't you want it, Helene? Won't you accept it?”

Helene thought of a way she could accept it, and return it to him, too. And to refuse it now would hurt him, she could see. “Very well, I will accept it with pleasure. I am honored,” Helene said, and took the brooch in its crumpled white tissue from his palm.

Gert smiled broadly. “Thank you, my love.”

He stepped forward, and she lifted her face to be kissed. It was a chaste kiss on the lips, brief, strange—because it was neither a kiss of passion nor could it be symbolic, Helene felt, of anything, and yet it seemed appropriate for now.

“I will leave you for a while,” Gert said, backing toward the door. His face was aglow with happiness. He closed the door softly.

She was rather glad she had not promised to dine with the von Boechleins that evening, as she felt Gert's glow might be noticed by his mother. What an absurd boy, so confident of the permanence of his emotions! Helene was to meet André in the bar at seven. André wanted to take a sleigh to a restaurant in the village for a change.

When Helene and André arrived at the restaurant down in the village, they were greeted like royalty by the headwaiter. The place was small, but André had reserved an entire room for him and her, and the room was decorated with red roses and fleurettes of the tiny mountain flowers which Helene adored.

“Well, here we are. I hope they haven't overdone it,” murmured André a little embarrassedly after they had sat down.

A waiter appeared at once with champagne cocktails.

André talked slowly about Paris, about his experiences in the war, of being held prisoner in Germany, of losing an eye later in France in the Résistance. Of his two-year marriage which had been a failure, ten years ago, of his struggles as a musician, and of his successes which had come only recently. There were long pauses between the stories to give Helene a chance to speak or to change the subject, but she did not. She was rather interested in his stories, and touched that he liked her enough to tell her them.

“You perhaps think it strange that I tell you all this,” he said as they were nearly through their dinner, “but the fact is, I would like to ask you to marry me, and if I do that—you see—it is a good idea if you know something about me. Will you marry me, Helene?”

It was a total surprise to Helene. “But you know absolutely nothing about me.”

“That doesn't matter. Of course, I would like to know more about you,” he added with a smile, “but essentially it doesn't matter, because I know you are pure and good—beautiful is the word, beautiful within. The details can come later. I also realize you are probably married. That doesn't matter, either, because I will wait. I will wait the rest of my life, if necessary, but I hope it won't be necessary. You are married, aren't you?”

“Yes.”

“Your husband is in Munich?”

“No, Vienna. We are separated and I haven't seen him in three years. I have a child,” she said softly, “but . . .”

“But?”

“He is twelve. And . . . well, he is very much like his father, and I think he prefers his father. Anyway, Klaus decided he preferred to live with his father. This was a year ago. His father has a great deal of money, you see, and the boy always spent his summers with his father. That is, since he was eight. My husband makes a great fuss over him, has bought him a horse, and a boat, lots of clothes—teaches him to shoot now. I don't care for shooting.”

“I understand,” said André.

“My son likes all these things. I can't help that, that's the way he is, like his father, really.” And Helene smiled, put her fork down, and pressed her palms together as if she were saying something that pleased her, or that she were praying for—and actually weeks, months ago, she had stopped grieving over the situation and reconciled herself to it, and saying all this now had no longer an emotional effect upon her. She felt André could understand that. “I like you very much, André, really,” Helene said, “but I am not contemplating another marriage. It's nothing to do with you or with anybody else. Perhaps we've met at the wrong time.”

André pondered this a moment, then said, “No. No, but I will wait. I will wait happily,” he said with a sudden smile that reminded her of Gert's smile, “because no other woman could attract me after you. So it will be a happy wait.”

Several minutes later, when they were having a brandy, André said, “I suppose at some time you will get a divorce from your husband?”

“I suppose.” Helene left it at that.

“Would you consider coming to Paris with me? My apartment is very large. It's behind les Invalidea. A lovely view of—”

Helene shook her head and smiled. “No, thank you. I can't see that just now, either.” Really, she thought, the people in the Hotel Waldhaus are mad. It must be the altitude.

“You may think this is absurd of me—at my age,” André said. “I mean, that I propose these things to you rather out of the blue. But on the other hand, I am old enough to know what is right when I see it.”

The following morning, Gert accompanied Helene on her morning walk, having jumped up from a lobby chair as he had the previous morning. But now he was unsmiling and a little stiff. When they had walked several yards from the hotel, he said:

“I know that last night you had dinner with the Frenchman in the village. A very gay affair, from what the porter told me.”

Busybody porters, Helene thought with a vague irritation. “Well? And what's wrong with dinner in the village for a change?”

“On the evening of the day I gave you my grandmother's brooch? And with a man who everyone knows is in love with you?” Gert's voice shook with indignation.