The Age of Reason (39 page)

‘Come along,’ said Mathieu. ‘There’s only one flight more.’

They walked on in silence. Suddenly Ivich said: ‘How did you find me?’

Mathieu bent down to insert the key in the lock.

‘I was looking for you,’ he said, ‘and then I met Renata.’

Ivich muttered behind his back: ‘I was hoping all the time that you would come.’

‘In you go,’ said Mathieu, standing on one side. She brushed against him as she passed, and he longed to take her in his arms.

Ivich tottered as she entered the room. She looked around her drearily.

‘So this is where you live?’

‘Yes,’ said Mathieu. It was the first time that she had come to his flat. He looked at his green leather armchairs and his writing-table. He saw them with Ivich’s eyes, and he was ashamed of them.

‘There’s the sofa,’ he said. ‘Now you must lie down.’ Ivich flung herself on the sofa without a word.

‘Would you like some tea?’

‘I’m cold,’ said Ivich.

Mathieu fetched his coverlet, and folded it over her legs. Ivich shut her eyes, and laid her head on a cushion. She was in pain, there were three vertical wrinkles from her forehead to the root of her nose.

‘Would you like some tea?’

She did not answer. Mathieu picked up the electric kettle and went to fill it at the scullery tap. In the larder he found a stale half lemon, with the rind dried up and the pulp congealed, but he thought that by squeezing it very hard he could extract a drop or two of juice. He put it on a tray, with two cups, and came back into the room.

‘I’ve put the water on to boil.’

Ivich did not answer: she was asleep. Mathieu drew a chair up to the sofa, and sat down very quietly. Ivich’s three wrinkles had vanished, her forehead was smooth and clear; she was smiling, with eyes closed. ‘How young she is I’ he thought. He had set all his hopes upon a child. She looked so light and fragile, lying on the sofa. She could give no help to anyone: on the contrary, she would have to be helped to carry on her own life. And Mathieu could not help her. Ivich would go off to Laon, she would vegetate there for a winter or two, and then some man would come along — a young man — and take her off. ‘For my part, I shall marry Marcelle.’ Mathieu got up and tiptoed out to see if the water was boiling, then returned and sat down again beside Ivich, he looked tenderly at that little sick, soiled body, still so fine in slumber; he realized that he loved Ivich, and was surprised. Love was not something to be felt, not a particular emotion, nor yet a particular shade of feeling, it was much more like a lowering curse on the horizon, a precursor of disaster. The water began to bubble in the kettle, and Ivich opened her eyes.

‘I’ll make you some tea,’ said Mathieu. ‘Would you like some?’

‘Tea?’ said Ivich with an air of perplexity. ‘But you don’t know how to make tea.’ With the flat of her hand she drew her curls back over her cheeks, and got up, rubbing her eyes. ‘Give me the packet,’ she said. ‘I’ll make you some Russian tea. Only I shall want a samovar.’

‘I’ve only got a kettle,’ said Mathieu, handing her the packet of tea.

‘Oh dear — and it’s Ceylon tea. Well, it can’t be helped.’ She busied herself over the kettle. ‘Where’s the teapot?’

‘Sorry,’ said Mathieu. And he ran to fetch the teapot from the kitchen.

‘Thank you.’

She still looked rather glum, but a little more animated. She poured the water into the teapot, and then came back and sat down.

‘We must let it stand,’ she said.

A silence followed, then she went on: ‘I don’t like your flat.’

‘So I thought,’ said Mathieu. ‘If you are feeling a bit better, we might go out.’

‘Where to?’ said Ivich. ‘No,’ she went on. ‘I’m glad to be here. All those cafés were revolving round me: and the people are a nightmare. It’s ugly here, but it’s quiet. Couldn’t you draw the curtains? What about lighting that little lamp?’

Mathieu got up. He closed the shutters and unhooked the curtain-loops. The heavy green curtains swung together. He lit the lamp on his writing-table.

‘It’s like night,’ said Ivich delightedly.

She set her back against the sofa cushions. ‘How nice this is: I feel as if the day were over. I want it to be dark when I leave here, I’m afraid of going back into daylight.’

‘You can stay as long as you like,’ said Mathieu. ‘No one is likely to come, and besides if anyone does come, we’ll let them ring without opening the door. I am entirely free.’

It was not true. Marcelle was expecting him at eleven o’clock. He said to himself rather maliciously: ‘Let her wait.’

‘When are you leaving?’

‘Tomorrow. There’s a train at midday.’

Mathieu stood for a moment silent. Then he said, carefully controlling his voice: ‘I’ll go with you to the station.’

‘No!’ said Ivich. ‘I loathe being seen off, it always means a lot of feeble good-byes that stretch out like a length of india-rubber. Besides, I shall be utterly exhausted.’

‘As you like,’ said Mathieu. ‘Have you telegraphed to your parents?’

‘No. I... Boris wanted to, but I wouldn’t let him.’

‘So you’ll have to tell them yourself.’

Ivich bent her head: ‘Yes.’

A silence followed. Mathieu looked at Ivich’s bent head and fragile shoulders: he felt as though she were leaving him bit by bit.

‘So —’ he said. ‘This is our last evening in the year.’

‘Ha!’ she said, with an ironic laugh — ‘in the year.’

‘Ivich,’ said Mathieu, ‘you really oughtn’t... In the first place I’ll come and see you at Laon.’

‘I won’t have it. Everything connected with Laon is defiled.’

‘Well, you will come back.’

‘No.’

‘There’s a course in November, your parents can’t...’

‘You don’t know them.’

‘No. But they can’t possibly wreck your whole life to punish you for having failed in an examination.’

‘They won’t think of punishing me,’ said Ivich. ‘It will be worse than that: they will ignore me, I shall simply fade out of their minds. However, it’s what I deserve,’ she said passionately. ‘I’m not capable of learning a job, and I would sooner stay at Laon all my life, than begin the P. C. B. all over again.’

‘Don’t say that,’ said Mathieu in alarm. ‘Don’t resign yourself already. You loathe Laon.’

‘Indeed, yes, I loathe it,’ she said with clenched teeth.

Mathieu got up to fetch the teapot and the cups. Suddenly the blood surged into his face: he turned towards her, and murmured without looking at her.

‘Look here, Ivich, you’re going off tomorrow, but I give you my word that you’ll come back. At the end of October. Until then, I’ll see what can be done.’

‘You’ll see what can be done?’ said Ivich, with weary astonishment; ‘but there’s nothing to be done. I tell you I’m incapable of learning a job.’

Mathieu eyed her doubtfully, but did not feel reassured. How was he to find words that would not irritate her?

‘That’s not what I meant to say... If... If you had been willing to let me help you...’

Ivich still looked as if she did not understand. Mathieu added: ‘I shall have a little money.’

Ivich gave a sudden start. ‘So that’s it,’ she said. And she added curtly: ‘Quite impossible.’

‘Not at all,’ said Mathieu warmly. ‘It’s not by any means impossible. Listen: during the vacation, I shall put a little money on one side. Odette and Jacques invite me every year to spend August at their villa at Juan-les-Pins. I have never been there but I must accept some time. I’ll go this year, it will amuse me, and I shall save money... don’t refuse off-hand,’ he said eagerly, ‘it would just be a loan.’

He stopped. Ivich sat huddled on the sofa and was looking rather malevolently up at him.

‘Don’t look at me like that, Ivich.’

‘I don’t know how I’m looking at you, but I know I’ve got a headache,’ said Ivich peevishly. She dropped her eyes and added: ‘I ought to go home to bed.’

‘Ivich — do please listen: I’ll find the money, you shall live in Paris — now don’t say No. I beg you not to refuse without thinking it over. It can’t inconvenience you in the least: you will pay me back when you are earning your living.’

Ivich shrugged her shoulders, and Mathieu added eagerly: ‘Very well then, Boris shall repay me.’

Ivich did not answer, she had buried her head in her hands. Mathieu remained planted in front of her, angry and distraught ‘Ivich!’

She was still silent. He felt like taking her by the chin and forcing her head up.

‘Ivich — you must answer me. Why don’t you answer me?’

Ivich was silent. Mathieu began to pace up and down the room. He thought: ‘She will accept, I shan’t let her go before she accepts. I... I’ll give private lessons, or correct proofs.’

‘Ivich,’ he said. ‘You are please to tell me why you won’t accept.’ It was sometimes possible to wear Ivich down: the method was to harry her with questions each pitched in a different key.

‘Why won’t you accept?’ he said. ‘Say why you won’t accept.’

Ivich at last murmured, without lifting her head: ‘I won’t accept your money.’

‘Why? You accept your parents’ money willingly enough.’

‘That isn’t the same thing.’

‘It certainly isn’t the same thing. You have told me a hundred times that you detest them.’

‘I have no reason for accepting your money.’

‘Have you any reason for accepting theirs?’

‘I don’t want people to be generous to me,’ said Ivich. ‘When it’s my father, I don’t need to be grateful.’

‘Ivich,’ cried Mathieu, ‘what sort of pride is this? You haven’t the right to wreck your life for a matter of dignity. Think of the life you will lead down there. You will regret every day and every hour that you refused.’

Ivich’s face became convulsed: ‘Let me go,’ she said, ‘let me go.’ And she added in a low, hoarse voice: ‘What a torment it is not to be rich! It gets one into such abject situations.’

‘But I don’t understand you,’ said Mathieu quietly. ‘You told me last month that money was something vile that one shouldn’t bother about. You said you didn’t care where it came from provided you had some.’

Ivich shrugged her shoulders. Mathieu could no longer see anything but the top of her head, and a patch of neck between the curls and the collar of her blouse. The neck was browner than the skin of her face.

‘Didn’t you say that?’

‘I won’t allow you to give me money.’

Mathieu lost patience. ‘Oh, so it’s because I’m a man,’ he said, with a sharp laugh.

‘I beg your pardon?’ said Ivich.

She looked at him with cold aversion. ‘That’s offensive. I never thought of such a thing... and I certainly wouldn’t let that worry me. I don’t even imagine...’

‘Very well then. Think: for the first time in your life you would be absolutely free; you could live where you liked; you could do exactly as you pleased. You once told me you would like to take a degree in philosophy. Well, why not try? Boris and I would help you.’

‘Why do you want to do all this for me? I’ve never done anything for you. I... I’ve always been horrid to you, and now you’re taking pity on me.’

‘I’m not taking pity on you.’

‘Then why do you offer me money?’

Mathieu hesitated, then he said turning away: ‘I can’t endure the idea of not seeing you again.’

A silence fell, then Ivich said in a faltering voice: ‘You... you mean that your... motive for offering me the money is a selfish one?’

‘Purely selfish,’ said Mathieu, curtly. ‘I want to see you again, that’s all.’

He turned nervously towards her. She was looking at him with eyebrows uplifted, and parted lips: then, suddenly her tense mood seemed to relax.

‘Perhaps I will,’ she said, with indifference. ‘In that case, it’s your affair: we’ll see. After all, you are right: it doesn’t matter whether the money comes from here or elsewhere.’

Mathieu drew a deep breath. ‘I’ve done it,’ he thought. But he did not feel much relieved: Ivich retained her sullen look.

‘How are you going to get your parents to swallow all this?’ he asked, by way of committing her yet further.

‘I’ll say something or other,’ said Ivich vaguely. ‘They’ll believe me, or they won’t. What does it matter, since they won’t be paying out any more money?’

She hung her head gloomily. ‘I shall have to go back home,’ she said.

Mathieu did his best to mask his irritation. ‘But you will be returning here.’

‘Oh!’ she said, ‘that’s all in the air. I say — No; I say — Yes; but I don’t really believe in it all. It’s too remote. Whereas I know I shall be in Laon tomorrow evening.’

She touched her throat and said: ‘I feel it there. I must go and pack soon. It will take me all night.’

She got up. ‘The tea must be ready. Come and drink it.’

She poured the tea into the cups. It was as black as coffee.

‘I’ll write to you,’ said Mathieu.

‘I’ll write too,’ she said, ‘but I shall have nothing to say.’

‘You can describe your house, and your room. I should like to be able to imagine you there.’

‘Oh, no!’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t care to talk about all that. It’s quite enough to have to live there.’

Mathieu thought of the curt little letters that Boris sent to Lola. But it was only for an instant: he looked at Ivich’s hands, her crimson, pointed nails, and he thought: ‘I shall see her again.’

‘What strange tea,’ said Ivich, putting her cup down.

Mathieu started: there was a ring at the front-door bell. He said nothing: he hoped that Ivich had not heard.

‘Wasn’t that a ring at the bell?’ she asked.

Mathieu laid a finger on his lips. ‘We said just now that we wouldn’t open the door,’ he whispered.

‘Oh, but you must — you must,’ said Ivich, in a high voice. ‘Perhaps it’s important: open the door — quick.’

Mathieu made his way to the door, thinking to himself: ‘She hates the idea of any sort of bond between us.’ He opened the door just as Sarah was about to ring a second time.

‘Good afternoon,’ said Sarah, quite out of breath. ‘You do keep me on the go. The little Minister told me you had telephoned, and here I am: I didn’t even stop to put on a hat.’

Mathieu eyed her with alarm: arrayed in an appalling apple-green dress, laughing with all her carious teeth, her hair in disorder and beaming with unwholesome kindness, she reeked of catastrophe.