“Save her?”
“Save her,” he repeated. “Do you know what a bad breakdown can result in? It can be a permanent disaster for anyone who is so unbalanced emotionally as Sylvia.”
“Sylvia?” she asked in dismay, although there was no doubting the sincerity with which he spoke.
He nodded. “Yes. Sylvia.” He rose, his serious face white and anxious, and stood in front of the fire. “You know,” he said sadly, “I’ve never told anyone else about this, Kate.”
All the impressions she had gathered were suddenly twisted around.
“But what do you want me to do?” Her voice was troubled, her eyes bewildered.
“You could persuade her to go away for a month or two.”
“Where would she go?”
“Would Santa Rosita be possible? Sylvia was always your father’s favourite niece, wasn’t she? At Santa Rosita, she would be among friends who could look after her.”
“But would Sylvia go there? She hates mountains, and there’s an awful lot of mountains behind the ranch.”
“Hates mountains? Whoever told you that?”
“You did—at least you didn’t say ‘hate.’ You were much more polite. In your letter. Don’t you remember?”
His face was quite blank.
“In 1947—” she explained and then saw she still had to explain further. “When you were visiting San Francisco for the conference... You didn’t come to see us because Sylvia—”
“Oh,” he said quickly. “I must have been stupid indeed to give you that impression. Sylvia wasn’t feeling too well at the time. And she never did like country life. So I thought the long journey into the mountains would be too tiring. I’m terribly sorry if my letter gave your father and mother the wrong idea. How very rude they must have thought me!”
“Oh no—they understood. Lots of people don’t get on with mountains. But if Sylvia doesn’t really like country life, then Santa Rosita would be no use at all.”
“She must have a complete change. Santa Rosita is very quiet, isn’t it? Good air, good sleep. That’s what she needs.”
“But if she doesn’t want to go so far away?”
“Why not try some persuasion, first? Just talk to her, Kate. In your own way—”
“But—”
“She needs someone like you, someone who is normal and well adjusted. Talk to her. Be with her as much as you can. She may listen to you when she wouldn’t listen to me. And there’s one more thing I’d like to ask you: don’t leave here, until we see her safe in California. You haven’t made any other arrangements, have you?”
“Not yet.”
“Then stay here. Will you, Kate? Thank you... And now,” he straightened his shoulders for a moment, “I’m afraid I’ll have to catch up on some work.”
She was startled for a moment, and then she reminded herself that this abruptness was only his manner. “I’m going to bed early, anyway,” she said, trying to help him.
“I’d imagine you are still recovering from the journey,” he agreed and rose to his feet. “If Sylvia’s behaviour seems strange—if you feel that she’s really more ill than we think— you’ll let me know at once, won’t you? Good night, Kate.”
“Good night.” She could never call him Payton to his face, somehow. “Good night,” she said again as if to hide that.
Nine-thirty, the clock said. Kate heard the library door close firmly. She couldn’t read any more. She could do nothing except worry about Sylvia. All I wanted, she thought, was to find a room of my own and get on with my job and do it well. That didn’t seem too much to ask, and yet—
Payton’s careful words, his vagueness, increased her worry. She began to recall Sylvia’s moods, Sylvia’s tenseness. She felt so near tears that she rose and went upstairs to her bedroom.
She stood at the window. Outside, it was a cool night with a touch of gentle breeze. The tree-tops moved their naked branches restlessly as if they felt the breath of spring. The sharply cut shadows of houses drew an uneven line against the sky, blue-black, pierced with a thousand stars. There was still a little life left in the narrow street: classical music, perhaps Mozart, from one house; bright lights and An American in Paris from another; a car easing its way along; a patient man with his dog; a child’s voice crying suddenly, then hushed.
The car stopped in front of the Pleydell house, and three men got out. One said, as he rang the bell (and it could have been Whiteshaw, or was it Minlow?), “I think he’s working. The library is lit.” She heard Payton’s voice welcoming them into the hall, and their friendly words promising not to keep him off his work—only half an hour or so.
Then the front door closed, shutting in their good humour and laughter, shutting out Sylvia.
9
At eight o’clock exactly, Sylvia reached the mail-box at the corner of the street. Two women and a man passed by, but they were strangers. So was the man who stopped to light a cigarette on the other side of the road. Then, a car to which she had paid little attention slowed up beside her. (She had been watching the man, wondering if he knew her by the way he looked across at her.) The car stopped and its door opened. Jan’s quiet voice said, “Sylvia,” and his hand grasped hers tightly as he drew her into the car. “Sylvia,” he said again, holding her arm. They sat looking at each other. Then he released his grip, and the car moved forward.
“We can’t park near here,” he said. “We’ll drive into the country and find some place where you won’t be seen.” She was amazed at the controlled voice, the matter-of-fact words. Then she noticed, by the passing street light, his grim face and the taut lips.
“Then it will take a little time,” she said, forcing herself to speak calmly as he did. “Washington has spread out a good deal since you were here.”
“In six years?”
“Yes.”
“Six years can be a long time for some things.” He put out a hand and grasped hers.
“Yes,” she said again and let her hand lie within his.
“We’ll go up towards the Cathedral,” he said. There were winding roads near there, if he remembered correctly, that spread out with quiet houses and gardens and trees, bringing the country into the city itself. This meeting would have to be brief, for Sylvia’s sake. Whatever happens, he thought grimly, I must keep Sylvia safe. She was sitting quite still, her eyes fixed on the busy road ahead. Even as he let go of her hand so that he could deal more efficiently with a sudden storm of traffic, she made no movement. She had thrown a silk scarf loosely around her head, perhaps to hide the light gold of her hair, and its soft folds emphasised the delicate line of her brow and cheek.
Then suddenly she said, her eyes still watching Wisconsin Avenue, staring intently, seeing nothing, “Jan, this is dangerous for you. You should never have met me.”
“It would be more dangerous if I didn’t see you.” His voice was harsh with worry, although his mouth half smiled over her concern.
“That man, lighting a cigarette...he was watching us, wasn’t he? Has he followed us?”
“No,” Jan answered to that last question. He leaned over and switched on the radio and waited until the music began.
“Can you hear me?” he asked, keeping his voice low. “I wish I knew more about dictaphones. Do you suppose a car can be wired for sound?”
She stared at him. “Are you in earnest?”
He glanced at her to reassure her, but he didn’t answer. He slowed the car and drew it to the side of the quiet road they had entered, adding it as one more to a chain parked along a low garden wall. Above the road, a house sat on the top of a steep hill. Down across the terraced lawn, from the brightly lit windows, came the distant rise and fall of voices and laughter.
“We ought to be left in peace, here,” he said, and switched off the headlights. A passing policeman wouldn’t investigate a car parked outside a party-giving house: a prowler would be discouraged by the nearness of lights and voices. He twisted the dial of the radio to change it from a burst
of advertising to the beat of a Viennese waltz. He smiled as he listened. “Fledermaus,” he said. “A starlit sky, trees, quiet gardens—” He broke off as his voice became suddenly bitter and violent. He gripped her hand again. But still he didn’t kiss her. Then, almost as if he were answering her, he said, “First, I’ve got to tell you the danger, quickly and briefly.”
Yesterday, she thought, yesterday at the station he never even thought of danger. What had happened since yesterday? “Does that matter?” she asked, trying to keep her voice calm and her face emotionless. But the disappointment of this meeting twisted her heart. She sat watching the stranger beside her, waiting and apart.
“Yes,” he said slowly. “You’ve got to be sure in your mind about me, about what I am and why I’m here.”
“But I am sure, Jan. Or I shouldn’t have met you tonight.”
He looked at her, then, and he smiled. And even half-hidden by the shadows inside the car as he was, he was no longer the stranger. “You’ve never left me,” he said. “You’ve always been with me, Sylvia. I tried to forget you, but I couldn’t. I’ll always be in love with you. Remember that, Sylvia—” He suddenly took her in his arms and held her with a violence that crushed and hurt. “Remember that—whatever happens.”
The vehemence died away and became strength. “You’re afraid,” he said, feeling the sharp shiver that tightened her shoulders. “Afraid of what, Sylvia? Of our love?” He watched her face, white in the darkness. Her head had drooped backwards, lying across his arm. “I’m afraid of a lot of things,” he said gently, “but not of our love.” Strange, he thought, we are afraid of the opposites: the American doesn’t even begin to be afraid of the dangers that lie around us: all these, the American accepts confidently. “But how could you be afraid of the dangers?” he asked quietly. “You never have experienced them. You don’t even know they could exist.”
She opened her eyes, looking at him in wonder. The scarf had slipped from her head, and her fair hair had the silvered colour of ripe wheat under a bright moon. He bent over, his arms tightening around her, and kissed her, again and again and again.
“Jan,” she tried to say. Her lips answered his kisses, her arms tightened in reply. Jan, you were right. Love is never over. It never dies. It goes to sleep and comes alive again. Like the trees in the spring.
She was smiling, her eyes as bright as the stars in the cool sky overhead. “I’m not afraid, now,” she said at last.
“Not even of the foreigner?” There was a wry note in his voice. But as he expected, her answer came direct, neither shirking the truth nor disguising it.
“It was silly of me to feel that,” she said. She never had, before.
“No,” he said gently. “It was a true feeling. I’ve seen too many things. They leave their mark. I am a foreigner to you, now. I come from another world, Sylvia.” He kissed her hand, and pushed up the sleeve of her coat, turning her wrist gently to kiss the softness of her inner arm.
“But you’ll stay here,” she said quickly. “You’ll stay and remember this world again.” But he will never forget the other one, she thought as she watched his tense face.
“That is the plan,” he said. “To escape. To be free again.” He frowned, hesitating, choosing his words. “I can’t tell you everything. Not yet. But I can tell you enough. You ought to know that, at least.” He twisted the control of the radio so that the music, now swirling into gay Offenbach, was dominant and blotted out the distant voices that came from the happy house perched on its garden hill.
“We’ll go back to the day that the Communists seized power. That first week... I tried to escape—once I had got over the shock. But I planned things rashly, stupidly. I was caught. I was imprisoned, interrogated. And then I was sent to a correction camp.”
“Oh, Jan!” Her eyes were wide with horror.
“I was lucky. Others were killed. I only got hard labour. It was strange, that... When we had been free, I used to spend a lot of the summer in the country—holidays, week-ends. I used to like to get away from the city—”
“What was your job in Prague?”
“I sat at a desk and worried about commercial aircraft.” He shook his head as if that were all unbelievable now.
“In the country, where my family had a small house, I’d visit a neighbouring farm. I used to enjoy working in the fields— getting the feel of earth into my bones again. I even helped my friend to build a road to his barn. It was hard work, but we enjoyed it, all of us. We laughed and joked and sang.” Again he shook his head.
“In the correction camp I was in a road gang. But no one laughed or joked, this time. And the work was no longer work. It was a nightmare.”
She stirred helplessly. There was nothing to say.
“I was released after two years. That puzzled me a little. I was brought back to Prague and told to stay there. I had to report twice a week. I was watched. So were all the others in our family.”
“Is your father still alive? And your brother and sister?”
“Yes. My sister’s husband died three years ago. She has two children.” He paused. And then he went on, “Yes, we were all watched. I found it difficult to get work. I had become an untouchable. Almost a year ago, there was a sudden release in the tension. I was offered a job in an export business firm. I was watched, now, in a different way. I was being tested. I was sounded out, approached in a quiet, friendly fashion. A couple of months ago, I was offered the chance to go to Washington. As one of them.”
She thought, once it was the Nazis we meant when we used to talk of “them”; and now... Must there always be a “they” or a “them”?
“I let myself be persuaded, not too quickly, not too slowly. But I made my own plans secretly. With my brother. We no longer had any illusions about the people who controlled our lives. If I came to America, and then spoke the truth, the family would be arrested. So this time we made slow and careful plans for an escape—their escape. Soon, I ought to hear that they’ve reached safety. With all luck, I ought to hear it within the next two weeks.”
“They’re making their escape now?”
“They were to start the day I reached Washington.” There was no controlling the excitement in his voice. “They are travelling less quickly than I did, of course. And they are going different ways: a party of that size is difficult to manage. But they’ll be safe, soon. And then I’ll be free, free to speak out, free to act.” He crushed her hands.
Then he controlled himself. He said gently, hesitantly, “You will come with me this time? Wherever I go?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll have nothing to start with—no money, no job. It will be difficult at first.”
“I’m going with you, Jan.”
He held her in his arms, and he said, “No more doubts?”
“No more. I love you, Jan.”
“But you loved me six years ago.”
“Yes... But even if you didn’t want me now, I’d still leave Payton.”
“Why?” He was startled at the intensity of her voice.
“Because I’ve been living a lie, and it was Payton who made it a lie. I found that out today.”
“Tell me,” he urged her, and he listened to the story of Payton’s illness. “He will deny it,” he said when she had finished.
“But I’ll never be able to believe his denial. What kind of life would I have, feeling this constant resentment, this suspicion, this coldness? I’ve gone on living with Payton—living?” Her voice faltered and she shook her head. “I’ve gone on staying in Payton’s house, one of Payton’s possessions. And why did I stay? Because I admired him. Because he needed me. Because I was trying to make up for my betrayal, when I fell in love with another man. Six years of penance... And today, I found he had won it through a trick. My respect for him is gone. If I stayed on now, my self-respect would be gone: I’d only be staying for the money and position he could offer me. I need more than that from life.”
“He will tell you that
he still needs you.”
“Yes.”
She watched the lights of a car searching along the road ahead of them. Then it stopped, edging into the side of the road, and a man and woman came out. The woman was laughing as she waited for the man to lock the car, and gave him her hand as they started towards the lighted house. He helped her carefully to climb the steps that led up through the garden, and the lamp over the entrance glanced on the gold of her pretty sandals as she lifted the hem of her wide floating skirt. He was laughing too, as they disappeared up towards the house, his arm around her waist.
“Oh, why didn’t we meet long ago”—Sylvia said, asking the bitter question that so many lovers have asked, “when I was free and could have walked openly with you?” She still watched the garden steps, the pool of light where the woman’s slippers had gleamed so gaily and confidently. Then she looked at the trees, shadowing the road, drawing it into darkness and dangers. “We must go soon,” she said. “When will we meet again, Jan? In a week, or two, when you’ve heard you are free?”
“Before then,” he said. “I’ll keep on seeing you.”
“But”—she was startled—“won’t they be suspicious if you see me? I’m not the kind of contact they will approve of... I would be the kind of person who’d weaken your allegiance to them, wouldn’t I?”
For a moment he said nothing. “I am supposed to act as normally as possible,” he said at last. “They don’t object to my friends. If they watch, at first, it’s because they want to make quite sure about me.” The music from the radio had ended. A voice, urgent, insistent, advised all to sell their old cars now now now when the market was good good good. Jan turned the radio’s knob quickly. A voice, advocating Hunnyspread, golden, delicious, with that tangy zestful flavour, was cut through suddenly by Bach’s G Minor chords.
I and My True Love Page 10
