“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 supp
ose 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.
“He means nothing to me,” Helene said quickly and apologetically.
“And perhaps I don’t, either! Say it, if it’s true.”
What was true? One thing she was sure was true was that she did not want to hurt Gert’s feelings. But she sensed also that his blustering was his self-defense, and no doubt all for his good. “That is not true. But I made you no promises, Gert. You may have your brooch back.—I am not playing games with you.”
“If you don’t want me—if you prefer that Frenchman—I prefer to kill myself, and I will!”
She did not believe him at all, but did not want him to see that she didn’t. She continued to walk up the snowy path, Gert beside her, his eyes fixed avidly on her face. They were draining her somehow, Helene thought, and since she felt there was not much of her to drain, she did not wonder that she felt exhausted, at a loss. And she sought in vain for some conventional manner in which to handle the situation with Gert. She found none, she supposed, because she had abandoned such things before she came to Alpenbach, in fact days before she had left Munich. She remembered suddenly with a nostalgic pang the good-byes at the station, her surprise that Frau Müller, her charwoman, had come on her bicycle to the station to see her off. It had been as if everyone had known it was the last time they would see Helene, and yet everyone had been especially merry and affectionate, too.
“You see that rock?” Gert said, pointing up to the rocks at the top of the small mountain which they had never climbed. “That’s where I’ll jump from—unless . . .”
“Unless?” Helene said, as casually as she might have said “Pardon?” to something she had not quite heard and was not very interested in. She had thought of that mountain peak herself. She felt a possessiveness about it which was strange and a little ludicrous. Gert would never make use of those rocks, and it was simply a funny coincidence that he had spoken of them this way now.
“Unless you’ll let me see you again. Unless we can make some kind of . . . arrangement.”
She knew what he meant: for him to be her only lover, yet a lover in a very romantic sense, probably with no physical contact whatever. He wanted to be able to come and have coffee or dinner with her in her Munich apartment once in a while, and to know that she permitted no other man to do that. Helene shook her head impatiently, involuntarily.
“What do you mean?” Gert asked. He was still watching her every expression.
Crunch, crunch—crunch-crunch went their boots in the snow, and Helene could suddenly stand no more of it. She stopped, lifted her head briefly to look up the gently sloping mountain to its top—which was certainly not eight kilometers high, as Gert had said—then turned around.
But they stood still.
“May I see you again?” Gert asked in his firm way.
“Yes. Here. But not in Munich,” she said flatly. She was tired of explanations, or of the impossibility of them. She began to walk back toward the hotel.
“Then I shall do what I said,” Gert said. Now his arms hung, like his head, as he walked. “But I shall write a poem to you first.”
That’s a good thing to do, Helene thought, before dying. Then she realized that writing the poem would probably so ease his mind, all thought of suicide would leave him. At any rate, she felt absolutely sure he wouldn’t kill himself, but she could not have said why. It was just a feeling of certainty, like the instant of realizing that one has fallen in love.
“May I offer you a cup of tea?” Gert asked when they were standing in front of the hotel door again.
Helene had not wanted to come back so soon, but now she wanted only to be alone, and the only place for that was in her room. “No, thank you, Gert. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go up to my room for a while.”
“If I’ll excuse you!” Gert said, smiling a little. “Of course.”
“Bye-bye,” Helene said in English, patting his arm quickly, then she went into the hotel.
In her room, she took off her hood, slipped out of her boots, and automatically carried them into the tiled bathroom so the few flecks of snow that remained on them would not melt on the carpet. Then she took off her jacket, and walked to the window. In the distance, the black, irregular top of the mountain showed against a pale, bright blue sky. All the ground was white except for three or four huge green firs. No skiers were in sight now, and when she realized this, the scene took on a melancholy, a look of loneliness.
All these people want me only because I don’t need them any longer, Helene thought suddenly. It’s ironic, but perfectly human, after all. They think I won’t take anything from them, and they’re right.
And it was quite funny. If she, for instance, had come here and fallen in love with the Frenchman, or with Gert if she had been younger, and had consequently tried to win them, she would probably have failed. She was not beautiful, and there had been a few times in her life—maybe two or three—when she had been attracted to certain men, and had failed utterly to make them notice her. Helene smiled on the view outside. It was beautiful again, very beautiful. She felt strangely beautiful herself, and strangely pure and guiltless. No one looks more beautifully on the world than someone who is going to leave it, Helene thought. And of course, the world never looks more beautiful than then, either, probably, but not like something beautiful that one desires to possess, or regrets leaving. She was filled with a happy knowledge that the world would remain, slowly changing, but remain—as beautiful as it was now.
Consequently, having had these thoughts at eleven in the morning, she was somewhat prepared for Signora Cacciaguerra’s strange words at twelve-thirty. Helene had come down for a Kirschwasser before lunch, but before she reached the bar, Signora Cacciaguerra, a smallish, brunette woman of about forty, well dressed and well groomed, in a black and red ski outfit, accosted Helene in the hall. She asked if she could speak with Helene alone for a moment, and Helene suggested they go into the bar.
Signora Cacciaguerra looked quite distrait, and her forehead had puckered with an anxious frown. “Would you mind, please, if we had a conversation in your room?”
“Has something happened to your husband?” Helene asked, thinking at once of a skiing accident.
“No, nothing like that,” she replied, making a gesture toward the lift. “May we—”
“Oh, of course.” Helene followed her into the elevator. When they reached her room, Helene said, “We can have something sent up here, if you like.” But Signora Cacciaguerra didn’t answer, so Helene ordered a Kirschwasser and an americano by telephone. “Do sit down, signora,” Helene said for the second time.
> At last, Signora Cacciaguerra sat, on the edge of the armchair. “You may think it very strange—you will think it strange that a wife comes to you with . . . But my husband . . .” She groped for words, smiled, and struggled on. “He acts very strange. Not—I mean, he doesn’t say anything definite, but he is always looking at you, and he daydreams about you. You must have noticed.”
Helene hadn’t particularly, because Signor Cacciaguerra looked at her no more often than three or four other men and women did—including Signora Cacciaguerra herself.
“He is also moody now—alternately happy and moody. Staring out the window. But he doesn’t want to go outdoors. I am not jealous of you, that’s the funny part,” the woman said with a little laugh. “Strangely enough, I came to ask for your advice. Even, for instance . . .”
“For instance?”
“Shall we all have dinner tonight together? Perhaps it would help if my husband would be with you. He does speak of you, now and then, it’s just the way he speaks of you that’s so strange. I have seen him a little interested in other women now and then, believe me, but not like this. He puts you on a pedestal.”
The boy with the drinks knocked just then, and Helene was glad of the interruption. She took a ten-schilling note from her bag, and handed it to the boy with her thanks.
“Danke vielmal, gnädige Frau,” he said, and departed, leaving the tray on her dressing table.
Helene handed Signora Cacciaguerra the americano. “I hope you like this.”
“I do, it’s my favorite. I drink it always in Milano. Cheers.”
Helene echoed the English word, “Cheers.” Signora Cacciaguerra had been speaking in Italian, Helene in French, which she spoke better. They had all spoken French the evening they sat at a table together after dinner. “It’s too beautiful here to be worried by small things. Besides, I’m leaving in a day or so, if that’s any comfort to you,” Helene said cheerfully.
“Oh, but it is not, you know? And I am not sorry to have met you.” Signora Cacciaguerra returned Helene’s smile with a smile of equal sincerity. “Yes, I feel better already. But what about dinner tonight?”
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