Judge On Trial
Page 59
She got up. She found an old coat of Sylva’s in the wardrobe and put it on.
He was sitting by the half-open window: big and powerful. He sat motionless as if turned to stone and did not even turn round when she came in.
‘What are you doing? Why don’t you go to bed?’ she asked.
‘I’m looking at the sea.’
It occurred to her that he had gone mad or was totally drunk. Then she realised that the valley below them had filled with mist and in the light of the moon above really looked like the sea. ‘Are you feeling unwell?’
‘No, I’m perfectly all right.’
He did not get up or look at her, he towered in front of the darkened window like a lighthouse above those imaginary waters. All of a sudden she realised that those waters washed him from all sides, he was cut off by deep water; it spread between him and herself; there was no reaching him any more; she could no longer speak to him, let alone embrace him, unless she leaped into that sea and swam with all her might. And at that moment she was seized by a mortal panic: as if she was already swimming, as if she was in the open sea and sinking beneath the surface, knowing she would never reach there; neither there nor back, and there was not a soul anywhere, no helping hand, no one to hear her cries, and the light that blazed out from that tower was too distant – cold and useless, incapable of saving her.
What if they really had been strangers to each other all that time? What if they had become so estranged that they would never ever be reconciled? She ought to ask him: Are you never coming back? But she could not pluck up the courage. She merely asked him once more: ‘You’re sure you’re not feeling unwell?’
‘No, I’m perfectly all right.’ At last he turned to her and actually smiled: like a stranger, off-handedly.
She went back to her own room, threw the coat off on to the floor, knelt down by the bed, pressed her face into the pillow and shook with convulsive sobs. What have I done, what awful sin have I committed? And that poor little innocent creature!
The door in the adjoining room creaked. Probably he just needed to relieve himself, or had gone for firewood, but she was seized with terror that he was leaving, leaving for good and all.
She raised her head.
Silence. Outside the window the dark branches of the bare elm tree waved noiselessly. With sudden hope she fixed her gaze on them. Appear to me, my light, my angel.
She waited but nothing disturbed the night, not even a spark left the heights.
Come back to me, little child! I sacrificed you – to what? Who will restore that life to me?
O merciful God, have mercy on me – You at least have mercy!
She stared into the darkness, into the moving branches, and waited.