The Small Rain

by Madeleine L'engle

  “And you’ll go there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, you drop me a line every now and then to let me know how you’re getting on, will you?”

  “Oh, yes!”—He’s given me permission to write him—she thought—he’s given me permission to write!—

  “We’d better say good-bye now, dear.”

  “Yes—”

  He leaned down and kissed her on both cheeks. “Good-bye, little Katherine.”

  “Good-bye—”

  He pushed her gently, and she turned and stumbled out of the studio. She ran to the elm tree and climbed up into its branches and sat there, her arms clasped tightly around the trunk, sobbing. But through her tears she thought—He hasn’t forgotten me. He does know I exist. He told me to write, and he called me little Katherine and dear, and he kissed me good-bye.—

  And then came the thought that she might never see him again, and she pressed even more closely to the tree, and the sobs came crowding out so quickly that she had to stop thinking of him and concentrate on getting her breath. She sat there for a long time, clutching the trunk of the tree, pressing her cheek against it until it was patterned from the bark, sat there until she saw Justin leave the studio, carrying the music he hadn’t already packed, walking happily, his head held high and proud, out of her life.

  NINE

  Because she was not going to London, she left an hour before the English train, which took almost all the rest of the school. She carried a big shabby suitcase that had belonged to Julie, and she sat in the train, peering out of the window, thinking of the unaffectionate good-byes she had said to everyone and of her last glimpse of Justin disappearing down the path between the rows of plane trees. There had been no good-bye to Sarah. She hadn’t seen Sarah to say good-bye to.

  If she thought about it, it seemed impossible that she could once have known Sarah so well, could have been so familiar with the workings of her mind; and could now feel, looking at the same large blue eyes and brown hair, listening to the same decided, self-assured voice, that here was a stranger, someone she had never known and could never know.

  The constant repetition of the noise of the wheels turning on the tracks, the shake of the carriages, rhythmic and dissonant at the same time, made words run almost meaninglessly through her head, words turning like the wheels of the train, words jarring against her consciousness like the shaking of the carriages.

  Manya met her in Thônon. It was after midnight when she arrived, and she was numb with chill and fatigue. The night was icy although it was almost summer. Manya’s face was flushed and shining with cold, not white and pinched like Katherine’s. She looked very alive and beautiful in her dark coat and cap. She kissed Katherine warmly.

  “My poor baby, you’re shivering. Was it a frightful trip? Of course it was. And that heavy suitcase. I’m perfectly sure you carried it the whole way yourself and never gave it to a porter because it was Julie’s. Changing trains twice. The café’s closed, so I can’t get you any coffee. There’s a little bistro down the street that may be open. No, I know what’s better. I think there’s a flask in the car. Come along, darling. Well, can’t you kiss me any better than that? Charlot’s here. He wanted to come meet you tonight, but I wouldn’t let him. He just got in, and he hasn’t had any sleep in weeks, so I made him go to bed. Katya, you look so grown up! You’re not my baby any more. What have you done to yourself?”

  “I’ve got my hair up.” Katherine’s teeth were chattering.

  Manya took her arm and led her to the car. “Yes. Your hair. It does make a difference, doesn’t it? Here, tuck this robe around you. But I don’t think it’s just the hair, my little Katya. It’s in your face, too. Well, after all, you’re almost seventeen. I was married at seventeen, and had a child. A little boy. He died when he was two. Tie this scarf over your head. It’s much warmer than that stupid hat, and your ears are about to fall off. You grew old very early in the four years you lived with Julie, and I thought going to a school with a lot of girls your own age would really make you a child again, and instead you’ve the face of a little old woman. Here’s the flask. Take a long swig, darling. It’ll warm you. Come on, Katyusha, take more than that. That’s better. I know you hate the school, baby, and I wanted so to take you away when you wrote us that dreadful letter your first year there, but your father was so determined to have you stay there, to have you live a normal healthy conventional existence. And you know what your father is. But I blame myself … I really don’t know what Julie would have done, whether she’d have made you stay or not. Anyhow, there’s only one more year of it, and then you shall do whatever you like … I’ve been so busy these past years, I’ve neglected you dreadfully. It’s not because I don’t love you, darling … The reason I never wanted another child after my baby died was that I knew I’d neglect it for my work. I was away on tour when my baby died. I had to be. There wasn’t any money and I had to take the first job I could get. I wouldn’t ask Leonid—that was his father—but don’t blame me for that, Katya; after all, I was very young. Why am I talking like this? So stupid, so thoughtless, when you’re so tired. We must get to know each other again this summer. You don’t hate the school quite so much now, do you?”

  “It’s all right.”

  “Some of your letters—and Katya, you certainly write the least informative letter I’ve ever read—about a girl called Sarah seemed very happy. But you haven’t mentioned her lately. Did she leave?”

  “No, she’s still there.”

  “What’s the matter? Did you quarrel? All right, darling, don’t glower so, I won’t press you if you don’t want to talk. Only you haven’t mentioned her since your first year there, so I thought she must have left. I know how one can get enthusiasms about people, and then find out they’re really very dull and not worth bothering with. I read in the paper the other day that your music teacher, Justin Michel What’s-his-name’s going to Paris to the Conservatory.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ll miss him, won’t you, Katyusha?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, darling, don’t look as though you were going to bite my head off. You’d better have another swallow.”

  “No.”

  “I know I’m talking like a foolish old woman, but really, Katya, when you look at me like a little Sphinx I—well, I feel as though I’d gone up in my lines and didn’t have the faintest idea what the rest of the play was about, much less what my next lines were, and I have to ad-lib all over the place. You’ll have to read the play I’m going to do in the autumn. It’s beautiful—a really great play, I think. Your father’s going to do music for it. I shall be horribly disappointed if it doesn’t go well. Darling, it’s lovely to see you again and to have time to really be with you—even if you don’t seem a bit pleased at the prospect of a summer with your father and me.”

  The drive up the mountain took about three-quarters of an hour. Katherine huddled into the robe and tried to make her face completely expressionless as she listened to Manya, because she could see her aunt looking at her worriedly out of the corner of her eye from time to time. She closed her eyes and leaned back, trying not to think, because now that the robe and the whisky had taken away some of her physical numbness, it had taken away her mental numbness, too, and the sudden prospect of a three months’ holiday with unlimited time in which to think, and nothing but a year of school without Justin ahead of her, made the tears very close.

  “Katya, what is it? Are you ill? Don’t you feel well?” Manya asked once, and as usual when she was sincerely worried, her accent vanished.

  “I’m just tired,” Katherine said.

  The villa Manya had taken was large and beautifully furnished. Tom was at the piano in the great hall when they came in. He kissed Katherine absent-mindedly, and went out to the kitchen and made her a delicious omelette. She ate it in silence, while he talked excitedly to Manya about his new violin concerto. Immediately after supper she said, “I’d like to go to bed now,
please.”

  Manya took her up the wide marble stairs. She led Katherine into a bedroom and a dressing room that made her feel as though she had fallen into the middle of a set in a Hollywood studio.

  “While I’m making a lot, I’m going to live like a star,” Manya said. “You know I’ve never been able to save anything. Will you be all right here, baby-no-longer-a-baby?”

  “Yes. I’ll be fine.”

  “Sleep as long as you like tomorrow morning, and when you want breakfast, ring, and Josef will bring it to you. Your father and I are going to Évian for the day to see some friends, and we won’t be back till after dinner. You can come, if you feel like it, but I thought you’d probably rather rest on your first day.”

  “Yes, I would.”

  “Charlot is dying to see you, anyhow, and he refused point blank to go to Évian. You know how he is. Good night, Katya darling.”

  “Good night, Aunt Manya.”

  “I hope you’ll have a happy holiday.”

  “I will. Good night.”

  Manya left, and Katherine undressed and got into bed. The hot-water bottle under the covers was still warm, and the warmth of the bed and the whisky soothed her, and she fell asleep instantly.

  Early the next evening she went upstairs. Her room had a small balcony that hung over the large terrace downstairs. She put on her coat and went out on the balcony and looked down the mountain to the lake and then across to the mountains. This time she was looking across at the mountains of Switzerland, instead of France, but the same small lake steamers were gold bands of light on the water. Below her, to the left and the right, were the lights of Thônon and Evian and the small scattered groups of lights from the villages on the way up the mountainside. At the edge of the lake she could see the gaily colored lights of a fair, and if she strained her ears, she thought she could hear the music of a carrousel. There were no lights on the mountainside from funicular or train. The only way up was on foot by the sentier, or in a car, or with a horse. Immediately below her on the terrace were two cypress trees in huge stone jars, menacing black shadows. She looked at the cypress trees and then at the mountains of Switzerland across the way, impassive, immovable, frighteningly permanent.

  “Oh God!” she cried. “I can’t!”

  From the shadow of one of the cypress trees another shadow emerged, and a voice said, “Katherine.”

  She stood very still on the balcony, and her heart began to pound violently.—He couldn’t be here, Justin couldn’t be here.—The voice said again, “Katherine, it’s Charlot.”

  “Hello,” she said.

  “Hello.” He came all the way out of the shadow and stood where the light from the French windows shone on him, and she gasped to see how much more like Justin he was even than she had remembered.

  “I slept all day,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Oh, that’s all right. I practiced.”

  “Let’s get out of this mausoleum,” he said. “There’s a kermesse down by the water front. Shall we go?”

  “Yes, let’s,” and suddenly her whole body stopped sagging and came to life.—That’s the thing to do—she thought—I’ll go to the fair with him and I’ll be gay and happy.—

  “Hurry up,” he said. “I’ll wait for you downstairs.”

  She ran into her room and turned on all the lights. She opened her closet and pulled out her black velveteen dress with the lace collar and cuffs.—It’s schoolgirlish but it’s the best I’ve got—she thought. She went into her dressing room, but she had no make-up, and she stared discontentedly into the mirrors with their bright lights at her small thin face. “Oh, damn,” she said, “damn!” and ran down the corridor, opening one door after another, until she found Manya’s room and her dressing table. She made up painstakingly and well. She remembered everything Manya had taught her, blending her rouge and eye-shadow skillfully and putting her lipstick on with Manya’s best brush. She dabbed perfume behind her ears and put her braids up very carefully. She looked through Manya’s jewel box until she found a pair of earrings that had belonged to her mother, and she put them on. In one of Manya’s drawers she came across a magnificent old Russian shawl, which she put over her head. She scrawled a note:

  “Dear Aunt Manya,

  I’m going to a fair with Charlot. I borrowed a scarf and lots of your make-up and Mother’s sapphire earrings. I’m sorry. But it was necessary. Katherine.”

  She left the note on the dressing table, took a last look at herself in the mirror, and hurried down the wide marble staircase.

  “Well, you certainly took long enough,” Charlot began, as he heard her coming. Then he caught his breath. “Well! Well, Katherine!”

  She smiled at him and held out her hand. “Hello, Charlot.”

  They stood there at the foot of the stairs, holding hands, staring at each other. Charlot looked a great deal older. He looked as old as Justin, although Katherine knew he was only four years older than she was. The lines on either side of his mouth were stronger, his large dark eyes seemed more deeply set, his tense face even less able to relax than it had been before.

  “I still don’t look like Mother,” she said at last.

  “No.” Charlot kept on looking at her. “But you’re yourself now. You weren’t before.”

  She laughed. “That’s funny. I feel less myself now than I’ve ever felt in my life.”

  “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  They went out to the garage. “Aunt Manya left the Mercedes for us,” he said. “She thought we might like to go to the kermesse tonight. I didn’t mean to sleep all day. I woke up and heard you at the piano, and it put me back to sleep again. That’s not very complimentary to your playing, is it?”

  “You look tired. I guess you needed sleep.”

  “Will you play for me when we get back tonight?”

  “If you like.”

  He opened the door to the car. “I’ll have to slide through. Sorry. It’s parked too close. Here we are. Climb in. Do you want the robe over you?”

  “No. I’m warm enough. This shawl’s wonderfully warm.”

  “You look very beautiful.” He backed the car out of the garage.

  “Do I?”

  “Yes. Don’t you know that? You, with your great stage experience.”

  “Don’t tease me,” she said, soberly. “I’m not a very good actress.”

  “Don’t lie. You know you’re good. Don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did you say it, then?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Come along. Tell me.”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Charlot. Anyhow, when our form did a play at school I didn’t even get a part, much less in any of the big school plays.”

  “Did you tell them you’d ever been in a play?”

  “Only Sarah. And she promised not to tell.”

  “Didn’t you want them to know?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “They wouldn’t have liked it.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. They just wouldn’t.”

  “Who’s Sarah?”

  “She’s a girl I used to like. She’s going to be an actress.”

  “Don’t you like her any more?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Then why did you say ‘used to like’?”

  “Did I say that?”

  “You know you did.”

  “Oh. Well, I don’t know why I said it.”

  “Do you like that school of yours?”

  “No. Do you like yours? Studying medicine and things, I mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you good at it, Charlot?”

  “Yes.”

  “I mean really good?”

  “Yes.” He was driving rapidly, too rapidly for the narrow, winding road. Katherine braced her feet and pushed back against the seat. He looked over at her, and his mouth twisted into a grin. “Nervous?”

  “No.”

&
nbsp; “Yes, you are. But you needn’t be. I’m a good driver. We won’t go hurtling down the mountainside and into the lake.” He drove silently for a while, then asked softly, “Well, Katherine?”

  “Well, Charlot?”

  “You all right?”

  “Yes … It’s good to see you again, Charlot. Even when I haven’t seen you for ages, it’s always easy to talk to you.”

  “And to you,” he said.

  “It’s almost as though you were my brother.”

  “Listen, darling. I don’t want to be a brother to you. So cut that out.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cross. I’m sorry.”

  “Forget it,” he said, and scowled through the windshield down the mountainside.

  She watched his hands on the steering wheel, the long fingers suddenly tense, the knuckles white so that the soft, dark hairs on his fingers showed more strongly. In the rearview mirror she saw his face and the lines on either side of his mouth were very tight. But if she blurred her eyes, she could almost pretend he was Justin.

  Suddenly he reached over with one hand and pulled the shawl down from her head, touching one of the earrings gently with his finger. “Those belonged to your mother.”

  “Yes.”

  “They look well on you.”

  “I’m glad.”

  He pulled the shawl back over her head and put his arm around her. “Don’t worry. I can drive very well with one hand.”

  “Oh.”

  “Do you mind my arm?”

  “No.”

  “The first time I saw you,” he said, “when you were just a child, was the first time you’d seen your mother since her accident. And then the next time was just after she’d died, and four years had passed, but you were still a child. And now it’s three years and you’re grown up. Why?”

  “I don’t know. I guess it was just time for me to grow up.”

  “I think I want always to be around when important things happen to you. Would you mind?”

  “No. I’d like it.”