The Small Rain

by Madeleine L'engle

  “I see,” Felix said. He looked white and unhappy. Deep, brown smudges were under his eyes. He twisted at his bow tie with his pale, smooth hands. Then he stood up. “I see.”

  “I’m awfully sorry, Felix.”

  “I can’t say I understand,” he said. “I mean, I understand what you mean, but I don’t think you’re right. I know—”

  “What?”

  “I know you won’t change your mind. So, you won’t mind if—if I go on seeing Sarah and Pete?”

  “Of course not.”

  “If you do mind, I won’t, even if you won’t let me see you.”

  “Why should I mind?”

  “I mean, Sarah’s an old friend, and—”

  “Of course, Felix. It would be silly not to see them … Good-bye …”

  “Will you kiss me good-bye?”

  “If you like.” She kissed him lightly, then pushed him gently toward the door. “Good-bye, Felix, dear.”

  “Good-bye, Katherine.”

  She shut the door after him and turned back to the piano.

  Sleep did not come easily that night. Through closed eyes Katherine saw an unending procession of ugly, distorted images, and then these images turned in upon herself. Great waves of terror swept over her, and she sat up in bed, putting her hands over her ears as though to shut out the sound of a scream she had never actually heard. Getting out of bed, she went to the window and looked down to the courtyard below. From the window of Sarah’s bedroom—no, her own bedroom—it looked very far down. The cement that lay there waiting seemed harder than rock. Standing there, leaning against the window, she felt very dizzy, seemed to feel her body falling, falling, while the cement reached up to hit and crush it.

  She shuddered violently, shook herself, closed the window tightly, and went back to bed. No, that was silly, that was stupid. She needed the air, and besides, simply closing the window would do no good. So she got out of bed, opened the window wide, came back and sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, then turned on the light.

  With restless fingers she rummaged through her things until she found her mother’s old Venetian silver dinner bell with the ivory handle. Then she took the cord to her bathrobe and tied one end of it to the bell. The other end she tied firmly to her ankle.

  She got into bed, burrowed down under the covers, tucking the bell between the mattress and the sheets so that it would not ring and disturb her when she turned in bed.—That ought to do it—she thought.—If I get out of bed the bell will ring and that certainly ought to wake me.—

  She pulled the covers over her head and tried again to sleep, but her mind was wide awake, and image after image continued to come before it, much too sharp and clear, until she was shivering with horror.

  The emotion of acute fear awoke her other emotions. She began to ache all over with misery, with a desperate ungovernable unhappiness that made her forget the fear that had roused it.

  She tried to reason with herself. This was a shameful way to behave. Her mother could never have behaved like this, have let herself go completely, have allowed fear and desolation to enter her fortifications of unfeeling calm and completely destroy them.—Mother would despise me—she thought, reaching down in the bed to unfasten the bathrobe cord, the symbol of her weakness, from her ankle. But when her fingers touched the twisted wool of the cord, they would not move to untie it. “I can’t,” she wailed, and flung herself back on the pillow again. Her eyes stung with unwilling wide-awakeness. She tried saying the multiplication table. That often worked, but this time she got completely through twelve times twelve. Toward morning she dozed off, finally going into a deep and exhausted sleep.

  But it was not late when she woke up. She lay in the delicately carved mahogany bed, and the day seemed to press down upon her as though her misery were a deep pool of water. Her misery was a deep pool and she lay drowned in the bottom of it, her long dark hair spreading put about her, swirling in the gentle currents of water, mingling with strange underwater plants.

  With a violent effort, she thrust aside her clinging misery, and got up. For a moment, when her foot caught on something, she didn’t realize what was the matter, and it wasn’t until she had dragged it out of bed and the bell fell to the floor with a clatter that she remembered what she had done the night before. Bending down, she untied the bathrobe cord from her ankle and from the bell, put the cord back through the loops on her bathrobe, put the bell away. When she had dressed, she went downstairs to the drugstore for her breakfast; to go into the kitchen and make coffee seemed an impossible exertion.

  After a glass of orange juice and a cup of coffee, which she forced herself to swallow, she climbed back to her mutilated apartment, forgetting to lock the door behind her. She practiced until she was weary, then flung herself down on the couch. Her body felt as heavy as lead, her eyes like a cigarette hole burnt in a velvet curtain. She didn’t sleep, but she didn’t think either; she just lay there on the couch, wrapped in a cloud of unhappiness that was hardly feeling. She didn’t hear the bell ring. She didn’t realize that Manya had climbed up the stairs and pushed open the unlocked door, until she sensed that someone was standing by the couch.

  Opening her eyes without moving, she saw Manya. Still she didn’t move. Manya had seen her, so there was no use in pretending.

  “Katya,” Manya said, looking down at her, lying there like a puppy who had been run over, the small body so limp, the great dark eyes staring so pleadingly and with such pain that Manya sat down on the edge of the couch, took Katherine in her arms, and began rocking her back and forth.

  Katherine began to cry. At first she cried quite quietly, then her sobs came more quickly, torn from deep inside her until they threatened to choke her. Manya sat rocking her back and forth, kissing her gently over and over again, making little, soothing, comforting noises.

  The sobs quieted down as they had come. “I’ve made you all wet,” Katherine said, “your beautiful dress.”

  “It doesn’t matter. It will dry.”

  Katherine lay heavily in Manya’s arms, her face pressed into the strong shoulder. Her voice came out low and muffled. “It was my fault. It wasn’t his fault at all. I spent so much time at the piano. It wasn’t fair to him. He didn’t understand. He thought I cared more for my music than for him. But it’s not true. I don’t. I’d give it up. I’d never touch a piano again if only he’d love me, if only everything could be the way it was before.”

  “Then perhaps it’s just as well it never can be,” Manya said quietly. After a time Katherine got up and went into the kitchen. “I’ll make you some tea,” she said, splashing water into the kettle.

  When she came back into the living room, she was almost calm.

  “I was afraid I might find Felix here,” Manya said.

  “I sent him away last night,” Katherine told her. “I told him I didn’t want to see him again. I hurt him.”

  “Why did you do that?”

  “I wanted to—to cut everything away … I don’t think I like—Bohemianism.”

  Manya merely said, “I think your water’s boiling.”

  When Katherine brought in the tea, Manya was examining the desk lamp. “I have an extra lamp shade,” she said. “It’s not a bad one. Better than nothing, at any rate. Come on up to the apartment this evening and get it. You can have one of my copper maple-sugar buckets for your coal and a few other things to fill in the holes. Your father’s in an awful temper about this business. I think you’d better come to dinner.”

  “Must I?”

  “I think you’d better.”

  “All right … Aunt Manya?”

  “What, Katyusha?”

  “Was it—was it with you and Father the way it is with Sarah and Pete?”

  Manya waited a long time before she spoke. Then she said, “No, darling. I think it was very different.”

  “Oh. I just wondered.”

  When she had finished her cup of tea, Manya stood up and went to the door. “Practice a
nother couple of hours, darling, and then come on up. Or would you rather come with me in a taxi now?”

  “No. I’ll stay here.”

  “Don’t be late. No use making your father crosser than he is.”

  “I’ll be on time.”

  “Until dinner, then, Kisienka, my baby.”

  “Yes. Good-bye.”

  She leaned over the banisters, watching Manya go down the long flights of stairs. Then she went back to the piano.

  Summer came. Summer came early to the city. The leaves of the trees on Eleventh Street became gray and dry with dust. Heat lay in clouds over the buildings. Sometimes a thunderstorm would come. For the first moment, with the steam rising hot and strangely fragrant from the pavement, it would be cooler. Then the heat would sink down again with a slow sullen stupor.

  After a time Katherine felt that she was neither happy nor unhappy, that all feeling was absorbed in the heat. She practiced constantly, often sitting at the piano only in her underclothes or completely naked, feeling—why do I do this, what does it matter, nothing matters—even while her fingers went diligently over and over an exercise.

  Several baths a day. Not much to eat. Gallons of water to drink. Sometimes at night it was too hot to lie on the bed, and she tried to sleep on the bare floor. When Manya’s play closed for the summer, she and Tom moved out to Connecticut. She phoned Katherine frequently, sometimes, but not often, managing to persuade her to come out for a week end.

  One day early in August Albert Peytz gave Katherine her mother’s records.

  “I’ve decided,” he said, “not to wait until I die, as I intend to live a good while longer and I think you’re old enough now to have the records. But promise me you won’t play them too much.”

  “I’ll try not to.”

  “Are you all right, child?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Not unhappy?”

  “No.”

  “Restless?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Lonely?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m not working you too hard?”

  “Heavens, no.”

  “You’ve made great progress this summer.”

  “Have I really?”

  “You know you have. You’ve heard of Mrs. Egon Carmer?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “You knew that, besides all she does here in town, she also sends several students abroad each year to study?”

  “No. I didn’t know that.”

  “Only one piano student, unfortunately. She prefers voices and violins. Well, child, I think you’d better try for one of her fellowships. The heat this summer has worn me out. I need to rest next winter. Even you, easy though you are to teach, are too much for me. I’ve entered you. You will go to Paris and study with your Justin. Would you like that?”

  “Yes!”

  “The audition is next week. I haven’t told you before, because I didn’t want you to get too upset about it. I see no reason why you shouldn’t get the scholarship. I’ve spoken to Mrs. Carmer about you, and she’s very interested. God knows, you are advanced beyond your years. You are not mere brittle technique. There is something there. This is the program. Everything we’ve been working on this summer. I think you can manage.”

  “Yes!”

  Somehow, the heavy ceiling had been lifted off the heat. It was possible to breathe again. She went home and re-read the letters she had received from Justin and Anne in the spring. Phoned Manya eagerly.

  “Darling,” Manya said, “don’t count on it too much. Peytz is an old man, and he’s always been overly cocksure about his pupils. He thinks that just because he’s made up his mind about something it’s bound to happen. I’ve met Mrs. Egon Carmer and I know those auditions. You’ll be playing against dozens of young people who have had as much if not more training than you.”

  “I know, I understand,” Katherine said. “But when Mr. Peytz makes up his mind about something it usually does happen.”

  Mr. Peytz was not allowed to go to the audition with her. She was to come back to his studio after it was over. Mrs. Carmer had promised to phone him as soon as the winning candidate had been decided upon.

  On her way uptown something happened that effectively shattered Katherine’s control. For the first time since the last night on Eleventh Street she saw Pete. He was walking on the other side of the street, and he didn’t see her. He wore a soft blue shirt, open at the throat; his face looked tanned and healthy; his stride was easy and light; she thought he looked well and happy.

  Standing stock-still on the sidewalk, with people surging hotly by on either side of her, she watched him. Her heart was beating like a bird against her breast. She clenched her hands to keep herself from running across the street to him, although she knew her body was incapable of stirring from that one particular spot of pavement. Even after he had disappeared around the corner, she stood there, until someone jostled her and she almost lost her balance. Automatically she started walking again.

  When she became one of the group of nervous, excited students, she was able to forget Pete, to concentrate on her music, on going to Paris to study with Justin again. Most of these boys and girls, chattering feverishly, seemed to know each other; she knew no one and sat silently, her knees hunched up, waiting her turn, listening carefully to the other candidates. Her turn came near the end, and she played well. While she was playing, there was nothing but the music, except for one very small portion of her mind, quite separate from the rest, that was telling her, “Yes, Katherine, this is all right.”

  When she got back to Mr. Peytz’s studio, he was not sitting in his usual chair but was pacing up and down nervously. “Well?” he demanded. “Well? How did you do?”

  “I did all right,” she said.

  “Could you hear the others?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well?”

  “I was the best. There was only one other person who was possible. A boy. Very handsome. His technique was magnificent. Better than mine. Much better. But there wasn’t anything else. It was completely empty.”

  Mr. Peytz nodded. “All right, sit down. Sit down,” he said. “Stop standing around like a little black sheep. Sit down. Harold! Harold!”

  Katherine sat down on the piano bench, her back to the piano, leaning her elbows on the keys with a soft discord. Harold came running in.

  “Yes, Mr. Peytz? What can I do for you, Mr. Peytz?”

  “Get the young lady a glass of sherry.”

  “Yes, Mr. Peytz. Right away, Mr. Peytz.” He took a decanter out of one of the musty cupboards and poured Katherine a small glass.

  She sipped it gratefully, feeling very strange and puzzled. Because, although Mr. Peytz was still walking nervously about the room, she could not keep her mind on the audition; she kept seeing Pete on the sunny side of the hot city street in his blue shirt with the open collar, his hair moist with the heat of the August day. Perhaps she was too sure of winning this fellowship. Perhaps she had too much confidence, and that was why her mind was free to torture itself with images of Pete Burns. But without question she had been the best.

  The telephone rang. “Harold!” Mr. Peytz shouted. “God! Katherine, he’ll never get there. You answer it.”

  Katherine went to the telephone. She thought she recognized Mrs. Carmer’s arrogant voice asking for Mr. Peytz. With a “Just a moment, please,” she held the phone out to him.

  He came hurrying toward it; he jerked the receiver out of her hand. He stood listening, without saying a word. Still without a word he hung up. Off the back of the bookcase he swept the bust of Beethoven. It lay in fragments on the floor. His face became so red, his eyes so staring, that Katherine was frightened. When at last he could speak, he bellowed for Harold. But when Harold came running in, he said heavily, “No, I don’t want you. Get out of my sight. Leave me alone.”

  Harold beat a hasty retreat. Katherine sat down on the piano bench and finished her sherry.

  “T
he old witch,” Mr. Peytz said, “the cream-faced loon, excrement of a sow!” He sat down heavily in his chair, and forgetting the heat, pulled his blanket over his knees.

  “It’s the boy,” he said at last. “The pretty boy with the technique. She always did like a pretty boy. If you were only a boy, it would have been all right. Well, he’ll pay for his prize. Possessive females are not the best patrons … I’m sorry, child. I’m unutterably sorry.”

  “I’m sorry, too,” Katherine said. “I know you’re terribly disappointed.”

  “My feelings are immaterial,” Albert Peytz said, throwing off the blanket. “I’ve let you count on this. I thought it was what you needed to make you happy. I’ve—I’ve tried to help you,” he went on with difficulty, “but I seem only to have hurt you. The last time I talked with your Aunt Manya, it seemed to me she thought I was responsible for the break-up with your young man.”

  All Katherine could say was, “Don’t be silly. She doesn’t think that at all. She’s just angry in general because she thinks I’ve been hurt. How could you have been responsible? Don’t be silly.”

  “Child,” Albert Peytz said, and then, after a moment, “go home. Go home. Your next lesson is on Monday. Go to the country till then. Now good-bye. Tell that cretin Harold to come here.”

  And so she went to the country, and on the train two nuns sitting opposite her made her think of Sarah and her acquired superstitions. She thought that indeed she would have to learn to be very patient. It would not be easy. Three seats ahead of her sat a young man who looked exactly like Pete from the back, though sallow and unattractive when she saw his face, and she sat staring at the back of his head, pretending he was Pete.—It’s like when you’re little—she thought—and have a bruise and keep on pressing it to see if it still hurts even though you know it does.—