Shoot Me, I'm Already Dead

by Julia Navarro

  Friends and neighbors thought that Irina was his lover, and occasionally imprudently congratulated him on his luck.

  He had adjusted himself to Irina and Mikhail’s routine. They would have breakfast together when dawn had barely broken, and after that each of them would dedicate himself to his own business. Mikhail spent hours practicing, and Irina had turned his grandfather’s—and later Marie’s—former workshop into a successful florist’s. She was dedicated to her flowers, Mikhail to his music, and he found refuge among books and chemical formulae. They would not see each other until the evening, and their conversations were innocuous. They did not have very much to say to one another. Mikhail liked to help Irina clear the table, and from the salon he would hear them laughing with one another and sharing secrets. He was in his house, but he was the stranger. He had promised Marie that he would speak to Irina, but he never found the right moment, or else he didn’t want to fool himself given the indifference with which she treated him.

  He met some women, and one or two of them even began to interest him, but not enough for him to ask any of them to marry him. He said to himself that he should either speak to Irina or else make the decision to go back to Palestine. But he immediately put that idea to one side, as he enjoyed the soft mattress on his bed, the tasteful elegance of his house, and especially the lively hubbub of Paris.

  Hope Orchard was an inhospitable place, where each olive harvest was the result of interminable work. He still remembered the pains in his arms from shaking the branches of the olive trees so hard, or the ache in his kidneys after endless days in the fields, or the fear that a single hailstorm could ruin the harvest. No, he did not miss the lack of intimacy at Hope Orchard, where his cot was between those of Louis and Ariel. If he missed anything it was his long conversations with Ahmed Ziad. He thought a great deal of that honorable and simple man whose word was law. Many were the nights when he fell asleep thinking that what he had created with the people from Hope Orchard was in many ways more of a family than what he now had with Irina and Mikhail.

  How had he let the years go past without daring to speak to Irina? He couldn’t even answer that question himself. And when he finally did pluck up the courage to speak to her, it was because one day he saw her smiling at another man.

  It happened one evening in October 1913. Samuel came home earlier than usual and instead of going straight up to the apartment he went in through the shop. Irina was laughing as he had never seen her laugh before, and standing next to her was Monsieur Beauvoir, a neighbor of theirs, a tall and distinguished-looking gentleman. He lived with his aged parents and, according to the comments of the neighbors, he cared deeply for them. Samuel was surprised that both Irina and Monsieur Beauvoir seemed uncomfortable with his unexpected presence.

  “So you’re here, are you feeling better?” she asked him.

  “Yes . . . Well, not really better, I think I have a fever.”

  “It would be best if you went up and rested for a while, and if you want I can make you an infusion.”

  “No, it’s not necessary. I’m going to have a rest: I’ll see you at dinner.”

  Irina said nothing, but then raised her blue eyes to him.

  “If you don’t need me, I think I will dine out tonight. Monsieur Beauvoir has been kind enough to invite me . . .”

  Monsieur Beauvoir bowed his head politely and they shared a couple of meaningless comments about influenza before Samuel headed upstairs to the refuge of his room. If Samuel had been surprised that Irina was going out with a man, then Mikhail was almost disgusted to see her elegantly dressed and preparing to leave.

  “But how can you think about going out for dinner! And with Monsieur Beauvoir, too! Everyone talks about him!”

  “What do they say? What can anyone possibly have to say about Monsieur Beauvoir? He is a perfect gentleman and he has never given me any reason to speak of him in anything other than the highest terms.”

  “You know what they say about him. Don’t pretend! You know that he was seen behaving in a more-than-friendly way with a young man.”

  “How dare you repeat such calumnies! Monsieur Beauvoir is a perfect gentleman.”

  “An unmarried gentleman.”

  “What of it? I am unmarried, and so is Samuel.”

  “Yes, but Samuel . . . Well, he’s different, he’s not . . . Anyway, Samuel’s been seen with women, he never goes out for tender moonlit walks with young men.”

  Samuel listened to the argument, astonished at what he was hearing. He had never paid much attention to Monsieur Beauvoir; their paths had crossed in the hallway, and he had seen him buying flowers in the shop. He seemed to be a well-mannered man, a little finicky perhaps, and a touch affected, but there were men like that who were simply arrogant.

  “Mikhail, you mustn’t interfere in Irina’s personal decisions,” Samuel said, trying to mediate between them.

  Mikhail turned on him furiously.

  “And what do you care what I do! Irina is . . . is like my mother, and I don’t want to see her going around with just anyone.”

  “Monsieur Beauvoir is not ‘just anyone,’ Mikhail. He is a lawyer, a gentleman whom all of society receives. And now I’m going out, and we can talk more about this tomorrow,” Irina said, and left without looking at either of them.

  Mikhail shut himself away in his room, and when Samuel came to call him for dinner, he half-opened his door and said that he wasn’t hungry and that he’d prefer to be alone.

  “Come on Mikhail, don’t be a baby. What’s the harm in Irina dining with Monsieur Beauvoir? He is our neighbor and he’s a gentleman, you’ve known him ever since we came to Paris.”

  “You know him as well. Does he seem normal to you?”

  “Normal? I don’t know what you mean. I have not had many dealings with him, but my grandfather had a good relationship with him and with his parents, and they are all good people. Monsieur Beauvoir’s father was a lawyer, and his mother always seemed to me to be a very thoughtful and solicitous woman. As for him, I have no complaints.”

  “But don’t you see how effeminate he is?”

  “No, I don’t see, and in any case, it’s not something that should be of importance to the rest of us. We should not judge people on their appearances, the most likely thing is that one will be mistaken.”

  “I can’t talk to you, you don’t understand me.” Mikhail shut the door.

  Samuel was almost grateful not to have to dine with him. His head hurt, he had a temperature and all he wanted was to go to bed. And although he wouldn’t have admitted anything in front of Mikhail, he too was worried about Irina’s activities. He wondered how he could not have realized that Irina and Monsieur Beauvoir were such good friends as to dine together. He didn’t go to sleep until after ten o’clock, when he heard Irina’s footsteps returning.

  Over the next few days he again met Monsieur Beauvoir at the florist’s. Irina went out for walks with him a couple of times. When the weekend came, Irina said that she had been invited to dine at the Beauvoirs’ house, and although Samuel said nothing he was surprised to see that Irina was made nervous by the engagement. She asked him several times his opinion about what clothes she should wear, and if it were enough to wear some of the jewels she had inherited from Marie.

  “She’s like a bride,” Samuel thought, and this thought almost overwhelmed him. Suddenly he seemed to realize what was happening.

  Little by little Monsieur Beauvoir came to play a larger and larger role in their lives, although Irina never asked him over the threshold and most of their meetings took place in the florist’s. People started to speak about them in the neighborhood. Irina walked arm in arm with her gentleman caller and both of them seemed happy.

  Mikhail behaved more and more rudely toward Monsieur Beauvoir, and scarcely greeted him. One afternoon he came home with his hair messed up, his jacket ripped, and with the
beginnings of a prime black eye.

  “Good Lord, what happened to you?” Irina cried upon seeing him.

  Mikhail looked at her angrily and then said:“This is your fault.”

  She said nothing, and left the room looking for the first-aid box.

  “You have no right to speak to her like that,” Samuel said, angry at the young man’s attitude.

  “I was walking past the bakery and I heard the baker say to another man that Irina is behaving badly: ‘She’s a woman with no control over herself, she lives with one man and goes out with another one under his nose. Poor Monsieur Zucker, to have to put up with such humiliation.’”

  Samuel felt uncomfortable with what Mikhail had just told him. Yes, he knew that everyone gossiped about him and Irina, said that they were lovers, because they couldn’t understand that fate had brought them together without their intending it, just as they couldn’t understand that their relationship was like that of brother and sister. So now the people who thought they were lovers were sorry for him; just thinking about it made him feel angry and humiliated. He would speak with Irina, and this time it would be he who insisted that she behave herself.

  But several days went past without her saying anything, as Mikhail did nothing to provoke her. Samuel did not pluck up the courage to do anything until one afternoon when Mikhail said he would be late because he had to practice at Monsieur Bonnet’s house.

  Irina was caught up in the accounts book, and Samuel appeared to be reading, but in fact he kept on telling himself that this was the moment when they both had to speak sincerely to each other.

  “Irina . . .”

  “Yes?” she replied, without paying him much attention.

  “We need to talk.”

  “Alright . . . Tell me, what do you want?” She had lifted her head and now she looked at him with her full attention.

  “We should have talked a long time ago. Marie told me that I should be sincere with you, but I have never dared to be.”

  She sat in silence, waiting for him to continue.

  “I want to marry you,” he said suddenly, and saw how confusion brought a blush to her face.

  “But Samuel, we are friends, you are my dearest friend, the brother I never had. I love you, I really do, but I am not in love with you. I don’t need to say anything to you, you’ve always known.”

  “Yes, I’ve always known, but I promised Marie that I would at least try,” he said, feeling embarrassed and humiliated.

  Irina came up to him and took him by the hand.

  “I am sorry, Samuel, I would have liked to have loved you as you deserve, but . . .”

  “But you cannot and you have fallen in love with Monsieur Beauvoir.”

  “With Monsieur Beauvoir? How ridiculous!”

  “Ridiculous? You walk out together, and you seem very happy at his side. I have never seen you laugh except when you are with him. Don’t try to deny what the rest of us can see all too well.”

  “No, I’m not deceiving you, Samuel, and . . . Yes, you are right, we should have spoken about this a long time ago, I . . . I have not been fair to you, I have been selfish. I’m sorry.”

  “I’m listening.” He felt a shudder as she sat down next to him, so close that he could hear her breathing.

  “I will never be any man’s, never, Samuel. I cannot love a man except as a brother. I have my reasons, don’t ask me them, they are things that belong to me and me alone. If I could have fallen in love with any man I would perhaps have fallen in love with Yuri, Mikhail’s father, but even so there could never have been any relation between us. I have never felt anything other than a fraternal affection for you. I know that it hurts you to hear me say so, and if you had not started this conversation then I would never have said anything. You have been a loyal and generous friend and I took advantage of your generosity, I know. I have always known that you were in love with me and I never gave you any hope, but even so I took advantage of your love. You brought me to Paris, you gave me a new family in Marie, you have allowed me to enjoy this house, to have my own shop, and never, never have you asked anything of me. You know, I was always aware that this moment would come and that things would change between us and that there would be no way back to how they were.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You cannot wait forever for me to give you an answer, especially when you have always known what it would be. And I knew that the day when you asked me to marry you, as you have done today, I would end up saying no and then we would part forever. That is why I have been prepared. You think I didn’t know that Marie wanted us to get married? And . . . It is better for me to tell you directly, Samuel: Yes, I am going to get married, I am going to marry Monsieur Beauvoir. I have been waiting for Mikhail to accept the situation, little by little, but whether or not he accepts it, I will get married.”

  Samuel felt dizzy. Each word that came from Irina’s mouth hurt more than the one before. But she kept talking and talking, unaware of the pain she was causing.

  “I don’t understand you,” Samuel managed to say.

  “I have told you already: I will never belong to any man, I will never have an intimate relationship with any man. That is why I will marry Monsieur Beauvoir. It is a marriage that will suit us both. We both need the respectability that will come from marriage, but we will not live as husband and wife. I will go with him wherever necessary, I will behave like a good wife. He will give me security and will behave like what he truly is, a respectable gentleman.”

  “I could give you the respectability you need . . .”

  “My selfishness does not extend so far, Samuel. Of course, I could have played with your feelings, I could have married you and then refused to have any conjugal relations with you, but you would never have forgiven me that. I am deeply fond of you, and I am sure that you will be happy with another woman. You deserve to marry and to have children. It’s not too late. No one expects me to have children, given my age, but you are a man, Samuel, and men can be fathers at any age.”

  “I don’t understand anything . . . I can’t understand you . . . I don’t know what you’re saying . . .” Samuel felt nauseated.

  “Of course you understand. We have reached this point together, and I should have told you the truth years ago, but as I said, I’m selfish. I was very young when my life was stolen away from me, and I’ll be sincere, I didn’t think I would ever get it back, but you returned it to me. You saved me from the Okhrana, you brought me to Paris, you asked Marie to look after us. I owe you my peace of mind, and . . . Yes, I think that what I have felt over the last few years has been fairly close to happiness.”

  “And Russia? Have you never missed our motherland?”

  “To begin with I did . . . If it had not been for Marie I would have found it impossible to live here. But now I wouldn’t live anywhere else than Paris. This is my homeland, I don’t miss any other.”

  “And Mikhail?”

  “He is no longer a child and will soon start out on his own. I love him like a son, but on the matter of Monsieur Beauvoir I will not give in. I am going to marry him.”

  “And if he does not accept?”

  Irina shrugged. Her love for others was circumscribed within herself; she could never give anyone what she herself lacked. Until that moment Samuel had not understood this.

  “When will the wedding be?”

  “In three weeks. Monsieur Beauvoir is pressing me to hurry: His parents are very old and they want to see him married.”

  “Now that everything’s been said . . . I’m leaving.”

  “Where?” From her tone of voice it was clear that she had no real interest.

  “Perhaps to Palestine.”

  “So . . . Perhaps you will sell me this house . . .”

  “No, I will not sell you the house,” he said angrily.

  “But i
f you’re going back to Palestine . . .”

  “My mother was born in this house, I have happy memories of it from my childhood. I didn’t even sell it to Marie. It is the only thing that remains of my family. No, it will never be sold.”

  “Monsieur Beauvoir will be happy to pay whatever you ask.”

  “I will close the house, unless Mikhail wants to remain living here. You, of course, will live with your husband.”

  “Yes, we’ve spoken about it. He has enough space. I will have my own bedroom and a small salon. Although I would have liked to have had a place for me alone . . . And what about the florist’s? Can you sell me the shop?”

  “You will pay me rent for the shop, but I won’t sell it to you either.”

  Irina did not insist. In this hour Samuel ceased to be a man who loved her; now all he wanted to do was to get away from her, to forget her forever. They spoke about details and about Mikhail’s future. They reached an agreement on the rent for the shop, and Samuel asked her to contract some workmen to close off the shop from the apartment. They would sign the agreement with a notary.

  “There is no need to use a notary; I will carry out my half of the bargain,” Irina said, upset.

  “I’m sorry, but we will do things my way or I will not rent you the shop.”

  All that was left was to talk to Mikhail. Irina asked him to help her make the young man see reason, but Samuel refused.

  “This is your business. I will help the boy if he asks me to, but I won’t get involved or tell him what he has to do.”

  And so it came to pass. The next day, taking advantage of Samuel not being at home, Irina spoke to Mikhail. It was a conversation more bitter than she could have imagined. The young man listened to her in silence, but was unable to stop the pain from showing on his face, until in the end he burst into tears.