Charlotte stopped, hastily withdrew a bill from her bag, and gave it to the first one to reach her. He could not take hold of it — his only hand, his left hand, had lost its fingers. He thrust the bill into the bottom of his box, then suddenly pitched over on his seat and, reaching out with his stump toward Charlotte, brushed against her ankle. And looked up at her with a demented and bitter gaze… .
She did not have time to grasp what occurred next. She saw another disabled man, but this time with two good arms, suddenly appear beside the first one and brutally snatch the crumpled bill from the one-armed man’s box. Charlotte uttered a cry, and opened her bag again. But the soldier who had just caressed her foot seemed resigned. Turning his back on his aggressor, he was already making his way up a steeply sloping little alley, the top of which was open to the sky. Charlotte remained undecided for a moment — should she go after him? Give him more money? She saw several more samovars steering their boxes in her direction. She felt a terrible unease. Fear, shame as well. An abrupt raucous cry cut through the dull hubbub that hung over the square.
Charlotte turned rapidly: it was a vision swifter than a lightning flash. The one-armed man in his box on wheels came hurtling down the sloping alley with a thunderous grinding of ball bearings. His stump pushed repeatedly against the ground, steering his crazy descent. And in his mouth, which was twisted into a horrible grimace, there quivered a knife, clenched between his teeth. The cripple who had stolen his money had just enough time to grasp his stick. The one-armed man’s box crashed into his own. Blood gushed. Charlotte saw two other samovars racing toward the one-armed man, who turned his head from side to side as he lacerated the body of his enemy. Other knives appeared, flashing between teeth. The yelling spread all around. Boxes collided with one another. Passersby, petrified by what was now becoming a general battle, did not dare to intervene. Another soldier rolled down the slope of the street at full tilt, his blade between his teeth, and plunged into the terrifying confusion of mutilated bodies? . Charlotte tried to get closer, but the fighting was taking place almost at ground level — you would have had to go on all fours to come between them. Already the militiamen were running up, emitting shrill whistle blasts. The bystanders came to themselves. Some hurried away. Others withdrew to the shade of the poplar trees to watch the end of the fighting. Charlotte saw one woman bend over and pick up a samovar from the pile of bodies, repeating in a tearful voice, “Lyosha! You promised me not to come here anymore! You promised!” And she went off, carrying the crippled man like a child. Charlotte tried to see if her one-armed man was still there. One of the militiamen pushed her away… .
We were walking in a straight line farther and farther from Saranza. The uproar of the military band had been absorbed into the silence of the steppe. All we heard now was the rustling of plants in the wind. And it was in that great space of light and heat that Charlotte’s voice broke the silence once more.
“No, they weren’t fighting over that stolen money. Not at all. Everybody understood that. They were fighting to … to be revenged on life. Its cruelty, its stupidity. And on that May sky above their heads … They were fighting as if they wanted to defy someone. The one who had combined within a single life the spring sky and their crippled bodies …”
“Stalin? God?” I was on the point of asking, but the air of the steppe made the words rough, hard to articulate.
We had never walked this far before. Saranza had long since sunk into the flickering haze of the horizon. This excursion with no end in view was vital to us. At my back I could feel, almost physically, the shade of a little square in Moscow… .
Finally we came upon a railway embankment. The line marked a surrealist frontier in this infinite space, whose only defining features were the sun and the sky. Curiously, on the other side of the tracks the terrain changed. We had to skirt several ravines, gigantic faults lined inside with sand, before descending into a valley. Suddenly,through the willow thickets there came a glint of water. We exchanged smiles and exclaimed with a single voice, “Sumra!”
It was a remote tributary of the Volga, one of those modest streams, lost in the immensity of the steppe, whose existence is known only because they flow into the great river.
We remained in the shade of the willows until evening… . It was on the road home that Charlotte finished her story.
“The authorities finally grew tired of all those cripples on the square, their shouting and their brawling. But above all, they were giving the great victory a bad image. You see, people prefer a soldier either to be gallant and smiling or else … dead on the field of honor. But these men … In short, one day several lorries drove up, and the militiamen began to snatch the samovars out of their boxes and throw them into the trucks. The way you throw logs onto a cart. A Muscovite told me they took them to an island, in the northern lakes. They had fixed up a former leper hospital for it… . In autumn I tried to find out about this place. I thought I might be able to go and work there. But when I went to that region in the spring they told me that there wasn’t a single cripple left on the island and that the leper hospital was closed for good… . It was a very beautiful spot. Pine trees as far as the eye could see, great lakes, and above all, very pure air....”
After we had been walking for an hour Charlotte gave me a little wry smile.
“Wait, I’m going to sit down for a moment… .”
She sat down on the dry grass and stretched out her legs. I walked on automatically for a few paces and turned round. Once again, as if from an unfamiliar perspective or from a great height, I saw a woman with white hair, wearing a very simple dress of pale satin, a woman seated on the ground in the midst of this immensity that stretches from the Black Sea to Mongolia, and which is known as “the steppe.” My grandmother … I saw her with that inexplicable detachment that the previous evening I had taken for a kind of optical illusion caused by my nervous tension. I felt I had a glimpse of that vertiginous disorientation that must be a common experience for Charlotte: an almost cosmic alienation. There she was under this violet sky: she seemed totally alone on this planet, there on the mauve grass, under the first stars. And her France and her youth were more remote from her than the pale moon — left behind in another galaxy, under another sky… .
She raised her face. Her eyes seemed larger than usual to me. She spoke in French. The resonance of this language gave off vibrations like a last message from that distant galaxy.
“You know, Alyosha, sometimes it seems to me that I understand nothing about the life of this country. Yes. That I am still a foreigner. After living here for almost half a century. Those ‘samovars’ … I don’t understand. There were people laughing as they watched them fight!”
She made a movement to stand up. I hastened toward her, holding out my hand. She smiled at me, taking hold of my arm. And as I leaned toward her, she murmured several brief words in a firm and solemn tone that surprised me. It is probably because I mentally translated them into Russian that I have remembered them. They made a long sentence, whereas Charlotte’s French captured everything in a single image: the one-armed samovar sitting with his back against the trunk of an immense pine tree, silently watching the reflection of the waves fading behind the trees …
In the Russian translation, which my memory retained, Charlotte’s voice added in a tone of justification, “Yet sometimes I tell myself that I understand this country better than the Russians themselves. For I have carried that soldier’s face with me over so many years. ...I have felt his solitude beside the lake....”
She got up and walked on slowly, leaning on my arm. In my body and in my breathing I could feel the disappearance of that aggressive and nervous adolescent who had arrived in Saranza the previous day.
That is how our summer began, my last summer spent in Charlotte’s house. The next day I woke up with the feeling that I was myself at last. A great calm, at the same time both bitter and serene, spread through me. I no longer had to struggle between my Russian and my Fr
ench identities. I accepted myself.Now we spent almost all our days on the banks of the Sumra. We set off very early in the morning, carrying with us a big gourd of water, bread, cheese. In the evening, taking advantage of the first cool breeze, we would return.
* * *
Once the path was known to us, it did not seem so long. In the sundrenched monotony of the steppe we discerned hundreds of features, landmarks that quickly became familiar to us. A block of granite on which mica glittered in the sun from a long way off. A strip of sand that resembled a miniature desert. The area covered with brambles that had to be avoided. When Saranza disappeared from sight we knew that soon the line of the embankment would emerge from the horizon, the rails would gleam. And once this frontier was crossed we had almost arrived: beyond the ravines that cut into the steppes with their abrupt gullies, we already sensed the presence of the river. It seemed to be waiting for us… .
Charlotte would settle down with a book in the shade of the willows, a step away from the stream, while I would swim and dive until exhausted, several times crossing the river, which was narrow and not very deep. Along its shores there was a string of little islands, covered with thick grass, where there was just enough room to stretch out and imagine oneself to be on a desert island in the middle of the ocean… .
Then, lying on the sand, I listened to the bottomless silence of the steppe… . Our conversations started spontaneously and seemed to flow from the sunny babbling of the Sumra, from the rustling of the long leaves of the willows. Charlotte, her hands resting on the open book, would gaze across the river toward the plain scorched by the sun and begin to talk, sometimes replying to my questions, sometimes anticipating them intuitively as she spoke.
It was during those long summer afternoons, in the midst of the steppe, where every plant resonated with dryness and heat, that I learned what had previously been concealed from me in Charlotte’s life. And also what my childish intelligence had not managed to grasp.
I learned that he really was her first lover, the first man in her life, that Great War soldier who had slipped the little pebble knownas “Verdun” into her hand. Only they had not met on the day of the solemn parade on July 14, 1919: it was two years later, some months before Charlotte’s departure for Russia. I learned also that this soldier was very far from being the mustached hero, glittering with medals, of our naive imaginings. He turned out rather to have been thin, with a pale face and sad eyes. He had frequent coughing fits. His lungs had been scorched in the course of one of the first gas attacks. And he did not step out of the ranks of the great parade to approach Charlotte and give her the “Verdun.” He had handed this talisman to her at the station, the day of her departure for Moscow, certain of seeing her again soon.
One day she spoke to me about the rape… . Her calm voice had that tone that seemed to be saying, “Of course you already know what happened… . It’s no secret to you.” I confirmed this implication by repeating briefly, “Yes, yes,” with studied nonchalance. I was very much afraid, after this story, that I might get up and see a different Charlotte, a different face, bearing the indelible expression of a violated woman. But it was chiefly this blinding vision that lodged itself in my brain.
A man in a turban, wearing a kind of long coat, very thick and very hot, particularly in the midst of the desert sands that lie all about him. Veiled eyes, like two razor blades; the copper-colored sunburn of his round face, glistening with sweat. He is young. With feverish gestures, he tries to grasp the curved dagger that hangs from his belt, on the other side from the rifle. These few seconds seem interminable. For the desert and the man with his hasty movements are seen only with a tiny fraction of her vision — the chink between her eyelashes. A woman lying on the ground, her dress torn, her disheveled hair half buried in the sand, looks as if she is embedded forever in this empty landscape. There is a strand of red across her left temple. But she is alive. The bullet has torn the skin under her hair and buried itself in the sand. The man twists round to grasp at his weapon. He would like the death to be more physical — the throat cut, a surge of blood soaking the sand. But the dagger he is reaching for slid round to the other side when, just now, with the folds of hislong garment open, he was writhing on the crushed body? . He pulls at his belt angrily, throwing hate-filled glances at the transfixed face of the woman. Suddenly he hears a whinny. He turns. His companions are galloping already far away; their silhouettes, at the top of a ridge, stand out clearly against the sky. And all at once he feels oddly alone: himself, the desert in the evening light, the dying woman. He spits angrily, kicks the inert body with his pointed boot, and leaps onto the saddle with the agility of a caracal. When the sound of the hoof beats has died away, the woman, slowly, opens her eyes. And she begins to breathe hesitantly, as if she had lost the habit. The air tastes of stone and blood… .
Charlotte’s voice mingled with the soft sighing of the willows. She fell silent. I thought of the rage of that young Uzbek: “He needed to slit her throat at any price, reduce her to lifeless flesh!” And, with what was already a man’s perception, I understood that this was not mere cruelty. I recalled the first minutes after the act of love, when the body, desired a moment ago, suddenly became useless, unpleasant to see and to touch, almost hostile. I remembered my young companion on our raft that night: it was true; I resented her because I no longer desired her; because I was disappointed; because I could feel her there, clinging to my shoulder? . And pursuing my thought to its logical conclusion, laying bare the male egoism that both frightened and tempted me, I said to myself, “It’s true: after love the woman should disappear!” And I again pictured that hand feverishly reaching for the dagger.
I stood up abruptly and turned toward Charlotte. I was going to ask her the question that had tortured me for months, which I had formulated and reformulated in my mind a thousand times: “Tell me, in a word, in a sentence. Love. What is it?”
But Charlotte, doubtless anticipating what would have been a much more logical question, spoke first: “And do you know what saved me? … Did no one ever tell you?”
I looked at her. Telling me about the rape had left no mark at all on her features. There was simply the flickering of shadow and sunlight through the leaves of the willows that brushed against her face.
She had been saved by a saiga, that desert antelope with enormous nostrils, like an elephant’s trunk cut short, and — in astonishing contrast — huge, timid, and gentle eyes. Charlotte had often seen herds of them bounding across the desert… . When she was finally able to get up she saw a saiga slowly crawling along a sand dune. Charlotte followed it, without thinking, instinctively — the animal was the only beacon in the midst of the endless undulations of the sands. As if in a dream (the lilac sky had the deceptive emptiness of visions), she managed to draw close to the animal. The saiga did not run away. In the hazy light of dusk Charlotte saw dark patches on the sand — blood. The animal collapsed, then, lunging violently with its head, picked itself up from the ground, staggered on long, trembling legs, made several uncoordinated leaps. Fell again. It had been mortally wounded. By the same men who had almost killed her? Perhaps. It was spring. The night was icy cold. Charlotte curled up, pressing her body against the animal’s back. The saiga did not move anymore. Shivers ran across its skin. Its sibilant breathing was like human sighs, like whispered words. Numb with cold and pain, Charlotte woke frequently, aware of this murmuring, which was obstinately trying to say something. In one of these waking moments, in the middle of the night, she was amazed to see a star, close at hand, shining in the sand. A star fallen from the sky… . Charlotte leaned toward this luminous dot. It was the great open eye of the saiga — with a glorious, fragile constellation reflected in its tearfilled globe… . She did not notice the moment when the heartbeats of this living creature, which kept her alive, stopped… . In the morning the desert was glittering with hoarfrost. Charlotte remained standing for several minutes before the motionless body scattered with crystals. Then, slowly, sh
e scaled the dune that the beast had not managed to cross the previous evening. When she reached the crest she uttered an “Oh” that rang out in the morning air. A lake, pink with the first rays, stretched out at her feet. It was this water that the saiga was trying to reach… . They found Charlotte sitting on the shore that same evening.
In the streets of Saranza, at nightfall, she added this emotional epilogue to her story: “Your grandfather,” she said softly, “never referred to that business. Never … And he loved your uncle Sergei as if he were his own son. Even more, perhaps. It’s hard for a man toaccept that his first child is the result of a rape. Especially as Sergei, you know, doesn’t look like anyone else in the family. No, he never spoke about it… .”
I sensed her voice shaking slightly. “She loved Fyodor,” I thought quite simply. “It was he who made it possible for this country, where she has suffered so much, to be her own. And she still loves him. After all these years without him. She loves him out here on the steppes at night, in this Russian immensity. She loves him… .”
Love appeared to me anew in all its sorrowful simplicity. Inexplicable. Inexpressible. Like that constellation reflected in the eye of a wounded animal in the middle of a desert covered in ice.
It was a chance slip of the tongue that revealed an unsettling reality to me: the way I was speaking French was no longer the same… .
In asking Charlotte a question that day, I got my words twisted. I must have come up against one of those pairs of words, a deceptive pair, of which there are many in French. Yes, it was couples along the lines of “mitigate-militate” or “prefabricate-prevaricate.” In the old days my verbal clumsiness with such perfidious duos, some as fraught with risk as “luxe-luxure” (“luxury-lewdness”), used to provoke mockery from my sister and discreet corrections from Charlotte.
Dreams of My Russian Summers Page 19
