Black Spring

by Alison Croggon

  The young couple set up their household at the manse, and they settled down to their married life. Lina continued to live as quietly as before, as Tibor had no taste for socializing, and in any case the winter drew in and confined us indoors. Tibor’s days were nevertheless busy: he set his farmer’s eye on the management of the property, with plans to redress Masko’s neglect, and sketched out the improvements he would make when spring returned. Lina spent her days much as she had before she was married: she concerned herself with household tasks in the morning, and in the afternoon diverted herself by reading or drawing or occasionally playing music. Marriage suited her: the heightened sensitivity that had so troubled me subsided, as a novel content began to suffuse her being. She put on flesh and a healthy colour crept under the pallor of her skin. I looked over these changes with a proprietorial eye, as fussy as a hen with an ailing chick.

  Just after the snow melted, Lina came to me and asked how one could tell if one was with child. I think it must have been a rather comic conversation: Lina was embarrassed, which at first inhibited my comprehension of her question, as it was couched in such vague terms. And once I understood what she was asking, I found myself as embarrassed as she was: I was still a maiden, and lacked the frank ease with which married women spoke of these things with each other. I looked dubiously at her slim body, and asked her why she thought she might be pregnant.

  “Oh … things,” she said. “The blood hasn’t come this month. And I am feeling a bit odd. But I’m frightened, Anna, because what will I do with a baby? I don’t want to have one.”

  “You’re a wife now, and you’re supposed to have babies,” I said. Even as I spoke, I felt how useless I was as a confidante.

  “Not everybody has babies. I would much rather not. What if I should die, just now, when everything is going right at last?” I knew she was thinking of her mother, who had died in childbed. “I wish I knew some way to stop it. But if there is already a child inside me, it is too late anyhow. What shall I do?”

  “You should tell your husband,” I said. “That’s what you should do.”

  “But I don’t want to have a baby,” she said again, as if the act of telling Tibor would make real what was now mere fantasy.

  “Mr Tibor will be pleased,” I said. “And perhaps that will make you feel better about it.”

  She shook her head, and sat for a time in silence, plunged into unutterable gloom. In the end, I advised her to consult the doctor; and after another week of whispered conversations she did so, calling him in on a pretext so that Tibor would not suspect the real reason for his visit. He confirmed that she was, indeed, with child.

  XXIV

  As spring quickened around us, swelling the river with snowmelt and pushing forth the buds from winter trees, so life quickened in the womb of my mistress. Of course her husband must be told, and he was, as I had predicted, delighted at the thought that he would soon be a father. Lina said no more to me about her reluctance to have a child, and I thought that, as I had hoped, her husband’s joy had tempered her fears. She looked to be in the best of health; she suffered from no sickness, and an increase of appetite meant that a bloom attended her beauty that I had not seen in her face since her father had died.

  It wasn’t until summer, when her pregnancy was well forward, that I found that I was mistaken. I was in the kitchen preparing the midday meal when Tibor entered the back door and sat down at the table. He often did this, as he enjoyed chatting idly with me and the other servants as he cleaned his gun or polished his boots, both tasks he preferred to do himself. Today he had neither boots nor rifle; he just sat down at the table and stared gloomily at its surface, digging into the wood with a knife. I was busy dressing a hare to make a stew, and so didn’t especially note this until I had finished my task; by then he had made a considerable scar in the table.

  “For shame, sir!” I cried. “Look what you are doing!”

  Startled out of his abstraction, he looked up and laughed mirthlessly. “I’m sorry, Annie,” he said (for so he called me). “I didn’t mean to make a great hole.” He rubbed his hands uselessly over the cut. “I was thinking about something else…” Here he frowned, and almost began to stab the wood again, then saw what he was doing and pushed the knife away. He sighed heavily, and stretched back in his chair, rubbing his hair with his hands until it stood upright.

  I saw something was amiss, but didn’t like to enquire, and a silence of some minutes fell between us. I felt him watching me as I chopped the vegetables and herbs, and sensed that he might speak at any moment, but it wasn’t until I was putting the pot in the oven that he brought himself to say anything.

  “Annie,” he said. “Do you think it strange that a woman might not like to be a mother?”

  My back was turned on him, which gave me time to overcome the immediate sense of misgiving his question set in me.

  “It is natural, I think, for a woman to be afraid of childbed,” I said. I straightened my back and smoothed down my apron, but I didn’t meet his eyes; I was slightly embarrassed, as indeed was he. Although I liked Tibor, and he had been free and friendly with me since first he came to the manse, our conversations had not been intimate. “Do you speak of the mistress?”

  Here I did look at him, and his youth then struck me forcibly: he looked then like a lost little boy. He was, in truth, only just a man, as I was only just a woman.

  “Aye,” he said. “I hope you don’t mind me talking of her. But you have known her a long time, and sometimes I don’t understand her.”

  “What don’t you understand?”

  “She says she would tear the baby from her womb, if she could. She says she doesn’t want to be a mother, and she hates feeling the child inside her. It’s unnatural for a woman to say such things. Surely every woman is placed on earth to bear children, and should be glad when she fulfils her fate?”

  I was shocked by what he reported of Lina’s feelings, but attempted to conceal what I felt. I said that perhaps, in her fear, she might speak out and say what she did not mean, and reminded him that her mother had died while giving birth to her, which might make any woman think badly of motherhood.

  He nodded dubiously, and sat for a minute more in silence, his brow furrowed. He left the kitchen without speaking further, and I tidied up my peelings, feeling sorry that Lina had so far forgot herself as to communicate feelings to her husband that should have been far better kept to herself. Her anxieties were, as I had told Tibor, not unnatural: what troubled me was the violence, even the hatred, in her expression of them.

  After that I kept a warier watch on my mistress, and began to see glimmers of her old, wilful self. She uttered no sentiments to me like those she had shared with her husband, no doubt because she knew I would have disapproved; but as her pregnancy became visible, I saw with concern that her spirits seemed more and more oppressed. Tibor continued in his tender care for her, but the same behaviour that through the winter had given her peace and ease, now seemed to irritate her. She would push away his caresses with impatience, even in front of me, and rejected any care for her bodily safety with a recklessness I had not seen since I had returned from the palace. In particular, she continued to ride horseback, despite the warnings of the doctor, and at last in direct defiance of her husband’s orders, until she became too big to clamber into the saddle. It was the sheerest luck that she suffered no mishap.

  If her desires were opposed, she didn’t lose her temper, as when she was a child; rather she would withdraw to her room, refusing meals and speaking to no one, until she had her own way. I thought this silence was worse than her childhood rages, and it was certainly as difficult to deal with. Although Tibor did not confide in me further, it took no great perception to see that sometimes he was close to despair; he continued to love his wife, and would not abuse her, and yet he had not the force of character to make her yield to his will. Sometimes, indeed, her behaviour towards him was close to contempt.

  I still believe that their m
arriage would likely have survived what were, after all, no more than the early misunderstandings of two very young people but newly wed. In between Lina’s bouts of fractiousness, she could be as gentle and sweet as ever; and she joked with me sometimes that she was fortunate to have married such an even-tempered man who would bear with her bad moods. As her belly swelled still bigger and she felt the child kicking in her womb, her resentment seemed to subside; she even began to speak of looking forward to holding her baby. If I could have been sure that her labour would be untroubled, I would have breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed to me then that the worst was passing, and that if only the birth went safely, all would be well. Lina continued in such good health that I suppressed my anxieties on that score, although I lit a candle every Sabbath day, offering prayers to the Virgin, for her sake.

  The leaves of the poplars and lindens turned copper and gold and swirled over the sere grasses in gusty winds, early harbingers of the coming winter storms. The shepherds and goatherds came back with their flocks from their summer sojourns in the mountain pastures, the harvests were almost gathered in, and we all began to turn our minds to the long cold. Lina was in her seventh month of pregnancy, and more content than she had been in months. And then Damek returned to Elbasa.

  XXV

  I was one of the first to know of his arrival. It happened that late one autumn afternoon I left the house to visit my mother. The air was chill with the threat of rain, and I was hurrying so I could get to the Red House before it was dark. Suddenly, a tall man stepped in front of me and called my name. It was as if he had materialized out of thin air, and I started greatly, almost frightened out of my wits.

  “Don’t you recognize me, Anna?” he said. “Surely I am not so changed?”

  He was indeed changed. Since I had last seen Damek, his face had lost the softness of boyhood and he had grown several inches, but in that moment I recognized his voice. I realized then that he must have been standing beneath the pines that shelter the manse from the wind; they cast a deep shadow and had totally concealed him.

  “Damek!” I cried. “My dear life, I thought you a demon come to claim my soul! But we all thought you were dead!” I was still not sure that he was not a ghostly apparition, and I clutched at my cross and made a silent prayer.

  “This is a sorry beginning,” he said. “I thought at least I would find a friend in you. No, I am not dead, nor am I a demon. I am as alive as you. Look!” And he took my hand in his and pressed it, and my heart stopped pounding so hard, since his skin was as alive and warm as mine. “Come. Are you walking to the village? I will walk with you.”

  “But where have you been? Why did you not write?”

  “That is not your business. I have been away, and I have come back. And I am told that Lina is married. I could not believe my ears! Say it is not so, Anna!”

  I confirmed, with some asperity, that Lina was married, and added that she had every right to choose whom she desired.

  “I’m also told she is with child,” he said, after a short silence. His voice betrayed no particular emotion. I glanced sideways, but it was too dark to see the expression on his face.

  “Aye, she is,” I said. “We who love her should all be joyful at the news.”

  Damek was silent at this, but the air between us seemed to thicken, as if some baleful energy were gathering about him. I hesitated, and said, as gently as I could, “She is happy, Damek, and she was very unhappy for many years.”

  At this he turned to face me, and I saw his eyes gleaming in the shadows of his face. He spoke quietly, but with a force in his expression that made my heart quail.

  “I tell you, Anna, no one has been more unhappy than I have been, these past years. Not one day, not one single day, has passed without my thinking of her. Everything I have done, all my struggle, has been for her. And at last I return, and find that I was forgotten the moment I was out of sight.”

  The injustice of his complaint smote me. “She never forgot you,” I said with heat. “And since not one word has been heard from you for years, everybody thought you were killed. What was she to do? You should pity her for what she has suffered.”

  “What she has suffered?” he said, with sudden passion. “Ah, and what of me?” Then he seemed to master himself, and he laughed bitterly. “So I learn a hard lesson!” he said. “It’s well said that women are fickle. But I would never have believed it of Lina.”

  The pain with which he spoke silenced my reproaches; for all the impropriety of what he said, I pitied him. We walked on in silence for some time, each wrapped in our own thoughts. I was chiefly worrying about Lina. I couldn’t see how Damek’s return would in any way be good for her and, in her delicate state, I feared that he might do her active harm.

  As we neared the village, he roused himself. “Anna, I want you to do me a favour,” he said.

  I cautiously answered that, as long as what he asked was not wrong, I was happy to do him any favour.

  “I want you to tell her I am back,” he said. “She’ll hear soon enough of my return; I’m staying with that pig Masko for the present, and word gets about this village like a plague. But I will come to see her, and soon. I’d rather you told her of my arrival than anyone else. Prepare her for my visit. Tell her that my love is unchanged.”

  His voice caught, and he paused, which permitted me to interject that I would say no such thing.

  “At least give her this letter.” He pressed a letter into my hand, but I refused, despite his protestations, to take it. In the end, I said I would inform Lina of his return. I agreed with Damek that it were best to come from me, and I was secretly glad that he had thought to tell me first, rather than bursting in unannounced. I greatly feared how the news would affect Lina’s health, and I impressed on him that she had been seriously ill in his absence.

  “You will find her changed,” I said. “I was shocked by it, when I came back from the palace. She is delicate, and the least thing can throw her. I insist you be gentle, if you care for her at all.”

  “If I care for her at all! How can you say such a thing?” But at last, on my insistence, he promised to be discreet, and to do nothing that would cause her distress; and with that, my anxieties had to be content.

  XXVI

  I was to spend the night at the Red House, where Damek too had accommodation. This strange circumstance of an apparent intimacy with his sworn enemy excited my curiosity painfully, but Damek was in no mood to satisfy it. We parted at the gate, he to wander up to the front door and rap on it with a black cane, and me to wind my way through the back garden to the kitchen. My mother was waiting impatiently for me, and ran to the door as I opened it, wringing her hands, to break to me the news that I already knew.

  Damek had, she said, arrived only that afternoon, in a richly ornamented closed carriage drawn by a handsome pair of black horses, which caused much speculation as it swept through the village towards the Red House. When Damek had emerged from behind its curtains, and had been greeted at the door by Masko himself, who was clearly expecting him, the amazement of the household was enough for a month of exclamations. The maids were struck by Damek’s handsomeness – for he had grown into a striking-looking man – and the manservants by his obvious wealth; and the superior airs of his groom had chastened everyone at the servants’ table.

  The history of Damek’s attempt to stab Masko was, of course, widely known, and so the apparent friendship between them was another mystery. According to Damek’s groom, they had met only last month in the city, at one of the gambling houses, and there had reforged their acquaintanceship; and it seemed that Damek had been invited back to Elbasa to stay for the winter, all their differences now quite dissolved. I listened to this story with disbelief: I couldn’t credit that Damek had forgiven Masko anything. But I kept my own counsel, and told no one of my private conversation with him.

  None of us ever found out where Damek had been, or how he had made his fortune. He never dropped one syllable of information. A
ll that was certain was that he had disappeared for five years, and that he had returned rich. A favourite rumour was that he had made a pact with the Devil, and that his soul was written in blood in the Book of Hell; another was that he had been a privateer in the wars now ongoing in the west, of which we heard distant and belated news; yet another, that he had formed a criminal gang in the city; still another, that he had made his fortune by gambling, and had ruined a great southern family through his audacity and skill at cards. I fancied the privateer theory myself; his swarthy complexion hinted at a life spent much in the weather, and occasionally he would let fall a phrase that bespoke a nautical knowledge. It explained a sudden access of wealth without the taint of criminality, although his steady silence on the question suggested that his story was less than respectable.

  Of course, the mystery added to his attraction: and at first, he took great care to be attractive. When I had the chance to observe Damek in company, I saw that he charmed everybody, man or woman; yet a gleam in his eye very like contempt signalled to me that he was playing a role, and that his intentions were far from benign. Also, he never bothered to pretend anything to me. I had known him too long and too well to fall victim to his allure.

  I saw no more of him that first evening, in any case. Masko had invited his cronies in for a game of cards, and the festivities were loud and long; the other servants were kept busy ferrying refreshments to the dining room. My mother and I spent our evening quietly in the kitchen, and I retired early since I had to leave before dawn the next day, if I was to attend to my duties at the manse. Despite my early bed, I scarce slept with worry. What was I to tell Lina? How was I to begin to talk about a man whose name had not been mentioned once between us in all the months since I had returned home? And – a worse thought – what if word reached her before I did?

  In the event, we were isolated enough at the manse that I was first with the news. I waited until after I had served breakfast and Tibor had gone outside to see to some job, and then sought out Lina. I was so uncomfortable that I fiddled about until she lost patience with me, and at last I blurted it out, without adornment or preparation.