I pressed my fingertips against my forehead, trying to comprehend this tapestry of lies and half-truths. “And all this time Paul has believed that you accepted his story of the accidental shooting?”
“Yes.” For the first time, she looked into my eyes, a faint sad smile on her lips. “So you see, by pretending to believe Paul’s story, I am lying too, in a way. All three of us are lying, each to protect the others from the truth.”
“And you alone know that truth?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure you know the whole truth? Do you know why your father shot the young… this Marcel?”
“I believe so. I have considered it a great deal, and I believe I understand. There was the staggering shock of my mother’s death. There were the years of concealing his grief beneath a heavy schedule of study, of trying to insulate his pain with work. And all that time, the unexpressed grief festered within him. Then one night at an unguarded and vulnerable moment… perhaps he had been thinking about her, sitting in his study and remembering… perhaps weeping. He stepped into the garden for a breath of air… he saw his wife in the arms of another man… I look very much like my mother, you know. Yes, Jean-Marc, I think I know what happened.”
“Then you must realize that the feelings he has for you are morbid. You do realize that, don’t you?”
“They’re not feelings for me. They’re feelings for his wife.”
“They’re morbid all the same. And there is no reason in the world to believe he won’t break again, won’t kill another young man whose only crime is loving you and holding you in his arms.”
“Exactly! And that is why we must leave here, Jean-Marc! Don’t you see?”
I ran my fingers through my hair. “But you mustn’t leave! I mustn’t lose you! I love you, for God’s sake!” I stopped short at hearing myself say the words so violently. Then I repeated softly, “I love you, Katya.”
Her eyes searched my face with concern; then she gazed out over the moonlit garden as she seemed to ponder some inner puzzle. When she spoke, after a long silence, it was with a distant voice. “I am twenty-six years old, Jean-Marc. Twenty-six years old. My mother died when she was just twenty. It’s a very strange feeling to be older than your mother. Think of it. I am six years older than my…” Her voice trailed off into reverie.
“Katya? There’s something I must ask you. I believe I already know the answer, because a person in love is sensitive to the one he loves and can read all the little signs and hints. But you’ve never said it in so many words. Katya… do you love me?”
After a moment of silence, she said, “You know that I am very fond of—”
“—I am not speaking about fondness or liking or friendship. Do you love me?”
She smiled faintly and rather sadly. “My determined, passionate Basque.”
“Do you love me?” I insisted, my pulse quickening as an unforeseen doubt began to rise in me like a cold shadow.
She touched my cheek with her fingertips, then cupped it in her palm. Her soft eyes looked into mine with what I feared was pity. She lowered her gaze and withdrew her hand. “No, Jean-Marc,” she said softly. “I don’t love you.”
The earth seemed to drop away beneath me. For a second, I was numb. Then the hurt began to sting behind my eyes. I had to swallow to suppress the knot of tears in my throat.
She spoke almost in a whisper. “I won’t tell you how fond of you I am, Jean-Marc, because I know that would only add to your pain. But please believe me. I am very sorry that I don’t love you. I can’t explain why I don’t. I’ve daydreamed about loving you. I want to love you. I even feel I ought to. But…”
I turned away so she could not see my face. My voice was strained and thin when I spoke. “And the man in Paris… your Marcel… did you love him?”
She was silent for a long moment. “I was young and romantic enough to delight in the thought of being in love, but… no. No, I’ve come to the realization that I shall never love. Not everyone has that capacity, you know. So you see, even if it weren’t for Papa, I could not stay with you. I couldn’t…. Are you crying? Please don’t cry.”
“I’m not crying.” I turned my face even farther from her and struggled to make no sound as the tears hitched in my throat and streamed down my cheeks. “Please… don’t look at me. Give me a minute. I’ll be all right. Forgive me.”
She was sensitive enough not to come to me, not to console me, while I brought the first rush of pain and emptiness under control.
After several minutes I was able to breathe more evenly and the flow of tears stopped. “I’m sorry,” I said, wiping my eyes with my fingers. “These last few days have been hard. I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry about,” she said softly.
“There!” I scrubbed my cheeks with my palms and turned to her, smiling damply. “There we are! Childish breakdown completely under control. My goodness! You must not be feeling very well, young lady. You look all blurry. We are trained in medical school to recognize blurriness as a serious, but seldom fatal, symptom of… I can’t remember what of, just now.” The forced gaiety must have sounded as hollow and false as it was.
Her voice had a caressing quality like that of the soothing noises we make to a child who has fallen and scraped his knee. “You deserve happiness, Jean-Marc, and I know you will find it one day. You are so sensitive… so kind. And you’re very brave.”
“Brave? Yes… well. It’s a trick we Basques have, young lady. We conceal our courage behind tears. It fools our enemies into thinking we’re weak.”
“Dear, dear Jean-Marc.”
I sat on the steps of the summerhouse, my back to her, and looked up at the dark branches above us laced with a tracery of silver moonlight. She had just told me that she did not love me, and I believed her—my mind believed her. But in my soul and heart, I could not accept it, could not even comprehend it. I had never thought of love as something one person felt for another. I had always conceived of love as a state, a condition outside the two persons, a kind of shared shelter within which both could find comfort and confidence. So how could it be that I felt so total and intense a love, while she…?
Nor could I console myself with the possibility that she might one day come to love me. Young and romantic as I was, I could not view love as something one could grow into, a contract the items of which one could negotiate one by one. Either love was whole and absorbed you totally, or it was not love. It was something else. Something more reasonable and calm, perhaps; something quite nice in its own way… but something I did not want.
After a time, I drew a long breath and spoke to her, my voice calm, but thin and toneless. “All right. I accept that you don’t love me, Katya. But I love you. I don’t intend to burden you with my love, but I can’t deny it either. It exists. And because I love you, I cannot allow you to waste your life, running forever from fears and shadows.”
“There’s no point in trying to persuade me. I love my father… even as you say you love me.”
“Love him? Well, perhaps. But you don’t respect him.”
“That’s not true! How can you say that?”
“Do you really believe that if your father knew you were sacrificing your youth and future to protect him, he would allow it? You and Paul are making decisions on his behalf that he would never make himself. You’re treating him as though he were a mindless infant.”