Five Women (10 page)

Tonka had often thought with dread of the moment when a man would stand before her and she would have no way of escape. The stories that the older girls in the shop had told her with such delight gave her a feeling only of a crude, boring frivolity, something that was not love at all, and she was indignant at the way men were always making amorous advances to her after scarcely exchanging more than a few words with her. As she looked at her companion now, she felt a sudden pang. It was the first time since she had been with him that she realised he was a man; for this was something completely different. He was lying back, resting on his elbows, his chin on his chest. Timidly, she tried to see into his eyes.

What she saw was a peculiar smile. He had one eye shut, and with the other he was gazing along the length of his body, as though aiming at something. Doubtless he knew how ugly his shoe looked at that angle, and perhaps too how little it amounted to that he was lying at the edge of a wood with Tonka. But he did nothing to change anything about it. Each detail was ugly, and the whole thing was happiness.

Quietly, Tonka got up. She suddenly felt a burning inside her head, and her heart was thudding. She could not make out what he was thinking, but she read it all in his eye; and all at once she caught herself wanting to take his head in her arms and cover up his eyes.

"It's time to go," she said. "It'll be getting dark soon."

As they were walking along the road, he said: "I'm afraid you must have been bored. But you will have to get used to me." He took her arm, because it was becoming difficult to see the road distinctly, and he tried to excuse himself for his silence and then, almost against his will, for his thoughts too. She did not really know what he was talking about, but in her own way she sensed the meaning of his words, which came so gravely through the rising mist. And when now he went further, even apologising for talking
in
such a solemn way, she did not know what to do. Even her silent prayer to the Blessed Virgin was of no avail, and so she linked her arm more closely with his, although she felt dreadfully shy of doing so.

He stroked her hand. "I think we get on well together, Tonka. But do you really understand me?"

After a while Tonka answered: "It doesn't matter if I know what you mean, or not. I couldn't say anything anyway. But I like you to be so serious."

These were all very slight experiences, of course, but the remarkable thing was that they happened all over again, exactly the same. Actually they were always there. And, even more remarkably, later they meant the very opposite of what they had meant in the beginning. Tonka always remained so simply and transparently the same that it was almost like having an hallucination, seeing the most incredible things.

III

Then came an event: his grandmother died before the expected time. Events are, after all, only things that happen untimely and out of place; one is, as it were, mislaid or forgotten, and one is as helpless as an object that nobody bothers to pick up. And even the events that took place much later were only the things that happen thousands of times, all over the world, and the only incomprehensible thing about it was that it should have happened with Tonka.

Well, and so the doctor came, the undertaker's men came, the death certificate was signed, and Grandmamma was buried. One thing followed on the other quite smoothly, as is proper in a respectable family. The will was read. He was glad not to be in any way involved. There was only one item among the bequests that demanded attention: the provision made for Fräulein Tonka with that dreamlike surname, one of those Czech surnames that mean things like ‘He sang', or ‘He came across the meadow'. There was a contract. Under the terms of the will the Fräulein was to receive—apart from her wages, which were low—a certain fixed sum for every completed year of service, and since it had been assumed that Grandmamma would linger on for quite a while, and since the sum had been fixed in gradually increasing amounts in accordance with the expected increase in the strain of nursing her, it turned out to be a sum that was bound to seem outrageously small to a young man who weighed out in minutes the months of her youth that Tonka had sacrificed.

He was present when Hyacinth reckoned up with her. He was pretending to read—the book was Novalis'
Fragments—
but in reality he was attentively following what was going on. He was ashamed when his ‘uncle' named the sum. Even his ‘uncle' seemed to feel something similar, for he began to explain to the Fräulein, in detail, the terms of the contract that had been made when she entered their service. Tonka listened intently, her lips tightly closed. The solemnity with which she followed the calculations gave her young face a very appealing look.

"So then that's correct, isn't it?" his uncle said, laying the money on the table.

It was obvious that she had absolutely no idea what it was all about. She pulled out her little purse, folded the notes, and squashed them in; but though they were few, folding them so much made a thick wad of them, and when the little purse had been replaced under her skirt, it made a bulge on her thigh, like a swelling.

She had only one question to ask. "When do I have to leave?"

"Well," his uncle said, "I suppose it will be a few days before the house is shut up. You can certainly stay till then. But you can also go before that, if you like, as you won't be needed any more."

"Thank you," she said and went off to her little room.

Meanwhile the others had begun sharing out the old woman's things among themselves. They were like wolves devouring a dead member of the pack, and they were already in a state of general irritation when he asked whether the Fräulein, who had got so little money out of it all, should not at least be given something of some value in memory of Grandmamma.

"We've decided to give her Grandmamma's big prayer-book."

"Well, yes, but I'm sure something useful would please her more. What about this, for instance?" He picked up a brown fur tippet that was lying on the table.

"That's for Emmi"—a cousin of his—"and anyway you must be mad, it's
mink!"

He laughed. "Is there any law that poor girls can only be given something for the good of their souls? You don't want to make a miserly impression, do you?"

"I'd thank you to leave that to us," his mother said, and because she did not think he was entirely wrong, she added: "These are things you know nothing about. She won't be treated unfairly." And, with a gesture at once lavish and irritable, she put aside for Tonka some of the old woman's handkerchiefs, chemises, and drawers, and then added a black woollen dress that had scarcely been worn. "There, I think that'll do. It's not as though the Fräulein had been such a treasure, and she can't exactly be called sentimental, either. She never shed so much as a single tear, either when Granny died or at the funeral. So please don't let us hear any more about it."

"Some people don't cry easily. I mean, that doesn't prove anything," he said, not because it seemed important to say it, but because he felt the urge to argue for the sake of arguing. "That will do!" his mother said. "Don't you realise that your remarks are out of place?"

At this rebuke he fell silent, not because he was in awe of his mother, but because suddenly he felt vastly pleased at the thought that Tonka had shed no tears. His relatives were all talking eagerly, all talking at once, and he noticed how skilfully each of them turned the situation to his or her own advantage. They expressed themselves, if not clearly, at least to some purpose and with the courage of their convictions. In the end each of them got what he or she wanted.

For them the ability to talk was not a medium of thought, but a sort of capital, something they wore like jewellery to impress others. As he stood by the table with the heaps of things to be given away on it, he found himself recalling a line of verse, ‘To him Apollo gave the gift of song, and music sweet to hear', and for the first time he realised that it really was a gift. How inarticulate Tonka was! She could neither talk nor weep. But how is one to define something that neither can speak nor is spoken of, something that dumbly merges with the anonymous mass of mankind, something that is like a little line scratched on the tablets of history? What is one to make of such a life, such a being, which is like a snowflake falling all alone in the midst of a summer's day? Is it real or imaginary? Is it good, or evil, or indifferent? One senses the fact that here the categories have reached a frontier beyond which they cease to be valid.

Without another word he left the room and went to tell Tonka that he would provide for her.

He found her packing up her things. There was a big cardboard box on a chair, and there were two others on the floor. One of them was already tied up with string. The two others were not big enough for the amount of stuff still scattered about the room, and she was trying to solve the problem by taking things out again and putting them in differently—stockings and handkerchiefs, laced boots and sewing things—laying them first this way and then that. However scanty her possessions were, she would never get everything stowed away, for her luggage was still scantier.

Since the door of her little room was ajar, he was able to watch her for some time without her knowing. When she did notice him, she blushed and quickly stepped in front of the open boxes.

"So you're leaving us?" he said, charmed with her embarrassment. "What are you going to do now?" "I'm going home to Auntie."

"Do you mean to stay there?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "I shall look around for something."

"Won't your aunt be vexed?"

"I've got enough for my keep for a few months. In that time I'll find a situation."

"But that means using up your savings."

"Can't be helped, can it?"

"And what if you don't find it so easy to get a new job?" "Then I shall just get it served up to me again at every meal."

"Get what served up? How do you mean?"

"Not bringing anything in. That's how it was when I was working at the shop. I wasn't bringing much home, but I couldn't help that, and she never said anything. Only if she was angry. Then she always did."

"And so then you took the job with us."

"Yes."

"Look," he said abruptly, "you mustn't go back to your aunt. You'll find something else. I'll—I'll see to that." She did not say yes or no. She did not thank him. But as soon as he had gone she began slowly taking one thing after another out of the boxes and putting them back in their places. She had blushed deeply. Now she could not collect her thoughts, and every now and then stood still with something in her hand, gazing blankly ahead of her, simply realising: So this was love.

But when he had gone back to the room where Novalis'
Fragments
was still lying on the table, he was suddenly aghast at the responsibility he had taken on. Quite unexpectedly something had happened that would determine the course of his life, and it was something that did not really concern him intimately enough. At this moment he perhaps even felt slightly suspicious of Tonka because she had accepted his offer without more ado.

Then he began to wonder: What on earth made me propose such a thing? And he did not know the answer to that question any more than why she had accepted. Her face had revealed just the same helplessness and bewilderment that he had been feeling. The situation was painfully comical: he had gone rushing up somewhere as in a dream and now he did not know how to get down again.

He had another talk with Tonka. He did not want to be anything but completely honest with her. He talked of personal independence, of intellectual values, of having a purpose in life, ambition, his distaste for the proverbial idyllic love-nest, his expectation that he would later have affairs with women of higher social standing—talked, in fact, like a very young man who wants a great deal and has experienced very little. When he saw something flicker in Tonka's eyes, he was sorry, and, all at once overcome by quite a different feeling, the fear of hurting her, he pleaded: "Don't misunderstand what I've been saying!"

"I understand all right," was all the answer Tonka gave.

IV

"But she's only a common little thing who used to work in that draper's shop!" they had said. What was the point of that? There were plenty of other girls who were quite ignorant, who had never been educated. Talking like that was like pinning a label on to the back of the girl's dress, where she couldn't get at it and take it off. What they meant was that people had to have learned something, had to have principles, had to be conventional and have the right manners. Simply being a human being wouldn't do. And what of all of them, who had all that and who did ‘do'? It seemed to him that his mother was afraid of seeing the emptiness of her own life repeating itself in his. Her own choice was not one that she was proud of: her husband, his father, had formerly been an officer of the line—an undistinguished, jolly man. She was bent on seeing her son have a better life. She fought for that. Fundamentally he approved of her pride. So, then, why did the thought of his mother leave him unmoved?

Duty was second nature to her, and her marriage had taken on meaning only when his father fell ill. Henceforth she assumed a soldierly aspect, standing on guard, defending her position against overwhelming odds, at the side of this man who was steadily declining into imbecility. Up to then she had not been able either to go ahead or to withdraw in her relations with Uncle Hyacinth. He was not a kinsman at all, but a friend of both parents, one of those ‘uncles' with whom children have to put up with from the age when they begin to notice things. He was a senior civil servant and, besides, a popular writer whose books sold very well indeed. He brought Mother the breath of culture and worldly sophistication that consoled her in the intellectual desert she lived in. He was well read in history, with ideas that seemed all the more grandiose the emptier they were, extending, as they did, over the sweep of the centuries and the great problems of man's fate. For reasons that had never become clear to the boy, his mother had for many years been the object of this man's steadfast, admiring, selfless love. Perhaps it was because as an officer's daughter she had high standards of honour and duty, which were the source of the moral integrity that lent her glamour in his eyes and made her the model for the heroines in his novels. Perhaps too he was obscurely aware that both the fluency of his talk and his narrative gift derived from his own lack of such integrity. But since he naturally did not care to acknowledge this as a deficiency, he had to magnify it and transform it into something universal, full of the lacrimae rerum, seeing the need to be thus complemented by another's strength of spirit as the