Apartment in Athens (10 page)

O
NE HAPPY THING FOR THEM IN THAT MONTH OF MAY
was the improvement in the children. They had no particular illness all month, and they were much easier to manage. Soon Alex would be fourteen years old, and although his poor body was not really growing, doubtless there were shadowy developments in his mind as in any growing boy's. As it seemed to his father they were all to the good.

He still sometimes lurked around the major, and tiptoed in the corridor to spy upon his changed ways, but with apparently none of his old animus; rather as if it were a joke or a game, blind-man's-buff, hide-and-seek. Once in a while he seemed bent upon provoking his old enemy, with some specific impudence, some slightly amplified noise, as if to prove to himself and the others that he was not afraid. But the major did not mind him any more.

Having gathered from his parents' conversation that they had a curiosity about every little thing the German did, Alex liked to make observations all his own and give his characteristic romantic report afterward. They did not pay much attention; he still told untrue stories. He had developed a sense of humor and would spend hours trying to make poor Leda laugh, which was hard to do.

He must have heard his father's joke about the major's having ceased to study in the evening; Helianos heard him expounding it to Leda, with great variations on the theme.

“It's what they call promotion,” he said, with the crescent smile which he assumed when imagining things to please her, “it makes all the difference. Captains are ferocious; majors are kind but not so healthy or happy, they lose their appetite. They learn to remove their own boots. However, they refuse to have anything to do with the housekeeping.

“I wish we knew a general, I wonder what they're like. . .”

Naturally it charmed and flattered Helianos to hear this. But Mrs. Helianos, very strangely, lost her patience and cried out that he was a diabolical child, and caught him by the shoulder and shook him.

It hurt his feelings and he sulked all the afternoon, which Helianos was sorry to see. But he got over it in the course of the evening or the night. Perhaps he thought of some explanation of his mother's fury which satisfied him, or found some humor in that too.

Next morning in the kitchen, with his eye on her, for her benefit—Leda as it happened was still in bed—he repeated his little classification of the military: captains fierce, majors amiable and depressed, generals question-mark. With sparkling glances he seemed to be defying her to lose her temper about it again.

She did not, she laughed softly, then with a catch in her voice apologized to him, catching him by the shoulder once more and giving him a kiss, which pleased him.

Helianos sometimes thought that Alex wanted more physical tenderness than he got. His mother, whether in some shyness or strange aversion, or in order to appear perfectly respectful of his small manhood, rarely kissed or caressed him.

In the life of Leda, as she personally had not suffered from the major's former temper, there was less change. But she was wonderfully sensitive to the human atmosphere around her, reacting to the others' moods, as if it were good or bad weather, sunshine or sundown, like a little plant. It did her good to have her parents less nerve-racked, less anxious and indignant. They thought she might possibly be coming out of her dismay and apathy, at last. Sometimes she seemed almost innocent, uninhibited, like other children. Toward the end of the month now and then, she, the silent one, said a few words to her mother, who rejoiced in this as if it were a miracle.

Whenever the major appeared she would assume a slight strange air of triumph, seeming to remember that she had been right about him when all the others had been wrong. He, on the other hand, for some reason, did not welcome her infant affection as he had done in the past. Now that he treated everyone well enough, in a melancholy correct way, no one was his favorite. He no longer made the old distinction between Alex and her in her favor; and she may have felt this as a disgrace or an infidelity. In the old days her instinctive caresses, simple-minded glances, had tickled his sense of humor; now nothing amused him. Naturally Leda, in her plight of mind, had no sense of mockery or indignity; to her, a smile was a smile, and she missed being laughed at. Sometimes a sudden feeling of being ignored or rebuffed by him would come over her like a wild soft storm.

One late afternoon as he strode past her in the corridor, and she reached out to take him by the hand, he did not notice it or would not permit it; and she caught hold of his dear sleeve and clung to it until he jerked it impatiently out of her grubby fingers. Then she sank down in a dejected position on the floor, hiding her face in her hands, quivering from head to foot, until her mother found her and carried her to bed. Helianos had a hard time removing her smudgy, sweaty fingerprints from the major's sleeve before he went to the officers' club that night.

Upon his return he called Helianos out of the kitchen, with something to say about Leda that Mrs. Helianos might not care to hear. “I wish you to know, Helianos, that I have not been thoughtless about your little girl, or needlessly brusque and short with her. It is for your sake as much as anything!

“She seems to prefer me to anyone, as you may have noticed. But a child of that age ought to love her father best. Therefore I have decided to be somewhat more severe, do you understand?

“I may have been at fault in this, perhaps. It would have been easier to discourage her in the first place; it didn't occur to me then. I'm sorry.”

Helianos grimaced and blushed and drew a quick deep breath. Oh, could a great foreigner with careless power, victorious uniform, really steal away his dull little one's affection and then in his magnanimous fit restore it to him as it were on a platter? . . . He gave a slight grunt deep in his throat.

“I beg pardon, Helianos, I didn't hear you.”

“Oh, sir, I said nothing.”

“There's another point,” the major continued, “I scarcely expect you to understand it very well. I dare say you do not know modern child-psychology. It is one of our German sciences, I happen to have read two or three of the authoritative books on the subject.

“Children of Leda's age often develop sudden attachments like this, and they are extremely important, and very passionate and physiological. Now I don't want her to get into a habit of clinging to me; trembling when I come anywhere near her; feasting her eyes on me. I tell you, I don't like it. Groping toward me, and plucking me by the sleeve, and fondling my hand! Now that it has occurred to me, I find it offensive.”

Once more Helianos started to protest but stopped it because he did not know what he was saying or he did not dare say it, substituting an inarticulate cough or grunt. He was ashamed of Leda, ashamed for Leda; and he remembered things he had said about her himself, in fantasy of compassion and stoic humor, and he was ashamed of every word.

No, no, not ashamed; for he had spoken only in secret, to himself and
alter ego
, his wife, in interpretation to himself of this latest poorest fruit of their lives, remnant of their old marriage; and Leda belonged to them, to interpret as they liked; Leda belonged to them in a way that none but the parents of a shameful child could ever understand. . .

“As you are a man of the world, I knew you would appreciate my mentioning this,” said Kalter, taking no notice of Helianos' burning face and speechless breath and resentful glances.

“You know, I feel a certain friendliness toward you, Helianos. In many ways I look back quite pleasantly upon the year we have spent together.”

Helianos also looked back upon the year but with a look like a lightning-flash, recalling the other insults and injuries that he had endured with more or less good grace, comparing them with this; and then gave Kalter a look of lead, coming to the conclusion that nothing in the past had been so insulting as this nonsense about Leda; whereupon he grimaced again and exhaled another wild breath.

“Are you listening to me, Helianos? Listen! Perhaps something could be done for Leda. There is a young German physician here, who, they say, is a great genius. He has published a great treatise, endocrinology as it is connected with psychotherapy. My friend Lieutenant-Colonel Sertz introduced him to me one evening last spring.

“He is attached to one of the special services of our army, my friend's bureau in fact; interrogating political prisoners and so on, not very pleasant work, I suppose. But you know how science is, all things to all men! The same great discoveries serve both for good and evil, for punishing criminals and for healing sick children. . .

“I think I should speak to this young scientist about Leda. Perhaps we can work a miracle for the poor little thing.”

The sciences in this proposal were something that as it happened Helianos knew little about; not to mention the ghastly mysteries of the interrogation of political prisoners. But in spite of his confusion and temper, he could tell that it was intended to be an overwhelming benefaction. What he ought to do, probably, was to fall on his knees and kiss his benefactor's hand. For he had no right to be proud, nor to be too delicate in the matter of good and evil, nor to be cowardly with regard to the special services of their army, Kalter's friend Sertz's bureau—if there was any question of making sick Leda well. Leda who had everything to gain, nothing to lose. . .

Meanwhile Kalter sat down at his desk and began writing a letter, dismissing the problem of the child from his mind.

Helianos stood behind him and gazed at him, with his fists clenched, and his blush so hot that his cheeks prickled, and tears streaming from his eyes because he wanted to kill him. He wanted to express his feeling in some way, and it was inexpressible.

There was no great range of attitudes for him to choose from; only the alternatives, violence or softness. Therefore he decided that he would have to take the German's remarks in the spirit in which they were intended. He set his chin firmly; he straightened his mouth tight shut; he drew his sloping, somewhat stooped shoulders back as far as he could and as square as he could; he set one foot firmly beside the other, as if he stood in the fear of God or in the presence of death, with an extreme self-consciousness. As Kalter sat there writing with his back turned toward him, he stood for a moment like that, facing Kalter's back, with all his will power forgiving him.

For he felt that it was a great decision, this forgiveness, not at all forced or against his will, but simply against his every instinct. It is a grave decision, when you take the good will for the deed; when you yield to the mistaken inhuman brain or the harmful tongue because there is a kind heart behind it—accepting things that you hate, with nothing to make them acceptable except that riddle of the spirit which has prompted them, contenting yourself with good intentions whether they are according to your morality or not, whether they are to your advantage or not.

Then Helianos started to go out of the room, and so passed beside Kalter, who looked up from his letter; and Helianos really could see shining in his tired flushed eyes the fact that he meant well. He seemed not to observe that Helianos had been shedding tears. The look he gave Helianos was one of perfect candor, a little unsure of himself, a little sentimental, seeming to hope that kindness would be repaid with kindness. He bestowed upon Helianos a short warm smile; a smile like a schoolboy's. It was obvious and unmistakable that he could not have intended to hurt Helianos' feelings by his remarks about Leda. Without a doubt he was sincere; and that, to Helianos' way of thinking, lifelong, was what you looked for above all in judging other men!

Therefore he relaxed and let it pass, smiled back as well as he could, said good night and went to bed. It was a turning-point in his relationship with the major, and also seemed to have altered something in the balance of his own mind and heart from then on, half unknown to him. No anger had ever troubled him so much as this; but on the other hand this pardon was more wholehearted, deeper, softer, than anything of the kind in his life before. He felt the forgiving spirit through and through him as a passion, with a greater involvement than ever before of all that part of his being which went on in secret and in shadow, unaware.

He relaxed, he smiled again, he forgave, he stayed his impulse to kill, such as it was, he voided his indignation. It was an event in his soul. As a rule the soul cannot relax by halves; one way of yielding gradually induces another. It is a kind of goodness that may act as a weakness. If you forgive more than you can afford, you may find yourself impoverished in emotion afterward, with a lowered resistance to whatever happens after that.

Naturally Helianos determined not to say a word to his wife about the insult to Leda. She had not his capacity for forgiveness; and he so wanted her to live easily and calmly with Kalter, to spare her temper and rest her unhealthy heart.

But to his surprise a day or two later—it was a day of Leda's strangest incapacity, when even Alex could not imagine what possessed her—Mrs. Helianos said, “You don't suppose, do you, that the major really will do what he promised, about taking this poor child of ours to his famous specialist?”

“How do you know about that? Who told you? Oh, my poor wife, did he speak to you about it?”

No, what happened was this:—That night, after Helianos had followed Kalter into the sitting room for the consultation about Leda, Mrs. Helianos, thinking she heard the children's voices very softly, perhaps Alex whispering or laughing, perhaps the little one weeping again, tiptoed into their room to tell them to hush and go to sleep. Their closet-door happened not to be shut. The major's voice mentioning Leda by name came through the flimsy partition, and she found that by stepping inside the closet she could follow the entire conversation in the sitting room.

Helianos was greatly surprised at her not seeming to take offense at Kalter's opinion of their wretched infant. Somehow her maternal feeling was not like his paternal feeling; not so proud or so easily hurt.