Red as Blood, or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer: Expanded Edition (20 page)

“Good-bye,” she said.

He was on the lawn, and she stood above him on the veranda steps, white against the dark. He wanted to say: Do you often swim? And a vague wave of desire curled through him, making him tingle, and with it a strange aversion, drawing him away. But he said, without thinking, suddenly, “May I come back tomorrow?”

“Oh, no,” she said. Nothing else. He stood waiting for almost a minute, waiting for there to
be
something else, some explanation, excuse, equivocation, or some softening reversal: Well, perhaps… But there was nothing. She stood there kindly smiling upon him, and presently he said, like a fool, “Good night, then.” And walked off across the lawn.

When he came to the trees, he looked back. She had gone in, and the door was shut on the lamp, the peeling paper. It occurred to him for the first time that, before he had been seen, she had sat there in that large decaying house in the darkness. As if his arrival alone had awakened her, brought her to life along with the bubbling samovar.

He was disgusted with it all, himself, her. She was that vile and typically bourgeois combination of the nondescript and the obscure. He climbed in the boat, loosed it, and pushed away from shore.

As he rowed, inflamed muscles complaining, he cursed over and over. What on earth had happened? What had it been for? She bored him.

By the time he reached the willow banks of the château he was exhausted. He dragged the boat into its shed with an embarrassed need to hide his escapade, and went in through one of the unlocked little side entrances of his mother’s ancestral house. He threw himself on his bed fully clothed and began in sheer bewilderment to read a novel.

He fell asleep with his cheek on the open book, dissatisfied and disappointed.

* * * *

The dawn woke him, stiff and cramped from the night’s exercise. The long resinous light filled him with a terrible religious hunger for unspecified things. He thought of the nameless girl and how she had bored him, and her peculiar demeanor, and her slender pallor, and the moment of stupid desire. And realized in astonishment that it was the depression of jail he was feeling. He was certainly in love with her.

Halfway through the afternoon, as Viktor was lying encushioned on the lawn in an anguish of stiffness, dreading movement of any kind, a strange man appeared, walking around the château from the pine trees with a determined air.

Viktor sensed imminence at once. He hauled himself painfully into a sitting position. Ilena and her parasol, an odd creature from another planet, its second stalk-necked head twirling so far above the first, was parading gracefully up and down a long way off. Janov was indoors, engaged in billiards.

The stranger approached.

“Young man,” he said.

He towered over Viktor on the grass, an awful figure incongruously done up, even in the summer heat, in a black greatcoat caped like wings, and a tall black hat. A red beard streaked with darker red frothed between the two blacknesses, and a set of beautiless features, beaklike nose, small cold eyes of a yellowish, weaselish tinge.

“What do you want?” Viktor inquired haughtily.

The stranger considered.

“You, I think. I think I want you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Get up, if you please. We must have words, you and I.”

Viktor flushed with nerves.

“I don’t think so.”

“I
think so.”

“And who the hell are you,” Viktor cried, “to think anything?”

The man’s gelid face did not alter. Only the mouth moved, as if the rest of the countenance were a mask. But he pointed inexorably out across the lake.

“Over there,” he said. “The house on the island. You know it?”

“Do I?”

“Yes, you know it. In the night, a visitor. You.”

Viktor sneered. He was still sitting, helpless from the stiffness of that illicit row which now loomed above him, it seemed, in the retributive person of the red-bearded man.

“I will say this,” said the man, “I do not like my niece disturbed when I am away. I do not like it. You hear me?”

Viktor stared arrogantly into the distance, blind. He could not bring himself to any more fruitless denials, or to argue.

“No further visits,” said the man. “You will leave my niece alone. You hear me?”

Viktor stared. He was appalled but not entirely astonished when the ghastly black thing swooped on him like a bird of prey, close to his ear, hissing, “You
hear
me?”

“I hear,” said Viktor, coldly, feeling an inner trembling start.

“Otherwise,” said the man, “I shall not be responsible for anything I may do.”

Miles off, in some other country, Ilena had turned, her parasol tilting like a fainting flower. “Viktor!” she called.

“You hear me?” the man said again.

“Yes.”

“Good,” said the man. He rose up and his shadow withdrew. He moved in short powerful strides, across the lawn, away into the pine trees.

Viktor, crouched in an agony of muscles and inarticulate fury, watched him go. The mystery of the whole momentary episode added to its horror. That the man was uncle to the white girl in the house—very well, one could accept that. That he had reached the shore, rowing an unseen boat himself in his heavy unsuitable garments—this seemed unlikely. But how else had he come here, save by flight? And the threats, out of all proportion to anything—Viktor became aware he should have stood up, threatened in turn, gone for one of the servants. That the very activity for which he was accused—yes,
accused
—had kept him riveted to the earth, seemed damning.

And the girl. She must have reported his coming to the island. Said she did not care for it, was afraid. Ridiculous horrid little bourgeoise. Since dawn, he had been thinking of her, wondering if he could bear to woo her, and how it might be done, tactfully and pleasantly. Wondering too with romantic dread if she were a ghost, brought to quickness only by his arrival, swirling into a tomb at his retreat. A vampire who would drink his blood, a
rusalka
who would drown him.… And then, hammered flat across these sexually charged, yearning images, this beastly ordinary evil thing, the uncle like an indelible black stamp.

“Who was that man?” Ilena said, manifesting abruptly at his side.

“I don’t know, Maman.” Not quite a lie. No name had been given.

“Viktor, you are white as death. What did he say? Is it something you’ve done? Tell me. Some gambling debt—
Viktor
!”

“No, Maman. He was looking for another house, and asked the way.”

“Then why,” she said, “are you so pale?”

“I feel rather sick.” That was sure enough.

“You drank too much at dinner,” she said.

“Yes, Maman. Probably.”

“What am I to do with you?” she asked.

“Send me back to the city?” he cried imploringly, the perpetual pleading shooting out of him when he least expected it to do so, had not even been thinking of it at all.

“Don’t be foolish,” she said. “In the city you would drink twice as much, gamble, do all manner of profligate idiotic things.” She was smiling, teasing, yet in earnest. It was all true. Under her fragile cynicism her fear for him lurked like a wolf. She was afraid he would destroy himself as his father had done. And he caught her fear suddenly, fear of some lightless vortex; he did not even know its name.

“All right,” he said, “all right, Maman. I’ll stay here. I’ll be good.”

“There’s my sensible darling.”

When she had gone, he flopped on his face. Images of his father, a drunken man who died in Viktor’s childhood, rose and faded. He recalled the lamps burning low on a winter’s afternoon, and being told to play very quietly. And later, men in black at the door, and a white wax face in a long box that did not look remotely like anyone Viktor had ever seen before in his life.

But he was not his father. And abruptly there came an awful suspicion. That he had been brought here for no other reason than to be protected from the city, from all cities, to be
protected
from the long, animated discussions and card games that ran into the early hours, from the theaters, the cafés, the pure excitement that a city symbolized. A prisoner. In that moment he thought of the girl again, and a strange revelation swept over him with a maddening sense of relief.

Could it be she too was kept as a prisoner? That the loathsome man had brought her there and shut her up there, keeping all company away from her. Perhaps she had mentioned Viktor innocently, hoping for a repetition, and the devilish uncle had flown at her, battering her with the vulture’s wings of his cape—No, no, you must go nowhere, see no one. I shall make sure he never comes here again.

But Viktor was powerless to alleviate her destiny. Powerless to alleviate his own.

He wondered which wine would be served with luncheon.

* * * *

By the time the sun set on the lake he was very drunk. Somehow, he had contrived to be drinking all day. He did not know why this had seemed necessary, had not even thought about it. His mother’s fear for him had begun it, and his fear for himself. As if by dipping into the vortex now and then, he could accustom himself to it, make it natural and mundane.

When the gong sounded for dinner he did not go down. He was afraid of Ilena seeing him as he was. But of course she came up, touched his forehead to see if he had a fever, gazed at him with her deep remorseless eyes. If she smelled the wine on his breath he was not certain, he tried not to let her, muffling himself in the counterpane from the bed, protesting he had a slight cold, wanted only to sleep—finally she left him. He lay and giggled, curled on his side, laughed at her a long while, then found himself crying.

He was surprised and shocked. He knew he was going to do something stupid, then, and such was his mental confusion that it was only two glasses of wine later that he realized what.

* * * *

Rowing this drunk was much easier. He scarcely felt it at all, the grisly laboring drags and thrustings. Nor did he feel any anticipatory unease.

It was quite late, overcast, and a wind rising and falling. This would account perhaps for his only suddenly hearing the music that came from the island, when he was about a hundred yards from the reeds and the summer house. The gramophone. So near, it was obviously no orchestra, tinny and hesitant, cognisant of the little box that held it, and the big horn that let it out. Did the fact that the gramophone was playing mean the man was away? The man in the hat and greatcoat, the man like a black vulture? Or home?

What would Viktor do if he met the man?

Call his hand, of course. Just what he should have done before.

But really there was no need, if Viktor were careful, if he used the qualities of cunning and omnipotence he now felt stirring within himself, no need to meet the man.

Gently now. The reeds moved about him in a wave and the boat jumped jarringly against the rotted post. With the drunkard’s lack of coordination and contrastingly acute assessment, he had seen landfall and planned for it and messed it up, all in a space of seconds. With an oath and some mirth, he tethered the boat and got ashore on the island.

No swans. Just the music. And, as he passed the pavilion, the music ran down and went out. He had reached the edge of the lawn before it started up again, a cheerful frivolous syncopation that sounded macabre, suddenly, in the dark.

But there were lights in the house, two windows a thick deep amber behind drawn blinds. They were on the other side of the veranda from the window she had called him from, the window of the room into which she had subsequently led him for a few minutes of reasonless dialogue, and a burning mouthful of tea.

The outbuildings loomed. He ducked under the rose vine, stepped over the china animal still lying there, and beneath the flagpole. He went toward the lighted windows, and paused, pressed against the veranda rail. Through the music he could hear the murmur of voices, or of a single voice. And now he could see that one of the blinds was not quite level with the sill. A trio of inches gaped, a deeper gold, showing slyly into the nakedness of the house.

Viktor advanced onto the veranda, crossed to the window and kneeled down, putting his face close to the pane. It was as simple as that. He saw directly into the room.

It was an amazing sight, a scene from a farce. He had no urge to laugh.

To the jolting beat of a dance melody, a couple moved about between the furniture. A huge oil lamp threw light upon them, leaving the corners of the room in a magenta vignette. The girl was white, white hair, white dress; the man a black creature, clutching her close. The tall hat was gone from his head, which was covered with a snarled bush of reddish hair similar to that which sprang from the face. This face, that was for one instant in view on a turn, vanished on another, came in view again, was steeled in concentration, looking blindly away with its weasel eyes. Now and then the mouth spoke. Viktor found himself able to lip-read, with the slight aid of muffled sounds through the glass, and realized his adversary was counting out the beats. The girl’s face was blank. Neither danced with pleasure or interest and yet, oddly, they danced quite well, the man surprisingly fluid, the girl following like a doll.

Like a doll, yes, that was exactly what she was like.

Abruptly the dance ended. The man let go and stood back, and the gramophone ran down. In the silence, the voice spoke, quite audible now.

“Better. You are better. But you must smile while you dance.”

The girl was facing in Viktor’s direction. He saw her face at once break into a soulless grimace.

“No, no.” The man was displeased. “A smile. Soft, flexible. Like this.”

He was turned away, and any smile that face could conjure, how could it be at all appealing? And yet the girl presumably copied his expression. And now, agitated, Viktor saw her smile limpidly and beautifully. He was charmed by her smile, mimicked incredibly from the monster.

“Better,” the monster said again. There was a trace of accent, had been when he spoke to Viktor earlier in the day, unnoticed then in the alarm of the interview. What was it? Germanic, perhaps. “Now, sit down. Walk to that chair and sit on it. As I have shown you.”