Turning Back the Sun(50)

He could not tell, from her shrunken face or voice, what she was feeling. The instruments of expression all seemed broken. He wanted to say: don”t you have other legatees? But he might as well have asked: was your life so loveless?

She said, “Doctor Morena wants to interview you one day next week. He was impressed by your articles on some disgusting skin disease. He”ll presumably ask you to join his practice, but I can”t imagine you”ll want that.”

Rayner frowned in surprise. “What”s wrong with it?”

“Nothing”s wrong with it. It”s just an ordinary urban practice. But for you I”m sure it would seem unexciting. You”ve already got a lively partnership in a busy place.”

“Lively, busy … yes, it”s certainly that!” His aunt, he thought, could have no concept of a place like the town. “But I don”t feel right there.”

Her eyes came swinging over him like pale lamps. All her vitality seemed to have contracted inwards to the sliver of her hawk”s nose and the cool gleam of these eyes in their yellowed sockets. In the end, she said, “Well, once you have the job offer there”ll be no problem about the residence permit.”

Rayner wondered again whom she knew, or if the state control had imperceptibly relaxed. Among the mementoes on the tables round them stood photographic portraits of an ex-minister and a marshal. He enjoyed the idea that Aunt Birgit had known secret lovers, but more likely she had been admired for her social distinction and once-formidable intellect. Tentatively he asked, “Do you have friends in government?”

“A few.” Her lips pursed. “But they”re mostly finished with all that now. And I don”t go out anymore.” She laughed her dry, coughing laugh. “You may attend parties in my name. They”ll prefer that. You”ll meet your old friends.”

“Good.” He longed to meet them now. More than ever, he knew, they would have converged together in their subtle common language, without him. Doubtless they”d laugh at him for becoming provincial. But their old comradeship, he was sure, would override time and difference.

He said, “You remember my group of friends, don”t you? Leon and Adelina?” He watched her face for some reaction, but it stayed inscrutable. “Gerhard … Jarmila?” She only frowned faintly. “Miriam.”

Then his aunt said starchily, “Of course I remember them. They were quite a handful.”

“Have you heard anything of them?”

“These days I don”t hear about anybody much,” she said. “But Gerhard”s been successful in business, I understand. He went to one of those industrial cities on the coast.” Her eyes clouded in thought. “But Leon is the waste of a decent boy. I blame his parents. They were openly promiscuous. In fact I remember your father saying, “I won”t have my son grow up like that!” Now the boy doesn”t do anything. He”s been in and out of mental hospitals.” She shook her head. “But Adelina and Miriam—Miriam Cotta wasn”t it?—I haven”t heard of them for years. I dare say they married and left.”

As she spoke, pricking him with sadness, Rayner”s old group exploded and scattered in his head, then reassembled. He”d imagined them a unity, but of course they were not. Their adult years had splintered them. “And what about Jarmila?”

“Oh, the little ballerina.” Her voice was touched with intolerance. “A conceited creature.”

It was then that Rayner remembered. He had felt there was something familiar the moment he entered the hall, and now he realized. It was here, more than twenty years ago, that Jarmila and the others had staged their Sleeping Beauty for a group of indulgent adults. He ran laughing out of the room and bounded down the stairs to verify. And momentarily, in his bifocal gaze, the stepped hall became a stage and auditorium, and the cream draperies the backcloth of a haunted forest. Childishly, he supposed, but it seemed magical at the time, Jarmila and Miriam were tiptoeing back and forth in muslin tutus which shimmered with silver threads.

He panted back up the stairs. “Do you remember?”

“Of course I remember,” said his aunt. “That girl played a beauty, while you wound up the gramophone.”

“What happened to her?”

“Jarmila Kullman? She”s still living here, but she”s never done anything serious. She”s quite unsuited to the real world. No, she”s never married.”

For some reason this news distressed Rayner even more than that of Leon. Jarmila—beautiful, fine-boned Jarmila—had been the group”s mascot. He asked woodenly, “Do you remember the silver and muslin costumes? I think my mother must have made them.” It was the kind of craft his mother had enjoyed.

“Oh no. They were only paper.”

“Paper?”

“Yes,” his aunt said. “Those were just children”s games, you know. Paper and tinsel!”





CHAPTER

22

After four days, the city no longer appeared to Rayner in the double focus of memory. It had become real, and so was subtly deconsecrated. Once or twice he found himself looking back on the town with wonder. It was the town that had become memory now, and from this safe vantage point a thousand kilometers to the north, it seemed to burn in the wilderness with an unholy vigor.

He was still dragging its shadow after him. At the party next door to his aunt, his hostess greeted him, “So you”re the nephew! Let”s pray for a miracle in your aunt”s health!” But he answered harshly, “Miracles and liver cancer don”t coexist,” and she was visibly shocked.