The Betrayals(56)
It’s possible, of course, that he’s being unkind. He’s nearly forty – well, over thirty; he can’t bear the wet-wool sensation of being a child again. The afternoons, airless and muffled, while he tried to read in his room or made desultory notes on Magister Dryden’s essay questions. The evenings spent alone with Mim, or, worse, with her guests. The pretty but fatuous cousin in her high-necked blouse, asking earnest questions. The spinster of a certain age who acts as Mim’s unofficial companion, who somehow gives the impression that she’s wearing an unravelling cardigan even when she isn’t. The pigeon-breasted local bureaucrats that Mim imagines fondly are the sort of people Léo was used to meeting, when he was Minister for Culture … It should have been touching, at least, that she tried to entertain him like some visiting dignitary; but it only reminded him of the old days of being home from Montverre, when Dad would show him off to his friends. Here is my son, a credit to me. Léo would put on an act, affable and charming and a bit self-deprecating, to try to take the edge off Dad’s bonhomie-filled resentment: and now, even though Dad is dead, he finds himself donning the same mask. This time he doesn’t know whose resentment he’s trying to defuse. His own, maybe.
But the nights he spent in town were worse. One evening he went to an enormous party at the Winter Palace, and as soon as he crossed the threshold he had to steel himself not to turn around and leave; the noise and the light were like a fever. He shoved his cloakroom ticket into his pocket and made his way to the main ballroom. He plucked two glasses of champagne from the nearest waiter, drank one down in a gulp and slid it back on to the tray before the waiter had time to move away. He forced himself to sip the other as he navigated his way from group to group, smiling and nodding at acquaintances, pausing for a few minutes to swap pleasantries with businessmen or Party officials before moving on. He hadn’t expected to see the Old Man or the Chancellor, of course, but he found himself scanning the crowds for Emile Fallon; he wasn’t sure if he was pleased or disappointed not to see him.
At last he disentangled himself from a group of industrialists and ducked into a quiet, carpeted alcove. He’d drawn aside a curtain and was wrestling with the catch on the window, desperate for a breath of air, when a voice behind him said, ‘Léo! Long time no see.’
He turned. He knew her a little: Sarah Paget, was it, or Sara? She’d never been in the Ministry for Culture, fortunately, she was one of the Chancellor’s underlings. Or was she at the Ministry for Justice, these days? She was wearing a tuxedo and a monocle, her short hair slicked back. ‘How are you, old chap?’ she said, slapping him on the shoulder. ‘Looks like the monastic life agrees with you, at least.’
‘Thanks. You look well, too.’
She gave him a dry smile. ‘It’s strange not to see your lady friend – no, wait, she isn’t your lady friend any more, is she? Never mind, you know what I mean – not to see her here. She did attract attention … I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything?’
Léo shook his head. Chryse?s knew Sara, and despised her; he remembered her saying contemptuously, ‘She’d rather be an honorary man than speak up for other women,’ rolling her eyes before adding, ‘and that hair is simply grotesque.’
‘Just as well, I expect. Better to keep your distance.’
‘What?’
‘Oh – you hadn’t heard?’ She flipped open a cigarette case and offered it to him before she took one herself. ‘She walked out on Marco Boyer. Packed her bag, no sign of foul play. She hasn’t been back to your flat, either. She’s disappeared.’ She lit both cigarettes with a flourish; the flame drew Léo’s gaze, while a part of him registered without surprise that the Party had been watching his flat.
He didn’t answer. Clearly Chryse?s had found someone new, someone better.
‘She got wind of the new Purity Laws, I imagine. I must say, you had a lucky escape, didn’t you? There was gossip last year that you’d get engaged … Did you know she was on the Register?’
‘She isn’t.’
‘Oh, my dear, but she is! Didn’t you guess? With a name like Christina …’
He stood up. ‘Don’t be absurd,’ he said. ‘It’s Chryse?s, not Christina. You’re getting mixed up.’ He walked away. For goodness’ sake, people were so ignorant: they heard ‘chrys’ and thought it must mean ‘Christian’.
But he could hear her voice, that half-cracked drawl: ‘Jesus Christ, Léo.’ How many times had he told her not to say it? Because someone might think – because it was dangerous to sound like—
Could Christina be her real name? All right. Maybe she was baptised. Maybe, without Léo’s knowing, she was actually on the Register. And she’d disappeared.
Noise spilt out of the doorway of the ballroom. Suddenly the whole thing was sickening: the open mouths, the sweaty faces, the self-important laughter.
He left. It was raining, but he didn’t put his coat on; it was good to feel the icy water running down his back, soaking into his dress shirt, as if it could wash away the smell of the Party.
The next morning he went to see Dettler – who had stepped into his shoes as smoothly as a foxtrotting screen idol – and then Pirène. He didn’t stay long in his old office; the busyness set his teeth on edge, and every smile and every bright social answer from the secretaries rasped against his skin like sandpaper. As soon as he could, he climbed the stairs to Pirène’s dark boxroom and wound his way between boxes of papers to the two chairs in front of the gas fire. Even the chairs had files on them. Pirène was in the kitchenette; as he shouldered the door open and came out again, holding a tray, he said, following Léo’s gaze, ‘Oh, move them, anywhere will do, honestly, I haven’t seen my secretary for months, it’s possible she’s died.’ He set the tray down and began to pour. ‘How were the burgomasters of Montverre-les-Bains? Did you manage to impart much wisdom?’