Читать книгу Uncle Rudolf - Paul Bailey - Страница 19

My mother was with me briefly today – speaking the only words she knew – in those moments between sleeping and waking. She said what was true, that she had never left me, although we had been parted.

—No parting, Andrei, was more terrible than ours. Her ghost’s voice was as light and soft as the voice that had soothed and comforted and teased me in my earliest years. She told me that her God was the same kind and merciful God she had taught me to believe in but whom I have since abandoned, and then the voice was gone, and the blurred vision of her young face, and I was on the verge of talking to her when I realized that I was awake and alone and shivering in the warmth of the afternoon.

—I have a confession to make, Andrew. Your father and I were rivals for your mother’s affections. Irina preferred Roman. If she had chosen me, I would not be enjoying my nephew’s company. On balance, I suppose I should be glad she threw me over.

—Were you in love with Mama, Uncle?

—Very much. She was so serious and shy. She wasn’t – as they say here – forward.

I knew by then, though I had been given no reason why, that I would not, could not, see her again. I was fifteen by now, and the war with Germany was almost over. My uncle looked older, with white hairs on his temples he made no attempt to disguise. He was in a melancholy mood, a mood to which I was already happily accustomed.

—I try not to dwell on the past, Andrew. It’s over, I remind myself. What’s done cannot be undone. The present is all that matters. Remember that, if you can. As for me these days, I tend to forget it. Irina decided wisely when she picked Roman. I offered them money, my Vienna money, to get out of that beastly country – our beastly country, Andrew – but they refused to accept it. I should have gone to Botoşani and bullied them into leaving.

I asked him why.

I was trapped in his fierce brown stare for a moment.

—Oh, it was no place for good people. He added, mysteriously: But you are my future, Andrew. That’s why. Whatever happens, I shall always be at your side when you need me. Yes, you are my future, for the time being.

Perhaps he had considered telling me the real reason why on that April day in 1945, and had then – in the course of staring at me – persuaded himself that a boy of fifteen was too raw for such knowledge. Perhaps.

He suggested that we take a walk in the fields. There was no danger any more from German planes. The lord of the manor, as he mockingly described himself, would inspect the estate with his heir apparent.

We ate an omelette that evening, cooked with the fresh eggs his hens had laid.

—What luxury. What a simple luxury, said my – smiling uncle. We are very fortunate.

I was to receive the real reason why, the real answer to my question, when I was eighteen.

—You are mature for your age, Andrew. I will pour you a large brandy before I say what I have to say. I certainly need one.

What he told me on the tenth of August, 1948, caused me to shiver today.

I remember that I needed a second large brandy after I had read my father’s last letter to my uncle, written in the old words I no longer spoke.

The words that are ashes in my mouth when I catch myself speaking them now.