Chapter Eleven
Breaking the engagement
That very night, Victoria was about to go to bed when one of her younger sisters—eight year old bespectacled Annie—barged into her room.
‘You should knock before coming in, you know,’ Victoria reproved the little girl.
The urchin had golden flocks like her sister Lucy, with blue eyes and curly hair that gave her an angelic air. She stood in the middle of the room and looked down at her elder sister who was sitting on her bed.
‘Isn’t mother ever coming back?’
She had fired the question with the unselfconsciousness of small girls, honestly, only concerned with the answer, no second thoughts attached. The matter was grave, her demure solemn, and yet... Victoria reflected that there was always something fairy-like in the way children addressed this and other issues of import. She sighed. Nevertheless, she thought she could do very well without such gruesome questioning that stirred her in such a disquieting manner.
But she answered all right, rather cathechetically even when she was also responding to her maternal instincts.
‘No, Annie, she’s not, Mummy’s not, definitely not coming back. But, on the other hand, we are going to meet her, soon enough,’ she smiled at the little girl, ‘in Heaven, if, uh’ she added with a demure smile, ‘if we’re good enough.’
Annie smiled back with a sort of ‘I told you so’ look on her radiant face.
‘Well, I told Diana that now Mummy isn’t here at least we aren’t going to the dentist anymore.’
Victoria couldn’t refrain from laughing at that and kept to herself that any day she would have to take them over herself, dear oh dear. She was still smiling to herself when Annie suddenly reappeared at the doorway apparently remembering a commission she had been given. She then produced a large envelope and waved it at Victoria with a large grin on her face.
‘Lucy sends you this,’ she said, throwing the letter onto Victoria’s bed. She left the room mumbling something to the effect that Lucy had forgotten to tell Victoria about it. Victoria followed her and leaning over the stair’s banister shouted at the top of her voice.
‘Lucy? Lucy!!! When did this letter arrive and why on earth didn’t you—’
Lucy ran up the stairs to the first landing, from where she talked back to her sister. A dishcloth hung from her waist and a pair of rubber gloves indicated that she had been dish-washing.
‘I’m so sorry Victoria,’ she had a worried look on her face, ‘but, I don’t—’
‘But when did it arrive, I mean, when—?’
Lucy wore a glum expression and finally admitted that she thought it had arrived a couple of days ago. Victoria sighed and kept to herself uncharitable thoughts about sisters forgetting to deliver love-letters as soon as they arrive. All the same the blonde girl got the gist of the sisterly reproof.
She returned to her room slowly shutting the door. It was a cold night, the first intimations of winter filtering through the naked windowpanes; but Victoria—as indeed her whole family—was immune to cold, quite used to not having stoves or a fireplace in the house, not even bothering to draw the curtains at night. There was always a look of surprise from any member of the Wade family when you came into the house and commented on the low temperatures. From their expressions you gathered that maybe the fact that you were freezing was somehow your fault or something. ‘You think so? Oh!’ And you could bet that they would change the subject, indifferent to the atmospheric conditions as if they pertained to another world. As a matter of fact, one of the window panes in the drawing-room had been broken sometime or another and had been hastily patched up with a piece of newspaper that was yellowing one winter after the next without anyone taking any notice. Peter had tried to guess the date from the news he could hardly read on the old parchment but could only decipher that it was related to some horse race or another.
Victoria rested for about a minute, leaning against the door holding on to the doorknob with both hands firmly interlaced behind her back. Despite the cold a few beads of sweat appeared on her forehead. The glittering white envelope seemed to be looking at her from its station in the middle of the bed. A small lamp glowed from her bedside table reflecting the light on the white quarter where her name and address had been firmly penned by her lover. She felt rather wobbly and finally walked slowly round the bed, took the letter and put it on a drawing board she had pitched in the darkest corner of the room, next to an easel where a nearly finished painting silently waited for the final touches. She sat down on the high stool in front of the drawing table where she usually did her homework (though most of the time she would draw in a standing position). She rested her right cheek on a closed fist while curling her long black hair one way and another with her other hand. She had mixed feelings, on the one hand reluctant to open up the envelope, on the other, impatient to read Peter’s letter. It was the first one since her mother had died and it seemed ages since Peter had written to her for the last time. She wished he were a more regular correspondent even when his letters, she admitted to herself, were long and loving and made up with their extension for their spaced frequency. She clicked on the overhead light and opened the envelope using a stylet that happened to rest on the base of the board along with a couple of Caran d’Ache pencils; then she extracted Peter’s letter that, sure enough, was quite bulky. She counted a total of eleven pages, written in black ink in his neat and rather small handwriting.
‘My darling love,’
She left the unread pages on the drawing board, put out the overhead light, got off her high stool and went to her bedside where she retrieved a pack of cigarettes and a box of matches from her handbag. She remained standing by her bed and smoked reflectively while looking out through the cold windowpanes into the night. With her free hand she rummaged through a small drawer in her bedside table from where she retrieved a hairpin. Once found, she left her cigarette on a small ashtray, sat on her bed and fastidiously fixed the fringe of dark hair that kept falling over her forehead. She drew on her cigarette until it very nearly burnt her fingers and put it out with a succession of impatient movements—prolonging the operation well after it had been extinguished. She sighed again, hedging between reading Peter’s letter right away or leaving it for the morrow. Of course, she knew that eventually she would have to get up and without more ado just read. But she had a premonition of sorts that warned her against it. Finally she concluded that one way or another she wouldn’t be getting much sleep anyway so she rose and protractedly walked towards the drawing table holding the pack of cigarettes and matches in her right hand. She sat down again on the stool, put on the light, reached for her spectacles, and read.
It was raining, I don’t know if you remember, and we huddled under an umbrella, ages ago. And in the end I gave in. You were the damsel that kept the door and asked the little, the silent, the innocent question: ‘Art not thou also one of the disciples?’ Disciples of love, lost for all things, desperate of everything except the object of their love. As I remember, it was raining on a Sunday morning in Bella Vista. And no amount of denying it would get me off the hook. It’s enough with one single glance from the loved one, and you’re lost. So finally the cock crows, damn it, and you’re condemned to keep hearing as in a litany the repeated question, again and again: Peter, do you love me? And one’s hooked all right. Hook, line and sinker. Lock, stock, and barrel. Hell, do I love you, my darling Victoria, the damsel that kept the door, that was trembling with fright next to me under an umbrella, under the rain. But there’s no denying that your quest was older, your question came before, silently, compellingly, insistently. Peter, do you love me? After what felt like ages of this drumming interrogation I finally gave in. And you opened the door. And yes, it was already later than we thought.
No, I don’t know. Nobody knows anything unless it actually happens to you. I can’t even imagine what your mother’s death has done to you, my love, let alone help you with that particular grie
f. Oh dear, I always thought that love was enough, and it isn’t you know. As you well know, I love your desperately, but it isn’t, somehow, enough. It makes me miss you in a way that makes me sick, and love isn’t the cure. You are. Your presence. Being with you. Love did this to us, but it won’t remedy the distance... Hell! I don’t know. I sometimes feel that we are so near, and the next minute I can’t remember what your eyes look like, for heaven’s sake. No photograph, no amount of remembering and day-dreaming will bring me back the look of your serious blue eyes... And yet. There was that time that I happened to see your face screened by a jacaranda at your back. It was in full blossom against the darkening skies... Your eyes seemed to compete with those blue/violet flowers. No, I can’t quite forget that, I don’t think I’ll ever will. I’ve never quite liked photographs, you know. I’ve quite enough with my own memories. Oh dear, I must be mad or something. Love did that to me, and it won’t provide a balm for this affection. You can say that I’m madly in love, but I think that saying that this love for you is driving me mad puts it more neatly. Hell, I don’t know what I’m writing about, except that your absence makes me sick and is deranging me. To the point, mind you, that I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Your mother was a dear. I didn’t get to know her very well, as you know. But... through her eldest daughter, some of her endearing traits were revealed to me in a most clear light. Sorry about this non-sequitur, but I hope we can marry soon and have lots of children and then I’ll be able to corroborate what I now only see in clear—but very brief—glimpses, insights, intuitions, or what will you. I’m sorry to be so cryptic my darling, but when all is said and done, I’ll tell you what: you’ll be the best mother in the world, for any child, for any number of children. And, as you may perhaps understand, I’ve a strong mind to give my children, as it were, as good a mother as yours was, and, if I can’t have that, I’ll have you. I love you as much as just that, I hope you follow, I mean, I’m in love with exactly the right person.
No Wade will appreciate what follows but I must tell you that it’s freezing cold here in my room, rather cramped quarters near the C.O.’s mess, no stoves, no coffee, and only a couple of cigarettes left. I’m going to light the last but one in your honour—there it is—and smoke it slowly, see if it helps me write the best love-letter in the world for the nicest girl I ever met—or ever will. It’s now seven o’clock and has been snowing for most of the afternoon. I’ve put on my favourite record of Neapolitan Songs and listen to the lyrics with a wandering mind. Well, not exactly wandering, because while I try to pay attention to the wonderful poetry, my mind has a way of always finishing with a close-up of a blue-eyed, dark-haired, husky voice, cute soul, small feet and freckled face with a lovely dimple, that happens to be called Victoria and whose name sends shivers down my spine, accelerates my pulse, and has generally tormented me for the last couple of months.
I wonder if you remember my favourite Neapolitan love song:
Sto core se conzuma,
Fatella mia pe te.
Well, that’s exactly it. Only that Piccini probably was never quite in love as I am, so I know about this more than him—to the point that I couldn’t compose a song as true as his, if you know what I mean. As the old lady had inscribed on her gravestone, I told you I was sick. Ha, ha.
The young girl was so concentrated on Peter’s letter that she hadn’t heard the knock on her bedroom door, nor seen Lucy come in softly, take a magazine that was lying on the ground, and tiptoe out again. She did, however, hear her sister slowly shutting the door behind her, and she took her eyes off the paper for a second glancing cursorily at the back of the door where her dressing gown was hanging. She tut-tutted but was soon immersed in Peter’s epistle again.
Would that you were here with me. When are we getting married? Say soon, my darling. At least say yes so I can definitely get rid of these pining feelings (will I ever?).
You know, I keep remembering last summer in Bella Vista, do you? You also opened the door to Bella Vista and all its mysteries to me, you naughty girl, the damsel that kept the door. And then we had a hell of a time, I think, didn’t we? Of course, you’re used to it, but, isn’t it the best town in the world? Victoria’s town. The long afternoons shuffling from Andrew’s house to yours and back. Going to buy cigarettes to that little kiosk at the corner and arguing with the old woman there over soccer, of all things (by the way, what’s her name?). And playing in the swimming pool (I hadn’t realized how white you are), playing volley in your garden, playing the guitar in the evenings. Oh Bella Vista’s playful evenings! And your mother inviting us to say the Rosary, of all things! (I must admit that she never pulled a face when most of the time we declined her mystical propositions, but I did understand, for once, why the old folk used to call crepuscular, twilight time, prayer time). I don’t know, my mind wanders so. And yes, all the same, some of all your religiousness spilled over in my direction. How about going to Mass every day? The very idea! But I couldn’t quite stay behind when the whole bunch of you kept insisting on this particular exercise. And then I´ll confess here and now that I felt rather jealous when you all started arguing on this or that fine point of liturgy or I don’t know what. I did gather of course that most of you are not too well disposed to recent changes and rather hate Vatican II, just like Thomas does, but what can I do? I just love you—and through you have become very fond of your friends, specially Andrew—and, for all their quirks and fastidiousness about this or that they will always remain in my memory as the best friends ever... What a whopping time last summer! That evening when we started playing old tango records and you began to teach us to dance. Hell, I’ll never learn, but only to see you dancing around while Carlos Gardel sang away... That reminds me, please don’t dance with anyone until we see each other again. ‘Do nothing till you hear from me’ will you? I never thought I could actually enjoy tango so much. And I’ll tell you what: best of all was your Father’s little lecture on Brasillach’s novel that we found so enjoyable, four or five of us drinking maté under the oak tree and listening with interest to all about Patrice and Catherine’s love story. Please tell your Father that he must translate ‘Les Sept Couleurs.’ I was particularly impressed by Patrice telling his girl friend how her absence doubled every one of his moments. I wish I knew French. All the same, your Father wrote it down for me and I keep and venerate the piece of yellowish paper where he inscribed the magic words: ‘Ton absence double mes instants.’ He smiled at me knowingly when I asked him to write that down—the old pirate must’ve surmised that I was already missing you, as it were, ‘avant la lèttre.’ Well, there you are now: I didn’t know I knew that much French!
Ton absence... hell. Is hell. I can quite understand now that hell’s worst punishment is the absence of The Loved One. Which, in my case, idolatry be blasted, is you, my love. Love does something to space, sure enough, but it also does something to time, stretching it in such a torturing way when we’re apart, and contracting it so nervously when we’re together. Upon my soul, if we’re ever married, I suppose time will as well as be annihilated. Let’s buy a big grandfather’s clock and see how our love definitely wipes out time. But over here, in this uncouth place, I hate clocks, calendars and whistles, bells and sirens that keep reminding me I won’t be seeing my love for ages. Oh hell. I sometimes think maybe Jimmy was right in leaving the Army. Sometimes I even catch myself dreaming of resigning my commission, taking the train and just appearing by your side, unshackled and free from the drudgery of this place. If only you’d come over, it would be suddenly Heaven. As you see, there’s not such a distance between Hell and Heaven—and yet, oh my dear, what a distance! Sorry about all this rambling, but I told you I’m unhinged. The only good thing I have is those memories of you that I treasure deep down in my heart, despite the fact that each memory ‘double mes instants.’
I keep remembering one particular evening when we decided to lit up a fire and make a barbecue under the trees in the back garden at you
r place. It was funny but we had quite an hour for ourselves—I think that Thomas and Veronica and the rest of them went to the butcher’s to buy the meat or something. Do you remember my darling? You know, the fire quietly kindling while the first stars appeared and the absolute silence, and just the two of us—‘and nobody else’—in perfect companionship, just looking at the fire, and dreaming, never mind the rest of the world. There was, there certainly was, ‘a kind of hush’ then. I can still feel it somewhere, in my sick heart.
A tear fell from Victoria’s cheek onto this last word. She didn’t try to dry it, and the drop dissolved ‘heart’ into an unrecognisable smudge.
I can still feel it somewhere, in my sick—
She now finished the letter in a single quick reading, urging herself to get to the end somehow or other. There would always be time to read it again, she thought, while scanning Peter’s calligraphy at top speed impatiently brushing her tears with a sleeve.
Please write to me soon my darling. A word from you is like a drop of water to a nomad lost in the desert of loneliness. Anyway I’ll try to phone you every Saturday at the usual time. A hundred kisses and all that,
Peter.
She was reading these last lines while an audible noise was somehow interfering and bothering her at the back of her mind until she recognised that someone was banging on her door.
‘Victoria, Victoria!’ She heard little Annie knocking. She sighed, took off her spectacles and brushed away a fresh wave of tears that had smeared her face.
‘What is it?’ she enquired with a smothered voice. Actually it was quite a miracle that Annie interpreted this while remaining behind the shut door.
‘Telephone!’ the little girl cried at the top of her voice, ‘Veronica’s on the phone!’ she bellowed. She would’ve gone on and on if her sister had not got up and opened the bedroom door indicating that she’d heard all right and that she was taking the call.
These exertions helped her pull herself together. She dried her face with a handkerchief and took the phone extension she had in her room. The extension had been recently fitted by Joseph at her request and did not always work properly. For one thing the bell had been somehow definitely muted. However, this time it appeared to be in order and she could hear her friend on the other side of the line quite clearly.
‘Victoria!’
‘Hello? Veronica?’ Victoria’s voice wobbled a bit, but she hoped she would be getting a greater hold of it by the minute.
‘Victoria, have you heard the news?’ Veronica sounded elated.
‘News? What news?’ she enquired, while sitting down on her bed, looking reproachfully at her desk that stood miles away with her cigarettes on top.
‘Well, hold on, here it goes: we’re getting married!’ and she added unnecessarily, ‘Thomas and I are getting married! Can you believe—?’ There was a mixed sound of telephone interference and a chuckle of sorts that travelled down the line.
‘Congratulations old girl!’ Victoria had more leverage over her voice by now and was certainly very happy on account of the unexpected news.
‘He proposed to me a couple of hours ag—’
‘But, hadn’t you all gone to dinner to—’
‘...and on our way back, he stopped the car in a most unseemly—’
‘...I mean weren’t you supposed to go to dinner with Jimmy and his—’
‘...and produced quite a traffic jam, what with all those cars behind us blowing their horns, shouting the typical “Come on old Charly!” sort of curses—I don’t know what. And what with the ongoing racket I couldn’t quite hear what—’
‘Well, I mean, it is rather a surprise isn’t it? I mean he had never even men—’
‘...so he finally parked the car putting it into a small space next to an enormous “No Parking” sign and popped the—’
‘...but where will you live? I mean, Thomas never—’
‘...a dear you know, the old poppet. He just asked me to marry him for ever and ever, and the thing is, I never expected—’
‘Well, yes, it does come as something of a surprise. I wonder if you’ll manage on his salary... I mean, where will you live and everything?’
‘Yes, well that did it. Apparently an old aunt of his, Auntie Louise or something, decided to give away a small old English house she had in Belgrano and that she used to rent.
‘Not one of those gorgeous bow-window hou—’
‘Exactly.’
‘I can’t believe it, I mean they’re worth a fortune!’
‘Yes. It’s on Conde street, just round the Athletic Club’s premises. And Thomas not only promptly accepted this but on the strength of such a present he decided that there were no more excuses for further delay and just proposed. We were just beginning to embrace when a constable came along and was about to give him a ticket, except that—’
‘Can you hold on for a sec, Veronica. Hold on, I’m coming right back.’
Victoria trotted up to the easel, gathered her cigarette and matches and in no time sat down on her bed again while lighting.
‘I’d never heard of any Aunt Louise before.’
‘Neither had I... but, listen Victoria, I’m so excited, I couldn’t very well go to bed without telling you all about it. Tomorrow we’re going with Thomas to see the house. It’s in Belgrano, can you imagine? I tell you, I don’t know how I’m going to sleep tonight.’
An old house in Belgrano! It was quite a posh part of Buenos Aires, and even Victoria detected a faintly green wave of envy welling up. But envy is a bit of a brownie that disappears as soon as you think you’ve seen it, and such was the case now. She sighed and congratulated her friend again.
‘As soon as we can arrange it, you have to come over and help me with so many arrangements, what with the big wedding party we want to throw, and the house decoration, and so on... I mean, I haven’t even thought about our honeymoon... isn’t it all so much fun?’
‘It certainly is, and we must begin to think—’
‘I think I’ll be fixing the date pretty soon, something like three months from now.’
‘Three months!’ Victoria sort of whistled down the line. ‘Well, now I begin to think you’re talking seriously, I mean—’
‘Yup, somewhere around September, don’t you think springtime is exactly right?’ Veronica sighed contentedly and added as an afterthought, ‘Do you think Peter will be able to come? And, by the way, when are you two getting married?’
Victoria unexpectedly lost control of her voice again and a kind of choking sound was distinctly heard over the line.
‘Victoria? Something wrong? Have you and Peter—’
‘It’s all right,’ she sobbed, trying to get hold of herself again, but not quite making it, ‘It’s only that I’ve just received a letter from him and, well...’
Veronica was listening intently and she delicately prompted her friend.
‘And?’
‘Well, as a matter of fact, he’s urging me to marry him too, but—’
Victoria heard someone take the line downstairs and repressively asked who the hell was interfering with the telephone. It was Victoria’s Father and the old professor excused himself, saying that he had no idea Victoria was on the blower and promptly hung up.
‘But what? I mean, it’s not as if you don’t love him anymore, is it?’
‘No, no, don’t be silly. It’s just that I can’t.’
‘What’d’ya mean by “I can’t?” What’s all this “I can’t” business? Of course you can, I mean, the Army’ll give him a proper house wherever he’s posted, so I don’t quite see—’
‘On account of my family.’
There was something of a pause in the until then intense conversation.
‘Oh...’
‘Listen, Veronica. I can’t very well leave Daddy and all my little brothers and sisters to fend for themselves. Think of the twins for example. They alone are demanding enough, let alone all the rest of them. I know all too
well that between Lucy and Joseph they’d make a real hash of things, and I cannot see how I could properly abandon them in the foreseeable future... So, what can I say? I don’t know...’
‘What does Peter say about all this?’
‘Well, actually I haven’t gathered the courage to explain all this to him. It’s so difficult to put him in the picture through letter writing. I just don’t know the proper words. And it’s out of the question to try and tell it to him over the telephone. And then... there’s something else.’
Veronica was completely absorbed by all this and had by now quite forgotten all about her own marriage.
‘Something else? What else?’
‘Hmmm, I’m not sure that I should tell you, but I will if you keep it absolutely secret.’
‘I’ll keep my tongue between my teeth.’
‘All right. The question is, how long can I make Peter wait for me?’
‘How long?’
‘Yes, how long? I mean, I don’t think I can legitimately keep him on hold for two or three—’
‘Oh, he’ll wait for you all right if he loves you.’
‘Yes, I know. But that’s not the point. The point is if it’s fair to keep him waiting ad calendas graecas.’
‘What?’
Victoria sighed impatiently. ‘Well, keep him waiting indefinitely. You see there’s no way I can promise him that we’ll marry on such or such a date. Greeks had no calen—’
‘To hell with the Greeks. Why don’t you fix a date, say two years from now? By then your house should be in running order, don’t you think?’
‘Well, that’s exactly it. To tell you the truth, I don’t think so. I don’t frankly see how on earth they’ll all manage without me two years from now. You know Lucy is only sixteen and Joseph is perfectly useless when it comes to managing the house. It took me two months to get him to put the phone extension in this room, and it doesn’t even work properly. That reminds me. They can’t even handle the damn correspondence. I mean, do you know they almost lost Peter’s last letter? The whole house is a mess. Who’s going to prepare little Diana for her First Communion? Who’s going to take Annie to the dentist? Who’s going to look after the twins? I mean who the hell is going to pay the damn telephone bill, get hold of a plumber so he fixes the water tap in the kitchen, go and see Julian’s teacher about his troubles at school, help him with his homework? And so on. And then, I don’t even know if Daddy will get better or finish needing more attention than ever... I mean, it’s all quite difficult now and I don’t see things looking up in the next couple of years, so...’
‘Are you going to put an end to your engagement?’ Veronica bluntly asked.
There was a long pause, while Victoria wrestled with her box of matches and lighted another cigarette.
‘I don’t know what to do. I think—’
But at that point she started to cry and ceased any effort to restrain herself. Veronica started to weep also which made matters worse. After a good minute of this, they finally agreed to talk it over the next day.
Victoria looked out through the window at the dark night. By then a full moon had appeared and she smoked reflectively looking straight into its brilliant face. She had stopped weeping but her fit of crying had somehow abated the deep pain she felt somewhere in her heart, and she resolved to write to Peter that very night, no matter how late it was.
She felt peaceful for the first time in quite a few months. She was determined. She had to do what she had to do, and that was the end of that.
She had decided to break off their engagement.