Men are harsh …’

She turned to her daughter. ‘You’re right, you know, Bella. Enjoy life while you’re still in good health. Eat something. Do you want some of this? A bit of that? Do you want my chair, my knife, my bread, my food? Take it … Take it, Boris, and you, Bella, and you, George, and you my darling Hélène …’ Take my time, my care, my blood, my flesh … she seemed to be saying as she stared at them with her soft, dead eyes.

But everyone pushed her away. Then she would shake her head affectionately and force herself to smile. ‘All right, all right, I’ll be quiet, I won’t say anything …’

Meanwhile, George Safronov had sat up straighter, lifting his tall, dry body and bald head, while carefully examining his fingernails. He polished them twice a day: all morning long, and once before the evening meal. He was not interested in the conversation of women. Boris Karol was a peasant. ‘He should consider himself very lucky to have married Safronov’s daughter …’ He opened out his newspaper.

Hélène read the word ‘War’. ‘Is there going to be a war, Grandfather?’ she asked.

‘What?’

Whenever she opened her mouth, everyone eyed her scornfully and waited a moment before speaking, firstly to find out her mother’s opinion on what she ’d said and then presumably because she was so unimportant, so young, that they felt they had to travel a great distance just to reach her.

‘War? And where have you heard talk of …? Oh! Maybe, no one knows …’

‘I really hope not,’ said Hélène, sensing it was what she was supposed to say.

They all looked at her and laughed nervously; her father smiled with a tender, melancholy, mocking expression.

‘What a clever thing to say,’ said Bella dismissively. ‘If there’s a war, fabric will be more expensive … You do know that Papa owns a textile factory, don’t you?’

She laughed but without opening her mouth: her thin lips formed a harsh line that cut across her face and were always pinched, either to make her mouth seem smaller, or to hide the gold tooth at the back, or because she wanted to look refined. She raised her head and noticed the clock: ‘Time for bed. Off you go …’

Her grandmother put out her arm when Hélène walked past; her anxious eyes and weary face grew tense. ‘Give Grandma a hug and a kiss …’ And when the impatient, ungrateful, deeply irritated child allowed herself to be held for a moment by the thin old woman, she crushed Hélène to her breast with all her might.

The only kiss Hélène accepted and returned with joy was her father’s. She felt related and close to him alone, part of his flesh and blood, sharing his soul, his strength, his weaknesses. He leaned down towards her with his silvery white hair that looked almost green in the moonlight; his face was still young, but wrinkled, furrowed by cares; his eyes were sometimes intense and sad, sometimes lit up with the fire of mischievous cheerfulness; he tugged playfully at her hair. ‘Goodnight, Lenoussia, my little one …’

She left them, and at that very instant serenity and joy, along with pure and simple affection, returned to her heart; she held Mademoiselle Rose’s hand in hers. She went to bed and fell asleep. Mademoiselle Rose sat sewing in the golden beam of the lamp; its light shone across her thin, bare little hand. A shaft of moonlight pushed through the white ruched blind. Mademoiselle Rose was lost in thought. ‘Hélène needs new dresses, pinafores, socks … Hélène is growing up too quickly …’

Occasionally a noise, a flash of lightning, the shadow of a bat, a cockroach on the white stove made her shudder. ‘I’ll never get used to this place,’ she sighed. ‘Never …’

2

Hélène was sitting on the floor in her bedroom, playing. It was a warm, clear spring evening; the pale sky was like a crystal ball with the glowing traces of a pink fire at its heart. Through the half-open door of the sitting room, the child could hear the sound of a French ballad. Bella was singing; when she wasn’t polishing her nails, when she wasn’t sighing from sadness and boredom, stretched out in the dining room on the old settee whose stuffing was sticking through the fabric in little tufts, she would sit at the piano and sing, accompanying herself with the odd lethargic chord. When she came to the words ‘love’ or ‘lover’, her voice sounded more passionate and clear; she was no longer afraid to open her mouth wide; she didn’t pinch her lips together; she sang out those words of love and her voice took on a sweet, husky tone that was unlike its normally bitter or weary sound.