The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer
Elisabet had recognized Andras at once. "Stop looking at me, you stupid Hungarian!" she said.
Andras took a step backward into the hall, pulling Tibor along with him. The man gave them a wink of drunken triumph and kicked the door closed.
"Well," Tibor said. "I suppose we'd better examine the plumbing later."
"That might be best."
"And who was that darling girl? She seems to know you."
"That darling girl was Elisabet Morgenstern."
"The Elisabet? Klara's daughter?"
"The."
"And who was the man?"
"Someone awfully brave, that's for sure."
"Does Jozsef know Elisabet?" Tibor said. "Do you think the secret's out between them?"
Andras shook his head. "No idea. Elisabet does seem to live her own life outside the house. But Jozsef's never mentioned a secret cousin, which I'm certain he would have, as much as he loves to gossip." His temples began to pound as he wondered what exactly he had discovered, and what he would tell Klara.
They wove their way back to the sofa and sat down to watch the guests play charades; a girl appropriated Andras's coat and wore it over her head like a hood while she stooped to pick invisible flowers. The others called out the titles of films Andras had never seen. He needed another glass of wine, and was ready to get up and look for one when Elisabet's lover staggered into the room. The man, blond and broad-shouldered and wearing an expensive-looking merino jacket, tucked his shirt into his trousers and smoothed his hair. He raised a hand in greeting and sat down on the couch between Andras and Tibor.
"How are we, gentlemen?" he asked in his languid French. "You're not having nearly as much fun as I am, from the look of it." He sounded like the Hollywood stars who did commercials for Radio France. "That girl's quite a firecracker. I met her on a ski vacation over Christmas, and I'm afraid I've become addicted to her."
"We were just leaving," Andras said. "We'll be on our way now."
"No, sir!" the blond American crowed. He put an arm across Andras's chest. "No one goes! We're staying all night!"
Down the hall came Elisabet, shaking drops of water from her hands. She'd hastily rearranged her hair and misbuttoned her blouse. When she reached the front room, she beckoned to Andras with a single urgent sweep of her hand. Andras got up from the sofa and excused himself with a half bow, then followed Elisabet down the hall. She led him to Jozsef's bedroom, where a deluge of coats had overflowed the bed and pooled on the floor.
"All right," she said, crossing her arms over her chest. "Tell me what you saw."
"Nothing!" Andras said. "Not a thing."
"If you tell my mother about Paul, I'll kill you."
"When would I tell her, now that you've banished me from your house?"
Elisabet's look became shrewd. "Don't play innocent with me," she said. "I know you haven't spent the past two months hoping I'd fall in love with you. I know what's going on between you and my mother. I could see how she looked at you. I'm not a fool, Andras. She might not tell me everything, but I've known her long enough to be able to tell when she's got a lover. And you're just her type. Or one of her types, I should say."
Now it was his turn to show a self-conscious flush; I could see how she looked at you. And how he must have looked at her. How could anyone have failed to see it? He glanced down at the hearth; a silver cigarette case lay among the ashes, its monogram obscured. "You know she wouldn't want you to be here," he said. "Does she know you know Jozsef Hasz?"
"That idiot who lives here, you mean? Why, is he some sort of notorious criminal?"
"Not exactly," Andras said. "He can throw a rather rough party, that's all."
"I just met him tonight. He's some friend of Paul's from school."
"And you met Paul in Chamonix?"
"I don't see where that's any business of yours. And I mean it, Andras, you can't tell my mother about any of this. She'll lock me in my room for life." She tugged at her shirt, and when she saw she'd buttoned it wrong, pronounced an unladylike curse.
"I won't tell," he said. "Upon my honor."
Elisabet scowled at him, seeming to doubt his trustworthiness; but behind her hard look there was a flash of vulnerability, a consciousness that he held the key to something that mattered to her. Andras wasn't certain whether it was Paul himself she loved, or whether it was simply the freedom to carry on a life beyond her mother's scrutiny, but in either case he understood. He spoke his pledge again. Her tight-held shoulders relaxed a single degree, and she let out a truncated sigh. Then she fished a pair of coats from the pile on the bed, brushed past him into the hall, and returned to the front room, where Paul and Tibor were still watching the charades.
"It's late, Paul," Elisabet said, throwing his coat onto his lap. "Let's go."
"It's early!" Paul said. "Come sit here with us and watch these girls."
"I can't. I have to get home."
"Come to me, lioness," he said, and took her wrist.
"If I have to go home alone, I will," she said, and pulled away.
Paul got up from the sofa and kissed Elisabet on the mouth. "Stubborn girl," he said. "I hope this gentleman wasn't rude to you." He gave Andras a wink.
"This gentleman has the deepest respect for the young lady," Andras said.
Elisabet rolled her eyes. "All right," she said. "That's enough." She shrugged into her coat, gave Andras a last warning look, and went to the door. Paul snapped a salute and followed her into the hallway.
"Well," Tibor said. "I think you'd better sit down and tell me what that was all about."
"She begged me not to tell her mother that I saw her with that man."
"And what did you say?"
"I swore I'd never tell."
"Not that you'd have the opportunity anyway."
"Well," Andras said. "It seems Elisabet has figured out what's going on between her mother and me."
"Ah. So the secret's out."
"That one is, anyway. She seemed not at all surprised. She said I was her mother's type, whatever that means. But she doesn't seem to have any idea that Jozsef's her cousin." He sighed. "Tibor, what in God's name am I doing?"
"That's just what I've been asking you," Tibor said, and put an arm around Andras's shoulders. A moment later Jozsef Hasz appeared, three glasses of champagne in his hands. He passed them each a glass and toasted their health.
"Are you having fun?" he said. "Everyone must have fun."
"Oh, yes," Andras said, grateful for the champagne.
"I see you've met my American friend Paul," Jozsef said. "His father's an industrial chieftain. Automobile tires or some such thing. That new girlfriend of his is a little sharp-tongued for my taste, but he's wild about her. Maybe he thinks that's just the way French girls act."
"If that's the way French girls act, you gentlemen are in trouble," Tibor said.
"Here's to trouble," Jozsef said, and they drained their glasses.
The next day Andras and Tibor walked the long halls of the Louvre, taking in the velvet-brown shadows of Rembrandt and the frivolous curlicues of Fragonard and the muscular curves of the classical marbles; then they strolled along the quais to the Pont d'Iena and stood beneath the monumental arches of the Tower. They circumnavigated the Gare d'Orsay as Andras described how he'd built his model; finally they backtracked to the Luxembourg, where the apiary stood in silent hibernation. They sat with Polaner at the hospital as he slept through the nurses' ministrations; Polaner, whose terrible story Andras hadn't yet told Klara. They watched him sleep for nearly an hour. Andras wished he'd wake, wished he wouldn't look so pale and still; the nurses said he was better that day, but Andras couldn't see any change. Afterward they walked to the Sarah-Bernhardt, where Tibor lent a hand with the closing-down. They stowed the coffee things and folded the wooden table, cleared the actors' pigeonholes of ancient messages, shuttled stray props to the prop room and costumes to the costume shop, where Madame Courbet was folding garments into her neatly labeled cabi
He hoped Andras could forgive him, now that they'd both been cast upon the whims of fate.
Andras forgave him. "I know you didn't mean any harm," he said.
"That's a good boy," Claudel said, and kissed him on both cheeks. "He's a good boy," he told Tibor. "A darling."
Monsieur Novak met them in the hallway as they were on their way out. He called them into his office, where he produced three cut-crystal glasses and poured out the last of a bottle of Tokaji. They toasted Tibor's studies in Italy, and then they toasted the eventual reopening of the Sarah-Bernhardt and the three other theaters that were closing that week. "A city without theater is like a party without conversation," Novak said. "No matter how good the food and drink are, people will find it dull. Aristophanes said that, I believe."
"Thank you for keeping my brother out of the gutter," Tibor said.
"Oh, he would have found a way without me," Novak said, and put a hand on Andras's shoulder.
"It was your umbrella that saved him," Tibor said. "Otherwise he would have missed his train. And then he might have lost his nerve."
"No, not him," Novak said. "Not our Mr. Levi. He would have been all right. And so will you, my young man, in Italy." He shook Tibor's hand and wished him luck.
It was dark by the time they left. They walked along the Quai de Gesvres as the lights of the bridges and barges shivered on the water. A wind tore through the river channel, flattening Andras's coat against his back. He knew Klara was in her studio at that hour, teaching the final segment of her evening class. Without telling Tibor where they were going he steered them down the rue Francois Miron in the direction of the rue de Sevigne. He traced the route he hadn't walked in weeks. And there on the corner, its light spilling into the street, was the dance studio with its demi-curtains, its sign that said MME. MORGENSTERN, MAITRESSE. The faint sound of phonograph music reached them through the glass: the slow, stately Schumann she used for the end-of-class reverences. This was a class of intermediate girls, slender ten-year-olds with downy napes, their shoulder blades like small sharp wings beneath the cotton of their leotards. At the front of the room Klara led them through a series of sweeping curtseys. Her hair was gathered into a loose roll at the base of her neck, and she wore a practice dress of plum-colored viscose, tied at the waist with a black ribbon. Her arms were supple and strong, her features tranquil. She needed no one; she had made a life, and here it was: these end-of-day reverences, her own daughter upstairs, Mrs. Apfel, the warm rooms of the flat she'd bought for herself. And yet from him, from Andras Levi, a twenty-two-year-old student at the Ecole Speciale, she seemed to want something: the luxury of vulnerability, perhaps; the sharp thrill of uncertainty. As he watched, his heart seemed to go still in his chest.
"There she is," he said. "Klara Morgenstern."
"God," Tibor said. "She's beautiful, that's for certain."
"Let's see if she'll have dinner with us."
"No, Andras. I'm not going to do it."
"Why not?" he said. "You came here to see how I live, didn't you? This is it. If you don't meet her, you won't know."
Tibor watched as Klara lifted her arms; the children lifted their arms and swept into low curtseys.
"She's tiny," Tibor said. "She's a wood nymph."
Andras tried to see her as Tibor was seeing her--tried to see her for the first time.
There was something fearless, something girlish, about the way she moved her body, as if part of her remained a child. But her eyes held the look of a woman who had seen one lifetime pass into another. That was what made her like a nymph, Andras thought: the way she seemed to embody both timelessness and the irrevocable passage of time. The music reached its end, and the girls rushed for their satchels and coats. Tibor and Andras watched them leave. Then they met Klara at the studio door, where she stood shivering in her practice dress.
"Andras," she said, reaching for his hand. He was relieved that she seemed glad to see him; he hadn't known how she'd react to his coming to the studio. But there was nothing wrong with his stopping in as he passed through the Marais, he told himself; it was an ordinary thing, something an acquaintance might have done.
"This is a surprise," she said. "And who's this gentleman?"
"This is Tibor," Andras said. "My brother."
Klara took his hand. "Tibor Levi!" she said. "At last. I've been hearing about you for months." She glanced over her shoulder, up the stairs. "But what are the two of you doing here? I know you haven't come to take a lesson."
"Have dinner with us," Andras said.
She laughed, a little nervously. "I'm hardly dressed for it."
"We'll have a drink and wait for you."
She put a hand to her mouth and glanced over her shoulder again. From the apartment came the sound of quick footsteps and the rustle of outdoor garments. "My inscrutable daughter is dining out with friends tonight."
"Come, then," Andras said. "We'll keep you company."
"All right," she said. "Where will you be?"
Andras named a place that served bouillabaisse with slabs of thick brown bread.
They both loved it; they'd been there during their ten days together in December.
"I'll be there in half an hour," Klara said, and ran upstairs.
The restaurant had once been a smithy, and still smelled faintly of cinders and iron. The smelting ovens had been converted to cooking ovens; there were rough-hewn wooden tables, a menu full of cheap dishes, and strong apple cider served in earthenware bowls. They sat down at one of the tables and ordered drinks.
"So that was your Klara," Tibor said, and shook his head. "She can't be the mother of that girl we met at the party last night."
"I'm afraid so."
"What a disaster! How did she come by that child? She must have been little more than a girl herself at the time."
"She was fifteen," Andras said. "I don't know anything about the father, except that he's long dead. She doesn't like to talk about any of it."
She came in just as they were ordering a second round of drinks. She hung her red hat and her coat on a hook beside the table and sat down with them, tucking a few damp strands of hair behind her ear. Andras felt the heat of her legs close to his own; he touched the folds of her dress beneath the table. She raised her eyes to him and asked if anything were wrong. He couldn't tell her, of course, what was most immediately wrong: that Tibor objected to their liaison, at least in theory. So he told her instead what had happened to Polaner at the Ecole Speciale.
"What a nightmare," she said when he'd finished, and put her forehead into her hands. "That poor boy. And what about his parents? Has someone written to them?"
"He asked us not to. He's ashamed, you know."
"Of course. My God."
The three of them sat in silence, looking at their bowls of cider. When Andras glanced at Tibor it seemed to him that his brother's look had softened; it was as though, in the shadow of what had happened to Polaner, it had become an absurdity, a luxury, to hold an opinion about the rightness or wrongness of love. Tibor asked Klara about the class she'd been teaching, and she asked what he thought of Paris and whether he'd have time to see Italy before school began.
"There won't be much time to travel," Tibor said. "Classes start next week."
"And what will you study first?"
"Anatomy."
"You'll find it fascinating," she said. "I did."
"You've studied anatomy?"
"Oh, yes," she said. "In Budapest, as part of my ballet training. I had a master who believed in teaching the physics and mechanics of the human body. He made us read books with anatomical drawings that disgusted most of the girls--and some of the boys, too, though they tried not to show it. And one day he took us to the medical school at Budapest University, where the students were dissecting cadavers. He had one of the professors show us all the muscles and ten
Tibor looked at her with reluctant admiration. "And do you think it improved your dancing?"
"I don't know. I think it helps my teaching. It helps me explain things." She became pensive for a moment, touching the stitched edge of her napkin. "You know, I have some of those anatomy books at home. More than I need or use. I should make you a gift of one of them, if you've got room in your luggage."
"I couldn't," Tibor said, but a familiar covetousness had come into his eyes. Their father's mania for old books had become their own; Tibor and Andras had spent hours at the used bookstores in Budapest, where Tibor had taken down one ancient anatomy book after another and showed Andras in color-plated detail the shy curve of a pancreas, the cumular cluster of a lung. He pined for those gorgeous tomes he could never afford, not even at the used booksellers' prices.