I pulled Leokadia’s tickets out of my valise. “Would it cheer you up to get out of the house, hear some music with me this afternoon?”
“Oh for heaven’s sakes no, Marya. For one thing, it’s miserable outside.” She gestured to the window, slick with raindrops. “And for another, look at me.” She put both her hands on her belly, just as Klara finished her bread and ran out from the kitchen, hugging herself to my legs.
I picked her up, though she was almost getting too heavy for that, kissed the top of her head. She no longer smelled like a baby, but like a child, one who loved to explore and dig in the dirt when I allowed it. Her aunt’s garden and the wetness today was her idea of perfection. “Oh my goodness, Klara, you are filthy,” I said, noticing now the streaks of brown across her little forehead. She giggled in response. Clearly, that was her intent.
Hela’s front door opened and shut; a man’s voice called hello. “Jacques is home early,” I remarked to Hela, who laughed, and shook her head.
“Not Jacques. That’s Pierre.” His voice was a strange echo of his brother’s, but Hela, who was used to them both, was right. Pierre walked into the parlor not a moment later. I put Klara down so I could look at him. He kissed Hela on the cheek, asked her how she was feeling, then stepped back, stared at me, and smiled.
“Hello, Pierre,” I said. “Nice to see you again.” Though nice was not the right word. I felt something else, something warm and wanting and disquieting too.
“You too, Marya,” he said. “And who’s this?” He kneeled down to Klara’s level, all without taking his eyes off my face. “Is this the one and only princessa Klara Zorawska I’ve heard so much about?”
Klara spent most of her time with women, and I’d never seen her warm up to any man, other than her father, and perhaps she was beginning to warm up to her uncle Jacques. But with Pierre she laughed and let him shake her little hand, seeming immediately at ease.
“Why don’t you take Pierre to your concert,” Hela said now, forcing herself into an awkward sitting position. “Pierre loves those sorts of cultural things. Don’t you, Pierre?”
“A concert?” Pierre said, raising his eyebrows.
“Her friend from Poland, the pianist… What’s her name?” Hela said.
“Leokadia,” I said. “But really you don’t have to, Pierre… And, Hela, Klara is a mess.”
“I can clean Klara up,” Hela said. “I haven’t moved all day. It will be good for me to get up, practice mothering.”
“But… it’s raining,” I protested.
“You don’t go out in the rain in Poland?” Pierre asked. It was hard to tell whether he was teasing me or asking a serious question.
“Of course she does,” Hela said. She waved us away with her hand, then patted the spot on the couch next to her. “Klara, do you want to sit down with me and hear a story about the rocks in my laboratory?” Klara, being the sweet and gentle and calm child she was, listened and sat down with her aunt. I bit my lip, knowing rocks could only get Hela so far before Klara began to squirm, but perhaps Hela was right. Perhaps she needed some practice at being motherly. Perhaps I was doing her a favor.
AS PIERRE AND I WALKED DOWN BOULEVARD KELLERMAN TO catch the carriage to Montmartre, he held his large black umbrella over both of us, and I told him a bit about Leokadia. About how I loved her, and how I hated her too. How I was in awe of her talent and also grateful that it had taken her somewhere away from me. I felt an openness with Pierre that led me to share honestly with him in a way I couldn’t with Agata or my sisters. There was a comfort in how he listened to me speak and then continued on walking without making any harsh judgments about my marriage or my continued friendship with Kadi.
“But she is a good piano player, you say?” Pierre finally said, his only comment on my story.
“Yes,” I said. “Wonderful, really.”
“Ah, very nice then. We should be in for a treat this afternoon. I do not like to walk in the rain for nothing.” I glanced at him, and a smile grazed his lips. He was making fun of me. As if he felt my eyes on his face, he turned too, so he was looking at me. We were both looking at each other as we walked. We didn’t say anything more, just walked for a moment in the pouring rain, staring at each other.
I looked away first, and that’s when I suddenly noticed Pierre stepping into the street to cross at just the wrong moment, inches away from an oncoming horse.
“Pierre!” I yelled his name, grabbed his jacket, and pulled him back toward me as hard as I could. He nearly lost his footing, and let go of his umbrella, which tumbled out in front of us and was promptly run over. His umbrella was trampled by the horse, crushed and flattened by the wheels of the carriage.
We both stood unmoving for a moment. My heart pounded furiously in my chest, my hands shook. The rain poured down upon us, drowning my bun and my face, but I could not feel the wetness.
Pierre spoke first: “Marya,” he said. “You saved my life.”
I shook my head. No. Surely he would’ve looked up at the last moment, stopped himself from walking in front of that horse even if I hadn’t been here.
He walked ahead, retrieved his umbrella, tried to put it up again above our heads, but the spokes were broken and bent and the linen torn, providing no cover from the rain at all any longer. We both stared at the umbrella, and I wondered if Pierre was thinking what I was thinking, that this could’ve been him: broken, bent, torn. That life was delicate and fleeting, that we were all just one wrong step away from death, at any moment.
And here we both were, standing together in the pouring rain, alive and breathing.
Marie
Paris, 1906
I am walking with Pierre in the rain, holding on to him so tightly. I love our life together, he says, turning to me, smiling. How did I ever get so lucky?
There is no such thing as luck, I tell him, as he walks out into the street, one step ahead of me. His eyes, bright blue and filled with light, are still on my face. And then I see the horse, coming right at him. Pierre, stop! I cry out. I try to reach for him, to pull him back. But I can’t grab ahold of him in time.
Why can’t I just pull him back?
I sit up in bed, startled. Disoriented. I reach for Pierre next to me, but his side of the bed is empty. And I remember again, he is dead, dead, dead. Trampled and crushed. His beautiful brain broken. I am haunted by this cruel and recurring dream where I try to stop him, try to save him. But he’s gone. I can’t save him, can’t help him, can’t fix him as Hela once believed I would.
WE BURY PIERRE IN SCEAUX BY HIS MOTHER’S SIDE, ON April 21st, only two days after the accident. The press began clamoring immediately, and there were so many telegrams, and I just wanted them all to leave me alone; I just want quiet. We rush through everything, have a private family burial, in hopes the press will leave, and then in the days after, everything has happened so fast that I can’t understand yet it’s true. He’s gone. How can he really be gone?
When I first tell Irène the news, she runs to her bedroom to weep. But then, only hours later, she comes to me, seeming completely untouched, asking if it is still all right if she goes and plays in the Perrins’ garden with her friend. She is young, she does not understand the power this loss will hold over her for the rest of her life. And because of that, I forgive her insensitivity.