Tibor gave a great helpless laugh, which led him into a cough. He leaned forward in the chair, covering his mouth with the handkerchief. When he sat back, he had to wipe his eyes with his sleeve and drink the rest of his tea before he could speak.
“Why do I bother talking to you?” he said.
“I suppose you got into the habit years ago and never quit.”
“Anyway, we’ve got more important things to discuss. Your engagement to Madame Morgenstern, for one.”
“Ah, yes. By some miracle, Klara Morgenstern has agreed to be my wife.”
“So you’ll be the first of the three of us to marry, too.”
“Unless the world ends before next summer.”
“A distinct possibility, the way things stand at the moment,” Tibor said.
“But if not, she’ll be Madame Lévi.”
“And what about this secret history of hers?”
Andras had refused to write him about it, saying instead that they would talk once Tibor came to visit; he had remembered the elder Mrs. Hász’s caution and decided it might be unwise to send the story via post. Now he joined Tibor at the little table and related Klara’s history from beginning to end, a revelation Klara herself had given him permission to make. When he’d finished, Tibor regarded him in stunned silence for a long moment.
“What a horror,” he said finally. “All of it. And now she’s an exile.”
“And there’s our problem,” Andras said. “Apparently insoluble.”
“You haven’t written to Anya and Apa about this, have you? Haven’t told them you’re engaged, or any of it?”
“I haven’t had the heart. I suppose I’m hoping Klara’s situation will change.”
“But how, if there’s no statute of limitations?”
“I don’t know how, I confess. Until it does, I’ll share her exile.”
“Ah, Andráska,” Tibor said. “Little brother.”
“You did warn me,” Andras said.
“And you ignored me, of course.” He bent to cough into his fist. “I shouldn’t be sitting up so long. I should be in bed. And I shouldn’t be giving anyone advice about love, of all things. Here’s what I know of the heart: It’s a four-chambered organ whose purpose is to pump blood. Left ventricle, right ventricle, left atrium, right atrium, and all the valves, tricuspid, mitral, pulmonary, and aortic.” He coughed again. “Ah, get me back to bed and let me sleep. And don’t give me any more bad news when I wake.”
The next day, when he was well enough to venture out, Tibor suggested they pay a visit to Signorina di Sabato-to make sure she was comfortably settled, he said, and to return a book he’d borrowed from her on the train: a beautiful old edition of the Divina Commedia, bound in tooled leather. When Andras expressed surprise that Signorina di Sabato would be reading Dante, Tibor insisted that she was better read than any girl he’d ever met. From the age of twelve she’d been a secret borrower from the library near her home in the Jewish Quarter. The Divina Commedia belonged to that library; Tibor showed Andras the stamp on the spine. She hadn’t meant to steal it, but as she was packing she realized that if she left it behind, her parents would find out that she’d been borrowing from the library in secret. She had told Tibor about it on the train, laughing sadly at herself as she did: There she’d been, running off to Paris to get married, and what had worried her was the idea that her parents might be scandalized by her having borrowed secular library books.
At Klara’s they found Signorina di Sabato engaged in hemming the ivory silk dress that was to be her wedding gown. Klara sat beside her on the sofa, sewing a fine band of scalloped lace along the edge of a veil. Elisabet, not usually one to take an interest in what everyone else was doing, pored over a book of fancy cakes; she gave Tibor a look of mild curiosity and waved to him from her chair. But Ilana di Sabato was on her feet the moment she saw him, the ivory dress falling from her lap to the floor.
“Ah, Tibor!” she said, and followed with a few quick words in Italian. She made a gesture toward the library book and offered a smile of gratitude.
“You brought the book,” Klara said. “She told me you’d borrowed it. I understood that much. We’ve been getting by, between my bit of Italian and her bit of French.”
“And what does Signorina di Sabato think of Paris?” Andras asked.
“She likes it very well indeed,” Klara said. “We had a walk in the Tuileries this morning.”
“I’m sure she despises it,” Elisabet answered, not raising her eyes from the book of cakes. “So cold and dismal. I’m sure she wants to go back to Florence.”
Signorina di Sabato gave Elisabet a questioning look. Tibor translated, and Signorina di Sabato shook her head and made an insistent reply.
“She doesn’t hate it at all,” Tibor said.
“She will, soon enough,” Elisabet said. “It’s depressing in December.”
Klara set down the wedding veil and declared that she would like some tea. “Won’t you help me with the tray?” she asked Andras. He followed her into the kitchen, where a raft of recipe books lay open on the table.
Andras touched a page on which there was a drawing of a whole fish dressed in thin slices of lemon. “And when will the wedding be?” he asked.
“Next Sunday,” Klara said. “Ben Yakov has arranged it with the rabbi. His parents are taking the train from Rouen. We’ll have the luncheon here afterward.”
“Klárika,” Andras said, taking her by the waist and turning her toward him. “No one meant for you to host a wedding luncheon.”
She put his arms around his neck. “They have to have some sort of party.”
“But it’s too much. You’ve got the recital to think about.”
“I want to do it,” she said. “I may have been too quick to judge the situation when we talked before. Your friend seems to have some serious notions of love, after all. And I think I expected Signorina di Sabato to be a different sort of girl.”
“Different in what way?”
“Less confident, perhaps. Less mature. Maybe even less intelligent, which should indicate to you how small-minded I’ve become. I consider myself a Jew, with my occasional observances, but I think of truly observant Jews as old-fashioned and myopic. Evidence of my ignorance, I suppose.”
“And Ben Yakov? Has he been here?”
“He spent most of Shabbos with us,” Klara said. “He’s been terribly kind and respectful, if a bit anxious. This morning he brought the rabbi to meet her, and they made all the plans for the wedding. Afterward, privately, he begged me to tell him if she seemed at all unhappy.”
“And what did you say?”
Klara arranged the teacups and saucers on a blue tray. “I told him she seemed fine, given the circumstances. I know she misses her parents. She showed me their photograph and wept. But I don’t think she regrets what she’s done.” She measured the tea into a strainer and lowered it into the pot. “Of course, Elisabet has been difficult. She’s suffering from jealousy. I’m terrified she’ll run off at any moment to marry her American. But this morning she told me she wanted to make the cake, which is something.” She shook her head and gave him a wry half smile. “And what about your brother? Is he well? I worried when you didn’t come yesterday.”
Andras paused before he spoke, running his hand along the edge of the tea tray. “He’s exhausted from overwork. And he’s been ill, but not dangerously so. He’s been sleeping almost constantly, and when he’s awake he burns through my handkerchiefs like wildfire.” He raised his eyes to Klara. “He’s concerned about our situation. I told him everything yesterday.”
She lowered her eyes. “Is he sorry we’re engaged?”
“Oh, no. He’s sorry about what happened to you. And he’s sorry you can’t go home to your family.” He touched the handle of one of the fragile cups and noticed for the first time that the pattern of her china was almost identical to her mother’s. “Of course, he’s worried about how our parents will take the news. But he doesn’t oppose our engagement. He knows what I feel for you.”