‘After midnight. Before that there are people in the hall …’
Balint squeezed her fingers. He paused for a moment and then said, very softly: ‘If… if we should … if it happened, would it mean what you wrote?’
She did not answer and he had to repeat the question. Then she replied in broken uncertain phrases: ‘Why should you care? Don’t ask me that. Don’t think about it.’
‘Look, Addy, this cannot be. Things aren’t like that …’ and he started to say in simple words all that had been torturing him ever since he had her letter. He spoke for a long time, repeating himself over and over again, saying that to make love to her knowing what price had to be paid was unthinkable, cruel and wrong. At that price, never! He spoke warmly, begging her, saying over and over again: ‘Not at that price! Not at that price!’
Adrienne did not reply. She only shook her head to show that her mind was made up. He felt her soft curls brushing his face. Finally, when he had talked for a long, long time she said: ‘I couldn’t live on like that. You, and the other … But it isn’t a sacrifice for me, I’ve thought about it so often.’ So Balint started again: but all that Adrienne would say was: ‘I can’t divorce, you know that. So don’t wish me to live. I couldn’t …’
They were floating far out in the lagoon. Darkness had fallen and already the lamps were being lit on the three-legged water beacons. Riccardo somehow sensed what was required of him and turned his gondola back towards the town. In the darkness of their little cabin Balint’s voice was hoarse with emotion and grief: ‘But then I couldn’t go on living either! There would be nothing left! I, too … You can be sure of that.’
Adrienne sat up abruptly and, looking hard into Balint’s face, cried: ‘No! No! That’s not the same at all! That you, who love life … That’s not for you!’
‘What else would be there for me? What choice would I have?’ Balint really meant what he said, though subconsciously he also hoped that maybe this at least would break Adrienne’s resolution. But all she now said was: ‘That is something I can’t accept. Very well then, there is only one solution. Go away! Leave! Then there’ll be nothing to torture ourselves about!’
‘There is no other way?’
Once again there was silence between them as they sat together surrounded by the darkness of the night, feeling that endless sadness had spread over the murmuring waters. This was the end. Definitely, finally, for ever, the end. As the gondola edged its way into the narrow entrance of the little canal and dark shadows of great palaces close round them, Balint said: ‘I’m too late to catch the night express. Can I come and talk to you, just the way we always have … and tomorrow, in the morning, I’ll go away.’
‘All right. Just as we always have …’
When Balint went to Adrienne that night there were no lights in her room. She had purposely not allowed the lamps to be lit for she had cried for a long time and did not want him to see this in her face. It was not completely dark, for the light from the lamps that illuminated the quay outside cast a faint glow through the soft folds of the white net curtains and it was reflected from the ceiling on to the bed like the first light of dawn. The room was heavy with the mingled scent of the woman and that strange aroma from the lagoon, composed equally of the salt of the ocean and the decay of the city.
Balint sat down beside her, leaning against the cushions behind her head. They started to talk, but not coherently, both of them uttering short broken phrases that had no beginning and no end. Their faces came ever closer to each other, their mouths not just touching as they whispered to each other sad words of farewell, goodbye … goodbye … goodbye. As they did so, from time to time their lips met in a tender kiss, a caress that was sorrowful rather than passionate. And slowly, for Adrienne, it was as if her mouth, her hands, her hair and skin, had a separate life, totally independent of her will. She herself felt that she was dreaming and around her head the thick black curls fell tumbling over her face released by some magic power from the tight coils and knots into which she had bound them earlier that evening. Like Medusa’s snakes, the curls of Adrienne’s unruly hair moved mysteriously over her face, covering her eyes, her mouth and having a life of their own, leading her of their own volition to madness and abandon. Her fingers, long, slender and searching along his back, his neck, pressed him to her as if she needed to be reassured that he really was there, and all the while her wide, swelling lips kissed Balint’s face and hands, kissed the curls that fell between their mouths like a curtain, and even kissed the air. In Adrienne that great, latent force of nature, so long suppressed, was now at long last set free so that she was totally possessed by that joy of life which Balint had seen in her so long ago at the skating rink. Now her back was arching, as it had then, and her legs moving rhythmically, her arms flung wide until, a little later, softly, so softly that he hardly heard her words she asked, in wonder: ‘What am I feeling? What is this? What is this?’ with the astonishment of one who, for the first time experiences a marvel whose existence until then was unimagined.
The young man leaned above her, his approaching fulfilment pulsating through him like great waves of intoxicating fever. Now there was nothing left of the hunter, the coarse human stalking its mate; these had been wiped out by the terrible reality of a primeval, eternal emotion that had swept over him with the inexorable force of a tropical storm. In one tiny corner of his conscious mind, however, there still lurked the memory of their talk that afternoon, the knowledge that in four weeks’ time all this joy must be paid for … Gently, but urgently, he whispered in her ear: ‘Do you want to? Now?’ fully aware to what he was committing them both. And when Addy did not answer in words, but flung her arms around him, drawing him down upon her, opening wide her mouth to receive his ardent kisses, surely she knew it too?’
For a long time they lay together in each other’s arms, and from outside the room could be heard a faint rustling sound, which might have been the night breeze in the trees of some distant garden or the soft movements of the waters of the lagoon but which to them sounded like the beating of the wings of fate, that fate which had now and for all time chained them to one another.
From far away in the distance could be heard the soft notes of a tenor voice singing a late-night serenade to his beloved. The white folds of the voluminous net curtains moved in the early morning breeze, and outside the sky began to lighten with the approach of dawn. Adrienne, who had been lying wide-awake in Balint’s arms, said: ‘It’s time for you to go!’
‘Already? But it’s still dark!’
‘It’s time, and I want to be alone. I have to think.’ Adrienne’s amber-coloured eyes were serious. She was asking, beseeching, but she was also giving an order.
‘We’ll meet this afternoon? At the same place as yesterday? We’ll meet there again?’
‘Yes. But be there at six, I shall be free by then.’
This time Balint waited in the gondola to be sure that no one witnessed their meeting. Before him on the bench lay a huge bouquet of dark red roses, but when Adrienne had arrived he did not give them to her, indeed he did not even mention them. As she stepped into the boat he rose and kissed her hand as he always did, but today with even a touch more formality and respect than before: and when she sat down beside him his first words were not of love but were a simple question, spoken softly, asking if she would like to visit the church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli. He explained that it was very close to where they were now, and was a miracle of beauty made out of white marble by Pietro Lombardi. He spoke so quietly and in such a matter-of-fact way, allowing no trace of triumph of possession to colour his voice or manner, that there was nothing to remind Addy of what had passed between them only a few hours before. In this way he helped her to pass through what could have been for her an awkward moment after holding him off for so long. Even later on Balint did not speak of their night together: only the bunch of red roses spoke for him. There it lay, almost at her feet, paying homage to her with that great splash of red, the colour of passion, the huge blossoms wide open to symbolize the ripeness of fulfilment.