The Summer of Katya

his system of discriminate disorder were not ruined by being tidied up.

I found myself observing him fondly over the top of my book… Katya’s father… as he pored over his reading, frowning and making little grunts of doubt or hums of agreement, nervously dragging his fingers through his nest of unkempt grey hair. After a time he looked up vaguely, reeling in some thread of thought, and he was visibly startled to see me standing there. Then a smile of recognition brightened his worn features. “Fascinating book, eh?”

“Yes, sir. Fascinating.”

“I love the feel of an old book in the hand, don’t you? The smell of them. Aroma of learning.” He chuckled and gestured broadly towards his desk. “I’ll never finish it, of course. Not enough time left to me. But that doesn’t matter really. The attraction doesn’t lie in the accomplishment, but in the pursuit. The work. Have you ever pondered upon the way in which Time comes to us in so many disguises? For me, time is sand sifting through my fingers. Not enough of it. Can’t seem to grasp hold of it. While for my son, time is a heavy burden of boredom around his neck, something to be got rid of, something to be got through.

“And for Katya?”

“Ah, Katya… she who was once Hortense. So like her mother.” His work-stained eyes crinkled in an affectionate smile. “I sometimes wonder if Katya lives in the same web of time as the rest of us do. It’s all daydreams for her… smiles and spring flowers… fleeting fascinations. I often have the impression that she’s a temporary visitor from some other world. Some distant pastel world. So like her mother.”

“I believe I know what you mean, sir. But it’s not that she’s frivolous or shallow. Her observations are often quite incisive, and she has an excellent mind.”

“Yes, I suppose so.” He chuckled. “Do you know, I once found her studying anatomy. Human anatomy!”

“Yes, I know.”

His smile of paternal benevolence dissolved into a frown. “You know? How do you know?”

I shrugged it off. “Oh, she mentioned it in passing. Or perhaps Paul did. I don’t recall.”

“Oh, yes, I see.” He seemed to drift into thoughts of his own for a moment; then he said, “It feels good to have things all in order again.”

“Sir?”

He waved towards the piles of paper slumping on his desk. “For six months after we arrived here, I couldn’t find a thing. Everything was in boxes or in the wrong place. It was primordial chaos. I don’t believe my studies could survive another such debacle. I am comfortable here now. Books are where they belong, next to the books I want them next to, arranged in an order that only I know… two books purchased on the same rainy afternoon… two ideas that happen to be stacked one behind the other in the attic of my mind… opposing views set side by side… a book I like kept at an antiseptic distance from one I dislike—not a system the Bibliothиque nationale would approve, I daresay, but one that suits me perfectly.”

I wondered how he would face the disruption of moving yet again, when Paul deigned to inform him of his decision. “I know exactly what you mean,” I said. “In my own mind, certain medical facts are bound, illogically but forever, to certain swatches of verse for the simple reason that I learned them at the same time. And often, when I want to dredge up a bit of information I must first scan through the intervening poem.”

“Yes, yes, that’s it!” He was pleased to find another mind in which the clutter had shape and purpose. He nodded to himself; then he squinted up at me with an evaluating, conspiratorial expression. “You, ah… you mentioned this afternoon that you were born in the commune of Alos and were familiar with their Festival of the Drowned Virgin.”

“I used to attend every year before I went off to school. Everyone in my village did.”

“Fascinating. Fascinating. Ah… it is a three-day fкte beginning tomorrow, I believe?”

“Tomorrow?” I had to search my memory. “Why, yes. It does begin tomorrow, come to think of it.”

“And Alos is not so very far from here, I believe?”

I smiled at him. “Only twenty kilometers or so up into Haute Soule.”

He nodded. “Yes… yes. I’d give anything to observe with my own eyes the Parade of the Virgin and the performance of Robert le Diable… to talk to old people who remember how the festival used to be celebrated. Of course… I don’t speak Basque… and they might be reticent with an outsider. Now you, on the other hand… a native of the region…?”

“Sir, nothing could please more than to attend the fкte d’Alos with you.”

His eyes widened with innocence. “Oh, my dear fellow, I couldn’t dream of taking you from your duties at the clinic! No, no, you mustn’t think I was hinting that—”

“Sir, I have been seeking an excuse to go back to my natal commune after all the years away. Also, I have been seeking a way to repay some of your kindness and hospitality to me. It is very thoughtful of you to provide me with an opportunity to do both at the same time.”

“Oh? Is that so? Well…” He smiled broadly. “…If you insist on abandoning your duties in this profligate way…”

“I do, sir.”

“Grand! Grand!” He rose from his desk. “Let’s join the children for coffee. They’ll be pleased to hear that we are to have an outing. An adventure!”

I could not help wondering just how pleased Paul would be to find himself in the midst of the dancing and jostling and drinking and rowdiness that is the fabric of a Basque festival. I confess to feeling a certain unkind pleasure at the image of Paul attempting to maintain his aloof aplomb in such circumstances.

Before following Monsieur Treville from his study, I balanced the first edition on the toppling heap on his desk.

“No, no. Keep it. It’s yours. A gift from one scholar to another.”

“Oh, I couldn’t sir. It’s too valuable.”

“Nonsense. Accept it as a little token.” He placed his hand on my shoulder. “I am more pleased than I can say that you and Paul have become such friends. He is too much alone. And anyway, the Black Death is only a tangent aspect of my studies, while it is the very core of yours. The book is yours by Right of Need. I shall be angry with you if you do not accept it.”

* * *

To this day, I have the old calf-bound volume on my desk; never read; the only physical memento of the summer of Katya.

* * *

When we joined them in the salon, Paul and Katya were sitting together before the hearth, so involved in conversation that the untouched coffee had gone cold in their cups. From their slightly too vigorous greetings I took it that they had been talking about me, perhaps concerned lest I forget my promise to conceal from their father that Katya was the object of my interest in Etcheverria. I sought to set their minds at ease by showing them the book and describing in unnecessary detail the things Monsieur Treville and I had discussed.

I was surprised at Paul’s reaction to the news that we were all to embark tomorrow on an outing. With the first mention of it, he measured me with a long glance, as though wondering what deviousness I was up to. But Monsieur Treville’s childlike enthusiasm soon infected Katya, who decided that the trip should be broken by a picnic, and Paul went along with the proposal, amusing us by assuming the role of the grumpy, put-upon one who detested all outings and all alfresco dining.

The evening ended with Katya and Paul entertaining us with descriptions of pranks they had played as children—quite outrageous antics that Monsieur Treville disavowed any knowledge of. He pretended to be shocked at their disrespect for adults and relatives as he beamed at me and shook his head with that helpless admiration of the doting parent. The pranks had been based on the inability of houseguests to tell them apart when they were children and often dressed in the androgynous costumes then fashionable.

Towards the end of the evening, it was decided that we would depart for Alos one day thence, early in the morning so we could break our trip with Katya’s picnic and still arrive in time for the afternoon and evening