Days of Winter Read online

  Out of habit rather than modesty Magda stood behind the cheap silk printed screen and undressed, throwing her stockings, skirt and blouse over the top. Seconds later she emerged, dressed in a sheer wrapper through which Rubin could see the silhouette of her exquisitely slim body. Her breasts were firm and provocatively ample, with delicately distended nipples. It was impossible for Rubin not to look. She seemed so casually unaware, almost like a naïve child. She had the ability to make her body a natural thing, as unself-conscious as the statue of a Greek nude he had been so affected by at the Louvre. However, she was not a statue. …She was flesh and soft, and he wanted more than anything in his life to feel her suppleness yield underneath his body. To touch her, to explore the inner depths of her passion. Out of fear that he would be premature, he sat rigidly, holding himself back with all the discipline of which he was capable.

  He watched as Magda went to the small cupboard and took out two glasses. “What will you have, absinthe or wine?”

  “Wine.”

  She handed the glass to Rubin, then lay down on the brass bed, propping the pillows as she sipped. There was an awkward silence between them. Finally Rubin asked, “How long have you lived in Paris?”

  “For five years now, since I was fourteen.”

  How incredible, Rubin thought, a child, a mere girl alone in a place like Paris. Of course, he had guessed how she had survived but it seemed that life had never touched her. Life is an illusion anyway, Rubin thought. We see what we want to see. …What’s real and what’s not lies in the eyes of the beholder, like beauty.

  As though she were reading his thoughts, she said, “Don’t be curious about my life. It is no different from a million others. If you become hard enough you become strong enough not to let life beat you. Tomorrow or the next day you will be gone. What contribution could I make to your memories?”

  “But you’ve already done that. I will never forget that I have met you.”

  “Yes, of course.” She pursed her lips. “You will remember me as you remember what you had for dinner last Tuesday. I don’t feel like playing games this early in the morning. Do you have a cigarette?”

  Rubin walked to the bed, sat on the edge and flipped the package. Magda took out a cigarette and put it in her mouth. She waited for Rubin to light it. He struck the match. His hand trembled. Magda watched the performance, then took his hand and guided it. She inhaled deeply, blew out smoke, clouding her face like a veil. “Do you want me so badly that you must act like a schoolboy visiting a bordello for the first time?”

  “I want you as I have never wanted anything … or anyone in my life,” he told her, and meant it.

  She reached for the ashtray and snuffed out the cigarette. Unhurriedly, she opened the front of her sheer wrapper and slipped out of it. Then she pulled the sweater over Rubin’s head, unbuttoned his trousers and slowly undressed him until he lay alongside her. Passionately, hungrily, he kissed her … explored her. And for Rubin it was as though he was entering a bottomless ocean of pleasure. The waves covered him with love, dissolving his want and need, and then … the sea became calm and serene, and the whole world was a nineteen-year-old woman named Magda.

  She lay still beneath him now, her body damp and clinging, her face and hair moist with perspiration. She had given him all she had. It was enough. It had taken him beyond the stars.

  She held his face in her hands, then ran them smoothly through his thick black hair and looked into his eyes. “Now you will have at least one memento to take home. I hope your bride will appreciate the fact that she is marrying a very extraordinary lover. Now go home, Rubin Hack. I’m tired and quite content—”

  “I love you, Magda, please understand!”

  Closing her eyes and moving away from him she said, yawning, “It’s like the measles. You’ll recover.”

  “Magda, I know it’s too quick, but it’s time, I—”

  Half opening her eyes, she looked at him, then smiled. “Go home, Rubin Hack. Not even God is worthy of instant love.” Rolling over onto her stomach, she fell into a deep sleep.

  Rubin watched her for a long time. Then, unhurriedly, he quietly slipped out of bed. He glanced around the shabby room, overcome that this beautiful girl he had fallen so incredibly—yes, incredibly, but nonetheless true—in love with must live out her life in such a place. With sudden anger he opened the door, hating the injustices of the accident of her birth, and of his. That was all it was. Even God was partial … preferential. He gave so much to some, so damned little to others. What had Jocelyn, for example, done to deserve her abundance? Or Magda, to be thrown like so much garbage onto the heap of discarded humanity. …

  Rubin walked in the gray-mauve dawn past the now deserted café, past Nôtre Dame cathedral, down the steep stone steps. Turning right, he followed the Seine, looking below at the derelicts sleeping along its bank.

  It was a bitter, frustrated Rubin who unlocked his door. Once inside, he stood against the door and stared up at the ceiling. Turning, he pounded on the door until his knuckles were raw. Finally he went to the washbasin in the corner and stuck his head under the water tap.

  When he felt the anger subsiding, he wiped his face and dried his hair. Lying down, he put his arm across his eyes, but the face of Magda was still there. Remembering, recalling the feel of her body next to his, was almost equal to the reality. Now that he had known her, how could he possibly leave? Where could he find the reservoir of strength never to see or touch her again? He buried his head in the pillow. Spent, exhausted, he fell into a restless sleep.

  Later, opening his eyes, Rubin was startled to find that it was dusk. Though he had slept for many hours, he awoke with the same heavy fatigue. His first conscious thoughts were sequels to the other ones—all of Magda. Still, he knew there was no out for him, no other course for him but to go home … it was his only salvation before he became too self-involved … if he stayed in Paris, there would be absolutely no turning back. …He was not a man of middle ground. With all the will, tenacity, he was still able to command he quickly got up, washed, changed clothes and packed, simply throwing his belongings into the valise. His hand poised on the door knob, he took one long look around the room and thought of the last few days. …

  He had arrived in Paris with the love of one woman. A woman he thought he loved, or at least had sufficient affection for to take as his wife, to be the mother of his children. But now he was leaving with a deep, crazily obsessive love for another woman.

  He had never, of course, thought of Jocelyn in terms of great passion. She was simply a lovely young woman, altogether worthy of bearing the Hack name, perhaps adding to it. She fit so well into the pattern of his preordained life. The prospect of taking her as his bride had never been questioned in the past. But time had nothing to do with falling in love. He knew one thing: in his life he would never forget Magda nor love anyone else that way. …He picked up his valise and hurried out, taking two stair steps at a time, until he reached the street.

  After paying the driver, Rubin got out of the taxi in front of the Gare du Nord. He walked into the station and bought a ticket. Sitting down on a wooden bench, he waited for the train that would take him to Calais, where he would board a ship to cross the channel to Dover, then take a train to London where his journey would end at Victoria Station. And Magda would be lost.

  Rubin sat, his body wrapped in numbness, watching but not seeing the travelers coming and going. A sudden thought nudged him back to reality. He had not only neglected to write Jocelyn, but his family as well, so they would not be expecting him to arrive home until Thursday of next week. Looking at his watch, he found there was time to send a cable. Getting a form from the clerk inside the small enclosure, he began to write an inane, contrived message to explain why he was leaving so soon. He knew they would be surprised at his rapid departure, since Paris had always been his joy and a holiday he looked forward to each year. Reading the cable to himself, he knew it was impossible, tore up the message, and walke
d hurriedly out of the station, forgetting about the ticket he had just purchased. He hailed a taxi, which led him back to Magda. …

  Nervously, he tried not to think about the consequences of his impulsiveness. He could no longer be philosophical. He had no choice. If what he was doing would make him suffer later, after his marriage to Jocelyn—that, of course, would still take place—then that was an atonement he would have to live with, alone. But all he knew or cared about at this moment was Magda.

  He hesitated before her door, staring at it for a moment, then knocked. When it opened, Magda stood in front of him dressed in the same sheer wrapper, the expression on her face neither joyful nor sad. She merely opened the door wider so that he could come in. Inside, he put the suitcase down. He said, “I couldn’t leave.”

  She lay down against the pillows and looked at him. “You look rather stupid standing there. Why don’t you sit down?” He did, on the battered velour chair.

  A sardonic smile showed around her eyes. “So, you had to come back? Didn’t I give you enough of a souvenir to carry away?”

  “I love you, Magda, can’t you understand—”

  “And can’t you understand, how many times I’ve heard that in my life? I don’t believe in love.”

  “That’s because you’ve never truly been loved—”

  “And you truly love me. You adore me. You only met me yesterday! If it wasn’t so unbelievable, I would laugh.”

  “Please don’t, Magda. I bought a ticket for Calais, and at the last moment I had to come back—”

  “How touching. Why did you come back—to take me out of this place? To rescue me from a fate worse than death? Wait, I know! You came back to take me home to introduce me to your family.” She said this with unmistakable bitterness. “Get out of my life, Mr. Proper Englishman. You disturb me. …You have nothing to give me. Enough has been taken from me already.” Breathing hard she said, “Do you know how my parents lived and ate? …Why they survived? Well, I’ll tell you. Because they were blessed with a daughter who had a commodity to sell. Do you know what it feels like to starve? When the pains of hunger become so excruciating, so fierce, you thank God you have a body to sell. Who cares if it’s right or wrong, moral or immoral? When your belly’s empty, you beg someone to take you and get it over with so you can run to the bread line before it’s all gone. I died more than once that my parents should never know how the food was brought to their table. And you talk to me about love.”

  Rubin went to the bed, took her in his arms and stroked her hair. “You and I are not really so different, Magda. Life has taken us both in … I’ve got my love for you and my … obligations to the life that was, frankly, planned for me. Until now it didn’t matter.”

  Magda shook her head. “You will choose your obligations. Now, please, get out of my life. Go away and leave me in peace. I don’t want to be loved by you, it will only destroy both of us. Take your ticket, go back to where you belong and leave me alone.”

  “Just listen to me,” Rubin pleaded.

  “No. I don’t want to hear any more. I no longer have to sell myself to feed my stomach. Here I finally have some sanity in my life … even living in a place like this. My voice and talent, such as it is, pay for these lodgings. And I choose who I sleep with.”

  “I want more for you than this, Magda. You deserve more—”

  She threw back her hair, then laughed without humor. “How stupid you are, living in your little sheltered, narrow world. I ‘deserve more’? Since when do we get what we deserve? Did my father deserve to work since he was six and die at thirty, penniless? Did my mother deserve to go on living, wishing she could throw herself into his grave because her life had stopped? Did my brother, my beautiful, handsome Niko, deserve to be killed in the war at eighteen? You talk to me of deserve. What do you know about it … a barrister!”

  With tears in his eyes, Rubin turned his face away so she wouldn’t see the hurt in them. Magda took his face in her hands. Taking the handkerchief out of his breast pocket she wiped his eyes. Almost too softly for Magda, she said, “Perhaps you are not so smart about life, but at least, Rubin Hack, you can cry. Under different circumstances I might get to like you. There’s more to you than I would have thought.”

  “Can’t you believe that a person doesn’t have to be born into poverty to have feelings—”

  “It’s guilt you feel. You are very rich. I know without your telling me. That is what makes you feel so guilty.”

  He took her hand and held it tightly. “Yes, of course I feel guilty. Life has given me so damn much and you so little, but I’m going to change that, I’m at least going to take care of you—”

  She laughed again, but this time loudly. “I’ll become your mistress, yes? What makes you think I want you? Men! What microbes you are. You think all you need to say is ‘I’ll take care of you,’ and I’ll come running. I said you were not too smart, and I was right. You don’t know Magda, Magda Charascu from Bucharest. …You want a mistress, so get yourself one. You’ll have no problem, you’re very rich. I’ll concede that you are … quite handsome, not that it would matter to some mistresses. Don’t let it turn your head, but you are. It wouldn’t matter to most, but you happen to be a very good lover. With all of that you’ll have no problem.”

  “Magda, I love you. Can’t you understand? God only knows how much I want you—and not as a mistress.”

  She released her hand from his grasp, lying back against the pillows, bit her lower lip and looked at him. “Light me a cigarette,” she said, not taking her eyes from him.” What do you really want from me?”

  “Let me make you … happy—”

  “Happy? And how would you accomplish such a thing? You’re going back to your world, where you belong, and I’ll stay in mine. Now, tell me about happy. What kind of nonsense is that?”

  “Magda, I’m going to take care of you so you won’t ever—”

  Getting out of bed quickly, she shouted, “Ever? I think you’re crazy.”

  He took her in his arms. “I don’t want you ever to have to do what you’re doing, at least I want to make it possible for you to live with dignity—”

  She broke away from him, looking at him in honest bewilderment. After a long, tense silence, she said, shaking her head, “Why? What will you get out of this? Nobody does anything for nothing.”

  “It will make me happy, knowing that when I leave … you’ll have a … well, a decent chance—”

  Narrowing her eyes in disbelief, she said, “You would really do that for me, that’s all you want?”

  “Yes, that’s all I want.”

  Still not believing, she said, “I don’t understand you, Rubin Hack. Who does such a thing? You’re a fool.”

  “No, I’m not a fool. I would marry you if I could, but since I can’t, at least it will help to know you’ll never be in need or—”

  “And what about my not loving you? Doesn’t that bother you? Because I don’t. I don’t know how to love anyone. Now, do you still want to support me … forever?”

  “Yes … yes, damn it.”

  Shaking her head, she said, “I thought I knew everything about men. But what I don’t understand about you is almost frightening.”

  He took her up in his arms, placed her on the bed, lay down alongside her. “Don’t be frightened. Don’t try to understand. We all think we know all the answers and suddenly they blow away like feathers. Please … accept what I have to give you. Knowing I love you will be enough … please believe me …”

  She looked at him, tears in her eyes this time. “I still don’t understand …”

  “I find something … magical in you, Magda, that goes beyond my ability to describe it, beyond any logic—which is meaningless anyway. All I know is that you are part of me, and that won’t change. Not ever. And don’t mock it, please, not now. …”

  Mocking him was the last thing she wanted to do as he took her gently, then almost violently, speaking his feeling for her the best way he
knew how.

  At dawn Rubin woke up to the sound of Magda’s soft breathing. He looked at her face in such gentle repose. She slept like a child … a lovely child. There were no traces of bitterness, or fear. Nothing in her lovely face revealed whatever inner torment she might be feeling.

  Going to his suitcase he took out his dressing robe and put it on, then found the writing case under his shirts. He began to compose a letter to Jocelyn. He looked down at the blank piece of paper for a very long time. He felt chilled, yet beads of perspiration broke out on his forehead. His hand sweating, he began writing the letter, only to tear it up and start another. Five times he got no further than “My dear.” Then he forced himself to write: “Dear Jocelyn, please forgive my neglect in not writing sooner. The delay has been unforgivable, but Paris becomes so intoxicating that each day melts into the next and one forgets about time and obligations. I offer my apologies and trust you will understand. Upon my return I will try to redeem myself. May this letter find you happy and radiant as always. My very best regards to your family. With affection, Rubin.” Sighing, he moistened his dry lips. With contempt for his own weakness, he quickly sealed the envelope, put a stamp in the corner, and proceeded to dress hurriedly.

  Looking like the London barrister he was, he scribbled a note to Magda that he would return by noon. He propped the note against the mirror, took one more look at her sleeping body, and left.

  When he returned and saw Magda sitting up in bed against the pillows, his feelings took over again. The guilt he had fought was again pushed aside. Magda regarded him over the rim of her coffee cup.

  “Darling, get dressed,” he said.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “I have something to show you.”

  “You’re going to take me on a sight-seeing tour of Paris? Lunch at Maxim’s in my black satin skirt? Or the Louvre, to soak up a little culture … yes?”

  “Something more important than that.”

  “More important than the Louvre! My, my, my! What could be more important than that? Just one thing, a Paris bordello. Am I right, Rubin Hack?”